Here’s the thing about being a badass, you have to walk the walk and talk the talk. The talk, I think I have down. The walk, not so much. Holy shit. My leg is pulsating, as in throbbing, and pounding, and taking on a life of its own. I grip it, uselessly trying to stop the swelling spreading up to my ass. Each pop and pull against my skin feel like a boil pushing through, following the same path that demon took when it tried to burrow its way to my heart.

I trip over the blanket that smells like wererat, causing my boobs to spill out, just in time for our evil neighbor Mrs. Mancuso to step out onto her porch. Christ, it’s like she waits for me.

“Taran Wird!” she shrieks. “Are you naked?”

“No, I have a fucking blanket.”

Considering I have boils the size of quarters scattering along the length of my leg at warp speed, it’s the best comeback I have.

Gemini appears out of nowhere, wrenching me into his arms to keep me from falling on my face, but not quite managing to keep the girls in.

Flashing my boobs doesn’t upset Mrs. Mancuso. No. Not at all.

“You are naked!” she screams at me.

“No, shit,” I snap, gathering the blanket closer.

Of course, Mancuso doesn’t stop there. “Take your disgusting body and your even more disgusting suitors elsewhere!”

“I did. Your son-in-law says, hello,” I fire back.

“You whore.”

Gemini hoists me in his arms. “Damn it, woman, don’t you have children to lure into your gingerbread house!”

It’s the last comment I manage before the quickly forming boils singe like fire against my skin and I coil in anguish.

Gemini launches us up the wooden steps. “Taran,” he says. “The demon’s venom is fading.”

I know it is. He doesn’t have to tell me. Another wave of pain claws its way up my chest, the agony making me curl into Gemini’s chest.

Mrs. Mancuso is still yelling, still name-calling and her support hose likely still in a bunch. For once I don’t care. My leg and butt are spasming out of control, causing the rest of my body to quiver.

I gasp, struggling to speak. “What’s happening?”

“The demon’s venom numbs its prey to allow it to nest,” he explains. His feet pound against the wood floor as he races me back to my room. I make out the picture of my sisters and I in the hall, but not much more. “Now that it’s fading, your body is reacting to all the damage it caused.”

What feels like an ivy of thorns digs into my skin. I bite down, not wanting to scream or fire up my arm. But I’m already plenty pissed and so is Sparky. Heat spreads the length of my limb, making it jerk. I clutch it to me when Gemini grunts.

“Don’t,” I tell her. “You’ll hurt him.”

It seems ridiculous for me to speak to my arm as if she’s an entity in and of herself. But as much as my right arm has become a part of me, she’s not the original.

The original was eaten by a crazed werewolf.

“Easy,” I whisper against the skin, trying to stay calm and keep her calm as well.

She responds for the moment, just a moment. But that’s not how she’ll stay.

My new arm was created from a combination of were magic as old as the earth and my matehood with Gemini. It, I mean, she’s different, maybe even weirder than me and my sisters.

My head spins as another rush of pain builds, this one stronger than the last.

I’m in my bathroom, I think. Voices echo around me. Celia is here, so is Aric. They groan, coughing.

“Parasite demon?” Aric asks.

“Yes,” Gemini replies, his voice tight.

“Oh, God,” Celia says, sounding sick.

“Celia, I need you to leave,” Aric tells her. “The smell can’t be good for you or the baby.”

“Where’s Emme?” Gemini asks.

“She’s coming.”

It’s the last thing Celia says before she disappears. Gemini growls low and deep. “Where is she?”

“Easy,” Aric says, his voice barely below a snarl. “She’ll be here soon.”

With me hurt, both are on edge, their beasts close to pushing through their human counterparts and taking charge.

“I’m turning on the water,” Aric says. “I mean your mate no harm.”

In the world of humans, and under similar circumstances, one man wouldn’t have to reassure another this carefully. But weres are more beasts than human when their mate is injured, and the need to protect them overshadows reason.

If Celia was present, Gemini’s wolves would recognize her as Aric’s lover and Gemini wouldn’t take offense to having another alpha male so close. But she’s not. She’s trying to find Emme. At least, that’s what I hope.

Another strong stab of pain pelts through my leg, sharpening as it intensifies and making me whimper.

I scrunch my face, my nails digging into Gemini’s arm when he goes ballistic and his twin wolf punctures through his back.

The wolf snaps his fangs, just barely missing Aric’s face. “Babe, don’t,” I stammer.

I lift my arm to stroke his face when an odd red light swarms my line of vision, blinding me.

Growls thunder, the pure viciousness within each beating against my ears. More wolves arrive. I think I see Koda but I can’t make out the others. My pain escalates, making me scream.

My right arm shoots out, detonating power like a cannon and ripping me from Gemini’s hold.

“No!”

What sounds like a mound of bodies, collide. I think I’m blowing things up and I’m terrified I’ve set the house on fire, but then the red light is replaced with a pale yellow one and the pain searing through me abruptly stops.

With each breath I take, a cooling sensation seeps through my lower back and spreads along my leg, easing the tension and extinguishing the pain.

“Her right leg,” Gemini says, his voice bordering on murderous.

My youngest sister’s voice is quiet and calm, bringing peace. “I know, I can feel it. Just a little more.”

She trembles, her small hands trailing down my cheek.

“What’s wrong?” Gemini says.

“There are . . . holes,” she tells him.

“The demon made them when it borrowed through the muscle,” Gemini explains.

Emme’s light fades slightly, because yes, his comment is as nasty as it sounds. But then the glow intensifies against my eyelids and her need to heal grows urgent.

I force my eyes open as her light fades. My sisters surround me, including Celia who couldn’t seem to stay away, her long brown and gold waves brush against my forehead as she peers down.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“Sure,” I say. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

It’s a stupid response, of course. I’m just excited I didn’t burn the house to the ground. Believe it or not, I’ve blown my share of buildings to bits.

Celia exchanges glances with Shayna. I didn’t even know Shayna had arrived. Her large blue eyes blink back at me and her sleek black ponytail bounces as she speaks. “Dude, you had a demon digging its way through your body, toward your heart, to lay its eggs. That’s like, epic, even for you.”

“It happens,” I mutter.

My comment earns me collective growls from the wolves.

Emme’s hands slip away. Sometimes, she doesn’t have words for me. Shayna, always has plenty. “I know you’ve had a rough night and all, T, but try not to upset the furries. They don’t like evil things especially when they’re trying to hatch other evil thingies inside you. You know what I mean?”

“Understandable,” I agree. I lift my head, but even that seems like too much of an effort, the muscles along my neck feeling more like tight rubber than anything that belongs on my body.

Koda and Aric are restraining Gemini close to the door, their muscles bulging as they struggle to keep him in place.

“Why are you holding him?” I ask.

They ease their grip, not that my beloved appears any less irate. “Gemini, didn’t take your pain well,” Celia explains quietly. “He settled with us here, just not as much as we’d like.” Her husky voice softens as she speaks to him. “How are you?” she asks him.

He doesn’t reply despite that I know he heard her. She doesn’t push, and thankfully, Aric doesn’t push him to answer.

There’s a towel around me, one of the thick white ones from the linen closet near the door. I hold it against me as I peel my sticky back from the cobalt blue tile that makes up my bathroom floor.

Celia helps me into a sitting position, her inner tigress giving her freakish strength even in her delicate condition.

“Thanks, Ceel,” I tell her, my attention staying on Gemini. “I’m all right,” I assure him.

He shakes his head slowly, the tendons along his dense frame taught and stressed. “The only reason you’re alive is because the parasitic demon was male, and males can only nest in the heart. Had it been a female, your body would be riddled with malevolent eggs.”

“Oh.” I swallow hard when my stomach lurches.

Celia clasps her mouth. “Are you sure it was a male?”

“Yes. It had four penises as opposed to two.”

Koda and Aric nod, agreeing and seemingly satisfied that the creature with four penises was less harmless than the one with only two.

My sisters may or may not have gagged, and I may or may not have joined them.

“This isn’t going to happen again,” Gemini tells me.

“No, kidding,” I say. “I’ll be damned if I step foot in Egypt again.”

Cracking jokes and my gift for sarcasm have saved me from falling apart more than once in this twisted world. I’d rather bitch and laugh than cry or scream in fear any day. Weres, bless their snarling and growling little hearts, don’t have much of a sense of humor. Aric and Koda glare. Gemini grows alarmingly still, menace dripping from his body like sweat or maybe even blood.

“Ah,” Celia begins, her attention shifting between me and Gemini. “Why don’t you give us a minute? We’re all a little wound up.”

I’ll give her that.

I think if anyone else had asked, a resounding “no” followed by several snapping jowls would have commenced. But since learning of Celia’s pregnancy, and more so now that her baby bump is pronounced, the beasts lurking within our lovers are tamer in her presence. They don’t want to upset her and do their best to keep her calm. One by one they leave.

Gemini is the last to go, edging away slowly, but not before casting me a look that assures me we’re not done arguing yet.

“T,” Shayna says. “Gemini is totally pissed. I thought his head would split in two and tiny versions of him would rush out, waving swords.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” I agree. Okay, I wasn’t. But far be it for me to throw shade on Shayna’s awesome visual.

I try to stand, except all I manage is to bend one knee. Celia lifts me with pretty much the same effort she’d lift a toothbrush. Speaking of which . . . I start forward, eyeing my toothbrush as if it can somehow scrub the nasty demon experience from my teeth. I stumble forward with my first step, griping the white granite countertop when my legs give out.

Ceel clasps my arm, steadying me. “Don’t be so quick to move,” she warns. “If you’d like, I can help you to bed.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Ceel,” Shayna says, scrutinizing me closely. She points somewhere near my right breast. “Whatever that is smells demon-ish.” She shakes her head. “Trust me, evil never washes out of sheets.”

“Good to know,” I say, inching closer to the cool granite counter. My legs tremble, feeling wobbly. Somehow, I manage to straighten and not fall on my face.

Celia holds tight as I adjust the towel around me. “I’m okay,” I assure her.

She releases me slowly, her gaze on mine. “You don’t seem okay,” she says.

She has a point. I cling to the edge of the counter and reach for a washcloth in the dark wood cabinet below. Shayna hops on the counter beside me and Emme lowers herself to the edge of my large bathtub.

“Rough day,” I admit.

“You’ve been gone for three,” Celia reminds me.

“Most of it was traveling. It was only the acquisition of said object that more or less sucked.”

“Is Misha okay?” I nod, noting how she sighs with relief. “What about the others?”

“Two recently turned vamps didn’t make it,” I say, remembering how they were running beside me and how abruptly they vanished when we rounded the bend. “Elise and Dillon.” I wash my hands, noting how much energy the simple task seems to take and how brown the water turns at the base of the sink. I sneak a glance at Celia. “Did you know them?”

“Not as vamps,” she admits.

Shayna stiffens. “So you knew them as . . . food?” she asks.

I already know the answer and don’t bother to wait for a response. Instead I focus on brushing my teeth.

“They were favorites among his older vamps,” Celia responds. She plays with the ends of her hair. “I remember them begging to be turned. Misha denied them more than once. He wasn’t sure either would survive the process. I suppose they did.”

“Until they didn’t,” I add. I finish brushing my teeth. “I suppose they didn’t read the fine print. There’s more to being part of Misha’s keep than good looks and kissing ass.”

“If they were so new, why would Misha take them on a mission this soon? Especially one so dangerous?” Shayna asks.

Her husband and mate Koda, like most weres, hate vamps. Koda is more audible in his hatred, and his distrust of them has rubbed off on Shayna.

Celia leans against the counter and crosses her arms. “Newly turned vampires aren’t like newborns Shayna. They’re strong and formidable, and required to prove themselves to their master. And as much as they become a part of his family from the moment they’re created, they’re the first to be sacrificed.”

“That’s like, so cold,” Shayna says.

“It’s not about being cold. It’s a hierarchy that exists among vampire clans. Misha would rather risk the life of a new vampire than one he’s grown to care for and trust.”

“That doesn’t make it any less right,” Shayna counters.

“I’m not saying it is,” Celia says, keeping her cool. “But it’s their way. Vamps are loyal to their masters at all costs, or else. Just as weres are loyal to their packs.”

“That’s different, Ceel,” Shayna argues.

“Is it?” Celia asks. “Each species would die for their kind and their leaders, even when their leaders may not be righteous.”

Good Ol’ Sparky gives me an involuntary twitch, making me almost lose my balance. She’s not happy, probably because one of those non-righteous weres ate her predecessor.

“Sorry,” Shayna offers.

I don’t miss how she forces her attention away from me and Celia. I may have lost an arm, but Celia lost far worse.

In the quiet that follows we surrender ourselves to our thoughts, none of them good, and maybe some worse than others.

Quiet isn’t something that we welcome when we’re together. It’s too lonely and dark there. Perhaps that’s why Emme, our light, is the first to speak.

“There was a lot of damage to your leg,” she says. She keeps her head down and tucks a strand of her wavy blond hair behind her ear. “It took a lot for me and your body to heal you. You’ll need to eat and rest soon to recoup your energy.”

“I know. But I’m too wired to sleep and the last thing I want is food.”

I slip my toothbrush back in the holder, trying not to focus on my out of control hair in the mirror. The hair wins, giving me pause and letting me really see how ragged I appear. My dark waves are coated with leftover desert sand and blood. My dark blue eyes are streaked with ugly red lines from lack of sleep. Dry blood coats my legs, reminding me of the smack down with the demon and that sing-song knife, too. Man, the last seventy-two hours have sucked. Yet they don’t compare to the fear I feel every time I think of something happening to Celia.

I should be used to the danger. All of us should. Except none of us signed up for this shit, and if anyone deserves a smaller helping it’s Celia.

Regardless of all the madness and muck I encountered, I smile at Celia’s pregnant belly. There’s a baby growing inside of my sister, a little miracle that brings me a kind of happiness I’ve never quite felt.

I’ve never been goo-goo, gah-gah, over babies, and I’ve never wanted any children of my own. But I’ll admit, my ovaries gave a little twitch when I learned she was expecting.

“Taran, I don’t want you working for Misha.”

Oh, and there goes my smile. “You did,” I remind her.

“That was different,” she tells me. “Everything’s changing, and too much is wrong with the world.”

I run cool water over the washcloth. “Ceel,” I say, wringing out the excess. “You joined vamp camp during the biggest supernatural war to ever transpire.”

“It was a dangerous time,” she admits. “But as bad as it was, this is worse.”

I dab at my cheeks. “Why? Because you’re carrying the first of what might be many kiddos to tip the scales on the side of good?”

“No, because I won’t be able to keep you safe. Not this time, Taran.”

The extent of her vulnerability hits us harder than it should. Celia was always the protector. Always. But I was a close second and it’s time for me to step up to the plate.

It sounds ridiculous in a way. When the ancient power of Tahoe began luring supernatural beings into the area, and said species began losing their shit—first the witches to power, and second the vampires to a supernatural plague—I was the first to pack our things and throw them in the car. I begged my sisters to leave and tried to convince them to flee someplace safe.

Our problem is, we’ve never been safe.

Through no fault of our own, us Wirds were born “weird”. We were cursed with magic meant to kill us. Well, peeps, the curse backfired, making us different from all races of human and supernatural, stronger than most beings in existence, and ultimately targets.

“Don’t you worry about me, Ceel.” My gaze falls to her belly. “Worry about you and junior.”

“Not at your expense,” she tells me.

She echoes Gemini’s words, not that I need to hear them. It’s not that they don’t affect me. But like with Gemini, I don’t want to argue with Celia. So I ignore her words as best I can, despite how each plea slaps me across the face and demands I pay attention.

Gemini, makes it a little easier. He returns, his rage as evident as it was when he left. He leans against the wall, the intensity behind his aura threatening to chip the tile.

I toss my stiff, disgusting hair. “You’ll excuse me, won’t you, girls?” I ask. “I need to tidy up and look good for my man.”

Emme scurries out as if she can already picture us naked. Shayna throws her arms around me, hugging me fiercely. “I’m glad you’re okay.” She pauses, whispering low. “Next time, you’re taking me and Em with you.”

She exits quickly, her ponytail swinging merrily behind her.

Celia is the last to leave. I know she wants to talk me out of helping Misha, and beg me to keep my distance from the vampires. After all, I gave her the same speech when she left us to be with them.

I’m ready to offer a little sarcasm for the road and to pique her smile. But the sadness in her features shuts my mouth and drives an extra pang of guilt straight into my heart. I shouldn’t have left without telling them. Except sometimes, you do shitty things to keep those you love safe.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” she tells me. “Not for me, not for anyone.”

“Oh, you know me,” I reply.

She shakes her head, walking away and pulling the door behind her.

The door barely finishes clicking shut when Gemini’s deep and graveled voice unveils his displeasure and draws my focus. “We need to talk.”

His anger and frustration appears to have doubled since leaving the room. Anyone else would think twice about contradicting him. Except I’m not just anyone, not to him.

“No,” I respond. “That’s not what we need.” I pull off my towel and let it fall at my feet as I walk to the shower.

With a sigh filled with too much stress and way more exhaustion, I lean in and turn on the water, adjusting the temperature before stepping inside. Swirls of black, brown, and red, splatter along my feet as the water drenches my skin and hair. The red and brown are a mix of sand and blood. The black . . . Christ, it could be demon poop for all I know. I don’t want to guess, and am glad I took Shayna’s advice against soiling my sheets with evil.

I reach for my shower gel and loofa, working fast and scrubbing hard. Whatever is painting my skin this awful color, I just want it gone, and half-wish I could apologize to my drain for all the gross chunks it’s had to swallow since we first moved in.

The water isn’t yet clear and I haven’t quite finished washing my body when Gemini steps into the shower with me.

Brown muck and bits of leftover DNA still cover my back. Yet he embraces me, loving me and offering forgiveness I probably don’t deserve. “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he murmurs, curling against me and stroking my chin carefully.

“I know.”

It’s what I tell him. But as I think about the fate of the world, and how it all comes down to my sister’s babies being born, I don’t believe there’s a choice. Someone has to live. And that someone is Celia.