Up a couple of hours before dawn, they’d driven until the wasteland bordering Gauthier’s sanctuary came into view. Tumbleweeds and brambles that seemed more like Arizona than British Columbia dominated the scenery. Knowing they still had another thirty minutes of this wasteland, all belonging to the clan, twisted Breslin’s gut. Karndottir owned this property, but it shouldn’t be so barren. Then again, the sanctuary had also been bleak. He could only imagine Rayven’s thoughts. On the tail of his reflection came sadness, followed by anger across their bond.

That’s my girl. Sadness would gain them nothing but anger in the next few hours, but they could both put anger to good use.

“The other alphas want us to be the distraction,” she said. “Let’s work on a plan for reclaiming the territory that will distract everyone from the secret hunt to find a cure.”

He glanced over, uncertain whether her rigid jaw and stiff posture meant she agreed with that direction or not. He didn’t search over the bond. A large part of him wanted familiarity with his mate through an old-fashioned route: discussions, debates, compromise, and in rare cases arguments followed by hot make-up sex. “You don’t have to do what they ask.”

“We all share a goal. The kidnappings, the drugs, the deceit—they undermine those of us who give a damn. And at least for Deacon, Ping, Alarico, and their mates, I feel trust is warranted.”

“Not Sheridan.”

“I can’t fault Whit for doing his job at the tribunal, and I trust Deacon’s instincts with who he chooses as friends. But for now, he’s on my wait-and-see list for how much help we’re willing to give each other.”

“Do you have a preference for where to start with plans?”

“I think we should start with rebuilding our economy.”

Ouch. “Good point.”

Her hand slid over his. “My…father hurt a lot of people. Your approach was less violent than most would have chosen. But you and I are going to help them all rebuild, and I liked your idea of using the visiting heirs for that effort.”

He squeezed her hand gently and voiced several ideas he had for new businesses and how to refurbish old ones. Too soon, the gate to the sanctuary grounds came into view. He stopped the SUV close to the fence and waited with the engine running as Rayven got out of the vehicle, bolt cutters in hand.

They’d agreed earlier to an approach, a strategy. She’d hide her alpha powers until the end. Only the people at the tribunal had witnessed her abilities, and less than a handful had been from Jacob’s team. Grizz and Hansen had rounded those up, detaining them. The rest of the people in the audience were hoping for asylum if everything went to shit after the tribunal. They received detention in a more hospitable way. For two days, they received free room and board at the local inns in Black Haven.

It hardly mattered whether the challengers they faced today had heard details about the tribunal. If Breslin was correct in his suspicions, what powers Rayven exhibited during her challenge was a small percentage of the magic she could wield. Even Deacon had seemed surprised with her quick grasp of the basics, and he wasn’t easily impressed.

As a man used to working project details on his own, Breslin didn’t relish the unease that settled over him with safeguarding Rayven on her home turf from unknown attacks. Her enforcer team was of the same mind. The stubborn group lagged only a few miles behind the SUV, pretending to camouflage themselves so they could be ready at a moment’s notice for their alpha.

He commended such loyalty. However, more bodies increased the risk during this showdown. Sam’s honorless fight days before, meant all the challengers here would play dirty.

More important, if Rayven received help in defeating her opposers, she risked losing her alpha standing with the alpha board. He’d warned the team not to get involved. Now all he could do was hope they understood the severity of his order.

Predictably, shots rang out as Rayven approached the gate, spraying the ground around her as she clipped the chains holding it shut.

Breslin opened the driver’s door, ready to lunge and cover her. However, she’d wedged herself against the gate, free from harm. He noticed her claws extending for a second and scoring the wood, then her claws retracted.

One answering shot claimed a muffled grunt, and a human toppled from a sniper’s nest just visible over the fence. Breslin bit back a smile. He’d have to find out who in the clan possessed those fine shooting skills. It certainly wasn’t anyone on Rayven’s alpha teams. They were all fast, tough, and deadly, but all of them refused to use guns. He mentally filed an action item to seek out the ally as a resource. It never hurt to have a diversified team.

Rayven kicked at the gate, flinging the gates wide before she spun away and crouched with her back plastered against the outside of the fencing. More shots hit the dirt, but now shotgun spray peppered the dirt in erratic bursts instead of single deadly rounds.

Yeah, he could see Jacob’s old team resorting to shotguns.

He drove the vehicle to the opening until she could slide into the passenger seat. A feral hyena charged through and lunged at him. Breslin snatched the shifter by his windpipe and crushed him without a second glance.

As soon as the SUV made it through the gates, they slammed closed again. Men moved out from behind trees, first one, then two, then six. All were shifters, and the majority of them older. With a few young ones sprinkled into the mix. Three more waited a quarter of a mile down on the porch of the rickety ranch house. All of them shared a sickly algae-green hue in their eyes.

His instincts warned him that several more hid in the waist-high weeds.

Rayven gripped his hand again on the seat as he narrowed his search for trouble. Huge areas recently mowed and covered with straw stuck out like a sore thumb. “That house looks like a piece of shit, and they’ve landscaped with straw.”

“Attack holes,” he responded.

“Yes, I can hear their heartbeats,” she replied, her voice resigned.

“I’m counting three, perhaps four in the hidden pits.”

“Might as well shake the rats free.” With an audible growl and rumble, the ground beneath their feet shook. She gave a smirk and raised a brow as the straw and dirt exploded in three spots around her.

“Time to get serious.”

Rayven’s fist tightened on her thigh. “Ferals, all of them.”

He brought the car to a halt. “Not a big surprise that Sam would take advantage of Rebel’s lab work to destroy a few more lives.”

She moved out of the car. He joined her, slamming his door but staying several feet behind her. One of the men on the porch came down to confront them.

“You don’t belong here, alpha. But you’ll make a nice message to any other fools who try for this land. What we’re going to do to you and that stinking cat will make any challengers crawl away with their entrails dragging behind them.”

Right, like this idiot has a chance of bringing Rayven down. His mate would wipe the ground with this motley crew and still have energy for the ones lurking in the shadows.

Clouds gathered above them, eclipsing the sunlight in patches. For brief seconds, the tall grasses and straw turned from colors to shades of gray, making it easier to spot those hiding. He had to admit he was impressed she’d thought of that.

Breslin stepped before Rayven, letting his gaze wander across all the people visible on the sacred ground. It looked more like a patch of hell right now than anything capable of healing or delivering life.

“Shifter board rules dictate one challenge at a time,” Breslin said in a booming voice before turning forty-five degrees to cover Rayven’s back.

“Fuck the rules,” someone shouted back.

As Breslin tensed, Rayven stayed him with her hand on his back. “I’ve got this.”

* * *

Her bear wanted out. Nothing more complicated than the need to blaze a path built from the bones of the men challenging her. Power throbbed beneath her feet and pounded around her. Sweet, strong, fluid waves of delicious power. Intoxicating power that she forced down, for now wasn’t the time for a bloodbath, merely a cold, surgical strike.

The first of the hidden shifters, a well-muscled jackal, charged toward her from one of the hidden pits. Good, the sooner we start this, the sooner I end it. As much as his advance filled Rayven with deep-rooted desire to make her mark and cleanse her clan, she held back her shift. Two more joined him from the porch.

They advanced together, tripping over each other to get to her in a strange combination of cowardice and overoptimism.

“I can take one and teach the remaining ones a lesson in waiting their turn.” Breslin’s voice rolled over her, a golden honey that soothed her beast. Then he shifted into the infamous cougar and scraped at the ground as he let out a signature cougar hiss.

“You already put down one impatient feral, and the others didn’t learn a thing.” She chuckled. “Maybe I need to tenderize them for you first.”

She ducked as the first man flew at her, his claws aiming for her shoulders. He received her elbow to the back of his neck and landed with a whimper and thud. With a spring and a roundhouse kick, she booted one of the wolves who followed him in the ribs. His trajectory landed him at Breslin’s feet.

Eyes still wide as he tried to reconcile her size with her unexpected strength, her attacker barely noticed Breslin’s maw over his throat until it was too late.

“I’d like to play too.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll get your turn. This won’t be the last time I’m challenged.”

“Maybe not. But it’ll be the last time you do this alone.”

“We’ll see.”

“He moves off the ground and he’s mine. Deal?”

She heard no humor in his words and knew her mate itched to kill any of the shifters who dared lay a claw on her. But instead of claiming his right as her mated alpha, he waited on her command.

She didn’t doubt he’d flay any of them if they attempted serious damage. The nice thing was his unspoken belief that she could handle this—and much more. Thank the Goddess for the mating bond. “If you insist, honey.”

The scraping of claws and dust kicking up in an unsanctioned attempt to get free registered before a faint crunch. She didn’t have time to check, but jumped and tucked her knees to her chest, avoiding another challenger. On her downward approach, she clipped him across the jaw with her boot. He sprawled and sprayed saliva, still refusing to admit defeat and stay down.

Well, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t given him the option. She stood tall and waited for his next lunge.

Three. Two—his breath blasted her in the face along with the putrid cloud of poor oral hygiene and his last meal of fried pork rinds. She jerked her upper body left and dug her fully shifted right claw into his chest.

Impaled on her arm, he fell, and she let him take her with him to hide her partial shift. She caught the sound of a heartbeat and pulsing blood behind her as they fell.

Several more approached from the grasses. This time she kept her claws visible but didn’t continue shifting.

Breslin let the first mangy wolf pass. As the second circled around to join him, Breslin lunged. He brought the beast to the ground and growled out, “I said one challenger at a time.”

Shifters hiding in the grass and beyond the tree line had crept closer to see how she’d handle the attacks. From their bright eyes and barely withheld snarls, they seemed to feel she’d fall soon. Well, it wouldn’t be today, her bear promised.

One by one, they edged closer, and the challengers didn’t stop coming.

Not even when she sliced the first two across their throats and did a backflip as a third one shifted into his wolf form. Her shifted claws raked along his spine as she spun over his head and landed with both feet planted on the ground behind him.

Stupid enough to keep trying, the wolf twisted his head and snapped at her leg. He scrambled, paws clawing and his eyes red, prepared for another bite.

“Rayven,” Breslin snapped.

“I got this.” She shifted fully and planted a heavy foot on the neck of her attacker. The bones of the wolf beneath her cracked from her bear’s weight, and before she could move, another load landed on her back, teeth latching onto her shoulder. Her fur didn’t allow the new threat a good grip, but he clamped tight.

Two shifters at once might still be sporting. However, to challenge her from behind was contemptible. Not that she expected any less from Sam. She’d recognized his scent as he slunk from the tall grasses. His rancid odor filtered back from her memories as clearly as the bruising blows he’d landed on her body.

With a roar, she twisted, rolling both of them across the ground. Sam held on with teeth and claws, and she didn’t give him a chance to let go. Finally rolling to a halt, she stood and shook him free. “You bastard. My people deserve better than the evil you’ve dealt them.”

Sam’s teeth slipped, but not before they scraped down her foreleg and gnashed into her paw.

She slammed her other paw across his muzzle, and he tumbled several feet away in the dirt and shifted back into human form. Her power held him that way, even while he wriggled and crouched, trying to kick off her hold and shift back.

Above them the clouds gathered tighter, thunder echoing every few minutes, pacing her mood. The ground shook as lightning flashed. She wasn’t calling the weather on purpose, yet all the remaining challengers sank to their bellies, their ears flattened to their heads.

“Leave my lands or die here,” she growled at them.

“Cowards,” Sam spat out as several hightailed it for the gate. His face red with rage, he rounded on her. “You don’t belong here. Only one woman spilled enough blood to deserve this territory.”

“You wound me,” she responded with forced lightness. Seemed her sister spent her time weaving all sorts of sick and sad people into her web. “I’m staying anyway.”

“Not while I’m alive.”

Rayven cocked her head, noticing his hand searching through the dried grass for a weapon. No doubt they had a stash of backup weapons hidden all over the place. “For the first time, we agree on something.”

With a thought, she sent power charging along the ground. Weapons leapt at her command, flying into the air and hurtling into a pile at Breslin’s feet.

Sam bellowed and charged.

She sank to all fours and exploded up as he neared. Covering him with her body, she tucked him close and fractured his spinal column. “My sister wouldn’t have been this kind, but you can die the same way she would have. Let the Goddess guide you in the next life.”

* * *

Breslin watched in awe as Rayven’s massive white paws twisted Sam’s head. The enforcer’s body fell limp onto the ground as she rolled from him and shook. White fur rippled from snout to furry butt before she took a long look around. Too intent on taking in the havoc she’d rained on her challengers, she likely missed the remaining ones sprint for the gate, only to be rounded up by her team driving in.

“My sister did so much damage. If I could have just—”

“You aren’t responsible for her actions or those of your father and his team.”

“As my mate, you have to say that.”

“My primary job may be to keep you happy, but I won’t stoop to lying.”

“Fair enough.”

Her enormous body glowed against the backdrop of unnatural darkness. The dead lay around them, shifters reverted to their human forms in tangled heaps.

Power struck suddenly. It appeared from nowhere and swirled in mini tornados, landing and sending dirt into the air in a temper tantrum of magic.

He could feel an intense reaction from her, a split second where she worried that these challenges, perhaps this land, had twisted something, robbing her of goodness. That somehow it distorted the alphas born here instead of delivering on the promise of haven.

“I never killed before today, and yet this was easy,” she said.

“They gave you no choice. From what I’ve witnessed from Deacon, neither would the mantle. You fought well and fair,” Breslin said, moving forward. It didn’t matter if this act had warped her as she thought. He would take her no matter what, for he belonged to her and she belonged to him.

She shifted back, a pink T-shirt and jeans covering her curves in a way that made her appear fresh, innocent. She glanced over her shoulder at him as he changed as well, her eyes brilliant violet with golden irises. Her pure heart and solid strength reflected in her gaze, unchanged by all that had just transpired. “You have no idea how you ground me.”

He grasped her hand and raised her knuckles to his lips. “That works both ways.”

The mate bond flooded open again, rich, strong, and healthy as ever. Yet, a metallic copper taste hit his tongue, and he flipped her hand over to inspect her palm. “You’re still bleeding?”

“It’s necessary.” She pulled away from him and knelt in the dirt, squeezing her fist tight. Her blood dripped onto the soil, and another wave of power hit. Wind whipped her hair about her face, buffeted the weeds around them until they lay flat. She lifted her face to the sky, the darkness cracking open, the clouds pulling apart.

Sunlight illuminated the sanctuary, rolling across the grounds in a widening wave. The bodies of the dead dissolved, their dust fluttering away in the breeze. The weeds curled and dried. In their place, green sprouts spread across the ground as far as he could see.

He heard those behind them gasp, but couldn’t move his eyes from the amazing change. Set on a preternatural fast-forward, the greenery bloomed and thrived. Breslin couldn’t imagine another word to describe the way the lush landscape of grasses and wildflowers now carpeted the land. A word he’d never have associated with Gauthier’s territory.

“Damn impressive, Alpha.” Quinn’s voice rang out several feet away. “Ouch. Now what did I do?”

“Not respectful,” Elijah growled.

Rayven smiled and rose at Breslin’s side again. “How about this for one last show?” She lifted her hand, narrowed her eyes, and flicked her fingers. The entire line of fencing surrounding the sanctuary creaked and then crashed to the ground.

The team and another dozen or so clan members who’d shown up for the fight stood around cheering. Breslin opened his arms, and Rayven allowed him to squeeze her perhaps a bit too tightly as he reassured himself she was safe and whole. “Well done, Alpha. I imagine word of this latest feat will prove to be quite a distraction for the other alphas.”

“I was going for dramatic distraction.”

“High drama achieved. What next?” he asked as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“Everyone grab a sledgehammer,” she shouted. “We’re taking all these buildings to the ground.”

Aubrey’s wide grin split her face. “With pleasure.”

Demolishing the ragged structures went quickly, and by the time they were finished, Quinn had conjured a grill and food from somewhere and started cooking.

Headlights flickered through the approaching twilight a mile down the lane. Elijah’s eyes narrowed. “Think the perimeter security will hold?”

“Definitely,” Breslin said as he clasped Rayven’s hand with his own. “But I don’t think our guests will be a problem. Unless we have enemies who plan on taking us out with roof struts and floor joists, I’d say they are on your side.”

A small plume of dust rose behind the half-dozen trucks heading their way. The first pulled to a halt several yards away. Callum and Gillian grinned at them from behind the windshield. Their flatbed held stacks of preassembled walls and roof supports. Enough to start a dozen or more homes based on the number of other trucks carrying similar supplies.

The second truck pulled up beside Callum’s and Nathan climbed out, Hazel in his arms. His parents and siblings followed, carrying coolers and picnic baskets. Strapped to the top of their vehicle was a carved sign that read Spirit Peak Sanctuary.

Elijah’s cousins followed in the trucks and cars at the tail end of the cavalcade.

Rayven turned, her face hidden for a moment against his chest. He heard the hitch in her breath, felt the tremor of strong emotion across their bond. “Seems everyone was betting on us winning.”

He brushed a strand of her hair back from her face and tilted her chin so she would look at him. “No one on our team bet anything. We all knew you would win.” He gestured to the evolution of the sanctuary. “However, your enhancements are a nice surprise.”

She laughed, her eyes glistening. “Wait until you see what I can do next.”

He breathed against her lips, loving the feel of her happy and whole. “You have my full and undivided attention.”