Roland grumbled under his breath as he climbed out of the truck. “Stay alert, Miss Penrose.”

“It’s Girl to you. Only my friends call me Miss Penrose,” I said, slamming the door as I climbed out.

“Must not hear it very often, then.” He smiled absently.

If he didn’t look so pathetic I would have thrown a rock at him. “Watch it, old one—”

He flinched as if struck, rounding on me. “What did you just say?”

I took an instinctive step back at the fierceness in his eyes. “I just… called you old… It’s not the first time, and definitely won’t be the last,” I added defensively. Maybe the pain was really getting to him. But in that moment, I finally understood what others saw in him. His enemies. Before he killed them. Or read them scripture. I thought I had known the look he gave them, assuming it was a slightly stronger version of the withering glare I got during training.

But I was wrong.

Those looks from training were a loving smile compared to this. “Have a care with your words, and stay alert,” he finally said, turning back to the storage units, scanning the tall grass on either side of the two buildings, searching for a crowd of devil ninja nuns or something.

What had earned that look? Calling him old? I did that all the time. In response to him always calling me girl. Petty, but when someone kicked your ass all day every day, you delivered what punches you could, when you could, however you could. So, I teased him relentlessly about his age.

It wasn’t that he looked old. But he looked… hard. Like a gnarled piece of ancient driftwood. Still solid, not rotting or decaying, but tough as shit.

Old one was what I had said. How was that any different from any other way I had called him old? But before I could press that thought, I realized he was already shambling into the center of the storage unit buildings. The grouchy bastard was going to bleed out, and in this part of town, I wouldn’t be finding help any time soon.

“Why don’t you have a shield, yet?” he spoke softly, not sounding pleased as his eyes continued to track our surroundings.

I shrugged, then realized he obviously wasn’t watching me. “I don’t know. Haven’t really needed one before tonight. And I can always throw one up when I need it—”

“Unless you’re too scared to act or are out of magic. That’s why you need a construct bound to your flesh. That needs only a subconscious thought to activate. For those other times.”

I kicked a rock with my boot. He didn’t say it out loud, but he meant times like tonight, when I had frozen up. “I’m not fond of getting a tattoo…” I finally admitted.

He growled under his breath. “You are getting one whether you like it or not.”

“Unless I choose not to become like you.”

He stopped in his tracks, slowly turning back to face me.

I averted my eyes, surprised that his look of shock threatened to overwhelm me with guilt. This wasn’t an old argument, but I had never said it so bluntly. “It’s just… I don’t think this is really my thing. Tonight was proof. I was terrified. The whole time. I felt like I had never trained before. I couldn’t think. I got you injured. I started training with you to learn how to protect myself, not to work for the fucking Vatican.” I threw my hands up, frustrated.

“We will talk about this. Later. But you’re getting that tattoo, Shepherd or not. It protects.”

And he was walking again. Well, shuffling awkwardly. I nodded stubbornly, following him. He knew I didn’t want to be like him, a Shepherd, but it seemed some deeply hidden part of him hadn’t believed my repeated statements to this fact. I kicked another rock. That was his problem. Nothing I could do about it if he wanted to pretend otherwise.

Gang signs were tagged on almost every storage unit, all different symbols, but a few were marked out and replaced with another. Those looked to have been recently vandalized. Likely a message to the original gang, hey, we took your stuff. Polite, really.

Roland finally approached a locker that was devoid of both spray paint and damage. Which was odd to see. It was so bare that by comparison with the others, it looked like it had never been used. Or that it was a brand-new door. Roland wasted no time, shoving the key we had taken into the lock. He met my eyes, nodded once, and then flung open the door. On instinct, I had my energy sticks out. Roland studied the storage unit, and seeing no threat, turned back to me. His eyes locked onto my hands and he chuckled.

“I like those better, but you shouldn’t default to short-range weapons first,” he said, and then turned back to the storage unit.

I frowned, glancing down at my hands. Instead of two escrimas like I has used earlier, I now held two kamas — the same size as the escrimas, but with a long, arced blade on the ends, like small one-handed scythes. They had originally been created to cut weeds in ancient Japan, but like most things, man had found a way to turn them into weapons. But they were easy to use. Fast, light, fluid, adaptable, and lethal. A more… final version of the sticks I typically defaulted to, although I knew how to use these just as well. The reason I liked these was that I could incorporate them into my weapons-free training with only minor adaptations, altering my simple punches and blocks into lethal counterattacks. Bleed the enemy with a thousand cuts, every move a slice, Roland’s words drifted from my memory, having heard it a hundred times.

Roland had made sure I was well-versed in the art of self-defense, and after several years, had finally told me — begrudgingly — that despite my small size, I stood a decent chance of not being helplessly beaten and molested in a dark alley one day. Like the day he had found me as a young teen, barely saving me from an attack exactly like that.

That comment had lit me on fire. And it had been two years ago.

But old Roland knew how to press my buttons, light my fuse, and motivate me where few others had succeeded.

Because that idle comment had killed my momentary pride, and I had decided to stick with him, hungering to learn more. Not just with weapons, but with my magic.

I wondered — for the millionth time — if his process was the longest conversion to religion he had ever had to endure. Like a test from God.

Roland was cursing. Well, not cursing like I would curse, but muttering darkly under his breath from inside the storage unit. I had once offered to tutor him on cursing, but his stony scowl had been answer enough. I stepped inside the unit — my blades lighting the space — to find him reading a small, dirty, rumpled slip of paper. It looked to have been forgotten in a corner.

“What is it?” I asked hesitantly.

He met my eyes; his own were bloodshot, and distant. “It’s gone.”

Then he fell down, the paper fluttering in the air to land on a dark stain on the ground. I shifted my kama to see that it was a small pool of blood. Right where Roland had been standing. His wound had soaked through the bandage, and he was losing blood fast.

I snatched up the piece of paper, reading it with a frown before shoving it into my pocket. I didn’t know what he had been looking for here, but it wasn’t that slip of paper.

There was no way in hell I could pick him up alone. He outweighed me by at least a hundred pounds.

Desperately, I plucked out my cell phone and made a call to my best friend, Claire Stone. She was closest to us, even though I would have loved to call my dad. I spoke woodenly, only stating the facts, and then hung up, unable to answer her twenty questions for fear of breaking down.

The night seemed particularly ominous and threatening as I waited for her to arrive. One of God’s Shepherds was on the ground, unconscious, wounded, in a dangerous section of town. And only I stood between him and the terrors of the night—

Wolves began to howl. A lot of them. And not far away.

As I stared out at the night, guarding the open door, praying for all I was worth that Claire hurried — because with those howls, I knew there was no chance of me leaving — my nightmare began to hammer into my mind like a boxer beating a heavy bag.

Rain. A doorway before me. Night air on my cheeks. I was all alone…

Again.