“What’s a nail bar?” Tenlee asked, confused by the sign in front of them. Right under it was a Grand Opening banner with little strands of yellow, red, and blue flags decorating the small Darby shop.

“I’ve never been, but online it says you can get a manicure, pedicure, and massages here…all while drinking cocktails.”

“Aw, maaan,” Karis murmured.

Ava laughed and held open the door for them. “After the cub is born, we’ll come back, and you can get buck wild in here. Until then, Tenlee and I will down your drinks for you because that’s what friends are for.”

Tenlee grinned. She liked the sound of that. “Friends,” she murmured.

“Yeah, I didn’t really have those until I came back here,” Ava said as Karis ordered them manicures and pedicures at the front desk. “I was a bit of a loner. I like life here better.” Ava’s smile was genuine and her voice soft, and Tenlee knew exactly what she meant.

It smelled like chemicals in here, and the brightly-colored rows of nail polish along the walls were a bit overwhelming, but the second she sat in a chair in between Ava and Karis and dipped her feet in a miniature jet-tub of hot water, she relaxed. And when a server brought her something called a mimosa, she chilled out even more. Champagne and orange juice—she felt fancy as fuck right now. Even put a pinky up like a proper lady when she sipped her drink.

And her skin wasn’t even crawling, but maybe that was thanks to the shopping spree she and the girls had just finished. She had worn a pair of ripped-up skinny jeans and a black V-neck cotton shirt right out of the store. It was the softest thing she’d ever owned, and it also looked really cute and was on sale so she didn’t feel so bad about shopping with Ava and Karis’s money. Plus, they had seemed so genuinely happy to help her try stuff on and figure out her style, she’d just got lost in the fun. This was the best day she could even remember.

“Kurt is going to pick you up in a few hours for a date night,” Karis said, sipping her glass of straight orange juice.

“Okay, good,” she said breathlessly, “because I miss him very much.” She couldn’t stop staring at the bright, glossy red the nail technician was painting on her toes. There was another painting her fingernails the same color. This was awesome! She hoped when she Changed, the nail polish stayed. Her squirrel would look good with red nails, but she didn’t really understand how the science of that worked. Like Karis couldn’t even Change into her big badass polar bear until she had her cub so she didn’t hurt the baby. So maybe the nail polish would chip off when she Changed? That kind of bummed her out, but she would just have to try to stay in this skin until after date-night so Kurt could totally fall in love with her even more.

“I want to get my hair fixed,” she said suddenly.

“What?” Karis asked, all stretched out in her chair as her nail lady painted her toes bright purple.

“I saw a hair place. It said haircuts for twelve dollars and ninety-nine cents, and I want to get my hair fixed for tonight.”

“Okay!” Ava said, handing her empty mimosa glass to the server. “Not that you need your hair done. You have that perfect hair that looks just wild enough and tame enough all at once. You literally have the best curls.”

“Yeah,” Karis agreed. “They’re like beach waves.”

“Well, usually these beach waves have leaves and twigs in them, and it takes a long time to brush it out after a Change, so maybe a haircut will help a little. And help me like this body a bit more.”

“You don’t like your body?” Ava asked.

“Y’all,” Karis warned, casting a glance at the very human nail technicians.

Oh. Right. She shouldn’t talk about shifter stuff here.

“I used to hate it,” Tenlee said carefully. “But now Kurt makes me feel comfortable being…me.”

Ava and Karis’s smiles turned mushy before Karis said, “I didn’t like the way my body was before I met Colt. I didn’t like how curvy I am, and it was hard to look in the mirror and feel pretty, but Colt changed that. Now I feel like a goddess because of the way he looks at me. There is no way for a woman to feel anything less than beautiful when her man so obviously adores the way she looks.”

“Yeah,” Tenlee murmured. Karis totally got it. “That.”

****

Tenlee had never understood the I feel like a million bucks saying…until now. The song “I’m Walking on Sunshine” was playing at full volume in her head as she made her way toward the sandwich shop with the girls. Her hair was still long, but had layers in it now, which the stylist explained would free up her curls more. It was all brushed, shiny, and smelled like muffins and blackberry cobbler and sugar-dipped mangos and unicorn toots. Her nails were fire-engine red and shone in the sun, and she was wearing new clothes and new lingerie that fit her just right. She was feeling pa-retty good about her chances of getting laid again tonight.

There were definite advantages to being in human form. Tears sucked, but laughter was awesome. And pampering herself was fun, and sex was double-fun, and hugs, and mimosas. And also pancakes, ice cream, and sometimes when they made a funny joke, Karis and Ava bumped her shoulder with theirs, and she felt like a part of something. Not just this lone squirrel out in the woods shunned by the other animals. Not just Tenlee the Origin.

Caw.

The hairs lifted on the back of her neck, and she halted. Her shopping bags bumped her legs with the movement. Karis and Ava were in deep discussion on where they were going to find the money for a new bull for the herd and kept walking up the cracked sidewalk. Today was sunny and beautiful, and there was the constant hum of motorcycles finally out of garages after a long winter. But it was that one small sound, that caw, that took the beauty away from the day in an instant.

Caw.

Not today. She didn’t want to deal with the crows today.

She could feel him behind her, and she looked longingly after Karis and Ava, still chattering on happily, unaware there was a cage waiting to swallow Tenlee up, right behind her.

“Momma Crow wants a word,” Ethan said in a gravelly voice that sent chills up her spine.

“I don’t want to talk,” she said without turning around. She was still too chicken.

“I haven’t told Ramsey you’re in town. It’s just me and Momma Crow. Tenlee, please. You don’t understand what you’ve done, and she’s come all the way here just to talk. You owe her. You know you do.”

He was right.

“Swear he isn’t here?”

“Ramsey is out on a job. Not even in the area. Momma Crow has been waiting for you to come to town so she could sit down with you. She’s asking, not demanding.” Ethan swallowed hard. “I’m asking.”

“Ten?” Ava asked. She had her hand on the door to the sandwich shop. Her eyes were a silver white. “Smells like crow.” Her voice was full of grit now and Karis was already headed this way, the promise of death in her eyes.

“It’s okay,” Tenlee said. “It’s Momma Crow. She wants a word. She’s safe.”

“And him?” Ava snarled, jamming a finger over Tenlee’s shoulder. “He don’t feel safe.”

“Because I’m not,” Ethan responded coolly. “Are these your new keepers, Origin?”

Tenlee dropped the bags and rounded on him. “I don’t have keepers. I never fucking did, but you crows were real confused about that. I’ll talk to Momma Crow because I want to. Because she’s earned my respect. Don’t insult me or my friends and don’t call me the fucking Origin. I’m not under your thumb, so you’ll talk to me as an equal.”

“Queen,” Ava corrected.

“Queen? Queen. I mean queen. You’ll talk to me like a queen.” Holy shit, she’d never talked to Ethan like this, but she was good and on-a-roll, so she made her way past him toward the black Suburban parked a few stores down, slamming against his shoulder as she did. He was a brick wall, but she had adrenaline pumping through her, and it didn’t even hurt. This body was fucking awesome. And it even had middle fingers.

“I’ll be right back,” she promised over her shoulder to Karis and Ava.

“We’ll be here, ready to eat some crow,” Ava snarled out.

Oh, Tenlee had no doubt Ava would follow through. That girl was flashing her shifter eyes right here in the middle of Main Street. Tenlee could smell her fur, fury, and dominance all the way to the Suburban. Ethan was a badass, but his crow couldn’t compete with the rage of a newly Turned she-bear. And especially not one who had decided Tenlee fell under her protection.

She cast one look behind her as she opened the back door to the rig, just to reassure herself she wasn’t really alone. Karis was talking low into her phone, and Ava was smiling at Ethan with her teeth bared. Her canines looked way sharp. God, she was going to get shifters busted, but right now Tenlee couldn’t find it in herself to care. Fuck yes, she had people at her back. Badass females.

It made her feel brave enough to climb into the back of Ethan’s ride and face the woman she’d also left when she ran from the crows.

But it wasn’t just Momma Crow in the back. In the seats sat Rike, Treyton, and Bentley. Fuck.

“It’s fine,” Momma Crow said from the other side of the bench seat. She was curvy with her black hair all done up like a pinup girl’s. Her lips were painted bright red, and she wore cat-eye sunglasses. She wore a leather vest with the Red Dead Mayhem patch on the left pocket space, and one of her arms had a full sleeve of tattoos. She wore black, shredded jeans, and high-heeled boots with sparkly rhinestones on them. Crows liked shiny things. “The boys don’t let me go into town alone anymore. Ramsey ordered bodyguards for me until the war with Two Claws is done.”

“Until the war is done,” she said quietly, closing the door beside her carefully.

“You don’t have much time.”

“Rhoda,” Rike warned.

“Bodyguards,” she blasted, rounding on him, “not advisors, and if you lift your voice to tell me what I can and can’t say to my squirrel again, I’ll cut your dick off.”

Rike’s eyes blazed black like tar. “Ethan!”

“Don’t look at me,” Ethan muttered from the front seat. “I don’t control her. Guard your dick and shut the fuck up so we can get this over with.” His eyes were black, too, in the rearview mirror. And when she turned around to look at the three muscle-bound, behemoth crows in the third row, their eyes were all the same. Like glossy tar.

She hated it in here. Too much dominance in one small space, and when she looked out the back window, there were three motorcycles parking behind them. All crows. What the fuck?

“Talk or I’m getting out. I don’t like this.”

“Don’t like feeling alone in the world?” Bentley asked. “You shouldn’t have run away from your Clan then.”

“I didn’t run away from my Clan. You weren’t ever mine! And I wasn’t yours. I was a prisoner.”

“Oh, bullshit,” Rike said. “Ramsey was good to you.”

“Ramsey made me his mate without my permission.”

“So?” Rike asked, gripping the back of the seat. “You could do way worse than having the Alpha of the biggest fucking crow clan as your protector.”

“I needed more.” Fuck, her eyes were burning with tears. She cleared her throat and made her voice stronger. “I need more. I know you see mating bonds differently, but I’m not like you. I’m not a crow. I’m just me, and I didn’t like being watched and molded to be first lady of the MC. First lady of the Clan. It’s not me! Ramsey was never my person, and I told all of you that a hundred times, but no one listened to me.” Palms up, Tenlee looked at Momma Crow, , hoping she would understand. “No one listened to me. Not until I found Two Claws.”

“Tenlee,” she whispered, “you can’t stay there.”

“Yes, I can.”

“No.” She shook her head slowly. “You truly can’t. Ramsey is losing his fight. He isn’t steady anymore. He’s slipping because of what you’re doing to his animal. You are one female—”

“One person. One with feelings and wants and desires and who deserves to look for happiness just like everyone else.”

“No, honey.” Momma Crow pulled her sunglasses off, and her eyes were rimmed with tears. “You’re an animal. Because of what you are, you have more responsibilities than rights. You are an Origin first, an animal second, and this”—she gestured to her clothes and hair— “is pretend. Think about it, Tenlee. Are you looking for yourself? Or are you losing yourself. Because I’m looking at someone I don’t even recognize. Someone I love and was very close to, and now there is a disconnect. Do you know what happens when the Alpha of a large Clan goes mad?”

“We all go mad,” Ethan said softly.

“A crow mates for life. You know this. You are Ramsey’s. You belong to him. There is no way around it, no fighting it. I’m sorry you don’t feel the same yet, but you will if you stop this foolishness and come home.”

But the word home from Momma Crow’s lips sent shooting pain through Tenlee’s stomach. She didn’t understand what home for Tenlee was. It was Two Claws Ranch. It was the people there. And most of all, it was Kurt.

“I have a boy there, and I’m gonna help him grow up. I have friends. I have a mate. Kurt. I love him.”

Momma Crow huffed a breath. “That’ll pass when he’s dead.” She gestured with two fingers to Ethan. “Drive on.”

The door lock clicked, and Ethan hit the gas so hard her stomach dipped.

“What?” Tenlee pulled the door handle, but nothing happened, and she couldn’t figure out how to unlock it. She pushed the button to roll the window down. Nothing. Fuck! Panicked, she pulled and pulled on the handle until it broke right off.

She looked out the window. Karis was screaming something so hard at Ava the veins in her neck were bulging. Ava’s face was twisted into something fearsome, her eyes almost white as she sprinted after the Suburban. The roar of motorcycles filled her head, and then there were hands on her, trying to keep her still as she beat her fists on the window. They were hurting her, and her adrenaline spiked. The end of Main Street blurred by, and Ethan aimed straight out of town. He was making a run for crow territory. She couldn’t stop the Change now. It had been too long since she’d been an animal, and every nerve ending in her body screamed as she exploded.

“Oh, shit, Ethan!” Rike yelled. “She’s gonna hit us!”

Tenlee didn’t understand, but she bit down on his wrist so hard she would leave a permanent scar on his bone. Suddenly, there was a huge crash, and the Suburban lurched up on two wheels. Tenlee squeaked as she was blasted sideways, twisting her body in the air and using her tail for balance so she would land on her feet. There was this horrifying moment when time slowed, and she was sure the rig would flip end-over-end. Shards of glass filled the air as the truck went to a forty-five-degree angle. And then she could smell it. Fur and rage. Ava was gonna roll the rig.

The Suburban skidded off the road and slammed into a tree. Momma Crow screamed, the boys cussed, and Genie was flung into the back seat against Rike. And then she went to work with her teeth and claws until someone grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and yanked her backward. She was helpless like this, with the skin of her neck stretched so tight all she could do was curl into a fetal position and hate everything.

There was roaring, and it wasn’t just Ava now. It was motorcycles, too. Lots of them. Another bear bellowed loud enough to rattle the car. Then something more—a long cougar scream filled the air so deafeningly she hunched into herself, thinking her eardrums would burst with it. Karis had called in reinforcements.

Feathers exploded in the car as the crows Changed and flew out the broken windows to escape the snow-white she-bear who was currently ripping the back door off the Suburban. Bentley was slapped back into the car by one very big blond grizzly paw. Oh, they’d summoned the Warmaker.

The crows were so fucked.

Right before Bentley tucked his wings and blasted through the broken front window, he grabbed her with steel claws and an unbreakable hold.

She screeched and reached for anything she could grab onto as he flew out the window with her. No, no, no! The ground was getting farther away, and the more she struggled, the harder Bently squeezed onto her body. His talons were digging painfully into her skin. Desperately, she turned and gripped his black, glossy leg and sank her teeth into him.

Bentley dipped and let off a strangled Caw, and then they were hit by a hurricane. At least, that’s what it felt like. She was knocked clean out of his grasp, screeching when his claws raked her back. Pummeling toward earth, Tenlee closed her eyes and braced for impact, but just as she prepared to die, she thudded against something soft. Kurt.

Shocked, in pain, and breathing heavy, she looked over at a pile of feathers and carnage that used to be Bentley. Kurt settled her on the ground and spun, his massive body blocking the war that had broken out in the woods beside the road. The air was full of crows flying away, the Suburban was a mangled mass of metal and jagged glass. There were a dozen toppled motorcycles. And Ava and Colt were stalking closer to a massive crow that sat on a low branch of the tree the rig had crashed into. Momma Crow.

Tenlee would’ve lifted her voice to save her, but Momma Crow had betrayed her. She’d said she wanted to talk but then taken her. She was fine with putting her back in the cage of Red Dead Mayhem even though Tenlee had told her she wasn’t happy there. She’d called Tenlee an animal. She’d broken her heart with her treachery. Tenlee didn’t care about her reasons. Sure, she was trying to save her Clan from what was happening to Ramsey, but she’d made Tenlee feel worthless. Like her only value was to sit there unhappily and keep an Alpha steady.

Trig hadn’t Changed. He was sitting on a Harley, eyes blazing gold as he watched Colt and Ava hunt. His dark hair was mussed, his cheeks were flushed with rage, and he had a white-knuckle grip on the bar of his motorcycle.

Caw! Momma Crow looked right at Tenlee with an expression of rage, as if Tenlee had been the one to betray her. Crows were so fucked up. She lifted into the air the second the bears charged the tree and beat her big, black wings, leaving three of her crows in bloody, feathered piles on the side of the road.

Tenlee clung to the scruff of Kurt’s neck. His body was shredded, bleeding, but she couldn’t tell if it was from the crows or from his old injuries. She hugged him, thankful that he was here. That he’d come for her. The crows scared her even more now. They would never stop coming.

Ramsey’s death oath was one thing, but Two Claws kept besting them. They kept killing them a crow at a time. And the crows still didn’t have what they wanted—Tenlee.

She looked at the still crow bodies that littered the ground.

If there was any chance of stopping the war before, that wasn’t an option now. She’d meant to save Two Claws, but she’d just made the storm even worse. And to make matters even more complicated…she could hear police sirens in the distance.

“Aw, fuck,” Trig said. “Change back!” The order in his voice bent the bears immediately, and their Change was fast, forced, and looked painful.

“Shhhhit, Trigger!” Colt croaked out from where he swayed on his hands and knees in the mud.

“Should I call Karis?” Ava gasped out. “What do we do?”

“She has Gunner. Leave them in town and out of this. Kurt! Change back, man! I see lights.”

Kurt was pacing though, a snarl in his throat as Tenlee clutched onto the fur at his neck. Maybe she was the problem, so she hopped off him and stood on her hind legs, worrying over him and waiting.

“Kurt!” Trigger yelled, popping his kickstand down and settling his Harley. He threw his leg over and strode right for Kurt, but her mate flattened his ears, peeled his lips back from those terrifyingly long teeth, and hissed a warning.

“You ain’t his Alpha, Trig!” Colt called out, staggering to his feet. “Ordering him around won’t get him movin’ any faster. Besides, there’s no way the whole damn town didn’t see Ava turn polar bear on Main Street. You and I both know that’s why the cops are here. We’re fucked whether he changes or not.”

Kurt closed his eyes, hunched into himself, and Changed. Slowly. He bled a lot, and after a few seconds, Tenlee couldn’t watch anymore. And from the looks on the others’ faces before they averted their gazes, it was hard for them to witness his pain, too. When he was done, he stayed shaking on his hands and knees, coughing red onto the grass.

All Tenlee could do was hug his arm and wish she could take his pain.

“Don’t Change back,” he gritted out. “They don’t know about you. Take care of Gunner and Karis until we get out.” He twitched his head toward the trees. “Go on.”

She turned to climb a tree to watch their arrest from a branch, but Kurt said, “Tenlee?”

She turned. Yes, hero?

“If you see any crows, you and Karis shoot first and ask questions later, you hear?”

She nodded once. It’s all she had time for before the three police cruisers were on them. In a rush, she bounded up a tree and watched her mate climb to his feet. All of his old injuries were open. Every one. Killing killed him faster, and he’d just done it for her. Outlaw. Monster. Killer. Alpha. No, not Alpha. He was supposed to be, but he wasn’t, and that was the problem. He hadn’t taken his throne and, look here, it was killing him.

Her heart hurt watching him talk to the police. Watching the officers show the Clan and Kurt video on their phones. Watching the officers yell and reprimand them about ruining the balance between shifters and humans.

The shifters were out. It would have looked like an MC war on Main Street, but Ava had shifted in front of humans, and the officers said there was panic in Darby that would spread like wildfire and reach the world by morning. This was soooo bad.

And it was all her fault.

She’d trusted Momma Crow, but she was a crow, and no crow could ever be trusted. Tenlee had been naïve and put the Two Claws Clan in front of so many crosshairs.

And Kurt…he wasn’t standing right. He was leaning heavily on the police cruiser as he made his statement, his eyes on Bentley’s still body.

Today had started out so wonderful, and now everything had fallen apart.

Because she was selfish.

If she’d just forced herself back into the cage of the crows, the Clan would be safe. She’d put her happiness above everyone that she cared about.

Mother Crow was right.

She was nothing but an animal.