Crone McDonough was sitting on her porch when I jogged up the path to her cottage, sipping tea with a figure who sat in the shadows. “Why Morgan Silk, were your ears burning?”

Before I could ask why she’d say that, Tryst leaned into the light. “I was just telling her that you and the shifters pulled Pen out of her sleep.” He sipped some tea as I schooled my irritation into a blank face. “I’m surprised you came here instead of waiting to see what she is now.”

“She’s a Leo, like her maker,” I snapped. “I was there, I saw her beast before it surfaced. Where the hell were you? I still need to get into the shifter prison, and I’ve got hunters chomping at the bit for my fugitive.”

McDonough sighed and set down her cup. “One thing at a time, Morgan. Go get your fugitive and then return to me. I’ll spend the time preparing an herb mixture into a salve for your protection.”

“To keep our power?”

She scoffed. “No. The Seelie high court has been too careful to allow that. But I can protect you from the despair that will seep into your bones and make you forget where you are, and who.”

"Goddamned oubliette." The outburst was from Tryst. "Ever since your great-great-grandfather, Aurelius, pulled it from the dark planes to Fairy, it has leeched away our magic, killed the land. I hope you bring grenades with you because I plan on blowing it back to hell."

I gaped at him until I realized my jaw was literally hanging open. I closed my mouth and nodded. “Agreed. You can collect your payment the moment we are free of it.”

"Oh no, Princess. I'll collect before you go in. I haven't forgotten that you are not immortal."

I fought the urge to stick out my tongue at him, choosing to ignore him instead. “Lady McDonough, I’ll return tomorrow night, hopefully after a successful hunt.”

She inclined her head in agreement, and I dashed back to my rented Jeep, the hair on my neck prickling. The hunt was beginning without me. I could feel the rush of magic like a wind from the lakeside. I sped back to the camp, I felt Gray's pull as though I were a real shifter, not the Fae tagalong I really was.

The camp was equal parts furry and flesh, those in human form dancing around the fire, celebrating the new member of the pack, while the fully shifted milled about the edges of the camp where the moonlight gave way for the darkness of the trees.

Gray was by the alpha’s throne, still in human form, but shirtless already, his pants undone and hanging on his hips chest glistening sweaty in the firelight.

I waved to him and gestured toward the healers' tent, but he motioned me forward, pointing to the fire excitedly. There was Pen, huddled by the pit, surrounded by men who plied her with food and drinks.

“Look who finally decided to help us get some work done.” She glanced up at my quip and tried to stand, holding her hands out to me. When she wobbled, Julian swept in with concern etched onto his face and helped her to sit again.

“Your friend is weak. Her first change was more violent than most, and she didn’t stay in animal form long enough to regain her energy.”

He sat near her, not touching her, ready to hand her a bite of food or a sip of water. The look in his eyes was part wonder, part avenging angel, and part old-school romance novel. It was hard not to be a little jealous.

“Keep her here, keep her safe. We’ll be back when we can.”

“No can do, Ms. Morgan. Your alpha says you have to stay with us. Guard Penelope, and the healers.”

I glanced up to the dais where Gray had been watching the dancers by the fire, but he and Carl were gone. "Goddamnit. You stay here. I've got to go find my skip. Fucking Gray isn't licensed to bring him in, and Puck went to the north side with the Morelli twins."

“They aren’t looking to capture him alive.”

“I know. But that isn’t up to them. I have a fucking job to do.”

I checked my gun and grabbed a knife and thigh sheath from my car, tying it around my right leg and lopping the stay around my belt. I tucked an extra flashlight into my waistband and headed in the direction I knew Gray would've gone first, back toward the stream and the cave where we'd stayed. It was one of a hundred just like it, the best place to find protected shelter in the area if you weren't in the cabins.

Ahead of me, wolves howled, calling across the half mile that the pack spanned. I knew when I got closer there would be bear snuffles, and cat growls mixed in, but wolves were indigenous to the area, and their cries less likely to make the human populace worry.

I headed toward the hills, skirting around the little copse of trees where I’d been visited by the Goddess. He wouldn’t go in there. I could still feel her power and warmth emanating from the ring of trees. Such love would have served only to alienate someone like Farley and send him in the opposite direction.

Opposite was the camp. Fuck.

Not two seconds after I swung back to camp I heard a howl…and the roar of a lion. I raced with the wind and called all of nature to speed me faster back to the bonfire and my friend. The moonlit my way, lining my path back.

I couldn’t smell Farley the way the shifters could. Couldn’t recognize him the way his packmates could if he was in animal form. Shit. Someone needs to start a mugshot registry for everybody’s other forms. Another deep, rolling lion’s roar sounded, and I decided whoever Julian was fighting would be my target.

The camp was in an uproar, two lions facing off with the biggest goddess-damned mountain lion I’d ever seen. Three times the size of a natural cougar and facing off with both a Rex and Regina…Penelope. I screamed her name and my Fae power rushed out in a wave toward them, rolling the earth as roots from all the nearby trees roiled and buckled under the soft grass.

It broke up the fight, sending the lions falling back one way, while the cougar leaped back to solid ground in the opposite direction. Behind him, a familiar wolf crept close to the earth. Niall, thank the gods. His glanced met mine for less than a second before returning to the feral wolf he stalked. Blood poured out of his shoulder, but he ignored the wound, waiting for his moment to strike.

Instead, the cougar turned his attention to me, screeching and bounding in my direction, racing past the roots and branches I directed the trees to block and bind him with. Farley’s lip curled up over his fangs as he attacked, His claws digging into my leather jacket and slicing it, biting into my chest beneath.

We flew back, and I landed on my ass, slamming my hands down so hard the pain radiated up into my shoulders. I kicked out, and Niall leaped onto the cougar's back, making Farley release an ungodly scream of pain and fury.

I called my power again, but after the initial burst it was slow to come, and I could only call the nearest trees to bend toward the earth and grab at the cougar, praying that Niall could avoid the grasping limbs.

Farley danced free of my snare, and I released the trees, building my magic for a different attack. The Rex, who I assumed was Julian, and the Regina, a golden lioness that I just knew was Penelope, had split up and were approaching the cougar at angles, while Niall continued to herd him backward.

I wove my fingers together, envisioning the roots behind him tangling together, forming a living cage with a wide, open front. The lions swung wide, staying at Farley’s side and pushing him back farther with swipes from their giant paws as he snapped and bounced between them.

In the distance I could hear the wolf pack, their calls increasing in volume and frequency as they got closer. I called the wind, moving it across their path to mask the scents and slow their travel. “We’ve got to hurry guys, they will not let us take him alive if it’s not done before they arrive.

Almost as I finished, Gray burst into the clearing, and with hardly a glance in my direction, catapulted himself at the cougar, rolling him across the camp and away from my cage in a blur of black and cream as the cats both tumbled.

“Goddamnit Gray, we had him!” I lashed out at them both with branches from above, and I heard a familiar screech tinted with accusation, as Gray was thrown off his target and the lions moved in again, Niall already healed enough that the blood barely seeped from his shoulder as he moved lightning fast, the trio pushing Farley back on course for the cage.

I blocked Gray by lifting the roots, rolling them as I had before, but only in his direction, cursing him aloud for forcing me to divide my attention. I could see him gathering his energy to leap again, his muscles tense and bunching like any wild cat about to spring, but wolves and the pack’s werebear flooded the clearing, and the largest wolf faced off with Gray, blocking his path.

“We’ll just wait here then,” Puck called, and I shot him a look. He and the twins stood with about ten feet between each of them, guns trained on the cluster of animals that surrounded Farley, biting and pouncing as he fought to stay clear of the tangled root structure.

“Let him know you’re here, Puck,” I called out, drawing my gun and firing over their heads. A few of our wolves flinched, but the cougar dropped to his belly, eyeing me as I strode over to him, my barrel lined up between his eyes. “You die here at my hand, or you go back alive. I won’t let the pack be dragged into a police investigation.”

Puck moved in carefully, giving Gray and the wolf a wide berth as he and the others lined up at my back. “I called the others in, but they were closer to town. Do we have this on our own?”

In answer, I knelt and dug my fingers into the earth, calling the remaining roots and using the power in the land itself to bolster my own energy. The earth rolled, and the cage drew shut around Farley, who snarled and snapped helplessly at the thick cords of wood.

“Keep your guns on him, guys. I work in wood, not steel, and we didn’t actually figure on getting him out of here in cat form.” I got as close to the cage as I dared, just out of reach of his giant paws as he scrabbled and slashed at me between the roots.

My energy was depleted. I was beyond tired, physically and emotionally exhausted, and worried my Fae power might give out on me. I reached for the only other instant, big power I knew, blood magic. I cut my hand and let the droplets fall onto the leaves at my knees until I had enough to draw runes.

Niall approached, sniffing my hand and smearing my blood on his white muzzle. He sneezed and licked it off, then nuzzled at my hand until I opened it, and licked across my palm sealing the already healing cut before he dropped to his stomach at my side, his eyes on the captured cat.

I cleared the leaves away from the earth between us and drew runes in the dirt with my finger, using the leaves that cupped my blood to seal the magic. I called to Hecate and Gaia, praying to them equally to pour my blood magic into the earth and fuel my innate power to control the shifter’s beast.

He snarled as the magic responded to my touch, backing away from me as I reached out, pushing my power into him and forcing him out. I clamped down on his beast, not calming so much as sedating it, forcing it down and away, deep inside him where he wouldn’t have the energy to raise it again.

The cat let out a blood-curdling scream, then I heard a familiar crunch of breaking bones as Farley was forced back into human form, the change painful and terrible to watch.

"Bring me, Prescott, while the magic is still active," I panted, and Sheryl and Prescott came into view. "Take my hand."

The boy stared wildly at his mother, who grasped his wrist and set his hand in mine. I hated the fear in his eyes, and tried to calm him, sitting on the ground with him and pressing my free hand to the ground, motioning for him to do the same.

“Do you feel that magic?”

He nodded and gulped. “It feels like water right under the dirt.”

"Yeah, it kind of does. Good job." I took a deep breath, and he emulated me. "Can you smell the magic in the air?"

He nodded again. “It feels like the first day of summer break.”

His sudden grin made me laugh aloud. "Yeah, it does. It makes your heart beat fast and makes you wonder what exciting things are going to happen."

Another nod.

"That's the magic I'm going to put inside you, Prescott. What I did to that man was not like what you feel. But I did it to save his life so he can face justice for what he's done without bringing the police to your doorstep."

“He should die.”

"He might, yet. But that is for the courts to decide. Right now, all that matters is that you know I'm going to do my best to help your beast out, without hurting you any more than is necessary."

He glanced at his mother, kneeling with her arm over the shoulder of the big wolf. “I just want to run with my dad.”

It wasn’t until he spoke that I realized most of the shifters had changed back, some were already wearing clothes of some kind. Only Gray and Niall, Carl, and what I assumed were his lieutenants were still in animal form. Julian and Pen were nowhere in sight.

“Get this asshole out of here, Puck,” I directed the hunter. “We don’t want his cat to wake up because of this.”

The magic was beginning to ebb already, the brightly colored edges of the leaves dimming as the magic flowed into the earth as it should, in rivulets like water runoff after a storm. I pulled some of that fading magic back from the trees, opening the front of the cage for Puck and the hunters that were gathering by our rental vehicles.

I pulled what I hoped was enough magic to finish one more spell, and stood, moving us to the stone table where Pen was bitten. I sat on the table, and he lightly jumped up next to me, both of us sitting cross-legged on the bloodstained stone.

I’d chosen the place mostly so the pack could see the transformation and my power, but also because of Pen, her blood still fresh enough on the stone to hold a remnant of her power. How long that would last, I couldn’t say, but as the aching in my muscles got harder to ignore, I needed all the extra magic I could get.

Sheryl stood to one side of him, the great wolf on the other, and I closed my eyes and muttered a quick prayer of strength before I pushed tendrils of my magic, like fingers, over his skin, then into him. He was barely more than a child, so I proceeded with excess caution, carefully pressing against the barrier I felt between his beast and the surface.

But it was there, watching me, cautiously curious, but not aggressive or afraid. Good. Encouraged, I pushed harder, still taking it slow, dismantling the magical shield that imprisoned the dusky wolf I saw inside him.

Sweat trickled down my back as the painstaking work continued, my strength failing me. In a last-ditch effort to pull the wolf out before I collapsed, I sent Prescott an image of me, chiseling at a stone wall, his wolf pacing behind it. Help me break it, I thought at him, hoping he could hear me.

It was the wolf that responded though, and the psychic wall shuddered as something slammed into it from the other side. Even better. That the wolf responded meant that it knew it was real and whole and strong inside the boy.

Emboldened, I pushed harder, pulling from magic reserves I'd never known I had, feeling like we were trapped together in a cave in, scrabbling at the stone to free the beast and heal the boy. Hands gripped my sides, more lifted my arms, and tears poured down my cheeks in hot tracks as I felt the strength of the pack and my own people behind us.

I’d never been permitted to take part in the ceremonies of my coven, never understood why they gathered together for their most important magics. With those arms around me, lending me strength, some of them even intense psychic powers, I felt like I could lift the whole damn mountain. What was one little wolf in all that power?

One last pull, one last tug on the invisible wall in Prescott that held his wolf fast, and the whole thing came tumbling down in a rush of power that became silver fur cascading over his body, splitting the clothes I hadn’t felt comfortable asking him to shed for me.

The lanky, lean young wolf leaped over us off the platform and landed on the grass, shaking himself and circling like a puppy chasing his tail. I could feel the joy radiating from him, and fresh tears welled over my eyelids. I cried like a damn girl while the pack surrounded the heir to the pack throne, cheering (or howling) as befitting their form, while Niall and Gray pressed to my sides, white and black, with me in the middle, safely held as the last of my energy failed and I sagged into the stone.