When Ryenne woke up the next morning, she felt her usual urges, but they were muted, in a way they’d never been before. In their place was a feeling of dread and loneliness. She’d felt lonely many times over the past week while her mother was in the hospital and Lucien would barely speak to her. Especially now that Gavin had found someone.

She didn’t begrudge him his own happiness. She wanted him to be happy more than she wanted her own happiness. But she couldn’t get past what they were going through right now: the uncertainty and danger. She suspected everyone but the four of them. Anyone outside their tiny circle could be a danger, and that included Dr. Taylor Nakamura. She just couldn’t make Gavin see it and instead had pushed him away, possibly forever. It already felt like a knife to the gut. Then Lucien and her mother siding with Gavin was like twisting the knife and adding salt to an already very raw wound.

She’d been trying for days to figure out how to make things right with Lucien and had come up empty. She didn’t know how else to make it up to her mother except by keeping her safe, which was what she was doing by pursuing the O’Briens. But that had come to a screeching halt with the discovery of Joseph O’Brien’s body. The gunk in the wound meant he’d been killed by Fangs. It could be his sister and brother, or they could be lone rogues working outside the Fangs. She didn’t know.

And yesterday, she would have wanted to find out more than anything. But today, she couldn’t bring herself to care because anything she had cared about was gone.

Yesterday, she had felt everything so deeply, from Gavin’s biting words to her own urges. But now, she was numb.

She spent the day in bed, barely getting out for an occasional something to eat or drink. She ignored her phone. Somewhere in the dark recesses of her mind, she knew she was doing one of the things she had yelled at Gavin for, by ignoring her phone and not letting her loved ones know she was okay. But she didn’t care because she no longer thought they cared. And if they didn’t care, then no one in this world cared about her and what she did now, so she might as well stay in this bed, in this apartment, until something changed.

Around nightfall, something changed. An idea struck her.

Grabbing her phone, she navigated to a browser and looked up an old friend. She sent him a text, then got out of bed and dressed, grabbed her wallet and keys, and left her apartment without any weapons. She thought about ordering a car but decided the subway fit her mood better.

A train carried her uptown, and she walked the rest of the way to the club. When she reached the nondescript door that opened off of an alley, she knocked in the way her friend had instructed by text. A wiry man with dark skin and dreadlocks opened the door and looked Ryenne up and down, suspicion in his gaze.

“I’m here to see Maximus,” she said.

He pulled out a phone and sent a message. A reply must have come right back because he stepped out of the way and let her in. He led her down some steps and bypassed an archway into the main room of the club, and instead took her down a corridor to the side. At the very end, he knocked on a door and walked back the way they had come.

A deep voice told her to enter, so she opened the door.

“Well, well, well, Ryenne Cavanagh. How the hell are you, bitch?” a huge man with glossy dark skin, close-cropped hair, and a wide smile came out from behind a desk, arms open wide.

“Hey, Maxi.” She stepped into his embrace and enjoyed his usual sandalwood smell. It brought her back to a less complicated time. A time when Gavin had still been her best friend, her mother was safe, and Ryenne wasn’t a shifter.

“I was surprised to get your message,” he said. “You always claimed what we do here was barbaric. What changed your mind?”

Ryenne glanced around the small office decorated in manly leather and metal and dark colors. “Let’s just say my circumstances have changed and I need a kick in the pants.”

His eyes narrowed but as a human, he didn’t have shifter senses. “You want your butt kicked? That’s a new one. Girl, I’ve got to ask. You’re not suicidal, are you? You know, some of these people are vicious.”

“I’m counting on that,” she said. “But, no, I’m not suicidal. I just need to feel something. Anything.”

His gaze softened. “How’s Gavin?”

The name was like a dagger to her heart. “He’s good, Maxi. He’s good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She didn’t want to give Maximus details that would hurt him.

Gavin and Maximus had dated about seven years ago but had broken up when Maxi’s club took over all of his time. Gavin didn’t approve of the club and had given Maxi an ultimatum: Gavin or the club. Maximus had been young and ambitious and less in love than Gavin had hoped.

Gavin would hate what she was about to do. But he no longer had a say.

“Might as well get to it,” she said. “You’re sure you’ve got shifters here tonight?”

He nodded, his gaze sharpening on her. “Every night.”

Good. She didn’t want to get carried away and hurt a human.

Gavin and Ryenne had first met Maximus when he’d hired them to do security for the club because there had been protests when he first opened.

He looked her up and down and took in her usual jeans, dark tank top, and ass-kicking boots. “You going to fight in that?”

She assessed herself. “What’s wrong with this?”

He shrugged. “Nothing, I guess.”

He led her into the main room of the club and she got her first glimpse in years of the fighting ring. Unlike some places, it wasn’t a cage. In fact, there was nothing separating the fighters from the audience. The audience mostly stood around the bar or sat at tables near the mats. Nowadays, Maxi employed full-time shifter bodyguards who stood with beefy arms crossed in front of their beefy chests in various locations around the club. Patrons knew that if anyone stepped out of line or got too close to a fighter, they were out of there, and might get a dislocated shoulder to help them remember the rules.

There was a fight going on when Ryenne entered the main room, and she now understood why Maxi had asked her the question about what she was wearing. The fighters were in costumes. She hadn’t stepped foot in this place in more than five years. She didn’t know how much more professional and glamorized it had become. But all it would have done was convince her not to come here. It wouldn’t have gotten her to dress up. She wasn’t in the right frame of mind for dress-up.

“So how does this work?” she asked.

“I’ll go add you to the roster,” he said. “Wait to be called. What name do you want to use?”

She really hadn’t thought this through. Did she want to be out, even among this small niche group, as a shifter? She was already dressed head to toe in black and it would have to do. “Do you have a mask I can borrow to cover my upper face?”

He held up a finger and sent a message with his phone. About two minutes later, the same slim young man who had let her in came in with a feline-styled black mask. She shrugged. Without a full shift, no one would know if her claws belonged to a big cat or a wolf. She’d take it.

She put it on. “Call me the Huntress.”

Maxi quirked up one side of his mouth and excused himself. She watched him go around the mat to a woman with a clipboard. He gestured toward Ryenne and the woman looked up. She was tiny with a platinum pixie haircut, a red sequined sleeveless mock turtleneck top, and black pants.

Maxi returned to her side. “You’re all set. Joely will call you when it’s your turn, Huntress. Good luck.”

Ryenne didn’t need luck.

She waited her turn near the bar. A young guy with pale skin and a dark beard asked if she wanted anything. She wouldn’t have minded a shot of tequila and a few minutes alone with the bartender. She took it as a good sign that she was starting to feel her urges again. It was an even better sign that she didn’t lean across the bar and grab him by his shirt collar.

“No, thanks. I’ll wait until after my turn,” she said.

His eyebrows rose. “You’re a fighter?”

“We’ll see.”

He filled a glass with a bubbly clear liquid from one of his hoses and placed it in front of her. “Here. At least have a club soda on me.”

She nodded in appreciation. She watched the next couple of fights, all between men, a couple of shifters, and a few humans who wanted to try their skills against a shifter. She especially watched their techniques.

Since becoming a shifter, she had fought with only her shifter side. Almost as if becoming a shifter had changed who she used to be and she’d lost her own fighting technique. She needed to find it again. Maybe it would help her find discipline and control over her urges, as well. Tonight might not be the night for discipline, however. She really just wanted a good pummeling. And maybe to give a good beating in return.

Eventually, Joely called her name, along with that of a male shifter who had won the previous round. He was of average size, so she thought she might be able to take him.

Ryenne stepped into the ring, her nerves jangling. But feeling nerves was a good sign, too, and she felt buoyed. By fear, by nerves. Any emotion, positive or negative, was good after the numbness she’d been feeling since last night.

She faced her opponent. His blond hair and blue eyes reminded her of Gavin.

Shit. She couldn’t punch someone who looked like Gavin. Then again, maybe she didn’t have to. This wasn’t about her beating someone up, it was about her feeling things. Feeling physical pain. She just had to dodge her opponent’s blows often enough that she didn’t get too seriously injured.

The guy came toward her, holding out his hand. “Hey, I’m Dan,” he said.

She took his hand and they shook.

“I don’t see a lot of women here,” he said. “I’ll try to go easy on you.” He smirked.

Her anger flared up as it always did when men were chauvinist pigs. “Don’t bother,” she ground out between her teeth. Now it didn’t matter how much he looked like Gavin. This guy was going down.

They stepped back and Dan started bouncing on his toes like she’d seen boxers do on TV. They circled each other, wary eyes on each other’s faces. The crowd was silent, almost like it was holding its breath, waiting for the first strike.

Ryenne had never done anything like this before. She didn’t know if she should step in and punch Dan in the nose, or if she should wait to see how he opened. From watching his previous fight, she knew he was a clean fighter, who didn’t rely on dirty tactics, but he did have a tendency to leave his right flank unprotected. So she chose to wait him out.

She could feel the crowd getting restless. The clatter of glasses increased. A guy called out, “Come on, hit her.”

Ryenne smiled. “You heard the dude.”

Dan’s eyes narrowed as if he were trying to figure out her trick. She feinted left to force him into action. He jabbed at her with his right hand. In a fight with a rogue, that would’ve been her opportunity to stun his right side with one of her Tasers. But this was a clean fight in a classy establishment. No weapons allowed. She also didn’t want to give away yet that she knew where he was vulnerable. So she merely stepped out of the range of his jab. He followed up with a series of punches aimed for her face but Ryenne weaved back and forth and avoided his fists. So far, this wasn’t much fun.

“Afraid to hit a girl?” someone called out from the crowd.

Ryenne smirked and made a come here gesture with her fingers. Dan gave into the taunts, anticipated her next dodge, and connected with her shoulder. Pain radiated down her arm.

She smiled. Pain. She felt it. And it woke up her wolf, who roared inside her and, before Dan could step back outside of her range, she jabbed him in the face. The crowd gasped. She bounced on her toes, waiting for his next move.

Her punch must have woken Dan’s animal as well because he came at her in controlled fury, lashing out with his fists. She blocked some but not all of his strikes. His fist connected with different parts of her body, over and over, as she landed a few punches of her own.

But as she began to tire, he seemed to thrive on renewed energy. He hauled back and gave her one good punch in the face that knocked her backwards. She sprawled on the floor, tasting her own blood. She stayed down but she smiled and nodded at him.

He came over and offered her a hand up. She took it and stood.

“Thanks,” she said, dabbing at her bleeding lip.

He shrugged. “You’re welcome.”

Off the mats, Joely handed her a towel and she nodded her thanks.

She walked to the bar. “I’ll take that drink now. A shot of Patrón. No lime.”