Ryenne drank the last of her mother’s elixir she had brought from home and found Dany alone in the kitchen. “I want to confront Grieux and find out why he’s doing this and what it will take to make him stop.”

Dany’s face showed surprise. “Are you crazy?”

“Maybe. But don’t you want to know why? Don’t you want answers? What he’s doing is crazy.”

Dany nodded.

“I don’t want to go by myself,” Ryenne continued.

“Hey, what am I? Chopped liver?” Gavin asked.

Ryenne smiled at him. “Of course not. I know you can take care of yourself, but these shifters are more dangerous and more vicious than what we’ve been used to in the past. So, I was hoping for some shifter backup.” She turned to Dany. “Are you in?”

Dany wiped her hands on a dishtowel. “You bet. Let’s go.”

“Where’s Guy?” Ryenne asked.

“With one of our clients, trying to convince them not to give up on us. But I’ll message him and maybe he can meet us there.”

Ryenne nodded.

“What about Lucien?” Dany asked. “He’s upstairs with Pascal.”

“He’d just talk me out of it.”

Dany narrowed her eyes. “I don’t like lying to my brother, but...” She dropped the towel on the counter and marched to the front door. Ryenne and Gavin followed.

Dany drove her mother’s car and Ryenne rode shotgun.

Ryenne knew they’d never get past the receptionist from the other day, the one with the severe black bob. She caught a glimpse of her beyond Lord Enterprise’s glass front door as the car crawled past, looking for a parking spot as well as a second visible entrance on the street.

They ended up on the next block—far enough away to stay under the Fangs’ radar but close enough for a quick getaway.

“Maybe you should stay here with the car,” Ryenne suggested to Gavin.

He raised his eyebrows at her. She knew it was a long shot, but he hadn’t been with her in Kenya, and she knew what the Fangs were capable of. She didn’t want him anywhere near Lord Enterprises but she hadn’t been able to slip out of the Malraux house without him.

She sighed. Why did he insist on being so hard to protect?

They decided to split up in order to check different directions of the building and text if they found a way in. Ryenne insisted Gavin come with her so she could keep an eye on him.

Because there was always the slight chance the severely-coiffed receptionist would turn her head just as Ryenne and Gavin walked past, they took the near side of the building and sent Dany—who was hopefully still unknown to most of the Fangs—to the far side, past the front door.

“Do French buildings have the same rules and regulations as American buildings?” Gavin asked. “Do they have to have an emergency exit?”

“I don’t know. But a building this size is bound to have another way in even if it isn’t on the ground floor.”

But they quickly found there was no visible side of the building. It was attached to the building next to it. They walked back to the corner, in the direction in which they’d parked the car, and turned down the nearest side street to look for an alley running behind. When they didn’t find a handy alley, they kept walking to the next block.

“What if we can’t find a way to the back of the Lord building?” Gavin asked.

“There’s got to be another way in. There just has to be. We’ll find something even if I have to rappel down from a roof.”

“Or maybe Dany will find something on the other side,” Gavin mumbled.

They reached a point they thought was directly behind the Lord Enterprises building. There was no alley and no way into the building.

Ryenne huffed out a breath. “In New York City, there’d be an alley.”

Her phone buzzed with a text. “Hopefully Dany has some good news for us.” She glanced at her phone. “Awesome. She’s found what looks like a gate into a back garden.” She tapped out a response and then strode off down the narrow street, lined on both sides with cars parked willy nilly on both the street and the sidewalk. “Come on.”

Dany waited for them at the next corner. “There’s another building between Lord Enterprises and the side street, but I found this gate. Maybe from the garden we’ll find a way into the Lord compound.”

Without other options, it was worth a try.

“The gate’s locked,” Dany said. “But I figured one of us would be able to get it open, between my supernatural strength and your tools.”

Ryenne pulled a lock pick out of the wristband of her watch, the one her mom had made her years ago.

Dany smiled. “See? I knew you’d have a way. If I had to use my shifter strength, someone would know we’d been here.”

The lock was old and yielded easily to Ryenne’s pick. The gate, more like a wooden door in a frame in the stone wall, swung open with a creak. Inside, the compound had clearly not been tended in years. Grasses stood at waist height, stone pavers were slippery with moss, and there was an abundance of growth between each one.

They immediately got into the shadow of the building and crossed the yard. On the far side was another wall that jutted out from the end of the building where it joined, almost seamlessly, with the next building—that of Lord Enterprises. They searched for a door or gate or an easy way over the wall.

The sun beat down on Ryenne’s bare head and she wished she’d thought to bring a hat. It was summer, after all. But she never wore hats and hadn’t even in the brutal sun of Kenya.

A door slammed against stone behind them. She whirled around. The door to the building that dominated this overgrown yard hung open, and men and women in black business suits and sunglasses poured out of it. Some had earpieces, some had bared claws, all had stern expressions.

Ryenne, Gavin, and Dany took up defensive stances, but there were too many Fangs. Ryenne had counted twenty, which meant she had to take out at least six of them. Ryenne knew they’d need a miracle to all get out of this alive and unharmed.

She pulled her dagger from her back sheath and swung it in a wide arc to keep the attackers away. The Fangs had quickly moved into positions between Ryenne’s friends and the gate.

Dany’s claws were out as she swiped at three rogues who were closing in on her.

Ryenne couldn’t help Dany because a tall, thin man with white-blond hair came toward her.

“You,” Ryenne breathed, recognizing him from the café.

The snake shifter sneered and his fangs elongated from his mouth, dripping liquid, possibly venom.

Ryenne shuddered. “Gav,” she yelled and tossed him a closed switchblade from her pocket. Out of the corner of her eye, as she swung her dagger again, she saw Gavin catch the knife and pull one of her mom’s small stun guns from his pocket. She should have known he’d come prepared, but she’d been blinded by fear for him.

Ryenne and Dany stood back to back so they could cover all sides. They tried to keep Gavin on the far side of them as they moved toward the gate through the crowd. Movement from an upper story of the building caught her eye and she glanced up to see Chantal’s secretive date, also in a black business suit, arms crossed in front of his chest.

Who was he?

The snake shifter lunged for Ryenne and she brought her attention back to him in time to slice him with the dagger. He hissed and fell back. He was replaced by the weaselly man from the café last week and a ruddy, pinch-faced woman she’d never seen before.

Ryenne didn’t wait to see what they’d do. She kicked the weasel shifter in the face and slashed at the woman with her dagger. The man fell to the ground, a hand covering his nose. He shouted in French.

The woman jumped back but soon recovered and flew at Ryenne with outstretched hands tipped by sharp claws. Ryenne ducked, stabbed the woman in the thigh, and brought her fist up into the woman’s jaw. The Fang doubled over with an oof of expelled air. Ryenne finished her off with a front snap kick into the woman’s face.

The snake shifter returned for round two. Ryenne executed a back spin kick into his chest. As he fell sideways, she pushed forward and zapped him with the stun gun she’d had hidden up her sleeve.

She’d lost track of her friends but found herself at the gate. Dashing through, she glanced around, dagger and stun gun ready. Dany staggered through the gate, bleeding from a gash on the side of her head, and holding her left arm tight against her body. Three Fangs spilled out behind her.

“Gavin!” Ryenne whirled around, frantically searching for her best friend.

Two shifters came at her, baring claws and fangs, and she had to focus on not getting killed or bitten. She jabbed one Fang in the leg with the dagger and kicked the other in the face. Then, she followed up with zaps of the stun gun to each and watched them crumple to the ground.

Dany punched another shifter in the nose with her good arm and Ryenne dashed to her side to help. She elbowed him in the gut, back-handed him in the mouth, jabbed his side with the stun gun, and whirled around to face the next opponent, but no one else came through the gate. In fact, the door was now closed.

Ryenne pulled at it but it wouldn’t open, somehow jammed from the other side. She pounded on it and yelled for Gavin, her voice breaking on his name.

“Ryenne,” Dany called, pain evident in her tone. “We’ll have to come back for him.”

A couple of shifters on the ground began to stir. Ryenne saw the wisdom in Dany’s words, but her stomach twisted at the idea of leaving Gavin behind.

“I can’t,” she said. “He’s not like us. He can’t fight them off by himself.”

Dany staggered toward her and took her arm. “He did great from what I saw, but there were too many of them. They were waiting for us. We have to get the rest of the family.”

Yes, the rest of the family. Lucien and Guy, Françoise, Mathieu, and Emma. Together, they’d be seven against the Fangs. Much better odds.

The injured Fangs stood and wobbled toward them. Before they could fully recover their wits, Ryenne gave one another jolt with the stun gun and Dany punched the other on the side of the head. As they fell once again to the ground, Ryenne and Dany ran for the car. Worried more Fangs might come out of the front door of Lord Enterprises, they again took the street behind the Lord building.

At the car, Ryenne took stock of their injuries. She had some scratches and sore spots that would probably bruise, but Dany’s head was still bleeding and she continued to grip her left arm against her body.

“Shit, Dany.”

“I’m fine.” But her normally sunny and bright countenance was now dark and pained.

“You’re not fine. Here.” She ripped off the bottom of her shirt and tried to stanch Dany’s bleeding.

“It’s not as serious as it looks. A knife grazed me. Pascal will fix me up just fine and I’ll probably be healed by the time we get home anyway.”

“What about your arm?”

“Hmm, it might be broken, but it’ll be fine by tonight. I can’t move it, though. Can you drive stick shift?”

“Sure, but I’m a little rusty. I don’t drive much in New York.” Not like they had a choice.

Spurred by the pain on Dany’s face, Ryenne drove them through rush-hour traffic according to Dany’s directions. Every few minutes, Ryenne glanced at Dany and caught a wince or tightening of her jaw.

“I’m fine,” Dany kept insisting, but Ryenne saw otherwise. Dread filled the pit of her stomach.