“She’s coming to.” This was the first awareness Camden had as she woke. The voice wasn’t one she was familiar with. She didn’t scent an enemy or anger. Her head pounded.

She stretched, and discovered she was in her panther’s body. How—what—why? She pushed for a shift and with the usual—but not enjoyable—crunching and tearing, she morphed into her human form and opened her eyes.

A pair of concerned eyes attached to a good-looking man’s face were studying her. Behind him, a dark-haired equally attractive woman watched. Her dark eyes flashed indigo. Clearly, an elemental resided within this woman. And the man was a shifter, that much she picked up from his aura, but the woman was not, she was strictly elemental.

“I’m Doc Evans,” the good-looking man said.

“Doc?” Camden was confused.

“You’ve been hibernating to heal.”

She frowned at him. Then the memories flooded back. The fox shifter. Bleeding horribly. The ice cage that Avala trapped the shifter in.

Passing out.

“I… who helped me? What happened to that fox shifter?”

“Luckily, Mae and I were guiding the council members to the O’Reardon place. We heard screams and…” Doc Evans shrugged. “Found the shifter encased in ice, and you unconscious, losing blood, and almost gone. With help from Mae’s elemental, we were able to get you to shift so you could heal in hibernation. The fox is in custody.”

Hibernation healing. Camden had never had to use it. She’d heard of it, when a shifter was wounded bad enough, they could hibernate and heal in order to survive. She’d seen it work on the burnt twin earlier.

She touched her throat and felt the slight rise of the scar that had not faded yet. The fox shifter had definitely done some damage.

Then it hit her—what Doc Evans said. “Mae?” The Mae? The Mae that had gone to see Circe? She studied the woman. “You’re Mae?”

She nodded and stepped forward, wrapping her arms around Camden. “You and Eden were still away with the monks of the Order of Elementals, training in the Carpathians when I left Denver.”

Camden tried to absorb everything running through her head. “What about Circe?”

“We just arrived from Denver,” Mae said with a smile playing on her lips. “All is well with Circe.”

“You mean she doesn’t ha—” She brought herself up short. She almost said hate.

A soft laugh escaped Mae’s lips. “Your sister Circe is nothing, if not passionate. She feels things deeply, but the love we have for one another would not be outdone by decades apart or misunderstandings.”

Relief flooded through Camden. She’d have to talk to Circe. She knew this must have pleased her sister, because despite how much Circe tried to pretend that Mae didn’t matter to her, it was clear she did.

“Where’s Eden?”

“She’s with the twins.”

“You mentioned the council…” Camden said.

“Yes, they’ve come in. Marie’s call brought them in.”

“What do you mean? And why? And how…”

The Shifter Council, based in New York, functioning much like the League of Nations might, was an entity that exercised much more power than the League of Nations. The Shifter Council made law and enforced law. There were no checks and balances. They determined what needed to be done in order to preserve peace among shifters and they wielded their decisions with a heavy hand.

Oh, Camden had never dealt with them personally, but she’d heard plenty of stories.

“Why would Marie call them in?”

Mae frowned. “I’m not saying it’s your fault…” Her tone sure said it was. “…but it seems that something you said brought the twins to the council’s attention. And not in a favorable way. They’re here to assess and possibly reassign the twins from Sean and Tyler’s care.” There were tears in Mae’s eyes. “When Griz gets back to town, something’s going to hit the fan and it won’t be pretty.”

“Why? Why would they remove them?”

“Seems your concerns raised flags for Marie. She called the Advocates of Young Shifters. AYS is a branch of the Council. They protect young shifters—just like their title states.”

“Protect them from what?” Camden was genuinely concerned. She had no reason to believe Sean or Tyler had done anything that endangered the little girls.

Doc shrugged. “Protect them from whatever it was that you gave Marie reason to be concerned.”

Camden shook her head. “This needs to be cleared up.”

“You think so?” Mae sounded bitter.

“The group is meeting at Grant’s place. Eden and Tyler are there. Sean’s still out on assignment.”

“I have to straighten this out. How can they be having a meeting without my testimony?”

“They’ve been collecting facts and interviewing everyone, while they waited for you to return from your hibernation.”

Camden sprang out of bed. “Then I’m ready to set the record straight.” She could only imagine how frustrated Tyler must be right now. “What kinds of things can the council do?”

“Take custody of the girls.”

“What?” Camden slammed her hand over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to screech. “What? They can just do that?”

Doc nodded. “They are the Shifter Council. Their laws are supreme in the land. The only recourse to changing status or decisions is to take matters to the Shifter Supreme Court. The court rarely decides against the Council, though.”

Camden caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her clothes were crumpled from the shifting. “I need to get into some other clothing.” She ran a hand over her bedhead. “And do something with this mess.”

Camden caught Mae’s hands, forced her to look her in the eye. “We’re on the same side. I promise.”

Mae was silent, her expression dubious.

“I promise,” Camden reiterated. “I don’t want to see the girls yanked from Tyler or Sean. I can see how deeply they care for each other.” Though, she couldn’t understand the placement to begin with. Didn’t they usually place kids with couples, instead of bachelor males who were clearly single and probably focused on other things?

She let out a sigh. Though this placement was a mystery to her, she knew Tyler and Sean were the right ones to take care of the girls.

And now she had a mess to fix, that evidently, she created.

And I didn’t even mean to.