Done breaking promises to herself, Tenlee pulled her shirt and jeans from the destroyed Suburban. She’d just watched the police take Kurt, Ava, Colt, and Trig away in the cruisers, and a sense of calm had come over her when she realized what she had to do.

The rear door had been ripped off by Ava’s huge claws and was sitting across the road where she’d thrown it, so Tenlee’s clothes had been easy to get to. She’d never wanted to Change back to her human skin so quickly.

She needed to get her affairs in order. Or more specifically, Kurt’s.

She shook off as much broken glass as she could before dressing carefully. Trig, Kurt, and Colt had locked up the forks on their bikes before the police had taken them away so she wasn’t too worried about leaving those here.

Biker code said no one could steal a bike with club colors on them without swift retaliation, but she wasn’t scared of Red Dead Mayhem anymore. With a grunt of effort, Tenlee lifted Daniel’s Harley off the ground where it had skidded to a stop on the side of the road. He was one of the dead crows. He wouldn’t need his anymore. Once upon a time, in a life that felt very far away now, she’d grown tired of riding on the back of Ramsey’s Harley. He rode too fast and she didn’t trust him with her life. Didn’t trust him to have any control, but there had been so much pressure from the crows to be normal. So…she’d learned to ride a sportster that Momma Crow had let her borrow. Learning to ride had been a tiny victory, because she’d gained back a tiny fraction of control when she got to ride her own motorcycle. But even though she’d ridden often, she’d never ridden this one, so it took her a minute to familiarize herself with it. This one was heavier. She turned over the engine and reveled in the throaty rumble and the power under her. She turned it slowly before blasting down the road back toward town.

Karis was waiting on a bench outside the ice cream shop, and Gunner was sitting beside her, eating a double scoop of vanilla in a cone. He got a megawatt grin when he saw her, and waved as she parked the Harley by the curb.

“You ride motorcycles like my dad!” he called in his cute voice.

For as tough as she’d always thought she was, she went to her knees when he bolted for her. She held out her arms and hugged him up tight like she hadn’t seen  him in days. So much had happened since this morning, good and bad. Life-changing stuff if the clusters of humans standing around talking to police were anything to go by.

The future of shifters had just changed so rapidly it hadn’t really sunk in yet.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Karis asked.

Tenlee nodded so Gunner wouldn’t hear the worry in her voice. The shifters were out there now, and there was no way to tell how bad this was going to get for them.

Her fault.

“I have to do something before we go home,” she said.

Karis was staring at the chaos in the street but with ghosts in her eyes. She nodded. “Okay. I think I need to call my brothers. One is a lawyer, and they have plans in place for if this ever happened.”

“If what happened?” Gunner asked, clutching his melting ice cream.

No point in lying to him. He was a smart kid. “If shifters ever got found out by humans.”

His chocolate brown eyes went round. “Did we get found out?”

Tenlee tried to make her smile reassuring as she nodded. “Yeah, but everything is going to be okay.” Eventually. She hoped.

She stood and brought Gunner with her, all the way to her hip. She didn’t care that he was six and might not have wanted to be carried all the way to the Gutshot like a toddler. Right now, she just wanted to hold him. Her days like this were numbered, and she would need this feeling of him in her arms to last the rest of her life.

“What happened?” Karis whispered.

As they walked up the sidewalk, Tenlee told her about the fight and the arrests as quietly as possible. And when she stopped in front of the Gutshot and opened the door for Karis, her friend balked. “Oh, we shouldn’t go in there. This place used to be run by the Darby Clan.”

Tenlee opened the door wider, propped it up with her shoe, and adjusted Gunner’s weight on her hip. “There is no more Darby Clan. We killed them all.” So. Much. Killing. It wasn’t the Clan’s fault that the neighboring Clans kept gunning for them, but at some point, it had to stop before everyone destroyed each other. Now wasn’t the time for shifter wars. They were about to fight a much bigger one now that the humans knew about them.

With a frown, Karis made her way into the bar. At the window stood the two people Tenlee was looking for.

Trina and her father, Cooper, the only two left from the Darby Clan, and that was only because they’d been mostly rogue and disobeyed Alpha orders to attack the Two Claws Clan.

Cooper’s bushy gray eyebrows were lowered with worry, and the pretty blond was worried too, but when she looked at Gunner, she forced a smile and held out her arms. He scrambled down and let Trina scoop him up. Cooper rubbed his back and chuckled. “Long time no see, Boy Cub. We’ve missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” Gunner chirped happily.

“Who are you?” Trina asked. “And where’s Kurt?”

“That’s Tenten,” Gunner explained, licking a vanilla drip that was about to escape the bottom of his cone. “She’s a squirrel girl.”

“Ooooh,” Trina murmured, lifting her chin higher. “We’ve heard rumors of an Origin. I’m guessing that’s you.” She looked out the window at the busy street and police lights. “Is this all because of you?”

Tenlee sighed. “In a way. Kurt is in the precinct right now. I don’t know when he’ll get out, but I have a huge favor to ask for when he does.”

Trina huffed a laugh and looked at Cooper. “A stranger asking favors.”

“Not for me.” She gestured to Gunner who had climbed down from Trina and was walking toward the jukebox with Karis. “For him and for Kurt.”

Trina pulled out a chair from the nearest table and sat, then tilted her head toward the chair across from her. “I’m listening.”

Cooper said he was going to make some drinks for them while they talked, so as he walked toward the bar at the back, Tenlee took the seat.

No use beating around the bush. “Kurt’s dying.”

“I know,” Trina uttered without a single second of hesitation.

“How do you know?”

“Because somedays it feels like I’m dying. My dad, too. That’s what broken bonds do. The only reason we’re still standing is because we stayed on the outside of the Darby Clan, but it hasn’t been easy. Everyone’s gone.” Trina huffed a breath and winced. “They’re not just gone. I mean, they don’t exist anymore, and now it’s just me and my dad trying to figure out where we fit in this town. Not with the crows. Not with the bears.” Trina shrugged her shoulders up to her ears. “I can’t even imagine what Kurt’s feeling. He was bonded and he won an Alpha Challenge, but then he didn’t take over the Clan. Everyone died instead.”

“Their choice,” Karis called from the jukebox. She gave Trina a cold glare. “We didn’t go into mountain lion territory and attack you. Didn’t try to Change one of you against your will and kill the others. We just defended ourselves.”

“Settle down, bear,” Trina growled. “I wasn’t blaming you. Didn’t say my people didn’t deserve what hit ’em. Only that it’s hard for those of us who are left. I don’t even like you, but I pray you never feel the hole a demolished Clan leaves behind. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. It’s a fuckin’ miracle Kurt’s still alive.”

Karis growled audibly and pulled Gunner against her thigh protectively. “Easy,” she said, then pushed a couple buttons on the music player and blared a rock song.

Trina crossed her arms over her chest and leveled Tenlee with her green eyes. “Are you Kurt’s?”

Tenlee nodded. “Kurt’s and Gunner’s. I would do anything for them.”

“What do you want from me?”

“What’s the word. The crows call it something. Fea…feal…fealty.”

Trina’s face went comically blank, and then she laughed. Cooper took a seat beside them and set a trio of drinks on the table. Looked and smelled like straight whiskey. This was gonna burn.

“Fealty,” Trina said, leaning back on two legs of her chair. The table was a whiskey barrel and not very big. She looked over at Cooper like she expected back-up from him, but he only said, “Explain fealty.”

“Fealty to Kurt. He is friends with the bears, but he isn’t Clan. Trig can’t order him to do anything. He’s too dominant. Or too sick to bond with them maybe. He needs a Clan under him, and you already have some bond to him, right?”

Cooper swallowed hard and dipped his chin to his chest once.

“He won’t go for it. I’ve already asked,” Trina said.

“He will now. I’ve seen how much he hurts. And I won’t be around to take care of Gunner. When he realizes that and figures out Gunner isn’t bonding to Trig as his Alpha, he’ll listen. He has to.”

Trina frowned. “You won’t be around?”

Tenlee’s voice would give away how heartbroken she was, so she shook her head as an answer. Karis and Gunner weren’t paying attention. They were on the dance floor shaking their butts to the song. Tenlee took a mental picture. Happy moments. She was collecting them.

“Yes,” Cooper said.

“Dad,” Trina warned.

“I don’t care about the risk.” He flicked his fingers to the hordes of people outside. “That is a tornado coming, and we have no shelter. The crows have each other. The bears have each other. It’s just us, Trina, and you know well as I do, Kurt was always the Alpha who was meant to lead the Darby Clan. Everything just got fucked up before he could take us over properly. We’ll get a good man for an Alpha—”

“You could be our Alpha—”

“I’m an old man, Trina! I don’t want to do this alone. I don’t want to hurt over the bonds, and I sure as fuck don’t want to watch you suffer. You’re my daughter. It’s my responsibility to keep you safe, and the best way I can do that is to grow our numbers. If Kurt lives, we both know what he’s capable of. We’ve seen him go to war. Seen him spill blood to protect the people in his care like it’s nothing. He will be one hell of an Alpha for us.”

“If he lives,” Trina whispered.

“Yeah. If he lives. Let’s give him that shot. Give Gunner a place with us. It’ll ally us with the bears because of Kurt’s friendship with them. It’s a smart move, Trina, and more than that? It’s the right thing to do. Look at that cub over there.”

Trina’s gaze dragged to Gunner, who was laughing and spinning circles on the dance floor.

“His dad is done for without us. He’s an orphan without us.”

Trina dropped her gaze to the whiskey, and when she lifted her attention again, her pretty eyes were rimmed with moisture. “Okay,” she murmured. “On one condition.”

“Name it.” She would literally do anything for Kurt and Gunner.

“Whatever you’re planning on doing? You can’t leave Kurt. If you’re his mate, he won’t be okay without you, and none of this will matter then.”

It was the only promise she couldn’t make. She couldn’t explain the complicated hole she’d dug for herself or the reasons she needed to leave Kurt. She couldn’t explain she was trying to make life safer for Kurt and Gunner, for Two Claws, and even for Trina and Cooper. They wouldn’t understand until it was done.

So…she forced a smile, lifted her drink in a toast, and together they downed their whiskey. All she could do was hope that someday they would forgive her broken oath.