He shifted his stance, and his irises took on a preternatural glow. Her hackles rose. She spun around before she heard the rustle behind her, kicking herself inwardly for being caught unawares, another sign that Elijah had knocked her off her game.

A slender woman stepped into the clearing. Dressed in a simple sleeveless floral dress with buttons down the front, she looked fresh and innocent except for her eyes, which were narrowed and hot with hatred.

Rachel. The mate of the lycan Vash had tortured in an effort to find Elijah, whose blood had been left at the scene of Nikki’s abduction.

“Back off, Rachel,” Elijah warned.

“She’s mine, El.”

Vash moved subtly, firming her stance and preparing to unsheathe the blades on her back. She commiserated with Rachel’s loss and she didn’t disagree with the lycan’s right to chal enge her—after al , revenge for a murdered mate was a goal they shared—but damned if she’d go down for anyone without fight.

“No, Rachel,” he growled softly. “She’s mine.”

“You owe me this. He died protecting you.”

“He didn’t give me up. I won’t deny that.” He moved closer, stepping in front of Vash, acting as a shield. “But Micah set me up in the first place. He planted my blood, and that lured Vash to hunt me.”

Rachel’s mouth curved, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “How would he do that? Only Sentinels have access to the cryogenic storage facilities.”

“The same Sentinel or Sentinels who took Lindsay from Angels’ Point?”

If Vash hadn’t been watching so closely, she might’ve missed the shiver of fear that raised the hairs on Rachel’s arms. As it was, Vash felt a grudging admiration for the Alpha, who was so swiftly piecing together a picture of double-crosses and fractured loyalties.

Rachel ripped open the front of her dress and shifted, and Vash whipped out her blades. Elijah darted forward in human form, catching the snarling she-wolf in the air and deflecting her.

If Vash had harbored any doubts that he was an Alpha, they would have been completely dispel ed. She’d never heard of a lycan able to resist a shift while under attack. Never thought she’d see it.

“Stop it,” Elijah barked, his words cracking like a whip.

But Rachel was beyond caring. She hunkered low and came at Vash again. Vash leaped to the roof of the Jeep to gain the high ground and prepared to slice back, but Elijah pivoted with a roar, grabbing Rachel and crushing her spine to his chest. Standing on her hind legs in lupine form, the female was bigger than he was. She clawed at the air with her forepaws, her jaws snapping over her shoulder.

“Cut it out.” His bare feet skidded on the ground as he wrestled her writhing body. “Don’t make me hurt you, Rach. Don’t— Damn it.”

Rachel’s back paw scraped his calf, eliciting a bel ow of pain and fresh gushing of blood as his injury from the day before rent anew. The potent scent of his blood fil ed Vash’s nostrils. Her fangs descended; her body tightened with hunger. She crouched, her gaze shooting to the mouth of the cave. A witness would be helpful, but she saw none forthcoming.

Elijah hurled the wolf aside again and tore open his button fly. In a split second, he’d shifted into a pony-sized wolf with rich chocolate fur and a lupine face as majestic as his human one was gorgeous. He howled, the sound echoing off the red rock and rol ing like thunder through the canyon.

Rachel slinked across the dusty ground, her lips pul ed back in a snarling display of wickedly sharp teeth. Elijah stalked her, growling low and deep with unmistakable menace. Vash’s breathing quickened. She smel ed the third lycan before she saw him.

In human form, Stephan leaped onto the rooftop beside her and landed nimbly on his feet. “Jesus,” the Beta hissed. “This is the last thing we need.”

“You’re my witness,” she said, before diving off the SUV with her blades leading the charge, her body stretched to its ful length.

The she-wolf pounced with a bark, meeting her halfway. Her katanas were a mere inch from fur-covered flesh and muscle when Elijah tackled Rachel from the side, slamming her out of the way. Vash’s blades sank into the ground where the she-wolf had been a mere second before. Using the anchored swords as leverage, she held the hilts and flipped, her legs arcing over her head and landing on the other side. She hit the ground in a crouch, her boots pounding into the dirt. The sickening crunch of broken bone sounded behind her.

“Fuckin’ A,” she cursed, knowing death when she heard it.

* * *

Elijah shifted forms, the power of his lycan sight diminishing into that of a human’s, then blurring with tears. He stared down at the lycan lying at his feet, watching fur melt into flesh as life flowed out of Rachel’s body from the punctures in her broken neck. Dropping heavily to his knees, he threw his head back and howled his grief.

“Damn it,” Vash snapped at his back. “You should’ve let me do it. It would have been self-defense. The others would’ve accepted that easier than they wil you kil ing a lycan while protecting a vamp.”

A growl at his back alerted him to Stephan’s presence behind him. Bracing for the agony of a bite he wouldn’t defend himself against, he was startled when the expected attack didn’t come and Vashti spoke instead.

“I’m not going to hit him while he’s down, Beta,” she said drily. “You don’t have to protect him from me, even if he does need a smack upside the head for jumping in when I can protect myself.”

“I didn’t do it for you.” Gathering himself, Elijah stood and col ected his jeans, yanking them on. “I can’t afford disobedience now. Letting you two get to each other after I ordered Rachel away would only prove that my word isn’t law, and it needs to be.”

His chest heaving, he swiped his tears away and fought down the rising bile in his throat. An icy lump had settled in his gut, guilt eating through him like acid. He’d kil ed the woman he had promised to protect from harm, the widow of his closest friend. While her death had been certain from the moment Micah died—lycans couldn’t live long after the loss of their mate—he’d never imagined the nightmare of being the hand that dealt the fatal blow.

Stephan shifted, but kept a defensive position between Elijah and Vash.

“Alpha.” His voice was calm and control ed. “How do you want to handle this?”

Elijah faced him. “I’l inform the others. Take whoever you need and see Rachel buried as wel as possible. Then take these cameras and set them around the perimeter in ever-widening circles. If you need help setting up the feed, Vashti wil assist you.”

“I’l take care of it.”

Stephan’s immediate compliance might’ve soothed him, if that had been even remotely possible. Before his Beta walked away, he stopped him.

“Stephan…thank you. For everything.”

Giving a brief nod of acknowledgment, Stephan gathered his clothes from the ground and moved away.

Elijah set off toward the caves. Remorse weighted his shoulders and stung his eyes. He’d never wanted this, never wanted the responsibility of making such brutal decisions or having the power to see them enforced.

“Hold up, Alpha.” Vash drew abreast of him, swords stil in hand. “I’m coming with you.”

The way she strode by his side, armed, offered her support without words. They were a united front. Al ies. He almost laughed at the terrible absurdity.

“You have to put it away, Alpha.”

He came to an abrupt halt, his hands fisting at his sides.

“Wanna take it out on someone?” she asked softly, facing him and sliding one blade into its scabbard. “I’m your girl. I’m always up for a heated sparring match. But you’l regret carrying that baggage in front of the others. Trust me. I know.”

“Do you?” he chal enged. “Have you kil ed someone you promised to protect with your life?”

Amazingly, her beautiful amber eyes softened with something like sympathy. “I’ve done some horrible things, things I’m not proud of and have a hard time living with. It’s part of the job of being a leader. I’m not saying you should suck it up and get over it, because you’re not going to get over it.

That’s also part of the job—if you stop caring, you’re worthless. I’m just saying you can’t stand in front of your troops seething with guilt, because that implies culpability and this was an assisted suicide. Rachel had to know she couldn’t possibly win against you or me. She was ready to go, and this was how she chose to do it.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” His friendships were precious to him. As frustrated as he was with Rachel, she was stil a friend and a pack member and he ached from her loss.

Vash shrugged. “Nothing wil . But you didn’t do anything wrong. It was a shitty thing to do, yeah, but it had to be done. For her sake, my sake, your sake, and the sake of this al iance that we both real y fucking need. As I said, if you wanna knock it out, I’m here. Just don’t take it in there.”

“There wil be more,” he muttered, respecting her counsel and appreciating—however reluctantly—that she’d offered it. “The others didn’t know what they were getting into when they orchestrated this revolt, and many of them aren’t going to be happy with the decisions I’m making.”

“Fuck ’em. Until they’ve been in command, they can’t know what it’s like.”

He snorted. She knew what it was like, which created an unexpected affinity between them.

She smacked him on the shoulder. “Ready, puppy?”

Fuck. She was hot as hel but total y crazy. Irreverent and unpredictable, too. Yet when he’d researched her, he’d heard the stories of her hunts— she was like a lycan on the scent when she pursued, dogged and unwavering, dependable for those who hunted with her. And now it seemed there was a method to her madness.

He growled. It’d been better when the only thing he admired about her was her tits. “Stick close to me.”

“I’ve got your back.”

“Fine. Make it easy for me to have yours.”

She glanced at him as they entered the main cavern. Blood stil stained the ground from his earlier fight and he was trudging in more, his wounded leg leaving a crimson trail in his wake.

Throwing his head back, he howled, a purely inhuman sound. Within moments, the space began to fil . Vash appeared startled by the number of lycans who poured in. “Jeez. Who knew so many furries could fit in one cave?”

Elijah waited until the room was so ful that a mere five feet of clearance surrounded them. He relayed the recent events without inflection— starting with Vashti’s arrival and ending with his reason for taking the life of a packmate. His remorse and frustration roiled, twisting around his vitals, but he contained them, even as he expressed sincere regret that they’d lost one of their own.

As some of the lycans in the room shifted into their lupine forms, Vash lifted her blade and set the flat of it against her shoulder. While her pose was casual, it conveyed her battle readiness. The beasts paced and she tracked them with her gaze.

“I’m asking you to trust the orders I give and the actions I take,” he finished, “whether you understand and agree with them or not. If you can’t, I won’t stop you from leaving and I won’t think less of you. If you stay, some of you wil be on the move tomorrow and working with vampires. In either case, try to get some rest tonight. Things wil be stressful for al of us for the next while.”

He started forward, heading for the cavern he was using as sleeping quarters. The female who’d announced Vash’s arrival the day before stepped into his path. Sarah was a young Omega—he guessed mid-twenties—and exceptional y pretty, with long straight black hair and tip-tilted eyes.

“Alpha.” She met his gaze shyly. “Al ow me to tend your wounds.”

He almost brushed her off, his emotions too volatile to welcome company. But her earnestness touched him. While there were many who would chal enge him, there were others who needed a different sort of guidance—a soft touch and gentle words to go along with a firm hand. It was the sort of leadership he longed to provide and hoped he could eventual y achieve once their situation became less precarious. “I’d be grateful if you would, Sarah.”

Battery-operated lights lined the passageway. Gesturing at his office, he spoke over his shoulder to Vashti. “Grab your bag.”

She muttered something under her breath, but complied. She joined him a few minutes later in his room, entering at the moment he had his hands on his fly. He shed his ruined pants and sat on the military locker placed at the foot of his air mattress. Sarah sank to her knees between his spread legs and opened the first-aid kit.

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Vash queried tightly.

Elijah looked up at her, noting the rigidness of her jaw and her narrowed gaze. Nudity was nothing to a lycan, but perhaps it meant something to Vashti. Wondering if the vampress could possibly be feeling as proprietary about him as he felt about her, he reached out and tucked Sarah’s hair behind one ear. Vash stepped closer, the hand not holding her duffel wrapping tightly around the hilt of a blade strapped to her thigh.

“Where’s my room?” she demanded. “I’l give you some privacy.”

“You’re standing in it.”

Her gaze lifted from his cock to his eyes. “What?”

“You’re rooming with me.”

“Like hel .”

Canting his arms back, he gripped the rear edge of the trunk and stretched his wounded leg out. “It’s the one place I can trust you’l be safe.”

“I can damn wel take care of myself.”

He took a deep breath, released it. “No argument, but the odds are against you.”