“And she’s waiting,” Alex said. “Eli called her too.”

Four knocks sounded on the front door. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Ayatas’s knock.

The urge to hit something swept me up, taking me over for maybe a half dozen too-rapid heartbeats. I clenched my fists to keep the claws retracted and swallowed down my own emotions. Breathed. Forced the rage down. Down, away, and back. Eli was right. I was angry for all the wrong reasons. I needed to get the information about my supposed brother. I needed to settle this personal thing so I could deal with the Sangre Duello. When the fury had passed I asked, “What does Leo get if Ayatas is my brother? Why drop this on me now, before the Sangre Duello?”

Eli frowned. So did Alex.

“Right. Leo shared info without a quid pro quo. He gets something out of this deal. Leo always gets something out of any deal. If Ayatas and I become chummy, then Leo has another talon hooked into PsyLED. And Leo said something about how having PsyLED at the blood duel might keep the Navy and Coast Guard from dropping bombs on us if Leo loses.”

Eli gave his battle-face frown. “Bombardment isn’t likely, but I’m keeping my ear to the ground.”

“And if Ayatas is your brother and Leo was just being nice?” Alex asked.

“Really?” I moved to the front door, my back to them, but speaking over my shoulder. “Leo? Nice?”

“Good point,” Alex said, sounding vaguely surprised. “Huh. Follow the money and the political power.” He was already banging away on his tablets and his laptop.

I opened the front door, half-cat and spitting mad, to see the topic of the conversation on my front porch. I blocked his entrance with my body, watched the shock on his face as he took me in and almost went for his weapon. I gave him a cat smile, all fangs and fur. “Hiya, baby brother, if that’s who you really are. Get back in your car. We’re going to sweat.” And I slammed the door in his surprised face. Whirling to Eli, I grabbed a gobag and said, “You’re driving.”

* * *

• • •

It took the entire ride to Aggie’s, while strapped into the backseat, to shift into full-human form. It was slow, a bone-breaking, tendon-snapping process, and I whined and moaned the whole way. It hurt.

After telling me to “man up,” Eli put on music so he didn’t have to listen. Man up? Really? Evil man.

When I looked like me again—like Jane again—I let myself out of the seat belt and changed into warm, baggy sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt, crawled up front, and slumped in the passenger seat. Eli was listening to a Joe Bonamassa album, playing “You Left Me Nothin’ but the Bill and the Blues.” Music I liked.

I tied my hair in a knot and let it hang down my back and leaned my head against the seat, giving my muscles time to stop quivering and aching. When Joe was finished playing “Drive,” I clicked the music off. Silence filled the car and I could smell my own pain and disquiet. “Are you mad at me?” I snapped my mouth shut. I sounded like a twelve-year-old girl whining to her besties.

Eli said, “Babe,” in that tone that told me everything was okay between us, and shook his head. “No. I’m not mad at you, Janie. I’m worried. You have a lot going on right now, personally and professionally. You have Ayatas. You have all the magical trinkets in the closet. You’re still getting over being struck by lightning. There’s the construction. The new clan master position. In a couple days we’ll be on an island in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, an island with questionable GPS coordinates and no secure landing field. On an island with no backup and no way off except an unarmed and unarmored helicopter or two, and Uncle Sam’s Navy in the nearest port.”

“Officially,” I conceded.

“Officially what?”

“Well. Bruiser has a boat.”

Eli glanced away from the road. “Does he, now?”

“I was on it. It has a cabin and a teapot and everything.”

“And it’ll be moored nearby?”

I looked away from Eli, out the window at the night. It was cloudy, the kind of clouds that portended a harder rain than the heavy mist. “It’s Bruiser. What do you think?”

Eli might have relaxed a hair. “Good to know. Maybe I’ll text him and ask for a sitrep.”

Leo had said to let my people do their jobs. “I’m micromanaging everything, aren’t I?”

“Yep. Trying to.”

Eli was on the job. Alex was ahead of the job. Bruiser was always on the job and tended to plan in advance like a vamp. I wasn’t alone anymore, but I was still acting as if I was. I’d been flying by the seat of my pants so long I was surprised my undies didn’t have wings. We made the rest of the trip to Aggie’s, the quiet settling between us like a lazy cat, and tiny, misty raindrops settling onto the windshield. It would have been pleasant except that I was always aware of the headlights behind us, the car driven by Ayatas FireWind. Who might truly be my brother.

* * *

• • •

I knocked on Aggie’s door as the sun grayed the sky and the stars began to vanish. The front porch light was on and the windows were lit with a pale glow. I smelled cedarwood smoke and coffee. Aggie and her mother were up and moving around, which might have been part of the younger Younger brother’s call or part of Aggie’s early-to-rise lifestyle. Eli pulled out of the drive and headed back up the road. Ayatas parked on what was technically a cul-de-sac and dimmed his headlights. The car door opened and closed.

Aggie opened the door.

“Egini Agayvlge i,” I said, speaking her name in Tsalagi, “Elder of The People. I seek your counsel.”

“Dalonige’ i Digadoli,” Aggie said. Then she looked at the man walking up the steps behind me. “You must be Ayatas Nvgitsvle, the one who claims kinship with Jane, according to the Elders of the Eastern Tsalagi and the brothers who have adopted her as sister, brothers who stand at her side in battle.”

I sorta thought that put Ayatas in his place and I felt a little of the stiffness in my shoulders ease. Ayatas didn’t answer.

Aggie went on, “Do you seek counsel as well, One Who Dreams of Fire Wind?”

“I do, Uni Lisi.”

“Lisi will do. Are you both fasting?”

I nodded. I assumed Ayatas did too.

“Go. Wash. Dress. Wait for me in the sweat house.”

I started to ask for separate waiting areas, but Aggie closed the door in my face, pretty much the way I had done to Ayatas but with less ire in it. Great. I didn’t want to be alone with Ayatas, which was probably why Aggie made it happen. Elders were sneaky.

I looked back at Ayatas and jutted my chin to the sweat house. “Hope you like cold showers.”

Ayatas sighed. “I’d rather have the coffee I smell.”

“I’m a tea kinda gal, but yeah. Coffee would work.”

Coffee. Common grounds? Ha-ha?

Side by side, our weapons left behind, we trudged to the sweat house, a wood hut with a metal roof, located at the back of the property, in the winter-bare limbs of trees. In the rear of the building, I pointed to the spigots and Ayatas dipped his head in a half bow. He said, “You first, my sister. I’ll wait until you’re inside.” He stepped back to the front of the building. His words were careful, as was his body language. There was something there in his manner and words if I could only figure out what. I stripped, hung my clothes on the empty hook, and turned the water on. And managed not to curse as the icy water drenched me.

Not bothering to dry off, I pulled on the undyed cotton shift hanging on the nail, braiding my hair out of the way. The shifts were better than the undyed lengths of cloth tied above my boobs I had used on other sweats, especially with a man in the room. I stopped. I had never been to sweat with anyone other than Aggie and her mother. I wasn’t sure how this was supposed to work. I didn’t like not knowing what to expect. I tied off the tip of my braid with a bit of string pulled from the inside seam of the shift, my fingers suddenly and unexpectedly clumsy.

I opened the low door and stepped inside. The sweat house was already warm and I shivered at the change in temperature, though the winter air outside was warmer than anything I had been accustomed to in the Appalachian Mountains.