And Manu. And Rhys.
He raised his head.
*Deal.*
10
Sheena
Sheena’s ears roared as Fleance agreed to Parker’s deal. He was going to do it. Give up the freedom he’d only just begun to believe could be his… for her.
She’d tried to tell him it wasn’t worth it. From what he’d told her, he’d been through hell as part of Parker’s pack. Wasn’t that what had brought him here: his hellhound’s need to replenish his soul by righting what Parker had put wrong?
And now he was going to be back where he started. Because of her. Because she’d been too daft to get out of the way of Parker’s hellhound when even an actual sheep would have known he was bad news. Because her sheep—her throat constricted with grief—her sheep had always believed everything would turn out all right. Well, it bloody well hadn’t this time, had it? The one silver lining was that she was evidently as shit a hellhound as she was a sheep. If Fleance had just not been the total goddamn good guy that he was and agreed to take the fall for her, she probably would have brought Parker down from the inside through sheer incompetence. But he hadn’t, because he was good, and brave, and Parker had slammed the gate on her telepathic abilities before she could convince him to save himself.
*Move.*
She barely registered Parker’s voice before her legs responded to his order. She skittered sideways, legs moving out of tandem with one another, and almost fell over. Parker ignored her as he stalked over to Fleance, who was trembling with barely controlled despair.
She tried to reach out to speak to him again. Reassure him. Anything. It was no use. Parker wouldn’t let her anywhere except inside her own head. A head that hardly felt like hers, anymore. The crystalline terror she’d felt when she first sensed Parker’s presence had clouded over, full of smoke and hot ash. It was almost as though the smoke was trying to hide her thoughts from Parker.
Well, good luck with that. From what Fleance had said it was a pointless endeavor.
She drew a ragged breath that almost choked her. Everything had gone wrong and Fleance was going to pay the price.
What a load of bullshit. The words thundered through her head. Not Parker’s, not Fleance’s—not from outside of herself. Whatever her self was now.
As usual her first thought was that they were Aroha’s words, Aroha’s voice, but they weren’t. And they couldn’t be her hellhound’s. It wasn’t a creature that had words, yet.
Hope sparked inside her. Could it be her sheep? It had been so silent she’d thought it was gone forever, but maybe—no. Her sheep was many things but she wasn’t sure it even knew what swearing was.
That only left one option.
The voice… was hers.
She wasn’t used to her voice thundering. Not in her head, not anywhere. Or sounding so confident.
But it—she—was right, wasn’t she? This whole thing was bullshit. Parker, packs, alphas being supposedly so much more important than everyone else—it was all a bloody con.
Something rose up inside her like a pot boiling over. It was the smell of smoke in the dark night, harsh and bitter on the back of her tongue, but it was more than that. Lanolin. Sweet clover. The restlessness of dry grass tickling the backs of her knees, combined with and at odds with a deep and unyielding focus. It filled her from heart to fingertips, driving away the rancid maggot-touch of Parker’s power.
Parker’s snout whipped around, teeth bared. *What was that?*
Sheena didn’t reply. Not because she didn’t know the answer—well, maybe a bit—but mostly because the bitter-clover-sweet boiling inside her was expanding past her skin now. It crept out in bursts and sparks. It should have looked like whatever was happening to Parker, like her skin was splitting apart, but instead it felt…
She looked past Parker and met Fleance’s gaze. The air between them crackled.
The hell with Parker, and packs, and alphas, and all the shifter mythos she’d spent her life happily not knowing.
Fleance was hers, and she wasn’t going to let anyone take him away from her.
HIM, her inner animal roared inside her head. Thunder? This was the whole storm. HE TRIED TO TAKE OUR MATE FROM US!
She glared down at Parker. Down? she thought, How am I looking down at him?
That one moment of distraction was just enough for her inner animal to take control.
It lunged forward, fire streaming from its nostrils. Parker lurched away and Sheena’s hooves cut into the gravel where he’d been. Her teeth snapped together a hand’s breadth from his tail.
*What?* Parker’s eyes narrowed and his power tightened around Sheena’s limbs. At least it tried to. Her animal sneered and shook it off. *How is this possible?*
How is it possible? Sheena wondered, as amazed as he was.
Fleance’s voice flickered against her mind, hushed and rough-edged but wonderful. *Sheena, you’re…*
*Enough!* Parker raged. *What is this? Some kind of trick?* His power twisted around Sheena again. This time she barely needed to shrug to get rid of it. *What are you?*
*What you made me,* she reminded him. But that couldn’t be entirely true, because she wasn’t tripping over her feet anymore. And she’d landed on hooves, not paws…
Parker’s lip curled. *I had nothing to do with this… this… monstrosity!*
*You’re one to talk,* she retorted, *you mangy, moth-eaten dishrag! I’m—*
She stopped. What was she? Not a sheep anymore. Surely. A hellhound? But she was looking down on Parker now, not up like she had when she was a sheep or a hellhound. But she still felt all brimstone-fiery—but…
*You’re incredible.* Fleance’s voice stopped her runaway train of thought. *Look.*
He sidestepped to the edge of one of the still pools. Keeping one wary eye on Parker, who was still muttering to himself, Sheena followed him.
Untold years of silica had built up around the pool’s edges in a vibrant orange, but the water itself was crystal clear. Sheena checked Parker’s
