Mad, Bad & Dangerous

distance to the ground. “There are plenty of people here who could help.”

“Yeah? Then why aren’t they?”

With that, she leapt over the balustrade, swung out into the air and grabbed the tottering decorations as they started to fall. With a tear, the entwined boughs and ribbons gave way, and Kett jumped the last few feet to the floor, her boots thudding on the polished wood, faeries scattering around her in a blinding arc of color.

People stared, and Kett remembered belatedly that she was naked under her dress. And also that ancient leather work boots didn’t exactly go with ball gowns.

The hell with it. “Get out of my way!” she snarled, and people moved, because people generally tended to move when Kett was in a bad mood.

Wrenching open one of the tall doors to the terrace, she strode out and saw nothing. But then that taunting snigger came again from the lawn below the terrace, and she took a running leap over the low wall onto the grass, freefalling a dozen feet as the ground dropped away. She ducked into a shoulder roll as she hit the ground, coming up facing the three youths who had one pretty girl cornered in the darkness.

“What the fuck?” one of them cursed, staring at her. The girl, tears glistening in the moonlight, gave Kett a pleading look, and she realized it was the girl Tane had been chatting up earlier.

“I don’t think she wants to play,” Kett said, cursing her lack of weaponry.

“Oh, I think she does,” said the tallest of the boys, grabbing the girl’s breast. Her dress was torn and, as Kett’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw scratches on her flesh, and then the glint of metal as a second boy drew his sword.

“And you’re gonna play too,” he said.

Right then, Kett would have given anything to turn herself into a big cat and play with them, but she contented herself with a snarl instead.

“Run,” said the girl, her voice shaky with tears. “Don’t let them-”

The tall boy slapped her and Kett saw red. Grabbing his upraised arm, she twisted hard and it snapped. The kid let out a scream, his friends froze and Kett felt her lips curl in a smile.

She’d heard those taunts and sniggers before. Maybe not from these boys, but she’d heard them.

It hadn’t ended well then either.

“You will shut up,” she said, “and you will listen to me. What’s your name?”

“I don’t have to-” Kett twisted his arm and his face went white. “Willifus-the Honorable Willifus Flherik Lochmarne-Lochmarne-d’Athinisha.”

“What a fucking stupid name,” Kett said, trying not to snort at “honorable”.

“You broke my arm!”

“Yep, and I’ll break a lot more if you don’t do what I say.”

“My father will hear of this!”

“I bloody hope so.”

The boy with the sword rounded on her, and she tensed to ward him off-this was going to hurt-when he suddenly stopped dead, sword in the air.

And Kett became aware of a low growl.

“Nice doggy,” said the third boy, who was holding the girl’s hands behind her back. Using her as a shield, Kett realized, the bloody coward. She turned to snap at Kett II to get the hell out of there when she realized it wasn’t her sisters’ dog, but a rather large wolf. Growling.

Her mind raced. It couldn’t be Bael. He just wasn’t wolf material. Were there any other shifters at the party? Another Nasc? She knew the Empress of Zemlya turned into a wolf when it got dark, but she didn’t think any of the Zemlyan contingent were present-

“You can’t keep a dog like that untethered,” said Willifus, who clearly had the brains of a dead flower. “My father-”

“Look, kid, your father named you Willifus, clearly he hates you,” Kett said. “And that ain’t a dog.”

The wolf bared its teeth. It looked like it was grinning.

“What the hell?” Kett said to it, and the kid with the sword chose that moment to become a hero, launching himself at the wolf. But the wolf, moving with such easy grace he looked as if he wasn’t really bothered, rolled to one side, swiped at the boy’s leg and brought him down. Pinning him with his front paws, he took the whimpering boy’s sword arm in his teeth and shook it.

The boy screamed and dropped the sword. Kett kicked smartly at the hilt, making the blade jump into the air and spin over. She caught it by the hilt, pleased she could still pull off that maneuver.

In the sudden silence, the third boy stared at Kett and the wolf.

“Please give me a reason,” she said, aching to cause him pain.

“Don’t hurt me,” he whispered.

“Why not? You hurt her.”

“I didn’t! That was Will!”

Kett shook her head. “And now you’re ratting out your friends. Seriously, kid, you’re a waste of space.” A movement to her left caught her attention, and the gleam of amber eyes flashed in the darkness. A lion, nearly five feet tall at the withers. Dark’s Nasc twin.

Kett smiled. “Relax, kid. I ain’t gonna hurt you,” she said.

The kid relaxed.

“But he might,” Kett added, and Dark stepped into vision.

Willifus peed his pants.

“Excellent,” Kett said. “Let her go.”

The kid did as he was told, and the girl ran to hide behind Kett as Dark swatted the boy with one huge paw, knocking him to the ground and holding him there as footsteps sounded on the terrace.

“Kett, Kett, Kett,” Bael said, surveying the scene as he sauntered down the nearest set of steps toward her. “You really know how to make a party go off.”

“Yes, and thanks for your backup,” she snapped, as guests crowded onto the terrace, all of them looking down at her and whispering.

“What do you call that?” Bael gestured to the wolf, who was sprawled across the apparently unconscious body of the swordsman. He gave her a doggy grin.

“That’s you?”

“That’s Var. My twin. You didn’t think I was going to rush off for help and leave you without backup, did you?”

Baelvar. Man and wolf. Somehow, that didn’t seem quite right.

On the terrace stood Kett’s father, shaking his head at her, and then Tane was pushing his way through. When he caught sight of the shivering girl trying to hold her dress together, he cried, “Giselle!” and leapt to the grass.

Of course she has a name like Giselle, Kett thought sourly as the girl moved out from behind her, into Tane’s arms. Beautiful, lissome girls like her were never called Agnes or Doris.

She even cried prettily, clinging to Tane as he draped his jacket around her and stroked her glossy hair.

“Are you all right?” he asked tenderly, looking down at her, and she nodded tearfully. Kett bit her lip, because her brother had clearly seen the scratches on Giselle’s exposed breast and now appeared to be trying to work out whether mentioning it would be helpful, or if he was going to get a slap for noticing her bare breast in the first place.

“Go and take her to Nuala,” Kett said, because her unflappable stepmother was, in addition to being a princess, a qualified doctor, and Tane nodded and steered the fragile Giselle away.

“Thank you,” he called back to Kett, who nodded, surprised to be on the receiving end of anyone’s gratitude, and Giselle stopped, ran back to Kett and threw her arms around her.

“Thank you,” she sobbed. “You saved my life.”

Kett, who still had hold of the whimpering Willifus, looked down at the girl with slight distaste, which made Bael and her father laugh.

“Yeah, well, get Tane to teach you some self-defense, yeah?”

Giselle nodded and went back to Tane, who received her as if she was something precious, and Kett felt a pang because no one had ever looked at her like that, and nor were they likely to if she was the one standing there