“I don’t want to front your lousy tick-infested pack,” I said, making sure everyone knew where I was coming from. “But I want Nick. If I best your alpha, then I claim him and leave.” I took a slow breath. “We all leave. Intact and unharassed.”

“No!” Walter barked, and everyone but Pam and I jumped.

Jenks looked worried, his green eyes pinched. “Rache,” he said, apparently not caring everyone could hear him. “Remember what happened the last time?”

I shot him a poisonous look. “I won last time,” I said hotly.

“By a point of law,” he said, jerking to a standstill when he tried to take a step and the men surrounding him threatened violence.

“Jenks,” I said patiently, ignoring the pointed weapons. “We can try to fight our way out of some crazy survivalist’s group, swim for shore, and hopefully elude them, or I can fight one stinking Were. One way, we end up hurt and with nothing. The other way, I’m the only one who gets hurt, and maybe we walk away from this with Nick. That’s all I want.”

Jenks’s face fell into an unusual expression of hatred that looked wrong on him. “Why?” he whispered. “I don’t know why you even care.”

I dropped my eyes to the carpet, wondering that myself.

“This isn’t a game,” Walter said, his round face going red. “Get the medic up here with the drugs. I want to know who sent them and what they know.”

The man grabbed me and I tensed.

“Ah, Walter, dear?” Pam said, and everyone in the room froze at the ice in her voice. “What, by Cerberus’s balls, are you doing?”

In the silence, Walter turned. “She isn’t a Were. I thought—”

His words cut off at Pam’s low noise. Her eyes were squinting and her hands were on her hips. “I’ve been challenged.” Her voice got louder. “How am I supposed to walk out of this room and not have every last whining dog think I’m a coward? I don’t care if she’s a leprechaun and has green tits, she just pissed in my food dish!”

Jenks snickered, making Walter’s ears redden. “Sweetie…” he coaxed, but he was hunched and submissive. I cocked an eyebrow at Jenks. Maybe I’d been going about Weres all wrong. It was the women who held the balls of the alpha males that really had the power.

“Sugar Pup,” he tried again when she pushed his hand off her. “She’s stalling for time. I want to know who’s coming to bail her out before they get here. She’s not a Were, and I don’t want to jeopardize gaining the artifact by adhering to old traditions that don’t belong anymore.”

“It’s those traditions that put you where you are now,” she said scathingly. “We don’t have to give her three days.” Pam turned to me, simpering. “We do it now. Think of it as me softening her up. It will be fun. And if she cheats with her magic, the pack can rip her to shreds.”