But my eyes were riveted to the four wolves dodging trees and picnic tables. Terrified, Pam streaked past the security of walls and into the trees. In seconds they were gone. A yip of pain rose sharp over the noise of frightened people. Walter shouted for silence, and in the new stillness there were unseen savage snarls and barks. Then a terrifying silence.

White-faced, Walter gestured, and a cluster of men with unslung weapons raced into the trees after them. I felt sick. This wasn’t my fault.

A feminine gasp pulled me spinning around. My heart pounded and I felt my knees go wobbly. Aretha had silently entered the clearing as if the surrounding people didn’t exist. Ear flicking, she stopped a good fifteen feet from me, her fur the color of silver bark. I looked at her with my wolf eyes, seeing the grace and beauty—and her utter alienness. I might look like a wolf, but I wasn’t one, and we both knew it.

I started, freezing again when she lifted her muzzle. An eerie, soft howl rose from her, picked up by three more voices along the ridge. She was checking to see who had won.

Adrenaline scoured through me. Aretha lowered her head, her yellow eyes fixing on me a last time before she turned and padded across the lot, satisfied.

The wind in the trees slipped down to ruffle the fur about my sore and battered body. What in hell had just happened?

A twig snapped, and I skittered like a shying horse, heart pounding when I came to an ungraceful halt. It was the street Weres’ alpha, pale but determined with his pack around him. “It’s not my fault!” I barked, knowing he wouldn’t understand.

The Were’s Brimstone-weathered face was one of awe as he flicked his eyes from me to where Aretha had vanished. His tattoos from multiple packs made him look rough and uncouth, but his face was as clean-shaven as Jenks’s. Bending, he plucked a tuft of red hair that Pam had pulled from me, looking at it as if it meant something. “The she-wolf,” he said to Walter, as his roving eyes told me he meant Aretha, “she chose Morgan to live and your alpha to die.”

The surrounding Weres started to talk, their voices growing in anger as their shock wore off. I panted, my bruised paw held up off the ground while I waited, feeling the seconds slip away. A shudder rippled over me, making my fur rise. Something was happening.

The street Were tucked the red tuft behind his jacket as if he’d made a decision. “The oldest stories say the statue belonged to a red Were before it was lost,” he said, and his wife joined him. “Morgan held her ground when your alpha ran,” he said, gesturing. “She won. Give Sparagmos to her. Love will loosen that thief ’s memory when pain and humiliation won’t. I don’t care who holds the statue as long as I can have a part of it.”