“You gave your allegiance to me!” Walter exclaimed.

“I said I’d follow you when you said you had it!” the young Were said, his hands making fists and his jewelry chiming. His wife was a head taller than he was, but it didn’t make him look any less threatening. “You don’t. Sparagmos does, and she’s claimed him. Dissolve my blood oath. I’ll follow a red wolf as soon as a white one. Either way, I’m not following you.”

“You lowlife cur!” Walter snarled, red-faced, his white hair standing out starkly. “I have Sparagmos, and I’ll have the statue, and I’ll have your head as an ashtray!”

The crowd was splitting. I could see it. I could smell it. Old patterns were emerging, both comfortable and familiar. The hair on the back of my neck pricked, and with a small effort I pulled my second sight into focus. My heart quickened. A pearly white now rimmed the street Weres, and an earthy red covered the ones in suits. It had broken that fast.

The entire clearing had shifted. The street Weres were dropping back into the woods. I could smell the whiff of Brimstone. If they went wolf, nothing would contain them.

“Sir,” a grief-stricken Were in fatigues interrupted, and I turned to the six men carrying Pam, their slow steps saying it was too late.

“Pam!” Walter exclaimed, grief raw in his voice. The Weres set her gently down, and the man fell to kneel beside her, savagely driving them away before his hands dove into her fur, pulling her up into him. “No,” he said in disbelief, his wife’s body close to him.

Aretha’s pack had torn open Pam’s throat, and her blood clotted her black fur and stained his chest. His head going back and forth, the powerful man struggled to find the pieces of his world, scattered like the dead leaves shifting between us.

“No!” Walter shouted, his head coming up and his eyes finding me. “I will not accept this. That witch wolf is not my alpha, and I will not give Sparagmos to her. Kill her!”

Gun safeties clicked off. Holy shit! Panicking, I leapt for the slice of parking lot I could see. An instant and I was through. A screamed curse spurred me on. Nails digging, I reached the woods. My feet slipped on leaves and weak-stemmed plants and I almost went down.

Struggling for balance, I kept driving forward. I listened for the sound of shots, but I was away—for the time being. They had Hummers and cell phones. Against that I had a six-foot pixy and a three-minute head start, tops. Pam was dead. This wasn’t my fault!

Behind me came the distinctive calls of a mob organizing. They were all people right now, but that was going to change. I had known the peace wouldn’t last. Weres were Weres. They never bonded together. They couldn’t. It went against everything they were made of.

Thank God for that, I thought as I tracked the scent of snapped twigs, following Jenks. The pixy could find Nick by smell if nothing else. We could still get off this damned island. Maybe the breakup of the round would buy us a few minutes more.