Would Declan want to? Did I want to?

I thought of Declan then. The way he threw himself into everything he did. The care he took with the people around him, especially those smaller and more vulnerable. The way he held me.

And I realized I’d already made this decision. This was the mountain I needed to move for him, and it wouldn’t even be a hardship. I’d go at it with a smile on my face and a freaking song in my heart.

I would move the fuck out of this mountain.

“I have an idea,” I said to our group. “But to do it, we’re going to need a distraction—Dammit, how do you feel about working with the pigeons?”

The phoenix chirped low, ruffling his feathers. The pigeons were still on his shit list, but he’d work with them. Excellent. “Here’s what I need you to do…”

Declan

My father’s pack surrounded us in a rough oval, edgy with anticipation. Growls punctuated the air, every eye on me. They stopped paying attention to Zoey and Sid as soon as they were shunted off to the side, left to huddle close to the fire pit. Eva watched them as she tended the flames, nasty magic pouring off it in a sickening flow.

Tom, the shifter who’d held Zoey and Sid’s leashes, leaned into the oval across from me. He drew back and spit, the saliva arcing across several feet to land in the dirt by my head. Nice. Several in the pack laughed, the sound almost as nasty as the magic from Eva’s fire.

They were here, and they wanted blood. My blood. And they weren’t alone in that.

My father bounced on his heels in the middle, warming up. Eager to fight. Buoyant from the adulation of his pack.

Angus stretched out the muscles on his neck. Now that his pack was here, his movements had gone from edgy and desperate to confident. He’d stripped off his shirt as he waited for Tom to free me.

I very carefully did not look over at Sid or Zoey or the two ferrets currently helping them out of their restraints.

The crowd parted, letting Tom into the oval. He strode over to me, his chest puffed out, ready to undo my collar and get this party started. Tom approached me with little care, his attention more on the crowd than me. Either he was cocky or he hadn’t noticed that my other restraints were gone yet.

As soon as Tom was close enough, I surged to my feet, grabbing him by the neck. Using his own momentum against him, I tossed Tom against a few of my father’s pack, knocking them over. The pack growled, angry, surging forward, but I ignored them, my focus on Angus as I took off my inhibitor collar.

Angus snapped at them to get back, his eyes aglow with anticipation, ready to pound me into the floor. He didn’t want them interfering, just witnessing.

I dropped the collar in the dirt where it belonged. “This is your shindig,” I said, taking off my shirt. “Human or wolf?”