At fifteen minutes before dawn, with the house quiet, I’d gone down to get a drink when my screen buzzed. There was no caller identification.

“Elisa,” I said, answering it.

“It’s Miranda. We need to talk.”

“About?”

“Connor and the assholes.”

“Worst band name ever,” I muttered, and slipped out of the kitchen. I walked into the conservatory at the back of the house, then into the cool night air. I needed a moment in the darkness. “You have five minutes,” I said, lifting the screen up again. “We’re on a little bit of a deadline here.”

“I know,” she said, with no trace of sarcasm. “It’s about that. Connor has to agree to the challenge.”

“Then you should tell him that.”

“He won’t listen to me. But he might listen to you.” And it sounded like actual hurt in her voice at that admission.

“He understands the issues,” I said. “We’ve talked about it. And he’s trying to find an option that doesn’t screw the family or the Pack.”

She went quiet for a second. “He’s not afraid to fight, is he?”

I didn’t know what it cost a shifter—supernaturals known for their bravado and eagerness to rumble—to ask that question. It made me nervous, but I couldn’t show that to her. If she was calling me, she needed something else. She needed bravado.

“Has he ever been afraid to fight?” I asked, voice flat.

There was gravity in the silence that followed. “He’s an alpha and he’s strong,” Miranda said. “But I don’t know this Cade, and I haven’t been able to dig up much on him. It’s just—would they have come all this way if they didn’t think they could win?”

“Yeah,” I said. “They’re shifters. They think they can beat anyone.”

“I don’t mean that,” she said. “I mean . . . it might not be a clean challenge.”

It took me a moment to grasp her implication. “You think they’re going to cheat?”

“I’m not accusing anyone of that,” she said, as if it was the basest insult. “But I think you need to be careful. If you really care about him, and you really support him, then you have to have his back.”

I heard the fear in her voice, and it scared me to my bones.

“I do and will,” I said. “Tell anyone in the Pack who needs to hear it—they try to play dirty, and they meet my sword.”

* * *

Connor slept fitfully, body occasionally shaking as if he were fighting some unseen attacker. He curled into me, and I banded my arms around him, holding him tight against the fear and fury, hoping he could find a way through.

TWENTY

And then there was only one more night. Tomorrow, the House, our parents, would be lost to us forever. So we were hustling.

Connor and Alexei were already gone when I left for the office that night. I still didn’t know what Connor intended to do about the challenge, and I wondered if he’d use Lulu’s strategy—wait and see if we could get the House back in time. And when his father was here, they could decide together.