back wrong, and my legs were like wet noodles. The shiner had gone down, though. A bit. Now it

looked deep blue, fading into green-yellow instead of fresh and dark red. The baths worked wonders.

I was still standing there, looking at myself in the stripe I’d swiped away from the condensation on

the mirror, when someone banged on the locker-room door. “Dru! You in there?”

It was Graves.

Shit. I watched my eyes widen and my mouth pull down and wished for a better poker face. “Yeah,”

I yelled back. My split lip had closed up, but it was still tender and puffy. I pulled down the neck of

my T-shirt, winced at the cuff of bruising crawling up my shoulder. “Go on, I’ll catch up.” As soon

as I can figure out how to explain this to you.

“No way. I’m on duty right now. Benny and Leon got called away for something.” The door opened

a bit more, but he didn’t stick his head in. Echoes bounced eerily off blue tiles, split themselves on

the edges of the shower stalls and choked over the top of the bubbling of the not-water in the

sunken tubs. “You’re gonna be late! Come on!”

“Just go!” My voice broke. I turned the cold tap on as high as it could go. Maybe it would take

some of the swelling down, and the sound of it would drown out whatever he wanted to say.

I should’ve known better. Because he banged the door open and stamped right on in.

“For Christ’s sake, can’t you be on time even once in your…” His boots squeaked as he stopped. I

grabbed both edges of the white porcelain sink and shook my hair down. “Dru?”

My knuckles were white and my legs refused to quite hold me up. So Shanks hadn’t said anything.

Or if he had, Graves had shrugged it off.

He touched my shoulder. I flinched.

The breath left him in a hard puff, as if he’d been punched too. He was staring at the swipe in the

mirror, where he could see my bruised, puffing face. “Jesus Christ.”

“It’s not bad,” I lied and jerked away from him. He grabbed my arm, though, quicker than he should

have been able to. I kept forgetting how fast he was with the loup-garou burning inside him. His

fingers sank in, and I let out a short bark of pain as they ground into a fresh bruise. “Graves—” I

searched for the words to make him see. We have to leave. Please listen to me this time.

“Who?” He all but shook me, and the deep vibration under the surface of the word was a loupgarou’s command-voice. The wulfen use the Other inside them to put on fur and strength, but someone half-imprinted and inoculated against wulfbite like Graves uses it another way—for mental