My adoptive father, Voron, died when I was fifteen, and afterward my guardian, Greg Feldman, took care of me. Greg had spent years accumulating a collection of weapons and artifacts, which he left to me. It was all gone now. My aunt paid us a visit and left a chunk of Atlanta a smoking ruin, including the apartment I had inherited from Greg. But I was rebuilding it slowly. I didn’t have any prized weapons in my collection, except for Slayer, my saber, but all of my weapons were functional and well made.

I shrugged off the back sheath with Slayer in it, lowered it to the floor, and did push-ups for a couple of minutes to warm up, but my weight wasn’t enough, so I switched to the bag, hammering punches and spinning kicks. The pressure, building in me for the past several hours, fueled me. The bag shuddered from the impact.

It wasn’t fair that children went loup. It wasn’t fair that there were no warning signs. It wasn’t fair that I could do absolutely nothing about it. It wasn’t fair that if Curran and I ever had children, I would be like Jennifer, stroking my stomach and terrified of the future. And if my children went loup, I’d have to kill them. The thought spurred me on, whipping me into a frenzy. I wouldn’t be able to do it. If Curran and I had a baby, I couldn’t kill him or her. I didn’t have it in me. Even thinking about it was like the shock of jumping into an iced-over pond.

I worked the bag for the better part of an hour, switched to weights, then did the bag again, trying to drive myself to near exhaustion. If I got tired enough, I would stop thinking.

Exhaustion proved elusive. I’d spent the last few weeks recuperating, training, eating well, and making love whenever I felt like it. I had more stamina than the battery bunny from the old commercials. Eventually I lost myself to the simple physical exertion. When I finally came up for air, sweat slicked my body and my muscles ached.

I took a Cherkassy saber off the wall and went and picked up Slayer. The saber had cost me an arm and a leg many years ago, when I still worked for the Mercenary Guild. I had kept it at my old house, and it had survived my aunt’s reign of terror.