My heart thumped as I made my way down three steps and onto the pale winter grass, politely nudging and tapping shoulders to make a path for myself. Fifty feet from the porch, the Alphas stood huddled around a masculine form whose face I couldn’t yet see. My mother knelt on the ground by the tom’s head, but she seemed to be talking to him rather than administering first aid.

At the edge of the surrounding crowd, Manx stood with Des cradled in one arm, the other wrapped around Kaci’s shoulders as tears streamed down the young tabby’s face.

A shallow breath slipped from me in relief when I saw that she was okay, if terrified. Until I realized Jace wasn’t with her.

No…

I edged toward the form on the ground, my pulse racing as I tried to remember whether or not he had a pair of brown hiking boots, which was all I could clearly see of the injured tom. But I didn’t know Jace like I knew Marc. I didn’t have his wardrobe memorized, nor could I predict what he would say or do in any given situation. Yet my relief was like aloe on a sunburn when Jace stepped up on my left, miraculously uninjured. His hand brushed mine, but he didn’t take it, well aware that Marc was on my other side. And that we were surrounded by people.

“It’s pretty bad,” Jace whispered.

“Who is it?” I made no move for a closer look.

“Charlie.” Charles Eames was my uncle’s senior enforcer. His older brother was John Eames, the geneticist who’d discovered the truth about how strays were infected, and about Kaci’s “double recessive” heritage. Their father had been an Alpha up north when I was little, but none of his sons married. When he retired, his territory went to his son-in-law, Wes Gardner. Who was now firmly allied with Calvin Malone.

That particular tangle of family ties was just one example of why civil war would devastate the U.S. Prides. There were only ten territories, and everyone I knew had friends and relatives in most of the other Prides. Drawing lines of allegiance was very delicate work, and keeping them in place would be nearly impossible.

Charlie groaned again, and I steeled my spine, then stepped forward for a closer look. Marc came with me, and we knelt opposite my mother beside the downed tom. It took most of my self-control to hold in my gasp of shock and horror at what I saw.

Charles Eames lay with his head turned toward my mother, staring at her as if she were a meditative focal point. Perhaps the only thing keeping him conscious. Both of his arms and one leg were crooked—obviously broken at multiple points—and the bone actually showed through the torn skin of his left arm, where someone had ripped his sleeve open to expose the injury. Blood pooled from his arm, still oozing from the open wound.

“Needed a cigarette,” Charlie whispered to my mom. “Was only a few feet from the porch.” His eyes closed and he flinched as he drew in a deep breath.