Neall followed a few steps behind her, his eyes and attention still on the trees. The nighthunters didn’t like sunlight, and she and Neall were in the center of the large, sunlit meadow; but even during the daylight hours, the creatures the Inquisitors had created by twisting magic were a threat in the shadows of the woods.

He wasn’t paying attention to her because he trusted her.

She turned, said, “Change,” immediately shifted into her other form, and sprang at him, her fangs bared.

Even a month ago, he would have hesitated for that fatal moment that would have given her the advantage. Now he shifted in an instant, and the young stag leaped aside, pivoting as soon as he touched the ground, his head lowered, the tines of his antlers a weapon against her fangs.

She charged him again and again—and he met her, again and again, never giving her the opening to leap in and nip him in a place that, in a real attack, could disable him. He thought like a man, but he’d learned how to use that stag body that was his other form. Because he thought like a man, he didn’t do the one thing a real stag would have done—he didn’t run. There were times when she’d chased him around the meadow to build his endurance, to help him learn the stag body, but this lesson was a battle to confirm something for herself and to prove something to him.

Panting from the effort, she finally leaped away, putting some distance between them. Then she changed back to her human form.

“Enough,” she said, walking slowly toward their gear.

He remained in stag form, pivoting to watch her.

She bent to pick up her canteen, winced a little as her muscles protested. It had been awhile since she’d worked that hard in her shadow hound form. She glanced at him, could feel his confusion and anger pulsing over the meadow. “Enough, Neall.”

He hesitated a moment longer, then changed back to human form and strode toward her, his hands curled into fists.

“Mother’s tits, Ashk! What was that about?”

“A lesson,” she replied quietly. She opened the canteen and filled her mouth with water, savoring the cool wetness before she swallowed. “Kernos did it differently with me, but the lesson was the same.”

He stared at her. As understanding filled his blue eyes, he shook his head in denial. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I can’t become the Lord of the Woods. I’m not pure Fae. They would never accept it. Besides,” he added, sounding a bit desperate, “you’re the Hunter now, and I’m not about to challenge you.”

Ashk took another sip of water before answering. “Do you accept that you are a Lord of the Woods?”

He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “That’s not the same thing.”

“Do you accept what you are?”

“Yes,” he said reluctantly.