Warm summer air licked his back, stroked his shoulders, and pelted his arms. His thrusts became a demand for redress. But she wasn’t backing down; her alto moans simply begged him for more.

Gasping, sweat pooled in the small of his back, slid down his thighs. Hell yeah he knew the way of the wolf. Her hands threaded through his hair, her breasts a lifted offering he could not deny, the taste of her salt-stained sweetness. He found anchor on her smooth waist, the curve of her hip, then a tight lobe that made her whimper.

Skin slapping skin, making the sound of hot summer love… Yes, this was north territory, his territory, marked by the way of the wolf. Punishment for offenses exacted, alpha style. Yeah, they’d discuss it later. Apology in a pound of flesh accepted. The scent of her and broken grass, rich earth-summer madness. Sasha’s voice bottomed out in his sac, her arches calling his wolf, driving him harder. Heaven help him. Let it rain. His body smoldered till he could feel sweat sizzle.

Her hard convulsion embedded his name in a sob. All movement stuttered. Blinding pleasure choked his groin, seized his heart, and emptied his lungs. He couldn’t catch his breath as the climax tore through him. Staccato chants of ecstasy stilled wildlife. Eyes shut tightly, head thrown back, he was deaf to all sound but her and his howl.

After what seemed like a long time, he could finally roll over. Sound slowly returned, but the late afternoon sun was still too bright to open his eyes. Warm, soft skin coated his side and his fingers made a lazy figure eight in the small of her back.

“You still want to talk… you still angry at me?”

He didn’t move, couldn’t even open his eyes. “No.”

Her mouth brushed his and he pulled her against him in a tender but possessive embrace. If she’d let him, he’d keep her here until moonrise… here in this very natural, uncomplicated place where next time he could love her slow and true.

But that was doubtful, and knowing that made him sad. He could feel her smile against his chest. The she-wolf had bested him. If he’d had the energy he might have laughed. The entire thing, in hindsight, was so ridiculous-yet he doubted that she would have given him the same pass were the shoe on the other foot. There was no equity; that he was sure of. Female justice was slanted. Any male with common sense knew that the female of the species was brutal… never as pliant or as easily satisfied as the male. Women also held a mean grudge. After a beer, he and Shogun would be cool. That was the way of men. Period. Hunter sighed.

“You’re sure you’re all right?” she asked quietly, seeming intent on destroying his peace.

“Yeah…” he said beginning to doze. “Consider yourself punished once I get my second wind.”

Silver Hawk sat in a chair facing Doc, both men listening intently to Clarissa’s and Bradley’s report. The old shaman remained silent, his silver braids slowly rising and falling with each quiet breath as he looked at his friend of many years-the doctor who’d helped him save his grandson, Hunter. Two old men of many wars: Doc had fought within the military to keep his daughter Sasha’s Shadow Wolf heritage a secret, while he’d fought within the Shadow Wolf Clan to keep his grandson Hunter alive. Silver Hawk stared at Doc, seeing how time had created a road map across his friend’s weathered brown face and stolen a good portion of his gray hair, knowing that they were mirrors of each other. It was in his friend’s eyes, and he could only assume that the bond was reflected within his own, too.

Occasionally they would glimpse each other, or look over to monitor Winters, Fisher, and Woods. The suite they’d congregated in at the bed-and-breakfast was crowded. Voices were low murmurs of halting facts. Winters’s fingers were a blur on his keyboard as he accessed the PCU encrypted site, searching for data on the Unseelie-Seelie wars from Bradley’s extensive files on all matters related to dark arts.

“The seer we went to, Madame Cottrell, got off on a tangent and started talking about ancient Seelie and Unseelie history. Now, I can’t say for sure, but sometimes these old ladies encode their readings… so if I go back and assume she wasn’t just sending us on a wild goose chase, hundreds of years ago,” Bradley said, glancing among all parties in the room, “there was a major civil war between the Seelie, good Fae, and the Unseelie, bad Fae. Happened over in Europe and the human populations got caught in some of the crossfire. The conflict lasted for years. Their life spans are different than ours so their wars go on for decades, sometimes centuries.”

Clarissa nodded. “You gentlemen may remember the Great Potato Famine, the Black Death… need I go on? When the Fae go to war and start slinging magick, it’s no less than dropping bombs over Baghdad-the innocent are not spared. Whoever is in the kill zone gets hit right along with intended targets. These guys play for keeps.”

“This is why, after truces and treaties, a contingent of the Seelie Court came to the Americas,” Bradley pressed on, ruffling his hair as he paced. “There’s been peace amongst the Fae for a very long time. Everybody sort of stays in their lane and there’re no issues. But there’s also no love lost between factions. It’s rumored that some of New Orleans’s worst plagues and outbreaks during that era were due to Fae-against-Fae terrorists attacks… yellow fever, scarlet fever, I don’t have to go into some of the events that had the local human citizenry bringing out the dead.”

“Then why would they act against wolves?” Silver Hawk said, studying Clarissa and Bradley with ancient eyes. He sat very, very still; his long, snow-white braids resting on his shoulders and his weathered, brown hands resting on his knees. “We have done the Unseelie no harm. This could be the work of Vampires attempting to start a war within the ranks of the Fae… just as they attempted to break our ranks. This is in their nature.”

“A wrongfully placed allegation could cause severe collateral damage to human populations,” Dr. Xavier Holland said, folding his arms over his chest. “We need to be very sure there was Unseelie or Vampire involvement before we make any sort of claim to that effect.”

“Doc,” Clarissa said quietly, staring at her mentor’s elderly, walnut-hued face, and seeming to reference every line of wisdom in it before speaking. “That’s just it, none of this makes sense. The wolves don’t have beef with the Unseelie Fae-they’ve never even met them. The only logical agent of destruction keeps coming back to the Vamps.”

“But,” Bradley said carefully, “the level of sophistication of this spell set is beyond Vampire capability. I have nothing to go on, except the very strong hints an old seer gave us. To cast bad magick on the Seelie Fae is not in the province of Vampire skills, and to put dead man’s switches in it… no. This is why they never get in an outright magick duel with strong members of the Seelie Court. Vampires use mind possession while in one’s presence. They can send a dark energy zap to fry your heart or commit some other act of immediate violence, or even influence a human to do you some ill will. But once they leave the scene of the crime, generally their power doesn’t hold. That’s also why they have covens do their bidding. There have been no Vampires present when these strange occurrences have gone down.”

“You said they get covens to do their bidding…” Doc Holland stood and walked to the window to stare out of it to think. “What if it’s a strong coven?”

“I’d say yes, if they hadn’t messed with the Seelie Fae… but no human witch or warlock in his or her right mind would attack a well-favored Fae community at the height of their power manifestation time during Midsummer. That would be a death sentence, even if the Vampires did pay a king’s ransom or promise everlasting life. The Fae have a wicked sense of humor and would allow that person who was outted to live forever as the Vamps promised, but as a tadpole with fangs or something equally as heinous.”