“Were you bitten?” Sawyer asked her.

“No. It’s hereditary.”

“You come from a family of were— Of lycans?”

“That’s right. Let me say right off, we don’t eat people. We don’t bite them, we don’t eat them. Not that there aren’t some rogues out there, but my pack—my family—doesn’t hunt, doesn’t kill. And we’re not interested in making more lycans through infection. We make them the old-fashioned way. We mate.”

“Do you mate with humans?” Annika wondered.

“You fall for who you fall for, right? So yeah, it happens.”

“Can there be children?”

“Sure. Fifty-fifty on lycan traits, so all kids are trained for the change. Initial transformation hits in puberty—as if puberty didn’t whack you out enough. Big ceremony, gifts, celebration. Every kid takes an oath, not to hunt, not to kill, not to infect.”

“Any ever break the oath?”

She looked over at Doyle. “Sure. And those who do are punished or banished, depending on the crime and circumstances. We’re pack animals.” She looked down to where Apollo dozed peacefully beside her chair. “Banishment is the worst—worse than execution. We’re civilized, okay? We have rules, a code. Three nights a month—”

“Night before the full moon,” Sawyer filled in. “Night of, night after.”

“Yeah, three nights—except in the event of a blue moon, then we get six—we transform, sundown to sunup. During that time, we fast.”

“And you transforming like you did. Jesus Christ, Riley, I could’ve shot you.” Sawyer jabbed a finger at her. “I nearly did.”

“Unless you loaded with silver bullets, it wouldn’t have done much harm.”

His expression changed—reluctant delight. “That’s real? Silver bullets?”

“Silver bullets, silver blade. It’s going to hurt to get shot or cut otherwise, but it’s not going to be fatal.”

“You left us.” Sasha spoke quietly. “Rather than trust us, you lied, and you left.”

“I didn’t go far, and I came as soon as I realized what was happening. I couldn’t risk staying here. Apollo would have sensed the change coming, for one thing. He’d have smelled the wolf on me. And even if I’d locked myself in my room, what if one of you had gotten in?”

“What if you’d just told us the truth?” Sasha countered. “The way I told you the truth? Bran held back at first, and you know how upsetting that was. We’ve been together day and night for a week now, we fought together. Twice now. If you could’ve gotten clear before sunrise this morning, you would have.”

“I’d have tried,” Riley agreed. “I don’t think it would’ve done much good. You knew. You knew before I changed back. That weighs on my side of it. It’s part of the oath, Sash. A sacred oath I took at twelve. We don’t reveal ourselves, not without permission from the Council of Laws.”

“If you do?” Bran asked.

“The punishment, first offense? You’re locked up for three cycles, no contact. It may not sound like much, but to be chained in wolf form? It’s pretty awful. Added to it is the loss of honor and trust.”

“An oath is a holy thing,” Annika stated.

“Yeah, it is. It’s a little late for it, but I applied for permission three days ago. It’s politics, so there has to be a lot of discussion and debate. I figured I’d get it, considering what we’re doing, but it was going to take a couple weeks to wind its way through the system.”

Annika reached out. “Will they punish you?”

“Not likely. I’d applied, and I only broke faith because we were attacked. There are a couple council members who lean pretty hard conservative, but it’s going to balance out. At worst, they’ll postpone sentencing, and if we find the stars, it’s going to be pretty hard for them to lock up the one who helped find them. Either way, I’ll deal with it.”

“You asked for permission to tell us,” Sasha repeated.

“It’s a process, believe me. We wouldn’t have survived as a species if we didn’t hold what is secret and sacred. So sharing what we are needs the process, and more requests are denied than granted. But we’re different, and what we’re doing is a heavy weight. I’d have had permission before my next cycle. I’d have made sure of it, but there wasn’t enough time before this one.”

“An oath is a holy thing. I’ll accept that.”

“You’re still pissed.”

“I’ll get over it. We needed you last night. You came, fought.”

“And we kicked some ass,” Sawyer put in.

“Too easy.” Doyle let the words drop, continued eating.

“Easy?” Sawyer scowled down the table. “You call that easy?”

“Only one of us—and the dog—with serious injuries, and we beat them back in about twenty minutes.” He glanced down at Bran. “You know it, too.”

“A test, to see what we have, what we’d do. She’ll come harder next time. I’m thinking on it.”

“You’re thinking on it,” Sasha muttered, and shoved up from the table. “Teamwork. We make placating noises about being a team, but we’re not. We fought last night, but not really as a unit. You gave me a knife that had some sort of protection, but didn’t really explain it.”

“I couldn’t be sure it would hold,” Bran began.

“You didn’t tell me,” she repeated. “You didn’t tell us what you were doing with the light. You didn’t tell us you had power until you had to. Just as Riley didn’t tell us what she has. Good reasons for it, of course. Always good reasons. I’m sure the rest of you have good reasons for the secrets you’re holding. So keep them, that’s your choice. But I know we don’t have a chance in hell of winning this until we are a unit.

“So make up your minds, because the next time, those secrets may be the reason she burns right through us.”

She strode away, up the terrace steps, and shut the doors to her room with a decisive click to give herself what she’d always sought.

Quiet and solitude.

She slept. She’d fought a war, treated the wounded, cleaned up blood, and topped off the morning snarling at her “team.”

So she slept, and woke feeling more rested—and just as annoyed.

If there were plans to go out diving later, she thought, they’d just have to do without her. She intended to take a walk on the beach, do some sketching, and some hard thinking.

She put what she wanted in a tote, stepped outside. Bran stepped out on the terrace seconds after.

“I’m going for a walk,” she told him.

“I need to do the same, to gather more supplies. Would you go with me, help me with that?” He stepped toward her. “And if you could give me some time after, I’d show you how to prepare some of the ingredients. It would be a help to me.”

“Why? You’ve done fine on your own.”

“I have, and can. I’d do better with your help. You were right, everything you said. I can’t speak for the others, but I can promise you, no more secrets between us. It wasn’t trust so much, Sasha, as habit. Now I’m asking for your help, and doing what I can to get used to the asking.”

“Then it would be bitchy to refuse. I feel like I used up my daily quota of bitchy.”

“You used it well. I need a pouch and a couple of tools.”

He came back with a pouch slung over his shoulder, and the knife he’d given her before, this time in a rough leather sheath.

“I should have told you how I’d empowered it.” He snapped it on her belt. “I’ll tell you now, if she sends a different sort of attack, I can’t know if it will hold up the same.”

“If and when, we’ll find out.”

He took her hand as they started down. “You’re not afraid.”

“There’s part of me, inside, still terrified. That part wanted to cut and run screaming this morning. I’m not sure what part of me refuses to do that—but I’m trying to get used to it. Where’s everyone else?”

“Riley’s sleeping. She got little to none last night, and I think, despite the bravado, she’s worried about the ruling of this council of hers.”

“If they rule to punish her for fighting with us, they’ll have to get through us to do it.”