Leander crossed his arms over his chest and glared at his father, defiant, unrepentant. “I don’t want to be a leader. I just want to be left alone.”

His father gave him a sidelong glance and a smile filled with compassion.

“Things change, Leander. Day by day, the future comes nearer, the past recedes. Whether we like it or not, change is inevitable.” His father’s gaze slid to where the light from the gatehouse pooled saffron and gold on the cobbled road leading away from Sommerley. His gaze followed the road until the light dwindled and the cobblestones were swallowed by shadow.

“Your time is coming, son. And I know you’ll be ready. But if you are unwilling to live the life that’s set before you” —his father lifted his hand to the night, a simple gesture filled with grace and authority—“then go.”

Leander stood frozen on the wall. The night breeze rustled the trees around them, the smell of elderberry and wet grass was crisp and cool in his nose.

“Deserters are considered one of the worst threats to the tribe,” Leander said slowly, thinking it through. His mind turned, leaping ahead. “They’re desperate. Uncontrolled. Dangerous. Almost as dangerous as...”

But he didn’t say the word. It hung in the air between them.

“Yes,” his father answered.

He chewed the inside of his lip. “The Assembly would come after me.”

His father smiled serenely. “Yes.”

“I’d have to find somewhere forested, somewhere I could live and Shift without being noticed...”

“I daresay you would be able to take care of yourself, to find a way to survive alone. You’re the bravest of my children, by far the most resourceful. Though you’re young, I’ve no doubt you’d manage. And the world is full of wooded places, to be sure.”

Leander sent a glace back toward Sommerley, toward where his home lay deep in the wild and beautiful woods. His heart seized with sudden emotion—elation or remorse, he couldn’t tell. “Mother would kill you.”

His father nodded ruefully. “Undoubtedly.”

Leander’s temper snapped. “Then why! Why would you do such a thing! Why would you let me go when it’s against the Law—when no one can leave, not even you, the Alpha!”

His father suddenly looked older. His handsome features betrayed the burden of a lifetime of leadership in the lines around his mouth, in the furrows carved in his brow.

“Because you are my son, and I love you. You have a choice, as do we all, but you must be willing to pay the consequences. You must be willing to forsake everything you have, or ever will have here at Sommerley: your friends, your family, your home. You must be willing to walk away from your heritage and your future and any kind of security. You must be willing to be chased, and possibly—most likely—caught and punished severely by the Assembly.

“You must be willing to be hunted by our enemies, to run from place to place like a fugitive, to feel like an outsider everywhere you go on this earth. You must be sure that whatever it is you are pursuing by abandoning your home is worth all these things.”

His father sighed then and turned to the edge of the wall they perched atop. He peered down into the dark meadow spread below, filled with alpine flowers and dozing mice and the sweet, ripening smell of the summer to come. “To my mind, there is only one thing worth that kind of sacrifice. Only one thing in all the world.”

“What is it?” Leander whispered, enthralled with a curious, creeping dread.

The amber glow reflected from the gatehouse lanterns warmed his father’s profile as he turned his head slightly and smiled down at him.

“Love.”

Leander blinked, confused. His father’s smile only deepened. “Are you in love, son?”

Leander wrinkled his nose and snorted. “No.”

“Ah. Well, then. Perhaps it’s not worth the risk. But I leave that to you to decide.”

His father began to dissolve into vapor from the feet up, slowly, in parts, his body shimmering and turning, evanescing into the warmed air like steam curling up from water, until only his shoulders and head remained. It was a trick Leander had seen before, when his mother was angry with him about something and he’d wanted to soften her with a bit of whimsy.

Leander crossed his arms over his chest, unmoved, and glared at his father.

“Whatever your decision, son, I’d like to ask you one favor.”

Silence. An aggravated sigh. Then—“What?”

“If you do come back tonight, let’s keep this conversation between the two of us. If your mother finds out I didn’t try to stop you,” he chuckled as his chest and neck disappeared into vapor, winding up around his head in fine ribbons, pale as smoke, “she’ll kill me.”

With a wink, he dissolved completely, leaving Leander alone in the succoring dark.

All these years later, Leander remembered his father’s words as he stood looking over the crowd gathered on the curved driveway in front of Sommerley manor. His friends and his kin and the leaders of his kind from around the globe, most of the people from the village, hundreds upon hundreds of Ikati stood silent and grave on the groomed white gravel, getting wet in the steady rain that had started up again.

Only Christian was missing from the crowd. He’d been thrown into the holding cell with Morgan.

His father and mother were dead, his brother had defied him, his sister was in the clutches of their ancient enemy, possibly being tortured or raped or killed at this very moment. His people were on the brink of falling into chaos, their tribe was on the edge of war, and he was on the verge of losing his mind.

There is only one thing worth that kind of sacrifice—only one thing in all the world.

His father had known he wouldn’t really run away, Leander understood that now. Or perhaps he knew all Leander really needed was the choice. No man could truly lead if it was forced upon him, if the need to serve and protect was not as much a part of him as the heart that beat within his own chest.

And on that night so long ago he’d chosen to stay, because Sommerley was his kingdom and his heritage and his lifeblood. He loved it. He realized he would never forsake it, nor would he forsake those who depended upon him.

He had a job to do. He’d been raised to do it, he’d been groomed for this moment and this fight. He had to protect his people and lead them to safety and exterminate the threat to their way of life.

Yet for all he had lost and all he had yet to do, for all the fury and vengeance and wrath that scorched through his veins, for all the terror he saw in the eyes of his people and the danger that had descended so abruptly and savagely upon them, at this moment Leander thought of only one thing.

Jenna.

She was his passion. She was his fire. She was his heart.

He would find her. He would find her because she was his mate and his queen and his future bride, and death itself could not keep him from her.

“Our defenses have been breached.” From his elevated position on the top step of the marble staircase that led to the massive iron doors of the manor, his deep voice carried easily over the gathered crowd. “Our secrets have been discovered. Our enemy is finally at hand. Every one of us knows what is at stake.”

The cold wind picked up, sending dry leaves skipping through the legs of the crowd. It lifted the hems of long skirts and jackets, flicked his dripping hair against his cheeks and jaw. The sky boiled slate gray overhead, choked with ominous clouds that dropped rain in slanting sheets to the forest. The trees poked up like dark claws into the wet bowl of the sky.

His gaze raked the crowd. “Let them come. We are Ikati. We have survived the eons, we will survive this.”

His lips curved into a smile, cold and beautiful. “We will slaughter them all.”

Nothing stirred. Nothing made a sound, and as far as she could tell, nothing breathed.