I made a sick face, but seeing as I was a wolf, it probably looked like I was going to hawk up a bird. It wasn't that simple anymore, but I had to change before I could explain. The van smelled like witch, pixy, and Ivy, and I didn't want to get in until I had to. I could see my suitcase, but opening it was a different matter.

Jenks stepped into the van, lurching for Jax and missing. Mumbling almost aloud, he began arranging things so we'd all fit, all the while keeping a tight watch on his son.

"What is it, Rachel?" Ivy asked warily, watching me through the rearview mirror. "You don't look happy for someone who just finished a run, even if it was pro bono."

Jenks dropped my suitcase onto a box and opened it up. "It went great," he said, his youthful face eager as he sifted through my things. "By the seat of our pants, the way Rache works best."

"I hate it when you work like that," Ivy said, but I felt better that Jenks, at least, was thinking about me not having hands.

"They caught us, but Rachel worked out a deal to fight their alpha for Nick." Jenks held up a pair of my panties so everyone could see. "I've never seen a Were go wolf that fast. It was incredible, Ivy. Almost as fast as Rachel's magic."

I felt a spike of worry, remembering their savagery when they were bound under a common cause and one Were. It still had me on edge. Ivy went still, then turned in her seat to look at him. My tail swished in an apology, and a faint wrinkle showed in her brow. "Deal?"

Jenks nodded, hesitating between the long-sleeve T-shirt and the skimpier tank top. "If she pinned their alpha, we got Nick. I didn't see it all 'cause I was looking for crap for brains, but the sound of the fight brought in a real wolf pack. The alpha Rachel was fighting ran away. I say that means Rachel won." I breathed easier when he put the tank top back. "Wasn't her fault their alpha got chewed by real wolves."

Ivy took a breath in thought, holding it. I met her eyes, knowing she had figured out the real problem, and I winced. A quick shot of adrenaline shivered through me. "They know who you are?" Ivy said, her gaze following mine to the island behind us.

Hearing the concern in her voice, Jenks straightened until his head brushed the ceiling. "Aw, hell," he said. "We can't go home. They'll follow us, even if we don't have Nick. Damn it all to Disneyland! Where's crap for brains? Jax! What did you two steal, anyway? How are we going to convince four Were packs that we don't have it or that Nick told us where it is?"

Jax was gone. I'd seen him zip out of the van three pixy heartbeats after his dad had started using Disney's name in vain. Angry, Jenks jumped into the parking lot and headed for the showers, arms moving and face red. "Hey! Crap for brains!" he shouted.

I rose, stretching, before I loped after Jenks. He skidded to a halt when I stopped in front of him and leaned into his legs to try to tell him it was okay, that we'd find a way around this latest problem. Jenks peered down at me, his shoulders stiff. "I'll be nice," he said, his jaw tight. "But we're leaving, and we're leaving now. We've got to get under the leaves and hope spiders spin webs above us before they start looking."

I wasn't sure how spiders fitted into his equation, but I padded back to the van while he pounded on the shower door. Ivy got the engine going, and when I jumped into the front passenger seat, she leaned over to crack the window for me. The dusky scent of incense slipped over me, familiar and rich with undertones only my subconscious had been aware of before. Comforting.

The thump of a metal door closing pulled my attention to the lot. Jenks slipped into the van, clearly upset. Fifteen feet behind him I saw Nick, beard gone and hair dripping, spotting his gray sweats. He was moving better, head up and looking around. I had been right that the shoes were too small; he was still barefoot, the sneakers dangling from two fingers.

"You're too good to him, Rachel," Ivy said softly. "You should be spitting mad, and you aren't. He's a liar and a thief. And he hurt you. Please," she whispered. "Think about what you're doing?"

Don't worry about it, I thought, enduring the indignity of thumping my tail in an effort to convey I wasn't going to let Nick back into my life. But when the memory of his battered body and his will to remain silent against drugs and pain returned to me, I had a hard time staying angry with him.

"Good God," I whispered, sitting on the van's cot and looking at my legs, horrified. They were hairy—not wolf hairy, but an I-couldn't-find-my-razor-the-last-six-months hairy. Utterly grossed out, I took a peek at my armpit, jerking away. Oh, that's just…nasty.

"You okay, Rachel?" came Ivy's voice from the front of the moving van, and I snatched up my long-sleeve black shirt and covered myself, though a heavy curtain was between me and the rest of the world passing at an awkward start-and-stop thirty-five miles an hour.

"Fine," I said, hurriedly slipping into it and wondering why my nails were the right length, though they'd lost their polish. My red frizz was longer though, bumping about past my shoulders, where it had been before Al cut a chunk out of it last winter. I had a feeling my extra-hairy condition might be laid at the feet of Ceri. She had twisted the curse to switch me back, and apparently they hadn't shaved in the Dark Ages.

I was thankful as all hell that Jenks, Jax, and Rex were in Kisten's Corvette behind us. Getting dressed in the back of a van was bad enough. Doing it with pixies watching would have been intolerable. I'd done that before. I didn't want to do it again.

Shuddering at the long red hair on my legs, I shook out a pair of socks, wishing I had footies. My face scrunched up as I put them on. This was going to change as soon as I found ten minutes to myself in the bathroom with a bottle of Nair. Why Jenks had shown up smooth as a baby's butt was beyond me. Maybe pixies didn't have hair except atop their heads.

I jerked my jeans on, flustered when the distinctive sound of my zipper going up filled the silence. Grimacing, I drew the curtain aside and fluffed my hair. Before me rose the bridge, taking up much of the skyline. The traffic was still stop-and-go, even more so now that it was down to one lane in either direction due to construction. But Nick had his truck across the straits in St. Ignace, so that's where we were headed.

"Hi, guys," I said, finding a place to kneel where I could see out the front. "I'm back."

Ivy glanced at me through the rearview mirror, her gaze lingering on my frizzing red curls. Nick looked up from rummaging in the console for change for the bridge toll, smiling though a faint tremor showed in his pianist-long hands as he shuffled about. Finding the right amount, he sat back and pushed his damp hair from his forehead.

The shower had done him good. After a week of deprivation, his narrow physique was positively gaunt, making his clean-shaven cheeks hollow and his Adam's apple more prominent. Where his lean frame had made him look scholarly before, it now only left him skinny. The gray sweats hung loose on him, and I wondered when his last hot meal had been.

His blue eyes, though, had regained the sheen of intelligence as the shower, energy bars, and distance all helped him deal with what he'd endured. He was safe—for the moment.

My mind pinged back to him leaning against the brown cinder-block building, a broken man weeping as he pulled the trigger on the shotgun.

Ivy cleared her throat, and I met her gaze through the oblong glass, returning her accusing stare with a shrug. She knew what I was thinking.

"Watch the car!" I exclaimed, and she jerked her attention back to the road. I was already reaching for a handhold when she hit the brakes, narrowly missing the bumper of the Toyota before us. Swinging forward from the momentum, I glared at her.