“Dougal, you’re grown,” Graham snapped. “You don’t need me around all the time.”

Dougal’s muzzle was down, almost on the ground, his ears back, tail tucked underneath him. Graham balled his fists in frustration. Dougal needed reassurance, not more yelling. But damn it, the cubs, Graham’s responsibility, were gone, and there was an evil Fae on the loose.

Graham laid his hand on Dougal’s head. “The mating instinct is harsh. Trust me, I know this. It’s going to mess you up all the time. But that doesn’t matter right now. I need you. You have the cubs’ scent. Help me find them.”

Dougal lifted his head, looking slightly better, but he still cringed as he slunk out of the house and started sniffing around.

“Poor kid,” Nell said.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with him.” Graham went out the door after Dougal, Nell behind him.

Outside, they met Cormac, a huge, blue-eyed bear Shifter. He’d recently mated with Nell, and the two had stuck together since then like contact cement.

“If they’re in Shiftertown, we haven’t found them,” Cormac said.

Graham swallowed the raging curses that wanted to come out and said, “Thanks for looking.”

“We’ll look again,” Cormac said. Nell nodded, and moved off with him.

Shiftertown was abuzz. During the day, Felines usually napped, and bears did too—bears always found some excuse to sleep. But now Shifters were out, many in Shifter form, noses to the ground, helping search for the two little ones.

Graham shucked his own clothes, changed into his large black wolf, put his muzzle down, and sniffed.

What he mostly smelled was a maze of Shifter scents, going every which way. This was the problem with Shiftertowns—too many scents from different clans, packs, and species tangled together. Wolf packs needed to have their scents around them and no one else’s. Other scents meant danger. But here, with everything mixed up, Shifters couldn’t tell danger until it was too late. Which was probably what had happened with Kyle and Matt.

They searched. Dougal stayed close to Graham, both of them keeping to wolf form while they hunted, Dougal still needing reassurance.

A hatchback car came into Shiftertown, pulling up in front of Graham’s house. The door opened, and Misty’s scent came to him, even across the field where he searched. Misty didn’t drive a hatchback, and the scent of it was wrong for her, but that fact was peripheral.

As soon as Misty’s shapely foot touched pavement, Graham focused on her and nothing else.

It had happened. Last night had triggered it, or maybe the dreams or the spells had.

As Graham watched Misty, taking in her long legs under a loose, calf-length skirt, her shapely br**sts hidden by a white tank top with a little pink bow at the neckline, he knew his mating frenzy hadn’t come out of nowhere. It had started the first night he’d met her.

Graham had always told himself that he could give her up, walk away from her at any time. He needed a Shifter mate, Misty was human—and so it could never be.

Graham had reasoned that if he didn’t have sex with her, didn’t spend any nights with her, and kept her at a distance, he’d be fine. Then, when the time came for him to pick out a Lupine mate, he’d be able to tell Misty, Thanks, it’s been fun. Or better still, say nothing at all. She’d get it.

Now, more than ever, Graham needed to cut her out of his life. She was free of the spell, free of the Fae, free of Graham’s problems. Misty could go, and Graham would focus on his dilemmas and move on.

But Graham knew, watching as Misty walked around to the back of the car, her skirt swishing around her tanned legs, that he’d never, ever be able to send her away. She was rapidly filling every empty space inside Graham’s heart, and cutting her out of it would kill him.

Graham sat down on his haunches, wanting to point his nose to the sky and howl as miserably as Dougal had. He was so, so screwed.

 • • •

Shiftertown was busier than Misty had ever seen it, except on ritual days. But all rituals, even mourning ceremonies, carried the element of a party. Right now, the Shifters were on alert, roving everywhere, tension high.

She had a feeling she knew why. Misty unlocked and opened the hatchback, reached in, and lifted two wolf cubs out by the scruffs of their necks.

They didn’t want to come. The cubs curled in on themselves, trying to cling to Misty.

The Shifters closest to her saw. They stopped, eyes and ears fixed on Misty, the ones in human form freezing to look.

The awareness that Misty had the cubs spread like a ripple, rolling outward from her and around the giant black wolf who’d stopped and stared at her before she’d opened the hatch.

The Shifters weren’t rejoicing. Not laughing in relief that Misty had brought the cubs back home. They were angry. She heard growls, rumbles, the soft snarls of animals debating whether or not to attack.

If this had been Misty’s first ever encounter with Shifters, she’d be diving back into the car and racing the hell out of there. These Shifters were enraged Misty had the cubs, and they didn’t look as though they cared about explanations.

Misty tried anyway. “I found them. I didn’t take them. I’m bringing them back.”

She tried to gently set down the cubs so she could back away, showing she meant no harm. But as soon as she turned loose their scruffs, Matt and Kyle scrambled back into her arms, their little bodies shaking. They were terrified.

The black wolf had started forward as soon as Misty lifted the cubs from the back. Now he moved rapidly between her and the Shifters who were advancing on her.

The Shifters in front of the pack, mostly wolves, drew back a little, but their growling didn’t cease. Graham turned to face them, baring his teeth, his snarl menacing. The Lupines moved backward, heads lowering, but still they growled, unhappy.

One Lupine didn’t obey. He stood up, anger in his eyes, his ears flat on his head, wolf snarls matching Graham’s. With a harsh sound that was almost a roar, Graham went for the wolf, his charge swift, his jaws opened for the kill.

Graham landed on the wolf and had his body flipped over in the space of a second, Graham’s mouth going toward the wolf’s throat. At the last moment, Graham snapped his teeth an inch from the wolf’s fur, then eased his jaws around the wolf’s throat. Graham held the wolf there for about thirty seconds, then released it and touched its nose with his.