“He took the tractor to Livingston to be repaired and won’t be back for a couple of hours. And Jace and Ethan have a double date with a set of twins they met at Sonic.” Vic crossed his hands over his chest and tried to hide a smile. I frowned, sure he was kidding, but his expression said otherwise. “Seriously. And they can’t even tell the girls apart.”

I winced in sympathy for the twins I’d never met. “So, we’re back to Marc and his world-famous mac and cheese with hot dogs,” I said, rubbing Marc’s shoulder.

He shrugged out from under my hand. “I’l race you for it. Loser cooks.

And cleans,” he added as an afterthought.

“To the tree line?” The sparkle in my eyes reflected back at me in Marc’s pupils. He knew I loved to run.

He shook his head. “Too easy. Make it the stream.”

I nodded. “But you have to stop and Shift once you hit the trees.”

“Fine.” Marc turned to face Vic. “You in?”

“For a free meal?” Vic grinned, his blue eyes shining with more pure joy than I’d seen in them in the three months since his sister was murdered. “Hell yeah.”

“On the count of three.” I glanced from one to the other, and leather creaked as they prepared to jump to their feet. “One…”

“Two-three,” Marc finished for me. I frowned, but before I could cry

“foul,” he hoisted me into the air by my waist and tossed me across the rug, without so much as a grunt. “Catch,” he shouted to Vic, who’d just bolted up from his seat on the couch.

Vic’s eyes went wide as I sailed toward him, unable to stop or even change my trajectory. My arms flailed in the air, and I landed on him with al the grace of a hippo dancing the Nutcracker. My momentum drove us both back onto the couch, where he plopped down sideways, and my knee nearly hit his groin. My forehead smacked the back of the couch over Vic’s shoulder, and my front teeth clicked together sharply. By the time I’d recovered enough balance to stand, fury no doubt glinting in my eyes, Marc was nowhere in sight.

Growling, I launched myself toward the hall as a screen door slammed on the other side of the house.

Damn it, Faythe, I thought, as mad at myself as I was at Marc. Will you never learn?

Chapter Six

Vic’s footsteps thumped rapidly behind me on the tiled hal way floor.

I ran ful -out, racing after Marc with my heart pounding in my ears and adrenaline pumping through my veins. A litany of colorful phrases chased one another in my head as I tried to decide which would best express my outrage at Marc. I’d crossed out “worthless scratch-fevered tomcat” and was leaning toward “future eunuch” when I reached the end of the hall.

I shoved the storm door open, and the heat hit me instantly, humidity and intensity giving it an almost solid presence. It was like trying to inhale damp cotton. Pushing through the initial obstruction of warmth, I jumped over the back step and took off, leaving the door to slam shut at my back. But instead of the rattle of glass and the metal ic click I expected to hear, the door closed with a solid thunk and a nasal-sounding moan of pain and surprise.

Barely slowing, I glanced back over my shoulder. Vic stood behind me, holding the storm door open with one hand, while the other covered his nose. Blood ran down his right arm, dripping from his elbow to land in a spreading crimson puddle on the back step.

Damn. I’d slammed the door in his face.

“Sorry!” I yelled, already turning back to face what little I could see of Marc as he ducked beneath a low-hanging branch at the tree line. Vic mumbled something so low and muffled that even with a cat’s enhanced hearing I couldn’t make it out. But I could guess, and it wasn’t pretty.

My eye on the goal, I sprinted with a new surge of speed, powered by determination and irritation at Marc. Blood raced through my veins. My lungs expanded with each deep, exhilarating breath. My entire body was alive in spite of the heat, reveling in the thrill of exertion and the glory of the outdoors.

I pulled my sports bra over my head as I passed the guesthouse, where Marc and the guys lived. The warm wind tore the lightweight material from my fingers, and it snagged on a clump of holly bushes growing along the back porch of the guest house. As I ran, I worked the ponytail holder free from my hair and let it fal to the ground. At the tree line, I kicked off my shoes and stripped from the waist down.

In a small clearing just inside the forest, I dropped to all-fours, pleased to see Marc in the same position several feet away. He was almost done Shifting, and I hadn’t even started, so I did an abbreviated version of my usual silent meditation routine. As I focused on the rhythm of each slow inhale and exhale, my Shift began on its own, a convenience which was the result of years of practice and a conscious effort to put my mind and body at ease.

In Shifting, one rule holds true: the more anxious you get, the more pain you experience. But I’d learned quickly, following my first Shift at the onset of puberty, to relax and go with the pain. And eventually I came to welcome it. My mind was never so clear as when pain forced me to concentrate and internalize my focus. Each searing, stabbing sensation sharpened my thoughts, and each agonizing ache lubricated the grinding gears in my brain. My learned ability to think through pain had come in handy on more than one occasion, and had saved my life at least twice.

That made pain my friend. A very good, love-to-hate kind of friend.

As my back bowed and my joints popped in and out of their sockets, movement to my right caught my eyes through lids squeezed almost shut in concentration. Marc had finished his Shift. He stood before me on four powerful feline legs, long muscles bulging beneath a gorgeous coat of glossy, solid-black fur. He stared back at me through eyes the same gold-flecked brown they were in human form, though the shape was entirely different.