When we turned onto the old country road we’d traveled the night before, Marc turned on the radio rather than speak to me. I shrugged out of my jacket and took off my brace, then stared out the window while I concentrated on Shifting just my right arm.

In the motel, I’d Shifted into and out of human form four times, for a total of eight transformations. The first four were the most physically painful experiences I’d ever had in my life, but after that, the pain began to ebb until—with the last one—Shifting almost felt normal again.

The gash in my left arm was completely healed, and the long, jagged ridge of a scar could easily have been a month old. There was no more pain, and I had regained all muscle control, except for an annoying—and hopefully inconsequential—weakness in my pinkie finger. It stuck out just a bit now, when I formed a fist, but didn’t seem to hinder normal activity. That had been my biggest fear—the possible loss of function or flexibility in my left hand—and that had seemed likely in the beginning, when I couldn’t make my fingers obey orders from my brain. But in the end, I was both grateful and relieved to have avoided catastrophe. No pun intended.

My right arm was another story. After eight Shifts, it no longer hurt to move my hand and I had regained most of the flexibility in my wrist. But the injury still felt very tender, and I was afraid that overuse—or even short-term stringent use—could lead to further, and possibly permanent, damage.

“What are you doing?” Marc glanced at my arm, and his question broke into my concentration. My palm shortened and my fingers lengthened. Fur never got the chance to sprout.

“Just trying to be ready.” I couldn’t shake the feeling that something would go wrong on Jace’s end, and if that happened, we all needed to be able to fight.

Marc sighed, and I had the overwhelming urge to touch his jaw. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and the stubble on his face had bypassed the painful, scratchy phase and slid right into soft-and-sexy. “Let’s just forget about it for now, okay?” he said, and I realized we were talking about Jace again. About our little problem, and the desperate need for some kind of a resolution. Of the sort that wouldn’t get anybody killed. Or even dumped, preferably.

“Okay,” I agreed, because there was really no other option.

Marc nodded decisively. “We’ll shovel his emotional shit after this is all over. For now, let’s just focus on getting the job done. That’s the only way we’re going to be able to concentrate. Right?”

“Right.” I’d become a parrot. I almost asked Polly for a cracker.

“I know this can’t be easy for you, either,” Marc conceded, and his reasonable tone made me want to cry. “He’s put you in a tough position. Put all of us there, really. Not that he meant to…”

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about it.”

“Yeah.” Marc linked his fingers through mine on the center console. “Sorry.”

At not quite three in the afternoon, Marc parked the rented SUV on an overgrown dirt trail that ended several hundred feet into the woods, about a quarter-mile from where we’d parked the night before.

“Maybe we should Shift.” I stepped onto the forest floor and my hiking boots crunched into several small pinecones. “If this goes bad, we’re going to need claws.”

Marc shook his head, then drained the last of his coffee, watching me from the other side of the vehicle. “You need to conserve your energy, and you should try to keep your weight off that wrist until it’s fully healed. Besides, if nothing goes wrong, Jace may need extra hands to help with Lance.”

“Okay, you Shift and I’ll stay like this. Best of both worlds.”

He couldn’t argue with that. Marc stripped and handed me his clothes, then dropped to his knees in the fallen pine needles. I dug in his pants pocket for the rental keys, then stuffed his clothes into the backpack he’d stocked with bottles of water and snack bars, and locked up the car.

When he’d Shifted, Marc rubbed the entire length of his body against my leg, and I let my hand trail through his fur, all the way to the tip of his tail. He purred noisily, then walked off into the woods, expecting me to follow.

“Wait. We’re early. Let’s take a peek at the compound before we head to the deer stand.” Though, the term compound was a bit flattering for Malone’s collection of buildings.

Marc shook his head firmly and kept walking.

“We won’t get caught. I just want to get close enough to make sure he’s not in any trouble. I need your eyes and ears. Come on.”

Marc refused to turn back, so I headed west without him. Before I could count to five, he huffed, then jogged after me so silently I never would have known he was there, if I hadn’t been listening for him. Pine needles don’t crunch like dead leaves.

Marc whined when he came even with me, and I understood the gist, if not the specifics. “I’ll be careful. And thank you. I feel horrible sending him in there alone, with no backup. That’s not how we work.”

After that, we hiked in silence, out of caution this time, rather than discomfort. I scratched his head and ran my fingers down his back whenever the opportunity presented itself, and he rubbed against me almost as often. It was a much more pleasant silence than the one in the car.

We’d gone less than a mile and a half when Marc went suddenly still but for his ears, which swiveled toward the north. I froze, following his lead, though I couldn’t yet hear whatever had put him on alert.