He wasn’t a good man. He was cruel and wicked, and capable of… I blew out a breath. Funny how thinking of him when I hadn’t thought of him since the funeral, when closure had enabled me to move on, and hearing Sabina’s voice was enough to calm me down, to stop me from hyperventilating.

Just the reminder he was dead and couldn’t hurt me, and knowing that Sabina was alive, were better than any meds I could get from the doctor.

I grabbed my phone, which I’d dropped when the beast had started slamming into my door, and then I whispered, “I-I think the animal stopped.”

“It did?” I could hear Sabina’s relief, and I hummed under my breath before I did what I hadn’t dared do before—unbarricade myself from the living room where I’d holed up.

I pushed aside the dresser I’d hauled in, and then moved a lounger chair that I’d used as well to cushion the blow if the hyena got inside.

I wasn’t sure why the animal hadn’t just shifted back to human form, why they’d insisted on attacking me in that skin—surely it was easier to break into someone’s home when you had opposable thumbs?—but I wasn’t going to complain that the person attacking me was a dumbass.

When I peered out into the small hall that lined the center of the cabin, which led to a kitchen, living room, and bathroom on one side, then on the other, two small bedrooms, I saw nothing and no one aside from a buckled door.

Kali Sara, the force behind that movement was phenomenal. Absolutely incredible.

I gaped at the sight of the thick logs that had warped with the crushing force of the hyena hurling himself into it, and I sucked in a breath, prayed that this wasn’t a trap, but I just, well, my gut told me it wasn’t.

My gut told me I was safe.

Which, in all honesty, wasn’t great. For years, that same gut had been trying to convince me that I was nuts, but I figured in for a penny in for a pound.

When I opened the door, which walked out onto a tiny kind of covered porch, I saw it.

I knew it was a he from when he’d shifted the first time in front of me, but the sight of him, so massive, so…

“Shit, I think I’m going to be sick,” I whispered to Sabina, who made cooing noises, like she was trying to calm me down.

What bewildered me was that it worked.

The sound stopped me from wanting to puke, and when I registered the noises she was making, I almost shook my head in despair because it was a lullaby our momma had sung to us once upon a time.

Dropping to my knees, I stared at the corpse, wondering what on Earth had happened. For a second, my gaze was glued to it, to its wounds, then I looked around, trying to see if I was still in danger, because someone had to have fired the arrow that had pierced the creature’s chest.

The shot was so beyond a bullseye that I’d never seen anything like it, and my dad had always loved darts, even though they were boring. He’d watched it on the TV, had watched it at bars, and had played with his friends all the time.

I’d seen some fantastic bullseyes in my time, but nothing beat this. Nothing even compared.

When I saw no one in the woods, no one walking out, waving a bow and arrow and saying, “I managed to kill that huge hyena who is totally not native to Montana for you, do you think you could see it in your heart to make me a coffee for the road?” I shook my head.

But I peered at the corpse, grossed out as I saw there was also some kind of bite mark on it. A few, even.

Something or someone had mauled the animal.

All while it was ripping into my door.

“Sabina?” I rasped.

“Yes, sweetness,” she replied, just like she always did. I was the baby of the family, and she’d always coddled me.

“I-I think I’m going to pass out.”

“No!” Her harsh bark had me jerking, but it was enough to wake me up, to stop the need to pass out from overtaking me. If I was unconscious, then it didn’t matter if none of this made sense, did it? It didn’t matter worth a damn.

I’d wake up and probably learn that this was all a dream. That there wasn’t a hyena on my front stoop, and that Sabina was still dead.

Only, this was real. I knew it. And that was why it was even more tempting to just drift out of this world and into the Sandman’s.

“We’re sending enforcers to get you, Lara. You must stay awake for them to come and pick you up.”

My eyes flared wide at that. “Huh? Why? What’s happening?”

“I need you to come to my home, sweetness. I need you here. I need your help.”

I blinked at that, feeling a little dazed because I’d expected to be dead by now, not to have to travel a few thousand miles to wherever she was.

“I’m confused,” I rumbled. “What kind of help?”

She gulped. “Do you still see spirits?”

I tensed, totally taken aback by that question. In all honesty, I’d only ever told her once, and I’d thought she’d forgotten. Everyone else just thought I saw and felt other people’s feelings, and while that wasn’t a lie, it was only a fragment of the truth too.

I saw so much more.

“I thought you forgot about that.”

“You wished I had. I never forgot, I just did my best to try to make things better.”

“Until you died.”

The bitterness surprised me, but it didn’t surprise her. She sighed. “I’m sorry about that, sweetness.”

“I missed you,” I whispered, miserable to the last. Like thirteen years hadn’t passed, as if it was yesterday.

“I missed you too,” she replied, her voice a soft hush. “Every day. But I was in danger, Lara. You know that.”

I did. I had.

My jaw still tensed. “We all were in danger. You couldn’t have called? Told me you weren’t dead?”

Before I could say another word, the phone was snatched from her. I heard a little tussle, and then there was a sharp voice in my ear, one that had me jerking upright with irritation. “I understand this is a family reunion that’s long in the making, but for whatever reason, you were being attacked by a…”

When the man’s voice wore off, like he had no idea what had attacked me, I plunked in, “A hyena.”

When the guy muttered, “A hyena?” I heard it trigger a short burst of conversation on the other side.

My brow furrowed though, because there were three distinct voices on the end of the line, and my sister was there too. It was, I registered, nearly two AM, so what was she doing with three guys at this time of the night?

Before I could get bogged down with questions, Sabina muttered, “It was a shifter.”

“How did you know that?”

“I told her,” I muttered.

But Sabina replied, “I saw it in my dreams.”

My mouth gaped at that, because whatever I expected her to say, it wasn’t that. I gawped at nothing, at the body on my stoop, and whispered, “Did you inherit Great-Nanny’s gift?”

She gulped. “I don’t know. I really don’t, Lara. I have no idea what’s going on, I just know that I need you here.”

“Why?”

“There’s a boy. He’s, well, strange.”

I didn’t need to look at her to know she’d be frowning, her mouth working as she stared at nothing. I knew her well. Okay, I’d known her well. So well. We’d been best friends, and it hadn’t been because we had no choice either.