We’d always been close, in a way that I never had been with Jana.

But then, Jana had been like our father—cruel and hard. I had to think that was because she spent a lot of time with him, working on bets to sustain his habit. Sabina and I had taken after our mother, and that was why we had targets painted on our foreheads where our father was concerned. Of course, the weirdest thing of all was I knew Sabina was his favorite because she looked like Mom, but that hadn’t stopped him hurting her.

I rubbed my bottom lip, aware that my fingers were grubby from how badly my hands had been sweating. But that was the least of my problems. The absolute least.

Sighing, shoulders slouching as I slumped against the nearest wall and kept my eyes on the hyena lest the damn thing wake up, I muttered, “What kind of strange?”

“I-I just think he needs your help.”

I wasn’t about to cut her any slack though. “Don’t bullshit me, Sabina. What makes you think that?”

“I can sense something inside him. I didn’t know what it was, still don’t, to be honest, and I could be totally wrong, but I just—” She sighed. “You know about these other creatures now, Lara.”

“I know something, that’s for sure,” I agreed gruffly. “Saw a man turn into a damn hyena, have been hunted by that same creature for almost a week!”

“Why?” Another voice. Softer, serious. Studious. “Hyenas aren’t likely to attack without due cause. They’re rare, and they stick to their own for safety.”

I heaved a sigh, because that just made me feel even guiltier. Even if this beast was a monster, there were two fewer of the supposedly rare species.

“I was driving home after doing the groceries, and I thought it was a cat, but it darted out in front of me. I tried to swerve out of the way, but I didn’t. Not in time. I drove over it,” I whispered, a sob in my voice. “When I got out, it was there, this hideous creature—” My mouth worked because it had been hideous. This one was too. It was so beyond grotesque that it made the Lion King version look pretty. I whispered, “When I saw the dead animal, I heard a howl, a scream, and I twisted around and saw this man turning into the same animal. I ran into the car, and drove off—”

“Must have been his mate,” that same studious voice said. “They’ll only kill to protect them. You know how rabid they are when it comes to protecting their mates.”

More guilt hit me, before Sabina hesitantly explained, “My men, Lara, can turn into animals too. But they’re wolves. Not hyenas.”

“You mean they’re werewolves?”

“I guess.”

“We prefer the term ‘shifter.’”

That was a different voice. Not the studious one or the bossy one, but a lighter one.

I rubbed my forehead with the back of my sleeve. “Look, who the hell am I talking to?”

I couldn’t carry on calling them Studious, Bossy, and Lighter now, could I? This wasn’t the start of Snow White.

“And when you say ‘your men,’ what are you talking about, Sabina?”

She heaved a sigh. “I know it might sound a little unorthodox, but Austin, he’s the one who just spoke. Eli’s the one who snatched the phone away from me, and then Ethan is the one who explained about hyenas and mates.” She heaved another sigh. “We’re all mated.”

“Like, married? You can’t be married to three men.” My eyes flared wide. “Are you a Fundamentalist Mormon?”

She heaved an impatient sigh. “No, they do things the other way around. I don’t have sister wives.”

“You just have brother husbands,” the lighter voice, Austin, teased, making her laugh.

Sabina’s laugh had my brows soaring though, because it was jovial and joyful. I knew it sounded weird to put it like that, but I could hear her happiness in that laugh. It wasn’t at all strained or constrained, just jubilant. Bubbly.

In a way I’d never heard her before.

In a way that made my heart happy.

“Even if I was a Fundamentalist, it’s my life,” she grumbled, “but I’m not. I’m just a…well, I’m one of them now. I’m a wolf child.”

A wolf child?

There was so much wrong with that statement, but I had no idea where to start.

So instead, I just gaped at the corpse until I felt something shift around me.

Feelings. Emotions. Thoughts.

They started to bombard me.

No change there.

I reached up and rubbed my temple, because the sudden intrusion was strong after the silence of the last week, where the only thing that had been hitting me on all sides was the hyena’s cackle.

“People are coming,” I whispered.

“Good, they should be there soon. I had the Kinsdale pack send an enforcer over, Lara. They’re to help you pack your things and bring you to us.”

“Bring me to you?” I argued. “This is my home.”

“We need you here,” Eli, the bossy one, countered, and I felt no shift in his resolve. Absolutely no doubt or lack of certainty that I would do as I was told.

For a second, it reminded me of my father, then Sabina snorted. “Don’t be so bossy, Eli. You’re going to scare her away. We want her help, remember?”

He heaved an impatient sigh, but it wasn’t angry, wasn’t even moody. More like he was used to getting his own way and didn’t want to waste time.

Well, that wasn’t like our father.

Father would have backhanded her. He’d have slapped her silly for daring to speak out, but Eli just grumbled, “You say that, but she’s dithering. We need to get her out of there anyway. The hyenas will sense they’ve lost not just one, but two members of their clan, and they’ll be on the hunt for them. They don’t let their dead lay fallow.”

I blinked at that. “Huh? What does that mean?”

“It means,” Ethan imparted, “that they have a burial ceremony for each lost member of their collective. They’ll be on the hunt for the bodies to bring them to the soil, and if they think you were involved in two members’ deaths, they won’t be happy with you.”

“They’ll hurt her?” Sabina shrieked, before she blurted out, “Lara, you get your butt moving. I won’t be losing you just when I’ve found you, missy!”

Though I wanted to grit my teeth at her bossiness, I was used to it, too used to it to get mad, and in all honesty, it felt good.

I was used to her telling me what to do. It wasn’t that I always obeyed, more often than not, I actually didn’t, but damn, it felt good to have someone care for me again.

It felt more than good. It felt wonderful.

Mother had long since left the building, because she spent all her time with our father, trying to fix him, make him better so he’d remember her. She’d never seemed to understand that it was a losing battle, and once the war had been lost, she didn’t have much of a will to live anymore.

The few times I talked to her a year, I was always glad to get off the phone and relieved that I wouldn’t have to talk to her for another few months.

And Cyrilo? Well, his absence in my life came as no loss. I’d left not long after I was eighteen and hadn’t looked back. A pocket of freedom that had only been opened up to me with my father’s illness letting me loose.