A few minutes before ten p.m., Martina knocked on the door to the small room where I was asked to wait. “It’s time.”

I followed her down the stairs, lower and lower. I had no idea the Keep went that deep underground.

Finally she stopped before a solid door. “Nervous?”

“Not really.” I had spent the morning sitting in a small room with Raphael and the families of the four murdered shapeshifters, telling them the whole long story. The Pack had rounded up the snake people. It didn’t take long for the truth to come out: Raphael’s crew was murdered by Saii, the priests. They were the only ones with poison glands. The rest of the snake people had fangs, but their bites were hardly fatal. All six of the Saii were dead. I took out Gloria, Roman and I had killed Sanchez on the bridge, and the four remaining perished before our battle with Apep. The Pack loaded the remaining cultists and what little baggage they had onto the boats and shipped them under armed escort out of the Pack’s territory. They were forbidden to return. Derek oversaw the convoy and said that most of them seemed relieved. The Saii had worked them like slaves.

I got to hold Baby Rory again. We made a pact, he and I. He would grow up to be kind and strong, and I would make sure that his clansmen would never mistreat him or break his bones.

I was able to look Nick in the eye when I told him that the people who had murdered his wife would never again hurt anyone else. He thanked me. This ceremony paled in comparison.

“Last chance to turn back,” Martina said.

I knew what waited behind the door. Raphael and his mother. A few members of Clan Bouda. Kate and Curran. My friends, my alpha, my mate, and the new future. For once, I wouldn’t have to hide who I was.

I opened the door.

The vast chamber stretched in front of me, dipping down to the stage, on which a metal fire pit stood. Flames danced inside it.

Behind the pit stood Aunt B. To the left, Curran and Kate sat, together with the other alphas and betas. Shapeshifters occupied the terraced steps surrounding them. Hundreds of shapeshifters. Suddenly I was nervous.

There was no turning back. I raised my head and marched down the stairs toward the fire, looking straight at Raphael for support. The stairs lasted for an eternity. Finally I stopped next to Aunt B.

“We gather here to invite Andrea Nash to the Pack,” Aunt B said, her voice carrying through the room. “You know her. She has fought for us. She has given her blood and used her skills for the good of the Pack. Today we honor her sacrifice and accept her as one of our own. If any of you have a problem with that, rise and challenge me.”

“No, thank you!” someone quipped from the right.

Light laughter ran through the room. I tried to keep still, but the giggles bubbled up out of me.

Aunt B grinned. “It’s your turn, dear. Your moment.”

I stepped to the fire and pulled my sleeve back. The flames crackled and burned in the fire pit. I thrust my forearm into the fire. The flames licked, searing my flesh. The smell of burned hair from my arm whiffed up. I held it for another second to prove that I was in control. No loup could touch the flames. It inspired strong instinctual terror in them.

I lowered my arm, trying not to wince at the pain, and said the first words of my oath. “I, Andrea Nash, a human and a shapeshifter, swear to abide by the laws of the Pack and my clan. I swear to obey my alphas and honor my clan’s traditions. I swear to be loyal to my Pack brothers and sisters, to guard them from harm, and should the need arise, to fight to my death at their side…”

MAGIC

GIFTS

A Kate Daniels Novella

CHAPTER 1

I was ten feet from the office door of Cutting Edge Investigations when I heard the phone ring inside. Unfortunately, the key to the office was in my sweatshirt pocket, which at the moment was also full of pale pink slime dripping from the tentacles resting on my shoulders. The tentacles weighed about seventy pounds and my shoulders really didn’t like it.

Behind me, Andrea, my best friend and partner in crime solving, shifted the bulbous mass of flesh that was the rest of the creature, rearranging it. “Phone.”

“I hear it.” I dug in my pocket, all but glued shut by slime. Cold wetness slipped through my fingers. Ew.

“Kate, it could be a client.”

“I’m trying to find the key.”

Clients meant money, and money was in short supply. Cutting Edge had opened its doors three months ago, and while we were getting a trickle of paying jobs, most of them were lousy. Despite a good recommendation from the Red Guard, the premier bodyguard outfit in Atlanta, clients weren’t knocking down our door to hire us.

Our world was beset by magic waves. They flooded us at random, smothering technology and leaving monsters in their wake. One moment you had rogue mages spitting fireballs and lightning, the next the magic would vanish, and the cops would gun down said mages with their now-operational firearms.

Sadly, the consequences of the magic waves didn’t always vanish with them, and Atlanta by necessity had spawned many agencies to deal with magic hazmat. All of them had been in business a lot longer than us: the cops, the Mercenary Guild, a slew of private companies, and the big gorilla, the Order of Merciful Aid. The Order and its knights made it their mission to guard humanity against all threats and they did just that—but on their terms. Both Andrea and I had worked for the Order at some point and both of us had left under less than amicable circumstances.

Our reputations weren’t stellar, so when we got a job, it was because everyone else in town had already shot it down. We were quickly turning into Atlanta’s business of last resort. Still, every successful job was a check mark by our name.

The phone rang, insistent.

Our latest job had come courtesy of the Green Acres Home Owners Association, who had shown up at our door this morning claiming that a giant levitating jellyfish was roaming their suburb and could we please come and get it, because it was eating local cats. Apparently the translucent jellyfish was floating about with half-digested cat bodies inside it, and the neighborhood children were very upset. The cops told them that it wasn’t a priority, since the jellyfish hadn’t eaten any humans yet, and the Mercenary Guild wouldn’t get rid of it for less than a grand. The HOA offered us $200. Nobody in their right mind would do the job for that price.

It took us all damned day. And now we had to properly dispose of the cursed thing, because dealing with the corpses of magical creatures was like playing Russian roulette. Sometimes nothing happened…and sometimes the corpse melted into a puddle of sentient carnivorous protoplasm. Or hatched foot-long blood-sucking leeches.

The weight of the jellyfish suddenly vanished from my shoulders. I rummaged in my pocket and my fingertips slid against the cold metal. I yanked the key out, slipped it into the lock, and swung the heavy reinforced door open. Aha! Victory.

I lunged through the door and made a break for the phone. I reached it a second too late and the answering machine came on. “Kate,” Jim’s voice said. “Pick up the phone.”

I backed away from the phone like it was on fire. I knew exactly what this call was about and I didn’t want any of it.

“Kate, I know you’re there.”

“No, I’m not,” I said.

“You will have to deal with this, sooner or later.”

I shook my head. “No, I won’t.”

“Call me.” Jim hung up.

I turned to the door and watched Andrea walk through it. Behind her, the jellyfish squeezed through the doorway on its own. I blinked. The jellyfish kept coming. It cleared the door, turned, and I saw Curran carrying it in his hands, as if the three-hundred-pound mass of flesh was no heavier than a plate of pancakes. It’s good to be the Beast Lord.

When had he arrived and what was he doing here, anyway?

“Where to?” he asked.

“Back room,” Andrea said. “Here, I’ll show you.”

I followed them and watched Curran pack the jellyfish into the biohazard container. He slid the lid in place, locked the clamps, and closed the distance between us. I held my slimy arms out to keep him from getting covered in ooze, leaned forward, and kissed the Beast Lord. He tasted like toothpaste and Curran, and the feel of his lips on mine made me forget the lousy day, the bills, the clients, and the two gallons of slime drenching my clothes. The kiss lasted only a couple of seconds, but it might as well have been an hour, because when we broke apart, it felt like I had come home, leaving all my troubles far behind.

“Hey,” he said, his gray eyes smiling at me.

“Hey.”

Behind him, Andrea rolled her eyes.

“What’s up?” I asked him.

Curran almost never came to visit my office, especially not in the evening. He hated Atlanta and its teeming masses with all the fire of a supernova. I didn’t have anything against Atlanta in theory—sure, it was half-eroded by the magic waves and it caught on fire with alarming frequency—but I had a thing about crowds. When my workday was over, I didn’t linger. I headed straight for the Keep, where the Atlanta shapeshifter Pack and His Furry Majesty resided.

“I thought we’d go to dinner,” he said. “It’s been a while since we’ve gone out.”

Technically we had never gone out to dinner, just the two of us. Oh, we had eaten together in the city but usually it was accidental and most of those times had involved other people and frequently ended in a violent incident.

“What’s the occasion?”

Curran’s blond eyebrows came together. “Does there have to be a special occasion for me to take you out to dinner?”

Yes. “No.”

He leaned in to me. “I missed you and I got tired of waiting for you to come home. Come grab a bite with me.”

Grabbing a bite sounded heavenly, except Andrea would be stuck here by herself. “I have to wait for Biohazard to pick up the jellyfish.”

“I’ve got it,” Andrea offered. “Go, there’s no reason for both of us to sit here. I have some stuff I need to take care of anyway.”