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even move, he was hit with a fierce shock. Cursing, he hit the ground hard. Pain exploded through him as he changed into his wolf form, then human, then wolf again. He was completely immobilized as his body struggled to hold onto one form and was incapable of it.
    Dare walked up to him slowly, then kicked him hard in the ribs. “You should have died, Fury. Now you’re going to wish you had.”
    Fury lunged at him, but his muscles wouldn’t cooperate. If he could lay hand or paw on the bastard, he’d rip his throat out.
    He looked up at Angelia to see sympathy on her face an instant before Dare shot him again. Unbelievable pain ripped through him as he struggled to stay conscious.
    It was a losing battle. In one heartbeat, everything went black.
    “What are you doing?” Angelia asked Dare.
    “We need to know what he knows about our experiment. More to the point, we need to know who he’s been talking to. We can’t afford for our secret to get out.”
    She cringed as she watched Fury’s body continue to shift from human to white wolf and back again. At least until Dare wrapped the collar around his throat that kept him as human. Since Fury’s natural form was a wolf, keeping him as a human, especially in daylight, would weaken him.
    And it would hurt.
    She shook her head at his actions. “You know he’s not going to tell us anything.”
    “I wouldn’t be so sure.”
    The Fury she remembered would never tell secrets. He’d die before he did, and he could take a lot of pain. Even as a child, he’d been stronger than any other. “How can you be so certain?”
    “Because I’m going to turn him over to our Jackal.”
    Angelia sucked her breath in sharply at the threat. Oscar was a jackal whose heart was so black, he was more animal than man. “He’s your brother, Dare.”
    “I have no brother. You know what the Katagaria did to my family. To
our
patria.”
    It was true. She’d been there the night Dare’s Katagari father had led the attack on their Arcadian camp. Just a child, she’d been hidden as the attacks began. Her mother had smeared her with earth to mask her scent before she’d placed her in the cellar.
    Even now, she could see the wolves as they attacked her mother and killed her while she’d watched in horror through the slats in the floor.
    Dare was right. They had to protect their people. Theanimals needed to be stripped of their powers and put down like the rabid creatures they were.
    Even Fury.
    “Are you with me?” he asked.
    She nodded. “I won’t see another child suffer my fate. We have to protect ourselves. Whatever it takes.”

 
     
     
3
     
     
     
     
    Angelia paced the small camp they’d made as she listened to Fury insulting Oscar while he and Dare tortured Fury for information. Honestly, she didn’t have the stomach for it. She never had.
    Maybe Dare was right. Maybe she shouldn’t be on a tessera after all.
    Then again, she was a warrior of unparalleled skill. In battle, she didn’t hesitate to kill or to wound. It was just the idea of beating someone who couldn’t fight back that sickened her.
    He’s an animal
.
    No doubt he’d kill her in a heartbeat. She knew that with every part of herself and yet . . .
    She cringed as Fury howled in pain.
    An instant later, Oscar came outside toward her and the fire they’d made. Without a word, he walked past her and manifested an iron pole.
    Frowning, she watched as he placed it in the fire. “What are you doing?”
    “I thought a little branding might loosen his tongue.”
    A wave of nausea went through her.
    Dare came outside the tent with the same look of disgust on his face. “I say you should ram it up his ass until he talks.”
    Oscar laughed.
    Horrified, she didn’t move until they started back with the poker in hand. “No!” she said sternly.
    Oscar angled it at her. “Get out of the way.”
    “No,” she repeated. “This is wrong. You’re acting like one of
them
.”
    Dare’s expression was stern and