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Therian. Which really meant nothing, considering how little I collectively knew about Therians, anyway, and—
    Speak of the devil.
    Marcus rumbled into the gym like a thundercloud. He spotted us and seemed to relax just a little. I tilted my head. He came over, already dressed in sweats, his entire body coiled tight. "Couldn't sleep, either?" I said.
    "No," Marcus replied. Milo twisted halfway around to see, and it was to Milo that Marcus added, "Astrid and I will be visiting Elder Dane in the morning to pay our respects, and to offer our support to Riley. How's your head?"
    "Still attached," Milo replied.
    Marcus quirked a slender eyebrow. "So I see. Pain?"
    "Just one in my neck." You dangled at the end of the statement.
    "I'm serious."
    "Well, stop already. There's enough seriousness to go around. My head's fine, so stop worrying about it, for fuck's sake."
    I stayed quiet, too amused by the friendly bickering to distract them. I also noted that both Jackson and Shelby had abandoned their bikes and were taking their time wiping down with towels. Probably listening. Damned Therian hearing. I caught Jackson's eye, gave him a glare, and he hustled Shelby out of the gym.
    "Then how about a few rounds on the mats?" Marcus asked.
    Marcus liked to wrestle. He was really fucking good at it, too, and he'd handed me my ass twice while I was still in post-torture training. Now I could hold my own, but I couldn't pin the bastard. Yet. One day I'd get the chance to win, but it wouldn't be today. Because he'd asked Milo.
    "You sure you want to, old man?" Milo asked in a perfectly reasonable voice. "Don't think I'll take it easy on you because you got bad news."
    "I know you won't take it easy on me. I think I need the challenge."
    "It's your ass on the mat."
    I couldn't see Milo's face as he got up and followed Marcus into the other room, but I heard the note of pleasure in his tone. And from the smile that kept quirking the corners of Marcus's mouth, he was looking forward to the battle, too. The first time the two ever sparred, Milo had hustled Marcus beautifully, luring the larger, more muscular were-cat into a sense of overconfidence just broad enough to trip and pin him in the third round. And it had been a beautiful pin.
    Feeling a bit like an intruder this time and not entirely sure why, I left them to their wrestling.

Chapter Three
    12:30 pm
    With Marcus and Astrid out of the Watchtower for a while, our quad was given a day off from official business. This meant Wyatt and I had a few hours to spend on the unofficial business of finding three teenage boys in a city of half a million people—three teens who just happened to shape-shift into werewolves, and whose bites were highly infectious (and deadly) to humans. Wyatt found that out the hard way five weeks ago when he was bitten.
    After several hours in a painful fever, he woke up…different. With silver-rimmed eyes, enhanced senses, and the ability to affect a partial-shift that was probably the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life. I've seen some scary shit, things that would give people nightmares, but nothing compared to seeing his handsome face at odd angles, chin and neck covered in black fur, upper and lower jaw extended and full of sharp, deadly teeth. His eyes had gone completely silver, with a tiny red pupil. His fingernails had turned black and hard, and he'd actually grown a few inches in height.
    He tried to describe the shift experience once: "Imagine the worst Charlie horse ever, all over your body, until the shift completes. Then imagine pins and needles racing up and down your limbs until you let yourself go back to normal. Everything's louder, sharper, like someone's messing with the focus on your computer screen, but you can't get it back to normal. It's awful, but it's also…freeing."
    I didn't understand the "freeing" part. I couldn't see what was freeing about having a monster prowling around in your subconscious, ready to fight and attack at a