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crotchety old elf named Samision, who could defeat him with a sword and might be his equal with a knife, but there was only one being who could definitely best him, knife-to-knife. The Huntsman could not be defeated by any weapon.
    For their third bout, he and Benedict had returned to unarmed fighting. That match had lasted over two hours before they decided to call it a draw. Nathan was confident he could kill Benedict if he had to. That was his Gift, after all. He wasn’t sure he could defeat the man short of killing him. It was really very intriguing.
    As Nathan reached the place he’d left his phone, Benedict’s phone rang. The back of Nathan’s neck prickled with alarm. Benedict’s Arjenie was with Kai. If they were both calling at the same time . . . he answered his phone. “What’s wrong?”
    “Now, don’t freak out. I’m fine. Arjenie’s fine, too—she’s busy telling Benedict that right now. She wasn’t even bitten.”
    Nathan’s heartbeat didn’t pick up. It settled as his senses sharpened. He spoke very evenly. “But you were.”
    “I’ve got a lot of little bitty owies, that’s all. There’s no real damage, but I did bleed, and you know how Dell is about my blood being anywhere but inside my body. She’s determined to come to me, no matter how much reassurance I send. I think I managed to persuade her to wait for you by the gate, so could you pick her up on your way?”
    “What bit you?”
    Kai sighed. “Carnivorous butterflies.”

THREE

    “D OESN’T bloody make sense,” the man in the passenger seat muttered . . . not for the first time.
    “Not yet,” Nathan said, slowing as he approached the gate. Lupi lived in clans; each clan claimed some amount of land which they called a clanhome. Nokolai Clanhome, where he and Kai were guests, lay forty minutes from San Diego. Its boundaries were marked by both a fence and an immaterial claiming bearing some resemblance to a sidhe lord’s land-tie. Guards patrolled the fence, with one pair always near the gate. “It will.”
    Several of those playing basketball had been guards, so Benedict hadn’t had to wait to collect a squad to take with him. He would have had to wait for the clan’s sorcerer, however, if Nathan hadn’t offered to. Nathan had several reasons to make that offer.
    First, time wasn’t a major factor. Kai wasn’t really damaged, and the guards who’d been with Arjenie had killed all of the butterflies. At least they thought they had. It wouldn’t have been easy. Small prey like that could be hard to catch, but apparently the butterflies had been so intent on biting people that they hadn’t tried to get away.
    Second, a sorcerer was apt to be useful. Nathan might know more than most in this realm about magic, but he lacked the Sight. That was an uncommon Gift among his people, and even more rare in humans.
    Not that Cullen Seabourne was human. He went beyond rare to unique, being the only Gifted lupus on Earth, and therefore the only one in existence. Cullen was also a consultant for the FBI, though the Unit agent he usually worked with was currently on her honeymoon. Still, Cullen had worked with the local office several times, and that should help them gain access to the scene.
    Third, and most important, Nathan had offered to wait for Cullen because of Dell. He needed to pick her up, which meant he needed to take his own vehicle. While the chameleon had excellent control for a relatively new sentient, it was best not to trap her in a small space with half a dozen lupi. She didn’t like the way they smelled.
    Yet she did like Cullen Seabourne.
    It had taken Nathan months to work his way from toleration to real trust with Kai’s familiar. Within thirty minutes of meeting Cullen, Dell had allowed the sorcerer to pet her. When Nathan asked Kai about it, she’d shrugged. “She thinks he’s funny.”
    Nathan stopped a few yards short of the gate. The two guards wore matching stony expressions. They were clearly