Tag stood up on four legs—huge, even for a werewolf, his thick, shaggy coat a shade more orange than his hair. Leah stretched her neck and began her change, and only then did Anna realize she’d been waiting for Tag.

Charles saw her look. “When there are so few of us, and there is opportunity, we try not to have all of the wolves shift at the same time. That way no one can attack us when all of us are hampered with the change.”

They waited, Anna tucked against Charles’s side, as rain poured over their heads and lightning cracked in a brilliant show that would have rivaled a Fourth of July display. When Anna counted the distance between lightning and thunder, she could only count to two. She hoped nothing caught fire—because one thing she could think of that would make this fight even harder would be if they were trying to do it in the middle of a freaking forest fire.

Eventually Leah, like Tag, stood on all four feet. The rain had already drenched her gold-and-silver coat, darkening it to gray. The combination of weight loss and wet fur made Leah look small, an effect not helped by the hunch of her shoulders.

Anna let go of Charles and untied her boots, because Leah’s shift was finished. The pit was now a dark pool filled to the brim, its surface rippling with the driving rain.

* * *

*

CHARLES KEPT AN eye on the newly formed lake as he waited for Anna to change. The water was inky black, even when the lightning struck, briefly illuminating the whole forest as if it were daytime. It might have been an effect of the night sky or the turbidity caused by the rapid fill of water. Or something else.

There was so much magic in the ground under his feet that he felt blinded. A thousand forest spirits could be tugging at his hands and he would not know it because his senses were already overwhelmed.

It was a testament to the power of the creature they faced. Charles did not find it reassuring.

Sherwood had not been able to kill the Singer, and Charles did not think that the four of them were as formidable an opponent as Sherwood had been all by himself, not against something like the Singer. Perhaps in a purely physical fight, it would have been different. But if the Singer was—to steal Anna’s term—a creepy primordial god, he did not think that a physical fight was how it would die.

He hoped Da got here soon, but found himself doubtful he would be in time to help. Time was running out—Brother Wolf could sense the nearness of battle. Without his da, without the sword, Charles did not think they were going to win this fight. Pessimism was not going to be useful, however, so Charles gave his worries to Brother Wolf, who was adept at keeping their secrets away from the pack, even in the throes of the hunting song.

As if in response to Brother Wolf’s assessment of the nearing conflict, Charles felt the pack bonds shift. Between one breath and the next his senses expanded, and he, Anna, Leah, and Tag were caught up in the mad exhilaration of the opening moments of the hunt. Anna was not quite finished with her change when the song took them, so their combined magic pushed into her, rushing the last moments painfully fast. Charles changed. And when his change was complete, he was in charge of the hunt.

He had not been sure it would be him. Leah had more experience—and more involvement with the Singer. As his father’s mate, she outranked him in the pack. His da thought that leadership went to the wolf the majority of the participants wanted in charge. Charles wasn’t sure that was true. He often felt that pack magic—and, by extension, the hunting song—had its own intelligence.

His body still, he processed the information flooding into him, knowing that once the fight started, instinct would guide them more than thought. But for now, he assessed his pack.

Tag’s eagerness for battle overlaid the song. They all felt the addict-level strength of his need to give in to his berserker. Charles lent Tag some of Anna’s Omega-born quiet and felt him settle.

Charles considered the method of the Singer’s attacks and how Anna explained it had affected her. Tag, he thought, would be least affected among them. The berserker was difficult to distract.

Tag’s amused agreement sang through the hunting bonds, because the flow of information went both ways.

Leah . . . Charles had probably been in a thousand hunts with Leah, though none so dire and none with so few wolves. He was in the habit of keeping as far from her as he could, both physically and in the bonds themselves. Given his success in avoiding her, he suspected Leah did the same. He’d never been in a hunt with her in which he took the lead position.

And still he had expectations based on his previous experience. Through the pack bonds, Leah had always felt like a lethal, whip-quick weapon—cold, controlled, and deadly. He had expected that this time, too—but if he had not known better, he would have thought she was a different person entirely.

Leah’s surface displayed only ripples of her wide, deep, and violent emotions, but the hunting song gave Charles deeper insight; he knew the power of her rage. She would do anything to see the Singer dead. It was a craving so deep it felt like obsession.

But Charles also knew that she had used most of her reserves getting from Montana to here. Any other werewolf of his acquaintance would have been down for the count already. She needed a day’s rest and a lot of food before she would be back up to reasonable fighting trim. Food and rest she wouldn’t get.

He had no doubt that Leah would keep going until she dropped—but he was afraid she was close to her limit. Exhaustion would slow her. What he knew, the hunting song knew. The pack understood Leah’s current limitations, understood they made her vulnerable.

He would keep her at the edges of the battle when he could, if he could. It was impossible to really determine tactics before the Singer emerged. They knew something of its magic—though the power still rising from the ground worried Charles. And they had only a vague idea of the Singer’s physical being—as he thought that, Leah’s glimpse of it filtered through their bonds.

Anna’s bright presence lit the hunting song with purpose and calm. It wasn’t like her usual Omega effect—Anna was still embarrassed about the time that a hunt had ended not in a kill but in all of the wolves lying in a meadow, basking in the sun. She had a lot more control now, but that didn’t mean she had the predatory need to kill that the rest of them did. Not normally. But, like Leah, Anna’s presence felt different. She felt . . .

Deadly, said Brother Wolf.

Charles could feel the surprised agreement of the others. Like Charles, they weren’t used to seeing Anna in a killing mood.

She felt like Da. Implacable will directed toward the death of the Singer. In her own way, Anna’s drive was as deep as Leah’s.

She is very unhappy about the people of Wild Sign, Brother Wolf whispered to him, so the others could not hear.

Brother Wolf was the only one who knew that Charles didn’t think they would live through this. Charles did his best to keep it that way. He would not hurt his pack’s morale going into this arena. Instead, he let Leah’s and Anna’s determination and Tag’s fierce joy in the fight ring through the bonds and set the stage for their battle.

And still they waited.

Leah, Charles understood, thought she knew why they waited. But when he asked, she did not tell him. He had to trust her. They both were surprised to find that he did.

They were patient, his pack, as hunters need to be. They waited unmoving, a dozen feet from the edge of the saltwater lake, coats settling against skin under the pouring rain. The lightning storm came and went, but the unrelenting precipitation never decreased. Charles utilized all four sets of eyes as they watched the surface of the water for something more than the disturbance of the weather.

Tag saw the edge of a solid body breaking the surface, a quiet announcement that the star of their battle was here. Charles never did figure out how the Singer knew where they were—he never caught a glimpse of an eye or any other organ of perception.

But there was no question that it saw them somehow.

The tentacle that broke the surface was as big around as a Volkswagen bug, and it stretched a distance of nearly twenty-five feet to slam down on the ground where Leah had been standing. Unsuccessful, it did not pause. Moving with vicious speed, it disappeared back beneath the roiling waters as quickly as it had come, leaving long strands of mucus to mark where it had been.

The whole attack had been incredibly quick. Charles assimilated the observations of the pack.