Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison

            “Why are these out of your belfry?”

            “Because Vivian wanted to look at them, and I don’t want her to see the rest of my library,” I said, then pushed into the mass of exuberant, backslapping congratulations, secure in the knowledge that he’d keep them safe. This would mean nothing if I didn’t get a name and that second chakra ring.

            It had only taken a moment for my pack to come forth to claim the ground, and trying to get through them was a chore. They were celebrating, but I only felt sick. “Ms. Rachel! Ms. Rachel!” an exuberant, high voice called, and I jerked to a halt when the Were who had taken a beating for me in the I.S. lobby a few months ago stumbled forward.

            “Garrett?” I said, and he widened his grin, breathless in enthusiasm. He pushed a ring into my hand, and I felt a moment of disconnection as the curse and the cure touched.

            “I’m part of the Black Dandelion pack,” he said proudly, shifting his collar to show the pack’s tattoo. “Is it the right ring? It’s the only one she had.”

            The small circlet in my palm was shiny and uneven, the bump where the Möbius strip had been folded into a circle sharp against my touch. It was sloppy. Still, it worked, obviously, and I stifled a shudder at the wrong feeling emanating from it. Someone had died to make it, and I doubted it was the mage. This is so foul. “It’s the right ring,” I said, and the enthusiastic Were whooped, hand fisted in the air as he shouted to the rest of the pack.

            Lips twisted in distaste, I put the curse on the same finger as the cure. They sort of hummed and fizzed against my aura, and, uncomfortable, I straightened to see over the quickly dissipating crowd. Mrs. Sarong was long gone, but it wasn’t hard to find Parker abandoned right down to her second and surrounded by my pack.

            An ambulance crew was pushing closer, and I tensed as two went toward Parker with a stretcher. “Don’t take her out of here yet!” I shouted, and Jenks spun in the air, his hand falling to the hilt of his sword.

            The paramedics grudgingly halted, familiar with the ugliness of an alpha challenge gone wrong. Concerned, I began to push to Parker . . . and the way opened like magic. For a moment, I thought it was me—until Al chuckled from my shoulder. He wanted to see this, apparently. Either that, or he wanted the rings. Not until Vivian looks at them. Sorry, Al.

            “David, I’m fine,” Cassie complained as she got to her feet, and he finally relented, draping his arm over her shoulders as they limped forward to confront Parker.

            Yes, Parker was the architect of my current nightmare, but my first ugly words evaporated as I took in the misery that Cassie had wrought. Parker’s pack had scattered and she was alone. She was bloodstained and sore, her pride costing her an eye and an ear.

            “Who is the mage?” I said, and the beaten woman peered at me from the ground. Someone had draped a gray blanket over her, and she stared at the two rings on my finger.

            “Answer her!” Jenks demanded when Cassie came to a halt before her. “Let me poke it out of her,” he added, a hand on his hilt.

            “You yielded,” I reminded her, and Parker spit at the ground. “She’s your alpha. Talk.”

            “Yielding to that stunted whelp changes nothing. She isn’t a Were,” Parker whispered, and my pulse quickened when her ruined gaze landed on Cassie. “She’s not my alpha,” the woman breathed, close to collapse. “She is not.” And then a low growl rose from her, eerie and spine-tingling. “You are not!” she screamed, flinging her blanket aside and lunging at Cassie, her bloodied hands reaching.

            Shocked, Cassie stumbled back, falling to hit her head on the cement with a dull thud even as David pulled Parker off her. “Get off!” David shouted as he spun Parker away. But the woman had fastened on the rifle in his grip, and it pulled from him as he threw Parker aside.

            The woman hit the earth, the weapon’s aim focused on Cassie.

            “Fire in the hole!” I shouted to get Jenks clear as the energy from the ley line crackled within me. The rings on my hand burned, echoing the force.

            “You are not my alpha!” Parker cried out again, her desperation ugly as she aimed the rifle at Cassie slumped in David’s arms. “I give you nothing!”

            “End her,” Al whispered behind me, and I flung out a hand.

            “Rhombus!” I exclaimed, jumping at the thunderous boom of the rifle going off. The slug hit the inside of the circle I’d put around Parker and me. Cassie’s eyes were wide as the bullet ricocheted three times before falling to the ground at my feet, spent.