Inked

out on me twice, and my left arm throbbed in time with my heartbeat. I checked myself out in the dim light of the cave.
    Gore matted my hair, slicked my coat, and stuck my shirt to my skin. My bum knee felt weak and rubbery, but probably more from the adrenaline afterburn than any real damage. But the arm was another matter. My shields had slowed the attack down, and my coat had provided an extra layer of protection. Yet it was still lacerated badly enough to need stitches.
    Great.
    I wrapped a handkerchief around the wound and tugged my sleeve back down. The coat had already started to heal the tears in the leather, with short brown filaments stretching across the gaps like threads in well-worn denim. Too bad flesh doesn’t heal as fast.
    I really hoped I didn’t have to beat up anyone else.
    The cave was still silent, smelly and frustratingly empty when I returned. Had those guys really been headed here? Or was there some other hidden space along the miles of drain ahead? I decided to do a check of the immediate area before sifting through the ashes again, and started for the door.
    And looked up to see myself lounging at a bar.
    Cyrus wasn’t looking, but she was hard to miss: with long, messy dark hair, clan-gray eyes and a red-stained mouth that stood out starkly from her pale skin. She was leaning back against the bar on her elbows, her mile-long, leather-clad legs in front of her, crossed at the ankles. Watching him.
    It seemed to Cyrus as if the volume of the room suddenly turned down, as if the colors dulled to shadows, except around her. Because even better than those stunning looks was the faint but unmistakable scent of Clan. It wreathed his head like the finest of drugs, cutting easily through the smoke and alcohol and cheap cologne of the bar. It caught him off guard, with no defenses up, and landed like a sledgehammer.
    It was hard to believe that it had only been two months since he found himself out on the street: a pack animal with no pack. He’d told Sebastian he could handle it—hell, this whole thing had been his idea. It would be hard, he’d assured his brother, he wasn’t kidding himself about that, but the goal was worth it. He’d been so certain he was right, so sure of himself, so cocky.
    He almost pitied that man now.
    Of course, that man had never had people he’d once called friends turn away in disgust at the sight of him. He’d never had his own family refuse to look him in the eye, their glances jumping over him as if he was an interruption, a glitch in their visual field. An error. He’d never lain awake at night with the gnawing, ever-present, sickening absence of something as vital to him as the air he breathed. That man had been Cyrus of Arnou, High Clan and wolf born, with the whole weight of a prestigious house behind his every word and action.
    This man was just Cyrus. And he’d been appalled at what he’d discovered about him.
    Just Cyrus avoided places where he was likely to meet Clan, dodging confrontations he knew he couldn’t win. Because he fought alone now, while even the feeblest member of the weakest clan had dozens of brothers behind him. Just Cyrus ducked his head and turned away when he saw family coming, before they could do it to him. Just Cyrus desperately wanted to slink back, tail between his legs, begging to be taken in, even knowing what it would cost his brother.
    Because Just Cyrus was weak.
    The only thing that still allowed him to look at himself in the mirror everyday was the knowledge that wanting and doing were two different things. He might not be the man he’d thought he was, but he wasn’t quite that sniveling creature that haunted his nightmares, either. Because he hadn’t done it. Not yet.
    And now he found himself by the bar, with no memory of how he got there, staring at an obviously High Clan woman like she was the last oasis in the desert. He expected to be ignored, rebuffed, cursed, although there was no way she could immediately know what he was. Lately, it had started to feel like he had his shame permanently tattooed across his forehead.
    She swung her legs around and tipped her head sideways to look at him. “Buy you a drink?”
    “I thought that was my line,” he said, not trying, because this wasn’t going anywhere.
    “Yeah, but I’m the pushy type. I like to get it out there early.”
    “You’re Clan. It goes with the territory.”
    “I’m not, actually.”
    He leaned in despite himself, the heady scent of a