Rebecca watched the clock on the wall tick slowly closer to five o'clock. She'd been without a coven for something like two weeks now, and had discovered it to be oddly liberating: no one she needed to scold to do things properly, no one she was responsible for. She was giving serious thought to not creating a new coven at all, and certainly not right away. She hadn't felt this free in years. She could hunt when she pleased, stay home when she pleased, sleep in on the weekend with no one demanding her attention... Perhaps it would be better to find an apartment of her own. Certainly she earned enough that she didn't need to live with others. Yes, it was a wolf responsibility to protect, but if no one particularly wanted her protection, then simply being here and contributing to the general safety of Haven was sufficient. Perhaps she'd start making plans to leave entirely, go to much smaller Irminsul in Saskatchewan or Aralu in the Northwest Territories, or even to some more remote place where she'd be the only wolf. But even being in Haven just might be more tolerable under the right conditions.

The clock inched its way closer and closer. A few people came in, but this was a Monday, and the second week of the month, so the always-slow stream was more like a puddle. That was why she was one of three people who kept the entire bank functioning.

Finally! Time to close up. She crossed the floor to throw the bolt on the door, and turned back to the routine of closing. The couple Adam had been talking to in his office emerged; Rebecca let them out, locked it again, went back to her tasks.

Adam came out, and they chatted for a few minutes while she finished what she had to do. He'd take care of the rest. She slung her bag onto her shoulder, and left, calling a farewell behind her as the door swung shut.

She got down the steps and out onto the sidewalk.

It took her a few seconds to register what it meant when five bodies in magesilks, black and silver-blue and scarlet and forest-colours, surrounded her, cornering her between them and the wall.

Rebecca crossed her arms, and leaned against the cool bricks calmly. “What can I do for you?”

“Coward,” Evaline spat. “You won't fight fair. You let others fight your battles for you, while you stand back and plan more tricks and lies. You've gotten away with it for far too long. Now stand and fight like a wolf, or run away like a dog!”

Rebecca's thoughts darted in rapid loops, analysing this. The most likely possibility was that they believed her still part of Whitethorn, and the demons had lured Whitethorn into some other stupid attack on Jesse.

“I don't have to fight you,” she told them.

“Coward,” Bane echoed the taunt. “You've been refusing to fight me fairly for years, because I'm bigger than you. You can't use that this time. Anyone in this pack will fight you, here and now, one on one. Or are you only brave when you've got Karl beside you and when you've had time to cheat?”

They certainly had attention; everyone on the streets was drawn over. Rebecca hesitated. If she refused to fight, she'd lose face yet again, and it would be even harder to regain any kind of standing among the other wolves. On the other hand, why should she fight for Whitethorn?

Then she smiled to herself. Jump to conclusions, would they? Assume that it was her personally who goaded her coven into attacks, breaking the unspoken truce. They deserved anything they got.

If she fought, and won, they'd be no more wary of Whitethorn than they were now, and she'd regain a little face. If she fought and lost fairly she'd lose no face, and they'd believe Whitethorn neutralized as a threat...

Either way, she gained something, and to not do it would lose her something.

Moonwolf, but she hated being trapped into doing things.

Certain that her eyes were hot furious gold, Rebecca moved away from the wall.

“My choice,” she said. “I can choose who I fight.”

“Yes,” Evaline agreed.

“Then, since I imagine this is once again related to him, I choose Jesse.” He was limping slightly, looked tired, and of the pack facing her, he was the most inexperienced at wolf-fights; not the best for gaining face in that sense, but to confront him directly after their history would more than make up for that.

She saw him wince, very slightly, but he stepped forward away from the others, shifted to wolf, and waited for Rebecca to do the same.

Everyone else moved back, left them in the centre of a large ring.

Red werewolf and black circled each other measuringly, then both lunged at the same instant, tearing with teeth and claws. Rebecca threw Jesse entirely off his feet, slashed at his stomach. Jesse writhed away, got ahold of her ear and tore. Startled, Rebecca yelped in pain, and redoubled her attack, but Jesse got his feet under him and darted around behind. Though she whirled to keep facing him, Jesse kept moving, kept circling, and she had to keep turning, keep watching him. He feinted to one side, came in quickly on the other, was in and out in a heartbeat. She felt teeth dig into her shoulder through the heavy fur. Reflexively she struck out in return, and he didn't get clear quite fast enough: Rebecca's claws raked the side of his face, over his eye, and blood blinded his vision on that side.

Such a shame. Whatever else he was, he was certainly easy on the eyes. Ah, well, either Winter's healer or that little dryad girl would fix it.

Rebecca darted into his blind spot; he spun to keep her in sight, but Rebecca used his own trick against him, stayed in the same relative place. Jesse whipped around in the other direction, answered her earlier yelp with one of his own as Rebecca's teeth scored shallowly on his flank. He stumbled as she tore across half-healed wounds there; already hurt, was he? She pressed the attack; desperately, he twisted out from under her and scrambled to his feet, whining softly in pain, but obviously not about to give up.

Her next attack left the side of her neck exposed, and she recognized it a fraction of a second too late to do anything about it; her jaws snapped shut on his foreleg, but he stretched awkwardly and sank his teeth into her already sore shoulder, right through the thick ruff. The red bitch went down, though she held her grip on his leg; he let go, closed his jaws around the underside of Rebecca's throat until the red bitch surrendered her hold on his foreleg, stopped thrashing and just laid still, struggling for breath.

Damn him! How had a whelp who'd only known for a year that he had a second form managed to defeat her?

Jesse released her, and turned away. Rebecca didn't move until he'd changed to human, and then she only rolled to her belly, gazing up at him in a mixture of submission and resentment.

“Get out of here,” Jess told her wearily. “And leave me and Kev and the rest of us alone.”

Rebecca whined, shifted heavily to human. “You won,” she conceded, as graciously as she could manage. “And you have my word as a wolf, I will do nothing at any point in the future against you or Kevin or the rest of your friends.” She gathered her dignity around her, scooped up her bag with her good hand, and walked away in the direction of Mandisa's office, cradling her other arm against her body to keep from jarring her shoulder.

* * *

Bane slid an arm around Jess' waist, steadying him. “Beautifully done.”

“Shorter than I expected. I sort of thought we'd end up fighting until one of us couldn't get up.”

“She's still a wolf,” Bryan said quietly. “Whatever she's done, whatever's wrong in her head, some things still run too deep for even her to go against.”

Jess decided to think about that later. Meanwhile, Gisela was there, her hands finding each wound deftly and making the bleeding stop.

“She had it coming, but did you have to get hurt doing it?” she grumbled.

“It's just a few bites,” Jess said. Although, they were increasingly painful bites, now the adrenaline was fading...

“Our place is closest,” Evaline said.

“Déjà vu,” Jess muttered to himself. Finally fighting back instead of letting others rescue him all the time felt good—but was he forever going to have friends taking him home afterwards to put his hide back together?

Probably.

Come to think of it, that was much better than not having friends there to do it.

He submitted meekly to Gisela, and didn't argue when she sent a rather startled Nick to make a wolfsbane-and-painkiller tea for him. It made the world fuzz out, but it effectively dulled the pain.

Bane demanded a report.

“She cracked one bone in his arm and bruised both of them nicely,” Gisela said. “The other damage you can see for yourself, none of it hit anything vital. It's a good thing wolves mostly don't scar permanently, though. I think I've got the bleeding completely stopped. Somebody grab me something I can use to clean some of the blood up?”

A moment later, something wet gently wiped away the blood on his face.

“Ouch,” he mumbled.

“I'm trying not to hurt.”

“How bad's that one?”

“She got you with two claws. It starts in the middle of your forehead, skips over your eye luckily, and ends on your cheek. It's going to look a bit wild until it heals.”

“Huh. She would.”

Time got blurry, too, but sometime after dark he found himself in Coven Winter's van with Gisela and Bane, and Nick was driving.

Kevin appeared from somewhere to steady him into the house.

“I beat her,” Jess told him.

“I know, Bane told me. Everyone knows by now.”

“She won't bug you anymore now, right?”

“Right,” Kevin said softly.

“Man, whatever Nick gave me's real cool. Somebody tell the world to stay still.”

“I told you it was too much, 'Sela,” Nick sighed.

“He's okay,” Gisela said. “He's hurting bad enough that it'll wear off soon.”

Dark coolness became bright warmth. He coiled himself into a corner of the couch, vaguely aware that the scents were those of the living room, and rested his head on the arm, listening while Bane described the fight for his coven and Shaine. Hob, inevitably, appeared from somewhere and joined him, a warm purring mass cuddled against his stomach.

“What on earth possessed you to let Jess fight Rebecca, when he was already hurt?” Deanna demanded.

“He wanted to, he had a right to, both blood-debt and as part of the pack. Don't argue, he won. For the time being, at least, Coven Whitethorn is no longer a threat.”

They argued for a while. Jess lost track of the thread so often he gave up on even trying to follow along, though he did notice Shaine's opinion of his common sense hadn't improved any. He kept finding peculiar things in his head: a black wolf much larger than him, that smelled female and achingly familiar; a silver dagger with something engraved on the blade, but he couldn't quite read it; an impossibly beautiful song, twining into a rising storm; darkness and a soft warm bed, snuggled against someone comfortably, perfectly content, and the other whispered, “Good night, Jess,” but it wasn't Shaine or Caitryn; morning sunlight and the rich scent of bacon frying and the sounds of laughter, the feeling of a fierce good-morning hug.

The vivid images faded, disappointingly, leaving behind an emptiness that had nothing to do with the pain of his abused body.

He raised his head, and blinked in confusion at the room. Sundark and Gisela were still there, he decided, it was just that they were doing quiet sorts of things: Cynthia was knitting, and Gisela was tossing multi-coloured toy balls for Hob to bat out of the air, and Kevin and Deanna were brushing Bane furform, and Flynn was writing something on the clipboard he usually used for short stories. That Shaine was absent was hardly surprising.

“Good morning,” Deanna greeted him. “Our hero returns to the real world.”

Jess made a derisive noise. “Hero. Yeah, right, there's a new one.” Cautiously, he untangled himself, and flinched; the muscles of his lower back and right upper thigh felt like they'd been completely shredded. “Let me guess. I get to spend another week in bed eating and sleeping. This sucks.”

“As long as you're very careful, you're allowed to go back to real life probably in a day or two,” Gisela said. “You just won't be able to do anything too active that might pull the cuts open again.”

“Anything active like killing demons?” Jess said impatiently. “How fast can you fix this?” He examined his left arm, the purpling bruises, the shallow holes where Rebecca's teeth had broken the skin. It hurt, but he still had most of the strength in it. “Not this, just the ones on my back.”

“I can't,” Gisela said calmly. “I've already done everything I can. I've told you before, if healing is pushed too far, it can do more harm than good. You're going to have to let your body's own resources take it from here.”

“Great.” Unsteadily, he made his way to the kitchen, wishing he could muster the energy for a more dramatic display of frustration. A cold glass of juice helped him compose himself again. He visited the nearest bathroom briefly, grateful that it was on the ground floor—and groaned to himself at the thought of climbing the two flights of stairs to his room later.

For the moment, though, his friends were waiting, so he went back to the dining room and his corner of the couch, and settled down to hear what he'd missed.