When Jesse and I brought grapes and peanut butter toast to the basement for breakfast the next morning, Gena laughed and cleaned her plate. As if that wasn't enough good news for one morning, Adam came up behind me while I was rinsing the plate. "I was thinking," he said, resting his chin on my shoulder and wrapping one arm around my waist, "that we should have lunch together today."

"That sounds great to me. I assume you're driving?"

"Mmm-hmm. You can call me when you start getting hungry."

"And what about my babysitter for today? Should I make a reservation for three?"

He was quiet a moment; I felt his weight shift uneasily from foot to foot. "About that-"

Oh? "What about that?"

"Do you think you would feel safe enough just being dropped off and picked up? If you don't, I can assign-"

I cut him off with a laugh, turning in his arms so that I could watch his face. "'Safe enough'? This was your idea in the first place, I'll have you remember. I've spent years getting through my workday without guards. Did you finally realize that the rest of the pack has better things to do?"

He frowned. "I still need Warren for night duty, so he has to get some sleep. Honey is going to stay with Geneva, and anyone else would have to call in to work."

"Then I'm glad you have the sense to let me fend for myself." My mate's frown deepened. "That's what lunch is about it, isn't it? You want to check on me."

"I want to spend time with you," he replied firmly, kissing me. It was true, but I noticed that he didn't deny my deduction, either.

I was glad to see him at lunch, whatever the reason, and even happier when I fished the 'Closed for the Holiday' sign from its spot in the office and handed it to him to put in the window. I wasn't used to closing for more than a day at a time, but I also wasn't used to having more than Medea for company. It had been a long, long time since I looked forward to Thanksgiving like this.

Peter and Honey were sitting together on the living room couch when we got home, their heads close together and their voices so low that even my ears could only snatch a few words. Honey looked up and smiled at us a little shyly. Her eyes were red.

"How was your day?" I asked carefully. She wasn't angry; Honey's not the type to suffer in silence. But something was clearly going on.

"It was... nice," she answered softly. "We went with Samuel to the hospital and read in the children's wing, and then they let us volunteer in the nursery for a little while."

I'd never talked to Honey about kids; she'd certainly never mentioned wanting any. On the other hand, I knew Honey had some deep-seated resentments about being a wolf, and that the inability to have a child was probably one of them. It would explain the gentle, pensive look that seemed so out of place on Honey's perfect features.

"How did she do?" Adam didn't sound anxious- it wouldn't do for an Alpha to be anything but calm and in control. And it couldn't have gone too badly; if Gena had eaten anyone, we would have heard about it earlier.

Honey sniffed and shook herself, settling into her more usual demeanor. "Much better. It was a good idea, getting her out of the dungeon. There was only one bad spot, when we passed the surgery wing of the hospital, but we had no trouble keeping her under control. We got her some new clothes this morning, too, so you can take her out in public again."

"Did she eat?"

"Chicken salad and fruit in the park-we had a picnic. We almost didn't get back to the hospital; Samuel brought his violin and played while we ate. He started a little impromptu concert. If it had been summer instead of winter he'd still be stuck there, slave of an appreciative audience. He said he'd come back tonight and play for her supper," Honey chuckled.

"Gena is downstairs asleep; Scott is sitting with her. If that's all you need, Honey and I will go home now," Peter offered diffidently.

We wished them a happy Thanksgiving and sent them on their way.

Jesse was unabashedly delighted to have finally made it to Thanksgiving break; her enthusiasm did a lot to lift the pall Honey's sorrow had left on my spirits. Without her, dinner would have been a very quiet meal. As it was I didn't chat much. When Jesse asked what was on my mind, I told her tomorrow's dinner, which was true- in addition to our little family circle we'd be hosting Zee, my old boss, and his son Tad, who was my first tool monkey and office boy until he went away to college, our out of town guests, Samuel, Warren, and several of the wolves who were without somewhere else to go. It was going to be a houseful. Fortunately Adam's kitchen is sized to handle a feast of that size and all the help that we'd need to prepare it.

Adam, well aware that Thanksgiving dinner wasn't the only thing running circles in my brain, shooed me out of the kitchen as soon as the meal was over. "Go ahead, tell her. You may as well do it sooner as later, and she won't be able to stay here much longer. This may be your best chance. Send Scott up to me." Obediently I descended the basement stairs, trying the whole way to phrase 'lied to all your life' diplomatically, for my husband's sake. It didn't work.

I almost didn't recognize Gena. She was dressed in crisp dark jeans and a brick red sweater that hid her pink scars and sunken skin, and her color was better than it had been all week. She was curled up on the couch, her sleek hair spilling over Scott's lap, talking and watching TV with a genuine smile on her face. Medea was curled up on her knees, half asleep and purring. She looked human, really human, and happy. It made me want to wait a little longer to spring my revelation on her, but she'd been kept waiting long enough.

Both wolves greeted me cheerily.

"Can I offer you a chair?" Scott gestured theatrically towards the recliner. "The evening is young, we have a hundred and some odd channels to mock and a remote control to navigate by. A good time will be had by all." He rocked the remote between his fingers, raised eyebrows inviting me into the fun. "Jesse can come, too, but only if she brings popcorn."

"Actually, Adam asked me to send you upstairs for a minute," I told him.

"Anything serious?"

I shrugged. "He didn't say what he wanted."

Gena sat up to let Scott extricate himself, both of them careful not to discomfit Medea. That cat was getting seriously spoiled, I thought, leaning over to scratch her ears. She yawned and stretched, hopping down to sprawl on the floor. Scott laughed at her and gave her a hurried scratch at the base of her stub tail. "I'll be right back," he promised Gena, vaulting the couch and dashing upstairs. I picked up the remote and switched off the TV.

"You seem pretty relaxed," I observed as I sat down next to Gena. "Have a good day today?" She smelled like dry grass and baby powder and department store, all her day's adventures chronicled on her new clothes.

"I did," she affirmed serenely. "I played with small children, I snuggled babies, and I heard Samuel play his violin. He's amazing." Her languid body tensed a little. "You seem a little bit worried, though. Is something wrong?"

Fast and smooth, like ripping off a Band-Aid. That was the way to do this. "Well, yes, and it has to do with you. You've been, well, lied to all your life, and I think it's time someone told you."

"Lied to?" Gena looked confused. "By whom?"

"Your Alphas."

To my surprise, Gena relaxed, her short, sturdy limbs going languid again. "I trust my Alphas," she assured me.

My stomach clenched. "I know. That's what makes it so bad."

She shook her head. "Jonah and Adam loved me. They took care of me. They're the kind of men you can trust." She stretched and popped her neck in a gesture that was very Adam. "Adam sent you down here to tell me this? What did he say?"

"He didn't send me... he more allowed me to come. He knows its time you knew." For my sake, not for hers or even his, but that was beside the point. I skipped over it. "Look, I feel like I'm beating around the bush, so I'm going to get right down to it. You know that I'm not a wolf."

"You smell like coyote, but you're part of the pack. I remember... well, not much about our fight together. Everything was pretty fuzzy by then. From what I do remember, coyote is right. I wondered about it, but it didn't seem polite to ask."

"I'm a walker. It's a kind of shapeshifter, too, but the magic is native to this continent, not imported like werewolf magic."

Gena was sitting up straighter and pulling away, her features drawing together in consternation. "A skinwalker? You are?"

"Not a skinwalker. Just a walker. They're different, although some idiot lumped us all together and now I'm stuck with the confusing name. Skinwalkers are evil; I'm not."

Her face cleared and she smiled at me. "I didn't think so."

"But I am a coyote." She waited, bright face lifted expectantly to mine, and I shifted uneasily. This conversation was not going at all according to plan. "That doesn't, I don't know, bother you?" I inquired.

"Bother me? Why?"

"Because I'm a coyote, not a wolf."

She cocked her head in confusion. "You're pack," she said simply. "Not my pack, but Adam's. He had to bring you in, to make it ok. If that slug Eli can be pack a coyote shouldn't be a problem. It is cool, though. Does it hurt when you shift? You don't get big, I remember that."

"No, normal size. And no, it doesn't hurt," I replied, fighting off the unexpected lump that had congealed in my throat with her response. So this was what acceptance felt like. I'd sort of given up on ever feeling that from a wolf without sweating blood for it first.

Gena laid a hand on my knee. "We're not all the same. Warren says some of them are nasty to him, too. I'm sorry. Wolves can be petty," she chuckled, "just like everyone else, I guess. You don't seem to be letting them get in your way. I'm glad, because Adam loves you. It's nice to see him so happy."

'Nasty' was understatement when someone would happily kill you, but I let it slide; Warren and I weren't the types to play for sympathy, and I was happy that someone who'd grown up in a pack had enough perspective to find the harassment unwarranted and petty. "Thanks. And thanks for being so rational about Warren. He's a great guy, and it's frustrating when people don't see that." I blinked at her for a moment, trying to get my bearings again. How had we ended up on Warren? If the conversation kept going like this we'd never get to what I wanted to say. "But that's not really the part of being a coyote that I wanted to talk to you about." Gena looked at me attentively, and I sighed. "Right, so coyote. I was an infant when it first showed up. It's hereditary, apparently, but my Dad was dead by then, and my Mom didn't know what to do. She brought me to her great uncle, who was a werewolf in the Marrok pack, to be raised."

It was clear from Gena's countenance that she'd never heard my story before. Her Alphas had really gone out of their way to keep her in the dark- my story was widely known not only among the wolves, but among the fae and even the vampires. Her ignorance rekindled my anger and, with it, my motivation. "I'm telling you all of this partly because it will help you understand about walkers and partly because you need to realize that Adam knew, long before he and I ever met, who and what I was. He knew about me when he met you."

"Ok," she acknowledged, no trace of apprehension in her voice or body. As far as she was concerned, no matter what Adam knew or did, he could do no wrong. How could he have misled someone who trusted him like that?

It might not be apprehension, but something was going on behind her eyes. They widened a little, and a slow smile lifted her cheeks. "The little wolf, that's what you're trying to tell me, isn't it? That's where I get my little wolf. Regular size, instant change, doesn't hurt... that's what Adam and Jonah knew."

"That's what they knew. No one told me, either, or you would have known long ago. I've always wanted to meet another walker; as far as I know, we're the last of our kind. The vampires killed off most of us a couple centuries ago. Not telling you what you were was, I think, a way of trying to protect you; they still don't like us much. Bran kept me hushed up a bit, too." Bran's coyote had never been all that much of a secret among the wolves, but it was kinda my fault that word about me had gotten out to the Fae and the vampires. I wasn't upset about it, although I'd have preferred to keep my anonymity – the gains had been worth the costs, and the vampires had plenty of other reasons to want to kill me. The fatal flaws in my attempts to keep a low profile, though, had probably exacerbated concerns over Gena, and encouraged more draconian safeguards on the knowledge of what she was.

She didn't look angry. She didn't look even mildly upset. She unfolded herself from the couch, still grinning, and ran meditative fingertips along her body as if discovering it for the first time. "That is so cool. It's nice to know what's different about me, to have a name for it. It's hereditary? I wonder who it comes from. Had to be someone on my Mom's side. Not that I'll ever know," she added under her breath. Her fingertips explored her face, as though looking for the answer there.

"That's it?" It was difficult to maintain my righteous indignation on her behalf when she was nonchalant about having been kept in the dark. "You're not unhappy at all that no one has told you before now?"

"It's nice to know; it certainly answers some questions for me. But it's their job to protect me, and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter anyway." She shrugged. "Big wolf, little wolf… I'm a wolf either way."

After 30 years I finally meet another walker, and I'm still just a coyote among wolves.

For a moment there I had forgotten that Gena was a werewolf. It was a stupid thing to forget. While I had been fighting for my freedom to choose my own course on the fringes of a pack that would have happily killed me, Gena had been welcomed and at home, a part of the pack and its rules and its magic by right and instinct. While I had learned to hide and scheme, she had learned to attack head-on, to fight. We were both very good at what we'd learned to do, but there was a world of difference between us, and our shared status as the last members of a dying breed might not be enough to bridge it the way I'd hoped.

I'll admit I was a tiny bit jealous. I'm happy with who and what I am; I love being a coyote, a mechanic, Adam's mate, Jesse's mom, Stephan's friend, Bran's… whatever I am to Bran. And Zee. And Samuel. I wouldn't trade any of that, or give it up. But it would have been nice to have belonged a little earlier. Not to have to always watch my back.

"There are some other abilities, besides the shapeshifting, that you should probably know about. For one, walkers can see ghosts. You-" I forgot what I was going to say; as soon as I mentioned ghosts all the color drained from Gena's face. She turned to me, eyes wide, shoulders hunched… if she'd had a tail, it would have been bushy.

"What? Ghosts?"

"Yes. It's not something to be worried about. There aren't a lot of them around, and they're not dangerous. Well, most of them aren't." I'd run into some notable exceptions. "Generally they're shadows, memories of people who have lived. Sometimes there's not even anything to see, it's just a scent or a sound that lingers. Mostly they just follow the same pattern they did when they were living, moving about their lives until they dissipate."

"And the ones that don't do that?"

This was more sensitive information, but it was her heritage and she had a right to know. "Sometimes, when someone died a particularly violent death or when certain kinds of magic are involved, that can linger. That's part of the reason there are so few walkers left; the vampires hunted us because we could tell where their hiding places were, by the ghosts they generate there. But even those kind really aren't... you saw one, didn't you? You saw a ghost." One of the bad kind, the violent kind.

She turned away, staring at the floor and muttering. "It, it might have been. I didn't know. I thought he was a dream; I wasn't very lucid by then…"

It had taken me a while to figure out that not everyone could see the ghosts that talked to me, or even that the ghosts were ghosts and not human. By the time I realized what was happening, I'd been used to it. Gena's introduction, on the other hand, had clearly bothered her deeply. I laid a hand on her shoulder. "Gena, tell me what you saw."

"I didn't know," she repeated. "Was it him? I wouldn't have left him there… I thought it was just my brain, processing, using my dreams to tell me what I should have known."

"This was while you were in Los Alamos? Where were you?"

"At Trent's." Her voice was small and bewildered.

"And the person that you saw, he was someone you knew?" Alpha's house, so... "A member of your pack?" She nodded. "Does this have something to do with what happened to you right before you came here? With why you came here?" She nodded again. "Do you want to talk about it?" I prodded.

She looked at me again, resolution hardening in her face. "I do."

"Adam will want to hear. Can you wait for me to get him?"

I had barely reached the stairs when Adam appeared at the top. "Mercy?" he asked, coming two steps down the staircase. "Do you need something? I— Oh. I see." He took the rest of the stairs in two bounds and came to a stop beside me. He kissed me and took my hand, pulling me back to the sitting room and Gena. "Tell me all of it," he ordered calmly. "Start at the beginning." The mate bond can be very convenient sometimes.

Gena looked at him, probably contemplating how much "all of it" really meant. "You'll remember how Jonah died."

That was a long way back to start, but Adam just nodded. "The witch."

Gena dropped her head. "The witch. I hadn't heard about it. I was away at school, and the first thing I knew of it was when they started dying." She kept her head down, staring for a long moment at some invisible point on the baseboard before she continued. "We lost a third of the pack that night. I had to go back, even though Trent was the Alpha.

"I told my teachers I had a family emergency. I left school. In two days I went to seven funerals. And when I tried to go back to Albuquerque, he told me that I had to stay. He made me call, right there in his kitchen, and talk to the professors. He sent a couple wolves to clean out my apartment. He said he couldn't have me so far away with the pack so weak. It wasn't safe. He couldn't defend me. It was for my sake it had to be this way." The way she said it, "made" meant Alpha compulsion, the magical authority that Adam almost never used. It could make even the most unwilling pack member obey, but it couldn't make them like it afterward. Her bitterness was suppressed, even the smell buried under the lingering pain of putting Jonah and the others in the ground, but it was there.

"I dropped out, halfway through a very competitive doctoral program. I moved home, and went back to being a nanny."

She took a deep breath and was quiet again. Thinking about being a nanny, most likely. If she was thinking about kids she didn't have to think about the rest of her story, from her foster father's death to ending up in Adam's basement, beaten and bloody. I could feel her reluctance when she decided her respite had been long enough.

"It was little things at first, just a bunch of stupid orders he didn't have to give. He got mad at me for tiny, irrational things. I thought he was just being a miserable pig. I obeyed his orders and stayed out of his way. But then he started getting into mine."

It was strange to hear her speak so contemptuously of an Alpha, even a bad one. Wolves are pretty hard core about loyalty. Of course, the only Alphas I'd ever really seen in action were Adam and Bran, and their packs had reason to be loyal. I had begun to see how lucky I was that they were the ones I dealt with. Bran could be old fashioned and imperious, and Adam was overbearing and had temper to spare, but both men looked out for those who depended on them. They didn't abuse their authority, and they would never torment someone under their care.

I knew we were coming to the real meat of her story when she finally looked at Adam. "A few months ago, Trent said I couldn't work anymore. If anyone figured it out it would be too dangerous for us. No one would want a werewolf around children." I winced. That much, at least, was true, although it might have taken a long time for someone to spot her as a wolf. "Chris… Chris was my boyfriend. Fiancé, really, although he hadn't officially proposed. We knew we were going to get married. He was a good man, Adam," her voice cracked, and her eyes were suddenly moist, "a very good man."

Scott, when asked about 'Chris', had identified Christopher Ramos as a very recent ex-boyfriend of Gena's; we hadn't been able to turn up much more about his involvement than that. He was still missing, and from what Gena had already said he wasn't coming back, but we hadn't wanted to push a known berserk button and destroy all her progress. That she would bring him up on her own was a good sign. I hoped.

"Trent said I couldn't see him anymore." Gena took another deep breath. This story was taking a lot of air. "We weren't mated; there was nothing I could do except obey. Trent was getting more and more vicious, and most of the rest of the pack was following his lead. They were almost impossible to ignore. I decided I'd had enough. I'd do what he said, because I couldn't risk anything happening to Chris. But after that, I was moving on. I didn't have anywhere to go, but I didn't have to give him the satisfaction… I was done following his stupid orders, done letting him push me, done- just done." As she paused, I had heard a soft growling rising from deep in Adam's chest, but he stood still, his face impassive, and let her continue. She was studying the baseboards again.

"I went to Chris. I told him… I told him we had to break up." She hunched inward, hugging herself and hiding her face. The muscles in Adam's arms clenched as he fought the urge to comfort her. I agreed; she had to get this story out, and we couldn't interrupt her. Gena shook her head. "I should have been more convincing," she whispered. "I could have. I could have made him believe… but I didn't want to. I wanted him to know that I loved him. I wanted him to know that it wasn't me. It's my fault."

I felt a sick flopping in my stomach; I could guess what happened next.

"Trent made me move in with him. I didn't want to, but I had to cooperate a little while longer, to make sure Chris was safe. I barely slept or ate for two days. The whole house felt awful, and I had terrible dreams, waking and sleeping, every time I was alone. Dreams about the night Jonah and the others died. I thought it was just stress, or my anger at Trent… I didn't know about walkers and ghosts then. It might be that… that Paul is still there. I think he is.

"On the third day Trent stormed into my room, told me it was time for me to stop sulking and think of the good of the pack. The pack, Adam, if you could see what he's done to your pack… He told me he was giving me to Derrick, his second. Derrick was loyal and deserved a reward. As though I were his to give." Her lip curled in a contemptuous snarl. "I told him no, and he said I could do it or die. I told him he didn't have the stones to kill me, and he assured me he did, and that I wouldn't be the last: he wasn't going to let anyone cross him anymore. He meant it; I could smell the conviction on him, and the violence. And I started to wonder, where did all that confidence come from? He didn't have it when he ordered me around. What he had then was fear, even with the rest of the pack behind him. It was only about killing… Then I thought about the dreams. I thought that maybe I wouldn't be the first anymore than I'd be the last. I'd felt things, that night in Albuquerque, the night that Jonah died, that I hadn't been able to make sense of..."

"Jonah-" Adam whispered.

"He was at Jonah's back that night. Ricky and Amar - he didn't personally kill them, but he let them die. Stood back and watched. Same with Paul. I didn't even like Paul, but I respected him. He was pack. It shouldn't have gone down like that. Paul saw Jonah kill the witch, Adam. She was dead and burning. She wasn't the one who shot Jonah."

I glanced at Adam, to see how he was taking the news. His eyes were pale golden yellow and his knuckles were white.

"I lost it then. I flew at him, and I could have taken him, too, but half the pack lives with him and they jumped me. I woke up three days later chained with silver, in a cage." Her hand moved to her throat, where the shackle mark would still be visible under the high neck of her sweater.

That was it, all that Adam could take. With a roar he turned and punched the wall, taking out two studs and sending plaster flying. I did my utmost to be small and still. Adam was right on the edge, and unlike the last time he'd remodeled a wall I didn't think I could diffuse the situation with humor. Last time I hadn't wanted anyone to die; this time I wasn't so sure. He stood there for a moment, panting and staring at the hole he had created, blood dripping from his knuckles into the slowly settling plaster dust. The noise and the wave of power brought Scott and Warren at a run, but I shooed them back. They obeyed, although I'd bet my annual income that they were lingering in the kitchen, just in case.

After a minute or so Adam turned around, his face and his breathing calm. His eyes, though, were still cold yellow, and he still smelled of rage.

"I apologize." His voice was tight, barely controlled. "Please continue."

Gena sank down on the couch. "There's only a little more," she whispered. "They kept me chained and caged for…" she shrugged, "probably a couple weeks. I kept having dreams- Paul would, would show me things. Every few days Trent would come down and bring me food and ask me if I was ready to behave. Told me my time was running out, I had to make up my mind. They never let me out, until the last time. Finally, the last time, he was happy. I wondered what would make him so excited, and I was afraid… I should have done it then. I should have made him kill me there, him and Derrick and whoever else it would take.

"But I didn't." Her voice got stronger, got angry. "He told me it was my last chance, that without some remorse on my part he couldn't overlook my sin. I had no idea what he was talking about. He told me I'd been talking about the pack."

She looked up again, intense, sincere, her dark wolf eyes staring into Adam's yellow ones. "I never told him, Abba. I loved him, but I never said a word. I was waiting until after we got married. Trent knows it, too. He was lying to me, lying." She was starting to shake. I began backing unobtrusively toward the stairs, out of range. With Adam close I was safe, but there was no reason to tempt fate. Fate enjoys playing with me too much for that.

"He looked at me and LIED TO MY FACE!" Gena jerked to her feet, waving arms punctuating the flood of words and rage forming an almost visible aura around her. "He smiled! He said that he was taking care of it, cleaning up after me, and he waved and Derrick brought something in that smelled like blood and it was Chris's head and he LAUGHED-" she dropped back to the couch, wrapping her arms back around herself, consumed in shakes so bad that they were practically convulsions, and I realized that I was seeing trauma, not an involuntary change. I stopped moving. Adam sat down next to her and wound his arms around hers. "The next thing I remember I was in central Utah, coming to you," she whispered.

His voice was gentle, but I could hear the undercurrents of fury and hurt. "Gigi, why didn't you come to me sooner?"

She buried her face in his strong chest. "I didn't want to be a bother," came the muffled reply. "Paul said if you and Scott weren't tripping over me every time you took a step, you might not have moved away. He said a wolf is always alone." Adam growled and pulled her close, into his lap. "The worst of it I didn't know until it was too late." She lifted her head until she could nuzzle the side of his neck. He rested his cheek on her head. "Abba, I'm so tired. I'm so tired." Finally, she started to cry.

He rocked her, as he must have rocked Jesse when she was a little girl; as he must have rocked Geneva when she was little, if they had taken her in at five. I left him consoling her and went to find a quiet place to call Bran. I was only a few steps up the stairs when I ran into Samuel, hanging up his cell phone. "That was Da," he told me. "He's sending Charles. He'll be here in a few hours, and then we can gather a group to go to New Mexico."

Charles, Samuel's younger brother. Charles, the Marrok's judge and executioner. Yep. Someone was going to die.