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off in the opposite direction of the tall, brooding guy walking our way and looking as if he’s searching for someone.
    “Isaac,” Daisy says with her gaze still fixed out ahead, but finally she tears her eyes away from the road and I’m not sure I like the look on her face.
    I look to and from them both as they stand with their eyes locked.
    “What’s going on?” I say.
    Nathan’s Cruiser comes tearing around the corner toward the skate park. I feel Isaac’s hands tighten around my arms.
    “Seriously,” I say, my chest swirling with unease, “Isaac what’s going on?”
    Still, neither of them answers, but I’m getting the feeling that as Nathan gets closer, practically ramping the speed bumps, they are still trying to figure it out themselves and just don’t have a solid answer for me yet. Isaac pulls me along with him toward the parking lot where Nathan squeals his tires into two parking spaces.
    “We’ve got company,” Nathan says from the driver’s side window. He doesn’t look nervous; he looks kind of… excited .
    “Who is it?” Isaac says and I glance carefully over at him, noticing the same sort of excitement hidden just beneath the surface of his face.
    “Not sure yet,” Nathan says. With his arm hanging out the window, he pats his door hard twice with his open palm. “It’s a challenge though—Xavier just called me—so let’s go.” A devilish grin spreads across his face and while I’m still trying to figure out which emotions to activate, I feel Daisy step up behind me.
    “She can stay here with me,” Daisy says.
    “Uhh, no,” I object. “Not this time.”
    Isaac looks over at me and his expression softens, but before he gets the chance to tell me about how I really should stay with Daisy, or that I could ‘get hurt’, I stand my ground.
    “I’m not staying here,” I say resolutely. “I’m going.”
    As Isaac’s face falls, Nathan’s grin just gets bigger. His girlfriend, Hannah, sits coyly in the passenger’s seat looking at me.
    “Oh, let her come, bro,” Nathan says, patting the door again. “They’re not rogues.”
    Okay, so ‘they’ are obviously werewolves and I’m not liking where the word ‘challenge’ is starting to fit into this conversation. And despite them not being rogues, I’m all of a sudden feeling like I should probably stay behind with Daisy anyway.
    But I can’t back out now. Nathan will screw with me about it forever if I do. I’ve already flipped my stupid switch and the only way to come back from it is to stick it out and prove myself.
    Isaac sighs deep and takes my hand.
    “We’ll follow you there,” he says to Nathan.
    Nathan winks at me and backs the Cruiser out fast as Isaac pulls me toward his Jeep.

 
    4
     
     
     
     

    “OKAY, NOW TELL ME what this is about,” I say looking over at him from the passenger’s seat.
    We speed out of the skate park, hitting the speed bumps as roughly as Nathan had coming in. Instinctively, my hands come up, bracing my palms against the roof to keep my head from hitting it.
    “When another pack comes to town,” Isaac says, watching the road, “their Alpha catches wind of who runs the place and naturally he wants to challenge us for leadership.”
    “But your father is Alpha here.”
    “No,” Isaac says looking right at me, “my father is Alpha everywhere . No one challenges him. No one since Viktor Vargas has ever challenged my father for Sovereignty.” He looks back out at the road as the Jeep hugs the curves a little too tight and fast for my nerves. “This is on a smaller scale and my father could care less about these kinds of things.”
    “Okay, ummm, so then why does Nathan seem so excited about being challenged?”
    Isaac grins, letting me know that Nathan isn’t the only one who’s excited. I don’t know if I like that or not, either.
    “We live for this,” he says and I swallow hard. I notice too that he’s white-knuckling the steering wheel. “Just stay in the