Annie Bellet
Jade is finally starting to get back to her life. She spent a week moping about Alek leaving her and Samir coming for her before Harper dragged her out of bed. Now, she is sitting around playing Dungeons and Dragons with her friends. The pizza boy, Joel stops by to deliver food and stays to talk for a little while. The Alpha of all alpha wolf shifters, Wulf, has just died and wolf alphas are coming from all around with their seconds to see who the next ultimate alpha will be. After he leaves, the group digs into their pizzas. When their is a knock on the door, Harper goes to answer. She comes back with Alek looking for Jade’s help.
Alek says that he needs here to perform a tracking spell so that he can find a missing woman, Dorrie. One of the twins, Levi (the mechanic), knows her and confirms that she is a wolf shifter. Jade already knows she is going to help, but tries to give Alek a hard time anyway. She says he gets her involvement or nothing. He agrees to let her go with him and hands her a bag containing one of Dorrie’s shirts he got from her mate. They make their way into the woods and towards a spot where college kids like to drink or fool around. They follow the path of the tracking spell until ALek smells blood. They find a young boy, Jamie Lansing, and his parents (local grocers) torn apart. Alek goes down a steep slope to find Dorrie’s wolf body dead below. He explains to Jade they can’t inform the police with all the unfamiliar wolves in town. He piles the bodies into the back of his truck and they start heading for the Dr. Lake’s vet clinic.
Once they are at the vet’s office, Alek carries Dorrie’s body inside. Vivian Lake starts the autopsy and Jade has to excuse herself, having seen enough blood and guts for the night. Alek gets her attention an hour later. He explains that she was poisoned. Jade is confused because shifters can generally heal themselves by shifting into the opposite form of what they were when they got hurt. By switching bodies, their other body has a chance to heal. Vivian explains whoever did this to Dorrie, broke her neck and then injected the poison that ate away at her heart. They would have to continue to do this until she died from not having a chance to recover. Jade indicates that the Lansings are missing and Vivian tells her they are on vacation. Alek tells her to keep everything she has seen quiet. Jade decides to walk home and tells Alek they will talk later.
Jade goes to Brie’s bakery next door to her comic shop for some treats before Ezee picks her up. The woman in front of her bumps into her and Jade sees that she has a feather necklace like Alek’s. She seems to think she knows Jade, but Jade assures her she doesn’t. After the woman leaves, Jade gets her items and goes to wait for Ezee. He picks her up to take her to the college swimming pool so she can practice breathing under water. She does this while making ice spears to freeze and unfreeze the top of the pool. She is working on multiple spells at once and getting better at it. Suddenly, there is a tiger in the pool. Jade gets out and Alek is there to talk. He explains he isn’t good with relationships because he has to be a Justice first, but still wants to be with her. Jade is okay with this and they make up. She tells him to drop her off at her shop before he goes out to question wolf shifters. They are outside when she realizes she forgot her phone. She turns around to go get it and a bullet hits her braid rather than her head.
Alek turns into a tiger and goes after a car that is in a hurry to get away. Jade puts a protective bubble around herself in case the car is just a distraction. Ezee comes out and sees a piece of paper. Jade looks at it and sees some sort of kanji writing. Alek comes back and goes to pick it up. Jade quickly puts a force field around her hand and the note to keep the explosion from killing her friends. She knows someone is trying to kill her and wonders if they were hired by Samir. Back at the shop, Jade has to defuse an argument between Harper and Trevor (a regular who paints mini’s in exchange for comics) about Batman versus Punisher. Harper then asks about Alek. Jade tells her what happened and that she will not be making it to dinner with her family. Harper insists that her mom’s bed and breakfast is one of the safest places because that is where Jade has been practicing her wards. After agreeing, Harper leaves her to work. Jade tries to remember the symbol on the exploding paper, but can’t. Alek comes by just as Jade is closing up the shop alone. He tells her that he wasn’t able to get much, but he has been only lightly questioning so far. He did tell Ulfr’s oldest son, Liam, what is going on and Dorrie’s mate part of the story. He is going to follow the route the Lansings would most likely have taken to see what he can find. Jade wants to go, but Alek convinces her it is better for her to stay behind. He returns her cell phone (left at the pool after she was shot at) and promises to call if he finds anything.
Jade arrives at Rosie’s for dinner. Max tells her that hey have a photographer that will be joining them as a guest. When the man, Mr. Kami, comes in, Jade is a little surprised that he is Japanese, especially since the exploding paper looked like it was written on in that language. She reaches out and uses her power to feel everyone’s life force. When Mr. Kami doesn’t have one, she knows he is the assassin. She chases him out of the house trying to keep her friends safe. He holds a ring of fire that Harper jumps through to get to him. He sends a large fire at her and she tries to force it upwards to avoid hitting her friends or Rosie’s bed and breakfast. Mr. Kami gets away and Jade is too tired and burnt to go after him. Rosie rushes to the charred lump that is her daughter.
Harper is rushed into a room to be taken care of. Rosie sends Jade to her daughters room to get cleaned up. When Jade returns, Harper is in human form and awake. She explains that she is still connected to her fox body and still in pain, but not as bad as if she were still in that form. Jade goes to look around. She finds Mr. Kami’s camera bag and picks it up. She feels Samir’s magic all over it: a container for her heart. She drops it and it turns to ash. The assassin didn’t leave anything behind they could use to track him. Jade falls asleep watching over Harper. Alek wakes Jade up after his fruitless night of searching for answers. After they shower together and get into one of Rosie’s spare beds, she tells him her worries about killing and bringing danger to her friends. He reassures her that she just needs to start reacting and that killing gets easier.
The next morning, Jade and Alek are woken up by a call from Henry (Dorrie’s mate). Jade quickly checks on Harper and Rosie sends her on her way. They get in his truck to go slightly into the woods where Ulfr’s son, Liam has been murdered. Eva, the other Justice, is there and wanting to blame the entire thing on Jade because she is a sorceress. Jade tells her she wasn’t involved and Eva uses her power to know that she isn’t lying. Sheriff Lee shows Alek the mangled body and a baggy of fur they found in his mouth. Jade tries to track it, but the trail is too weak. She thinks the fur is too old to make a connection to the body it use to be attached to. Alek sends her back to Rosie’s to watch over her friends while he and Sheriff Lee cover up the murder of another shifter.
Jade runs a few errands before returning to Rosie’s in Alek’s truck. Max gets a message on his phone from Alek. He wanted Jade to know that he was going to question some of the Alpha’s with Eva. Jade uses Max’s phone to check her messages and hears the one Liam left her that morning. He is telling her that they found the Lansing’s car and then yells out “Justice.” Jade realize that Justice Eva might be responsible. She has Levi drive her while she tracks Alek using his truck keys. When they get close, Levi shifts into a wolverine and Jade hurries through the woods. They find Alek alive, but he has been poisoned like Dorrie was. They get him to Vivian’s office and she gives him a shot of adrenaline to the heart, hoping it will wake him up long enough for him to shift. When it doesn’t work, Jade commands everyone out of the room so she can try her magic. That doesn’t work and she decides to go into Bernie’s thoughts for an idea. Instead, Jade finds a memory of when she burned a bully’s hair and felt bad about it. Ji-hoon pointed out that she is good because she feels bad about it. Jade had been trying to forget about her old family because it was too painful, but this one helped her realize that the power was neither good or bad, it was what she decided to do with it. She combines Bernie’s power with her own and finds a ritual to force a shifter into animal form. It works and with help from her friends, they are able to get Alek back to Rosie’s.
After Jade explains to her friends why she suspects Eva of the killings, Vivian backs up her story. She is old enough to remember when the Peace was made for the wolves. Back then, Eva had her own little pack that she used to dole out Justice. Only one alpha, Aurelio (aka Softpaw) had refused to sign the peace and ran off with his Bitterroot pack. Everyone looks to Jade for what to do next. She knows that the shifters are unlikely to believe her story, so she decides they will wait until dawn for Alek to wake up. If he isn’t awake by then, she will go herself. Everyone tries to get some sleep, but Jade stays with Alek. Wolf shows up and warns her that the wards have been invaded. Alek wakes up and confirms Eva is the killer. Since it is a rouge Justice, Alek will be the one to kill her, but Jade will make sure he has the chance. She points out to Rosie were there are six non-human forms surrounding them. When the six get bored, they start shooting the cars.
Junebug, Levi’s wife, turns into an owl and flies to his shop to get a car they can use to go after Eva. Jade goes out the back door to distract two of the shooters. She throws light at them to blind them enough to let Alek out. He forces all shifters around him to go into their animal form to take the guns out of the picture. He quickly kills the two wolves as they charge and then goes to help Ezee, Levi, and Vivian with the ones out front. Another wolf comes around to attack Jade, but Max dives out of the house and attacks. When the tables turn, Jade is able to get a hold of the wolf and keep it from going after him. Alek arrives and rips the wolf apart. When everyone is back in human form, they assess the damage. Alek gets the guns from where they were laying and brings them to Rosie. Junebug arrives in a mustang, which Alek and Jade take, leaving their friends to defend against anything else that might come their way. Jade tells him they have to stop by the quarry where she found him to get Samir’s knife. Alek asks if they are okay and Jade says they are.
When they arrive at the spot where Jade found Alek the night before, Jade gets out to fetch her knife. She finds it and as she reaches for it, the assassin, whose real name is Haruki, finds her. She locks him in a bubble with her so that he can’t escape. He comes at her with his blades and she is mostly able to fend him off. Alek distracts her for a moment and her leg gets slashed open. Haruki starts a fire so that neither of them can breathe. Jade remembers her exercises and that she doesn’t actually need air to breathe. She freezes Haruki and eats his human heart. She lets the shields down and uses his own power to set his body on fire.
Jade and Alek make their way to the den, but it is guarded by humans with machine guns. Aurelio approaches them with his pack and tells them his story. He was planning on signing the Peace when Wulf (called Ulrf back then) had originally come up with it. However, Aurelio’s daughter had killed a human hunter and Eva told him to stop the Peace. Aurelio refused to fight his friend, so he left. Jade makes herself appear as weak as possible and goes to the human guards with the guise of needing help. When she is close enough, she shoots chain lightning through them to take them out. They head up to the Den and use the key Liam gave Alek to get in. Eva has her barriers up so no one outside can her them. She plans on being the alpha of alphas and restoring the wolves to their former glory. Alek warns her that he is a Justice and has to stop her. Suddenly, the humans on the upper level around them draw their guns and they are surrounded.
Alek roars and all the shifters (except Eva) in the room turn into their animal forms. He makes his way to her and challengers her. She points out that a tiger versus a wolf isn’t a fair fight, but he reminds her that her poison is still in him. He is shot again with a tranquilizer gun containing more poison before he shifts back into a tiger and attacks her. As they fight, Aurelio moves to get to the humans with guns above them. One gunman notices him moving and gets the attention of his brother. Jade is able to use a little bit of chain lightning, but her fatigue won’t let it go past two people. She is shot at, but is able to shield herself. She tries to warn the shifters to get out, but they watch the two different fights that are happening. By the time Jades attention returns to Alek, he has already defeated Eva. She shifts back into a human and he follows suit. She admits that the Council took away her pendant, relieving her of her duties, after she killed Dorrie. She pulls out a pen-like object with a button on top and indicates she packed Wulf’s coffin with explosives.
Jade use magic to throw herself at Eva. She hits the shifter just as she presses the button for the explosive to go off. Jade yells at Alek to get everyone out while she makes a shield to contain as much of the blast as she can. She feels like she is being ripped and burned apart. She starts to breath in the flames and feel more of a warmth than a burning. Suddenly, a man’s voice tells her she isn’t dying and to go back to sleep. Jade wakes up completely naked on glassy red stone in a bowl shape indented into the Den’s floor. She finds Samir’s knife survived and takes it. Alek gives her his sweater to cover up and Jade does her best to walk away after a confrontation for once. She makes it out the door before she collapses.
After a while, Jade goes back to her normal life and opens back up the shop. She tells Harper about how she killed the assassin and her friend doesn’t seem bothered by it at all. Harper indicates that she has also killed someone that needed killing and agrees to talk about it over pastries. Jade goes to Brie’s bakery, but is told to leave because she is a sorceress. Later, Jade sends Harper out for food to make sure she isn’t turned away again. Peggy the Librarian comes in and tells Jade that she has thirty days to leave town. Jade refuses. She points out that she is a business owner (but leaves out that she owns the entire plaza). The witch starts to make threats that her coven (at least 12 witches) is very powerful. Jade really isn’t all that worried, but doesn’t want to start anything to make her bad reputation come true. Ciaran, the Leprechaun, comes over and tells Peggy to leave Jade alone. She leaves and Ciaran tells Jade he is not concerned with what she is, but who she is.
Alek comes over with Chinese food and sits with Jade. They start talking and he tells her about his family. He was one of three triplets born in Siberia. His mother died in the birthing process and he was raised by his grandmother. He was called to be a Justice when he was sixteen and was taken to America for training. He tried to return to his family once, but it wasn’t the same. Jade asks if Alek saw anything when she had her shield up to protect everyone at the Den. Alek says the memory is slippery and sounds a little crazy, but he thought he saw a dragon. He tells her he loves her and Jade doesn’t know how to sum up her feelings. She says “I know” in a Star Wars reference, and he seems to understand.
Tess is one of Samir’s apprentices. He expects her to work and get along with Clyde, his latest lover, but they seem to despise each other. Tess had suggested the assassin. So now it is Clyde’s turn and he wants to go after Jade himself. Tess mentions that she would like to go as well, trying to make it sound like it would just be a fun adventure. Samir allows this and says he will make a new container for Jade’s heart. Tess makes it back to her own warded room before she allows herself free expression. She knows that she is just one of Samir’s play things until he gets bored. The same thing is true of Clyde, who doesn’t understand Samir’s obsession with Jade. Tess thinks Jade is the key to killing Samir.