My wings were unfolded a bit, and I reached around to pull a twig out of my secondaries. Here’s what I was thinking about:

1) Who this new threat was

2) The air show in Mexico City

3) My mom and my half-sister, Ella

4) How to get Total to quit milking his tail injury, because enough was enough

5) Fang

6) Fang

7) Fang

I’ve grown up with Fang, from the very beginning, when our dog crates were stacked next to each other in the lab of experimental horror that we called the School. I know, just another typical romantic story about the boy next door.

Then we’d been rescued by our bad guy, turned good guy, turned bad again, turned I don’t know what lately – and Fang and I had been like brother and sister with the rest of the flock, hidden away in the Colorado mountains.

Then Jeb (see description above) disappeared, and I became flock leader. Maybe because I was the oldest. Or the most ruthless. Or the most organized. I don’t know. But I was the flock leader, and Fang was my right-wing man.

This past year, things had started to change. Fang had been interested in a girl (see Red-Haired Wonder, book two), and I’d hated it. I’d had my first date with a guy (possibly evil, not sure), and Fang had hated it. Then, last month, he’d gotten all cozy with Dr. Brigid Dwyer, the twenty-year-old scientist who’d been part of the research team down in the land of ice and snow and killer leopard seals. And – get this – she’d sort of flirted back with him. And he’s – practically – just a kid!

In the midst of all this, Fang had kissed me. Several times. So now I was freaked and tempted and terrified and worried and longing – and also angry at him for even starting this whole thing to begin with. But it was started and couldn’t be unstarted. (Again, his fault.)