Magic Rises

CHAPTER 14

Eduardo paced up and down the common area, stomping as if he had hooves and glaring at the bathroom door. Demet asked for privacy, and the bathroom was the only place that still had a functional door. Derek went in there with them. His face alone was enough of a deterrent even if she had decided to try something.

Eduardo exhaled and turned back for another pass. Red streaks stained his white T-shirt—his wounds were deep and he wasn’t doing them any favors.

Keira paced too, to the wall and back, turning just a hair before her body touched the stone. Barabas sat in the middle of the room, his face grim. At the door, Mahon loomed, a somber shadow.

It never occurred to me that something was wrong. When Doolittle sat up in his tub, I felt an overwhelming avalanche of relief. I never thought to ask if he was okay . . .

Curran walked through the door. Blood drenched his right side. On the left, deep cuts where monster claws had gouged his flesh crossed his muscles. Being hugged by a flying eight-foot long leopard left its mark.

He walked over to me and crouched.

“Are you okay?”

Define “okay.” “Yes. Did you get him?”

“It was a woman. She threw herself from the cliff. Her brains are splattered on the bottom of the ravine.”

Damn it.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Doolittle woke up. He can’t move his legs.”

The door of the bathroom room swung open and Demet stepped out. Her teenage son followed her.

Curran rose. “How is he?”

Demet said something. Her son turned, presenting us with his back. “First injury.” Demet pointed with her fingers at the top of his neck, drawing an invisible line. “Cervical. Healed. No problem. Second injury.”

She swept her hand lower, indicating the small of the back and lower.

“Lumbar. L1 and L2.”

Demet held up one, then two fingers and tapped the boy on the shoulder. He turned.

“Full feeling here.” Demet drew her hand from his head down to his stomach. She struggled for a word. “Not full . . . ?”

“Some,” Barabas offered.

“Some feeling here.” Her hand moved from the stomach down through the pelvis. “Legs, no.”

Doolittle was paralyzed from his hips down. My mind ran against that thought and splattered.

“Will he ever walk again?” Curran asked.

Demet spread her arms. “Possible. I did everything I could for him.” She paused. “Time. Time, magic, and rest.”

She turned to me. “You have wounds.”

“I don’t care.”

She shook. “You not like them. No time. Must heal right away.”

“It’s my fault,” Eduardo said. “I couldn’t hold her.”

“She flew,” Keira told him. “And she was strong. All three of us couldn’t hold her.”

Eduardo’s eyes bulged. He turned in place, looking like he would break into a charge any second. He was going into a tailspin, fast.

“It’s my fault. I was supposed to watch him. I let him get hurt.”

He turned, stomping toward the door. Curran stepped into his way. “Stop.”

Eduardo skidded to a halt.

“Look at me.”

The big man focused on Curran’s face.

“Man up,” Curran said, his voice saturated with force. “We’re still in danger. I still need you. Don’t fold on me.”

Eduardo exhaled through his nose.

“That goes for all of you,” Curran said. “Later we can sit around and wonder what if and cry about what we should’ve done different. Right now, we work. We’ve been attacked. They’re still out there. We will hunt them down and take them apart.”

Barabas sat a little straighter. Keira pushed herself from the wall.

Curran looked back at Eduardo. “Okay?”

“Okay,” the big man said.

“Good.” Curran turned to Demet. “Heal Kate.”

I woke up with Curran sitting next to me. He didn’t say anything. He just sat next to me and looked at me.

“Were you watching me sleep? Because I thought we agreed that’s creepy.”

He didn’t answer.

We were alone in the room. Doolittle and his tub, Keira, and everyone else were gone. On second thought the covers under me looked familiar. I was on our bed. He must’ve carried me to our room. I usually woke up if someone moved outside my room behind a closed door. How did I sleep through him carrying me? Doolittle had a habit of slipping sedatives into my drink, because I ignored his instructions to lie down and rest, but the last I saw him he was in the bathtub. Demet and her children had chanted my wounds into regeneration. I recalled a rush of soothing coolness foaming over my wounds. And then George handed me a glass of water.

“George sedated me. Okay, the drugging thing has to stop. Also, if one of them ever attempts to hold me down and pour booze on my wound, I will kill somebody. That’s not an idle threat either.”

Curran didn’t say anything.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He nodded at the wall.

I concentrated. The magic was still up, and as I quested forward, I felt something stir behind the stone. Not a vampire, but something odd. Something I hadn’t felt before. We were being listened to.

Curran’s mouth was a hard slash across his face. He was angry. Monumentally, terribly angry.

I reached over and touched his face, looking for that intimate connection. Hey. Are we still okay?

He took my hand, his strong fingers hot and dry, and squeezed it. Okay. We were still okay. He didn’t have to say anything else.

“Did Doolittle talk to you?” I asked.

He shook his head.

I reached over to the night table, took a small notepad, and a pen, and wrote on it, He tested Desandra’s amniotic fluid. One of the babies could grow wings.

Curran’s eyes widened. He took the pen. Did she sleep with one of those things?

Most likely Radomil or Gerardo is one of those things.

How is that possible?

You have two forms, human and animal. Doolittle thinks that these guys have a third one: human, animal, and monster with wings.

Curran shook his head. “Which one is it?”

No way to tell. The amniotic fluid indicates that one baby is a wolf and the other is something else. The Lyc-V with wolf genes could come from Desandra. They must’ve known or suspected Doolittle found something out. That’s why they wrecked his lab.

Who knew that Doolittle had taken the amniotic fluid? Curran wrote.

Ivanna for sure, I wrote. Radomil’s sister had offered to hold Desandra’s hand in case she was scared. At the time I thought she was a decent human being. Anybody could’ve seen it. Radomil and Ignazio were all brawling in the hallway while Doolittle worked.

A familiar careful knock sounded through the door. Barabas.

“Just a minute.” I flipped the piece of paper over. I’m going to ruffle the packs to see if I can get a reaction.

Anybody who isn’t watching Desandra will be watching Doolittle, he wrote.

Perfect. “I have to go meet with the packs this morning,” I said aloud. “Anything you may want me to pass along?”

“Yes.” Curran took the note folded it and methodically tore it into confetti. “Tell them that there is no escape from me.”

The Belve Ravennati were my first stop. We met by a giant bay window in one of the public rooms where soft tan furniture sat arranged around a coffee table. The wolves from Ravenna didn’t want me in their quarters.

I sat in a love seat across from Isabella Lovari. Gerardo sat on her left. His brother was nowhere to be found. Three other people joined us, all with a similar bearing: clean-cut, the two men clean-shaven, the woman’s hair pulled back into a ponytail. They gave off an almost military air, and they watched me with a single-minded attention. This was a wolf pack, and I was clearly the enemy.

Barabas stood behind me, taking notes on a legal pad.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet me,” I said. The swelling hadn’t gone down as much as I would’ve liked, and talking hurt.

Isabella looked me over. “I’m surprised you’re still here.”

“I’m hard to kill.”

“Like a cockroach.”

“Not sure that’s a good comparison. I never had trouble killing small insects,” I said.

Barabas quietly cleared his throat.

Isabella raised her eyebrows. In her early fifties, she had a kind of sharp precision about her. Over my time with the Pack I had watched alphas work. Some struggled, like Jennifer. Some, like the Lonescos of Clan Rat, had a natural ease about interacting with people in their charge. Isabella had neither. She radiated the air of command. It was obedience or else.

“As you know, we’re attempting to discover the nature of the attacks on Desandra’s life,” I said. “Her well-being and the well-being of her children is our first priority.”

“Are you trying to imply that we’re under suspicion?” Isabella asked.

“I’m not implying; I’m saying it. I’d like nothing better than to strike you from my list.”

Barabas passed me a small note card with a single word: diplomatic.

Isabella leaned back. “I’m insulted.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” I said. “Last night your daughter-in-law was attacked. Our people were hurt. I’ve got ten shapeshifters howling for blood. I’m looking for someone to hunt. It can be you or it can be Kral or the Volkodavi. I don’t really care. So go ahead. Give me a reason to paint a target on your chest.”

The Belve Ravennati stared at me in stunned silence.

Isabella laughed quietly. “Ask your questions.”

“Where were you last night around midnight?”

“In our quarters. My sons were with my husband and me.”

“Can the guards account for your whereabouts?”

“No.”

Isabella’s wolves turned their heads toward the hallway. Someone large was coming toward us. I leaned forward to get a better look. Mahon. Now what?

The bear of Atlanta approached us, slowly, clearly in no hurry, and came to stand next to Barabas behind me. “Sorry I’m late.”

Backup. Wow. Knock me over with a feather.

The Belve Ravennati were looking at me. Right. Where were we?

I concentrated on Isabella’s face. This was the reason I had come here in the first place. “We have reason to believe we can identify the creatures who attacked Desandra through a blood test. Would you be willing to provide us with a blood sample?”

“Absolutely not.”

Unfazed. She wouldn’t give us the blood, but the fact that we could test it didn’t bother her any. Gerardo’s face showed no anxiety either. “Why?”

“Because blood is a precious commodity. I won’t give you access to it only to have it used against my family by magical means.”

Well, it was worth a shot. I looked at Gerardo. “When did you find out that Desandra had been attacked?”

“A guard told us after it happened,” he said.

“Did you make any efforts to assist us in making sure Desandra was safe?”

Gerardo unlocked his jaw. “No.”

“Did you make any efforts to visit the future mother of your child and make sure she is alright?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I forbade it,” Isabella said. “My son is overly fond of that woman. Since she’s now a target, being near her puts him in danger.”

I looked at Gerardo. “Don’t you think you owe some loyalty—”

“To a slut who slept with another man?” Isabella raised her eyebrows. “I can understand why you might feel sympathy for her. You are not married either.”

Behind me the pen creaked in Barabas’s fingers. He must’ve squeezed it too hard.

I regarded Isabella. Straight for the jugular, huh? The strange thing was, it hurt. It stabbed me right in some deep female part of my psyche that I had no idea existed. “Loyalty to the woman who was your wife for two years and who is now carrying your child.”

“You don’t understand what it’s like,” Gerardo said. “To never know if your wife loves you or if she’s just waiting for the right moment to stab you in the back because her father told her so.”

Isabella’s eyebrows came together. “My son deserves a woman who is honorable and strong, who will be a partner and an alpha, instead of a weak half-wit who is only a liability. This is a pointless conversation.” Isabella looked past me at Mahon. “We all know that the human is being replaced. Last night’s dinner was definitive proof of that.”

What happened last night?

Mahon leaned forward, his hands on the back of my chair. The wood groaned under the pressure of his fingers. “She’s earned my loyalty. Do not insult her again.”

The world stood on its ear.

“Fine,” Isabella said. “You may play this game of pretend, but I’m done. Your human knows it, too. One only has to see the look on her face when Lorelei Wilson walks into the room.” She looked at me. “You are an open book, and you know you are being set aside. Take your pets and leave us.”

I rose.

Mahon looked at Gerardo. “You can’t hold on to your mother’s skirt forever.”

The werewolf bared his teeth.

“Enough.” Isabella rose and walked away. Her wolves followed. A moment and we were alone.

“What happened at dinner?” I asked once they were out of earshot.

“Lorelei sat next to Curran,” Barabas said.

“In my chair?”

“Yes.”

Curran had lied to me. The realization hit me like a punch to the stomach.

He came into Desandra’s room, lay next to me, held me, and told me I didn’t have to worry about Lorelei, all after she sat in my chair at dinner. He had to know exactly what kind of signal it would send to everyone else. She had literally taken my place and he allowed it.

The Universe spun out of control. I struggled to hold on to it. I had to finish this. I couldn’t drop everything and search Curran out so I could punch him in the face. No matter how much I wanted to do it. No matter how much it hurt.

I managed to make some words happen. “And you didn’t think to mention it?”

Barabas sighed. “I didn’t want to upset you. I didn’t expect them to be so blunt. They don’t want to answer the questions, so they’re trying to exploit any weaknesses.”

Curran lied to me. I tried to wrap my mind around it and couldn’t. All my life, first Voron, then Greg had taught me to trust no one. Trust, intimacy, complete honesty with another human being wasn’t for me. It was a luxury someone with my blood couldn’t afford. I ignored it all and trusted him. I trusted him so completely, that even now, faced with evidence of his betrayal, I was looking for possible explanations. Maybe it was part of some plan he lied about having. Maybe . . .

I stomped on that thought and crushed it into pieces. I had a job to do. I would deal with this later. I stuffed those sharp shards into the same dark place where I stuffed everything. They scoured me on their way down. My storage capacity for the problems I couldn’t handle was getting full. Not much more would fit.

“What’s next?” I asked.

“The Volkodavi,” Barabas said.

“Lead on.”

The Volkodavi met me in their rooms, in a large common area. Vitaliy, the head of the clan and Radomil’s brother, shook my hand. Like Radomil, he was tall and blond. He was handsome but lacked the near perfection of his brother.

I sat in a chair. Radomil sat across from me.

“Where is Ivanna?” I asked.

“She’ll be here,” Vitaliy said.

I asked them the same set of questions and got much the same responses. Yes, they were in their quarters; no, they couldn’t account for their whereabouts; and they didn’t do anything to help or check on Desandra. Radomil wanted to go but Vitaliy stopped him, because Desandra was a nice girl but she wasn’t worth getting hurt over.

“Look,” Radomil told me in broken English. “We don’t mind talking to you, but it’s not going to help. You and the Wilson girl, it’s made things complicated. You not married.”

Like dragging a cheese grater across my soul. Yes, I know, I’m not married. Yes, Lorelei sat next to Curran at dinner. I’m irrelevant, I’m human, I’m being replaced . . . “Can I see Ivanna, please?”

Vitaliy sighed and called, “Ivanna!”

A moment later Ivanna walked into the room. She looked exactly how I remembered her—a slender blond woman—except for the left side of her face. Scaly dark patches of damaged skin covered her left temple, disappearing under her hair.

“What happened to your face?” I asked.

Ivanna waved her arm. As she moved, her hair shifted, and I caught a better glimpse: the scaly blotches covered the entire left side of her face, from the temple down over her cheek and neck, barely missing her eyes and lips. Her cheekbone had lost some of its sharpness too, its lines smoothed. I’d seen this before—her bones had been crushed by blunt trauma and Lyc-V was in the process of rebuilding it layer by layer.

“It’s stupid,” Ivanna said. “We have a fireplace in the room. I was really tired after the hunt and Radomil and Vitaliy came into my room and decided to argue with each other. Vitaliy was waving his arms.”

“I got excited,” Vitaliy said.

“He knocked my jewelry stand into the fireplace. I yelled at them, went to fish my necklace out, and accidentally pressed the ignition. A fire flared and burned me. At least I had put my hair up for the night or I would be bald.”

Bullshit. That was a chemical burn, complete with a spray pattern. She was lying through her teeth. Either she was stupid, or she thought I was really stupid, or she just didn’t care. I was betting on the latter. She and everyone else in the room knew that without a clear, indisputable smoking gun I couldn’t force her to do anything.

“That’s terrible,” I said.

“It will heal in a couple of days. Is there anything else you wanted?”

“Yes. We have reason to believe that the creatures who attacked Desandra are hiding here in the castle. We’ve developed a blood test that lets us identify these creatures.”

Vitaliy, Radomil, and Ivanna stared at me, their faces so carefully neutral that it had to be a controlled exertion of will.

“Would you be willing to provide us with a blood sample?”

“No,” Vitaliy said slowly. “Blood has too much power.”

“We don’t want to be cursed.” Radomil shook his head.

“Thank you for coming,” Ivanna said. “You’re not a bad person. We’re sorry your man is being so unfair.”

We left. As we walked away, Mahon rested his hand on my shoulder. It was a quiet, almost fatherly gesture.

“Did you see their faces?” I asked.

“We got a reaction,” Barabas said. “I don’t know what it means, but we got one.”

Jarek Kral was my last stop. The Obluda pack occupied the northern side of the castle. I knew exactly what was coming.

“He’ll try to provoke you,” Barabas said.

“I know.” If I gave Jarek any pretext to attack me, he would be overjoyed.

“Don’t react, Kate,” Barabas murmured.

“I know.”

“If he touches you, you can touch back,” Mahon said.

Oh yes. I will. You can be sure I will.

We turned the corner. A long hallway unrolled before us, the light from the windows painting light rectangles on the floor. Men milled about in the hallway. One, two . . . twelve. Jarek had pulled most of his pack out of their beds to give me a proper welcome.

Jarek’s shapeshifters stared at me. Some openly leered. A dark-haired, older shapeshifter on the left stuck his tongue out and wiggled it. Wasn’t he a charmer.

Your tongue’s too long. Come closer, I’ll fix it for you.

I kept walking, Barabas and Mahon behind me. The anger and hurt inside me crystallized into an icy cage. I hid inside it, using it as my armor. Whatever punches Jarek Kral threw at me, they wouldn’t breach it. The ice was too thick.

As we moved through the hallway, the shapeshifters fell in behind us. Someone whistled. Someone catcalled. I kept walking.

Ahead an arch offered a view of a large room. A familiar grouping of cushioned seats and coffee tables waited—Hugh clearly believed that if a furniture set did its job, there was no reason to get creative. Jarek Kral sprawled on the love seat, watching me walk toward him. His inner circle flanked the seat. A tall blond—one of the two brothers who followed Jarek around—an older man with a shaved head and muscles like a heavyweight prizefighter, and Renok, my buddy, dark-haired, with a short beard, and a deep inborn viciousness in his eyes.

This would be interesting.

“Curran’s whore comes to visit us,” Jarek said in accented English.

The three men laughed as if on cue. I glanced at Mahon. “You really shouldn’t let him talk to you like that.”

Mahon’s bushy eyebrows came together.

I sat in the chair. “Your daughter was attacked last night.”

“And?”

“Looking for some fatherly reactions here: is she okay, was she hurt?” I leaned forward. “You know, things men ask when their children are attacked.”

Jarek shrugged. “Why should I worry? That’s why we hired you. To keep my precious daughter safe.”

“Where were you last night at midnight?”

“Here. Wasn’t I?” Jarek spread his arms.

“Yes,” the older bald man said.

“Here,” Renok said and winked.

Jarek Kral leaned toward me. Oh boy. Here we go. “What does he see in you?” His tone was light, almost conversational. “You’re not a shapeshifter, you’re not powerful, and you’re not beautiful. No body. No face.”

Behind me Barabas took a sharp breath.

“Do you give good sex?” Jarek Kral propped his elbow on the table and rested his chin on his fist. “Do you suck his cock?”

Oh look, someone looked up a couple of dirty words in the English dictionary. Cute.

Jarek leaned a little forward, happy with himself. “Does he like his cock sucked? Or did you not do a good job? Is that why your face looks like this?”

Amateur. “Why are you so curious about Curran’s cock? Are you looking for something new to suck? You’re welcome to ask him, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like you like that.”

The three men drew back. Jarek blinked. Barabas laughed under his breath.

“Try to pay attention,” I told him. “I will speak slowly, so you can understand. Your daughter was attacked. There are strange creatures in this castle. We have a blood test that can identify them. Will you let us test your blood?”

Jarek laughed.

He didn’t seem nervous, but he was so animated, I couldn’t tell if he was reacting at all.

“Maybe we should test your blood.” Renok grabbed my left arm. He was fast, but I saw him move and I let him do it. His fingers closed on my wrist. He pulled my arm, bending it at the elbow to expose the inside of the forearm. I waited half a second to make sure everyone saw it and drove the flat palm of my right hand against his wrist. He was strong, but he didn’t expect me to be. His hold slipped. I grabbed his wrist with my right hand and twisted it, wrenching his arm. He bent forward, trying to keep his shoulder in its socket. I yanked a throwing knife out of my sheath and drove it through his trapezius muscle at the top of his shoulder, nailing him to the coffee table with a knife.

The whole thing took half a breath.

“So I take it, that’s a no on the blood?” I asked.

Jarek Kral stared at me.

A rough, jagged growl tore from Renok, part fury, part pain. He strained.

Barabas leaned forward and put his hand on Renok’s neck. The shapeshifter went still.

I rose. “I see no women in your party. That’s a mistake. Desandra is her father’s daughter. She fought last night and she enjoyed it. She will kill you one day, and then she’ll go on to have children who’ll never know your name. Your pathetic attempt at a dynasty will die with you.”

The blond and the prizefighter jumped to their feet. Mahon shook his head. “Think about what you’re doing,” he said quietly, his voice deep with menace.

Jarek said something. The wolves backed away.

I rose and walked out. Mahon and Barabas followed me.

I marched down the hallway heading toward the stairs at a near run. Outside the windows the day was bright: golden sunshine, blue sky, pleasant wind . . . I wanted to punch the happy day in the face, grab it by the hair, and beat it until it told me what the hell it was so happy about. I was keyed up too high and I was sick of this place. Sick of shapeshifters, sick of their politics, and sick of holding myself back. Thinking about Curran just poured more gasoline on the fire. I had to fix myself and I had to do it now, before I exploded.

We came to a padded bench set in the shallow nook.

“Let’s sit here a minute,” Mahon said.

I didn’t want to sit. I wanted to punch something.

“Please,” Mahon said.

Fine. I sat. He sat on the other end. Barabas leaned against the wall next to me.

“I was born before the Shift,” Mahon said. “For me, magic changed everything. Martha is my second wife. I buried my first and I buried our children. I have no love for ‘normal’ people. To me, I’m normal. I’m a shapeshifter, but I’m human. Things that I endured were done to me by ‘normal’ humans, and they did them because they never tried to understand me and mine, and even if they did, they couldn’t. I didn’t belong with them and they sure as hell didn’t belong with me or my family. There was no common ground between us.”

Why was he telling me this? I already felt like I’d been through a gauntlet. I didn’t need extra punches.

“You’ll never be a shapeshifter,” Mahon said. “If you live with us for a hundred years, a newborn werebear will be more of a shapeshifter than you are.”

Barabas looked at him. “Enough. That back there was plenty. She doesn’t need any more shit today.”

“Let me finish,” Mahon said, his voice calm. “You’ll never fully understand what it’s like and we’ll never fully understand you. But it doesn’t matter. You’re Pack.”

I blinked. I must’ve misheard.

“Why take their abuse?” Mahon asked. “I know it goes against your nature.”

“Because it’s not about me. It’s about the panacea, our people, and a pregnant woman. I can make them eat their words, but it will derail everything. They’re counting on me blowing my gasket, and playing to their expectations helps them and hurts us. I would rather win big at the end than win small right now.”

“And that’s why no matter what happens, you will always be Pack. Because you have that loyalty and restraint.” Mahon raised his hands, as if holding an invisible ball. “The Pack is bigger than all of us. It’s an institution. A thing built on self-sacrifice. We’re a violent breed. To exist in peace, we have to sacrifice that violence. We have to praise control and discipline, and it starts at the top. Having an alpha who is a loose cannon is worse than having no alpha at all. The world is falling around us in pieces and will be for some time. It’s all about stability now, about giving people a safe place, a reassuring routine, so they don’t feel frightened and so they don’t feel the need to resort to violence, because if we go down that road, we’ll either self-destruct or be exterminated. That’s why we build so many safeguards. In time, I’d like to see things change. I’d like the challenges to go away. We lose too many good people to those. But it will come with time, a long time, perhaps years, perhaps generations, and it will start at the top. We lead by example.”

I never knew that about him.

Mahon faced me. “You and us, we have things in common. You know what it’s like to not be ‘normal,’ except in this case you’re the odd one out. You may respect our ways, but you don’t have to try to be something you are not. Some people will take longer to adjust, but in time, you will be accepted just as you are. Not ‘human,’ not whatever, but Kate. Unique and different, but not separate. Kate is just Kate and you belong with us. That’s all that matters.”

I was the badass Consort and he was the grim Pack’s executioner. Hugging him in the hallways would be entirely inappropriate.

“Thank you for your help,” I said.

“Anytime,” Mahon said.

Barabas spun toward the stairs. Lorelei circled the landing and kept going up the stairs, her dark green dress with a diaphanous skirt flaring as she walked.

Barabas inhaled. “Is that . . . ?”

“Now isn’t the time,” Mahon said.

Oh no, now was the perfect time. She was walking upstairs, and unless Curran waited for her in her room, he would be alone and available for a little chat.

“Where would Curran be now?” I asked.

“It’s lunch,” Barabas said. “In the great hall.”

Good. It was about time I talked to him.

By the time we reached the great hall, common sense had kicked in. Marching in there and punching Curran, as satisfying as it might be, wouldn’t accomplish much except make me look like a jealous idiot who couldn’t control herself. I wouldn’t give him and the other packs the satisfaction.

I halted at the door. “Why don’t the two of you go in. I’ll be right behind you.”

Mahon went on. Barabas lingered for a long moment.

“I just need a minute to myself.”

“Kate . . . I’m the last person to give love advice. I find calm, grounded guys, because I know I’m high-strung and I need someone to steady me, and then I get bored and act out until they leave me. I know I’m doing it, but I keep repeating the same mistake over and over, like a moron, because I keep hoping it will be different with this guy, because he is different. But it’s always the same, because I don’t change. People don’t suddenly change, Kate. You understand?” He leaned forward and looked into my face. “Just . . . take longer than a minute. So there are no regrets later.”

He went into the great hall.

People sat at the tables, eating, drinking, talking. Tension vibrated in me. I was a hair away from violence. I imagined walking in there and stabbing Curran with a fork. Barabas was right. I needed more than a minute. I needed to splash some water on my face.

Across from me a short hallway led to the side. If I took it, it should lead me to one of the two bathrooms. I stepped into the hallway. A door stood ajar on my right side, leading into a small room where a set of dark wooden stairs climbed up.

Maybe it was the way to the minstrel’s gallery.

I climbed the stairs. If there were any snipers up there, I wanted to meet them for a friendly conversation. If not, I could look at the dining hall unnoticed.

The stairs ended. I passed through a doorway in the stone wall and found myself in the minstrel’s gallery in the great hall. Score. Something went right today.

The great hall had no windows, the only illumination coming from the electric lights or, right now, with magic up, from the feylanterns shaped like faux torches. It could’ve been midmorning or midnight—the outside light made no difference. The gallery lay soaked in gloom, the dark wooden beams almost black. I walked the length of it. Two doors, one at the far wall and the other at a midway point, interrupted the stone wall. Aside from that, nothing. Empty.

I leaned down on the wooden rail. Below me the great hall stretched, brightly lit and loud with people. The windows in the castle hallways must’ve been opened to vent the air heated with human breath and still-warm food, and a draft flowed from below, bringing with it a hint of spices and stirring the long blue-and-silver banners on the wall to the left of me. From this point I was probably nearly invisible to those beneath me.

I hadn’t realized how high the gallery was. Leaping over the rail was out of the question. My bones would snap from the impact.

Curran strode through the door into the hall. He walked to the head table, where Barabas sat on the side next to Mahon, and asked Barabas something. Barabas spread his arms in response. Curran’s face snapped into a familiar unreadable mask. He sat back in his place in the middle.

A moment later Lorelei floated up. She wore tight jeans and an off-the-shoulder, nearly sheer blue peasant blouse. Her hair streamed over her shoulders. Her face looked flawless. How the hell did she have time to change and get here so fast?

Curran turned to her and said something. She sat next to him. Her smile was nothing short of radiant.

It felt like someone had dropped a brick into my stomach.

She asked him something. He reached for a plate of carved meat.

If he offered her food, I’d jump right off this gallery and kick him in the face with my broken legs.

Curran moved the dish toward her.

Don’t.

He set the platter down.

Lorelei smiled at him, speared a slice off the platter with her fork, and leaned in to tell him something, a little sly light in her eyes.

They were sitting too close. I stared at Curran, wishing I could see through his skull into his head. Why are you doing this? Why?

“Perhaps because she is younger and fresher,” Hugh said behind me.

I hadn’t realized I’d spoken out loud. I didn’t hear him walk up to me either. Shit. This situation needed to unscrew itself up really fast, because it was distracting me.

Hugh came to lean next to me, a hulking shadow. He wore jeans and a gray T-shirt. The thin fabric lay across his broad back, following the contours of his trapezius and latissimus dorsi muscles. I knew this build: a meld of strength and high endurance, flexible, mobile, but capable of crushing power. Hugh would be very difficult to kill.

He turned, watching Curran down below. “Perhaps he wants her because she is a shapeshifter and his people would accept her. She’ll birth him a litter of cubs and everyone will cheer. Perhaps because she would bring a political alliance. Perhaps because she won’t argue with him. Some men enjoy obedience.”

“Thank you for your analysis, Doctor. Measuring others by your own standard?”

He tilted his head, presenting me with a view of his square jaw. Punching it would be a bitch. I’d bruise my hand for sure. Voron had chosen well. Usually I didn’t have any issues with my body, but right now I wished for another six inches of height and an extra thirty pounds of muscle. It wouldn’t make us even, but it would tighten the gap.

“Interested in my standards?” Hugh asked.

Danger, icy lake ahead. “No.”

“If we’re talking a one-night stand, I’m looking for enthusiasm. Perhaps for someone fearless. Blind obedience is boring. I want to have a good time, I want her to have a good time, and I want to make a memory I’ll enjoy remembering.”

“Too much information.” Hugh’s one-night stands were the last thing on my need-to-know list.

“You asked. But you’re not his one-night stand, Kate. Or are you?”

I gave him my hard look.

He grinned, a wolfish sharp grin. “You know what I’m looking for in a partner? A challenge.”

“Good luck.”

He laughed quietly, a raspy sound. “Perhaps we’re overthinking it. Maybe your Beast Lord is leaning toward her because he needs a wife and her father isn’t planning to destroy everything he stands for.”

Ouch. “Is that what Roland wants to do?”

Hugh sighed and surveyed the people below. “Look at them. They think this gathering is about them, their petty territorial clashes, their problems, their lusts, wants, and needs. They gorge themselves, squabble, and flash their fangs, and all the while they have no idea that it is all about you.”

Thin ice. Proceed with extreme caution.

He turned toward me, blue eyes luminescent. “There are thousands of shapeshifters. Kill a hundred and there are always more. But there hasn’t been another one like you for five thousand years. I would slaughter everyone in that room below for a shot at a single conversation with you.”

The imaginary ice was cracking under my feet. He was taking this someplace very strange. “Laying it on kind of thick, don’t you think?”

“I’m only stating facts.” Hugh leaned back on the rail. “Spar with me. You know you want to.”

I leaned forward and pointed to my forehead. “Tell me if you see IDIOT written on there.”

“Scared?”

I shrugged. “Scared of what will happen after I ruin your face and Hibla starts a massacre.”

“You have my word I won’t let you anywhere near my face.”

“Let?”

Hugh grinned.

In another minute, I’d need a rag to mop up all of the smugness dripping off him. “Big talk for someone with a scar on his face.”

“If you win, I’ll tell you how I got it.”

I waved my hand at him. “That’s okay. I don’t want to know that badly.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Does it matter? So far you’ve ducked every question I asked.”

“I didn’t think I had a fighting style,” Hugh said. “If it comes within range, I can kill it, but I thought what I did was a hodgepodge of techniques that worked. It’s not something one ponders: what is my special brand of violence? And then I saw you. Admit it, you felt it.”

I did. I’d never before seen anyone who fought like me. We had been completely in sync, so perfectly that the memory of it was disturbing.

He looked at me. “I want to experience it again. Spar with me.”

“Sorry, but I’m done playing.”

“Kate, come on.”

“I mean it. No.”

Hugh chuckled. “Mean and a tease.”

Below us Curran stood up. Lorelei stood up, too. Now what? Curran walked across the hall and out through the door under the gallery. Lorelei followed him.

“Would you like to spy on the lovebirds?” Hugh asked.

“No.” I didn’t need any favors from him.

“Having the right intelligence is the key to winning a war.”

“I’m not at war.”

“Of course you are, Kate. You’re at war with yourself. A part of you knows that there is more to life than being the Consort. A part of you is wondering if he is betraying you. They are going to talk, whether you listen in or not, and hearing them won’t change what they have to say.” He nodded to the left. “I’m going. Feel free to join me.”

Something inside me snapped. I had to know. I didn’t trust the man I loved enough not to listen in. That said volumes about me and right then I didn’t care. “Fine.”

Hugh walked to the nearest door and held it open. I walked through it into a long curving hallway. I could see a balcony at the end. A light breeze, cold and spiced with the salty dampness of the sea, swirled around me. The sky was a brilliant blue, and against this happy, sunlit turquoise, the pale rail of the balcony seemed to almost glow.

A long rug stretched across the stone, swallowing our footsteps. Voices drifted up from below. I stopped just short of walking onto the balcony and propped myself against the wall.

Hugh leaned against the opposite wall, watching me.

“You don’t take good care of yourself,” Lorelei said.

And she was ready and willing to help him with that.

“You make so many sacrifices.”

He couldn’t possibly be buying this crock of bullshit. The man who manipulated seven different sets of alpha personalities on a daily basis couldn’t possibly be this stupid.

“It must be lonely sometimes.”

“It is,” Curran said.

He was lonely. We had been together almost 24/7 for the past two months, yet he was lonely. When in the bloody hell did he have a chance to be lonely, exactly?

“It gets to be too much sometimes for one person. I understand,” Lorelei continued. “After my mother left my father, I had to go with her, and I didn’t really have a choice. I miss my father. I miss being somebody. In Belgium, because of my uncle, my mother and I aren’t permitted to actually do anything in the pack. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be aware every minute that you are a guest and you must think over every word that comes out of your mouth. I would give anything for a place where I belong. Sometimes I wish I could sprout wings and just fly away. Just be gone to someplace better. Some place where I matter.”

She fell silent.

“I’m sorry it happened to you,” Curran said. “Sounds like you feel trapped and alone.”

“I do. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to heap my problems on you.”

“It’s alright.”

“No, it’s not.” Lorelei sighed. “Sometimes I just feel like I have nobody to talk to. At least no one who understands me. I’m sure you know how that feels. Your mate is human. There are some things that she simply can’t understand.”

I fought to keep from grinding my teeth.

“We are different,” Curran said.

Yeah, those differences didn’t bother you until now, jackass.

“I’m sorry she couldn’t be with you and share in the thrill of bringing down the prey after a long hunt. It is such a rush to hunt next to your mate. You are so selfless to give up that joy. I don’t know if I could do that.”

Oh, give me a break.

“We all must make sacrifices. Hunting with my mate is just one of the things I can’t do.”

The way he said it, with deep profound regret, stabbed me straight in the chest.

“Perhaps she could become a shapeshifter?”

“She is immune,” Curran said.

Lorelei inhaled sharply. “So you gave up half of your life for her? I’m so sorry. What if her children are born human?”

You bitch.

“Then I will deal with it.” He sounded cold like a glacier.

My chest hurt. The world gained a slight red tint. I concentrated on breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale.

“I shouldn’t have mentioned it. It’s just that she’s so much more fragile than we are. Humans die of disease. They’re weaker and easily hurt. If her children are born human, they would inherit her weakness . . . You shouldn’t have to give up your . . . I’m sorry. Forget I said anything.”

Exhale. Inhale.

“I appreciate your kindness. It’s about time for us to go back,” Curran said. “I will be missed.”

Exhale.

“Of course.”

A door thumped closed. Hugh shook his head. “I wasn’t sure before, but now I know—the man is an idiot.”

The pain sat in my chest, hot and solid. “Don’t say it.”

“He’s a man of limited vision, Kate. All he cares about is the immediate: she’s telling him that you can’t hunt with him, you don’t grow fur, and he isn’t defending you. Sweet gods, your children might be human. The horror. He hasn’t even considered what it means to have you on his side long-term. You handed him a priceless red diamond and he’s reaching for glass beads because they are bigger and flashier.”

“It’s none of your business.” This was it. This was his angle. Separate me from Curran and present himself as a better alternative. Hugh was playing me. I was walking along the edge of a cliff and needed to be sharp or I’d plunge down, but the red mist in my head was making it hard to concentrate.

“There are dozens of girls like Lorelei. They think they are special because they were born shapeshifters and they are cute and spoiled. They expect the world to bend for them.” Hugh pointed toward the hall. “I can go in there right now, ask for one, and by morning I’ll have ten just like her. You are special, Kate. You were born special, and then you passed through Voron’s crucible, and you’ve excelled. Curran can’t see it. There is an old word for it: unworthy.”

“Will you be quiet?” I ground out.

He kept talking, never raising his voice, his tone reasonable but insistent. “I work with shapeshifters. I know them. I have them in my order. They don’t think like us. They like to pretend they do, but their physiology is simply too different. They don’t experience complex emotions, they experience urges. It’s a cold, hard fact. Shapeshifters are ruled by instincts and needs: the urge to survive, to eat, and to produce offspring. Everything they do is dictated by animalistic thinking: they feel fear and it drives them into forming packs; they’re driven to procreate and so they become aggressive toward their competition in an effort to pass on their genes; they make children—”

Maddie’s mother flashed before me. “They love their children! They defend them to the end.”

“So do cheetahs and wolf spiders. But expecting compassion or complex emotions from them would be foolish. It’s a survival instinct, Kate. When a human mother loses a child, it’s a life-breaking tragedy. When a shapeshifter child turns loup, they grieve and weep for a month or so, and then they get to work on a replacement.”

Hugh raised his hands in front of him about a foot apart, palms facing each other. “They have tunnel vision and they live in the moment. Right now Curran’s instincts are telling him you are a problem. Being with you is too complicated. You don’t fit neatly into the structure of his world, and others are questioning his choice. You are a source of friction and now he’s found a more suitable alternative.”

I didn’t want to hear any more. I pushed from the wall, but he blocked my way.

“Move.”

“Ask yourself if you will be content living your life in his shadow. You know you were meant for greater things. Deep down he knows this, too. He knows he can’t hold you or he would’ve begged you to marry him. When a man wants to share his life with a woman, he offers her everything.”

“Move.” If he didn’t, I would move him.

“You need to blow off some steam. I have an exercise yard full of swords. Spar with me.”

“No.”

“If you’re too scared to try, just say you’re scared, and we’ll come back to it when you grow a backbone.”

Voron. That was what Voron used to say to me. He would critique my fights, he would batter me in practice, and when I came up short, he’d reprimand me. “Do better” was bad. “Sloppy” was worse. But nothing compared to “Say you’re scared.” There was no worse sin than to not try because you couldn’t scrape together enough courage.

The anger that had simmered boiled over. The ice cage cracked. I was so done. He wanted a fight, I would give him a fucking fight. “Fine. Lead the way.”