I didn't answer her.

"No?" Lyla's whisper slid through the crack like a draft. "That's okay. You will be."

Her footsteps faded down the hall. Soft. Unhurried. She was in no rush at all.

The cold took its time too.

It crept into my fingertips first. Then my wrists. My wolf lay curled somewhere deep in my chest and wouldn't lift her head. The paralytic sat heavy in my blood like wet sand.

*Phone. Get the phone.*

My left hand still half worked. I dragged it across the stone toward my coat pocket. It took forever. My knuckles scraped, and I didn't feel it.

My fingers closed around the phone.

I pulled it out and let it fall flat beside my face. The screen lit up, bright blue in the dark. Loren's name sat at the top of my recent calls.

I pressed my thumb toward it.

*Click.*

The lock turned.

The door swung open, and a dim yellow glow came on from the single lamp on the wall. Someone stepped inside and kicked the phone. It spun across the floor and stopped face-down under a broken chair.

Kalen.

He shut the door behind him and stood there, looking down at me. His face was calm. Almost kind.

That was worse than anger.

"Look at you," he said quietly.

"Get out."

"You're shaking."

"It's cold." My tongue was still thick. Every word dragged. "It's always cold. You know that."

He crouched in front of me. His knees cracked. He reached out and brushed a strand of hair off my cheek, gentle as a nurse.

I wanted to bite his hand off.

"I've been thinking," he said. "About why you're like this. And I think I finally understand."

"Do you."

"You were the favorite. Your parents' golden girl. Your grandmother's little moon. Then Lyla came, and suddenly people had to share." He tilted his head. "You couldn't stand it. That's all this ever was. Jealousy."

A sound came out of my throat. It was supposed to be a laugh. It came out as a cough.

"She *drugged* me, Kalen."

"Stop."

"She put wolfsbane in my wine. Smell my breath. Smell it."

"I said stop." His voice sharpened, then smoothed out again, like he'd caught himself. "I'm not here to fight. I'm here to fix this."

"There's nothing to fix."

"There is." He leaned closer. "Accept her. Treat her like a sister. Make it right in front of the pack. And I'll repair the bond. All of it. You'll stand beside me again. You'll be my Luna."

He said it like a gift. Like a crown he was setting on my head.

"I don't want it."

"You don't know what you want. You never did." His gray eyes dropped to my neck. To the soft place just under my jaw where the mating gland sat. "But your wolf does."

"Kalen."

His lip pulled back.

His fangs slid down, long and white in the lamplight.

My heart slammed against my ribs. I tried to roll away, and my body didn't move. Not an inch. The drug held me flat like a hand on my chest.

"Hold still," he murmured. "It'll hurt less."

His breath touched my skin.

I dragged every scrap of strength I had left up from the bottom of my lungs.

"Bite me," I said, "and you die tonight."

He paused. His mouth hovered an inch from my throat.

"Is that a threat?"

"It's a warning. The only one you're getting."

He smiled against my neck. "From who?"

The door exploded.

Not opened. *Exploded.* The heavy wood split down the middle with a crack like thunder, and splinters sprayed across the room. One sliced past my cheek.

A tall shape filled the broken frame.

Black robes, heavy and long, trimmed in silver thread. Dark hair. And eyes like molten gold, burning so bright the lamp looked dim beside them.

Loren.

He didn't say anything. He didn't have to.

His power rolled into the room like a flood. The air turned thick. The lamp's glass cover shattered. The narrow window above us cracked, then burst outward, and freezing wind poured in.

Kalen staggered to his feet.

"Who the hell are you?"

Loren stepped over the ruined door. His eyes went to me on the floor. Then to the fangs still showing in Kalen's mouth.

His jaw went very, very tight.

"You touched her," Loren said. His voice was soft. That scared me more than any roar.

"She's *my* mate." Kalen's shoulders bulged. Bones popped. His hands twisted into claws, black and curved, and coarse dark fur rippled up his arms. His face stretched halfway into a snout. "Get out of my territory!"

He lunged.

Loren didn't move until the very last second.

Then his hand shot out and caught Kalen by the throat. One hand. In midair.

He slammed him into the stone wall so hard the whole room shook. Dust rained down from the ceiling.

Kalen clawed at his wrist. His claws scraped against the black sleeve and couldn't even tear it.

"Let—me—"

"No."

Loren's eyes flared brighter. Kalen's whole body jerked. His fur shrank back into skin. His claws melted into fingers. His face snapped back to human, red and choking.

Bloodline suppression. Old blood crushing young blood.

Kalen's knees buckled, and Loren let him slide down the wall into a heap.

Then Loren turned his back on him, like he was nothing at all, and knelt beside me.

His hands were warm. So warm. He cupped my face and tipped it toward the light.

"Selvina. Look at me."

"Hi," I whispered.

"Hi." Something cracked in his voice. "What did they give you?"

"Wolfsbane. In the wine."

His thumb pressed against my cold lips. "Can you stand?"

"Not really."

"Then lean."

He pulled me up against his chest and wrapped his robe around both of us. Heat soaked into me. My wolf finally stirred, just a little, and lifted her nose toward him.

Behind us, Kalen coughed and wheezed on the floor.

Loren didn't even glance back.

---

He half-carried me down the long hallway, his arm locked around my waist. My feet barely touched the floor.

The banquet hall doors were open.

The quartet was playing again. Lyla sat near the fireplace wrapped in a fresh shawl, surrounded by people patting her hands.

Loren walked in.

The music died mid-note. A violin bow screeched and stopped.

Two hundred wolves went silent all at once.

Selena was the first to move. She shoved through the crowd, her white fur collar bristling.

"What is this? Who let you in here?" Her eyes snapped to me. "*Selvina?* Who is this man?"

Loren said nothing.

"Guards!" Selena's voice rang off the ceiling. "Seize him! Now!"

A dozen men in gray rushed forward from the walls.

Loren breathed out.

That was all. One breath. A thin thread of his power slipped loose into the room.

Every guard hit the floor.

They dropped flat, faces against the marble, arms pinned at their sides. One of them whimpered. Not one could lift his head.

Someone screamed. A tray of glasses crashed somewhere near the back.

"Step aside."

My father's voice. He came through the crowd with my mother right behind him, both of them pale, both of them furious.

"You break into my house," my father said, "on my mother's birthday, and you put your hands on my daughter—"

He stopped three feet away.

His nostrils flared. His face changed.

My mother grabbed his sleeve. She was trembling. They had both felt it. The weight of that blood. Old and dark and endless.

My father took one step back.

Then another.

Loren moved me gently behind him, his body a wall between me and everyone in that room. His golden eyes swept the crowd. Selena. My parents. Jasper, frozen by the dessert table with his mouth open. Lyla, very still by the fire.

When he spoke, his voice filled every corner of the hall.

"This woman is Selvina Vale. My wife. Queen of the Night Wolves."

Nobody breathed.

Then, from the fireplace, a single teacup slipped from Lyla's fingers and shattered on the hearth.

And in the silence after it, from the hallway behind us, came the sound of slow, dragging footsteps.

Kalen was coming.