“I went as far as I could go there,” Barabas said. “I’ll never be an alpha. I don’t want to be an alpha. I didn’t even want to be the lead counsel. I like problem solving. I like taking a crisis, breaking it into manageable pieces, and finding a solution. I don’t like the minutiae. I don’t like paperwork.”

“You like trials, though?” He always seemed really keyed up before the trials.

“The last trial I handled involved a custody dispute and the divorce of my mother’s best friend’s daughter and a human she married. The opposing counsel asked for copies of income tax returns for the last five years. We obliged and sent them to him. During the pretrial hearing, he couldn’t figure out where they were, and then he found the tax returns for the first two years, but not the last three. He claimed we didn’t provide them, which made no sense because he had the first two and they were all in the same packet. He speculated that they might have been lost in the mail, except we had hand-delivered them to his office. He’s standing there shuffling his papers, and I wanted more than anything in the world to rip him open and chew on his insides.”

I laughed into my cup.

“Standing still required such an effort of will, my hands actually shook.” Barabas smiled. “One of my professors in law school referred to this as the glorious drudgery of the legal profession. I’ve had all the glory I can stand. Working for the Pack was just that, working for someone else. It was the thing I did, while waiting for something else to come along. I was a glorified servant.”

“Barabas . . .”

He held up his hand. “I’m not implying that it was the result of something you or Curran did. It was simply the nature of the position. And there is honor in service to a greater cause. But I wanted something that was mine. Separating from the Pack would give me the chance to figure out what that something would be.”

“Makes sense.” Separating with us was about the only way a shapeshifter could leave the Pack and still reside in Atlanta.

“When I bought shares in the Guild, Curran and I became partners in an enterprise. ‘Partners’ being the key word here. We’re equal. We’re streamlining the Guild, hammering it into shape, and it’s working. Our gig load has been steadily growing by five to ten percent each month.”

He leaned forward, alert, his eyes bright and focused. “This is something that’s mine.”

I nodded.