I turned around and made a little mocking bow that made my stomach hurt. “Would there be anything else, Your Majesty?”

He waved me off with a flick of his wrist. “Dismissed.”

Curran was too dangerous to know. Too powerful, too unpredictable, and worst of all, possessing an innate ability to infuriate me, throwing me off balance.

Hopefully our paths would not cross again.

A young wolf whose name I didn’t know drove me to Greg’s apartment. I thanked him and walked up the stairs to find a white stain of a note pinned to my door. It said, “Kate, I tried to call but you didn’t answer. I hope we’re still on for tonight. I’ve made a reservation at Fernando’s for six o’clock. Crest.” I tore the note off the door, crumpling it, and tossed it aside. The wards shimmered shut. The sturdy door separated me from the rest of the world, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Kicking off the Pack’s sneakers, I crawled into the bed, and fell asleep.

WHEN I AWOKE, LATE AFTERNOON WAS SLOWLY burning down to evening. I felt drained and uneasy, unsettled, as if I’d missed an important deadline. Searching my brain for the causes of my rotten mood produced no results and I felt worse.

I lay in bed and looked at the ceiling, considering calling Crest and telling him to forget it. That would be the sensible thing to do. Unfortunately, sensibility was not among my virtues. To miss the date was somehow equivalent to giving up without trying.

I shambled to the bathroom and washed my face with cold water. It didn’t help.

There was only one dress I could wear to Fernando’s, both because it was the only formal dress I owned and because it was the only dress hanging in Greg’s guest closet. I had worn it to a formal function he had dragged me to in November, where I had spent two hours listening to people who loved hearing themselves orate.