He walked out. I leaned against the wall. Just what I needed. I hadn’t shown Hugh any gaps in my armor. He already knew them; he’d figured me out last summer. Now the Pack knew them as well. The Pack Council would have a field day with it when this was over.

That was fine. I failed Mauro. But Ascanio, Derek, and Desandra survived.

I was beginning to think in numbers. Well, wasn’t that sad?

The door swung open and Jim loomed in the doorway. “We found Double D.”

• • •

I STRODE THROUGH the hallways at a near run. “Where did you find her?”

“She was hiding at her cousin’s house in the attic,” Jim said.

“Have you called the alphas?”

“Yes.”

“The rats, too?”

He bristled. “What about the rats?”

“They think you’re hiding information from them.”

“I hide information from everyone. Do they think they’re special?”

I walked into the Pack Council room. A large table dominated the space, and what could be gathered of the Pack Council occupied the chairs: Robert and Thomas Lonesco; Martha, the female alpha of Clan Heavy; the betas from Clan Nimble, the female alpha of the jackals, Andrea for Clan Bouda, and Desandra, pale and bald.

“Where is the alpha of the wolves?”

George, Mahon’s daughter, looked up from her spot at a small desk. “She declined to attend. She sends her apologies.” She pointed at Desandra. “She’s all we could scrounge up on short notice.”

“Yeah,” Desandra said, her voice dry. “I’m a substitute alpha.”

Well, of course. Because this meeting wouldn’t end well for Double D, and Jennifer didn’t want to deal with the fallout. When the wolves pitched a fit and demanded to know why one of their own was sent to the People, she would tell them she had nothing to do with it. It was all Desandra’s fault. Marvelous.

“I thought your teeth fell out?”

“They did.” Desandra bared a new sharp set at me. “I found out I was coming to this meeting and they grew all on their own.”

Someone was pissed off.

I walked to the head of the table and sat in my chair, trying to valiantly ignore the fact that Curran’s chair stood empty next to me. If I let even a tiny bit of anxiety show, I would lose the Pack Council. They would begin to bicker and we wouldn’t come to a decision.

“Bring her in, please,” I said.

The door opened and Barabas led Dorie Davis inside. She didn’t look like a bombshell. She didn’t look like a streetwalker either. She looked perfectly ordinary. A woman in her early thirties, with a rounded face, blue eyes, and a shoulder-length blond bob. Not too athletic, not too curvy. Soft. The kind of woman who probably lived in the suburbs, made school lunches for her kids, and indulged in a glass of wine in the afternoon.