Oh dear God, she had deified her husband. Shapeshifters were already paranoid, but Jennifer’s grief combined with her pregnancy must’ve catapulted her into a seriously bad place. No matter how many rational arguments I made, she wouldn’t listen, because I couldn’t compete with Daniel’s memory.

“Someone asked Desandra the same question,” I said. “She said, ‘Because I can make the people in the clan safer and happier.’”

Jennifer stared at me, her eyes luminous with green. “You owe me. You killed my sister, my husband died because of the fight you dragged us into, and then you brought Desandra here. If she wins, if you can imagine it for a second, she would tell me what to do. I won’t take orders from that bitch!” Her voice rose. “I won’t! My child won’t call that crude lowlife alpha. You made this mess; you’ll fix it for me or you will regret it.”

Okay, that was just about enough of that. “No.”

Jennifer glared at me, her eyes blazing with green.

“Tone down your flashlights, or I’ll resolve this power struggle right here and right now.”

She drew back. The glow dimmed.

“Let me spell it out for you. I didn’t kill your sister because I felt like it. I killed her because she had turned loup and was in pain. Ending her life was an act of mercy. Daniel didn’t die so you could be an alpha. He died so fanatics wouldn’t detonate a device that would’ve killed every shapeshifter in a ten-mile radius. You’re fighting Desandra for the confidence of your clan and you’re losing. The very fact that you are here now makes you weak. If I helped you, it would only make you look weaker. You have to stand on your own. No bodyguards, no Beast Lord to hide behind, just you.”

She stared at me, her face completely white. I should’ve stopped, but in the past twelve hours I’d run around the frozen city trying to prevent a supernatural war, I’d nearly lost a child who relied on me for protection, and I’d watched Hugh d’Ambray slaughter people and hadn’t been able to do a damn thing about it, and all the while, the man I loved was missing. My brakes had malfunctioned and I kept barreling on, right off the cliff.