The sun had set, and the moon claimed the sky, a huge, deep orange as if dipped in blood. The magic was down, but the city still held its breath, apprehensive and watchful. It was the kind of night when monsters came out to play.

Slayer, my saber, lay on my lap. I stroked the sheath. The saber went where I went, but tonight I would have to leave it behind. Bernard’s had a strict no-weapons policy. Without it, I felt naked.

“Who else is coming?” I asked. The Pack’s protocol called for the representatives of at least three clans to be present at each Conclave meeting. In the beginning, every alpha wanted to be included, but now we had trouble getting three to come. Jim served as the alpha of Clan Cat, so he counted as one. That left two more.

“Robert Lonesco and Jennifer,” Barabas said.

Robert Lonesco was married to Thomas, and together they ran Clan Rat. Jennifer headed Clan Wolf. She and I didn’t see eye to eye. First, I had to kill her sister after she had been driven loup by my aunt’s magic. Then her husband sacrificed himself to prevent a magic catastrophe, about which we had learned through my office. Jennifer blamed me for both. We had struck an uneasy truce, because we had to work together, but not killing each other was as pleasant as it got. Christopher’s warning popped up from my memory. When it came to the wolves I shouldn’t be trusting, she was definitely at the top of the list.

“Any challenges?” I asked. Jennifer had given birth over a month ago and her thirty-day reprieve from being challenged had run out last Wednesday.

“No,” Jim said.

Odd. “I thought Desandra would’ve gone after her by now.”

“So did I,” Jim said.

Like Christopher, Desandra was a rescue from our trip overseas. She was the daughter of the most powerful alpha in the Carpathian Mountains. He was a psychotic, cruel egomaniac, who built his pack out of nothing and ruled the entire region with steel claws, terrorizing his enemies, foreign and domestic. He had eleven children. Desandra was the only one who lived to adulthood and she did this by pretending to be a spoiled, petulant idiot. Her father was obsessed with finding an heir who’d measure up to his standards. He had no idea she was right under his nose, and when she broke through his rib cage and ripped out his heart moments before giving birth to twins, he was terribly surprised.