Desandra shrugged. “I couldn’t believe it. We’d just had sex that morning. I thought he loved me, but instead he threw me out. I had to get out of there. We were staying in this huge hotel, so I hid on a balcony. I just wanted to cry. Radomil found me. I felt really alone and he was nice to me. He held me and he told me that it would all work out. I wanted to stick it to Gerardo, too, so we did it right there on that balcony. There you have it. The whole ugly story.”

Raphael walked through the door.

Desandra sat up straighter and put one leg over another. “Hey there, handsome.”

Every time I managed to scrape up a shred of sympathy for her, she did something to set it on fire.

Raphael glanced at her. “Not interested.”

“It’s the stomach, isn’t it?”

“No,” Andrea said. “It’s me. What’s up, honey?”

“We’re going on a hunt.”

“What?” I asked.

“A hunt,” he said. “On horses.”

What the hell . . . ? “Are we going to joust next? Maybe arrange our tables in a circle?”

Raphael shrugged. “If we do, I’m not wearing armor. We’re all invited to the hunt and I’m pretty sure it’s mandatory.”

“Great!” Desandra jumped off the bed. “Anything to get out of here.”

I pointed my finger at her. “Hush. The entire castle is going?”

Raphael nodded. “Everybody is going.”

If we stayed behind, we could be ambushed, and with the castle empty, nobody would know or care. Hugh was up to something. “They do know that she’s eight months pregnant?”

“It seems so. Apparently there is a prize if you win.”

Going hunting in the middle of the mountains or staying in an abandoned castle with a hysterical Desandra and no assistance in case of an imminent attack? Choices, choices. “Hunt it is.”

* * *

The road curved in front of me, following a shore of a sea-foam-green lake to our left. It lay placid, licking gently at the bottom of the mountain protruding into it. Tall Mediterranean cypresses lined the road, each perfectly straight, like a conical candle, and between them laurel trees spread their branches. On the right, grapevines lined the slope of the mountain in long, gently curving rows.

My horse was a bay, sturdy and wide-bodied, with short shoulders and a clean head. She stepped with calm surety, picking her way up the old paved road, untroubled by smells of shapeshifters on all sides. I had a feeling I could ride her straight into the lake and she wouldn’t twitch an ear.