Nope. No Curran. Yep, he had a plan. Yep, I wouldn’t like it. Now he was actively avoiding me. Great.

The door ahead opened and Barabas stepped out. “A moment of your time, Alpha.”

“Sure.” I nodded at Derek. “Will you take the scale to Doolittle?”

He nodded. I passed him the bag and he walked off. We watched until he walked into Doolittle’s room.

“He’s getting grimmer and grimmer,” Barabas said.

“Derek?”

“Yes. Before long he will start emitting his own dark cloud.”

“Maybe we can all sneak around under the cover of his darkness. Do you have some information for me?”

“Yes. But not here.” Barabas started down the hallway, back to the stairs. I followed. We climbed the stairs and turned, Barabas opened a door, and we stepped out onto a wide, square balcony.

“This place is a maze,” I said.

“And people listen to us in the walls.”

We walked to the far end of the balcony.

“Lorelei Wilson,” Barabas said. “Twenty-one, daughter of Mike Wilson and Genevieve de Vos. The de Vos family runs one of the largest wolf packs in Belgium. They are based in the Ardenne Mountains, in Walloon, which is a French-speaking region of the country. The family is very prosperous. They obtained their wealth during the nineteenth century from coal mining, and over the years they increased it, using the mineral-rich region to their advantage. Currently they produce steel, and Genevieve, and Lorelei in turn, have access to the money, so it’s unlikely that her motives for being here are financial.”

She really was a werewolf princess. “How did you manage to get all of this?”

Barabas gave a small predatory smile. “People love to talk and I love to listen. Being a handsome devil doesn’t hurt either. I am charming.”

“And so full of humility as well.”

“Indeed.”

“What is she doing here, Barabas? She isn’t part of any pack that I can see. How did she even know about this meeting?”

“That I can’t answer. Not yet. I can tell you that she definitely has an agenda. I watched her flit about yesterday and today. She starts every conversation with flattery. It’s a deliberate choice on her part.”

“Thanks.”

The humor drained from Barabas’s face. “As your nanny, I now have to bring up an uncomfortable fact.”

“Shoot.”

“Lorelei’s standing too close to Curran. She’s also monopolizing his time.”

“I noticed.”

“I don’t know why he is doing this, but it’s sending a signal to the other packs, and they also noticed.”

Ugh. And there was nothing I could really do about that. Threatening Lorelei would paint me as insecure. Not threatening Lorelei would make me look either indifferent or clueless. It would be a hell of a lot easier if His Furriness got with the program and rebuffed her.