“That I don’t know.” Desandra grimaced. “I can tell you that when she got off the ship, she was really friendly. Really. She had the whole sweet and innocent act going.” Desandra fluttered her eyelashes. “Oh poor me, I am a sweet and honeyed flower, too delicate and . . . What’s the word when you are like, Oh, I am so honest and I just want to help?”

“Earnest?” Andrea suggested.

“Yes, that. But I did the same thing at her age. I could tell she was a snake. Once she realized I wasn’t about to be her best friend, this whole big holier-than-thou thing came out. I had a fight with my father and she told me that I was inappropriate. Then one time . . . okay, so pregnant women get gas. Your stomach is the size of a backpack, and when you do get gas, it hurts to breathe. So I farted. I couldn’t help it. She called me vulgar. I told her to mind her own business, and she said that I was shameful and no self-respecting person would associate with someone like me. I was an embarrassment to my father and my husband. I had no honor.” Desandra grimaced. “She must’ve grown up in a fish tank or something. She has all these weird ideas about how people are supposed to interact. Like she is some kind of nobility and we’re all just peasants.”

Interesting. “What did you do?” I asked.

“I’d checked up on her. Her dad is some big alpha in the U.S., but her mom couldn’t stand him so she took Lorelei and moved back to Belgium. There is only one major shapeshifter pack in Belgium, and Lorelei’s grandparents are running it. They didn’t really want her mother or her back, so they let them come back on one condition: neither of them can have anything to do with the running of the pack. There is some family money and they are not hurting, but neither of them can ever be an alpha. They didn’t want them to compete with their son. So when Lorelei told me I was an embarrassment, I told her I was daughter of an alpha and wife to two future alphas, and that three packs were crossing the sea because of me. I asked her how fast did she think they would throw her into the sea if I asked them to do it.”

“Ha!” Andrea grinned.

I wouldn’t mind throwing Lorelei into the sea, but right now the need to punch Curran was much stronger. “What did she say?”