Mahon leaned forward, his hands on the back of my chair. The wood groaned under the pressure of his fingers. “She’s earned my loyalty. Do not insult her again.”

The world stood on its ear.

“Fine,” Isabella said. “You may play this game of pretend, but I’m done. Your human knows it, too. One only has to see the look on her face when Lorelei Wilson walks into the room.” She looked at me. “You are an open book, and you know you are being set aside. Take your pets and leave us.”

I rose.

Mahon looked at Gerardo. “You can’t hold on to your mother’s skirt forever.”

The werewolf bared his teeth.

“Enough.” Isabella rose and walked away. Her wolves followed. A moment and we were alone.

“What happened at dinner?” I asked once they were out of earshot.

“Lorelei sat next to Curran,” Barabas said.

“In my chair?”

“Yes.”

Curran had lied to me. The realization hit me like a punch to the stomach.

He came into Desandra’s room, lay next to me, held me, and told me I didn’t have to worry about Lorelei, all after she sat in my chair at dinner. He had to know exactly what kind of signal it would send to everyone else. She had literally taken my place and he allowed it.

The Universe spun out of control. I struggled to hold on to it. I had to finish this. I couldn’t drop everything and search Curran out so I could punch him in the face. No matter how much I wanted to do it. No matter how much it hurt.

I managed to make some words happen. “And you didn’t think to mention it?”

Barabas sighed. “I didn’t want to upset you. I didn’t expect them to be so blunt. They don’t want to answer the questions, so they’re trying to exploit any weaknesses.”

Curran lied to me. I tried to wrap my mind around it and couldn’t. All my life, first Voron, then Greg had taught me to trust no one. Trust, intimacy, complete honesty with another human being wasn’t for me. It was a luxury someone with my blood couldn’t afford. I ignored it all and trusted him. I trusted him so completely, that even now, faced with evidence of his betrayal, I was looking for possible explanations. Maybe it was part of some plan he lied about having. Maybe . . .

I stomped on that thought and crushed it into pieces. I had a job to do. I would deal with this later. I stuffed those sharp shards into the same dark place where I stuffed everything. They scoured me on their way down. My storage capacity for the problems I couldn’t handle was getting full. Not much more would fit.

“What’s next?” I asked.

“The Volkodavi,” Barabas said.

“Lead on.”