Hugh came to lean next to me, a hulking shadow. He wore jeans and a gray T-shirt. The thin fabric lay across his broad back, following the contours of his trapezius and latissimus dorsi muscles. I knew this build: a meld of strength and high endurance, flexible, mobile, but capable of crushing power. Hugh would be very difficult to kill.

He turned, watching Curran down below. “Perhaps he wants her because she is a shapeshifter and his people would accept her. She’ll birth him a litter of cubs and everyone will cheer. Perhaps because she would bring a political alliance. Perhaps because she won’t argue with him. Some men enjoy obedience.”

“Thank you for your analysis, Doctor. Measuring others by your own standard?”

He tilted his head, presenting me with a view of his square jaw. Punching it would be a bitch. I’d bruise my hand for sure. Voron had chosen well. Usually I didn’t have any issues with my body, but right now I wished for another six inches of height and an extra thirty pounds of muscle. It wouldn’t make us even, but it would tighten the gap.

“Interested in my standards?” Hugh asked.

Danger, icy lake ahead. “No.”

“If we’re talking a one-night stand, I’m looking for enthusiasm. Perhaps for someone fearless. Blind obedience is boring. I want to have a good time, I want her to have a good time, and I want to make a memory I’ll enjoy remembering.”

“Too much information.” Hugh’s one-night stands were the last thing on my need-to-know list.

“You asked. But you’re not his one-night stand, Kate. Or are you?”

I gave him my hard look.

He grinned, a wolfish sharp grin. “You know what I’m looking for in a partner? A challenge.”

“Good luck.”

He laughed quietly, a raspy sound. “Perhaps we’re overthinking it. Maybe your Beast Lord is leaning toward her because he needs a wife and her father isn’t planning to destroy everything he stands for.”

Ouch. “Is that what Roland wants to do?”

Hugh sighed and surveyed the people below. “Look at them. They think this gathering is about them, their petty territorial clashes, their problems, their lusts, wants, and needs. They gorge themselves, squabble, and flash their fangs, and all the while they have no idea that it is all about you.”

Thin ice. Proceed with extreme caution.

He turned toward me, blue eyes luminescent. “There are thousands of shapeshifters. Kill a hundred and there are always more. But there hasn’t been another one like you for five thousand years. I would slaughter everyone in that room below for a shot at a single conversation with you.”

The imaginary ice was cracking under my feet. He was taking this someplace very strange. “Laying it on kind of thick, don’t you think?”

“I’m only stating facts.” Hugh leaned back on the rail. “Spar with me. You know you want to.”