“And she can stick it up her ass for all the good it will do her. I don’t need to ally myself with Ice Fury. They’re four thousand miles away. What the hell would I do with them?”

He did have a point, but I was too mad to admit it. “Whatever.”

“Not only that, but if I wanted that pack, I would go to Alaska and take it from Wilson, and I would take everything in between me and him. I don’t need Lorelei. And even if I did, what does she have, Kate? She isn’t an alpha; she has no concept of leadership or obligations. She isn’t her father, and she doesn’t get to claim his accomplishments as her own because he happens to be her dad.”

I was suddenly so tired. “So let’s review: she didn’t impress you with her personality and brain, she has no strategic value, and you don’t really want to get into her pants.”

“Yes.”

“So why are you spending all of your time with her? What you are doing looks like a betrayal. A public, obvious betrayal. I know you understand all of this.”

He looked at me, his jaw set.

I sat on a rock. “Anytime.”

Curran sighed. “There is a contract on your life.”

I slumped forward, resting my face on my hands. No, he wouldn’t . . .

“The pirate attack was targeted—someone hired them specifically to kill you. They had your description: dark hair, sword, and so on. The pirate described a man who looks a lot like that asshole who hangs out with Kral, Renok. He said the man had a Romanian accent. They were paid in euros. Thirty thousand, which is a lot of money. Jarek isn’t about to drop thirty grand on getting you killed. He likes to do that sort of work himself.”

Why me . . . ?

“The euro notes are numbered. The first letter of the serial number on the money denotes the country. After we disembarked, Saiman took the pirate back to his people in exchange for looking at the money. It was printed in Belgium. That meant that Lorelei and Jarek Kral made some sort of deal.”

I just looked at him.

“Lorelei arrived here with three of her uncle’s people for an escort. I bribed one of them—they don’t like her all that much—and she said that Lorelei and Jarek Kral had signed a contract. She didn’t know the exact terms, but it involves Lorelei becoming alpha of the Pack and spells out your death. Lorelei did this because she’s a naive child and she actually thinks things in the real world work like that. Jarek Kral did it because he’s likely planning to either blackmail her with it or use it to his advantage in some other way. Either case, if I can get my hands on the contract, it will bite him in the ass, because it will give me proof that he plotted to murder my wife. I can legitimately kill him.”