“Don’t mind if I do.” Aunt B seated herself on my right. Andrea took position behind her, as beta.

I glanced at her. “Really?”

Andrea sighed. “Oh fine, just don’t tell anybody.” She dropped into the chair next to me. I passed her a plate.

“What brings you up all these stairs?”

“I’m concerned for your well-being.” Aunt B slid a piece of bacon into a pancake, folded it, and bit off a small piece. “And about the future of my clan, naturally.”

Naturally. “Is it about the trip to the Black Sea?”

“Of course. Did Curran mention the Desandra incident?”

Here we go. “Yes.”

“Did he also happen to mention that I was the one who had escorted that poor child back to her father?”

Oh boy. “No.”

“How forgetful of him.” Aunt B took another bite of the pancake. “Both my late husband and I had gone on that trip. His family was from the Iberian Peninsula. Half of our clan comes from Africa and the other half from Iberia, but I digress. Bottom line, I was there. I’ve met Jarek Kral, Desandra’s father. He is a troglodyte.”

I choked on my coffee.

“He is a ruthless, violent vandal without any shred of conscience.”

Wow.

“He came from nothing, so he’s obsessed with building his ‘royal line.’ He’s so hung up on passing down his own meager genes, it’s making him crazy, and he wasn’t playing with a full deck to begin with. Every single one of his children, except for Desandra, has gone loup or gotten themselves killed, so he sells and bargains with her like she was some prized heifer, and she goes right along with it. Desandra is a doormat.”

Okay. This was clearly the day for frank revelations from the bouda clan.

I added more coffee to my cup. Curran was right. If Jarek was all about his dynasty, he shouldn’t have been eager to kill his only daughter to keep some mountain pass. The Carpathian shapeshifters were playing a complicated game, and I had a feeling they planned on scoring goals by punting our severed heads.

Aunt B looked at her cup. Barabas filled it with coffee.

“Thank you, dear. Kate, you must understand the way you will be perceived. Curran is the Beast Lord, an oddity among alphas. Most alphas lead packs consisting of one species, with an occasional odd shapeshifter or two, and most of them have to fend off challenges from rivals from inside and outside their territory. Curran rules a huge prosperous pack and his competition here in the States is minimal. His territory is secure.”

“That’s because nobody here is dumb enough to take him on,” Andrea said.