Prague. Adam took a deep breath. He’d have to wait for Marsilia and Stefan to wake up; he couldn’t abandon them in Bonarata’s care. He took another breath and tried to subdue the wolf, who wanted to go right-the-hell-yesterday.

“She’s okay?” he asked.

“She’s okay,” Ben assured him. “I told her you were hot on her ass to Europe. She’ll hunker down with Libor for a couple of days.”

Adam pinched his nose—a habit he’d gotten from watching Bran do it one too many times. “Tell me about Libor.”

“Alpha of the Vltava Pack. Been around since the Middle fucking Ages. Apparently a baker—of all the sodding things for a fearsome Alpha to be. We are all glad we don’t have to tell people our Alpha is a motherhumping baker.”

Adam made an encouraging sound and waited for Ben to quit distracting himself. As the other wolf got back to matters at hand, Adam filtered out the expletives that were Ben’s attempt to shrug off an upper-crust but hellish upbringing—Adam was able to assume from Ben’s casual attitude that various people weren’t really pedophiles nor did they do interesting and unlikely things with animals and/or machinery. When Ben was finished, he left Adam with something worth worrying about.

“Libor has a legendary grudge against Bran,” Adam said slowly. “Charles doesn’t know what it was about. Did you try Samuel?” Surely one of the two would have the story.

“Sorry,” Ben said regretfully. “I did try. Since it was I sending Mercy into the mouth of the monster, I decided I was on the need-to-know list. Took an act of God to get in touch. Samuel doesn’t know. Charles says he doesn’t know what it was. All he has is a couple of comments Bran made once upon a time—and Bran won’t say anything more. Apparently there was an oath involved, and you know how Bran is about that.”

Adam cursed under his breath.

“How many years in the army, and that’s all you’ve got?” Ben said. “I thought the army guys really know how to swear.”

Despite everything, Adam grinned at the phone. “We didn’t swear in my day,” he lied. “We just killed people.”

“There is that,” said Ben. “What can I do? Samuel says he can head to Prague, but it will take him a couple of days to get there. Apparently he’s in Africa.”

“I thought he and Ariana were in the UK?” Adam said.

“He said he was doing a favor for an old friend,” Ben said. “Medical, I think, and not werewolf or fae business. They’re not in a civilized area, and it will take a day to hike out.”

Adam thought about that. “Tell Samuel no. It sounds like the crisis is mostly over. Does Charles have a way for me to contact Libor?” Trouble between the Prague Alpha and Bran or not, the vampires were a real threat. Though he, like Larry, thought he’d convinced Bonarata that killing Mercy would be a mistake. Still, he’d be happier to put Mercy with allies just in case.