“Remember what pack you are in,” Anna told her. “There are hundreds of female werewolves out there—and the Marrok only brings in one or two women a year who need assistance.”

“Don’t forget werewolves can live a long time,” said Sage, pulling Anna’s uneaten dinner over and shoving her clean plate in front of Anna. “We all, male and female, are likely to run into a bad Alpha or some other kind of abusive situation at some point. The trick is to not join the other side of the equation and become abusers ourselves.”

Leah pushed her own empty plate aside and downed her fourth shot of whiskey neat. “I think it’s a matter of choosing your mate well.”

Sometimes the older wolves showed the effects of being raised in an earlier era—like Leah’s assumption a good mate was the cure for all problems. Anna was pretty sure no one else at the table believed the cold relationship Bran and Leah had was a good thing. It wasn’t abusive—not quite. Not physically abusive, anyway. But Anna would have lasted a month, tops, in a relationship where her needs were met with attentive care—and not an ounce of affection.

But no one could say that, of course. Though there was something in Leah’s face that made Anna wonder if Leah knew what they were all thinking.

“How did you choose Bran?” asked Sage.

Huh. Anna had presumed Sage, at least, would have known the story. There were a lot of things that everyone knew except Anna, and she’d assumed the details of Leah and Bran’s courtship had been one of those. Anna knew better than to go around asking questions about the older wolves’ pasts. If they wanted you to know, they would tell you. All Anna knew about how Leah and Bran met was that Bran had gone off to find a mate and had come back with Leah.

Leah played with her napkin, making her newly polished nails glitter in the deliberately dim lighting. She glanced around, as if looking for witnesses. But she had reserved a private room for them, and the other two tables in the room were empty, the door was shut, and there was no sign of waitstaff.

“I don’t talk about it,” she said shortly, in a tone of voice designed to put an end to the topic.

Sage was made of sterner stuff. She huffed a laugh. “I understand that, darlin’. Else I would know the story already. But now you’ve got to tell us—how did you get messed up with—” Leah raised an elegant eyebrow, and Sage grinned and altered her wording midsentence. “—ah, how did you meet our fearless leader?”