That was not a voice Beth recognized. Her eyes widened, and she burst forward with a powerful sprint that nearly knocked the door off its hinges. Daniel was on her heels as she charged into the room, and before them both, an unfamiliar man sat next to Matthew's bed. Their heads whipped around."Oh? So these are the ones who found and took you in, Matthew," the man said. "I'm lucky that I caught you two before I had to leave again. I could only stop by briefly to see how Matthew was doing and heard you weren't in, Elizabeth, Daniel. I was told you wouldn't be back anytime soon, either."He stood up with a tired sigh and limped across the room toward them. If he was injured, it wasn't a serious one, or maybe he simply had a bad hip. Beth narrowed her eyes but accepted his trembling handshake. Daniel did not."Who are you?" she demanded. "Who allowed you inside? I mean no offense, but we weren't expecting visitors, so Daniel and I gave no permission to any of the guards to grant anyone

"There was no post last night," said Daniel. "We have letters delivered in the morning."The lie fell apart as quickly as it had come, but Matthew didn't even have the shred of decency required to look contrite. "All right. The message was left for me under my window, squeezed in. I didn't want to worry you unnecessarily.""Unnecessarily!" Daniel's teeth ground against each other as he fought to control his anger. What was with the state of the Heether pack? How could intruders waltz into their territory, get past the patrols, and sneak up to the second floor to leave a message for Matthew Catii who was just a guest there? Their security was atrocious, but then again, the last two days that Beth had spent re-training the pack warriors couldn't possibly be enough to turn the discipline around yet. That would take time. Still, it enraged Daniel to no end. Was this not his house? Was this not his territory? "Next time someone slips past our guards, let us know," he said, and he didn't

Five minutes. She had left for five minutes so she could snoop around the town and look for safe exit routes that didn't pass by any other easy ambush points or other traps that could have been set in advance. There was no telling who was ally or enemy, after all, and she still doubted the sender of Matthew's anonymous letter. And after watching the outside of the pub for almost an entire hour and neither seeing nor hearing any suspicious activity from inside, she had told herself that five minutes away to do some actual belated reconnaissance would do no harm. After all, there were five Silver Nation werewolves guarding him, three of them Heether pack members and the other two from a sister pack, so what were the chances that all hell would break loose if she slipped away for a few minutes?Apparently, very high. She should have known to expect the worst no matter what she did, no matter how clever and strategic she thought she was being. Or maybe it wasn't her bad luck that she sh

"So why are they after you?""I don't rightly know.""Really? You have no idea?"The man shook his head, and Matt knew in an instant he was lying. Or at the very least, he had to have some suspicion. People didn't put up a dogged chase through smoke to mug a complete stranger. Had this man ducked into the chaos to try to get away from them, hoping to lose his pursuers in the mob? Not a stupid move, but unsafe considering he had been panting and heaving and taking in so much of the smoke. Matt could still feel the effects of inhaling it even now, even after his healing had kicked in to recover his lungs. Whatever those thugs were chasing after him with such single-minded devotion for, the man had to have an inkling about. A bit too old to be messing around with sisters and daughters. Maybe gambling debts?"Really," the man said at his long, skeptical stare. "I don't know. But I didn't want to stick around to find out. They were meaning to kill me no matter what I said or did.""Kill

There was no way they were going to bring this stranger with them. Beth was slower to judgment than anyone else here, which was ironic considering she had already seen what the future could bring, but even she was against the idea of Matthew keeping some old unknown merchant in tow as they fled the vicinity for safer waters. And given Matthew's track record of trusting the wrong people - she hoped in the other life, he and Annalise had torn each other new ones, and plenty of them at that - she wasn't fond of falling into step and going along with his idea that his new friend could be of use to them.Boris was a weathered thing, but it might have been only recent times that had treated him poorly. He had the slightly saggy look of someone who had lost too much weight too fast, but he had the sophisticated manners of someone of the upper economic class, and he still had the jewelry here and there that quietly advertised the wealth he possessed. Well, not at the moment. He had admitted