Tara comes to see me while I’m still changing out of my gown. She bursts into my dressing room and practically pushes Hannah down to get to me.I hold my injured arm out of the way, so she won’t accidentally bang into it when she collides with me and wraps me in a strong hug.“What happened to you?” she cries against my hair.How does she not know? It’s the whole reason she was—and Clare still is—under lock and key. “Nobody told you what was going on?”Tara steps back, shaking her head, eyes fixed on where my hand should be. “They said the king ordered further investigation of our husbands’ plot. What happened to your hand?”“An assassin bit it off,” I say, more concerned with what was going on while I recovered. Especially since Tara goes pale, clearly receiving this information for the very first time. “You had no idea I was attacked?”“No! And I don’t understand…how did an assassin bite your hand off?” She still can’t take her eyes from my bandaged stump. “How could anyone possibly

I laugh in Nathan’s face.“I’m not joking.” He laughs, but not in disbelief. He’s overjoyed.“Right.” I’m not falling for it. “You can’t possibly tell that from some pussy juice.”He arches an eyebrow. “I’m more than willing to check again.”I smack his shoulder. “Be serious!”“I am being serious. Bailey, I know you inside and out, physically. You smell different, you taste different,” he holds up his hands to indicate his helplessness. “I wouldn’t joke about something I want so badly.”That’s a good point. Nathan does want an heir. It doesn’t seem like something he would joke about.But I can’t get my head around it. Not just the part where he can tell from the way I taste, but the fact that he noticed before I did. That he noticed something the thralls didn’t even notice. “They did surgery on me, though. They must have tested me.”“It would have been too soon to tell,” he reminds me. “You were attacked the morning after the last time we had sex.”He’s right. That would have been way

The full moon has arrived. She brings death with her.The ceremonial grounds are somber; the pack hasn’t seen an execution in centuries, let alone one of this scale. Every adult pack member is in attendance, gathered on stands erected around the open curve of the ceremonial building. Nathan struck down the condition that every member attend. He felt there was no reason for children to view the carnage of the proceedings.The mates of the condemned are squeezed into a separate set of risers, a box constructed below the observation balcony. They have to watch. They need to see what their mates’ treachery has wrought. And they’ve been positioned where the rest of the pack can see their anguish. Where everyone will watch them watching their mates die.I spared our parents. They won’t have to watch Clare die.Nathan, Tara, and I are the only ones who look down from the mezzanine, though Tara’s chair is behind and slightly to the right of mine. It keeps her from viewing the grounds She does

Be nice, I implore silently as Nathan stares Xiao down across his desk. I sit beside him, close enough that I can feel how tense he is. It makes me want to give him a neck rub in sympathy. And sympathy for Nathan isn’t my default.“It’s not a common spell.” Xiao is in the middle of explaining “everything” as Nathan demanded. She’s remarkably cool under pressure; Nathan isn’t just the king of the pack, but he holds power over thralls, as well. But she delivers the facts like she’s teaching a class. “Thralls use it sometimes when the spark is going out of a relationship or, in more unscrupulous cases, to trick someone into a relationship with them.”“And you practice this magic on werewolves? Without our permission?” Nathan growls.“I’ve never heard of it before, but I’ve trained in defensive magic and combat, not love spells,” she replies.“Why didn’t you mention this to us before?” I wonder aloud. “Why haven’t any of the thralls mentioned it?”“I can only speak for myself, but I thoug

The pack has a private plane, a sleek, elegant jet that can whisk us to London within the hour. I barely have time to pack anything. Nathan suggests we leave immediately and just buy what we need when we arrive, but the thought of leaving without even a toothbrush makes me panic, so he relents, and we go back to Aconitum Hall so I can put together a bug-out bag.I don’t even have time to brief Hannah or Tara on the situation before we’re off to the airport.“So, tell me where I can sit on this plane that you haven’t fucked your mistress?” I say as we climb the airstairs.Coming up behind me, he makes a noise like he’s thinking really hard. “You might be able to swap seats with the flight attendant.”I resist the temptation to shove him down the stairs.“I’m joking,” he says as I reach the top and turn to glare at him. He drops a kiss on my forehead. “I promise.”I’m not sure I believe him.When we enter, he has to duck down. “I’ve never even been on this jet.”“Haven’t you been king f