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scary babe, even though she was
beautiful beyond any woman he’d ever seen. Still, it didn’t take a
genius to figure out that she was in trouble. He’d seen her tears,
smelled the subtle change in her body chemistry that said she was
afraid. When he’d touched her, she’d jerked away like a frightened
bird. Her tough exterior was about as sturdy as an eggshell. For
all her powers, she was terrified of Masterson. Why?
    He was certain that answer was key to
everything, and he had to discover it. If he could solve her
problem, maybe she’d stop being his.
    Something walked by his cell,
footsteps shuffling like a giant sloth in mule slippers. A few
seconds after that, he heard the buzz of dragonfly wings.
What the hell are those things?
    Rafe lay back on the bed, but every muscle
was tensed into a hard knot. The strangeness of the situation
reminded him of the desert patrols, never sure what creatures the
enemy had stalking the night. The Wolves hadn’t been the only
non-humans who’d joined the war.
    As the Alpha heir, he’d gone into the army
because he knew sooner or later he’d have to look after the Pack.
It was the best way to see the world and sow a few wild oats before
bowing to the weight of a leader’s responsibility. It also eased
the inevitable tension between the Alpha and the Alpha-in-waiting.
He loved his dad, but Wolf Creek was a little small for the both of
them.
    Rafe rubbed fatigue from his eyes, pain
dragging at his limbs as he moved. Werewolves healed fast, but the
gargoyle-inflicted bruises still hurt.
    The Desert Wolves had been an eye-opener for
Rafe. There hadn’t been as much carefree oat-sowing as he’d
planned. He’d led a lot of patrols and learned what being in
charge—an Alpha—meant. He was responsible for every life in his
care.
    Those lessons had stuck. Now the Pack’s
future was on the line. He had to step up.
    And that came back to Lila. He and Darak had
already established they couldn’t outmaneuver her with brute force,
but maybe he could beat her through subtler means. Time to take his
own advice and slather on the honey.
    He’d have to keep it real. There was no way
he could out-trick a fey—and to be honest, that wasn’t a game he
wanted to play. If Lila was backed into a corner, and he was pretty
sure that was the case, the smartest thing he could do was to give
her a safe exit.

    Rafe surprised himself by actually
falling asleep for an hour or two. When he awakened, his clothes
were washed, mended, and folded neatly at the end of the
bed.
Creepy
. He hadn’t heard
a thing.
    A breakfast tray sat on the floor, still
piping hot. When he lifted the domed lid, he found coffee, eggs,
ham, and biscuits dripping with butter. Taking a gamble that it
wasn’t poisoned or enchanted, he ate hungrily.
    When he had drunk the last of the coffee,
the door to his cell swung open, and he smelled gargoyle. “Come,”
said a voice like stones grating together. “You have questions to
answer.”
    After a long march through the mansion, the
invisible creatures shoved him through the door of a large room
with a view from the cliff top. Rafe stared a moment, distracted by
the broad expanse of blue sky, before his guards dropped him into
one of the side chairs. The touch of scaly claws withdrew. Rafe
barely resisted the urge to scrub at the places where those talons
had been.
    Lila was sitting at a large, pale gray desk
that would have looked more at home in an office building. Today
she was wearing a sleeveless black dress that made her hair and
skin look nearly white. The surface was clean but for a laptop
computer, a lamp, and a telephone. He searched in vain for a
picture or a plant, but there was nothing personal anywhere in the
room. If Lila vanished, there would be no clue that she had ever
existed. Maybe that was the point.
    After a moment of typing, she closed the
laptop and folded her hands on the dull surface of the desk. He
noticed a thin, jagged scar on the inside of one