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well-coiffed blonde in a silver dress holding two glasses of champagne. “Are all the blatant questions wearing you down yet?”
    “A little bit.” He accepted one glass and studied the woman more closely, trying to pin down the nagging familiarity. “Have we met?”
    “I don’t believe so.” She held out a hand. “Olivia Ashworth.”
    “Patrick McNamara.” Shaking her hand was the polite thing to do, but he was tired of the jolt he got each time he touched a wolf. Magic, clashing with his own, though his had been bound into tattoos rather than flesh. “So do you have subtle questions?”
    “Will it disappoint you if I don’t?”
    Relieve him was more like it. “Not hardly. We could talk about the weather.”
    She laughed and shook her head. “My husband and I can’t wait to get back to DC. The heat and humidity are terrible here.”
    “Better that than ice and snow, huh?” Maybe if he kept the conversation boring enough, she’d leave on her own. Patrick finally managed to catch Anna’s gaze across the room and raised both eyebrows.
    She stared back at him, pale and still, then began to shove through the crowd toward him. She reached him in record time and clenched one hand around his arm. “Patrick.”
    “Anna.” Her grip would leave bruises, but he just covered her hand with his own. “This is Olivia Ashworth. Do you know each other?” Is she an enemy? Anna would hear the implied question, even if the stranger didn’t.
    Anna said nothing. Olivia smiled blandly and extended her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
    Instead of shaking the proffered hand, Anna began to back away, pulling Patrick with her. “Excuse us.”
    Shapeshifters had sharp hearing, so Patrick waited until they had twenty feet of noisy party between them and the woman before tugging Anna to a stop. “Are you okay?”
    She grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the bar setup and dragged him out into the hallway. “Come with me. Somewhere, I don’t know—the roof.”
    “This way.” He pulled her in the opposite direction, toward the west side of the building where the freight elevators were tucked behind an ice machine. “I checked the place out last night.”
    She mumbled something he couldn’t hear over the noise of the ice machine. When the freight elevator slid open, she pushed the top button and backed him against the wall. “Why haven’t you left New Orleans?”
    He caught both of her hands. “My turn. Who was that woman?”
    “A stranger.” The whiskey bottle clanked against the metal wall as she wiggled closer. “Didn’t you hear her say it was nice to meet me?”
    It had to be a lie, because Anna was flipping out—losing her everloving shit—and it scared the piss out of him. “I told you the truth. The whole damn truth.”
    She tensed—and closed her eyes. “I’ll tell you when we get to the roof. Away from everything.”
    It didn’t take long. The hotel was a squat building of only ten floors, and from the top one, it was a short walk to the roof. Patrick shoved open the access door, let Anna out and wedged his jacket between the door and the jamb to keep from getting locked out.
    Anna opened the whiskey, tossed the cap to the ground with a clink and took a long gulp straight from the bottle before holding it out. “Want some?”
    She could drink him under the table. A year ago, he might have had a hope of keeping up, but not now, not with scars across his back, disrupting the magical tattoos that kept him alive against shapeshifters.
    He still drank. The whiskey burned, but so did the pain in her eyes. She looked wrecked. Crushed. “Who’s Olivia?”
    Anna tilted her face to the moonlight and swayed a little. “She’s my mother.”
    Oh, hell. Patrick offered her the bottle again and caught her wrist once she’d taken it. One pull and he had her tucked against his chest, both arms around her. “What is her damage?”
    “I don’t—” The bottle shattered to the rooftop. “I don’t have anyone,