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or obligated."
    Then she looked at me. "If I were handling your mate's ransom night, you would pay me in work and perhaps with your hair as a sacrifice."
    "My hair?"
    "Yes. It is meaningful to you or you would not wear it like this. You see?"
    "I would attend my wedding bald?"
    "I would not make you bald, but instead very short. And I would allow you to negotiate to pay after the wedding but before your honeymoon. I might perhaps insist on cutting it before you are carried to your wedding bed."
    "Should you be telling me this?" I asked.
    She smiled. "I am telling you the things a wolf would know." She paused. "I would demand five years of your service, working in my law office, and I would pay the others involved their share of what your time is worth to me."
    I stared. "Five years?"
    "She means initially," Michaela said. "You aren't supposed to pay so fast. She comes down."
    "What would I end up paying?"
    "That I won't tell you," Hadley said. "It would be significant, more than a week. Portia is a fine catch, and I could make you pay whatever I demand if I want, even those five years."
    "How?"
    "I would tell you what I was doing to her, and I would make you watch video. You would pay anything."
    I stared.
    "She would be very hurt if you paid too early."
    I shook my head.
    I took a breath. "I think I understand. Thank you for explaining."
    I thought it was very barbaric.

Games
    They used hugs to calm me down, and then when we got downstairs, Monique, Angel and Scarlett were waiting with more hugs. They all knew what the conversation had been about, but we didn't discuss it. Then Angel and Scarlett ran me to the fire, but we circled the compound twice first. I arrived laughing. I couldn't help it.
    Portia and I didn't discuss the conversations we had, but she pulled me into her arms and held me tightly.
    "All right," Michaela said. "It's time for games. These first few games are played on feet. Separate those two." She pointed to Portia and me, and we felt ourselves pulled apart. It was Karen and Elisabeth holding Portia; Iris and Lindsey had me.
    "We are playing a game of keep-away," Michaela said. "Zoe, I'm not telling you the rules yet, but you should pick three other opponents from amongst the less dominant here."
    "Do you count?" I ask.
    She laughed. "Perhaps not by that definition, not exactly, but in relationship to my mate, yes. I count."
    "You, Scarlett, and Cassie."
    "Cassie is it?" she asked. "Interesting choice." She winked at me. "Do any of you wish to decline playing?"
    "Oh, I'd love to play," Scarlett said.
    "Me, too," Cassie said. "But I don't know this game."
    "I'll explain. All right. Lara is my partner in this game, and Angel is Scarlett's, of course. Cassie, you must pick a partner, someone who you would trust to defend you."
    "All right. Monique."
    And then Michaela looked right at me, and she winked again.
    "Excellent," Michaela said. "I need two -- or possibly more -- very strong wolves to restrain our partners."
    Elisabeth and Karen grabbed Lara. Rory and Eric grabbed Angel. Serena whispered to Cornelius, and the two of them grabbed Monique.
    "All right. Now we also need two wolves on Scarlett, Cassie, and me."
    Various wolves grabbed each of them the way Iris and Lindsey had me.
    "Now, this is a game of keep-away," Michaela said. "You are keeping us away from our partners."
    I began to laugh, joined shortly by some of the others.
    "You may take us anywhere on pack ground," she went on. "And you may pass us off to others. You get a three-minute head start. After that, our mates -- or partners -- are released, and they have to find us. Anyone who gets tagged by any of the searchers is frozen for two minutes, but anyone who is currently touching one of us and is tagged is permanently out. You should return here. You may use no more than two wolves at a time to move us, or up to four during a hand off. And the same rules as our other games. Be sensitive to the fragility of the fox and the human."
    "And