“It’s been five years,” Abby said. “They need to move on.”

“I need to move on.” Robyn finally sank onto the stool next to me. “What if I don’t want any part of this territorial system? Can I opt out entirely? Like Abby did?”

“When you’ve completed your sentence, you can try to defect,” I told her. “But that will only get you stuck in one of the free zones, without access to friends, family, and schools in any of the other territories.”

“And that’s why you’re doing this?” Robyn turned to me. “That’s why you’re giving up autonomy in the free zone and subjecting yourself to the rulings of some arbitrarily manned committee?”

“It’s not arbitrary,” I told her. “And I won’t just be subject to it. I’ll be a member of it. Part of the decision making process. I’ll be in the position to make things better for my men. And women,” I added, when her brows rose.

“As long as those men and women are willing to live by your rules.”

“They’re not my rules. They’re the rules. And they’re there for a reason.”

“Fine.” Robyn stood again and took a deep breath. “Let’s get this ‘vacation’ started. Where can I shower?”

Abby stood. “I’ll show her.”

As the ladies headed out of the kitchen, I watched Robyn with a heavy feeling in my heart and Jace poured another inch of bourbon into my glass. “You know she has no intention of leaving in two weeks.”

“I know. I have two weeks to change her mind.” And to get myself on board with what I had no choice but to do.

“How are you going to do that?”

I drained the glass. “I have no fucking clue.”

FIVE

Robyn

“Abby and Jace are across the hall, and I’m a few doors down,” Titus said from the bedroom doorway, his arms crossed over a suit jacket that looked preposterously over-the-top for one in the morning. “In case you need anything. But this space is yours, for as long as you’re here. Please feel free to make it your own.”

I sat on the bed and pulled the bathrobe closed to cover my knees, while my wet hair dripped on his guestroom comforter. “Make it my own.” The words sounded as meaningless as they felt. “The problem with seizing the moment is that the moment is typically too brief to accommodate advanced planning.”

Titus laughed, and for a second he looked like a normal-yet-abnormally-gorgeous guy who didn’t have eight bathrooms, and hundreds of human employees, and a dozen shifter enforcers, and millions of dollars. And a smile that lit up his gray eyes like a lightbulb shining through a smoky room. “You didn’t bring any of your stuff?”

“There wasn’t time to pack a bag.” I hadn’t even thought to grab my shampoo or my makeup. “But I’ll do my best to take ownership of the designer colors and meaningless art your interior decorator chose.” I lifted one corner of the comforter beneath me. “Is this silk damask? Would you call the color ‘antique red’ or ‘blood of thine enemies’? Because I know which way I’m leaning.”

Titus’s left brow rose, and his amused gaze sent heat blazing toward the most private parts of my body. “You’re making fun of me?”

“I’m trying. What do I have left, if not my sense of humor?”

“Your life.” Abby shimmied through the doorway from behind him, her poof of red hair brushing the shoulder of his jacket. “Your friends. A two-week reprieve from Donna Di Carlo and her collection of ceramic angels.” She sank onto the bed next to me with a folded stack of spare clothes. “How many does she have now? Last time I was there, I counted more than a hundred.”

“There’s easily double that now. And they all look like Sara. Which is super-creepy.”

Abby’s smile wilted like a dead rose.

“I’m sorry.” I am such an asshole. “You knew her, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I…um.” Abby cleared her throat and set the clothes on the bed between us. “I saw her die.”

“Oh. Shit. I’m sorry, Ab.”

“It’s okay. That was a long time ago.” She shook her head, and her smile returned. “I brought you something to sleep in, and some clothes for tomorrow. These are all I have that might fit you. We’ll go shopping in the morning and get everything else you need.”

“We can get a new comforter,” Titus added with a grin. “If you’d rather have ‘dark as the stain upon my soul’ with black velvet trim.”

“Ha. I think I can make do with the red, thanks.”

“Okay. I’ll see you ladies in the morning.” He backed into the hall and closed the door.

Abby turned to me with wide brown eyes. “I can’t believe you did that!”

“Criticized his decor?” I grabbed a pair of pajama shorts from the pile and stepped into them beneath the borrowed robe. “He’s an Alpha, not a god.”

“I can’t believe you snuck into his car! You put him in a really tough position.”

“You mean like the position you put Jace in?” I let the robe fall and pulled a soft pink T-shirt over my head.

Abby rolled her eyes. “That was different.”

“I was making a point, not an accusation. We do what we have to, right? You told me that.”

“I know, but…”

“Look, Ab, I had no idea they’d hold him responsible for what I did. I’m not trying to make enemies.”

“Good, because if you want to stay here, Titus is the friend you need to make.”

I crossed the room to hang the robe on a hook on the bathroom door. “Who says I want to stay here?”

Abby frowned. “I thought you didn’t want to go to the Southeast Pride.”

“I don’t. But it’s no better here. It sounds like this isn’t the free zone anymore, and it doesn’t do me any good to step out of one cage and into another. And that’s exactly what Titus is turning this place into.”

“Okay, but it’ll be different here,” she insisted.

“No, it won’t. Titus couldn’t get his Pride accepted if it weren’t just like all the others. Well, almost like the others.”