I closed my eyes and rested a hand on my forehead, a gesture of suffering. “Oppression,” I said dramatically.

Dinner was good. Nice, mellow, out with friends, no pressure. Ben may even have stopped glaring at Luis for a few minutes. Naturally, the respite couldn’t last.

We’d finished eating and had moved on to coffee and more conversation when activity at the front door caught Luis’s attention. He stared, frowning.

“What is it?” I asked, glancing over to see.

“Friends of yours?” he said.

Three men, smelling distinctly of lycanthrope, had just entered and surveyed the restaurant. They were tough guys, in leather jackets, designer jeans, and boots. Two had beards, and all were broad through the shoulders. Moving like fighters, they were shoulder to shoulder, attention out—stalking, like predators. The one in front spoke to the maître d’, who nodded toward our table. He shook his head in response, and the trio moved to the bar, where they perched warily, uncomfortably.

“Werewolves?” Cormac said.

“Yeah,” Ben answered.

“Problem?” the bounty hunter answered.

They were here looking for me, obviously. But this wasn’t the place to start trouble. So far they were just watching.

“Let’s wait and see,” I answered.

We tried to pretend that the strangers weren’t obviously here to keep a watch on us.

Esperanza said, “When you first got here, those two girls at the bar—they were watching you, too.”

“No, that was just a coincidence,” I said, because I couldn’t cope with much more paranoia.

“Right,” Ben said. “Didn’t mean a thing, they were just fairies.”

Luis chuckled. “Really? Like leprechauns and pixies?”

“Not exactly,” I said, waving him off. “But yeah, sort of.”

His smile broadened. “Makes you wonder what else is hanging around the conference.”

I sighed. “Djinn, wizards, gods, goddesses.”

Esperanza leaned forward. “Did you say gods?”

My mouth opened to start an explanation, then closed again. Where did I start?

We paid our bill, collected our things, and went toward the door. When the trio of werewolves at the bar moved to intercept us in the restaurant’s vestibule, I wasn’t surprised. I caught the leader’s gaze and held it. His companions flanked him just as Ben and Cormac flanked me. Luis and Esperanza stood aside, wary.

“Kitty Norville,” he said. His accent was rolling, quick. French or Italian, maybe. His frown twitched, nervous.

“Yes?”

“I serve the Master of Venice. He sends a message—a warning.” I stepped forward, offended, ready to argue; he stepped back and looked away, a submissive move. A peace offering. He wasn’t here to fight. “A friendly warning. You do not know what you’re meddling with. You do not know the true situation among the vampires of Europe and you’d be better to stay away. Your enemies are powerful.”

Wasn’t anything I didn’t already know. The trick to facing off with another wolf pack was to stand your ground, not flinch, not let your gaze slip for even a moment. He was probably six feet tall, leaving me quite a bit shorter than him. I tried not to show it. “A message like that is a sure way to keep me interested. Like waving a red flag at a bull.”

“Please, that is not my Master’s intention—”

The front door opened again, letting in a cool breath of night air and a fresh wave of werewolf scent. Caleb and one of his wolves, a shorter man with close-shaven hair and a surly expression, entered, and frowned past me to the other wolves.

“You can step away from her now,” Caleb said.

The Italian wolf bared his teeth and his voice burred like a growl. “Stay out of this!”

“You’re not the one giving orders here, friend.” Caleb didn’t have to growl, or show his teeth, and he still managed to radiate anger. In response, the Italian wolf hunched his back, bracing his shoulders like hackles stiffening.

“Guys, stop it,” I said, putting myself between them, breaking the line of sight. “Everything’s just fine. You don’t really want to start something here, do you?”

People in the restaurant were staring. The maître d’ had been away from her stand, and hovered nearby, gripping her own hands, waiting for a chance to return.

“You want to take this outside?” I said, indicating the doorway.

Of course, no one wanted to be the first one to move, so I did, pushing past Cormac and Ben, then Caleb and his lieutenant, to finally reach the sidewalk outside. I didn’t know how we’d managed to all squeeze into that space. The city air smelled fresh and wild after the closeness inside.

The standoff re-created itself on the sidewalk: the Italian wolves attempting to stare me down, Caleb and his wolf staring them down, Ben and Cormac tensed for some kind of action, and Luis and Esperanza lingering on the edges, cautiously watching. We were all anxious, but no one was resorting to overtly aggressive movement. It should have been comforting—it didn’t matter where we came from, we all spoke the same body language.

I turned to the alpha of the Italian wolves. “What’s your name?”

He hesitated before answering, “I serve the Master of Venice.”

“Oh, come on, what’s that supposed to mean?”

He shut his mouth, pressing lips into a line.

“Okay. Fine. So this warning … is it a generic ‘here be dragons’ kind of warning or is there something specific I need to be looking for?”

He said, firmly, “Don’t meddle. Stay at your conference where you belong. Protect yourself—your pack.”

“My pack?”

“Them,” he said, nodding at Ben and Cormac. “Your friends. Your army wolf.”

Tyler. “He doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“You won’t get to decide that.”

I stepped up to him. “Is something going to happen? What is it? What do you know?”

He backed away, slouching—he hadn’t meant to push me, I gathered. He didn’t want to fight. He probably hadn’t expected me to stand up to him at all. “I—I don’t know anything. Just … we don’t know what’s going to happen, none of us do. But the situation—it’s dangerous.”