Andrea’s face was hard and her eyes harder.

“If the attack comes,” Robert continued. “If at all possible, we need to take the attacker alive. There are important questions that need to be answered.”

Raphael’s eyes shone with a deranged ruby light. Robert was crazy if he thought he was taking anyone alive.

“Do we have your permission, alphas of the bouda clan?” Robert asked.

Pearce and Jezebel took a step forward at the same time.

“Yes,” Andrea said, looking at me like I was a striking cobra. “You have our permission.”

Twenty feet separated me from Baby B. I took a step toward Andrea.

The room tensed. Everyone was looking at someone else. Muscles bunched on Pearce’s frame. Mahon had somehow grown larger.

Another step.

Someone do something, damn it. If you’re going to attack, do it now.

Another.

“Cough-cough!” Desandra said.

Everyone spun toward her. Pearce launched himself into a leap, midway in the air recognized that he’d been had, and twisted, landing clumsily on the floor by Desandra. Jezebel exhaled and spun away from the wolf alpha, her face slack with suddenly released pressure. Behind me Derek swore.

“It was getting too tense.” The alpha of the wolves shrugged.

I’d strangle her after this. I didn’t care if Jim objected.

“Would it kill you to not be an asshole for thirty seconds?” Andrea growled.

Desandra winked at her. “I don’t know, I’ve never tried.”

Jezebel ripped a knife out of a sheath and lunged at Baby B in Andrea’s arms. I shot forward, but it was too far. I saw the knife slice through the air. The distance it had to travel was so short and the space between me and her was so long . . .

Dali jumped in front of the knife, just as Andrea rolled back, pulling Baby B out of reach.

The knife slid into Dali’s chest.

Raphael sliced Jezebel’s throat. The impact of the strike spun her.

Dali made a small gurgling noise. Blood poured from her mouth. The blade had hit her heart. The angle of the knife was textbook perfect.

Jim’s face snapped into a jaguar’s muzzle, the transformation so fast it was instant. Before Jezebel finished turning, he grabbed her throat, thrust his clawed hand under her rib cage, and disemboweled her.

I was still running.

Curran jumped past me, a seven-foot-tall nightmare, and thrust himself between Jim and Raphael. His left hand locked on Jim’s shoulder, his right on Raphael’s throat. The muscles on his back bulged.

Jezebel crashed on the floor by Curran’s feet. The two shapeshifters struggled in his grasp. He held them. He shouldn’t have been able to hold both of them. Curran was shockingly strong, but this was off the charts even for him.

Robert jumped onto Jezebel, straddling her, trying to shield her with his own body. “Alive. We need her alive!”

Raphael sliced at Curran’s arm.

Jim brought his legs up and kicked Curran in the ribs, ripping himself free. Curran’s body shuddered from the impact, but he remained on his feet. He didn’t go down.

Jim bounced off the wall, eyes glowing. I jumped between him and Curran, Sarrat in my hand.

Dali made a quiet gasping noise and fell. Jim caught Dali’s small body. She was breathing fast in shallow gasps. Black blood poured from her mouth—the Lyc-V saturating her body dying off by the millions. The blade must have been coated with silver shavings.

“Doolittle!” Jim spun toward the medmage.

The magic was down. No medmage healing.

“Hold her,” the medmage barked. “Nasrin, scalpel.”

Raphael finally broke free of Curran. His eyes had gone completely mad. He shot forward and Mahon clamped him into a bear hug from behind.

Baby B wailed.

How the hell could it be Jezebel? Was it a polymorph in Jezebel’s shape?

Robert got off Jezebel, kneeling by her. Julie dropped by the bouda’s body into the puddle of her blood.

“Who else?” Robert demanded. “Who else belongs to Roland?”

“Why?” Tears streamed down Julie’s face. “Why?”

Jezebel opened her mouth, each breath a loud wet struggle. She was looking straight at me. She struggled to say something.

The room was full of noise—Raphael snarling, Baby B wailing, Jim growling.

“Quiet!” Curran roared.

In the silence, Jezebel’s voice sounded too loud. “Sharrim . . .”

She stretched an arm toward me, sliding in her own blood, trying to crawl toward me.

Oh God.

“Bless me . . . so serve you . . . in the afterlife . . . Bless me . . .”

“No,” I told her.

“Bless me . . .” Her body shuddered.

“I bless you.” Julie pulled Jezebel to her, cradling her head. “Her blood is my blood. You can serve me.”

Jezebel reached out with her bloody hand and patted Julie’s cheek. Her fingers slid, leaving red smudges on Julie’s pale skin. Her chest rattled. Jezebel gasped and died.

Julie screamed, her voice raw with grief.

In the corner Dali went into convulsions.

Andrea marched over and thrust Baby B at me. “Hold her!”

I took the baby. Andrea let me hold her for exactly three seconds and grabbed her back.

Jim turned to us, his face still jaguar. “Get out.”

• • •

EVERYTHING WAS FUCKED up.

We walked down the hallway toward the stairs. Derek had taken Julie’s hand, pulled her up to her feet, and was now walking next to her, holding her hand in his. She stared straight ahead, her teeth clenched. Tears streamed down her face, but she walked without a single sob. Derek walked, his face stoic, his eyes scanning the hallway in front of us for potential threats. Curran strode next to me, still in warrior form.

Pearce followed us. As we passed the sentries, they followed us, too. Shapeshifters had enhanced hearing. Everyone on the floor had heard the Beast Lord snarl.

It had been the real Jezebel. Had to be. The shapeshifters would’ve smelled a polymorph. When did my father get to Jezebel? Was it after he got to Julie? Was it before I took the city? We would never know. All I had was a fistful of questions, a dead woman I thought was a friend, and another friend dying from silver poisoning.

Why the hell did Dali jump in front of that knife? Scratch that, I knew why. Andrea would’ve never allowed her baby to be harmed. I knew that, Jim knew that, but Dali, kind, smart Dali who rarely fought, didn’t. She saw the knife and the baby and reacted. And now she was struggling for her life.