“It’s more than inspiration,” he said. “I suppose you could almost say it’s a belief system.”

“Yeah? Like a religion?”

“Those stories have to do with the creation of the world. People have forgotten about it in our modern world. I think part of why we’re here is to remind people how wild things once were. How chaotic.”

“Okay,” I said, but my stare was blank, not really getting it. Sanjay arrived with drinks, a tray, a few glasses, and a pitcher. It looked like water, but when I brought the glass up to take a drink, I wrinkled my nose. It didn’t smell right. Drugged, maybe? Maybe it was just a weird brand of bottled water.

Balthasar took a long swig from his glass, which somehow didn’t make me feel any better. No one else had anything to drink. It made them seem even more like pets instead of people gathered around us, gazing adoringly while they waited for a touch or a word.

Nick said, “I’ve been arguing with him. I think we should go public. Then we could make the show really wild, add shape-shifting onstage—”

“Ew!” I said, appalled. Shifting was such a personal, traumatic thing. Doing it in public, in front of spectators—which I had actually done, filmed in captivity, completely against my will—seemed so wrong, so invasive.

But I had to admit, it would make for great box-office draw.

“We’re not that sensationalist,” Balthasar said, frowning at Nick.

“Hence all the whips and chains,” I said wryly.

“You liked it?” Balthasar said.

“I have to admit, lurid sex is an easy way to shock people. And it gets the blood going.”

Nick narrowed his gaze and smiled. “In more ways than you know.”

Balthasar and Nick both loomed over me, where I slouched against the cushion. Once again, I lay there belly up, looking up at them, a picture of submission, and I didn’t want to be there.

I sat up and put the glass aside. “Do you know anything about Faber and what might have happened to Ben, or not?”

“Ah, yes, Ben. The other wolf. Your mate,” Balthasar said.

I tensed, my mind ringing with alarms. Ben hadn’t been with me for the show, Nick hadn’t seen him, there was no way he’d even know about him. I’d told Balthasar that I had a fiancé. I hadn’t said he was a werewolf.

Keep cool, I told myself. Act indifferent. “Why do you think he’s a wolf?”

He leaned close, so his breath stirred my hair. “I can smell him on you. It’ll take more than a night to get his scent off you.” He was so close to me he tipped his head to kiss my brow. A warm dry pressure of lips, that was all. Something one friend might do to another to give comfort. Then he shifted, tilting forward to move the kiss to my lips. I could smell him, heat, spice, and fire. Hands touched me, Balthasar’s, on my chin, my arm. And other hands—Nick’s, maybe, on my leg, moving up my thigh. Yet another on my ankle. They all pressed close, a dozen men—boys, some of them. Creatures. With beseeching looks in their eyes, like they needed me to stay, like they’d never seen anything like me and I was treasure to them. It made me flush and feel giddy. But Wolf was cornered.

I was drowning. I couldn’t breathe. I want my mate, Wolf whispered.

Snarling, teeth bared, I stood, shoving away hands, extricating myself from the mob, and backed to the middle of the floor. My shoulders hunched, head low, glaring a challenge—a cornered wolf. Attention from willing males was fine, but feeling helpless wasn’t. Not anymore. We’d had enough of that and weren’t going to go back. If one of them took another step toward me, Wolf would take matters into her own hands. Claws.

Taking a deep breath, I made myself stay calm. There were doorknobs between me and the outside, which meant I had to stay human to get out of this.

“I don’t know what your game is, I don’t know what’s up with you and werewolves and this crazy fucked-up town. But I’m going to go find my mate now.”

“Kitty, wait,” Balthasar said. His voice remained buttery: the seductive tone never left him. “We can help. If there’s a lost werewolf in this town, I can find him—”

An alarm rang. A real one. The deep, electric drone of a fire alarm echoed from the hallway outside. It sounded closer than I would have expected; the suite of rooms seemed so large, and we had seemed so far away from the rest of the hotel.

Balthasar’s packlings glanced at each other in confusion.

I ran to the front door. Surely this wasn’t for real. It was a drill, or a false alarm. Then again, I thought: if a major Vegas hotel was going to go up in flames, of course it would be the one where I was at the moment.

I touched the main door. It wasn’t hot. By this time, Balthasar was on the phone—there was a phone tucked away in the corner of the first room. As I opened the door to leave, he called out—

“Wait, Kitty, they’re telling me it’s a false alarm—”

That might have been the case, but I was still going to use the opportunity to get the heck out of there.

The hall was empty. Maybe everyone but me thought it was a false alarm. Or m {se

The fire alarm echoing through the concrete stairwell gave me a roaring headache.

Ten minutes without heat and smoke convinced me that this was, in fact, a false alarm. Between about the fourth and fifth floors, I rounded the corner, intending to plop down on the step and catch my breath. Maybe try to analyze what had happened over the last half hour. But movement caught my eye, someone darting across the landing below me. The door giving access to the floor opened, and the figure looked back at me, urgency tightening his features. He was tall, tan-skinned, and wore a suit.

It was Evan. And I thought I saw a gun in his other hand.

It all passed as a blur before he was in the hallway, and the door shut behind him. But my nerves spiked, and I ran to the door, opened it, looked—he wasn’t there. Or he was very good at hiding. First Sylvia, now Evan. What was going on here?

Belatedly, I slipped back into the stairwell and pressed myself to the wall, in case bullets did start flying. I was almost gasping for breath; my heart was racing and my head swimming from the alarm and the alcohol. I couldn’t hear anything. I could smell the trace of aftershave and a wool suit that might have been Evan’s. Might have been anyone’s. My imagination conjured the scent of gun oil. I couldn’t be sure of anything.