What an amazing idea. Why hadn’t anyone told me about that?

“I want to try that,” I said, returning to my seat next to Ben, who shushed me.

The china teacup looked fragile in the werewolf’s hands.

“It was awfully convenient,” Caleb said. “Them knowing exactly where we were meeting and likely what we were meeting about.”

Ned shrugged his coat back on, making him appear more whole and in charge. “You’re implying something.”

“They knew,” he said. “Somebody told them.”

The anxiety that we’d struggled to hold at bay returned. We glanced around the room, studying each other—did we have a spy?

“Do you have an idea who?” I said to Caleb.

“I’ve got a few,” he answered.

My own thoughts tumbled over possibilities, mostly asking myself the question, how well did I trust these people, really?

I trusted Ben. He’d sat back to listen, an intent focus in his gaze that had more to do with his lawyer side than his werewolf side.

“Not many of us even knew about the meeting,” Ned said.

I shook my head. “That’s not true. A lot of us did. There’s you, Marid, Antony, me, Ben, Caleb, Caleb’s wolves—”

“And your girl, Emma,” Antony said, looking at the young woman still standing in the doorway after letting the alpha in.

A number of accusing gazes turned to her, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop with the chill of it. Even Ned’s gaze narrowed, studious. She straightened, her brow furrowing, eyes shining.

“Now hold on a minute,” I said, as if I could do anything to deflect their attention. “Why her?”

“She said they approached her,” Antony said. “This evening, at the conference.”

“Would she have told you about it if she was actually working for them?”

Detached, objective Ben said, “She’d have had to say something because you saw her. If she didn’t you would have.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Ben, you were there, you saw her—did she look like she was being subverted?”

“No, she didn’t. I’m just being the lawyer.”

I turned to Ned. “I don’t think it was her. You’re looking at the outsider for a suspect. It’s what everyone does.”

“It wasn’t me, I swear to you, Ned.” Emma was shaking her head.

“It could have been me,” I said. There, that distracted them. They all turned their gazes on me, and the attention felt like a physical blow. “I wouldn’t have had to tell them—they’d have just needed to follow me. I go everywhere, talk to everyone. Geez, I’ve been tracked, stalked, and pestered this whole conference. They could have had someone standing next to me and I wouldn’t have known.”

“Well,” Caleb said. He drained the last of his tea and set it aside. “I’ve got one of their injured wolves trussed up in the van outside if you’d like to have a go at him. He’s probably not awake yet, but it shouldn’t be too much longer. He ought to be able to tell you.”

Ned raised a brow. “And why didn’t you say this earlier?”

Caleb’s smile showed teeth. “Wanted to see you lot squirm.”

Marid laughed.

Caleb stood and moved to the door. “Ben, Kitty. Care to help?”

Not really, but wolves were the muscle. Even he had that habit. I glanced at Ben, who raised an eyebrow—an uncommitted look. He was leaving the decision to me.

“Let’s go,” I muttered, leveraging myself from the chair yet again.

“I’ll get the door,” Emma said and started to leave with us.

“Maybe you’d better stay here with your Master, love,” Caleb said. His tone was flat, his gaze a wall revealing nothing. No sympathy, no accusation, nothing for her to react against. Frowning, she stepped back.

She hadn’t told anyone, she wasn’t a spy, I was sure of it. But the way they all looked at her, pinning her to the wall with their glares—they all thought it possible. Was I just being naïve?

The trio of us went outside, where one of Caleb’s wolves opened the back door of a dark SUV.

A naked man, a white guy in his twenties, lay on the bare, carpetless floor of the vehicle. He was one of the werewolves Ned had disabled with a snap of his neck. Now, he seemed to be sleeping. Healing, I gathered, though I didn’t want to know how long it took—or how much pain it involved—to heal from a broken spine. I’d cracked my pelvis in a fall a little while back and that was bad enough. It had taken a full night to heal. The man’s hands and feet were tied with plastic zip ties, as if they expected him to wake up and fight.

I couldn’t smell a touch of blood, either on the man or in the back of the car. They really had known how to clean up. I couldn’t help but be impressed. Back in Colorado, in the years when the pack had a lot of infighting—before I took over—there’d been bodies. Usually, they got dumped down one of the countless caves and abandoned mine shafts scattered in the foothills outside of Denver. Occasionally, there’d be a body in the city needing to disappear. I didn’t know if my pack could clean up a fight of this scale. We hadn’t had any fatal fights for a long time. I worked hard to keep it that way.

“Right, let’s get him inside,” Caleb said.

“What are you going to do with him?” I asked.

“Crack him like a nut,” Caleb said.

I looked at Ben again. Like I kept waiting for a different response from him.

The henchwolf cut the zip tie at the prisoner’s hands, and Caleb grabbed one of the arms. He called to Ben, who took hold of the other. They each hauled an arm over their shoulders, lifting him off the ground. I didn’t have much to do but watch. Maybe call a warning if the guy started waking up.

We returned to the parlor, where Caleb and Ben dumped their burden in the middle of the floor. The man groaned. Alive and awake. My hackles rose, a tightening down my back.

Emma had retreated to another chair near the fireplace, between Ned and Marid. She looked small and young, slouching in on herself. I wondered what they’d been saying to her, if they’d been conducting their own early interrogation. Antony stood farther off; he looked like he’d been pacing.

Caleb gripped the man’s hair and yanked back, showing his face to the room. “Wake up, you.”