I tried to think of something to say. I’d known his father had been killed by a werewolf and now I knew how. And, maybe, I knew why he struggled so hard with being in the Pack. Anyone who’d been involved with his father’s death was long dead and no son could be less like his father than Jeremy, but still Karl had joined the group that killed his father. Accepted as Alpha the man whose father killed his. A death I knew he blamed himself for.

It would do no good to point out to Karl that he’d been young. I wouldn’t be telling him anything he didn’t already know. But what I’d felt in that glimpse inside him had been a cesspool of guilt and remorse—the memory he’d chosen when he’d needed to show me the worst one he had.

“I’m sorry.”

It was the only thing I could say, but I meant it with all my heart, and he leaned over to kiss the top of my head.

“I want you to know,” he said after a moment. “If I push you away, if I fight getting close, if I’m selfish, it’s because that’s the lesson I learned about myself. Let someone get close and…” He shrugged. “Maybe that’s not a good idea with someone I care about.”

“You were sixteen, Karl.”

“I didn’t say it was a rational fear. But the worst fears aren’t, are they?”

He met my gaze pointedly.

“I don’t think my fear is irrational, Karl. When I stood in that room, whatever would keep a normal person from wanting Troy to die was gone. Not buried. Not overshadowed. Completely nonexistent. It was like…” I cupped my glass between my hands. “I don’t even know what it was like.”

“Like a starving werewolf stumbling across dinner on two legs?” He took my glass and set it on the table.

“What you’re afraid of, Hope, is that someday, just for a few minutes, the thing that you are will overtake the person that you are, and someone will die because of it. A werewolf deals with that from the day he first Changes.”

“But you can control it. You’ve never—”

“Three times. Twice in my teens, and I couldn’t even tell you who I killed. All I know is that I Changed and I woke stained with human blood. The third time, I was twenty, and I came to standing over the body of a man.

Eating. Yes, most of the time, we can control it. It’s like you with chaos. You can resist the urge to do something you consider wrong. My father did what he could to teach me that, but he never had the chance to finish the lessons.

There’s the instinct and it must be fed, and to the wolf there is no difference between a deer and a man. Both are prey. The wolf doesn’t feel sorry for the man, doesn’t consider the life he’s taking, doesn’t think of his wife and children, his mother and father. That’s the human’s job, and it’s the werewolf’s job to make sure the humanity in him doesn’t disappear. When I came to my senses that day, and saw what I’d done, I knew I had to make a choice.”

He shifted in the bed, turning onto his side, head propped up on his hand. “What happened to me happens to most werewolves at some point. They can decide that killing an innocent person proves they’re a monster who must die. Or they can keep killing, blaming it on the wolf. Or they can understand the urge and avoid temptation.

Don’t Change in inhabited areas. Don’t Change when you’re too hungry. Don’t Change when you’ve been drinking.

And, just as important, sublimate the urge, that need to hunt, by going after rabbits or deer…or diamonds.

“That’s what you need to do, Hope. Avoid temptation. Avoid situations where it may be too much for you—like signing up to spy for a Cabal. And sublimate the hunger with chaos you can enjoy without guilt. I can help with that, but only to a degree. There are jobs I know you’d enjoy more than the little ones I offer. But I won’t take you on them because later, you’d feel guilty. And, as you saw, sometimes I take risks myself. I have to, for the same reason you need to chase chaos. I can’t ever bring you on a job like that and put you in that danger. Not after my father.”

“I understand.”

He studied me to be sure I did. Then he nodded. “I’ll find more for you. Ones you can enjoy, guilt-free. The rest, you’ll have to make do with secondhand.”

I smiled. “I can live with that.”

“Good.” He sobered. “But remember, you’ll never be perfect. With a werewolf, there’s always the chance it can happen again. We cannot control every variable. I haven’t killed a human in thirty years, but I have to accept that I could. And you need to accept that you could too. And, if you do, as horrible as you’ll feel about it, and as much as you’ll suffer for it, if you’ve done what you could to avoid it, it isn’t your fault. You didn’t choose to be half-demon any more than I chose to be a werewolf.”

Silence fell.

After a moment, he said, “Have I put you to sleep yet?”

“No, not yet.” I reached up and kissed him. “Thank you, Karl.”

He pulled me closer, then turned out the light.

LUCAS: 13

PAIGE RETURNED WITH COFFEES in hand, Griffin at her heels and a pained expression on her face.

“Your dad wants me to go with you,” Griffin said.

I shook my head. “He needs you. Someone has already tried to kill him tonight.”

“Yeah, but they failed, and no one’s tried to kill you…yet.”

I took the coffee from Paige. “I cannot imagine I’d warrant a place on anyone’s hit list—anyone outside a Cabal, that is. I’d like you to stay with him.”

“I know you would, but his orders trump yours.”

I hesitated, and contemplated the possibility of giving him the slip. Paige shook her head, as if reading my mind, then glanced at her watch. She was right, of course. We were wasting time. So we set out, bodyguard in tow.

WE MET THE team searching for Carlos and compared notes to construct a timeline. After I’d seen him at the office, he’d visited the restaurant, then arrived at Hector’s at nine-forty-five. Apparently, he’d been at the office shortly before nine-thirty, when he’d gone with William down to the fourth floor. Bella and the butler could easily be off by fifteen minutes, which would make the timeline tight, but plausible.