LOGINLiana had barely stepped through the front door when her father's voice carried out of the study."Where have you been?""Good afternoon to you too, Dad." She hung her coat by the door, taking her time over it, and then went in.Jonathan stood behind his desk with the television murmuring silently beside him. Her own face filled the screen, and beneath it ran a headline: *President's Daughter Leads Protest for Political Reform.* He aimed the remote at it as though it might confess."Would you care to explain that?""I'd have thought the banners were fairly self-explanatory.""Liana."She let out a breath. "I knew you'd see it.""Everyone has seen it. I've had three ministers on the phone, two members of the supernatural council, and a journalist who wanted to know whether I'd lost control of my own daughter." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "You might have warned me.""You would have asked me to wait.""I would have asked you to think it through.""I did think it through. For month
The meeting had ended, but the questions remained.Sebastian stepped out of the council building with Alex beside him. The blood tests had been repeated and the results verified, yet no one could explain how a werewolf had lost his wolf and become biologically human overnight. Nine hundred years had taught Sebastian that the world was full of things people didn't understand, but he had never encountered anything like this."The independent laboratory will have results by tomorrow," Alex said, checking his phone. "I've also asked every territory for reports of unusual cases. If anything similar has happened, we'll find it.""And if nothing has?""Then we have one man who became human without knowing how or why.""Keep looking."They had almost reached the car when a chant rose from the far side of the government district. It rolled through the streets, followed by whistles and the pounding of hands against barricades. A demonstration was underway outside Parliament.It was nothing unus
The argument was already raging when Sebastian entered the council chamber."You cannot expect us to believe this happened naturally.""Then what do you believe? That someone slipped into guarded territory, reached Darian's home, and did something to him without leaving a trace?""An attack makes more sense than a werewolf waking up without his wolf!""Lower your voices. He's sitting right there."Silence fell. Darian Voss sat at the far end of the long table among people who had known him for years, and none of them could look at him for long. He had been a respected wolf with a family and a place among his people, and now he sat with his hands locked together while strangers argued over what had been done to him. Sebastian knew the look on his face. He had seen it on soldiers who came home from battle missing something that could not be bandaged.Alex leaned toward him. "They've been at it for an hour. Several accusations, no answers, and two near brawls.""Productive."Sebastian ap
They left the terrace without a word about what had passed between them. Sebastian's hand rested at the small of her back as they slipped through the quieter corridors of the estate, away from the music and the watching eyes. Liana did not ask where they were going. She simply walked beside him, her fingers still curled loosely in the fabric of his jacket, as though she had already decided the night belonged to the two of them alone.His rooms lay on the upper floor, the windows open to the same moonlight that had silvered the terrace. The door closed behind them with a soft, final click, and for a moment they only stood there, close enough to feel each other breathe, the air between them charged and waiting.Liana looked up at him. Whatever caution she had carried into the evening had burned away against that stone railing. She reached for the buttons of his jacket with steady hands and eased it from his shoulders, and Sebastian let her, watching the quiet resolve in her face and the
They slipped out of the ballroom, and the noise of the gala faded behind the closed doors. The terrace was cool and quiet, washed in moonlight. Liana walked to the railing, and Sebastian followed, leaving enough space between them that she could turn away if she wanted to.For a few moments, neither spoke. The cool air stirred the loose strands around her face, and she tucked them behind her ear."Much better," she murmured."Your feet or the company?"She glanced at him."I'm still deciding.""Fair enough."She laughed softly, then leaned back against the railing."Do you ever get tired of it?""Of what?""Being Sebastian Devereux."He hadn't expected that question. Most people wanted to know about his power, his family, or the decisions he'd made over the centuries. Very few asked what it was like to live with the weight of being himself."Sometimes," he admitted.Her expression softened, but she didn't rush to fill the silence. That, more than anything, made him want to tell her th
The International Peace Gala was full of people pretending not to be afraid of one another.Sebastian had been watching them for nearly an hour. Humans posed beside vampires and smiled for the cameras. Witches murmured with government officials from behind raised glasses. Lycan representatives shook hands with men who had spent the last six months insisting that supernatural influence had grown too powerful. Everyone was dressed beautifully, and everyone was lying beautifully.He stood near the bar with a drink he had barely touched, half listening to two politicians preach cooperation while one kept glancing at the vampire standing three feet away. He was bored. Bone-deep bored.Then the ballroom doors opened, and he turned without knowing why.Everything inside him stopped.The woman who stepped into the room wore maroon, a shade so deep it looked almost black beneath the chandeliers. The dress clung to her figure and left her back completely bare, one long, smooth line of skin that







