Pacing around, she eventually wandered out into the foyer, but she didn’t want to get too close to where the males were meeting—as if that might jinx things.

God, what were they talking about in there?

Usually the King left right after the last audience of the night. If he and the Brotherhood had any private business or stuff about the war to deal with, it was handled back at the First Family’s residence, a place so secret that not even her father had been invited to go there.

So yeah, this had to be about her.

Back in the waiting area, she went to the desk and counted the hours she had sat at it. She’d only had the job a couple of months, but she’d liked the work—to a point. In her absence, assuming she stayed in the BDB training program, a cousin of hers was taking over, and she’d spent the last seven nights showing the girl the ropes, clarifying the procedures Paradise had put into place, making sure that the transition was going to go smoothly.

Sitting back down in her chair, she opened the middle drawer and took out her application—as if that could somehow reassure her that this was all going to still happen.

As she held the paperwork in her hands, she wondered who else was going to be at the orientation tomorrow … and thought of the male who’d shown up here at the audience house, looking for a printed-out version of the application.

Tall, big shoulders, deep voiced. Wearing a Syracuse baseball cap, and jeans that had been worn out from what looked like actual work.

The community of vampires was a small one, and she’d never seen him before—but maybe he was just a civilian? That was another change in the training program. Before now, only males from the aristocracy were invited to work with the Brotherhood.

He had given her his name, but refused to shake her hand.

Craeg. That was all she knew.

He hadn’t been rude, though. In fact, he’d been supportive of her applying.

He’d also been … captivating in a way that had shocked her—to the point where she’d waited for weeks to see if he brought the application back. He hadn’t. Maybe he’d scanned it and sent the thing in that way.

Or maybe he’d decided not to try for the program after all.

It seemed crazy to be disappointed that she might never see him again.

As her phone went off with a chirp, she jumped and went for the thing. Peyton. Again.

She would see him at the orientation tomorrow night—and that would be soon enough. After that fight they’d had about her joining the program, she’d had to pull away from the friendship.

Then again, if the Brotherhood was putting their foot down in there with her father? That righteous indignation she felt toward the guy was going to be a moot point. But come on, females were allowed to apply.

The problem was, she was not a “normal” female.

FFS, she did not know what she was going to do if her father took it all back. Surely the Brotherhood wouldn’t wait until the last minute to deny her a spot, though.

Right?

Across town, Marissa, mated shellan of the Black Dagger Brother Dhestroyer, a.k.a. Butch O’Neal, sat back in her desk chair at Safe Place. As the thing let out a creak, she tapped her Bic pen on the OfficeMax calendar blotter and shifted the phone receiver to her other ear.

Cutting into the stream of blabbering, she said, “Well, I certainly appreciate the invitation, but I can’t—”

The female on the other end didn’t miss a beat. She just kept on talking, her aristocratic intonation sucking up all the bandwidth—until it was a wonder that the entire zip code didn’t suffer an electrical brownout. “…and you can understand why we need your help. This is the first Twelfth Month Festival Ball that has been held since the raids. As the shellan of a Brother, and a member of a Founding Family, you would be a perfect chair of the event—”

Giving her no another shot, Marissa cut in, “I’m not sure you’re aware of this, but I work full-time as the director of Safe Place and—”

“…and your brother said that you would be a good choice.”

Marissa fell silent.

Her first thought was that she found it highly unlikely that Havers, the race’s physician and her very, very, very estranged next of kin, had recommended her for anything other than an early grave. Her second was more along the lines of a calculation … how long had it been since she had spoken to him? Two years? Three? Not since he’d thrown her out of their house, about five minutes before dawn, when he’d found out she was interested in a mere human.

Who had actually turned out to be Wrath’s cousin and the embodiment of the Dhestroyer legend.

How ya like me now, she heard in her head.

“So you just have to chair the event,” the female concluded. As if it were a done deal.

“You must needs forgive me.” Marissa cleared her throat. “But my brother is not in a position to proffer my name for anything, as he and I haven’t seen each other for quite some time.”

When a whole boatload of nothing-but-quiet came over the connection, she decided she should have aired her family’s dirty laundry about ten minutes ago: Members of the glymera were supposed to observe rigid codes of behavior—and exposing the colossal rift in her bloodline, even though it was well-known, was something that was simply not done.

Far more appropriate for others to whisper about it behind your back.

Unfortunately, the female recovered and changed tactics. “At any rate, it is vitally important for all members of our class to resume the festivals—”