The interior, like ours, hadn’t changed much since its resort days. The same knickknacks and decor, although there were a few more rugs here and there, framed photographs, colorful blankets that made the space feel less like a vacation cabin, more like a home.

The front rooms were roughly the same size as ours, but the hallway branched down to the left, led to a few different doors. The air was tinged with spices—cinnamon and cumin—and the citrusy tang of sour fruits. And once again, healthy magic. I still wasn’t entirely sure if the absence of broken magic meant anything—or what had caused it in the first place—but it felt important that I hadn’t found it yet in the resort.

“You can sit,” he said, and gestured to the couch. “You want anything to drink?”

“No, thank you. I’m good.”

“I’m going to have a root beer. We have some Goose Island from Chicago.”

“Then I’ll change my answer,” I said with a smile. “I’d love one.”

He nodded, pulled two frosted bottles from the refrigerator, popped the tops, and walked them over.

“You live here alone?” I asked, sipping the drink, which was ice-cold and delicious.

“With my girlfriend,” he said. “She works overnights in Grand Bay. I work for the clan here at the resort. I’m an electrician.”

I smiled at him. “That’s handy, having a contractor in-house.”

“It does come in handy,” he said, and sipped his own drink. “She was my younger sister,” he added after a moment, gesturing to a photograph above the fireplace.

I rose and walked to it. Dante and Paisley stood in front of the lake, Paisley holding up an enormous fish. She had her brother’s coloring—dark brown skin and eyes—and nearly identical short braids. She smiled broadly, obviously proud of the catch, while her big brother looked on, hand on her shoulder.

“She liked to fish?” I asked, glancing back at Dante.

“I don’t know that she liked it. She was good at it.” He frowned. “Paisley had a way with pretty much everything. Had instincts, could learn quickly. I took that the first time she went out fishing with me. Probably five, six years ago. She nailed that big boy in fifteen minutes.” He shook his head in wonder, still smiling, but grief pulled at the corners of his eyes.

“I’m very sorry, Dante.”

He nodded, lips tight.

I straightened the picture, then walked back and sat down on the couch. “You know Loren was murdered, and it was . . . bad.”

He nodded. “I heard.”

“Do you know what she and Loren spoke about before she died?”

“I don’t. Loren was an elder. Paisley was young, but interested in clan politics, I guess you’d say. I don’t know if that’s what they were talking about, but it might have been.”

“I understand she was killed while walking near the old main road. Did she walk that way often?”

“Sure,” Dante said. “She was a runner. Was doing what she called her ‘long run’ that day.”

“She was training for a race?”

“Some kind of marathon,” he said. “Or 50K. Is that a thing?”

“It is. A long-distance race, then.”

“Yeah, I think that’s it. It was her long-run day, and she liked to run on the main road. Open, good visibility, good surface, but not much traffic. She was upset about something that day. I mentioned that to Cash, but there’s no evidence her death had anything to do with that.”

“And you don’t know what she was upset about?”

He shook his head.

“Would she have told Loren?”

Dante opened his mouth, closed it again. “I don’t know. Maybe.” He considered, nodded, seemed relieved by the possibility. “Yeah. Maybe that’s what they were talking about. She was going to him about some trouble. Something that concerned her.” He narrowed his eyes, staring at the floor. “Maybe something to do with the clan, with politics. She was interested in that kind of thing—how the clan was run.”

Or, I thought, she was talking to him about something he’d done that concerned her. Confronting him about that. But I didn’t need to mention that to him now.

“Was she seeing anyone?”

“Oh, sure. She was dating Traeger. One of the younger shifters. They’d been dating for about two or three months.”

It was the first time I’d heard them linked. Why had that taken so long? And given that Traeger didn’t seem to be one of Loren’s biggest fans, what did that mean?

“I miss her,” Dante said, and I looked up at him, recognized the fresh grief in his eyes. And felt bad that I’d stirred that up.

“She sounds like a wonderful person. And it sounds like you had a great relationship.”

“We did,” he said. “We did. I’m sorry she’s gone. I think the clan’s less because of it.”

* * *

* * *

  I asked Dante for directions to Traeger’s cabin, then walked outside, breathed the fresh air, and tried to clear my mind.

On the walk, I considered the possibility Traeger was behind Loren’s murder. Maybe the fact that he and Paisley were dating hadn’t been common knowledge, but that seemed odd in a community this small. On the other hand, the clan did seem to have an obliviousness problem.

I crossed a lawn with a sandpit for horseshoes, a handful of rusting chaise lounges, and a swing set for children. And then they stepped in front of me.

“Well, well, well,” Miranda said. “Looks like we found her.”

Maeve and Jae—the women who’d helped Beth after she’d been attacked—stood behind her. All three wore their anger like battle armor. All three looked ready for a fight.

And what kind of fight? I wondered, and gently tested the magic in the air. Not as strong as Connor’s, I gauged, but healthy and whole. No broken magic among them.

“Hello, Miranda.”

“What are you doing out here, vamp?” Miranda asked. “Sneaking around our compound? Poking into things that aren’t your business?”

My blood fired, began to heat. Miranda had picked the wrong night to bait me. And I wasn’t the only one irritated. The monster shifted, stirred, offered almost lazily to join in, take care of the problem. Reminded me of the promise I’d made. The release I’d promised.

Not yet your turn, I told it.

“It’s not your compound,” I said. “And as you’re well aware, I’m here with permission, so I don’t need to sneak around.”

“What were you doing at Dante’s house?” Jae asked, and I shifted my gaze to her.

I wanted to throw out a sarcastic answer, but realized that wasn’t the wisest course of action. And at least one of us needed to think through our decisions. “He agreed to talk to me about Paisley’s death.”

“What about it?” Miranda asked.

I considered what Connor had said about evidence, keeping information close to the vest. “Figure it out,” I said darkly.

Her gaze narrowed, and she tacked, shifted. “That was quite a show you put on in the lodge. Quite a little performance.”

“I don’t consider kissing Connor a performance,” I said mildly, but of course it had been. And it had apparently touched a nerve, confirming my theory that Miranda didn’t just want the Pack—she wanted him, too.

“Okay, so it’s a ploy, right?”

I watched her for a moment, taking in the haughty tilt of her chin, the prickle of irritated magic, the fight in her eyes.

“A ploy?” I asked.

Her eyes gleamed. “For more celebrity. For the thrill of it. To piss off daddy. Dating a shifter. So risqué. So dangerous.”

I couldn’t help it; I burst out laughing, which just put more sourness in her expression and had Maeve and Jae moving closer.

“You think my father—who orchestrated an alliance between Cadogan House and the Pack, and was chosen by the Pack as a bodyguard for convocation—would be mad I’m dating a shifter?”

Her eyes didn’t change, stayed hard and cold as glass. “Hanging all over him, more like. His little princess, wasting all that magic. Wasting all those political opportunities.”

That one hit deeper, and I didn’t like it.

Miranda moved forward. “You’re not going to end up with him, you know; you can’t. And you know he can’t be with a vampire. Not if he wants the Pack, which he does. Which means you’re just wasting his time.”

She didn’t know anything about my family, about vampires. Probably didn’t know that much about Connor, frankly. But she’d managed to land another blow in a spot I hadn’t even realized was weak.

I didn’t think I’d flinched, but her smile said otherwise. “You know he’s just having a little fun, right? A little rebellion, because he can’t afford you. That means you’re temporary. A distraction. So why don’t you take yourself back to Chicago and your fancy little house and quit putting your nose where it doesn’t belong?”

If she was so certain that my being a vampire mattered, I might as well give back a little of my own. I let my eyes silver—and had to hold back the red that wanted to shine through, that wanted the fight on its own, thought it deserved the fight—and watched her throat work as she swallowed. Her own magic filled the air, the paranormal equivalent of fur lifting at the back of her spine. A reaction to a threat.

Good. Better a threat than a joke.

“I’m no princess,” I said, voice low and dangerous. “Maybe you’re used to prey that slinks around in the dark or humans who avoid you because, deep down, they know what you are.” I leaned forward, stared into her eyes. “I’m not human, and I’m not prey, and I know exactly who you are and what I am.”

“You want to fight me?” Miranda said, each word bitten off like something foul. Something rotten.