Nicolae and Ellie were gone for hours, and I’d already gone out in search of them when they finally came through the door. “What took you so long?” I demanded.

“Nicolae was showing me the territory,” Ellie answered, slipping out of her jacket. He took it from her and hung it up by the door.

“All of it?” I cried.

Nicolae held up his hand before I could launch into a tirade about deserving some form of warning before they took off for that long. “Not quite, but she wanted to see the armory, and I figured that now was as good a time as any to introduce her to the troops,” he said. He looked down at her, a faint smile on his lips. It was one I’d never seen before. Tender, somehow. It looked so out of place on his stern face, and yet, there was something about it that touched my heart. “After all, one day she will be leading them.”

Ellie’s smile was forced, and my heart sank. If she’d already started asking to see the classified shit, there was only one reason and Nicolae seemed entirely oblivious to it. Was she feeding information back to her grandparents, even now?

“At least we worked up an appetite from all the walking,” she said, grabbing a handful of pretzels as she leaned on the counter, a playful glint in her eyes. “Whatever happened to the five food groups?”

“They’re all here. Sugar, carbs, fats, salt, and some of the candy’s green,” I teased, trying not to tip either of them off to my internal meltdown before I knew how to handle this without convincing Ellie that I’d been sucked into the biggest lie of all time or alerting Nicolae to the fact that she planned on betraying him.

“I’ll leave you to your feast,” said Nicolae, glancing in disgust at the junk buffet. “I’m sure you’d like some time to catch up, and there are matters I must attend to for the Court.”

“Thanks for the tour,” Ellie said, digging around in the candy dish.

“It was my pleasure. Take a few days to settle in, and when you’re feeling rested, we’ll arrange your welcome party.”

“I can’t wait,” she said, waiting until he disappeared into the elevator to turn to me. “How have you survived that for the last month?”

“He’s not really that bad,” I said, taking a sip of water since my throat was dry. “Kind of grows on you.”

Ellie gave me a look of pure disgust. “Did you not find my note?”

“I did,” I said slowly, knowing I had to tread carefully. “Ellie, I don’t know what they told you over there, but things aren’t what you think they are.”

Her eyes narrowed and she just stared at me for a few moments. I couldn’t tell if she was pissed at me for defending her mother’s alleged killer, or just confused. When her expression finally melted into pity, I knew it was worse than that. “I should have known,” she murmured, shaking her head. “He brainwashed you.”

“No. Ellie —“

“Stop.” The authority in her voice took me off-guard. I stared at her, bewildered as she stood up in front of me, holding unblinking eye contact. The next time she spoke, her voice held the eerily familiar tone that Nicolae’s had the first time he’d compelled me. “Listen to me carefully. Nicolae lied. He’s trying to control you.”

I felt her words taking over my thoughts and the sting of betrayal was strong. I grimaced, trying to fight it. So she hadn’t just been holed up in her room during her time with the Majerus pack. She’d been training, learning the truth about what she was, sprinkled in with the narrative they wanted her to believe.

“No,” I gritted out.

Frustration shone in her eyes. “Yes. Nicolae is manipulating you, making you think what he wants you to think. He killed mom and he’s trying to use you to get to me. You have to fight it.”

I was. Not his influence, but hers. Under the force of her compulsion, I was actually starting to doubt it. What she was saying made sense. Too much sense, because she wasn’t swaying me organically, but there was something embedded in me that was even deeper than lupine witchcraft that wouldn’t let me come over to her side. Maybe the whole thing really was manipulation, but if it was, his skill far exceeded her blossoming abilities.

Now I understood why Francesca had kept the truth from her for so long. Ellie had always been strong-willed, and it had been hard enough to convince her to eat her vegetables without her having the powers of mind control.

“No,” I finally managed to get out. My voice came out as a strained growl, and the look of shock on her face told me she hadn’t expected me to be able to break her psychic hold. “Ellie Jessamine Mullins, if you ever even attempt to pull that trick again, you’re grounded until the next time Halley’s Comet passes by, do you understand me?”

Her eyes grew wide and for an instant, she seemed like herself again. “How did you —?”

“Nicolae is not the one who killed your mother,” I said firmly. I knew he was going to kill me for telling her the truth, and maybe it was a mistake, but I’d made it sixteen years without lying to her and I wasn’t going to start now. Not for him, not for anyone. “I know you don’t want to hear this, and I am so, so sorry you have to be involved, but the people who killed her are the ones who took you.”

Anger flashed in her eyes. “That’s bullshit.”

“It’s not. Your mother didn’t just turn her back on Nicolae when she ran, she turned from her pack too. Her parents were the ones who gave her to him in the first place, and she humiliated them. She came to Clarksville to get away from them, because it’s protected.”

“I know that,” she snapped. “But she wasn’t running from them, she was running from Nicolae!”

“She was running from all of them, and it’s not for the reason you think,” I said firmly, giving her no choice but to listen. “Those people might be blood, Ellie, but they are not your family. They’re just using you.”

“And what is Nicolae trying to do?” she demanded. “Even if what you say is true, you really think he’s any different?”

“Yes. I know he is.”

“Why?” she asked, folding her arms. “Why would mom have run from him if she wasn’t afraid of him? Why would Nicolae give a damn what happens to either of us if it’s not for his own selfish reasons?”

“Because he’s your father,” I blurted out, knowing the truth was the only thing that was going to make her see reason. The truth that had lingered in my mind’s attic alongside the truth about my failing health, and if I unpacked it, I could keep her from turning on the one person who had the means to protect her. While she was still stunned into silence, I continued, “I believe that’s why your mom ran. She knew she was pregnant, and she didn’t want this life for you. She didn’t want you to be a pawn for the wolves to use in their political games. She wanted better for you, and that’s what happened.”

“That’s… that’s insane,” she sputtered. “You’re my dad.”

“Of course I am,” I said, reaching for her hand. “I always have been, and I always will be. It doesn’t matter if you’re mine by blood, you are mine in every single way that matters. But I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that you’re probably his, too. And I would rather share you with someone who can protect you than see you get used and hurt by the people who were willing to kill their own child.”

I could feel her growing more livid as I spoke, and she pulled away from me. “No,” she seethed. “He’s lying. You’re lying.”

“I wish that was true, but it isn’t. I think if you put aside everything you’ve been told and listen for what your heart says—the way I always taught you—you’ll realize the same,” I said gently. It killed me to know that I was hurting her, that my words were turning her world upside-down the same way Nicolae’s had upturned mine, but this was the only way I could make her understand. “Nicolae may be a monster, but he’s not the kind your grandparents are.”

“I don’t want to hear this,” she growled, stalking toward the elevator. I followed her as she repeatedly stabbed the button with her finger, infuriated that her enraged exit was hampered by the slowness of machinery.

“Ellie,” I pleaded. “I know you’re upset —“

“Don’t,” she hissed, turning on me as the doors slid open. “Don’t follow me.” There it was again. That feral look that made her so unrecognizable, and yet so like her mother. She frowned, shaking her head as she looked me over. “I don’t know what it is, but you’ve changed. You’re not yourself.”

Well, that made two of us. My heart broke as I let the doors close, sealing my baby girl away after I’d waited so long to see her. Not that I was going to let her get far. I stalked into Nicolae’s bedroom and out through the fire escape. If she thought she could just run off after I’d finally gotten her back, she had another thing coming. Werewolf or not, I was not going to be led around by my own child.

By the time I made it to the bottom of the many, many stairs, Mason was waiting for me like he’d expected my descent all along. Hell, he’d probably heard me panting and hacking as I ran.

“Going somewhere?”

“I have to stop Ellie,” I growled, pushing past him.

He grabbed me by the arm, and just as I was about to remind him that fucking his father made me his step daddy, he said, “Let her go. She’s not getting far. Nicolae has people watching her.”

Of course he did. “Well, I don’t want her out there. It’s almost dark.”

Mason arched his eyebrow and scowled around his cigarette. “She’s an Alpha. There’s nothing worse out there.”

A fair point, but it did nothing to ease the instinctive reaction of knowing my daughter was running around a strange city alone. “I don’t care.”

“You can go after her if you want,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t know what happened, but I was her age recently enough to know that whatever you’re fighting over, stopping her is only going to push her further away.”

I fucking hated it when an Ursache was right. Especially when it was Mason, but he had a point. “You’re sure she’s safe?”

“She can’t hail a cab without being within ten feet of one of our soldiers, and she won’t make it out of the city.”

“How do you know?”

“Because Nicolae put a tracer in her phone. Come on,” Mason said, putting his hand on my shoulder to lead me toward the front of the building. “You’re not going to survive the stairs again.”

He was probably right. “So now he’s got you watching me, huh?”

“We trade off,” he answered.

“You know, you really shouldn’t call your father by his first name,” I grumbled, needing to bitch about something so I’d feel less pathetic for being escorted back into the building like an asthmatic old man. After flying down all those stairs, I felt like one. “It’s disrespectful.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, opening the door to the condo lobby. A small brown dog was sitting on one of the couches, gnawing on a throw pillow. There was no shortage of street dogs in Bucharest, but it was the first time I’d seen one inside. It was markedly wolflike, all legs and ears and teeth.

“You guys get a pet?”

“That’s Andrei,” Mason answered. The pup’s ears perked up at the sound of his name. He dove off the couch to run over to Mason, pawing at the young Alpha’s pant leg. “He prefers this form.”

“I think I do, too,” I muttered. “He’s not as terrifying.”

The pup yapped at me and I bent down to pick him up. He squirmed and snarled like he wanted to rip my face off, but he gave up in record time when he realized I wasn’t going to let him down. “Does he just run around loose all day?”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

I frowned, holding Andrei to my chest at the risk of getting bitten. He was making the sounds of a possessed hamster in its death throes now that he realized he was trapped.

“He should be in school,” I said.

“We tried that. He bit the teacher and ate everyone’s homework. He’s fine like this.”

“He is not fine. He’s as much a human as he is wolf, and he deserves to be looked after properly.”

“Fine, then. You watch him. It’s your condo.”

I blinked. Talk about foot in mouth. I stared down at the rabid little imp who’d finally stopped squirming and snuggled into my arms, obviously forgetting how angry he was with me. Shit. “I’ll take him until I get the chance to talk to Nicolae,” I muttered.

Mason shrugged and walked to the elevator, leaving me with my new charge. I followed him, trying in vain to keep the pup from destroying the drawstrings hanging from my hoodie. I gave up on taking it away from him when he seemed to think my fingers would be a viable replacement.

The second we got back to the condo and left our giant escort behind, Andrei sprang out of my arms and stopped to sniff the air before pawing at the counter and trying to reach the snacks. At least he was too short to do much damage in this form.

“Chocolate is not for puppies,” I said, clearing off the counter. “The last thing you need is a sugar rush.”

He nipped at my heels, but I ignored him, pulling out a package of fresh steak from the refrigerator. It felt wrong to feed a sentient creature from a bowl on the floor, however much he was used to it, so I put it on the coffee table and he devoured it. At least he was slightly easier to manage when he didn’t have opposable thumbs.

Nicolae was still gone and I’d managed to accept that Ellie wasn’t coming back anytime soon, so I sat down on the couch to catch my breath and put on some TV to distract myself. As soon as he’d licked the bowl clean, Andrei leaped up onto the couch to join me, tongue hanging out and piercing eyes brimming with mischief. What the hell had I gotten myself into?

My nose wrinkled. “You smell like you rolled in rancid fish and washed up in rainwater.”

He just stared at me. Maybe Nicolae was right about most wolves not having all their human faculties when they shifted. The lights were on, but no one was home. I scooped him up and carried him over to the kitchen sink, determined to at least make the little beast stink less. And I could use a distraction. A cute distraction in the form of a child—a wolf child, but a child nonetheless.

I lowered him into the lukewarm water and tapped my finger to his slimy nose. He had definitely gotten into the trash. “Stay.”

“Bek!” he retorted, no doubt something belligerent in dog language, but despite all the splashing around, he obeyed.

I rummaged around under the cabinets in search of something to wash him with. You’d think a house full of wolves would have something, but they didn’t seem to put any stock in flea shampoo. I’d heard mild dish soap was pretty much the same thing, so I poured it all over him and rubbed it into his wet fur, trying to get all the way to skin that had likely only seen water when it rained. He let me scrub him, snapping at the bubbles and grimacing at the taste whenever he succeeded in gulping one down. At least it was keeping him occupied while I rinsed him until the water swirling down the drain finally ran clear.

“Alright, now you’re at least passable as a respectable house pet,” I said, wrapping him up in a clean towel. “That’s step one and the end game is getting them to send you back to school, so we’ve got a lot of ground to cover between now and then.”

I doubted he understood a word I was saying, but he burrowed into the towel and seemed much less feral now that he was fed and clean. While I was busy fawning over the wild baby, the elevator doors opened and I was both disappointed and relieved to see Nicolae.

He looked about as exhausted as I was as he eyed Andrei in confusion. “Ellie has been gone all of an hour and you’ve already replaced her with a puppy?”

“Of course not. And he’s not a puppy, he’s a kid who turns into one,” I corrected. “You know where she is?”

“Of course I know where she is. My guards called me the moment she left the front door.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “I guess you know what happened, then.”

“Not really.” He tossed his jacket over the back of the couch and came over to scratch Andrei’s ears. The puppy burrowed his face into the Alpha’s palm. “Care to fill me in on the details?”

“She’s convinced that the people who killed her mother hung the stars and she tried to use her voice to control my thoughts. Typical teenage problems,” I said dryly.

Nicolae sighed. “I warned you, this transition would not be an easy one.” He paused, watching me closely. “What brought on this argument?”

“Nothing,” I lied, not ready to trust him with the truth even if I didn’t believe he was the monster Ellie thought he was. I knew what he’d say if he found out I’d disobeyed his order to keep the truth from her.

He kept staring and I could tell he was trying to decide whether he believed me. Finally, he nodded to Andrei. “So, how did this happen? And why do I get the feeling I’m going to need to clear out another guest room?”

“He can’t just run around loose without any supervision,” I said firmly. “He could get hurt.”

“The betas watch him, but if you’re unsatisfied with the way they’re caring for him, you’re welcome to take over.”

I watched him through squinted eyes. “You gave in pretty easily on that.”

“I never give in,” he said pointedly, reaching past me for the bottle on the counter. “I just think it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for you to have a diversion, and you’re right. Andrei does need a firmer hand. Two birds, one stone.”

“A diversion?” I asked. “I’m not a pet that needs to be kept occupied.”

He smirked, drinking straight from the bottle. Guess it was that kind of day for him, too. “You’re right. If you were my pet, I would’ve taken you back a long time ago.”

“I’d tell you to shove you-know-what up you-know-where if he wasn’t in the room,” I muttered.

“The only words he’s said in English so far are ‘eat shit.’ He’s heard worse.”

I sighed. “Guess I have my work cut out for me.”

“I don’t doubt you’ll succeed. You’re a natural mother,” he replied, going into the kitchen.

I left Andrei on the couch and followed Nicolae. “We’ve got a problem,” I said once we were out of earshot, not that the pup was likely to care about our conversation in the first place.

“We’ve got a lot of problems, in case you haven’t noticed. You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Ellie pulled a mind control trick on me.”

“Yes, you mentioned that.”

“Well?” I pressed.

“I’m thinking.”

“About what?”

He gave me a look. “You ask a lot of questions.”

“You don’t give enough answers,” I shot back.

“I’m not surprised that Ellie tried to compel you. What’s more concerning is that you were able to resist her.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Good, yes, at least in this case. But it shouldn’t be possible.”

I could certainly see why me being immune to wolf tricks would be a problem in Nicolae’s book, but it came as a relief to me. Except for the fact that it was a selective ability. “I don’t understand. You didn’t have any trouble.”

“To the contrary. You’re more responsive to my control than any wolf.”

“So why doesn’t hers work? Is it because…?” I trailed off when I remembered that the chances Ellie was biologically mine were not high.

“I doubt it. It’s more likely that the anomaly is in your response to me, but there’s only one way to be sure.”

“You know why it’s concerning when you say things like that, right?”

He chose to send a text from his phone instead of answering me. Not a minute later, Mason came in through the hallway.

“You’re using the fire escape now?” I muttered.

“I lived here before you did,” he reminded me, looking toward his father. “What is it?”

“I need your help with an experiment. Try to compel Jack.”

I didn’t like the way his face lit up at the prospect, and I especially didn’t like that he looked at me like a dog that had just been given permission to eat the cat. “To do what?”

“Something he’d object to.”

“Nicolae!”

Mason set his eyes on me, smirking. “Get down on your knees.”

“Go to hell,” I growled. I could feel the push to obey, but after resisting compulsion so recently, it came a bit easier.

Mason shrugged. “Want me to try something else?”

“No, that will do,” murmured Nicolae, studying me. “You may go, Mason. Make sure they send me hourly reports about Ellie’s whereabouts.”

“I will, but the last I heard, she’d settled in a hotel across town. I think she saw the guy on her tail.”

“Good,” said Nicolae. “Better that she knows what she’s up against.”

Mason left and I was more confused than I’d been before. “What does that mean?”

“Down on your knees,” Nicolae said instead of replying.

This time, there was no hesitation. No thinking, no room for resistance. I was on my knees before him and he watched me with a vaguely satisfied look in his eyes. “Only mated wolves are resistant to the compulsion of any other,” he answered.

“But I’m not a wolf,” I reminded him.

“You are quite human,” he said with an air of affection as he reached out to pull me back onto the couch beside him. “As for what it means, I don’t know. But I plan on finding out.”

I leaned into him, both because I was exhausted and because for some strange reason, being close to him made me feel better even though he was the root of my stress—indirectly or not. To my surprise, he draped his arm around me and we just stayed there, pretending to sit and watch mindless TV like normal people. I knew it wouldn’t last, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to, but it was the first time in at least a year I felt at home.