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Fear tightened my stomach, jerking my pulse into my throat. Just like that the numbness was gone, chased away by adrenaline, and the musky scent of wolves. There were more wolves than just the two in front of me out in that packed, darkened room. I could smell them. My stomach jerked again, but not from fear. The mark that tied me to Richard, tied me to his pack, was alive again. It flared in my body like a tiny flame reborn, waiting to be fed so it could grow. Great, just great. I had to worry about it later. My concentration was all used up.

The ponytailed man just stood there smiling. He was handsome in a rough around the edges, tattooed prisoner sort of way. Even in the dimness his eyes flashed wolf amber, not human. I also knew what, or would that be who, I was looking at. This was their Ulfric, their wolf king. He stood in a space of emptiness with most of the pack huddled farther back into the room, and yet his power made up for theirs. His power filled the nearly empty side of the room with a flesh-creeping energy like thunder just before it strikes.

The tension was thick enough that I had to swallow some of it before I could speak. “Greetings, Ulfric of the Los Lobos clan. What’s shaking?”

He threw his head back and laughed, a big hearty, good-natured sound that ended with a howl that crawled out of his human throat and down my spine.

“Nice effect,” I said, “but this is an official police investigation into the mutilation murders. I’m sure you’ve heard about them.”

He turned those startling pale eyes to me. “I’ve heard.”

“Then you know that we aren’t investigating your pack.”

He laid a casual hand on Nicky, who whimpered even though I don’t think it really hurt. “Nicky is my vargamor. If the police wish to speak with him, then they must ask me first.” He smiled, and I was close enough to notice that his teeth were human, no fangs for the Ulfric.

“Sorry. The only other pack I’ve ever met that had a vargamor doesn’t make you talk to the Ulfric first. My apologies on the oversight.” I hoped whatever we were doing was going to be over soon, because I couldn’t keep up the gun in each hand stance for long. I’d practiced left-handed, but it was still my weak hand, and the bite in it was already starting a faint tremble in the muscles. I had to be able to lower my hand soon or it would begin to shake.

“If you were the police, then I would accept your apologies. We are always ready to help the police.” That last brought a wave of snickers from the packed house. “But I don’t see any police in this room.”

“I’m Anita Blake. I’m a vampire executioner . . .”

He cut me off. “I know who you are. I know what you are.”

I didn’t like that last, made me nervous. “And just what am I?”

“You are the lupa of the Thronnos Roke clan, and you have come to my clan for help, but you have not honored me or my lupa. You enter my lands without permission. You contact my vargamor without talking to me first, and you give us no tribute.” His power grew with every sentence until it was like standing in warm water up to your chin, knowing that if it got much deeper you’d drown.

But I understood the rules now. I’d insulted him, and he had to wipe out that insult. I’d try sweet reason, but I didn’t have much hope for it. Besides, my left arm was getting tired. Hell, so was my right. Whatever was behind the bar moved in a huge roll of motion that you could feel and hear. It sounded bigger than a werewolf.

“I flew down here on police business. I did not enter your lands as lupa of the Thronnos Roke clan. I came down here as Anita Blake, the Executioner, that’s all.”

“But you contacted my vargamor.” He slapped Nicky’s thigh, and that did seem to hurt, because he closed his eyes and writhed at the touch, straining through his gag to scream.

“I didn’t know Nicky was your vargamor until after I’d talked to him. No one told me that this bar was your lair. You’re Ulfric. You can smell that I’m not lying.”

He gave a small nod. “You tell