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His eyes looked uncertain, and the first faint trace of fear showed, like a bitter scent on the wind. “You are about to be dethroned as lupa. Your word means nothing here.”

“I am Ulfric here, Jacob, not you, and I say whose word means something and whose does not. Until we have the ceremony breaking her ties with our pack, Anita is still lupa, and I will support what she says.”

“And I,” Sylvie said.

“And I,” Jamil said.

Shang-Da said, “I support my Ulfric in all things.”

“Then let’s have a little irony,” I said. “Since it was Jacob’s idea to put Gregory down in the oubliette, let him take Gregory’s place.”

Jacob started to protest, hands still trying to stop the blood flow from his nose. “You can’t do that.”

“Oh, but she can,” Richard said, and there was a coldness in him that I’d never seen before. He wouldn’t have come up with the idea himself, but he liked it. It let me know just how frustrated he’d been with Jacob.

“Great,” I said. “Shall we all walk like civilized wereanimals to the oubliette and rescue Gregory?”

“I will not go willingly down in that hole,” Jacob said. His voice sounded a little funny, what with all the blood and his nose smashed to hell, but he sounded sure of himself. He shouldn’t have been.

“Your Ulfric and your lupa have both decreed you will go,” Sylvie said. “To refuse the order is to refuse their authority.”

Jamil continued, “To refuse their authority is to be declared outlaw from the clan.”

Jacob glared at me when he said, “I will obey my Ulfric, but I do not acknowledge the Nimir-Ra as my lupa.”

“If I say she is lupa, then to deny that is to question my authority as Ulfric,” Richard said.

Jacob’s eyes flicked to Richard. “We voted her out as our lupa.”

“I’m voting her back in,” Richard said, voice deep and quiet, but loud enough that it carried.

“Take another vote,” Jacob said, still trying to slow the blood from his face. “It will go against her again.”

“No, Jacob, you misunderstand me. I said, I am voting her back in, not you, not anyone else, just me.”

Jacob’s eyes widened. “You’ve preached about democracy in action since I joined this clan. Are you going back on all of it now?”

“Not on all of it, but we don’t vote for Freki, or Geri, or for Hati and Skoll. We don’t vote for Ulfric. Why should we vote for lupa?”

“She’s fucking the Nimir-Raj. For that alone she should be cast out as lupa.”

“That’s my problem, not yours, not the pack’s.”

“You going to fuck her, too? You think the Nimir-Raj will share?”

Richard started to say something, but Micah spoke first, taking a step from the rest, his guards flanking him. “Why don’t you ask the Nimir-Raj?”

Richard looked at me, a question in his eyes. I shrugged.

“Ask him, Jacob,” Richard said. The blood had almost stopped dripping from Richard’s mouth.

“You mind if the Ulfric fucks your Nimir-Ra?” Jacob was still bleeding like a stuck pig. His chest, stomach, even the front of his shorts were soaked with blood.

“I’ve agreed to any arrangement that Anita wishes, as long as she remains my Nimir-Ra and lover.”

“You’d share her with another man?” Jacob said, voice thick with disbelief.

“With two other men,” Micah said.

That got almost everybody staring at him. I glanced at him, but mostly watched everyone else’s reaction, especially Richard’s. The others looked shocked, Richard looked thoughtful, as if Micah had finally done something he didn’t hate.

“She is the Master of the City’s human servant. Being my Nimir-Ra has not changed that. I’ve felt the mark that binds them together, and it is not something that will break, as, apparently, the mark that binds her to the Ulfric will not break.”

“Nothing binds her to the Ulfric but her stubbornness, and his,” Jacob said.

“You think so?” Micah made it a question.

Jacob looked uncertain. The blood from his nose was finally beginning to slow. “You’ve seen more than I’ve seen, if you think they still have a special bond.”

“More than any of us have seen.” This from Paris, who had pushed her way to the front of the crowd.

“I am Nimir-Raj,