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On weak legs, she went and sat down at the kitchen table. When her father called up about the noise, she said it was the wind and prayed he wouldn’t come up to see her.

In the ensuing quiet, Ehlena didn’t feel any presence outside of the house, but the idea someone like that knew about her and Rehv and where she lived—Oh, God, that crazy female had watched them.

Bolting up, she rushed to the kitchen sink and ran the tap to cover the noise in case she got sick. Hoping to settle her stomach, she put her palms together, captured some cool water, and had a few swallows before washing her face.

The drink and rinse cleared her head a little.

The claims the female had made were totally and bizarrely outlandish, way far outside the realm of reality—and going by her glowing eyes, she clearly had an ax to grind.

Rehv wasn’t any of those things. Drug lord. Symphath. Pimp. Come on.

Sure as hell you didn’t take anything so much as what a male’s favorite color was from some stalker ex-girlfriend type. Especially given that Rehv had made it clear the two weren’t together, and intimated from the get-go that the chick was trouble. And no wonder he hadn’t wanted to go into it. No one wanted to admit to somebody they were getting involved with that they had lurking in their past a bunny-boiling, I’m-not-going-to-be-ignored-Dan sort of psychotic.

So what did she do now? Well, that was obvious. She was going to tell Rehv. Not in a freaked-out, keep-the-drama-rolling kind of way, but more like, Here is what happened and you need to be aware that this person is seriously unstable.

Ehlena felt good with the plan.

Until she tried to get her phone out of her purse and realized she was still shaking. Her mind’s response might be logical, her rationalizations might be fine and dandy, but her adrenaline was cooking along like crazy, and not really interested in all the sense she was talking into herself.

What was she doing? Oh…right. Rehvenge. Call Rehvenge.

As she hit his number, she started relaxing a little. They were going to work this out.

She was momentarily surprised when she got voice mail, but then remembered he’d had that meeting to go to. She almost hung up, but she wasn’t the kind who beat around the bush, and there was no reason to wait.

“Hey, Rehv, I just got a visit from this…female. She was talking a lot of craziness about you. I just…well, I thought you should know. To be honest, she’s freaky. Anyway, maybe you can call me and talk to me about this? I’d really appreciate it. Bye.”

She hung up and stared at the phone, praying he got back to her fast.

Wrath had made a promise to Beth and he kept it. Even though it killed him.

When he and the Brothers finally left Sal’s, he went straight home, along with his two thousand pounds of personal guard. He was twitchy and fist-hungry, teed up and pissed off, but he’d told his shellan he was not going to go out in the field after his little blind episode, and he wasn’t.

Trust was something you had to build, and considering the hole he’d jackhammered into the foundation of their relationship, it was going to take him a lot of work just to get back to ground level.

Besides, if he couldn’t fight, there was something else he could do to take the edge off.

As the Brotherhood walked into the foyer, the sound of boots echoed, and Beth shot out of the billiards room as if that were what she’d been waiting for. With a leap, she was in his arms before he could blink, and it was good.

After a quick hug, she stepped back and held him at arm’s length, looking him over. “You’re okay? What happened? Who showed? How—”

The Brothers all started talking at once, although not about the meeting that hadn’t happened. The bunch of them were bidding over territory to hunt during the three hours they had left to be out and about.

“Let’s go to the study,” Wrath said over the din. “I can’t hear myself think.”

As he and Beth hit the stairs, he called out to his brothers, “Thanks for having