So Eliana did as she was told and slid her hand into the cool, soft hand of the Queen.

There was a silence, breathless and pregnant. Then she frowned.

“Jenna?” The Alpha jerked forward, radiating violence, his hand gripped around the carved wooden arm of his throne so hard his fingers turned white.

“She’s…she’s…” She trailed off, wondering, and the sense of anticipation in the room ratcheted higher. Her lashes lifted, and she met Eliana’s gaze with her own. Astonishment was there, along with uncertainty. “She’s a Shield.”

“What?”

“A Gift,” the Queen mused, staring into her eyes. She seemed strangely impressed.

“What does it mean?”

“It means I can’t See in unless she lets me. Her mind is impenetrable.”

The room went utterly still. Wound tight enough to snap, the Alpha looked back and forth between them. “That’s why I was never able to locate them. That’s why it seemed as if they’d disappeared altogether. She was Shielding them.”

Locate them? Eliana was struck with horror and sudden comprehension. This woman could find them, over vast distances, with just her mind? Panic lit through her like kindling touched with a match. Everyone at Alexi’s—

Watching her carefully, the Queen said, “I don’t think she even knows she was doing it.”

“The Blessing,” Eliana blurted. “That’s what I called it. My father—he couldn’t—”

“Read your mind,” the Queen finished, with distaste. “I’d heard he was quite good at that. Among other things.”

“But to hide all of them?” said Leander incredulously.

The Queen nodded. “It’s remarkable.” She cocked her head, lips quirked, and murmured, “Always the females…”

The mood in the room had grown restless, and Eliana’s panic began to spread. If she couldn’t prove her innocence with words or by allowing the Queen access to her mind, what would become of the Roman colony? Of her kin at Alexi’s?

Of Demetrius?

“Tell me how to let you in—how can I do it?” Suddenly desperate, her commitment to not be intimidated vanished, Eliana gripped the Queen’s hand harder, but at that moment her head snapped up and she examined the high, frescoed ceiling above with narrowed eyes.

Beside her, the Alpha hissed, “What is it?”

To which the Queen replied, “We have company.” The men around the tables leapt to their feet, as did the Alpha, everyone on instant, crackling high alert.

“How many?” Leander snarled.

“Only one.” The Queen dropped her gaze back to Eliana and pulled her hand free. “And he’s moving fast.”

D didn’t bother to try to disguise himself, to slink in through a chimney or a back door or a crack in a windowpane. He simply flew straight down and landed without ceremony in the center of the circular drive, Shifted to panther, and bounded toward the tall iron-studded doors of the entry to the mansion, spraying gravel in his wake.

He crashed through the doors, and splinters of wood went flying.

Once inside, he used his nose to guide him, and he ran, snarling murderously, past room after empty, lavish room, seeing none of it, running on pure instinct, the scent of Eliana’s fear pulling him onward like a hook, like the gravitational force of a collapsing star.

She was in pain. He felt it, and thought, I will slaughter them all. With a terrifying roar, Demetrius blew through the open doors at the far end of the throne room. As soon as he passed the threshold, every one of the men behind the tables on either side of the thrones with the exception of Leander and the viscount Shifted to panther as well, in a unified burst of power that sent a shock wave like a bomb detonation ripping through the room.

Her heart stopped. In a flash, Eliana saw what would happen.

There were over a dozen of them, maybe twenty, and only one of Demetrius.

It would be a bloodbath.

Without thinking, she seized the Queen’s hand and screamed, “No!”

Instant, electrifying connection, like a plug into a socket.

All the air sucked out of the room, gravity ceased to exist, and she was hurtling through space at a thousand miles per hour, mute, blind, paralyzed. The sense of invasion was acute, as was the nausea that roiled her stomach. Bile rose into her throat.

And then the memories came, hard and fast and nearly indecipherable from one another, flashes of color and voices and sounds and smells, violently drawn out of her by an invisible force, like starlight sucked into the vast, inescapable vacuum of a black hole. She was being inhaled, she was being emptied, and the worst part was that she was as helpless as a kitten against it.

As abruptly as it started, it stopped. She was released, gasping and reeling, and fell to the floor.

Beside her, in a clear, commanding voice, the Queen said, “Stop!”

And everyone—everything—did.

Eliana raised her spinning head, too weak to stand, not too blind to see but not quite understanding what she was seeing. In a circle around Demetrius were a dozen or more glossy, muscular animals, hundreds of pounds each, spitting and hissing and bristling, fangs bared, long tails twitching menacingly back and forth. Demetrius himself was silent and unmoving in the center, ears flat against his head, crouched to spring.

Beyond her terror, Eliana took enormous satisfaction in the fact that he was almost twice as big as the biggest of the rest. Who were huge.

“Love,” said the Alpha, very neutral, from beside the Queen. “Have you something to say?”

The Queen took a step forward, another, and another. She moved down the steps of the dais slowly, her gaze on the group of snarling animals, her posture relaxed. She finally stopped just shy of the circle.

“Demetrius.” Her voice was odd and flat. “I’ve been wanting to meet you.”

Viscount Weymouth—voice throbbing with fury—said, “Demetrius! This is the one who defied orders, who took it upon himself to kidnap a prisoner who was rightfully ours, who dares to enter your home in such a hostile, threatening manner—” He pointed at Eliana. “He’s just as dangerous as her brother!”

“Probably more dangerous,” the Queen said, still with that flat tone. “But for very different reasons.”

“Thank you!” the viscount crowed, vindicated, and then, to the circle of panthers, “Attack!”

“Stand down!” said the Queen forcefully, her hand held up. There was a moment of confusion, of hesitation, until she said, “He won’t be harmed, at least not yet. Everyone, stand down.”

“Majesty!”

“Viscount.” Jenna turned her head and gave Weymouth a look that snapped his jaw shut and sent him sinking back into his seat in lip-trembling, pale-knuckled fear.

Deadly soft, the Queen said, “Let me repeat myself again so there is no possibility of misunderstanding. I said, stand down.”

Leander sighed and crossed his arms over his chest.

There was disgruntled hissing, a slow slinking back on silent paws. D watched with wary eyes until they withdrew to a safer distance, but he still didn’t Shift back to human form, and Eliana waited, feeling like her heart was choking her, to hear what would come next.

To D, the Queen said in a reasonable tone, “Please, Shift. We need to talk.”

He looked from her to Leander to the viscount. Slowly, his muzzle curled back over his fangs.

“I understand,” she said, sounding as if she actually did, “but we really need to talk.”

He made a sound in his throat, a low, chuffing noise of discontent. The Queen waited patiently, unmoving, her expression revealing nothing. His flattened ears came forward, and he tested the air with his nose. Finally the enormous panther shimmered and dissolved to a floating cloud of Vapor, which then coalesced into the form of a man.