“I used to,” Con said. “He quit a while ago.” Quit so he could become an Elder, one of the twelve members of the Sigil who ran The Aegis, but Con didn’t think Valko needed to know that. “Why?”

“Because he left just minutes before you arrived. Did you tell him how to find us?”

Con blinked. “Kynan was here?”

“Yes. Apparently The Aegis is hunting a Feast warg, and he wanted information.”

That caused a stir among the crowd. Originally created thousands of years ago by a freak mating between a demon and a warg, the resulting abominations had been enslaved and bred by demons to kill other wargs. Though they were no longer enslaved, Feasts still possessed an inbred instinct to kill werewolves. They were so despised and feared that they didn’t even have a representative on the Council. Probably because they were killed on sight.

No exceptions.

Ludolf’s lips peeled back from his teeth. “You didn’t tell him anything?”

“Of course not,” Valko snapped, because it was truly a dumb question. No one wanted The Aegis to know about Feast wargs. The fear that the slayers would use Feasts to hunt varcolacand pricoliciwas too great. “I hinted that any such warg is one-of-a-kind, and told him to kill her. But I’ve dispatched a team to hunt her.”

“I did, too,” Raynor said, and yeah, now there’d be a competition between turneds and borns to see who could get the female’s head first. Too bad for her, but right now the Council had more serious problems.

Con locked gazes with each of the other Council members one by one, seven males and three females, starting with the lowest-ranking turned warg, to Valko. “We’ve learned that the virus only affects varcolac.”

Silence fell like an ax. For a moment, no one so much as breathed. Then, just as suddenly, the room exploded in curses from the turned wargs, and not-so-subtle utters of “Thank the gods” from the born wargs.

Raynor shot to his feet with such violence that his chair flew backward and cracked against the wall. “ ‘Thank the gods’? You racist bastards!”

Valko stood. “Calm down. No one is happy about this turn of events, but it does mean that wargs are not doomed to extinction.”

“No,” Raynor snarled. “Only we second-class citizens are, but who cares about that, right?”

“Enough!” Con barked. “Arguing isn’t going to solve anything. What’s important is that we now know who is at risk.”

“And that helps us how, damnedpire?”

Con hated that insult, only tolerated it from Luc because they had an antagonistic relationship anyway. His temper flared, and he bared his fangs at the turned female who’d flung the barb at him. Sonya returned the display of aggression, her teeth glaringly white against rich, dark skin he’d felt under his hands one night not so long ago.

“It means born wargs no longer need to isolate themselves,” Ludolf said loudly, drawing everyone’s attention back to him. “We can round up the varcolacs—”

“And give you ‘purebreds’ an excuse to treat us even worse? You going to put us in some kind of camp?” Raynor scoffed. “I wouldn’t put it past the pricolicito have started this plague in the first place as a way to get rid of us.”

Valko stepped around the table, the bitter stench of menace preceding him. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” Raynor moved to meet the larger male, a plan that could end with his throat ripped out.

“This was no plot to exterminate turned wargs.” Conall put himself between the two males. If they wanted to shed blood, he couldn’t care less, but a battle right now would require his participation, and if hebled, he might put the turneds in the room at risk from the virus he carried. “But one thing is certain; we can’t let this get out. If members of the Council, people who shouldhave level heads, believe there’s a conspiracy, think about the general public. We could have a civil war on our hands.”

“So you’re suggesting that we continue to let pricolicicitizens live in fear unnecessarily?” Ludolf’s disgusted tone made clear what he thought of the idea.

“Oh, yes, we wouldn’t want the precious purebloods to suffer along with the mutts, would we?” Yasashiku said.

Shit. This meeting was going to end up in a full-on dog-fight in a minute. Every person in the room was an alpha, and though there was a pecking order within each of the pricolici, varcolac, and dhampire societies, rank meant nothing outside an individual’s society. And with the way aggression was winging through the tension-thick air, this wasn’t going to be a minor scuffle. Fur was going to fly.

“What do you think, Conall?” Valko asked. “Since your breed isn’t affected by any of this, what’s your take?”

“I’ve already told you what I think. We need to keep it quiet for now. We can’t afford to let hysteria tear us apart more than we already are.” He would also keep quiet about the fact that his breed apparently wasaffected.

“We?” Raynor sneered. “No one persecutes you dhampires. You are born that way. Not made against your will.”

“For the love of Sirius, stop your whining!” Ludolf shouted.

Sonya rounded on Ludolf. “Do you blame us?”

It was true. The turned wargs were looked down on as inferior beings. Varcolacwere underrepresented on the Council, their words and opinions weighed less than those of born wargs, and their issues were treated as trivial. They’d been given voting rights only two years ago, which still grated on most of the pricolicicouncil members. Only Feast wargs were looked down on with more disdain.

“We’ll put this to a vote.” Con clenched his fists to keep from knocking some heads together if anyone disagreed. A diplomat, he was not. “Those in favor of keeping this under wraps for now?”

All but two members, both pricolici, raised their hands, sealing the decision.

“It’s settled, then.” Con yanked his leather jacket off the back of his chair. “We can meet again in a week, or earlier if Eidolon has a breakthrough.”

“Hold up, dhampire,” Valko said. “There’s still the matter of what to do with Sin.”

Con bristled. “What do you mean, ‘what to do with Sin’?”

“She must be held responsible. You will bring her to us.”

Con schooled his expression to hide his surprise. That Valko would demand justice for something that was a turned-warg issue was extremely unusual. “Sin didn’t start this epidemic intentionally.”

“A drunk driver doesn’t set out to cause an accident, but in a human court, he’s held responsible.”

“Since when do you care about human issues?” Con asked. “Human laws don’t apply to her, and because Sin is a Seminus demon, she’s not subject to warg law, either.”

Valko steepled his fingers, his expression unusually neutral. “We will present her to the Seminus Council for punishment.”

Whoa. Okay, it was strange enough that Valko wanted justice, but to have it come through official channels, rather than having Sin killed, was almost unbelievable. Something was up. “And if they decide she’s done nothing wrong?”

“Then we’ll involve the Justice Dealers and the Maleconcieo.”

Ah, okay. Lightbulb moment. Eidolon had been raised by the Judicia, demons whose entire purpose was to mete out demon justice, and for years he’d served as they had, as a Justice Dealer. If Dealers and the Maleconcieo, the highest demonic authority that presided over all demon Councils, were involved, Eidolon would be brought into the mix, and he might very well be forced to carry out Sin’s punishment—probably in the form of death.

Valko had despised Eidolon for years, since the day the doctor had failed to save Valko’s son after he’d been shot by an Aegi’s silver bullet. That Eidolon had later mated with an Aegi had only fueled Valko’s hatred. Valko would love to see Eidolon forced to kill his own sister.