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"Fuck, Nell."

"I don't want to be an alpha queen. And I don't want to be a panther princess."

"Yeah, about that. You're a leopard?"

"Panther. Probably. My dad was. I didn't know. I never shifted."

"Still, there's an animal inside you. No wonder we clicked." She bumped my shoulder with hers. "A wolf and a panther. It makes sense."

Her phone buzzed. We both looked at it. Text bubbles popped onto the screen in quick succession.

"Vidar," she said.

"How bad?"

"He's using complete sentences, which means he's past the point of shouting." Addie turned her phone over and looked at me. "What are we doing? Am I rescuing the princess from the tower? Are we crashing a wedding this weekend? Are we ordering room service and watching bad reality television?"

"All reality television is bad."

"Facts."

"Magnus doesn't want to marry her." It came out quieter than I intended.

"No," Addie agreed. "He doesn't. But he wants to be a good alpha. My brother-in-law can handle himself. What do you want, Nell?"

I wanted my company.

I wanted to go home to my apartment that I had bought with my own money.

I wanted to know my heritage and learn more about my father and his people.

I wanted Magnus to hold me tight and not let me go, as he'd promised.

I wanted to curl up on this couch with my best friend and get stupid drunk on sweet cocktails.

"Addie?"

"Yeah, babe?"

"What does Rosalind Lobo want?"

Addie frowned, as if she'd never considered the question. Had anyone ever asked Rosalind what she wanted?

The question sat between us in the suite's expensive quiet. Outside, the city continued. The building with my name on it caught the light as the question went unanswered.

Addie's phone buzzed again. There were no longer complete sentences in the text bubbles. The singular words popped up one at a time. They were in all caps.

"Addie, do you know where Rosalind Lobo is right now?"

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

MAGNUS

My coffee had gone cold twenty minutes ago. The dark brown liquid stared back at me, reminding me of my first girlfriend. Like me, Ingrid had been sixteen years old, standing in a doorway in the snow while I delivered the message my father had sent me to deliver. I had expected her to cry, to scream, maybe. Her tears had fallen silently.

She had stood completely still while they fell. She didn't argue with me, or shout. She had looked at me with disappointment. Maybe she had expected me to save her. Instead, I backed away from her, and she closed the door. It was the last time I had seen or heard from her. She and her mother were gone by morning.

That shame had stayed with me for years. My first failure. My only failure. Until now.