So Wulfe had thrown me under the bus in order to do what?

The first thing I thought of was that by taking me instead of, say, Stefan or one of Marsilia’s other vampires, all of the werewolves would be fighting to get me back. If Wulfe had given them Adam . . . I thought of Bonarata trying to get Adam and was pretty sure that it would not have gone smoothly. Someone would have died, maybe many someones. But me? Blindsided by a kidnapping done by vampires? I would not stand a chance. Not of avoiding capture—but I was good at surviving, wasn’t I?

And if I’d died—it wouldn’t mean much to Wulfe or Marsilia, either. Not as long as Adam never found out that Wulfe had set me up, anyway. Even so—Adam would take out Bonarata before looking to Wulfe.

That felt right. Felt like a move Wulfe might make. Once he knew that Bonarata was moving against Marsilia at last, he’d want to consolidate her power, to put the werewolves firmly at her back.

Wulfe knew that I was tied to Stefan. Would he know that Bonarata would have trouble breaking that tie? Yes, I thought. James Blackwood, the one the vampires called the Monster, had tried to break our bond and failed. If I came back from visiting Bonarata unharmed, Wulfe could set up some sort of test to discover if I were unwillingly working for Bonarata. Probably would do so if I managed to escape cleanly.

Somehow that made me feel better. Wulfe would have figured out if I had been made Bonarata’s pet.

So Bonarata, operating on Wulfe’s very Wulfe-like information, had found himself holding a weak female instead of Marsilia’s most powerful supporter. My tie to Stefan—that Bonarata thought was to Marsilia—meant he couldn’t use me as a puppet. So Bonarata was left with a useless hostage. If he killed me outright, Bran Cornick, the Marrok, would declare war. To Bran and to the world, I was one of those he’d sworn to protect. If he didn’t avenge me, he’d lose face.

But an accident—that would simplify things greatly. He forgot to lock the door, and his half-crazed werewolf pet had torn me to bits. So sad. Tragic, even. I bet he would look very apologetic.

His story would have worked to keep Bran off his back. Not that Bran would believe him—but without proof, Bran could not attack Bonarata with impunity. Bran couldn’t go after Bonarata without starting a war with the other vampires. Such a war invited complications and disasters that might make World War I look like the “jolly little war” the British thought they were marching to.

My death wouldn’t endear him to Adam, though. But neither would my kidnapping have. If he wanted to use our neutral zone, then my kidnapping didn’t make sense at all—but, I remembered, he’d been lying to me when he’d told me he was interested in a place where supernatural creatures and humans could interact safely.

The bus braked hard, then started up again, in a low gear that vibrated nastily in the luggage compartment, and I momentarily lost my train of thought. It wasn’t like I enjoyed picking apart the plans of supervillainous vampires. But the bus had been traveling for a long, long time, and it wasn’t like there was anything else going on. And there was the minor, inconsequential motivation that my life was in the balance.

No. Bran wouldn’t go after Bonarata without proof that left him clearly in the right. Adam might—but he didn’t have Bran’s resources. Bonarata wouldn’t be worried about Adam. He didn’t know Adam like I did.

For the moment, we had the upper hand. He’d underestimated me by a hairsbreadth, because that’s how close that chase with the werewolf had been. I’d escaped.

But he couldn’t allow me to stay free. He had to retake me to save face.

No.

He still needed me to die in order to save face—and to come out on top. He wouldn’t underestimate me again. I couldn’t afford to underestimate him, either.

I knew more about vampires than I’d ever wanted to. The old vampires operated like spiders—with webs strung all over their territory. A vampire like Bonarata probably had people all over Europe. It wouldn’t be hard to find me here. There weren’t a lot of coyotes in Europe, probably none outside a zoo. He’d have people looking for my coyote self.

I had to disappear.

I put my head down on my paws and tried to ignore the diesel fumes.

4

Mercy

Still somewhere in Europe, stuck in the luggage compartment of a bus. I’m just lucky I’m not prone to car sickness.

THE BUS CONTINUED MOVING FOR A VERY LONG TIME. Twice it stopped without opening the luggage doors—presumably to let people eat and take care of business. That I didn’t have to figure out how to get out to take care of business probably meant that I was dehydrated—I was certainly hungry—but it was convenient, and my coyote body was better at dealing with less regular food and drink than my human one.

When it stopped for a third time, I was ready to get out. Fortunately, this time the doors to my compartment opened with a screech of hinges. I pulled on pack magic, which answered my call sluggishly, but it was enough for me to scoot out of the luggage compartment and into the shadows of the twilight surrounding a tourist-friendly hotel.

The bus had traveled all day. That meant I was approximately five hundred miles from wherever in Italy I’d been to start with, give or take a couple of hundred miles. I could smell a freshwater river nearby but not an ocean. There were no large mountains, but there seemed to be some rise and fall to the land.

I found a place behind a pair of giant potted plants near the corner of the hotel that left me a dark shadow to hide in. With the pack magic to help, I didn’t think anyone would see me as long as I wasn’t moving. I took some time to examine my surroundings.