getting to know each other, when he’d brought her up to the greenhouse to show her the flower that bloomed at midnight. “We’re in Italy. Venice. One of the most beautiful cities in the world. Shame not to see it, don’t you think?”
Jace pulled her forward, so she fell against his chest. The material of his shirt was soft under her fingers, and he smelled like his familiar soap and shampoo. Her heart took a sweeping dive inside her chest. “Or we could stay in,” he said, sounding a little breathless.
“So I can swoon watching you make a triple-word score?” With an effort she pulled back from him. “And spare me the jokes about scoring.”
“Dammit, woman, you read my mind,” he said. “Is there no filthy wordplay you can’t foresee?”
“It’s my special magical power. I can read your mind when you’re thinking dirty thoughts.”
“So, ninety-five percent of the time.”
She craned her head back to look up at him. “
“Oh, you know, the usual — demons I might kill, runes I need to learn, people who’ve annoyed me recently, people who’ve annoyed me not so recently, ducks.”
“Ducks?”
He waved her question away. “All right. Now watch this.” He took her shoulders and turned her gently, so they were both facing the same way. A moment later — she wasn’t sure how — the walls of the room seemed to melt away around them, and she found herself stepping out onto cobblestones. She gasped, turning to look behind her, and saw only a blank wall, windows high up in an old stone building. Rows of similar houses lined the canal they stood beside. If she craned her head to the left, she could see in the distance that the canal opened out into a much larger waterway, lined with grand buildings. Everywhere was the smell of water and stone.
“Cool, huh?” Jace said proudly.
She turned and looked at him. “Ducks?” she said again.
A smile tugged the edge of his mouth. “I hate ducks. Don’t know why. I just always have.”
It was early morning when Maia and Jordan arrived at Praetor House, the headquarters of the Praetor Lupus. The truck clanked and bumped over the long white drive that swept through manicured lawns to the massive house that rose like the prow of a ship in the distance. Behind it Maia could see strips of trees, and behind that, the blue water of the Sound some distance away.
“This is where you did your training?” she demanded. “This place is gorgeous.”
“Don’t be fooled,” Jordan said with a smile. “This place is boot camp, emphasis on the ‘boot.’”
She looked sideways at him. He was still smiling. He had been, pretty much nonstop, since she’d kissed him down by the beach at dawn. Part of Maia felt as if a hand had lifted her up and dropped her back into her past, when she’d loved Jordan beyond anything she’d ever imagined, and part of her felt totally adrift, as if she’d woken up in a completely foreign landscape, far from the familiarity of her everyday life and the warmth of the pack.
It was very peculiar. Not bad, she thought. Just… peculiar.
Jordan came to a stop at a circular drive in front of the house, which, up close, Maia could see was built of blocks of golden stone, the tawny color of a wolf pelt. Black double doors were set at the top of a massive stone staircase. In the center of the circular drive was a massive sundial, its raised face telling her that it was seven in the morning. Around the edge of the sundial, words were carved: I ONLY MARK THE HOURS THAT SHINE.
She unlocked her door and jumped down from the cab just as the doors of the house opened and a voice rang out: “Praetor Kyle!”
Jordan and Maia both looked up. Descending the stairs was a middle-aged man in a charcoal suit, his blond hair streaked with gray. Jordan, smoothing all expression from his face, turned to him. “Praetor Scott,” he said. “This is Maia Roberts, of the Garroway pack. Maia, this is Praetor Scott. He runs the Praetor Lupus, pretty much.”
“Since the 1800s the Scotts have always run the Praetor,” said the man, glancing at Maia, who inclined her head, a sign of submission. “Jordan, I have to admit, we did not expect you back again so soon. The situation with the vampire in Manhattan, the Daylighter—”
“Is in hand,” Jordan said hastily. “That’s not why we’re here. This concerns something quite different.”
Praetor Scott raised his eyebrows. “Now you’ve piqued my curiosity.”
“It’s a matter of some urgency,” said Maia. “Luke Garroway, our pack’s leader—”
Praetor Scott gave her a sharp look, silencing her. Though he might have been packless, he was an alpha, that much was clear from his bearing. His eyes, under his thick eyebrows, were green-gray; around his throat, under the collar of his shirt, sparkled the bronze pendant of the Praetor, with its imprint of a wolf’s paw. “The Praetor chooses what matters it will regard as urgent,” he said. “Nor are we a hotel, open to uninvited guests. Jordan took a chance in bringing you here, and he knows that. If he were not one of our most promising graduates, I might well send you both away.”
Jordan hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans and looked at the ground. A moment later Praetor Scott set his hand on Jordan’s shoulder.
“But,” he said, “you
The office turned out to be down a long and winding hallway, elegantly paneled in dark wood. The house was lively with the sound of voices, and a sign saying HOUSE RULES was pinned to the wall beside a staircase leading up.
The smell of cooking breakfast wafted through the air, making Maia’s stomach grumble. Praetor Scott sounded amused. “I’ll have someone make us up a plate of snacks if you’re hungry.”
“Thanks,” Maia muttered. They had reached the end of a hallway, and Praetor Scott opened a door marked OFFICE.
The older werewolf’s eyebrows drew together. “Rufus,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
Maia peered past him. The office was a large room, comfortably messy. There was a rectangular picture window that gave out onto wide lawns, on which groups of mostly young people were executing what looked like drill maneuvers, wearing black warm-up pants and tops. The walls of the room were lined with books about lycanthropy, many in Latin, but Maia recognized the word “
In front of it were two chairs. In one of them sat a large man — a werewolf — hunched over, his hands gripped together. “Praetor,” he said in a grating voice. “I had hoped to speak with you regarding the incident in Boston.”
“The one in which you broke your assigned charge’s leg?” the Praetor said dryly. “I will be speaking to you about it, Rufus, but not this moment. Something more pressing calls me.”
“But, Praetor—”
“That will be all, Rufus,” said Scott in the ringing tone of an alpha wolf whose orders were not to be challenged. “Remember, this is a place of rehabilitation. Part of that is learning to respect authority.”
Muttering under his breath, Rufus rose from the chair. Only when he stood up did Maia realize, and react to, his enormous size. He towered over both her and Jordan, his black T-shirt straining over his chest, the sleeves about to split around his biceps. His head was closely shaved, his face scored with deep claw marks all across one cheek, like furrows dug in soil. He gave her a sour look as he stalked past them and out into the hall.
“Of course some of us,” Jordan muttered, “are easier to rehabilitate than others.”
As Rufus’s heavy tread faded down the hall, Scott threw himself into the high-backed chair behind the desk and buzzed a joltingly modern-looking intercom. After requesting breakfast in a terse voice, he leaned back, hands clasped behind his head.
“I’m all ears,” he said.
