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princess.
I had, until now, existed on the razor-thin edge of two worlds, part of both and accepted by neither. I
didn t know how to switch from feeling unwanted to being considered among the ruling class.
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Something Secret This Way Comes
I d say penny for your thoughts, but I think I d have to offer you more than a million to get
everything that just went through your head. Lucas was leaning across the table with a tentative smile on
his lips, waiting for me to come back down to earth.
Sorry. I was embarrassed to have been caught so lost in thought.
Where d you just go?
I was thinking about my grandmere. I waited for the confusion that accompanied my French
nickname for her, which was something she had insisted upon from her Louisiana upbringing and also
something to set her apart from my grandfather s Irish heritage.
Is she& ? he hesitated.
Oh! No. She s alive and well in Southern Manitoba, probably bitching to herself about the late melt
and what it will mean for her peas. I grinned to myself, picturing her in rubber boots and rolled-up
overalls, stomping around in the knee-deep snow and thinking of what type of spell she could use to speed
up the melt.
Manitoban winters dragged on for longer than six months at a time, but once they were gone spring
was a barely noticeable blip before summer swept in hot and humid. I missed it sometimes.
She isn t like us, though?
No one is like me, I couldn t help but think. No, she s not a werewolf. She s a pretty tough witch,
though. I didn t want to make it seem like she was a helpless old lady. Far from it. Now in her early
sixties, she was more active than ever and showed no signs of slowing down.
And she raised you alone? He was a little surprised by it. Werewolves, from what I understood,
were fans of the it takes a village approach to raising children. I d told him yesterday my grandmere raised
me, but I guess he d assumed she had help.
Because of, uh& I tried to think of something that wasn t a lie but wouldn t tell him more than he
needed to know, & the in-utero trauma that caused my lycanthropy to activate early? Okay, so I failed to
mention that said trauma was my newborn vampire father force-feeding his tainted blood to my mother and
turning me into a freakazoid hybrid. Not a lie, really, more of an omission. My mother was young, only
seventeen, and my father was& dead. Again, not a lie, just a twist on the truth. She didn t know how to
take care of a baby that wasn t just a baby. She probably couldn t have taken care of me if I had been
normal. She left me with my grandmother and never looked back. All of that was one hundred percent
truth.
Lucas s face was stony. Even Dominick and Desmond at their own table looked more solemn than
they had before. To me this was history. It was like telling someone about Brutus betraying Caesar. Or
about the collapse of the Roman Empire. History wasn t personal, it was just facts about the past. So, in
spite of the fact that this history was mine, it no longer moved me.
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Sierra Dean
Lucas took my hand, and with his other he touched the side of my face with a soft stroke of his
fingers. His hand was hot against my skin, which didn t surprise me given the raised core temperature of all
wolves. You will never lack for a family again, he promised.
Sadly, I didn t think it was a promise he could keep.
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Chapter Eighteen
The Chameleon Lounge was more than just a restaurant. While the main floor served as an upscale
dining experience, the upper level, buffered by soundproof walls and floors, was a dance club.
Lucas guided me up a staircase at the back of the restaurant with our two D-named bodyguards
following close behind us. At dinner, Lucas had mentioned Desmond would be keeping an eye on me, but
he made it sound like the normal thing for a wolf-lieutenant to do for a displaced princess. I didn t pry
further, but it seemed like Lucas was assigning me a bodyguard I didn t need or want.
When we reached the club it wasn t at all what I expected. The walls were decorated with
sophisticated red-and-black damask wallpaper, and every flat surface looked like polished black marble,
from the dance floor to the bar to the individual tables.
All the lights were dimmed and covered by beaded black shades. Both the bar and the DJ booth were
on raised platforms, while all the booths were sunk into the floor so they had to be stepped down into.
I wondered if the marble floors posed any risk to dancing patrons, but the question was answered
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