Aspen County

Louve and I gaze at our mates through the little windows in the doors of the dome for a few moments before lying back on the cots, both of us exhausted. I take her hand. "Ready?" I ask gently.

Her face looks tight, and she can only nod. Sympathetic, I gently squeeze her hand before closing my eyes. It takes a little while, but we both eventually manage to fall asleep. When I open my eyes, her hand is still in mine, and we're still in the dome lying on the cots, but a thick gray fog covers the floor. I glance at the door, half hoping to see Keene, or even Ryder, but the windows are just as blurred as the floor. I get off of the cot, and Louve does the same.

"I have to hand it to you: great choice of location," we hear from behind us. We twirl around and see Monique lounging casually in Egeria's chair. "Much nicer and bigger than my usual spaces. It even comes with furniture. I like this. I may have to consider remodeling soon."

"You don't belong on that chair," I snarl at her. "Come down here and face us."

"Ooh, I'm so scared," she mutters sarcastically. She sighs and rises, hopping down from the platform and coming to stand before us. It's eerie looking between her and my sister. "Now, like I said, I know that you guys may have the misconception that you can actually beat me—that's adorable, by the way—so I just wanted to let you know that this will be your last chance to back out. But if you don't, I'm perfectly fine with that too." She looks between our faces. "Okay, looks like you're both pretty ready. Oh, by the way, there are a few things that I know you've been dying to know but have been too scared to ask me, Louve."

"What are you talking about?" my sister asks defensively.

"Louve, don't let her get in your head," I warn, moving to stand between the two of them. "Fight her. You're stronger than her."

"Isn't that cute? You actually believe that, don't you?" Monique chuckles. She ignores me, glancing around my body at my sister. "First of all, you didn't sleep with Ryder just because I wanted you to. I've wanted that since I first saw him, but you were just too innocent to get the dirty deed done." I think about how little I want to hear this, but Monique isnnt done. "I only waited to tell you this until now because of how uncomfortable it's obviously making your brother." She flashes a wicked grin at me before turning back to Louve, leaving me growling. "Secondly, you were wrong when you assumed that Damien's fighters were either letting you win or were just really bad; Ryder was really wrong when he assumed that you wolves were just really good fighters."

"You don't mean—" I begin.

She looks exasperated. "Yes, I do mean. Stop asking stupid questions. I just use a little influence here and there to keep you all from being killed because it's fun watching how depressed you all are when she is and how when someone is hurt, it tears you all apart. I will admit that I didn't see Ryder or Zeeva get shot, nor could I stop it when your aunt was killed—that just had to happen. But, I may have influenced one or two guards here and there to keep them a little distracted."

"You helped us?"

"Isn't that what I just said? God, you insolent wolves are so difficult to be patient with sometimes!"

I manage to shake off my shock at that confession before Louve does despite my mixed feelings about her actually protecting my Pack. "It doesn't matter what you did in the past, Monique," I whisper threateningly. "You've done too much bad in the past to actually outweigh any good that you may have done."

"I'd be careful, Lovett. If I have the power to do as I please freely, you may very well find yourselves being hunted again or caught in the middle of a war with no one else to turn to and more casualties than your insignificant race can afford. There really are not a lot of you werewolves left in the world, you know."

"What do you mean that there's not many of us left?" I demand.

"And no one else is hunting us. There are tons of us here—who would want to chance coming after us and risking that many of their own people?" Louve chimes in.

"There are only about 100, 150 of you here and then about another 175 scattered about. You may be lucky enough to have another 200 left in the different corners this world. Three out of every 20 my ass; you're not even in the one percentile. Hunters like the Dupont men track down your people to their dens, sometimes teaming up with others to find the village. Luckily for you lot, it has alluded them thus far, but if they could find you two—as detached from society as you managed to be—then they could certainly, eventually find this place. And once they do, you can practically count on them killing each and every werewolf here. Even if some of you manage to survive, they'll no doubt tell their friends. And then it would only be a matter of time before they manage to destroy the rest of you. After that, they would just track down anyone else left lingering on other points of the globe and it would be goodnight werewolves. Your entire race could be killed off that easily. And as for becoming engaged in war," she says, addressing Louve with her face filled with infuriating indifference, "well, mortals and immortals alike crave chaos and destruction. It's what people thrive on."

"Wait, what? What other creatures exist in this world?" Louve asks meekly.

"You werewolves are all so egotistical and ignorant! You really thought that you and those stupid humans were the only two creatures walking the face of this Earth? You can't even imagine what else there is lurking about. For one thing, there are your distant cousins, the Shape Shifters. I tend to avoid them though—they are way too full of themselves, perhaps more so than your lot. Most of them are about as pro-human as Hitler was pro-Jew, but their plans are just completely screwed up."

"Wait, who's 'Hitler,' and what's a 'Jew?'"

I cut Louve off with a more pressing issue. "What else is there?" I ask, my voice strained. I feel a little in over my head by this point.

"Well, there's also the Time Keepers. They're a bit more modest than your people, but rebellion and war practically oozes off of them. I'd give them a couple of years to throw the entire world into turmoil. And you can practically bet on the Angels and Demons staying out of that one—lazy, prissy bitches that both of them are. One race that I absolutely love is the vampires. The'’re strong, powerful, and unafraid to take what they want at any cost except their own lives. They are my kind of people! Then there are the Sorcerers—they're a lot like the Time Keepers: reliant on one leader and full of discontent and wrath. I find it hilarious that they're so similar but that they really don't seem to like each other. And these are just the earthbound ones."

"Is there anything else we should know?" I ask warily, glancing at Louve who looks dizzy but ready to start fighting.

"There is one little thing." Monique pauses and we watch her expectantly. "None of what I just said matters because I don't expect to lose." She bites her lip, offers us a crazed smile, and flicks each wrist at Louve and me. We are launched against the far wall of the dome and fall to the floor with an UMPH as Monique cackles.

Louve and I pull ourselves up and glare at Monique as she crosses the room to approach us.