Oh crap. My mind spun through all the possibilities. Crap, crap, crap. I’d screwed up big-time.

“Stay with me?” Rick repeated.

“In Gabon.” Carelessly, Nantale said, “Two are pregnant, in human form, but are expected to have litters of two to four.”

Rick looked as if he had been hit with a shovel and stared down at the oversized cat in his lap. He raised his hands from the furry body as if surrounded by police. “Four wives? Pregnant? I’m not moving to Gabon. No. No way.”

“You will have to decide if you wish the kits to live,” Asad continued, his expression suggesting that he was enjoying this tutelage, “or if you will kill the males at birth. If the males live to adulthood, they will challenge you for their father’s place, so it is common for the new male to kill them just after birth.”

Rick jerked at the violence and cruelty in the careless words. So did I, even though I’d read them in the Merged Laws. “Of course, any females born from Kemnebi’s litters will be yours to take as mate if you choose,” Asad said.

Rick looked addled. Stunned. Pretty much the way I was feeling. My ex turned horrified eyes to me, appalled, dismayed, disgusted. Betrayed. By me. I shook my head and said, “I didn’t know about the wives.”

The wolves had fled. Brute was sitting beneath the SOD, watching every move the heartless creature made. The SOD was hanging on the wall, shackled into place by silver. But things had changed. The SOD was gazing at the congealing pool of were blood near him and his desiccated tongue was lapping at the air as if tasting the scent. He was filthy, his exposed flesh covered in bite marks, some no more than scars, some seeping a watery bloody fluid, some bites Brute’s, some vamp. Joses Santana was being inadequately fed and he had been repeatedly drained. Brute had been biting the bag of bones for weeks, and the grindy had never stopped the abuse. I had no idea what was supposed to happen to a vamp infected with were-taint, but Brute was probably acting under the orders of a heavenly angel—one with wings and everything—so I saw no reason to stop him.

“Jane?” Rick asked, his cat eyes glowing slightly green in his human face. “What am I supposed to do under were law? This is . . .” He stopped and swallowed, as if the words tasted bad. “A tamed cat is a slave.”

Gently I said, “Kem has always wanted you dead. Me dead. I couldn’t save him when he was dying just now. You could, but that act left him your slave. That’s the way things are done in the werecat world according to the Merged Laws of the Cursed of Artemis. But there’s nothing in were law that prohibits slaves from being set free. No were law says you have to keep him or his possessions. No one says you have to kill Kem’s male kits or mate with female kits or be the same kind of evil they are.”

Asad’s head came up in what looked like affront.

Rick looked at Kem, the green in his eyes bleeding back to the Frenchy dark of his human self. He stroked the cat’s ears uncertainly. “I can set him free?”

“Yeah. According to the Merged Laws, he’ll always be your blood beta. That’s part of a higher-ranking cat saving another cat’s life. But I’m pretty sure you can determine the direction of the relationship. Pretty sure you could give him back his wives and determine how he treats his wives and his young.”

Asad said, sounding bored, “But if you set him free and send him home, he will be hunted and killed, and your new wives will be taken by the strongest male.” Asad glanced at me. “It would have been kinder to kill him.”

Bruiser murmured to Rick, “You could make him your msimamizi.”

Rick let out a breath and the tension he had been holding. He raked his clean hand through his hair and said, “Yeah. I could. Kemnebi, I make you my msimamizi.”

To me, Bruiser said, “LaFleur has been studying African werecat law, or he’s been to Africa. Msimamizi is Swahili for administrator. Rick just gave Kem a job.”

I studied my ex. He’d been traveling internationally. Had he been to Africa? Did that travel have something to do with his silvered hair?

Rick stood, pushing Kem aside. The black leopard looked at him adoringly. “Go home to Gabon and be kind to your”—his lips turned down—“my wives and your children.”

Asad snarled. Clearly this was not what he had expected to happen. Beast snorted in derision and I grinned, showing blunt human teeth to the werelion. Asad had been planning something disruptive and dangerous as he tried to steal the SOD, maybe that war I had thought about. He had put tiles on a world-sized playing board, all perfectly arranged to topple for a predetermined ending, no matter where they started to fall. And then—whatever his plan had been—I messed it all up. That was clear on his face. Go, me.

The elevator opened to reveal more guards, which was my cue. Leaving the others and the mess of blood and interspecies politics, I slipped back up the hidden stairs, wondering where the werewolves had disappeared to. I freaking hated being out of my own Enforcer loop.

I needed a few minutes with Leo. As I rounded the stairs on the main floor’s landing, I caught the fading stench of werewolf blood, then Ayatas’s faint scent, Leo’s scent overlapping both, but seemingly at different moments. Together, the fading scents went up the next set of stairs to Leo’s office. Great. Leo had come out of his office lair and met the werewolves. Then had come back out and greeted the special agent. Ayatas got a private meeting with the MOC while I dealt with were-creature politics. I dropped my headset off at the foyer security nook and dropped into a chair with a tired sigh.

A low voice rumbled slyly, “Want me to rub your feet?”

I chuckled up at Wrassler. “You big ol’ softie, you. Instead, let me see the security footage. Let’s start with sub-five. I want to know who was responsible for the FUBAR down there.”

Wrassler frowned. His expression told me that he had already watched the footage and wasn’t happy about any part of it. The cameras mounted in the sub-five basement showed me most of what I needed to know, beginning with the elevator opening and a female vampire walking out. Pale hair and eyes, her face chiseled and cold, the stark beauty of a glacier in pink silk and ballerina shoes. Dominique. Grégoire’s clan heir. She stepped onto the clay floor of sub-five, the werecats and wolves behind her, the wolves carrying Antifreeze, his head lolling.

Inside me, Beast growled low, odd tones in her voice, vibrating through my own chest.

Dominique, a two-hundred-year-old, powerful vamp, aimed a flat device like a television remote control at the camera. The screen went black. Then the other cameras went black.

“What happened?” I asked.

“We don’t know how she did it,” Wrassler said, “but she shut off the cameras on sub-five with that thing. The entire system covering the lower floor went black. Alex is trying to isolate the security loophole on his integrated system and we’re going over the cam footage of people on stairs and elevators before the outage and after. But so far we have zip.”

My fault, I thought. The SOD had ripped out Dominique’s throat and I hadn’t taken her head. The memory of her dead body at my feet was bright and clear as the vision of her on the screen before me. Leo and Grégoire had brought her back and restored her, hoping she would lead them to her coconspirators. Instead, she had pledged fresh loyalty and given them nothing until now. “Where is she now?” I asked.

“Gone. I told Grégoire that his heir attacked HQ, leading our enemies to the Son of Darkness. He’s in a rage. He had begun to trust her. Foolishly.”

I let a soft breath go. “Crap.” Vamps, especially old vamps like Grégoire, needed their closest allies to be faithful unto true-death. Betrayal cut deep. I checked my cell. There was a text from Eli, telling me he and Ayatas were with Leo. There was also one from Alex that said, Spotted an oddity on sub-five lasers before cameras went out. Call. It took a moment before I remembered. Alex had done laser upgrades on the security at the entrances and in the gym, the rec room, and sub-five, places where we’d been attacked in the past.

I punched his number and Alex spoke fast. “Anomaly from the lasers in sub-five. The presence of a witch under an obfuscation spell.”