Now here she was, making a point to remind this arrogant man of the stupidest thing she’d ever done in her life.

Melena let out a soft sigh as she stood next to Lazaro once more. “The boys didn’t want me there with them at the pond, but I followed them anyway. They started daring each other to walk farther and farther out onto the ice.”

“Idiots, all of them,” Lazaro grumbled. “Winter came late that year. The pond hadn’t yet frozen toward the center.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “And it was very dark that night. I didn’t realize the ice wouldn’t hold me until I was already too far out. I stepped onto a thin section, and it broke away underneath me.”

The curse Lazaro uttered was ripe, violent. But the look he finally swung on her was oddly tender, haunted. To her complete shock, he reached out and grazed the pad of his thumb over her scarred eyebrow. “You’d hit your head on something.”

“The edge of the ice was jagged,” she murmured, her throat going a bit dry for the mere second his touch had lingered on her face. When his hand was gone, she shivered, though not from anything close to a chill. “I went down very quickly. God, the water was so cold. I could hardly move my limbs. I panicked. I couldn’t see anything. When I tried to swim back up, I realized I was trapped under the ice.”

Lazaro was listening intently now, his expression impossible to read. His aura forbid her too, the dull gray haze blurring the edges of his broad shoulders and strong arms, haloing his dangerously handsome face like a brooding cloud against the darkness of the night that surrounded him.

“I remember everything started to go black,” Melena said. “And then...there you were. In the water with me, pulling me to the surface. You dived into that frigid pond and searched until you found me. Then you brought me back to your Darkhaven.”

“You were bleeding,” he said, his gaze returning to the scar above her left eye.

Melena nodded. “Your Breedmate, Ellie, helped my mother patch me up.”

Both women were gone now. Melena’s adoptive mother, Byron Walsh’s mate, Frances, had been killed in a senseless car accident a few years ago. Lazaro’s kind-hearted, beautiful Breedmate, Eleanor, had suffered a far more brutal end. Killed just a couple of years after Melena had met her, along with the rest of Lazaro’s family who’d been home at his Boston Darkhaven the night of an horrific attack.

His gaze hardened, going distant at the mention of his lost mate. It took nearly all of Melena’s self-control to keep from reaching out to offer comfort to him now.

If she didn’t think he’d snap her fingers off at the roots, she might have braved it in spite of his forbidding glower.

And yet, there was something more in his eyes as he looked at her. As much as she was drawn to him tonight, she couldn’t help feeling that he was aware of her too. Not as the hapless girl he’d fished out of a frozen pond, not even as the grown-up daughter of a colleague and friend.

He was annoyed with her tonight, no question. Given a choice, he’d probably still prefer her gone. But Lazaro Archer was also looking at her the way a man looked at a woman. And she couldn’t deny that his interest made her pulse trip into a faster tempo.

“What are you doing here, Melena?” His gruff question caught her off guard.

Did she even know the answer to that? She shrugged lamely. “I guess I just...I don’t think I ever got the chance to thank you—”

“No.” He cocked his head slightly, those unsettling eyes narrowing shrewdly now. “I mean, what are you doing here at this meeting? As skilled of an interpreter as you are, I think we both know there’s something you’re not saying.”

She stared at him, wondering how he’d gone from looking at her like he wanted to touch her—maybe even kiss her—to pinning her in a suspicious glare. Maybe he hadn’t been ignoring her all evening, but silently assessing her, even now.

Part of her wanted to tell him the truth. That she’d been a psychic insurance policy, to make certain her father wasn’t walking into a trap with Turati or his men, regardless of the Order’s assurances. Lazaro would be furious to hear it, no doubt. That she and her father had defied diplomatic protocol to insert her into a top secret meeting without the knowledge or permission of the Order or the GNC? She didn’t even want to consider the ramifications of that, for her or her father.

And anyway, it wasn’t her place to publicly voice her father’s fears or suspicions, not even to Lazaro Archer. If any of Byron Walsh’s colleagues knew how paralyzing his paranoia had become lately, he would surely lose his position on the Council. Her father lived for his work, and Melena would not be the one to jeopardize that for him.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she murmured, hating that she had to deceive Lazaro. “And I really ought to get back inside now.”

“You’re protecting him. From what?” Lazaro took hold of her by the arms, preventing her from escaping his knowing stare or his questions. His large hands gripped her firmly, strong fingers searing her with the heat of his touch. “What is your father trying to hide?”

“Nothing, I swear—”

He wasn’t buying it. Anger flashed in his eyes. Behind his full upper lip, she glimpsed the sharp points of his emerging fangs. “Tell me what he’s afraid of, Melena. Tell me now, before I go in there and haul his ass out here to tell me himself.”

“It’s nothing,” she insisted, finding it impossible to break Lazaro’s hold or his stare. “It doesn’t matter anyway. He had no reason to be afraid tonight. Turati’s intentions are good, he means no harm to—”