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Nathan was on the sofa with a plate of food now, and he put his arm around her. Kirsten looked up and glared at him. “You know I’m right, and I’m fucking Queen here so I can say what I want.”

Nathan looked at us and rolled his eyes before picking up the story in what I assumed was closer to present day.

“The magic of the Strigorii means they form groups with a clear hierarchy and an established leader. Josef and Venom are both extremely high in the Chattanooga hierarchy, both strong enough to be Master of their own territory, but they choose not to be. Their Master isn’t just over Chattanooga, but over Tennessee as well as a number of other states — most of the Southeast.”

“A while back,” Aaron said, “one of the most powerful vampires in Europe decided he wanted Cora, Marco’s mate. Cora didn’t want him, but if he took over Marco’s territory, everything that belonged to Marco, including Cora, would belong to this vampire.”

So that meant Marco was the head vampire dude? They hadn’t said so, but logic took me there. Davy was back beside me, and I reached for his hand and held it. It occurred to me that he and I might be the only humans in this tent.

No, Silver and Animal had to be humans too, right? They were still sitting off to our left, sandwiched between Hailey and Ghost. Were they learning about this because once I knew aboutHailey, it was okay for them to know, too? Hailey had her arm wrapped around Silver, and I saw Ghost lean sideways to tell Animal something, so I had to assume they were in good hands.

“If he’d taken over the territory,” Kirsten said, “he’d have controlled around twenty percent of the United States, and it’d just been a matter of time before he took over the other states. This vampire was so old…” She rubbed her arms as if she was chilled. “He looked like pictures of the Neanderthal, and he had hair on his fingers, the long parts not the joints. He was barely over four feet tall, butterrifying. I’ve heard estimates that he might be as old as ten thousand years old. There was no way for Marco to beat him without a whole lot of help, but even with help, the rules of how to defend your territory mean you have to duel with the challenger. It has to be a fight between the two vampires. Even if there’s a big war around them, it comes down to the strongest Master Vampire.”

“Vampires can share power, though,” Aaron said, “And hundreds of powerful American vampires came to help power Marco up, as well as thousands of shapeshifters. No one wanted this European powerhouse anywhere near us.”

“Long story short,” Kirsten said, “Cora could help with the fight since she’s bound so closely to Marco, and the two of them managed to kill the invading vampire. While the American vampires were on a roll with all that power, they formed their own American council and declared they are no longer under the rule of the council in Europe.”

Micca stood and faced me and Davy. “It was this new American council that voted to allow me to tell you my secret, and it’s the European assholes threatening to kill you if I do. I’m pretty sure that’s why Nathan stopped me from telling you what I am, because you’ll need to decide for certain whether you want to know what I am once you hear everything they plan to tell you.”

“Exactly right,” Aaron said. “As it stands now, you have the idea she’s some kind of shifter, but you don’t know what she is. We’ll do our best to protect you, but that might mean we must keep you hidden in order to do so, and your chosen career means you can’t remain hidden for long.”

“Were you born a shifter, or changed?” Davy asked Micca.

Micca looked to me. “Do you want to know the answer, too? I’m going to fall back on our power exchange dynamics for this, so I won’t answer Davy’s question unless you want the two of you to know.”

“Yeah, I think we need to know more before I decide whether we want the whole shebang.”

“I was human until fairly recently.”

She looked at Aaron and Nathan, and Nathan said, “She was collecting forensics where we knew our quarry had been, hoping to find information that might let us find him again. Our equipment checks for hundreds of things, basic protocol, and one of her swabs showed positive for one of the hemorrhagic fevers. There’d been some gain-of-function work on it, and we knew right off the bat she’d start getting sick in around twenty-four to thirty-six hours, and she’d be dead twelve to twenty-four hours after that.”

“Shifters are immune to diseases,” Aaron said. “Micca was the only human on the team, so she was the only one at risk. The only way to heal her was to turn her into a mammal shifter, but she didn’t want the shifters we had present to bite her. She specifically knew who she wanted to bite her, but he was in Chattanooga and we were on the other side of the planet.”

He looked at Micca and back to us. “Once Micca talked to him and he agreed, I had him put on a plane towards us, and we headed towards him. We met up in Hawaii just as she was beginning to show major symptoms.”

Nathan picked up the story. “Partly because of the way everything happened leading up to the change, partly because of the strength of the person she chose, Micca wasn’t able to get control of her inner beast. She was the animal most of the time, with the human buried way down. She could occasionally fight her way to the top, so the person was in charge, but she couldn’t hold the power over her inner animal.”

“Sometimes, I detest supernatural law,” Kirsten said. “The biggest rule is about humans not finding out, and then it’s all about survival of the fittest. If you can’t stop the vampires from invading your mind then tough shit, you don’t get a say in what they do while in your head. Same with everything, if you aren’t strong enough to stop someone then there’s no law that says they can’t do whatever they want — and that can include enslaving those weaker than you. As long as they don’t put The Secret at risk, it’s pretty much anything goes.”

“And it means shifters without perfect control can’t be allowed in human society,” Aaron said. “They are either killed or enslaved if they can’t pass some horrendous tests, and Micca was so far from…” Aaron shook his head. “I hated to send her to the person I sent her to, but it was either that, or kill her, or turn her into a long-term slave. I could’ve let her do her job and treated her humanely, but she’d still have legally been a slave, never allowed around humans again.”

“But she had to be a slave for the first part,” Davy said. “Part of the way whoever you sent her to reached her humanity, right?”

“Yes,” Micca said. “And I think that gets you all caught up.”

“A few more details,” Nathan said, and he looked to the sofa to his right and our left.

“I’m a werewolf,” Ghost said. “I have tochangeon one of the three nights of the full moon, but I’m strong enough to dictate which, rather than doing it on all three, as new wolves do.”

“Threenights of the full moon?” Davy asked.

“Yes, and I know what you’re thinking,” Ghost told him, “but I can only tell you my secrets. I can’t tell you someone else’s secrets.”

“I’m a rare chimera,” Hailey said, “which means I’m a both wolf and Lugat vampire. A few other things, too, but I’m not at liberty to talk about that. It means I can eat real food, when Lugat vampires only drink blood. I canchangeto a wolf and run with Ghost, but I don’t have to on the full moon, as he does. I can also drink blood, and frequently drink from Ghost. I take less in a feeding than the Red Cross does when you donate. Strigorii are the same — they don’t have to kill to survive.”

Aaron and Nathan looked to Collosa, sitting across from them, and he stood and pulled his clothes off, handing his weapons to Ghost before he was suddenly a bear. He sat back on the sofa in bear form, and Aaron said, “Most of your guards are some flavor of shifter. Not all, but most.”

“And now it’s time for you to hear from me,” Venom said.I’ve been through your head as well as Davy’s while we’ve been sitting here, so I fully understand your contract with him.