Page 124 of A Lady’s Guide to Werewolves

Chapter Twenty-Eight

It took Sorcha a moment to recognize the woman.

Her wide eyes, her meek posture. The way she had seemed lost and her terrified trembling when Sorcha had stumbled over her after running from the ogre. Not stumbled accidentally, clearly, but led.

She had made herself as invisible as Sorcha’s red cloak made her.

Sorcha was reluctantly impressed, as well as infuriated at her own gullibility. She’d been fooled.

“So you’re the Collector,” she said.

“Just Amelia. The Collector is a bit clunky, don’t you think? I’d hoped for a better title, if I’m honest.” The woman wore a white gown and pearl ear bobs, and a circlet of dried white roses. She was dressed so much like a debutante that it was nearly disorienting.

If Sorcha hadn’t known many debutantes. Hadn’t been one herself.

“And you’re the Red Cloak,” Amelia added. She glanced down at Sorcha’s blood-soaked bandage. “Lovely. You received my message.”

Sorcha’s arm had stopped bleeding. “Why am I here?”

“Some spells require a sacrifice,” Amelia said.

“A sacrifice is something you give up, not something you take from someone else.”

“Semantics. I needed the blood of my enemy, and now I have it. I didn’t have enough, you see.”

“You scratched me that night.”

“Of course.”

“What are you doing to the wolves?”

“Getting them ready. I need fighters for my Cauldron. I’ve an empire to build.”

“You’ll never have magic strong enough to ward this place against them and the Order. You would need the wolf teeth. And we have those.” Thank the stars.

“Do you mean these teeth?” Amelia asked, all false innocence as she opened her palm. In it, the Bisclavret tooth, the Ossory tooth, the Arcadia tooth. “Thank you, by the way. You don’t know how long I’d been searching for the Ossory tooth. I did not even know there was such a thing as a Museum of Teeth.”

Sorcha gaped, her stomach turning sour. “How did you get those?”

“Well, you were all so busy with Simon, weren’t you?”

Simon had been misdirection in so many ways. “You used him to pull us off the scent.”

“Of course,” Amelia replied. “I’ve known who you were for some time now. I went in after your betrothal ball ended so abruptly. The iced cakes were delicious, by the way.”

“He didn’t kill me as you sent him to.”

“No, but he kept track of you, which was also useful. He made sure you never got too close. And now that I need your blood, I can kill you myself. It will be better this way.”

“You haven’t managed it so far.” Sorcha, why, why do you always taunt people when you should just stay silent?

“Lady Sorcha, I am far more clever than you are. Must we do this?”

“I think I deserve to know why you’re threatening to murder me, so yes.”

“Very well.” Amelia sighed as though greatly inconvenienced. “But we have a fight to present. People are waiting. Let’s make this quick.”

Amelia was perplexing. She spoke lightly, looked like a young lady ready to embroider a pillow. But there was a bleak hardness to her gaze. Sorcha shook her head. “You can’t be doing this for the power or the profit from wagers.”