Good news travels fast, bad news travels faster. The truly salacious cannot be contained, no matter how hard one tries.

The reprieve Warren provided, albeit satisfying, had been temporary. The petulant, unrighteous anger that had propelled her into Cassian’s dining room had returned. The full moon was two nights away which only magnified the emotions Regan was prone to: bitterness, suspicion, possessiveness, and insecurity. She was a witch with a bent towards darkness, one that she rarely resisted. Regan indulged her feelings, no matter how irrational, how self-serving. Like an unruly child, Regan simply responded.

Cassian hadn’t told her. Regan would later ask herself why—perhaps he hadn’t wanted to feed the fire. Hadn’t wanted to debate and be exhausted by Regan’s hissing diatribe. Regan held a drop of anger for him too—for instead of learning from her alpha their secret had stuck its nose out of the bag, Regan learned one of the ball’s biggest revelations from a pair of gossiping witches she was walking in front of in the hall.

“A female werewolf. The King’s Witch, of all people. Did you see her? I mean, did you see?”

Regan froze in her tracks, so abruptly that the two women walking behind her almost ran into her.

“What did you say?”

The witches were startled. One of them snapped straight to attention while the other stared dumbly in fear at Regan’s face before doing the same.

“Just idle chatter, ma’am. We meant no offence.”

“No—what did you say?”

The witches looked at each other, before the one who’d come to attention first responded after swallowing.

“Lady Delaney, ma’am. At the ball, she…she’s a werewolf, ma’am.”

Regan stood still for a moment, staring at the girl as if she’d just transformed into some kind of wild beast herself. The girl looked frightened, but to her credit remained standing stock-still. Regan struggled to keep her own beast from bursting out of her skin.

1…2...3…

“Thank you, soldier. You may carry on.”

Both nodded and did so with a certain amount of relief. Regan continued to stand there for a long moment, brow furrowing as if it were being wound up by a key.

Something changed in her eyes as if a mental thread already under strain had snapped.

Regan marched ahead, hands balled into fists, stinging as her claws poked through her fingers.