He scowled. “Seems to me the decision was entirely yours.”

“Oh, does it? Here I was thinking—”

Leora gave a delicate cough, more suggestion of a sound than an actual one. Megan practically jumped. She’d forgotten the girl was there.

“I think we’re ready to go in to dinner.” Leora pointed at the open double doors, at the others filing through them.

“Of course.” Greyson hesitated for such a brief time that Megan felt certain Leora hadn’t noticed it; then he offered Leora his arm. “Shall we?”

She giggled and took it, blushing again, while Megan wished desperately that an entire herd of angels or FBI agents or exorcists would burst into the room and end her misery right there.

No such luck. Instead she stood alone and watched the two of them sail off to the doors until Nick and Roc came to get her.

It wasn’t until she settled herself in her chair—blessedly they’d been shifted around for this meal, and Greyson was across from her rather than right beside her—that she realized the implications of her discussion with Leora.

Did Win truly believe she was the reason Greyson hadn’t agreed to marry his daughter? And did he want that marriage badly enough to kill for it?

Chapter 20

It was the longest meal of her life. The food was probably delicious. She didn’t taste a single bite of it, but she forced it down anyway for appearances. The others seemed to be enjoying it, so she figured she should too.

She’d thought having Greyson opposite her would be easier than having him beside her. She was wrong. If he’d been next to her, she wouldn’t have had to see him every time she looked up from her plate. Looking to his right didn’t help, because Leora was there. Looking to his left was worse; Justine eyed her like a cat watching a broken-legged mouse.

In all it was an absolutely shitty evening, made only slightly worse by how vulnerable she felt—any one of these people could be plotting to kill her—and worse again by watching Greyson swallow scotch like water.

They’d just had their desserts placed in front of them—some sort of gooey cake covered with berries and whipped cream, which Megan couldn’t even think about attempting—when Winston cleared his throat.

“Last year we agreed that control of the lake-perimeter nightclubs would be shared equally by myself and Gunnar. I think he’ll agree it’s working well so far. But there’s a problem in the Boarwell area. We’ve had a few rubendas—employees in the clubs—disappear, and a chef at Galloway’s. Which has made the police nose around, as the chef was human.”

“You had a human employee?” Justine directed her question at Winston but didn’t stop staring at Megan. “Why on earth would you do such a thing?”

“He was an incredible chef,” Gunnar cut in. “You must have seen the review in the Hot Spot. Business doubled after we lured him away from—”

“There had to be one of us who could do just as well. Humans can’t be trusted. They shouldn’t be anywhere near us.”

Megan wasn’t sure who the rest of the table was staring at harder, herself or Greyson. The latter was inspecting the bottom of his empty glass with the sort of concentration most people reserved for lottery tickets or subpoenas, but he must have felt their gazes.

He sighed and looked up. “Now, Justine, let Winston finish speaking before you rush off on one of your little tirades, won’t you?”

Damn it. She should have spoken up, not him. She was letting herself get distracted. Not a good idea, especially not in this gathering.

Especially since that distraction—well, all of the distractions—had kept her from asking him the night before whether he thought Justine’s hatred of humans had led her to try to eliminate Megan not just from the demon world but from the land of the living entirely.

Okay, so now she had motives for two at the table. Who wanted to step up next?

Justine opened her mouth, her beautiful face darkening, but Winston stepped in quickly, shooting Greyson a surprised glance as he did. “The point is, we have reason to believe they’re being attacked by another demon. So we’d like to nip this in the bud here. Have any of our rubendas been stepping on toes? Or is our arrangement causing problems with any of you? You all agreed last year to let us control the area.”

His voice stayed perfectly calm, almost affable, but his anger tickled cold on Megan’s skin.

The others were silent. Winston sighed. “Do we have a rogue demon in the area? Are any of you aware of any problems in other cities that may have been carried into ours?”

Greyson’s voice cut through the general demurrals of the others. “Why are you so sure it’s a demon?”

“What else could it be?” Gunnar pushed his empty plate away—the smear of fruit juice on it looked like blood—and leaned forward. “What else could attack us without our sensing it or being able to overpower it? Seven missing now. We’ve been on alert for weeks. Are you suggesting a human might have been able to sneak up on them and injure them?”

“It could be a witch,” Baylor Regis said. His gray eyes shifted toward Megan. “Has your witch friend been asking questions?”

“It’s not a witch,” Winston said dismissively. “We’ve performed a betchimal on all of them. They would have been aware—”

“Well, well,” Greyson drawled. “Been holding out on us, Win? You never mentioned you know how to do the betchimal.”

“Nobody asked me.” Winston seemed to realize this answer didn’t exactly satisfy the others; Baylor looked as if he wanted to slit Win’s and Gunnar’s throats. “I’ll be happy to teach you all, of course.”

“No need.” Greyson accepted yet another drink from an unobtrusive servant. “I can do it myself.”

What? He’d said—oh, of course. Tera had performed it on her that morning; he must have been listening. She wished she could add it to the long list of reasons to be angry at him, but she couldn’t; she wouldn’t have expected anything less, really.

“I’d certainly like to learn it,” Justine snapped. “Don’t speak for the rest of us, Grey.”

“I wouldn’t dream of speaking for you, Justine. I have far too much intelligence even to be capable of it.”

The entire table held its breath. Justine looked mollified for a second, then realized she’d been insulted; her face flushed, and her icy blast of rage almost knocked Megan out of her chair.

Shit, he really was wasted. She’d never seen him be so rude, at least not without an excellent reason.

“Good thing it wasn’t my intelligence you needed just before Christmas.” Justine’s eyes had gone so narrow they’d almost disappeared; for a second the beautiful woman disappeared, and something much less attractive sat in her place. “It’s—”

He yawned and turned away from her. “Win, you were saying nobody sensed their attacker? If they’ve disappeared, how would you know? Do you have a witness?”

“We did have one,” Gunnar said, after a pause. “He didn’t see anything but was close enough that the betchimal would have alerted him, had it been a witch. So a magical attacker, gone unsensed . . . it has to be another demon.”

“Not necessarily.” Greyson looked at her; their eyes met. Something flared in his, just for a second, and it was gone. “It could be an angel.”

It took a moment for his words to register in her head. She was too busy trying to keep the spasm of sharp pain his gaze had summoned from showing on her face and too busy trying to keep her mind from worrying at Justine’s last sentence like a pit bull with a rodent. Which was just what it felt like: something dirty and riddled with sickness being tugged, a bit at a time, from the depths of her memory.

“What the hell would an angel be doing here?” Gunnar said. “I thought Vergadering had wiped most of them out, and they’d gone into hiding.”