It is a full war now. Everyone in the hotel is speaking of it. The Redd Gothan pack wants their princess, their true alpha I think she is, back. And they will kill to get her. She has been hiding here for months, ever since the Lycurgus and Adrastos Houses rescued her and some of her female packmates from those bastards who’d kept them and hurt them.

The only problem is—the Lupoiux female wants nothing to do with the beasts who whelped her. And she has said so in my hearing. But a pack…is only as strong as their true alpha. 

Without her…they are weaker than they should be.

Theo had explained all of this to me years ago, and then Mak.

Lupoiux were just as complex as Dardaptoans, I believe.

I should go back a bit, shouldn’t I?

To the day I got out of the Healer’s Hall again. 

Kellis was waiting there. And some of Kierce’s guards. Coty, too. She looked…frail. More weak than I was used to seeing her. What had happened to us drained her in ways I don’t think she understood. How could she? I barely did myself.

It was the empathic gifts, I suspect. Feeling what others feel…it can be such an enormous drain of energy. 

That is something I am learning myself. 

Everything has gotten darker now.

The Lupoiux war has just deepened. The Taniss Industries employees are even starting to notice something happening. 

Female employees—unmated ones, anyway—are going missing at an alarming rate. This is something Coty shared with me—having eavesdropped on her Taniss cousins. Coty eavesdrops frequently.

The Taniss alpha Jason, a rather imposing male, I must say, has been searching relentlessly. I do not know how many of these innocent young human women have been taken. The mere idea…breaks my heart for them. Coty says she knows most of the females who have disappeared—they are within five or ten years of her, all unmarried, and almost always they have no close family. It is almost as if someone somewhere has known of these females all along.

And is targeting them now.Using them for something I can’t hope to fathom.

Jason Taniss has recovered four of the missing females now. But the last…she has just been missing some four or five hours, Coty believes.

And Coty is very angry and afraid. This woman who has disappeared—Celena Hopkins—is a friend of hers from before. When they worked together in Taniss Industries IT department.

Coty is intensely worried.

Jason Taniss and some of his pack are searching for Celena now. 

The Taniss Equa have adjusted to life here, I think. But the idea that a Taniss Industries complex is situated just north of town—it still infuriates many of our people, I believe. At least those who know what Leo Taniss and Albert Boltier did. And they wish to see all connected with TI pay.

Not all of our Kind want peace now.

They believe this hatred is behind the  repeated attempts on young Cass’s life. 

The mere thought of that child being targeted like this boils me with anger. She is so…different…from the rest of the Taniss females. She is softer, dreamier. She wants nothing to do with their business, all the child wants to do is work with plants. She has so much insight into the growing of things for one so young.

When I was released from the Healers’ Hall (they should just give me my own suite there, it would save so much time) she sought me out. To make sure that I was recovering. And she sat with me a long while, there in my little suite. I know she has a much larger suite in the House of Dardanos itself. Next to the dahn. But she was content to sit with me in my tiny quarters. Just…talking.

I suspect Cass is needing connections to this new world, more than the girl realizes. 

For her, too, it is almost as if she has just been parked here at the hotel. But because of her family connections, Cass will never be forgotten about.

Sometimes I don’t know which is worse—being forgotten, or not.