None of them except you.”
Faran looked up in surprise. “Why me?”
“The Vidonese don’t know your human face. Werewolves don’t show up on the Knights’s security sensors the way vampires do. You can still walk freely though the palace and the city.”
It was true that Faran hadn’t worked at the palace very often. His comings and goings involved a lot of sneaking around, posing as a tourist, and once showing up with Sam holding his leash. They’d both been the butt of jokes after that one.
“You’re saying I’m to be the Company’s eyes and ears?” Faran said, a mix of apprehension and excitement stirring inside him. “Who knows about this?”
“Company HQ, the king, Amelie and Kyle. That’s it.”
“Even though Kyle is from Vidon?”
“He knows you, and he loves Amelie. He wants her to be safe.”
Faran narrowed his eyes. “Why wouldn’t she be?”
“Vidon just forced Marcari to give up its greatest protection. The two nations have been at war forever. You have to admit, it looks suspicious. There are even whispers of Vidon’s collusion with outside forces. King Renault is willing to go along with the agreement up to a point. He wants the marriage and alliance to work, but he wants a hotline to the Company if things go wrong. That’s you.”
“I see.” Faran shifted uneasily. He was ideally suited for the task, but was—at least compared to the centuries-old vampires—a junior agent.
Sam ducked his dark head. “Tell Chloe all this, will you? With the wedding so near, she’s sleeping in the palace. She needs to know why I cannot come to see her.”
“Of course,” Faran agreed, wishing he had someone expecting him.
He dismissed the thought, even if the emotion behind it snagged in his soul like a barb. Wanting Lexie—a woman who saw him as a slavering beast—was no way to keep his head in the game.
* * *
Pounding woke Lexie out of a fitful doze. She cracked open her eyes, squinting into the darkness. For a long, foggy moment she couldn’t figure out what had dragged her to consciousness, but then she heard it again. A fist thumping on the heavy wood door to her guest suite in the palace.
Foreboding brought her fully awake. She groped for her phone and checked the time—five o’clock. Her anxiety deepened, making her clench her fingers around the phone.
The pounding started afresh.
No one pounded on a door before dawn for a happy reason. She shoved the covers aside and got up, pulling on a robe. Her feet found slippers somewhere between the bedroom and the tiny sitting room.
“Who is it?” she called.
“Open the door, Ms. Haven,” a male voice demanded. “It is Captain Valois of the Marcari Police Department. We would like to ask you some questions.”
Lexie hesitated, her fingers on the door handle. The officer was speaking English even though the country’s official language was French. It was a courtesy she’d encountered everywhere in the tiny kingdom, but for once it seemed sinister. Whatever questions the captain had to ask, he wanted to be clearly understood. With a hard swallow, she opened the door.
Valois didn’t so much as blink at her disheveled appearance. “May I come in?”
Lexie stepped aside. The captain was somewhere in his forties, with nondescript brown hair and worry lines. But his uniform was neatly pressed, as were those of the guards who stood to either side of him. All three marched into the tiny front room, immediately overcrowding the small space.
“What can I do for you, Captain?” she asked. Her voice was thick with sleep, but firm.
“Please remain here with me while we search your quarters,” he said evenly.
“Search my things?” Lexie exclaimed. “What for?”
Valois gave a nod to his henchmen. One started for her bedroom, the other picked up her bag of camera equipment. Lexie darted forward protectively, but the captain grabbed her arm. “Let my men do their work, Ms. Haven. I promise you they will not be unnecessarily destructive.”
Lexie pulled away, feeling utterly ambushed. She ran her hands through the rough tangle of her unbrushed hair. “What’s going on?”
Valois clasped his hands behind his back. “A distressing circumstance has emerged. We are questioning everyone who was in the reception hall last night.”
She suddenly noticed the dark circles under his eyes. Valois appeared to have been up all night. “Distressing circumstance? You mean the shooting?”
He gave a slight shake of his head. “Not that. You were photographing the wedding band.” It wasn’t a question.
She winced as something clattered inside her equipment bag, and the man searching it swore under his breath. “Yes, I was.”
Lexie pictured the heavy gold band set with the magnificent fire rubies of Vidon. The stones were part of Vidon’s crown jewels—and some of the finest specimens in the world. Kyle had ordered them reset for Amelie as a symbol of unity between the two kingdoms. The sight of them in the swirling gold band had dazzled the guests at the reception. “I was about halfway through when everything happened.”
“As I understand it, the security detail had disabled the alarms and opened the case to make the process easier.”
“Sure. They were standing right there. The ring was perfectly safe.” Lexie stopped short, realizing what she was saying. Her irritation at the intruders faded beneath a mounting dismay. “But they left the ring unguarded when they went to protect the princess.”
“Exactement,” he said grimly. “The ring is missing. We can only assume that it has been stolen.”
Lexie’s mouth dropped open. “Surely there were security cameras on the display case!”
“Indeed there were, but it seems that they malfunctioned at exactly the right moment. There were a number of incidents last night that had unusually bad timing. The chaos caused by a pack of hunting dogs, for instance, that just happened to be available right when Sam Ralston’s pet wolf ran by. Or the fact that an order to dismiss the Company guards was given to the Vidonese at a time when it was guaranteed to cause a riot.”
Bewildered, Lexie struggled to take in everything Valois was telling her. A sick feeling spiraled through her, especially when she knew how unusual it was for someone like Valois to reveal so many details to a civilian. There was only one reason he would do so—which was confirmed in his next words.
“But you know all of this already, don’t you, Ms. Haven?” the captain asked with an icy glint in his eyes. “Once we established that the ring hadn’t simply been knocked aside during the chaos, we put our heads together and thought about that familiar threesome: means, motive and opportunity. You were the one closest to the unguarded ring, and you had a perfect excuse for being there.”
Lexie felt the blood drain from her face. “What
