Ava sat on the edge of her bed staring at the dress hanging on the wardrobe door.
Deep crimson silk. Varder had sent it an hour ago with instructions that she was to wear it to the Gala tonight. No note. No explanation. Just the dress and the implicit command that came with it.
Stand beside me. Look appropriate. Play your role.
She looked at it and I thought about Simon in the dungeons.
She thought about Ryder's words on the stairs. You go to the gala this evening. You stand next to my brother in front of every pack leader in the territory. And you let me handle the boy. Something about those words disturbed her, she couldn't trust him, she couldn't trust anyone.
She had spent the last three hours thinking. Planning. Trying to find out what needed to happen next and how to make it happen without getting caught the way she'd gotten caught in the bag, in the garden, in every single moment of the last twenty-four hours when she had tried to do something and failed.
