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of that whole mess?” she clarified.
    “I’m already out of it,” he insisted. “I’m just hoping to get it through his head.”
    They stepped into their hotel room, and came face to face with a tall, red-haired woman who was pacing in their sitting area. Gabriel immediately set Betsy behind him.
    “What are you doing in here, Lucretia?”
    “Is that any way to talk to your own wife?” she asked in a pouty voice.
    “You are not my wife, Betsy is.” he insisted.
    “She’s what all the fuss is about?” the woman scoffed. “She’s just a little thing, Gabriel, and you haven’t even bitten her. She won’t even make a morsel.”
    “I don’t suggest you continue with that line of thinking,” he told her with a glare that could have melted the ceiling.
    “And what are you going to do about it if I don’t?” she wanted to know. “It’s not as if you could stop me.”
    “Betsy, you remember what I said to you while we were on the plane?” said Gabriel pointedly. “That item could be pretty useful about now, eh?”
    “Way ahead of you, Gabriel,” she answered. She slid her hand into the small bag she had slung on her arm, but she didn’t bother to pull it out again. Instead, she flipped off the safety with her thumb and slid her finger over the trigger, ready to shoot the she-wolf right through the bag just as Gabriel had instructed her.
    “Oh, now Gabriel, don’t be like that.” Lucretia cooed. “You know I’ve always been willing to share. I had no problem with anything when I heard you’d got yourself a little whore. You could have kept her as your whore forever and I would have never cared. But calling her the lady of the house and making her your wife—doesn’t that make her the new Alpha in a way? Now, that I cannot abide.”
    “You are not my wife, not the Alpha female of my pack, none of that crazy shit you’re always going on about.” he said. “I never loved you, never wanted to marry you, at all. You tried to make me into your plaything instead of your equal. But now, Lucretia, now I have realized you are not my equal. You’re not, because I’m better than you.”
    “Don’t talk to me like that.” she growled. “My family made yours. I’m a goddess compared to you. And that little bitch is nothing compared to me!”
    Just then, Lucretia lunged forward, trying to get around Gabriel. Betsy screamed, and her finger contracted around the trigger. The silver bullet went right between the angry woman’s eyes just as she began to morph. She only made it halfway to becoming a wolf before it hit, and she changed back again as she fell to the floor.
    “I’ll be back, you little whore,” she told her before she closed her eyes and stopped moving.
    “She’ll be back?” Betsy asked Gabriel, confused.
    “She’s one of the old ones, Betsy,” he explained. “The bullet may have stopped her for now, but it won’t keep her down more than a day. We’ve got to lay low until you can receive the bite. I’ll not put you in even greater danger than this.”
    “How can she come back?”
    “The Amulet of Fenrir,” he told her. “It is said that once a werewolf touches it, they can no longer die from anything but Gordral’s lance. But most of us believe the items are nothing but a myth. It’s been said that Lucretia’s family keeps them in a crypt, hidden where the body of Lupo was supposedly placed.”
    “Supposedly?”
    “Lupo never died, Betsy,” he explained. “He is still alive. He is said to be the first bearer of the Amulet.”
    “How can these objects affect a werewolf?” she wanted to know.
    “It all stems back to alchemical studies.” he said. “But let us leave now. I can explain it better once we are in a safer place. I don’t know how long it will be until Lucretia is able to revive. I know just where to go. Come with me.”
    “Don’t we want to tell Rico?”
    “There’s no time, and we can’t even be sure if he remains on our side,” he told her.