“Maddie.”

“Yes, Maddie. There are fifteen hundred shapeshifters in the Pack. One more screwed-up kid isn’t going to break anything.”

“It’s not about that.”

“Then what is it?”

“People around me die, Curran. They drop like flies. I’ve gone through life leaving a trail of dead bodies behind me. My mother is dead, my stepfather is dead, my guardian is dead, my aunt is dead—because I killed her, and when my real father finds me, he’ll move heaven and earth to make me dead. I don’t want Julie to live stumbling from one violent clash to another, always worried that people she cares about won’t survive. You and I will never have normal, but if she stayed in that school, she could have.”

Curran shrugged. “The only people who can have normal are the ones unaffected by all the fucked-up shit that happens around them. Julie doesn’t want normal. She probably can’t deal with it. She’ll get out of that school and run right into the fire to prove to herself she can take the heat. It will happen one way or another. Keeping her away just ensures she won’t be prepared when she’s on her own.”

I leaned back against the night table. “I just want her to be safe. I don’t want anything bad to happen to her.”

Curran pulled me close. “We can keep her safe here. She can go to one of our schools, or we can take her to somewhere in the city. She is yours, but now that we’re mated, she’s also mine, which makes her the ward of the Beast Lord and his mate. Trust me, nobody wants to piss the two of us off. Besides, we have three hundred shapeshifters in the Keep at any moment, and each one of them will kill anything that threatens her. Can’t get safer than that.”

He had a point. I couldn’t have Julie staying with me before, when I lived in a shabby apartment with failing heat. It got attacked every time I found a lead on one of my cases. I’d worked for the Order of Knights of Merciful Aid back then, and it demanded every ounce of my time. Julie would have been on her own for most of the day, without me to take care of her and make sure she ate and stayed safe. Things were different now. Now Julie could stay here, in the Keep full of homicidal maniacs who grew teeth the size of switchblades and erupted into a violent frenzy when threatened.