the blanket about the still-shivering young man.
“Is there some reason we need to be? Safe, I mean.”
“How much do you remember?” Lyall swept a lock of brown hair back behind Biffy’s ear in a motherly fashion. Despite all his transformations, his nudity, and his beard, the young man still looked every inch the dandy. He would make an odd addition to the gruff soldiering masculinity of the Woolsey Pack.
Biffy jerked and fear flooded into his eyes. “Extermination mandate! I found out that there is a… Oh, dear God, I was supposed to report in! I missed the appointment with my lord.” He made as if to try and rise.
Lyall held him back easily.
Biffy turned on him frantically. “You don’t understand—he’ll swarm if I don’t make it back. He knew I was going after the potentate. How could I have gotten caught? I’m such an imbecile. I know better than that. Why, he’ll…” He trailed off. “How long was I down there?”
Lyall sighed. “He did swarm.”
“Oh, no.” Biffy’s face fell. “All that work, all those agents pulled out of covert placement. It’ll take years to reintegrate them. He’s going to be so very disappointed in me.”
Lyall tried to distract him. “So, what do you remember?”
“I remember being trapped under the Thames and thinking I would never escape.” Biffy brushed one hand over his face. “And that I really needed a shave. Then I remember water flooding in and waking in the darkness to shouting and gunshots. And then I remember a lot of pain.”
“You were dying.” Lyall paused, searching for the right words. Here he was, hundreds of years old, and he could not explain to one boy why he had been changed against his will.
“Was I? Well, good thing that didn’t take. My lord would never forgive me if I up and died without asking permission first.” Biffy sniffed, suddenly distracted. “Something smells amazing.”
Professor Lyall gestured to the plate of raw steak sitting nearby.
Biffy tilted his head to see, then looked back at Lyall in confusion. “But it’s not cooked. Why does it smell so good?”
Lyall cleared his throat. As a Beta, he’d never had to perform this particular task. It was the Alpha’s job to acclimatize the newly turned, the Alpha’s job to explain and be there and be strong and be, well, Alphaish for a new pup. But Lord Maccon was halfway to Dover by now, and Lyall was left to deal with this mess without him.
“You know that dying issue I just mentioned? Well, it did take, in its way.”
At which juncture, Professor Lyall had to watch those beautiful blue eyes turn from dazed confusion to horrified realization. It was one of the saddest things he had ever seen in all his long life.
At a loss, Lyall handed Biffy the plate of raw steak.
Unable to control himself, the young dandy tore into the meat, gulping it down in elegant, but very rapid, bites.
For the sake of his dignity, both Professor Lyall and Tunstell pretended not to notice that Biffy was crying the entire time. Tears dribbled down his nose and onto the steak while he chewed, and swallowed, and chewed, and sobbed.
The preceptor’s picnic, as it turned out, was a little more elaborate than Alexia and Madame Lefoux had been led to believe. They trundled a sizable distance into the countryside, away from Florence in the direction of Borgo San Lorenzo, arriving eventually at an archaeological excavation. While the antiquated carriage attempted to park on a hillock, their Templar host announced with much pride that they would be engaging in an Etruscan tomb picnic.
The site was lovely, shaded with trees of various bushy Mediterranean inclinations that took being leafy and green quite seriously. Alexia stood up while the carriage maneuvered around, the better to take in her surroundings.
“Do sit down, Alexia! You shall fall, and then how will I explain to Floote that you had—” Madame Lefoux stopped herself before she inadvertently mentioned Alexia’s unfortunate condition in front of the preceptor, but it was clear her worry was largely for the child’s safety.
Alexia ignored her.
They were surrounded by a series of tombs: low, circular, and grass covered, almost organic in appearance, quite unlike anything Alexia had ever seen or read about. Never having visited anything more stimulating than a Roman bathhouse, Alexia was practically bouncing with excitement—if a lady once more corseted and trussed up to the height of proper British fashion and encumbered by both parasol and pregnancy could be described as “bouncing.” She sat down