surprised expression changing to one of understanding. “Oh, you’re new.” She pointed to the men standing next to the podium. “His name on this planet is Stefan Liuz, which is how most people refer to him, but I prefer to call him by the name he was known by in our original dimension—Natchook ot Renz.” She sighed and stared forward again. The sound was as girly as a teenaged Justin Bieber fan.
Keira followed her gaze, trying to figure out which man was the leader of this motley crew. The taller one had his back to her and she couldn’t tell which pret clan he belonged to. The one facing the group had a Latin look to him—dark hair, darker skin. Wiry build. She leaned over to the catshifter. “Which one is he?”
“The one facing us.” Another sigh. “He planned all of this before he even came here, did you know that? He tried to make things better for all of us in our home dimension, and when that failed he already had plan B in place.” The other woman stuck out her hand. “I’m Tracy, by the way.”
Keira introduced herself and shook Tracy’s hand. “How did Natchook try to make things better?” she asked with a glance at the man under discussion.
“He assassinated the leader of the Talisians.”
Shock robbed Keira of speech for a few seconds. She’d heard of this man. He was the vampire Tobias Caine had been tasked with finding and punishing for the murder of Kai Vardan, the leader of Talis.
What had Caladh gotten her into? Did he even know that Natchook or Liuz, or whatever his name was, was involved? This was about more than a pret trying to bring more prets through the rift.
Much, much more.
“He’s going to speak!” Tracy gave an excited clap of her hands, then clasped them together and sat forward on the edge of her seat.
Keira looked up front and, indeed, Stefan Liuz had stepped behind the podium. When he spoke, she was surprised at the soothing quality to his tones and his succinct style of speaking. She’d expected more verbosity.
But the affected importance she’d also expected was there in spades as he talked about his vision for preternaturals’ place in society. “Will we allow humans to move forward with their plans to force us to have microchips implanted so they can track us? I say no! We must fight for our rights. Fight to create our own destinies, not settle for the ones allowed us by humans. And the only way we can truly create our destiny is through supporting and actively creating chaos,” he said, punching his fist for emphasis. “It is our duty to subvert the hold on the preternatural community that every council around the world currently exerts. With anarchy we can establish our hold over humans around the world. Their governments will fall into chaos. Only through chaos can we truly be free.”
He paused while the group applauded. Keira clapped as well, not wanting others to think she wasn’t wholeheartedly in support of this nonsense. But really, this was batshit craziness.
She had the sudden sensation she was being watched, and she glanced around to see who was looking at her. No one seemed to be overtly staring her way. She gave a slight shake of her head and faced forward again. She was on edge and chalked it up to her imagination. Keira was finally where she needed to be, and because that was neck deep in trouble she was being paranoid. Though if anyone in this room found out she wasn’t legit, she’d be in deadly trouble.
Stefan went on to blah-blah some more. Frankly, she wasn’t all that interested in his rhetoric, so she only listened with half an ear. She was more interested in the people in attendance. As nonchalantly as she could, she looked around the room and saw varying degrees of attention from those around her. A few had the same rapt expression of fanaticism that Tracy did, while others looked like they were holding on until the meeting was over so they could head upstairs to the club.
Finally Stefan said, “We all have our parts to play. Each one of you is integral to our success.” He swept his arms open. “The future is ours!”
More applause broke out, then Stefan stepped away from the podium. Prets of all clans, Tracy included, rushed to the front to speak to him directly. He smiled and clasped shoulders and shook hands, all the while