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entrance to the more heavily populated underground castle and its outbuildings, which had been carved directly out of the stone of the earth. Most Lycanthropes lived in the large network of underground caverns beneath the wild mountains and forests of Russia. It was probably one of those caverns that had seen the grisly death of her parents. She had been too young to remember the place, but she had heard hints over the years that had led her to make the assumption.
    This little alcove was prettily decorated with a hand-carved stone bench and gorgeous pictures on the walls that the talented Lycanthrope stonecutters had created. She liked the privacy of it for reading or for thinking. She sometimes liked to just let her mind wander into the pictures depicted around her, touching the shapes of the carvings, thinking about nothing really at all.
    But the problem with picking out favorite places was that after a while they weren’t all that secret. People learned of them. And to prove it, she heard the shuffle of a step around the corner.
    “Seth, I can hear you,” she sighed.
    Seth poked his head around the curve in the wall that had so poorly hidden him. He looked sheepish under his too-long café au lait curls and the light dusting of freckles over his nose. He was as darkly tanned as his father, so the little dots were hardly visible, but Leah had spent too much time with him not to notice the characteristic.
    Leah scooted over and patted the bench next to her. Seth, all long limbs and angular lines, immediately took a seat, leaning back with his hands folded behind his head and his feet crossed at the ankles.
    “I don’t mean to bug you,” he said as an afterthought. “If you want me to go, I will.”
    “Nah.” She gave him a blasé shrug. “It doesn’t matter.”
    The truth was she had been close to Seth since they were kids. Seth was the son of Gideon the Ancient and Legna, the Demon ambassador to the Lycanthrope court. He was also, supposedly, the second half of a prophecy about two miracle children, Leah being the first. The problem was, while Leah had been showing signs of power over the element of Time ever since she had been two, Seth hadn’t shown so much as an inkling of the nature of his supposed power over the element of Space. In Seth’s mind, this made him somehow ... less.
    “Whatchya been doing?” Seth asked her. “Staring at the walls again?”
    “Shut up.” She made a fist and punched him in the arm. He was lanky and kind of scrawny in her opinion, so he made a face and rubbed at the spot. But he didn’t complain. He felt bad enough about coming up short in other areas; he wasn’t about to let a girl know she’d hurt him. Even if it was just Leah.
    “Did you know I had an uncle?” she asked him.
    “Duh. He’s the Enforcer.”
    “Not Kane! I know you know about Kane. Why would I ask you that? You’re so stupid sometimes.”
    “I am not stupid!”
    Seth’s face flushed at the insult and he surged to his feet, his hands balling into fists. Leah saw him shaking as a tide of nasty words and insults rushed through his brain and she waited for him to choose the right one, the most cutting insult he could come up with. He was really good at them. Almost as though he had a stockpile of them that he held in careful reserve just for moments like this. He probably did. The Lycanthrope kids their age knew full well what Seth was supposed to be, and they never missed a chance to taunt him for not living up to the Demon prophecy’s expectations. He was the son of the oldest and most powerful Demon in the entire world and had nothing to show for it.
    “Why are you wasting your time thinking about a family that wants nothing to do with you anyway?” Seth wanted to know.
    It was a good one, she had to admit. Even knowing it was coming didn’t dull the sting any. She didn’t get mad, though. She just absorbed the pain and tried to blink back the urge to tear up. After all, the truth was the