Selena’s POV
The instant I was certain that Ash couldn't trace my steps, I unwound Elena's form the way a snake would slough off its old skin. My real features showed — keener, more chill, full of the heavy lines of many hundreds of years. It was oddly satisfying to finally stop pretending, shed the mask of sympathy I’d been wearing for weeks.
Fool, I muttered to myself as the pursuing weight of Ash reached me. "Beautiful, powerful, utterly manipulable fool."
I had a rendezvous with King Jubril's messengers at the same deserted hunting lodge where I'd previously presided over this aspect of the operation. Two shifters—Vex and a female operative whose name I had never bothered to learn—stood waiting with obvious impatience.
"Well?" Vex demanded without preamble. "Is the True Alpha locke
