The Darkest Surrender by Gena Showalter

around.”
    Juliette grinned slowly, smugly. “Actually, no. No, I won’t. In case you didn’t know, I won’t be participating this year. I’m running things. In other words, I’m top dog. The elders met, decided, and I am now the be-all and end-all.”
    That so did not bode well for Kaia’s victory. As the woman who called the shots, Juliette would decide who broke the rules and who didn’t, and in the end, she would tabulate the final scores. No wonder Kaia had been invited to participate. Nothing was stacked in her favor.
    “Well, you’re definitely a dog,” she managed to say through her apprehension. How many times over the centuries had she apologized to Juliette? Innumerable. How many fruit baskets had she sent? Hundreds. What morecould she do? Nothing. And she was sick of trying when this was the result.
    Rage flickered in those lavender eyes, but Juliette offered no retort. “Your men must sit with the others.” Motions jerky, she pointed to the back of the auditorium, where a large group of men perched side by side in the balcony, mere spectators.
    “Actually, our men stay with us. And that is not something we will discuss.” Taliyah stalked forward, every inch the predator. “Now, you may continue with the meeting.” The command was not lost despite the polite delivery.
    “I will,” Juliette huffed. “Have no worries on that front.” She launched into a speech about proper behavior before, during and after the games.
    Ignoring her, Kaia “and company” followed her oldest sis. They stopped to the right of the stage, beside another clan. The Eagleshields. Juliette’s family. Her chin lifted another notch. Every member stepped back, away from her, as if she had a contagious disease they didn’t want to catch, and a blush heated her cheeks.
    No, not every member widened the distance, she realized a second later. Neeka the Unwanted had stood alone on the group’s fringes and now stepped forward, closer to the Skyhawks. She was grinning.
    “Taliyah.” Neeka inclined her head respectfully. She was deaf, having been stabbed in the ears during a raid. She’d been a child and hadn’t healed from her wounds, and her own mother had later tried to slay her for daring to live with such an infirmity.
    The woman must have trained at the Tabitha Skyhawk school of Mothering.
    The two females embraced, patting each other on the back once, twice. When they parted, Neeka looked at Kaia. Shockingly, her grin of pearly whites remained in place. She had hair on the softer side of jet and rich brown eyes.A few freckles dotted her nose, darker than her mocha skin, the only “flaws” in an otherwise too-perfect face.
    “All grown up now,” Neeka said in a perfectly modulated, very soft tone.
    “Yep.” She waited for the insults to start flying.
    None were forthcoming. “I hope you’re as lethal as gossip claims.”
    Wait. What? “Probably more so,” she said modestly. Well, modestly for her.
    The grin widened. Clearly, Neeka had taught herself how to read lips. “Good. That’ll make the next few weeks bearable. So, tell me. About a year ago, someone mentioned you hung a human outside a sixty-story building. By his hair. That true?”
    “Well, yeah.” And she wasn’t sorry. “Gwennie was missing, and he was the last one to see her.” She shrugged. “I wanted answers.”
    “Rock on. What about—”
    “Enough,” Juliette snapped. “You are wasting our time with your exaggerations when you should be listening to me. ”
    Exaggerations. Please. Rather than defend herself—and look as though she protested too much—Kaia repeated what had been said. Juliette was behind Neeka, so the poor girl had no idea everyone now watched them, quietly waiting for their cooperation.
    The admonishment didn’t send Neeka back to her clan. She remained beside Taliyah. Odd. What was—
    From the other side of the spacious room, another set of double doors opened. And then Kaia was staring across the