I kept my face perfectly composed despite the panic fluttering in my chest like a trapped bird. The Regent's pale eyes gleamed with triumph behind his ornate mask, clearly believing he'd caught me in a lie. And he had—but I couldn't let him know that.
"Nothing at all?" I asked, injecting just the right amount of confused innocence into my voice. My mind raced, desperately constructing a plausible explanation. "That's... odd."
"Isn't it?" Valerius's grip tightened fractionally on my waist as he guided me through another turn. "Not a single record of a Shadow Falls pack. No territory listings, no Alpha registration, no Luna Moon in any werewolf database across the country."
I could feel Kaelen's eyes burning into us from across the ballroom. One signal from me and he would intervene, but that would only confirm Valerius's suspicions. This was my battle to fight.
"Well," I said, taking a deep breath, "that's not entirely surprising."
