The Twiceborn Queen (The Proving Book 2) by Marina Finlayson Page B

and a bank of filing cabinets that looked the part, but she barely worked. Those cabinets were so empty you could have hidden a body in them. She lived off the interest from a bucket load of investments, but the most she ever did in this room was sign a few papers. She had an accountant and a financial planner who handled everything for her.
    She hadn’t even earned the money in the first place—it was the “seed capital” a dragon queen provided to each of her queen daughters when they left her protection to face the rigours of the proving. It wasn’t much of a risk for the queen—only the winner got to keep it. The losers’ assets came back to their mother, and if they’d managed the money well, often with a substantial profit. Leandra—or her financial advisors, at least—had turned a small fortune into a significantly larger one.
    I was now the beneficiary, and determined Elizabeth wouldn’t see a penny of her money back.
    Garth sighed and checked his watch for at least the third time since sitting down across the desk from me. The chair next to him awaited his brother, the pack leader. It amused me to receive Trevor from the position of power behind a desk, as he’d done to me only last week. I wanted him in no doubt as to who was in charge.
    “Do you want me to call you when he gets here?” I asked, as Garth shifted restlessly. Not for the first time that morning, I rearranged the pens on the red leather that was set into the desk top. His nerves were catching. “You could go make Steve’s happy life miserable instead of waiting around.”
    I’d considered not having him present at all. Though they were brothers, Garth was an exile. Some pack leaders might take offence at his inclusion in the interview. But I had Trevor pegged as a fairly level-headed guy, and last week he’d seemed to reject Garth more because of pressure from the rest of the pack than from any personal inclination.
    Besides, Garth might be able to push his brother to join us in ways I couldn’t. I had to take every advantage I could find.
    “I’ll wait,” Garth growled.
    Yesterday’s playfulness had disappeared. Grumpy Garth was back.
    “When’s full moon?” I asked.
    The scowl deepened. Asking a werewolf when full moon was due was like accusing a woman of having PMS. But it was a valid question. The proximity of full moon did affect werewolves’ moods, no two ways about it. And if Trevor was feeling its pull he’d be more prickly and unreasonable than normal.
    “Not for eight nights.”
    That was common too. Ask a schoolteacher how long it is till the holidays, and they’ll answer you to the hour. Werewolves were the same. They knew exactly when to expect the moon. It was never “about a week” or “in a fortnight”. Eight nights. Eight nights exactly until they were forced to change, whether they wanted to or not, and either run wild or lock themselves safely away. Any other night they could take wolf form or not as they wished. But on full moon they couldn’t resist the pull of their darker nature.
    Full moon night was a bad night to meet a werewolf.
    Not that there was ever a great night to meet a werewolf. I’d had personal experience in how terrifying such an encounter could be.
    “How long have you been a werewolf?” I asked on impulse.
    Also not a polite question in shifter society, and for a moment I thought he wouldn’t reply. Leandra had taken him on as a favour to Trevor after the pack leader had been forced to exile him from the pack. She’d found him a useful addition to her team, but she hadn’t been interested in his personal history. Whereas I felt very close to him, despite only meeting him a week ago, in less-than-ideal circumstances. Funny how bonding it can be to dig up a grave together. They should include it in team-building management courses. But I still knew very little about him. He’d mentioned last week that he’d been turned, but hadn’t gone into detail.
    “Sixteen years,” he