Daniel was nervous. And he really didn’t have an outlet for it.

He wasn’t the kind of guy who smoked, or paced, ‘or babbled,’ he thought to himself, in order to relieve the anxious knot that he had found in his stomach.

The phone had finally woken him up at three forty-five in the afternoon. He was disoriented upon awakening, and found himself struggling to remember where he was. When he finally did, he glanced at the clock, wondering just how badly he had screwed things up.

He had contemplated not answering the phone. He had known that it would be his Bolverk, calling to reprimand him about his botched assignment.

But it hadn’t been. It had been his Ulfric. And he had thought how strange it was, to be relieved to speak to the king, himself.

Daniel’s relief was short lived, though, as Richard had been calling to inform him that Anita wanted to speak with him.

And the werewolf wondered if Richard had called because Anita had been too angry to do it herself.

Now here he was, in his Bolverk’s living room, waiting to incur her wrath. Would she ask what had happened first? Or would she come out guns blazing, as he had heard she had a habit of doing?

As it was, he was just getting tenser. It was an unusual state for him to find himself in. He didn’t know what to do with it. So, he simply drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch, to a tune he remembered playing in his high school days.

It occurred to him to wonder why they were in Anita’s living room, as opposed to Jean-Claude’s personal rooms at the Circus. But he supposed that it was a good sign. At least he wasn’t in a bad enough mess that he was in trouble with the Master of the City.

Besides, it unnerved him to be around the vampires. It was difficult to hold a conversation with someone when you had to stop yourself from looking in their eyes.

He looked at his watch again. Four thirty. He guessed that Anita had found a way to get Jason home from school other than him.

Daniel cringed again. He couldn’t believe that he had messed it up. He shifted his weight nervously on the couch, glanced again at his watch, and wondered how long they were going to make him wait.

Richard came in through the rear door, surprised to find Anita pacing in the kitchen. He had seen Daniel’s can out front, and had expected to hear yelling from his Bolverk the minute that he came in. That was why he had decided to come in through the back. He hadn’t wanted to interrupt the scene that he was sure would have been going on in the living room.

He certainly never expected to find his maim first, ask questions later, Bolverk still in the kitchen, pacing around, looking almost lost.

He actually stood in the doorway for a minute, stunned by the sight, before Anita saw him and suddenly became herself again.

“Richard, close the damned door.”

He did as she said, entering the room. “What’s going on, Anita? Daniel is here, isn’t he? That’s his can out front.” Richard cautiously sniffed at the air. “He’s here, and he’s nervous as hell. Would you just go and put him out of his misery already?” Richard thought about who it was that he was talking to, held up a hand, and clarified the statement. “I mean that entirely figuratively, of course.”

Anita looked at him and sighed, sitting heavily at the table and taking a swig of her coffee. “I just don’t know what to say.” She caught the incredulous look on his face, continued speaking. “I know, I know. The thing is, I was all prepared to ream his ass out for screwing up with Jason’s ride. But Jason said something to me this morning. And I talked to Micah. Something happened last night. I felt it. Something bad is coming, Richard.” She stood again, resumed pacing. “I felt it, Micah felt it.”

”I know,” Richard told her. “So did I.”

This didn’t surprise her. With the connection between them due to the triumvirate, she had figured that he would have. Even if the other wolves hadn’t. “Don’t you want to know what it is, what it was?” She paused, spared him a glance. “From what Jason said, I think that Daniel felt it too, whatever it was. If he did, and that’s what caused his unusual reaction at the lupanar, then I’d really rather figure it out then yell at him about Jason’s ride to school.”

Richard thought about what she said. What he had felt last night had been bad. Dark, powerful and cloying. From what he knew, Daniel was far less Alpha than a significant number of the pack, yet he seemed to have felt something that the others hadn’t. She was right; the need to talk to him about it far outweighed the need to reprimand him over something so trivial.

But this was Anita, and he knew her. “But you’re going to do both, aren’t you?” Richard asked her, already knowing the answer.

She threw him a wry glance. “Well, I’m still Bolverk, aren’t I?” With that, Anita stopped at the table, drained the remainder of her coffee from the cup, and went into the other room, where Daniel awaited his fate.