Dessa sat between Pandora and Cole on the sofa. “What the hell are you really doing here?” Pandora asked.

Dessa sighed. This was getting monotonous. “I *told* you,” she said. “I want to join Circle Daybreak. Some really bad stuff happened, and I realized that the Night World is wrong. Thierry’s even helping me out. What more do you want?”

“Answers.” Pandora’s chin was set stubbornly. Cole rolled his eyes. She hadn’t changed at all.

Sighing again, Dessa turned her back to Pandora and pulled up the back of her long-sleeved royal blue shirt. “Take a look,” she said. “This is the thanks I got from the Night World for all my work.” She winced, and Pandora’s light brown eyes widened. Dessa’s back was covered with healing burns. Some were still light pink, and raw and peeling. She bit her lip. The burns were real. And they most certainly were not self-inflicted. Dessa looked like she was in too much pain to have wanted to do this to herself, even as a way of infiltrating Daybreak.

“Okay,” Pandora told her, and Dessa eased the shirt back down. “I’m starting to believe you. But how do we know you didn’t get this and decide to look on the bright side and use it for your benefit?” The other girl glared at her and she sighed. “Okay, never mind.” She looked at Cole. “We have to talk to Thierry about—” She stopped as she realized something. “You know, we never got to talk about your alliance deal.”

Thinking for a moment, Cole nodded. “You’re right. It seems so long ago that I came here and found you again.”

Standing up, Pandora pushed her long hair away from her face. “Wow,” she said. “This is too much for me. I don’t think I’m authorized to make these sort of decisions.” Glancing at her watch, she nodded to herself. “I’m calling Thierry. He should still be on the plane. Cole – watch her.” She made her way over to the phone and picked it up. She dialed and two rings later she head the Lord of the Night World’s voice come over the line.

“What?”

“Oh, Thierry, I just love the way you answer the phone,” she teased.

“What’s going on, Pandora?” Thierry asked, recognizing her voice. “Did the representative show up? Is everything alright?”

Glancing at Cole, Pandora said, “Oh, he’s here. Turns out he’s my old friend and we’re soulmates, but that’s not the point.” Thierry started to say something, but she kept on going. “Remember Dessa Veleur? The spy?”

“The one who saved you and called you Frosty?” There was a hint of amusement coming over the line. Pandora decided to ignore it.

“Yeah,” she told him shortly. “Well, she’s sitting on your sofa, practically covered in burns, and claiming that you said she can join Daybreak. Is that true?”

“Yes, it is,” Thierry replied. “She had to go through some terrible situations because for some reason she wasn’t granted help years ago. As soon as I fill out some papers and write things down in my files, she’ll be a trusted member of Daybreak.”

Pandora rolled her eyes. “Well, gee, Thierry, thanks for informing me of this little tidbit,” she drawled sarcastically. “I mean, she’s only a member of my clan who caused me a few months of humiliation and annoyance by calling me the name of a snowman. Why on earth should I know these things?”

“Pandora, you’re being sarcastic.”

“Oh, no shit, Thier—”

“*Pandora*.” She closed her mouth as he continued. “She’s in Daybreak, whether you knew it before or not. Anything else?”

“Yeah.” Pandora’s eyebrows creased in confusion. “How come she’s joining Daybreak, anyway? I mean, after all the times she and her teams thwarted our work…”

“That you will have to ask her yourself,” he told her, and a bit of that age-old wisdom of his came through in his words.

Pandora nodded, then remembered Thierry was on the phone, not in the room. Gotta marvel at those cell phone connections. “Gotcha, Boss,” she affirmed, and she heard him sigh. He hated being called “Boss” almost as much as “Mr. Lord-of-the-Night-World.” Too bad for him. Pandora liked calling him both.

“I will see you soon, Pandora.”

“See you, Thierry. Have fun at the *dance*.” She laughed and heard him sigh again before he hung up. She clicked the “Off” button on the phone and laid it on the coffee table in front of her.

“Okay, Dessa,” she said, turning to the other girl. “Thierry says you’re in and trusted, which means a lot from him. So, in that case, I’m really sorry about telling Nilsson to kill you.” She held out her hand. “Can we start over? I promise to forget about the ice episode if you promise never to call me Frosty again.”

Dessa laughed. “No problem. I probably would have reacted the same way.” She shook Pandora’s hand and leaned back a bit on the sofa, more comfortable than she had been since she had first appeared at the door. The skin about her large brown eyes was not as tight as it had been. The lines of her face smoothed, making her look younger.

“Um, Thierry said that I should ask you about why you suddenly changed your mind about the Night World. Do you mind talking about it?” Pandora’s voice was filled with uncertainty. She knew she was treading on thin ground, and that she wasn’t going to gain this girl’s trust in a matter of seconds. But she was so curious! She had to know what the reasoning was, and she suspected it had something to do with the burns that covered Dessa’s back. And besides, curiosity had killed the cat, not the otter.

Hesitating, Dessa toyed with the pendant of her necklace. It was a foxglove flower pressed between two very thin circular pieces of glass. A band of white gold framed the whole thing. It was very pretty, and Pandora noticed that the other girl fingered it in an absent, familiar gesture. Finally Dessa began speaking.

“My mother first took my sister and I to see Thierry when we were about seven. Someone turned her away, and at the time I thought it was him. We lived out of our car for a while, before moving to Wyoming, where my younger brothers and sister were born.” She was quiet a moment. “My mother was working for a man named Roald Brocken.” She looked up. “Have you heard of him?”

Thinking for a second, Pandora nodded. “I’ve heard his name mentioned in relation to money and the Night World. I know people have called him an ‘old badger,’ and around here that can be taken literally, so I assume that’s what he is.”

Smiling a little, Dessa gave a slight nod. “He is a badger, in every sense of the word,” she confirmed. “Well, my mother got sick and died. He had been paying off her medical bills, and in a contract she had signed we discovered that we inherited the debt after her death.” Dessa paused and pulled the foxglove pendant back and forth along its chain as she thought of what to say next. “He took my younger brother and sister – the other boy died before he was even a year old – and sent my twin sister and I to a school to learn how to become highly efficient spies.

“My sister was killed by a vampire during our first mission. After that I was the only one left to work off our mother’s debt.” She stopped for a moment, and Pandora used this pause to ask a question.

“Why didn’t you just stop?” she asked. “What was forcing you to work for him, aside from the contract?”

Dessa shook her head. “He had my brother and sister – Tristan and Cassia – in his possession. I couldn’t just leave them with him. I had to do all he said.” Pandora nodded in understanding and took Cole’s hand, linking their fingers together. Her eyes never left Dessa’s face.

“Anyway, my life sort of changed when I met my soulmate,” Dessa continued. “I told him the stuff I’m telling you now. He was the first person I’d ever really talked to about it. I ran into him again later on, and he was more than half-dead. I did the only thing I could.” She shrugged. “I changed him into a ferret ‘shifter. And then I left him the next day.

“I managed to get my brother and sister to safety a while after that. The Night World was planning an attack on a family and I tried to warn them, but they didn’t believe me. I rescued the children, but we were trapped when the Night World caught up to us at an old house and set it on fire – with us inside. My soulmate – Ray – and his team showed up and got me out, but by then I was already badly burned.” She bit her lip, remembering the intense heat of the flames. “Ray talked to Thierry. He arranged it so that I could join.” She gave a small shrug of her shoulders. “So here I am.”

Eyes wide, Pandora tried to think of what to say. “I’m really, really sorry,” she murmured. “I had a little brother, too, once, and I couldn’t even save him. I know what that’s like, but the rest of it…” She made a helpless gesture with the hand that wasn’t held by Cole. “I can’t even imagine dealing with it. I put up with an abusive stepfather and vampires who wanted to kill me, not to mention three years of grief, but that’s *nothing* compared to your life.” Sympathy filled her eyes that were the color of brown autumn leaves. “You must be incredibly strong inside. How do you *do* it?”

Smiling a little, Dessa shrugged. “Take things as they come,” she answered. “Hope it will all change one day. The only thing that kept me going at times was my determination that Cassia and Tristan would not have to endure what my sister and I did.”

Pandora reached out and touched the other girl’s hand. Dessa tensed, but relaxed when she saw the smile that lit up Pandora’s face. “Welcome to Circle Daybreak,” she said. “As a representative, I’m glad to have you here.” Dessa grinned back.

“Thank you,” she replied. “I don’t know how well I’ll be received around here. After all, I was always trying to ‘thwart’ your missions, to quote you.”

“And I really am sorry about trying to kill you,” Pandora added.

Dessa laughed. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not the first time it’s happened. And you did sort of have a good reason. I would have done the same thing.”

Nodding, Pandora turned around to face Cole. “Now, you.”

His impossibly blue eyes widened. “Me?”

“Yes, you.” Pandora played with his hand, massaging it with both of hers. “Do you agree with all the terms of this alliance thing? You think it’s fair, and a good idea, and all that?”

He nodded, his face serious. “Yes,” he said, and she could feel that he did. He agreed completely with what Shapeshifters United stood for. She nodded.

“Okay,” she consented. “If you believe in it, it must be good. I trust you.” Her eyes widened. She had meant to say she trusted his judgement, but it had come out wrong. No, actually, it had come out *right*.

Blue eyes assessed her face. He smiled. She knew that he understood what this meant. She had not trusted anyone for a very long time. Those three words meant even more than “I love you.”

He held out his hand. Pandora grasped it and they shook on it. Then, using her hand, he pulled her to him and kissed her. <<There,>> his mental voice whispered in her head. <<That seals our union.>> Pandora knew he wasn’t talking about the allegiance between Shapeshifters United and Circle Daybreak.

Dessa made a point of examining the pattern of the sofa’s upholstery. She hid a smile. She knew what it was like to find your soulmate; if you didn’t fight the connection, it made you feel loved and cherished. It was the most amazing and natural thing in the world.

When Cole finally let go of Pandora, she was breathless. She glanced over her shoulder at the other girl, who was intently studying the cloth of the couch. She grinned. The girl was cool, despite their past encounters.

“Hey, Dessa,” she said, getting the other girl’s attention. Dessa looked up and smiled.

“I understand,” she said. “I found my soulmate recently, as well.”

Still grinning, Pandora took the next step towards the beginning of a friendship. “You know we’re in the same clan, right?” When Dessa nodded, she continued. “How come you never go to the meetings?”

“Well…” The other girl looked slightly uncomfortable. “I’m not exactly liked by most of the other clan members.”

Pandora clapped her hand down on Dessa’s shoulder. “Now you will be,” she informed her. “I’ll take you. I go to most of the meetings, and no one would dare get into an argument with me. You saw how I get. Most of them give up halfway through. They know they can’t win.”

Dessa saw what the other girl was trying to do. She was making up for her suspicious behavior earlier, and attempting to become friends. Dessa decided that wouldn’t be so bad. “Sure,” she said. “It sounds like fun.”