"I'd say that was on her, too," Natasha says. It's not meant to be comforting, exactly. It's just the truth. However lucky Alex had been, she must have still done something right, or else she wouldn't still be alive.

His ext question, at least, was one Natasha could answer with total honesty. "If I were her, I'd be in another country, laying low. Moscow would probably welcome a werewolf who'd killed a powerful vampire. But if not there, Prague, Budapest, Berlin—somewhere I had contacts."