CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

RILEY

Decker arrived at three-seventeen on a Thursday in a car that cost more than most people's houses, with two representatives and the kind of easy authority that comes from never having been told no by anyone who mattered.

I was in bay one, elbow-deep in the engine of a '71 Norton Commando restoration. Hunter was after school and theoretically doing homework at the workbench in bay three, which in practice meant he'd done his homework in fifteen minutes and was now shadowing whichever mechanic would tolerate his commentary. Luna was at the corner table she'd claimed as her workspace, which currently held her marine biology book, a notebook where she was taking organizational notes on the book's contents, and Gerald.

Knox was leaning against the side wall of bay one with a coffee and no particular expression.

Decker walked in and took inventory. You could see him doing it — the quick read of a room that any Alpha does, cataloguing hierarchy and threat and opportunity. He was maybe thirty-five, compact, good-looking in the way of people who've always known they were, and he had the easy smile of someone who used it to manage situations.

I kept working on the Norton.

"Alpha Blackthorn." His voice was warm. Practiced at warm. "And this must be—"

"Harper," I said, without looking up. "Riley Harper."

A beat. "Ms. Harper. The shop is impressive."

"Thanks." I located a stubborn bolt and applied more torque. "Knox, your guest."

I felt rather than saw Knox move from the wall — unhurried, not defensive, just present. He shook Decker's hand. Did not introduce him around the shop. Let the space do the work.

Decker's representatives flanked him in the way representatives do — professional, background, taking their own inventory. One of them kept looking at Luna. Luna noticed, looked up from her book, examined him with complete composure, and went back to her notes.

The representative shifted, slightly. Adults in that situation often did. Luna had this quality of attention — clean and direct and entirely without social performance — that made certain people profoundly uncomfortable. Knox had it too. The twins had gotten it from somewhere on the paternal side and I had spent four years watching it work on people.

"Beautiful facility," Decker said. He was working, you could hear it — finding the conversational line that positioned him correctly. "And the twins are—"

"Doing homework," Knox said.

Hunter looked up from bay three. He'd been eavesdropping for six minutes with the subtlety of a four-year-old who thought he was subtle, which is to say not very, but he'd been quiet about it. Now he gave Decker a long, level look. Then he looked at Knox. Some communication passed between them — I don't know what it was exactly, but I'd been watching those two for weeks and there was a language developing, mostly looks and small gestures and the particular silence Knox used when he was saying something important.

Hunter went back to his former homework.

"The council ruling puts you in an interesting position," Decker said. He was talking to Knox, but he was watching me. "Luna standing confirmed, bond still pending. The pack's in a transition period."

"The pack is fine," Knox said.

"Of course." That easy smile. "I only meant that if there's anything the Silverthorn community could offer in terms of support—"

"We have everything we need," I said.

I put down the wrench. Stood up. Wiped my hands on the rag from my belt. Decker was maybe six-one and I'm five-four and covered in engine oil and there was absolutely no question about whose space this was.

"We appreciate the visit," I said. "We'll send a formal acknowledgment of the council ruling to your pack office this week. Knox handles the territorial discussions through Grayson — you'll want to get his calendar. We're not taking meetings about support structures right now." I looked at him. "We're working."

A silence.

Then Decker looked at Knox, and something passed between them that I wasn't meant to parse — Alpha to Alpha, some communication in the register I didn't have full access to yet. Knox's face was its usual collection of nothing in particular. His jaw moved, slightly. His eyes moved to me and then back to Decker, and whatever Decker was reading there apparently landed, because his easy smile shifted into something more genuine and considerably less calculated.

"Of course," he said. "My apologies for the interruption." He looked around the shop one more time — not appraising now, just looking. His eyes landed on Luna's table, on Gerald positioned in his place of dignity, on the neatly organized notes in her notebook. Then on Hunter in bay three, who had apparently given up on the pretense of homework and was examining the Norton's engine with the focused curiosity of someone who wanted to understand how things worked.

"Good kids," Decker said. And this time he meant it.

"Yes," Knox said.

They left. His representatives followed. The car pulled out of the lot with the expensive quietness of something that had a lot of money spent on its silence.

Luna looked up from her book. "He was assessing threat level," she said.

"Yes," I agreed.

"Did we pass."

I looked at Knox. Knox looked at me.

"Yeah, monkey," I said. "I think we passed."