LOGIN(Rene)She's barely through the study door before I lock it behind her."You sent Cole to get me at eleven at night."She stops in the middle of the rug, arms crossed.She’s dressed in only a baggy t-shirt, legs bare, hair a mess."In front of the night guards.""We’re werewolves, Angelique. Were you under the impression there are pack members who are in the dark about what we do?""You summon me to your room for that. Not the study. What do you-""You know what."She does.I've been simmering since dinner and the bond carried every degree of it up to her room, the same way it's carrying her answer back to me right now.That low pull in her belly she'd die before admitting to."You're angry," she says."I'm loud. There's a difference."I cross to her."Three days I've had you in my head at full volume. Your temper. Your fear this afternoon. That thing you do at night when you think about my hands on you and hate yourself for it."Her chin comes up."You don't know who I’m thinking abo
ParkerThe woman in the gray cardigan has no scent.Not faint. Not masked badly. Nothing. A hole in the air shaped like a person.I've smelled that hole before.I walk out of the nursery wing at a pace that won't draw eyes.I keep walking, past the kitchen where Zack's negotiating a third cookie out of Tova, out the side door, across the lot to the staff quarters they stuck me in because the Warden said guest-right and Rene Beck said fine, the furthest building.Then I lock my door and call Donovan.He picks up on the second ring.Eleven years since I was his Alpha and he still answers like I never left."It's me. I need the file on the scent-dead ones."Quiet on the line. Then, "Where did you see one of them?""Here. In the Beck house. Middle-aged female, gray hair, plain, forgettable. She's been inside a week as a guest and I only crossed her path today.""Parker," his voice is careful. "Is it them?""It smells like the same nothing."He doesn't ask if I'm sure. He was there after.
(Angelique)There’s a gray woman standing in front of my bedroom door when I pull it open.Not accidentally in front of. Right there, on the threshold, staring at our room.She's got no business here.Nobody's got business here except me and Zack."Miss Pruitt."She smiles the way some people flick on a light.There’s nothing real about it."I took a wrong turn. This house eats people."I don’t ask how she knows my name. I don’t think there’s anyone here who doesn’t know who I am."The main stairs are back that way."She doesn't move.Zack's on the rug behind me with his trucks, lining them up bumper to bumper the way he does, and her eyes go over my shoulder and land on him and stay there.Stay calm.Rene’s in a business meeting but he'll feel every beat of this and he’ll demand answers when he comes to check.Stay calm, stay bored, stay slow."What a serious little boy," she says. "He organizes. Most children would crash them.""He's four. He does both.""Mm." Her head tips. "Big ha
(Rene)"Take her and the boy with you today," I tell Cole. "To the east fence inspection. She rides along."Cole doesn't ask why I'm suddenly assigning fence duty to a woman I haven’t allowed out of the wing she’s housed in since her arrival.I should give him a raise. He deserves it.I don't watch the SUV leave.I sit at my desk and open the quarterly reports and start the clock on my phone like this is an experiment and I'm the one holding the clipboard.Simple test.The bond got louder.Fine.Louder isn't stronger.Distance should thin it the way it was thinned before.When I though all I was feeling was the echo of it after her death.I'll work a full day with forty miles between us and prove the flare is volume caused by proximity, nothing else.You already know that’s bullshit, the wolf says.I ignore him.Mile one, I feel the vehicle’s vibration through her spine. Not a guess. Pinpointed precisely.Mile ten, I know she's picked at the seam of her sleeve until it parted, because
(Maliyah)Victor Beck is sweating through his shirt in my sitting room, and it isn't the tea."He asked the doctor to walk him through it," he says. "Twice. What the heart does. What it should've done. Rasmussen held the line, but-""But what?""Rene kept looking at me while he answered. Not at the doctor. At me."I set my cup down.This is the trouble with using men like Victor.A hammer shouldn’t fret about the nail."You had a cardiac episode brought on by strain," I say."The strain of watching your son shame two packs by keeping his dead mate in his bed. Every wolf in that house believes it because every wolf in that house would find it reasonable. All you have to do is keep being an old man with a weak heart.""I’m not weak and my son isn't a fool, Maliyah.""No. He's a man with a fool's problem, which is worse, because he brought them on himself and he should know better."I refill his cup, and he watches my hands like they might do something else."Stop volunteering details. S
(Angelique)"Drink up bug. You know the rules."Zack makes a face, but tips the last of the juice down his throat with exaggerated cared.Bored with the routine the way only a four-year-old can be bored with the thing keeping him alive."Smelling game first. Then breakfast with the giant. Then can I go find Cole?"Goddess.He won’t keep away from Rene, and he’s made Rene’s Beta his best friend."The giant is very busy planning his mating ceremony, you shouldn’t bother him today. Why do you want Cole?""He said he'd show me the trucks."Wonderful.I can't even object because Cole's one of the only people in this house I'd trust to stand between Zack and danger."After breakfast. If Cole says it's still okay. And what do we say if anyone asks about the smelling game?""It's our secret game."He says it sing-song, worn smooth from repeating."Because packs like winning and we don't tell other teams our tricks.""Good boy."He's gone before the words are fully out of my mouth, thundering
(Angelique)I'm half into my clothes before Cole finishes the sentence.Shirt inside out. I don't fix it."How long?""Minutes."He’s avoiding looking at me.Guilt or fear of what Rene’s reaction would be. It doesn’t matter."He was right on my heels. I turned for one second."Rene's already off th
(Angelique)The door opens without a knock, and I know before I turn around that something's different tonight.He's been cold for days.Controlled.Touching me like it's a favor he's choosing not to do.Not tonight.Tonight he crosses the room like he's come to collect a debt."Take it off," he sa
(Rene)Brynn comes to the study after dark, walking in without knocking."I heard you wanted to know about the boy," she says. "Who put him in her."I set the pen down.She's been building to something all week, and here it is, dressed up as information I want."I got it out of her this afternoon.
(Angelique)"Sit. I made tea."Brynn's got two cups poured on the little table like we're girls catching up, and the wrongness of it crawls up my neck.We’ve never sat down to tea together in all the years we shared a house."What do you want?""I said sit."She doesn’t raise her voice.Brynn never







