LOGIN(Rene)The guard opens the sewing room door and I step into the smell of my prisoner.Lavender and steel.Five days in a ten-foot room and she's sitting like the chair owes her rent."Alpha."Maliyah folds her hands."Thank you for coming.""You have five minutes.""I'll need three."'Kill her,' my wolf says.Low.Steady.He's said it every hour since I learned what she did to Theodore.'She helped murder our mate's father. She threatened our mate carrying our pup. Open her throat.'Not yet.Council convenes in three days.She answers in front of everyone, with Angelique watching, or it's not an answer at all.I stay standing.She doesn't mind.She'd conduct this meeting from the bottom of a well."You're aware of the working on you," she says.No preamble."The whole district is, after my daughter's little performance. Crown anyone but Brynn and your heart stops. Four attempts, four failures, you've felt the vice yourself.""Get to it.""The council convenes in three days. They'll wa
(Rene)Something small and heavy lands on my chest at half past six and announces, "The sun's awake.""The sun is not awake.""It's a little bit awake."Zack pries at my eyelid with one finger."You have to make waffles now. It's the rules."Angelique doesn't move.Five years of doing every morning alone, and the woman has learned to sleep through an airstrike.So I get up.I carry my son downstairs upside down, because that's apparently also the rules, and I make waffles while he sits on the counter and supervises."More," he says."You've had two and almost an entire can of whipped cream.""Giants eat nine.""Giants eat what their fathers give them."He grins around his fork like I've said something wonderful.Fathers.He's still trying the word on, every chance he gets, checking it still fits.Five years of these mornings happened without me.I can't get them back.But I can stack new ones on top until the pile's taller than the hole, and I intend to start today.Tova comes in at e
(Parker)The town has one diner, one gas station, and a motel with nine rooms.I've been watching all three since yesterday noon.Cole's men are watching the roads.From the diner window I can keep an eye on the other two while sitting in front of a coffee I don't drink.Rene sent a message an hour ago.Valeria struck and failed.Zack's untouched.Tova took a cord across the arm and survived swearing all the way.My hands were clenched into fists for a long time after that last part.I didn’t think I’d ever be interested in a woman again, but Tova sparks something inside me.'The witch will come here,' my wolf says. 'Wounded animals go to ground they know.'She's not wounded.That's the thing none of them understand yet.Eleven years I've watched this circle work, always one step behind.They don't rage and they don't give up.They calculate.And the calculation changed this morning.They’ll regroup and look for a different way.The bus from the county line comes in at four.Three peo
(Parker)The town has one diner, one gas station, and a motel with nine rooms.I've been watching all three since yesterday noon.Cole's men are watching the roads.From the diner window I can keep an eye on the other two while sitting in front of a coffee I don't drink.Rene sent a message an hour ago.Valeria struck and failed.Zack's untouched.Tova took a cord across the arm and survived swearing all the way.My hands were clenched into fists for a long time after that last part.I didn’t think I’d ever be interested in a woman again, but Tova sparks something inside me.'The witch will come here,' my wolf says. 'Wounded animals go to ground they know.'She's not wounded.That's the thing none of them understand yet.Eleven years I've watched this circle work, always one step behind.They don't rage and they don't give up.They calculate.And the calculation changed this morning.They’ll regroup and look for a different way.The bus from the county line comes in at four.Three peo
(Angelique)Three SUVs pull out of the front lot before eight and I count the men in them from the window.Nine.Parker, Cole and seven guards.Headed north, after Valeria, on the lead Maliyah handed over without prompting.Nine men out of a house that already emptied itself of crowning guests two days ago.My wolf paces.'Too quiet,' she says. 'Count again.'I don’t want to but I can’t stop myself.The gate has two men instead of four.The garden door has one.Rene's downstairs with Knox, going over what the healer gave up under his reading.He didn't want to leave the wing.Knox needed him and I told him to go, because the house is warded now, because the insider's in a cell, because we caught the second face and I let myself believe that meant we'd caught up.Zack's in the kitchen with me and Tova, negotiating for a second waffle he's already lost interest in."Mama, watch."He holds up a fork with the waffle speared whole."Giant food.""Giants use plates.""No they don't. They us
(Maliyah)The door opens and it's neither the guard with my tray nor the Warden with his patient face, so I sit up straight.It's the guest.The consecrated one they gave a bed for the crowning.Parker Frey. The man who falsely claimed Angelique and her brat.He was a problem I was going to get to once the crowning was over.He shuts the door himself. The guard outside lets him, so the Warden must have sent him.He doesn't sit.He stands a careful few feet back, hands loose at his sides, and looks at me the way I look at everyone else.Weighing what I'm worth.I've spent my life on the other end of that look."You've been under this roof for weeks and didn’t have anything to say to me," I tell him."Now that I can't bite, you come to see me. Say what you came to say. I have real problems to worry about.""Emmy," he says.The name lands on nothing."Should that mean something?""My daughter. She was three."Nothing shifts in his voice on the word, and that's the tell, that it doesn't s
(Angelique)Gold.His eyes have gone gold.Wolf-gold, the color the eye turns when the animal comes up to the surface to look out.The exact thing I've spent years making sure mine never do where a human can see.So either Parker isn't human.Or I've finally lost it."Quiet," he says, before I can
(Angelique)The bell over the door is still swinging when my knees give out.I catch the edge of the booth before I hit the floor.There's broken glass and debris everywhere.The pitcher, two plates, the tray. Damaged stock comes out of my wages. That's the thought my brain hands me.Not he's here.
(Rene)The Murphys are already on their feet when I close the distance to her."Get out," I say without turning my head. "Now."The bell rings, leaving us alone in the room.She is shaking.Mine. Protect. Claim. Take her. Mark her.I push my wolf down, warning him to be quiet. Angelique is shaking
(Angelique) Five years ago, I ran away from my mate.I was pregnant, terrified, and convinced leaving was the only way to protect my child.Now I'm twenty-six years old, living in a rundown trailer in a human town that doesn't know werewolves exist. I work double shifts at a diner, hide my scent w







