Chapter 5

Another Alpha had just arrived.

The double doors opened without force or announcement. Conversations near the entrance thinned first, then the quiet spread backward through the hall in uneven waves. Glasses paused halfway to mouths. A few of the younger wolves near the bar set their drinks down as if they had suddenly remembered they were supposed to be watching something.

He walked in alone.

No guards. No announcement. Just a man in a charcoal suit that fit him with the kind of precision that made everything else in the room look slightly overdone. He moved through the crowd as if the people were the ones who needed to adjust, not him.

Viktor went still beside me.

“Blackwood,” he said, low enough that only the people closest to us would hear it.

I didn’t know the name. I knew the reaction to it. Elders straightened. One of the senior warriors near the champagne table shifted his weight like he was calculating distance and exits at the same time.

The man wasn’t as tall as Jax. Leaner. Built for something sharper than pure force. Dark blond hair cut close. Even from across the room his eyes looked pale in a way that didn’t belong to ordinary wolves, not gold, not amber, something closer to silver that seemed lit from behind.

My mother exhaled beside me, and the sound carried that particular brightness she reserved for people she thought could be useful.

“Alpha Adrian,” she said. “Silver Hollow. Oh, Viktor. This is good.”

Viktor’s jaw tightened the same way it had for Jax, but there was something more careful in it this time. Like he was running numbers and not liking the answer.

Eric had gone completely still on my other side.

I hadn’t been paying attention to him. I’d been watching the new Alpha cut through the room as if he already knew the layout. But I felt Eric’s shoulder brush mine when he shifted, and when I glanced over his eyes were locked on the doors with an expression I hadn’t seen on him before. Not simple jealousy. Something closer to dread.

“Two Alphas,” he muttered. “In one night. Tell me this isn’t happening.”

“It is,” I said.

“Sherry.” His voice dropped, urgent now. His hand twitched like he wanted to reach for my arm and thought better of it. “Whatever this is, stay close to Viktor.”

“I don’t need you telling me what I need to do.”

That shut him up, though not because he agreed. I could feel him fuming beside me, jaw set, and for once I didn’t have the energy to care.

Adrian stopped a few feet from the edge of the crowd.

That was when I realized his eyes had already found me.

Not scanned the room and landed eventually. Found me. Directly. Like he’d walked through the door already knowing where I would be standing.

I held his gaze longer than I should have. There was something patient about the way he looked at me, the way a person looks at a puzzle they’ve been carrying around for a long time and have finally decided to solve.

He started walking again, straight toward us.

“Oh no,” Eric said under his breath.

Viktor stepped half a pace forward as Adrian approached. Not blocking him. Just making his presence known.

“Alpha Adrian. This is unexpected.”

“I imagine it is.” Adrian’s voice was quieter than I’d expected, smoother, without the low growl that lived under most Alphas’ words. “I heard Jax had been invited to Blood Moon territory tonight. I was curious what kind of party could pull the Obsidian Claw out of his own borders.”

His eyes flicked briefly toward where Jax still stood near the champagne table, watching this new arrival with an expression that had gone flat and unreadable.

“And now?” Viktor asked.

“Now I think I understand.” Adrian’s gaze came back to me, and something in it sharpened. “Happy birthday, Sherry.”

Hearing my name in his mouth did something strange to my chest. A small pull, quieter than what I felt around Jax, quieter than what I used to feel around Eric before he’d ruined it. Not violent. Just there. Steady. Like a low hum I hadn’t noticed was missing until it started.

“Thank you,” I managed.

“Would you give me a few minutes?” he asked. “I’d rather introduce myself properly than shout over a party.”

Beside me, Eric made a sound in his throat that wasn’t quite words. Viktor’s eyes cut to mine, silently checking. I gave him the smallest nod I could manage.

“Sure,” I said.

Adrian didn’t offer his arm. He simply turned and started walking, trusting I would follow. Something about that confidence irritated me and pulled me along at the same time.

We ended up near the tall windows at the far end of the hall, away from the noise. The dark lawn stretched out beyond the glass. The music behind us blurred into something distant. My wolf, usually quiet, had gone restless in a way I didn’t have a name for, pacing somewhere behind my ribs.

“You’re not really here for politics,” I said, before he could start whatever introduction he’d planned.

He glanced at me, and for half a second the composed look cracked just slightly. “What makes you say that?”

“You said it yourself. You heard Jax got an invitation, so you got curious enough to crash a party you weren’t invited to.” I crossed my arms. “That’s not diplomacy. That’s suspicion.”

A pause. Then something that might have been the start of a smile.

“You’re sharper than they gave you credit for in there.”

“Everyone in that room still remembers the girl who used to hide behind a book,” I said. “I don’t think you know a single thing about who I actually am.”

“No,” he agreed. “Not yet.”

The way he said it, not a denial, just an acknowledgment, an intention, made something twist low in my stomach that I didn’t want to examine too closely.

“I should get back before my mother starts planning a wedding,” I said.

That got an actual laugh out of him, short and low, as it surprised him as much as it surprised me. “Wouldn’t want to disappoint Camilla.”

I turned to head back toward the light and the noise, but something made me glance over my shoulder before I got too far.

He was still standing there by the window, watching me go.

It wasn’t the way Jax had looked at me across the room earlier, hungry and open about it. It was quieter than that. Like he was looking at something he had lost a long time ago and had just, against every reasonable expectation, found again.

“Sherry,” he said.

I stopped.

He didn’t say anything else. He just kept looking at me with that same quiet, unnerving recognition, as if the name he’d spoken belonged to someone he already knew and he was waiting to see whether I would prove him right or wrong.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how to. I turned and walked back into the noise, leaving him there in the dark, still watching me like he had finally located the thing he’d been searching for and wasn’t entirely sure what to do now that he had it.