Cil glanced at Zip and then back at me. Then he shook his head. I sighed. The kids knew something else, but they weren’t saying. All I could do was give them time and keep asking.
“What will you do now?” Evie’s voice was low as I got to my feet. Samael was by the door, murmuring to Bael, who’d entered at some point while Cil was under Gloria’s spell. The witch packed up the last of her things and left without another word.
“If what that guy said is true, the werewolf alpha has a dead werewolf on his hands, and that werewolf is missing his eyes.” The wolves had their own morgue and prosecuted their own crimes. “I need to talk to him and see if that werewolf can lead us to his murderers.”
Evie got to her feet. “I’m going with you.”
I frowned. “I thought you’d want to stay with the kids.”
Evie shrugged. “I have to go. I can’t explain why, but I just have a feeling.”
We’d both been raised not to ignore our gut instincts. “Okay.”
Samael finished up his conversation with Bael and stalked over to me. He leaned close while Evie packed up her things, his breath warm on the shell of my ear. I shivered.
“When you speak to the alpha, remember how it felt when I was deep inside you, bounty hunter.”
Bounty hunter. He was pissed. Pissed and… jealous? I eyed him.
“Don’t be gross, dude. Do we need to have an awkward conversation?”
He merely reached for my hand. I allowed it, until he had the audacity to run his hands over the gold mark his bond had etched into my skin. I stiffened and yanked my hand back, giving him my death glare.
Unsurprisingly, he didn’t curl up in a ball and beg for mercy. He simply gave me a long look. “Remember who you belong to.”
I opened my mouth but he was already walking away.
* * *
Danica
“Remember who you belong to,” my sister made her voice low and gruff. Then she gave an exaggerated full-body shiver. “Now, that was sexy.”
I took my eyes off the road long enough to glower at her. We were driving toward werewolf territory, and she’d been teasing me the entire time.
“It’s not sexy. He says shit like that because he knows it annoys the hell out of me. It’s a game he plays.”
She tutted. “If you think that’s agame, you’re crazy.”
I shook my head and took the turnoff toward Duke Forest. The wolves lived less than fifteen minutes from downtown, but out here, it was like a whole different world. A howl echoed through the forest as we got closer to Nathaniel’s house, and Evie shot me a wide-eyed look.
“That’ll be a sentry. Last time I visited, Nathaniel knew I was on the way. I’m surprising him this time.”
“Of course. Because why wouldn’t you surprise the territorial, paranoid, deeply distrustful werewolves? Sounds like a good plan.”
“You know the rules. Try not to meet their eyes if you can help it. Sometimes, you need to make it clear they can’t push you around, but there’s no point playing power games if we’re hoping for cooperation.”
“And what do you do if they decide to play power games?”
I shrugged. “I’ve visited before. Nathaniel knows I’m not a threat.”
I cursed as a werewolf dropped out of the sky and onto the hood of my car. My foot fumbled for the brake and Evie let out a yelp as the car slid. I wrestled with the steering wheel, my heart pounding like a drum, and we finally came to a stop.
I stared at the werewolf. He stared back at me. Movement out the corner of my eye drew my attention and I gaped at my sister as she popped a magazine into the Glock in her hand and aimed at the wolf.
“Where the fuck were you hiding that?”
“In a thigh holster under my skirt.”
