“Ah,” he murmured at last. “There we go.”
He drew out another card and angled it toward the light.
“So you are…” His eyes lifted briefly to mine, then dropped again. “Jaime Hale.”
He tilted his head. “Is that your real name?”
I refused to make a sound. After a few seconds, I gave him a single, tight nod.
“Good,” he said softly.
He glanced at the license again, tapping it lightly against his palm. “From Pecan Pines. That makes you pack, then.”
My jaw tightened against the gag.
Marion’s smile spread slowly, satisfied, as though I had confirmed a theory rather than answered a question.
He rose and walked back to the desk. I tracked him through the haze in my vision as he reached past it and tugged something loose from the wall.
That was when I saw it clearly.
The wall behind the desk was covered in newspaper clippings pinned in tight rows. Flyers. Printed screenshots. Some circled in red ink, others crowded with notes in the margins.
And there, repeated across several pages, was a symbol I recognized: a stylized claw mark slashed through a human silhouette.
I’d seen it online before, in forums, anonymous threads. The kind of groups that talked about “preserving humanity” and “containment measures.”
Marion plucked a clipping from the board and crossed back to me. He crouched, holding it inches from my face.
It was from a few months ago. An article that had run right after the town’s winter festival. The headline was optimistic, about strengthening community ties between Pecan Pines pack and the town’s human residents.
Marion tapped one of the figures in the photo.
“This one,” he said. “Who is he?”
My stomach tightened. Cooper.
He stood near the front of the image, relaxed but unmistakably in command. Even frozen on paper, there was something about him that drew the eye.
Marion tapped the picture again, harder this time. “You know him, don’t you? What is he to you?”
His gaze lifted to mine. “Enforcer?” He leaned closer. “Or is he your leader? Your alpha?”
He reached forward and dragged the gag down from my mouth.
Air scraped raw across my lips. I swallowed, testing my voice, but stayed silent.
“Go on,” Marion prompted lightly. “Is he your alpha?”
I hadn’t meant to react, but the word struck something instinctive and deep.
A growl tore out of me before I could stop it. My wolf surged up, fierce and protective. For the first time since waking, I felt him clearly, no longer distant.
Marion went still. As he straightened, something caught my attention. A faint red light blinked from the beam to my left. A camera.
My stomach dropped, and I clamped my mouth shut, but it was too late. Marion drove his knee into my wounded thigh.
Pain exploded through me, as if the bullet had been shoved deeper into bone, silver searing through muscle and nerve.
