“You look terrible,” she says, which is Rebecca’s version of hello. “And did you just reassign my patrol teams without telling me?”
“The eastern gap was unguarded between midnight and four. It needed covering.”
“It needed covering through me. That’s how a chain of command works.” She sits down across from me and studies the maps, her irritation already giving way to professional focus. “Though the eastern gap was bothering me too. Next time, tell me first, you impossible man. Anythingelse new?”
“Lewis found a trail. North boundary, near the ravine. They’re staying just outside our markers, but they’re not leaving.”
“Your father thinks they’ll move on.”
“My father is wrong.”
She doesn’t argue, which tells me she agrees. “What do you think they want?”
I’ve been asking myself the same question. Rogues usually want one of three things: territory, resources, or mates. The first two would require a larger force than we’ve seen. Which leaves the third, and the thought of it makes my blood run cold.
“I don’t know yet,” I say, because the alternative is telling Rebecca what I suspect, and that conversation leads to places I’m not ready to go.
She watches me for a moment with those steady dark eyes. Then she picks up one of the patrol maps and starts marking Lewis’s trail, and we work in companionable silence until the light fades.
* * *
Saturday arrives, and I spend an unreasonable amount of time deciding what to wear, which is a new and unwelcome experience. My wolf has no opinion on clothing. My wolf has opinions on whether we’re going to stand close enough to our mate to smell herhair, which is strategic thinking this situation requires.
I get to the field early. Tom is overseeing the fire, directing two younger pack members on the stacking while he sorts kindling with the methodical care of a man who takes combustion seriously. A few others are setting up chairs and a table for food. The evening is cool and clear, the kind of autumn night that smells of woodsmoke, damp earth, and the first hint of frost.
Rebecca is already here, wine in hand, talking to Tom by the fire. She catches my eye as I scan the field and raises an eyebrow, but she doesn’t come over. She doesn’t need to. Rebecca reads a room the way other people read a clock—one glance and she knows exactly where everyone stands.
I don’t answer the question in her expression, because Phoebe has just appeared at the edge of the field, and the rest of my attention narrows to a point.
She’s wearing a dark coat over a jumper I haven’t seen before, blue, and her hair is down for the first time since I’ve known her. It falls past her shoulders in loose waves, and my wolf makes a sound inside my head that I’m not going to translate into human language. My body translates it just fine. I feel the pull of her settle low and heavy in my gut, a physical weight, and I have to take a breath before I can move because walking towards her while every cell in my body is screamingcloser, now, morerequires a level of composure I’m not sure I have.
“You came,” I say, which is idiotic because obviously she came; she’s standing right here.
“I said I would.” She looks past me at the field, the fire, the people gathering around it. “This is lovely.”
“It’s a field with a bonfire.”
“Exactly. Lovely.” She smiles, and the firelight catches her face, and my wolf settles into a hum of contentment so deep I feel it in my ribs.
I hand her a drink and guide her towards the fire, and as we walk, I watch. Not her, or not just her. I watch the way the field reacts to her presence. The way Tom glances up from the fire and pauses for half a second before smiling. The way two pack members near the drinks table turn their heads as she passes, nostrils flaring almost imperceptibly.
They can smell it too. That thread of something not quite human, faint but present, woven through the honey warmth of her natural scent.
I file this away. Say nothing. Lead my mate into the firelight. Wait to see what happens.
Chapter 12
The Bonfire
Phoebe
The first thingI notice is how warm everyone is.
Not in temperament, though they are that too, welcoming and easy in the way of people who’ve known each other their whole lives. I mean literally warm. When the woman Roan introduces as Rebecca shakes my hand, her skin is almost hot to the touch, and when Tom, the older man I’ve heard Roan mention more than once, squeezes my shoulder in greeting, the heat of his palm seeps through my coat like a compress.
“Nice to finally meet you,” Rebecca says. She’s striking: dark hair, sharp cheekbones, an expression that manages to be both friendly and assessing. She holds my hand for a fraction longer than a handshakerequires, and something in her gaze sharpens before she lets go. “Roan’s told us about you.”
“Has he?” I glance at Roan, who is suddenly very interested in his drink.
