I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.Viktor’s scent reached me first.Gunpowder and cold stone, the particular musk of a wolf who spent too much time in the shadows.That scent meant pack.Brotherhood.The years we’d spent side by side in service to the Pakhan.
It also meant trouble.Viktor wouldn’t come this early unless he had news I wouldn’t want to hear.
“Rafa.”
I turned.Viktor stood in the kitchen doorway, his dark hair shot through with silver at the temples, his face arranged in the careful neutrality he wore like a second skin.We’d known each other since I was eighteen and half-feral, newly returned from a school that had tried to beat the wolf out of me.Viktor had been the one to teach me control.The one to vouch for me when the Pakhan considered whether I was worth the trouble of bringing into the pack.
I owed him more than I could ever repay.Which was why the tension in his shoulders made my gut clench.
“What is it?”
“The Pakhan is asking questions.”
My hand tightened on the coffee cup.The ceramic creaked under my grip.“About what?”
“About her.”Viktor moved into the kitchen, his footsteps silent on the hardwood.Alice had disappeared, giving us privacy with the instinct of someone who had learned when to make herself scarce.“About whether you’ve claimed her yet.”
Someone had been paying attention.
“She’s my wife,” I said, keeping my voice even.
“You know that’s not the point.”
I did know.The Pakhan had given the choice to either kill her or marry her.A human woman who had learned too much about the pack’s business operations, who had seen faces she shouldn’t have seen, who posed a security risk that couldn’t be ignored.I had chosen marriage because the alternative was unthinkable.
The Pakhan had allowed it because bringing a fated mate under pack protection was different from simple human attachment.A mate was pack.A mate was permanent.A mate was strength, not weakness.
But if he suspected I was losing control again, if he thought my devotion to her was making me vulnerable instead of powerful…
“The same danger that forced the ultimatum,” I said.
Viktor nodded.“I’m not warning you because I disagree, Rafa.You know how I feel about her.I’m warning you because others are watching.Dmitri and Petrov are loyal, but there are wolves in the pack who would use any perceived weakness against you.Younger wolves.Ambitious wolves.Wolves who think the Vor position should belong to someone without human entanglements.”
“Let them try.”
“Don’t be stupid.”Viktor’s voice sharpened.“You’re no good to her dead.Be careful.That’s all I’m asking.”
The words landed like a fist to the gut.He was right.I knew he was right.But the thought of tempering my behavior around Lena, of hiding how I felt when I had only just started to hope she might feel the same way…
“And the investigation?”I asked, changing the subject before I said something I would regret.
Viktor’s expression hardened.“Nothing solid.The Diamantis connections haven’t panned out.Either they’re not involved in the stalking, or they’re better at covering their tracks than we expected.”
The stalker.Stephanie’s murder.Whoever was threatening Lena, they were still out there, and we were no closer to finding them.Every dead end felt like a personal failure.Like a promise I was breaking with every day that passed without an answer.
“Keep looking,” I said.“Someone at that hotel knows something.”
Viktor inclined his head.He paused at the doorway, looking back at me with concern he didn’t bother to hide.“She’s changed you.Whether that’s good or bad remains to be seen.”
He left before I could respond.Probably for the best.I didn’t have an answer that would have satisfied either of us.
I stood at the window for a long time after he was gone, my coffee growing cold in my hand, processing what he had said.The Pakhan was watching.The threat was still active.A killer walked free in my mate’s hotel, and I couldn’t even identify his scent.
And somewhere in the space between those dangers, I had let myself hope for something I had no right to want.
I heard footsteps on the stairs.Light.Hesitant.The particular rhythm of Lena’s stride that I had memorized without meaning to.
My wolf surged to attention.Mate.Here.Ours.
