The fight, if it could be called that, was a study in controlled, asymmetrical violence.
On the far side of the lot, the Ironwood line was a chaotic tangle of fur and bone. Nearly half their number had already fully shifted into wolves. Not by strategy, but by instinct. Panic wore through them faster than discipline ever could. They snapped at the air, at shadows, at each other, their hackles raised in a terrified, bristling defense.
They didn’t know how to hold a line. Didn’t know how to wait. They only knew how to react. Against the Blackwood Pack of seasoned soldiers, that wasn’t enough.
None of the Blackwood soldiers had even bothered to claim their wolf forms. They moved with the chilling, upright precision of a firing squad. They kept their human feet planted firmly on the cracked pavement, their shirts still buttoned, their faces masks of bored professionalism. Only their hands betrayed the monster beneath; fingernails elongated into obsidian hooks, skin stretching tight over knuckles that had tripled in density.
Magnus caught a lunging gray wolf mid-air by its throat. My brother didn't shift; he simply tightened his grip. With asickening crack of his partially shifted fist, he dropped the beast like a sack of grain. Beside him, two of our enforcers worked in tandem, using nothing but their boots and their thickened, clawed palms to tear through the Ironwood ranks.
It was an insult; a silent statement that the Ironwood’s "monsters" weren't even worth the effort of a transformation. To the Blackwoods, this wasn't a primal battle for territory. It was just another day at the office, and the office was currently being cleared of its pests.
I stepped over a groaning heap of fur, Elias on my heels as we marched forward through the cleared path. Magnus’s fists hit bone. Gunnar’s claws found purchase in a throat. High-pitched yelps of retreating wolves were cut short by the low, guttural growls of our enforcers. Blood didn't just spill; it sprayed, dark and hot against the shipping containers, catching the glint of the moonlight.
A spray of red landed at my feet, nearly hitting my wedding suit. I growled. Gunnar smirked and tossed his deceased victim aside, already reaching for another.
Inside the office, the air was stale, smelling of cheap coffee and cigarette smoke. I kicked a chair toward a terminal and shoved Elias into it.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Hack it," I commanded.
"It'll take me some time to?—"
"You bypassed my encryption," I interrupted, leaning down until my mouth was inches from his ear. I let a sliver of the Alpha's resonance vibrate in my chest. "I built my firewall to withstand a state-level actor, and you walked through it like a screen door. The Ironwood system is child’s play compared to me. Get to work."
Elias' fingers began moving. "What do you need?"
"I want their transit logs, their internal ledgers, and every scrap of communication they’ve had with their creditors in the last six months."
The sound of rapid, rhythmic typing filled the small room. It was a digital counter-assault to the screams echoing outside. I moved to a secondary terminal, my mind flashing back to the Great Hall. To the red dress. To the way Addie’s teeth had found my lip and bitten down.
I licked at the bruise, urging the healing cut open with the tip of my tongue. But it was already mending. Guess I'd have to piss her off again when I got home.
I navigated past the surface-level accounts I found, the ones the Ironwoods wanted us to find. I ignored the primary War Chest folder and started digging into the administrative archives, looking for the telltale signs of a sweep.
There. Tucked behind a shell company for a Panamanian fruit exporter was a hidden partition.
I bypassed the first layer of security. The second layer was a jagged, high-frequency encryption I hadn't seen used by a wolf pack before. I ran a search for the specific auditing codes used by human firms in the Caymans.
The screen flickered. The lock turned. I was in.
A grin spread across my face. The Ironwoods hadn't just been hiding money; they were running a sophisticated laundering operation that could have crippled our transit lines if we’d only hit them with claws and teeth.
I leaned back, a dark chuckle bubbling in my throat. My wife was a goddamn genius. She’d given me the keys to their kingdom while wearing a dress I’d picked out for her.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ADDIE
The dream was a desert—hot, shimmering, and entirely under my control. Because I knew the rules of my own mind.
In the waking world, I was a woman of contracts and calculations. But here in the dead of night, with my eyes closed and my body in repose, I was a bit of a ho. The red silk of my wedding dress was gone, replaced by the heavy, humid weight of the air. I let myself move toward the version of Vidar that lived in my subconscious. He was leaning against a wall of shadow, his hazel eyes tracking my every movement with a hunger that didn't scare me because I’d authored it.
I climbed onto his lap. The friction of his trousers against my thighs sent a jolt of phantom heat through my core. I ran my hands over the broad expanse of his chest, feeling the rhythmic thud of a heart that beat only for my touch. My fingers traced the ridges of his abs, mapping the hard, terrifying strength ofhim without the fear of what might happen if he pushed back. I leaned in, my lips inches from his, tasting the rain and cedar on his breath.
It was a shock to me as a child when I learned that not everyone was a lucid dreamer. When my friends told me about their nightmares, I was confused why they didn't just change the dream or tell the monster to stop. I always wondered if being a lucid dreamer was a result of me being a control freak. Even in my dreams, I needed to have my own say. In my present condition, it was all I had left to be in charge of.
I pressed my mouth to this dream version of Vidar, expecting the taste of honey. Instead, my nose wrinkled. A sharp, copper tang flooded my senses, cutting through the musky cedar and the heat. It was the scent of a fresh kill; visceral, iron-rich, and wrong. This wasn't part of the dream. It was happening in reality.
