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“You could have just done nothing,” she pointed out.

“Then I would have smelled like a human.”

“You did smell like a human,” she countered. “Just a human who’d been heavily seasoned with synthetic forest oils.”

“I used blockers, too,” I defended.

She lifted her head, her expression turning curious. “Pheromone blockers?”

“Yes.”

“Real ones?”

I shrugged. “I ordered them online.”

“From where?”

“A website that looked slightly shady, but the graphics were incredibly sleek.”

“Sloane, that’s not an encouraging answer.”

“It had beautiful silver typography, Patty. It looked highly official and scientific.”

“Scammers love silver lettering,” she said, shaking her head.

“I’m aware of that now.” Sighing, I leaned my head against the window.

She wiped her eyes and looked at me fully, her amusement settling into something gentler. “So, let me get this straight. You covered yourself in probably-fake pheromone blockers and questionable internet wolf essence from a woman claiming to be a witch.”

“I was trying to construct a believable biological profile,” I argued, crossing my arms. “And for the record, I thought you liked my scent earlier.”

“I was trying to figure out if you had spilled household cleaner on yourself,” she laughed.

“You lied to me?”

She held up a finger. “Excuse me, ma’am. You are currently pretending to be a legendary forest creature. I think my minor polite fib is completely unrelated.”

Patty leaned back against her seat, a soft smile lingering on her lips. The crushing weight of my guilt loosened its grip. She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t preparing to exile me. She just looked thoroughly entertained.

“How long have you actually known?” I asked, my voice dropping to a quiet murmur.

“Known for certain? Tonight,” she said. “But I’ve suspected it since last week at the reunion.”

“What exactly gave me away?”

“Your immediate panic when Hudson mentioned the pack run tonight was incredibly persuasive,” she said.

“I thought I concealed that perfectly,” I mumbled.

“Sloane, you looked ready to climb directly into the projector screen to escape,” she teased. “And honestly, before that, you knew everyone’s personalities from the chat, but not the basic things any shifter would know. You flinched when people mentioned first shifts. You avoided every single conversation involving your wolf form. And you smelled incredibly strange, even with enough chemical blocker to erase a crime scene.”

“The website told me the blocker would last twelve hours,” I grumbled.

“It probably will. But it might also remove the finish from wooden furniture.”

I looked down at my hands, the reality of my deception settling back over me. Patty’s humor softened, her posture relaxing as she watched me.

“My turn for questioning,” she said gently.