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I’m still processing the full shape of that when I hear it.

Footsteps. Plural. Deliberate. The specific cadence of intruders who want to be heard. Shifters, I realize as my senses go on full alert. Which means they could move silently if they chose to, which means this is a choice, which means it’s a message.

I straighten and stand shoulder to shoulder with Nash as three gray wolves step out of the tree line to the north. I don’t recognize them, but they’re large and menacing.

Then a familiar male in human form steps into the morning light like he’s the star of the show.

Ramsey looks exactly like I remember him and nothing like I remember him simultaneously. The thick arms, the cropped golden hair, the mouth that used to smirk at everything because he thought life was a game he was winning. But the smirk is different now. Tighter. Like something behind it is working very hard to stay amused.

His eyes find mine immediately.

“Mia,” he says. Almost warm. Almost the Ramsey I used to know. “You look good.”

“Ramsey.” I keep my voice level. “You look like someone I used to respect.”

Something flickers across his face. Old Ramsey would have laughed at that. This Ramsey just files it away for future ammunition.

His gaze moves to Nash. It’s a slow assessment; the kind of look that is meant to diminish a man. But Nash doesn’t shrink.

“Nash Cross,” Ramsey says. “In the company of my enemy.”

Ramsey looks back at me. Something in his expression shifts almost imperceptibly; a recalibration. Whatever he sees here, he’s already decided what to do with it.

“You know what they say. The enemy of my enemy…” Nash doesn’t bother to finish the phrase.

Ramsey’s eyes narrow, but it’s aimed at me. “You’re a long way from home.”

“So are you,” I tell him.

His smirk returns—like he knows I’m fishing for where he’s been staying. “I have many homes these days.”

He steps toward us.

Nash presses closer to my side.

Ramsey’s wolves snarl, but they hold their positions.

“I heard you were looking for me,” he says.

I toss out a smirk. “We followed the smell of rot and shit, and it led us straight to you, stronzo.”

The almost-warmth in his expression cools by a degree. “You always did have a mouth on you.”

“You always did hate that about me.”

“I loved it about you,” he says, and for a second, I can hear the truth of it underneath the bitterness, the old Ramsey who used to laugh at my Italian profanity and tell me I was the only person in the pack who made Grey work for his position as our leader. “That’s why I want you on my side.”

“I know why you want me,” I say. “The answer is the same as it was on the phone.”

“You haven’t seen what I’ve built yet.”

“I’ve seen what you’ve destroyed.” I look deliberately at Lena Voss at the base of the tree. Then back at him.

His jaw tightens. The first crack in the control. “That was unfortunate.”

“She wasn’t part of this.”

“She made the choice.”