The night air hit my skin like cold silk. I drove myself to the den-grounds beneath Moonscar's holding, a place tucked behind an unremarkable face on the high northern reach of the Sicilian Territories, where the cellar ran deeper than most pack archives and the clientele knew better than to scent too long at another's business. I ordered a bone-in cut, rare and bloody, a half-measure of the dark southern vintage, and fresh meat hauled up from the cold coastal grounds. I ate slowly, letting my wolf savor every bite with the quiet satisfaction of a she-wolf spending her own power in a world that wanted her grateful for scraps.
With my own tribute, my own earnings, I could feed wherever I pleased.
I stayed out well past the moon's high point, lingering over bitter dark roast and a second pour, watching the territory breathe through the tall windows. There was no rush. There was nothing to rush back to.
When I finally returned to the den-estate, every light was out. The house sat in total darkness, silent as a tomb. Despite me being gone for hours, not a single call on the crystal communicator. Not a single message. No one had checked in. No one had wondered if I was safe, if I'd been tracked, if I'd been run down on some lonely stretch of the territory. They had simply gone to their dens, each of them, without a second thought for the she-wolf who kept the roof over their heads and the rival packs from their throats.
I moved through the darkened hallway by memory, my fingers trailing along the cool plaster until I reached the bedroom. I pushed the door open, crossed to the bed, and sat down on the edge of the mattress.
A scream shattered the silence.
"Ah!"
My hand found the bedside lamp. Light flooded the room in a warm, merciless glow, and there she was. Tessa Thornvale, lying in my spot, her dark hair fanned across my pillow, the sheets pulled to her collarbone as though she belonged there. The scent hit me a half-breath before the light did — honeysuckle laid too thick over a faint trace of rot, soaked deep into my sheets, into the place that should have carried only black cedar and cold iron.
Something detonated behind my ribs. Five years of swallowed fury, of bitten tongues and clenched fists and quiet, corrosive patience. It all converged into a single, white-hot point, and deep inside me my wolf rose with it, hackles up, a snarl building where there had only ever been silence. Before I could think, before reason had any chance of intervening, my hand connected with her face. The crack of the slap echoed off the bedroom walls like a silver round going off.
Tessa crumpled, clutching her cheek, tears spilling instantly. Lena shot upright beside her, an arm sweeping around her shoulders like a shield. "Why did you hit her? We were just talking and must have fallen asleep. It was an accident."
"An accident." I tasted the word, and it was ash. "So you accidentally ended up in bed together. Holding each other. In my bed. That's the story you're going with."
"We were waiting for you!" Lena's voice rose, defensive and loud, the volume compensating for the weakness of the argument. "You were out until the Goddess knows when, so Tessa stayed to keep me company. We talked for a while, and then we fell asleep. It's perfectly normal."
"Then why didn't you call me? Why didn't you send a single message?" I held up my communicator, the screen bare, and let her see it. "Too busy catching up with your old scent-bond? And the two of you couldn't wait in the front room? You had to come to the bedroom, to my side of the bed?"
Lena's face darkened, her jaw set in that stubborn, cornered expression I'd come to know so well over five years. "You're being unreasonable, Iris."
I was done. Done arguing with someone who couldn't see what was right in front of her because she refused to open her eyes, refused to scent what hung thick in the air of this very room. I turned to Tessa, who was still curled against the headboard, tears tracking dark lines down her cheeks, thin and theatrical.
"I'm back now. So why don't you leave?" My voice was quiet, controlled, each word placed with surgical precision, even as my wolf paced behind my ribs, low and lethal. "Or were you planning for all three of us to share the bed?"
Tessa didn't acknowledge me. She didn't even look in my direction. She pressed her palm to her reddened cheek and turned her face toward Lena, her lower lip trembling. "Lena, it really hurts."
Lena's entire body softened. The anger, the defensiveness, all of it dissolved in an instant, replaced by a tenderness she had never once shown me. She cupped Tessa's face in her hands, her thumbs brushing the tears from beneath her eyes. "I'll get you something for it."
