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I looked again to the alpha. He gave a nod of consent. I knew he could take my head off, but I also didn't want to go back into the cabin. This wasn't running; it was just moving cages. And the other cage had cookies.

I fell into step behind Ivar, who had already launched into a culinary review of how his mother's cookies were superior to every other cookie in the known world. I was so focused on not tripping over the uneven ground in my bare feet that I almost missed it.

Alpha Blackwood's chin lifted slightly. Not toward me. Not toward Ivar. Past me. The small, precise nod of a man communicating with someone he did not need to look at directly because he already knew their position.

At the tree line, sliding back into the shadow of the pines was a shape too large to be a dog. Dark fur. Golden eyes caught the light for one moment before the trees swallowed them whole.

I had thought I'd been alone on the porch. I had thought I'd wandered out unobserved, taken my tentative steps onto the grass, breathed the open air of a woman briefly unsupervised.

I had been watched the entire time.

CHAPTER SIX

MAGNUS

The air in the Old Westbury hunting lodge was thick. Pheromones, mostly. The layered accumulation of apex predators in human skin sitting in close proximity with old grievances and older instincts. The biological fact of what they were pressed against the civilized veneer of what they were pretending to be. The lodge was a heritage building, stone-walled and deep-timbered, the kind of place that had absorbed decades of exactly this: powerful men displaying diplomacy while their wolves measured the distance to each other's throats.

A human walking in off the street would have called it tension. They would have loosened their collar and found a reason to leave quickly. What they would have been feeling was prey instinct. The oldest response available to a species that had spent its evolutionary history being eaten by things that looked, right now, exactly like the men sitting around this table.

"Magnus Blackwood," a female voice purred. "You look delicious."

Alpha Sorsha Lobo leaned back in her chair, one long leg crossed over the other, her silk dress slit high enough to be an invitation. She was in her fifties, but the Lobo bloodline was kind to its women; she looked barely thirty.

"Is that a new scent?" Sorsha was also my soon-to-be mother-in-law. Her nose twitched as she looked me up and down. "Dior Sauvage, perhaps?"

I hadn't gone to the cabin before I'd come to the meeting. I also hadn't showered since leaving Nell at the cabin. My wolf liked her scent on us.

I'd come to this meeting alone. It was a calculated risk, a middle finger to the traditional protocol that demanded an Alpha travel with a Second for protection. I didn't need one of my brothers standing behind me to prove I was dangerous. My silence did that for me.

"I don't wear cologne. You're smelling my mother's home-cooking."

I leaned down, offering a kiss to each of Sorsha's cheeks. She inhaled more of the scent. I let her, pulling away slowly. She didn't challenge me. The Lobos were a smaller pack, but still fierce. They held territory that sat at the junction of three pack boundaries, a geographic choke point that made them impossible to ignore and expensive to antagonize.

"Good to know you're a man with a healthy appetite. My daughter doesn’t cook, but she is ripe for the plucking. You should have us over for dinner this weekend."

To Sorsha, her daughter was a commodity, a piece of fruit to be traded for territory. To me, Rosalind was the cage door. I was not ready for that door to snap shut behind me. Not when I had another woman currently trapped in my cabin in the woods.

"My mother is still planning Vidar's wedding. You want my union with your daughter to be grand. We'll wait until next year."

I didn't give her time to debate. I turned to reach out a hand to Elias O’Shea—formerly Elias Vane. He looked different since he’d ripped his father’s throat out and taken the Vane pack for himself. He looked settled, but I knew better. The pup had pressure coming at him from every angle as an untried alpha. His Second, Cillian, stood behind him. Cillian wore a slim-fit suit and thick-framed glasses, looking more like an MIT professor than a pack enforcer. I knew better than to underestimate either of them. Nerds with wolf blood were the ones who calculated exactly where to place the knife.

"Elias," I nodded.

"Magnus," he replied, his voice level.

He was bound to my brother Vidar by marriage, but he wasn't a Blackwood lackey. He'd proven that when Vidar had given him the choice to be a spy in his father's pack and Elias had balked. Then, a few days later, the Vane heir had taken the crown for himself. He had my respect.

Valentino Lupetto sat across from him. He was flanked by one of his twin brothers, Casanova. The Lupettos were sharp-featured men who looked like they’d just stepped off a yacht in Capri. Valentino gave me a respectful nod, but his jaw was tight. The Lupettos were rebuilding fast after the execution of their father. They were grateful for our help in removing Dante Lupetto from the game board, but they weren't going to play nice for long.

And then there was the empty chair. Or rather, the chair occupied by Barrett Ironwood.

Barrett was a weak-chinned stooge we’d installed to lead the remnants of the Ironwood pack. He sat there, sweating through his polyester suit, nodding at everything I said before I even said it. He was a placeholder, a puppet whose only job was to give the Blackwoods a second vote on the council.

"Where are the Russians?" I asked, though I already smelled the answer.

The double doors at the end of the hall swung open. Viktor Volkov stepped in, followed by his sister, Katya. They were a wall of Slavic muscle and cold, gray eyes. Viktor didn't bother with pleasantries. He slammed his hands onto the oak table. The wood groaned under his strength.

"Blackwood," he spat. "My shipping accounts in the Caymans are frozen. My mergers at Volkov Industrial are hitting a compliance wall."