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"Are you threatening me, Ms. Odhiambo."

Again, no inflection. The weight of her stare reminded me of my grandmother.

"No, ma'am."

Sorsha's gaze narrowed on me, the same way Mei Ling's had done back in her kitchen when she clearly knew something was going on between me and her son.

"You are a brilliant woman, Mrs. Lobo," I said. "You have been building the Lobo pack's power for decades through exactly the kind of strategic patience that most men—most Alphas—don't have. You understand that the real power is in the infrastructure, not the teeth. You would rather have me as an ally than as an enemy. I think you know that."

Sorsha smiled, a wolf's smile complete with a flash of her teeth. Again, I felt the prickles at my fingertips.

"A compelling argument," she said. "You are not wrong about the business. But packs don't build loyalty through business proposals, Ms. Odhiambo. Packs build loyalty through marriage. Through blood. Through the kind of bond that doesn't dissolve when the market changes." She spread her hands. "I need a Blackwood. I have been promised a Blackwood. That is what secures the alliance."

"It doesn't have to be Magnus," I said. "Magnus isn't the only unmarried Blackwood male."

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

MAGNUS

We came ready for war.

Twelve enforcers, weapons sheathed and holstered. More on standby. They were instructed to stand outside the Four Seasons as four Blackwood men walked into the lobby. Me, Vidar, Gunnar, and our father.

My dad had not asked questions when I came to his office. He dropped whatever he'd been doing and took shotgun in the vehicle. Gunnar drove; his hands were steady, where Vidar and I were both a tight clench.

The Lobo wolves at the entrance looked at us. We looked at them. Nobody reached for anything.

That was the first thing that registered as wrong. The Lobo enforcers were not in defensive formation. They were not on alert. They were standing with the calm of men who had been told to expect us and were responding to our arrival with something that was — deference.

Actual deference. Heads inclined. The body language of wolves acknowledging a superior pack.

"Alpha Blackwood," a man said, extending a hand to my father. Fenrir took his hand. The wolf nodded at me, then fell back in line, leaving the four of us a clear path to the penthouse elevators.

The Lobo enforcer held up one hand — the universal gesture of one moment — and pressed a finger to an earpiece. He listened. Then he looked at us and said, with the professional courtesy of someone following instructions: "If you'll wait in the lobby, gentlemen. The women are finishing up."

The women are finishing up.

Vidar tilted his head back with an exasperated sigh. Gunnar wore a pinched expression, clearly pissed he wasn't about to punch anyone. My dad chuckled, shaking his head, looking completely unsurprised that the women in the penthouse had taken charge.

The elevator arrived when the enforcer's phone buzzed again. He listened, nodded, and waved us forward with the brisk efficiency of a man executing a schedule.

We piled in. The elevator was not designed for four wolves in men's skins. Gunnar and Vidar jockeyed to stand in the front. The doors closed.

Gunnar looked at the ceiling. "Does anyone know what's happening?"

"It's Addie and Nell," Vidar said. "So it could be anything."

Fenrir made a sound. "I knew both those girls would be an asset to this family."

As we left the ground floor, the weightlessness moved up my body. Floors passed beneath us. The city fell away below as I lifted closer to my fated mate. I didn't know what deal she had constructed up there. Didn't know what she had traded or promised or restructured in the time it had taken us to drive here. Didn't matter. I was walking out of this hotel with Nell on my arm. Whatever it cost — whatever Sorsha demanded, whatever I had to put on the table to dissolve the arrangement with Rosalind — I would do it. I would give Sorsha whatever was in my power to give. I would give it without negotiating. Because some things were worth the full price. Nell Odhiambo was worth every last thing I owned.

The elevator doors opened. No blood. That was a good sign. Hopefully?

I stepped through the door. My eyes moved through the room searching for exits, threats, variables, status of known individuals⁠—

Nell.

She sat on the suite's pale sofa. A cup of tea in her hands. Her legs crossed. Her hair loose. The bruise that Katya Volki would be paying for someday soon was gone. Didn't matter. I would settle that debt.