wolves in their echelons. Other wolves double-check that the windows are fastened shut. Pack on the floor clamber over one another, noses touching, open mouths clashing, forming a wild chain.
Not Cassius though. He stands stock-still in the corner like a golem carved from the clay of bad blood and petty resentments. Elijah plucks at Cassius’s clothes, obviously telling him that he needs to strip, but Cassius ignores him, his eyes focused on Julia, willing her to turn and see his sullen expression.
She might have done it once. It used to be as though she could feel him looking at her, telling her to stop whatever she was doing. And she would, turning to him with a bright and anxious smile.
Maybe she is still aware of him because she turns slightly, offering him an even more decided view of her back while her focus is entirely on Arthur, who arrived late and is folding his clothes, piling them on the table. Then he turns toward Julia, his elegant naked body scarred by the claws of wolves and he smiles at her. Cassius’s hands clench into fists.
The Alpha moves in front of Cassius, blocking his view of where Julia makes room for Arthur so that when he sits, his naked hip slides against hers. He pulls his knees up, props his chin on his forearm, turns his head toward her, listening.
The table beside the sofa explodes toward the wall where Cassius has kicked it. Julia freezes, one hand fisted, the other pushing her hair behind her ear.
“Pick it up,” Evie says quietly, but since the pack is silent, it’s easy to hear.
Cassius looks at her, his lips writhing. Then he torques his body, his shoulder twisted, his fist clenched, telegraphing his attack. I know this, but I don’t feel one single bit of protectiveness. Not like I do when some wolf plucks at her sleeve, or sets papers in front of her to sign, or needs a decision about discipline. Or when Poul sticks his nose in her—
Cassius’s body slams against the wall, struggling against Evie’s forearm at his throat.
—because I know Evie is perfectly capable of protecting herself from those she doesn’t like. It’s the ones she loves that she is so vulnerable to.
Tiberius stretches and reaches behind him, gathering a Glock and a magazine. With a practiced action—slide, magazine, slide—puts his gun to Cassius’s forehead. Evie lets go and Cassius drops into the flagstones of the fireplace, howling in frustration.
At that moment, one sharp ray of light breaks through the window. Shimmering with dust motes and stray wolf hairs, it picks out the details of Evie’s body—the slope of her breast, the sharp angle of her hip, the long silk of her waist, damasked with the healed scars.
Standing straight, she turns to her Pack. “Eadig waþ,” she calls in that particular voice and the resonance scrapes across my skin.
“And be yourself not hunted!” the huge, naked wolfish congregation roars back.
“And be yourself not hunted,” I whisper to her, my teeth a dike against the ocean of words I want her to hear.
She moves quickly toward her echelon and my heart beats harder. We are so careful otherwise, but she might sit close to me and I might touch her here in the open, seen by everyone. She picks her way toward the bit of floor that is unoccupied because I refused to have Ziggy’s naked, hairy thigh against mine.
“Gamma,” she says with a nod toward Ziggy as he moves over.
The light leaking into the room turns from orange gold to purple to gray.
“Remember,” she whispers urgently, her head bent near her arm so that even the sharp-eared wolves can’t hear. “It will not be like last time.” Her eyes run down my torso. “And don’t worry about the erection. It will go away during the change. They always d—” Her arm flails out and her body seizes and she starts to fall. I catch her just in time to stop her from tumbling to the floor.
Her head twitches against my chest and her body churns in my arms. I lay her down, pushing her hair back. It starts small, with the dullness in her gold eyes, the ripples riding across skin. Sheltered in the cave of my body, Evie slowly changes: her soft nose lengthening, her beautiful mouth stretching and thinning around the length of her jaw, her bones turning almost rubbery as they bend and lengthen and contract. The tip of a wiry whisker pokes out from her brown