Kael’s POV
Another red dot on the map.
“Three days ago. Rogues again.” Marcus slid the satellite image across the desk toward me.
“No survivors this time. They burned the bodies.”
Marcus is Derek’s twin.
Both of them serve as my Betas,the only two men I let walk into this room without an appointment.
I leaned over the map and studied the new dot, then the six others scattered around it.
Over the past half year, the attacks had crept along the border between Bloodthorn and Blackwater territory, a little closer to my pack with every strike.
The pattern was too tidy.
This didn’t look like an unorganized pack of Rogues at all.
“Any leads on their supply line?”
”Not yet.
We intercepted a smuggled shipment two nights ago; it’s at the lab now.
Results in three days.”
”Keep watching it.
If that line leads back to Ashgrove Pack, I want to hear it from you before anyone else does.”
”Yes, Alpha.” Marcus withdrew, and the study fell quiet again,nothing left in it but the soft crack of firewood in the hearth and the wind shouldering the windows.
Seven dots on a map.
Half a year of burned bodies, creeping toward my border one strike at a time.
Whoever was feeding those Rogues wanted the trail to look like chaos.
It wasn’t.
I lifted the glass of wine at my elbow but didn’t drink.
My head was elsewhere.
A smudged, frightened face under bad makeup.
The faint trace of scent along the back of her neck, close enough in the car that I could still summon it at will.
It was becoming a problem.
Derek came in carrying a file.
“The look into her is mostly done. Lilia Voss, eighteen, a server at the border tavern in Bloodthorn territory. No parental record. Twelve years ago the current Alpha, Nathan Holt, brought her back out of the snow. To this day her official standing is servant.” He paused, then went on. New chapters come out on NovelPing first.
“The strange part is her bloodline file. It’s empty. Never been registered,not with any Pack, not anywhere.”
I set the glass down.
An Omega with no bloodline record at all.
In a land ruled by blood and territory, where every pup was logged before they could walk, that was close to impossible.
Someone had scrubbed her from the rolls,or she had fallen through them from a very great height.
Either answer was worth having.
In my experience, the things people went to the trouble of hiding were the things most worth finding.
“Keep digging.
I want to know where she came from before the snow,and who she belonged to then.”
”There’s one more thing.” Derek hesitated, then laid a second sheet on the desk.
A long-range photograph, badly angled, half-hidden by the collar of her coat,but the tattoo near her collarbone was clear enough.
The small blue butterfly, wings half-folded.
“Taken on your instruction.
Should I file it with the rest of her record?”
”Give it here.” I pulled the photograph out from under his fingers and slid it into the inner pocket of my coat.
“This one doesn’t get filed.”
Derek’s eyes flicked to my pocket, then away.
He knew better than to ask.
He gathered the file and left, and the door clicked shut behind him.
The room was mine again.
I took the photograph back out and set it under the lamp, weighting the corners flat.
“You’re thinking about our mate.”
Fenrir’s voice rose from deep in my mind.
“No.
And she isn’t our mate.”
”Kael.” He went on as if I hadn’t spoken.
“You’ve had her investigated for three days.
You’ve pulled her records, photographed her skin, and spent your evenings remembering how she smells,and not once have you ordered anything done to her.
You tell yourself it’s because she may be tangled up in something larger.
But you know the truth by now.
Even if she were nothing at all,a tavern girl and nothing more,you couldn’t bring yourself to touch her.”
That’s all this is.”
”You’ve never needed three days to learn who anyone was.” Fenrir’s voice dropped lower, the way it did when he stopped playing.
“So you really do intend to court her?”
”That,” I said, “is a secret.” I smiled while I said it.
Fenrir growled somewhere far down, unconvinced, and let the silence have the room.
I picked up the desk phone.
“Derek.”
”Yes, Alpha.”
”Have a bouquet of roses prepared.
Tonight, it goes to the border tavern in Bloodthorn territory.”
A pause on the line.
“Of course, Alpha.
Should the delivery be signed?”
”Sign it with a single K.”
”Understood.”
I hung up and sat back down at the desk.
“Seriously? Flowers?”
Fenrir’s voice rose from the back of my mind, thick with disbelief.
“Could you be any more predictable?”
”Shut up.
You got a better idea?”
I would admit, reluctantly, that courting women was not something I had much experience with.
“Actually, yes.” Fenrir sounded pleased with himself.
“You could lock her in the house and spend a few days fucking her senseless.”
I went still.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
”You’re the one asking for advice.”
”She’s already terrified of us.” I rubbed a hand over my face.
“And your solution is to give her even more reasons to be afraid?”
Fenrir went quiet.
“Fine. Send the flowers.”
I stared at the butterfly, realizing I was actually studying a woman’s tattoo.
I’d never spent this much thought on anyone before, much less sat at my desk trying to recreate a mark on her skin just to please her.
The photograph came out of my pocket one more time,the last time tonight, I told myself,and I flattened it under my hand beside a blank sheet of paper.
The butterfly’s wing rose in a clean, unhurried arc from the fold down to the body.
I studied the curve for a long moment, then took out my pen.
Three hundred thousand dollars ought to be enough to reproduce that arc..