dy'

s private office. The door clicked softly shut behind me, sealing off th

y on his desk, my fingers brushing the c

uietly, the question slipping o

d

know it wa

aw the

ht it wa

"You left before I c

unwanted wave of he

late,"

eyes-there and gone, quickly buried. "As your husband, I won't ha

ere it had folded under itself when I dressed in a hurry that morning. He straightened it with two

rk," he said. "We

my pulse s

underst

lf that was

real problem was

ian'

d her, and for a long

d the effect had never once dulled-her nearness pulling at something in me th

I'd met her

he only mercy I could give h

left of the desk-the one that stayed loc

I'd found it half-buried in the bloodied snow after the beasts scattered-flung from

ing sensible went after dark. I'd been passing through the region on pack business, close enough to hear it

her, no pack at her back, bleeding into the snow and still tearing at a

leaves. She never saw me. She lifted her head to the black sky, and in a voice I h

e the Whit

ll in love with her. Not

e bond. I would have loved her if

elet away and pre

Jova

ly man in the building who knew whose name

h the regional council," I said

jaw tightened. "They're movi

rned from the window. "I want to know how. Someone told him. Find out who, and find o

petitio

Whitlock. That fiction dies today. I want George Vance's failure to confirm her renunciation on record, in writing, before th

"Some of them will

"Drexel spent three years buying favors he thinks make him untouchable. Let him find out what real weight feels l

hen, more carefully: "An

at I'd consider a wolf like him anything more than a snack. If he

You've been waiting a

er she'd brought me and set it squa

. If we bond her to the pack formally, the council can't touch

kno

not going

the bond when she chooses it. Not when

t agreement, part something

lf do the thing I never

her from the edges of a life sh

done w

fice, and for once the word