If we’d been at a tavern, I would have given the newcomer a stunning smile and whispered something clever in her ear. While I had a reputation for being dangerous, unlike Ryker, nobody thought I was insane. Which meant I had no shortage of bedmates wherever I went. People who wanted the thrill of saying they’d been fucked by the hunter of the Alpha pack.
But we weren’t in a tavern. We were in our home. And the Fervis Order had found a way to plant one of their people in it.
Selene met my stare and went completely still for a few seconds. The polite smile plastered on her lips trembled a little but didn’t completely slide off her pretty face.
“Is there something you need, Selene?” Cade finally asked.
“Nobody showed up for dinner.” Her gaze lingered on me for another moment before moving to Cade. “I went to Rynn’s room and smelled blood. Both hers and Ryker’s. Would you be so kind as to offer me an explanation?”
I blinked. Her tone was perfectly polite, and even though she phrased it as a question, it felt more like a command. I was instantly transported back to being a little kid and my mother using that same tactic when she’d found me somewhere I shouldn’t be.
Cade smiled faintly, and I wondered if he was thinking something similar.
“They’re both okay,” he told her. “Ryker was out after dark and ran into some wraiths. Rynn saved him but . . .” Cade glanced at me. “She was injured in the process.”
“I see.” Selene pondered all of us before raising her chin and stepping into the room, going straight to the bar. “I would also like to hear about this bet you were just referencing.” She helped herself to some of Cade’s honey ale, pouring two glasses, and moved to the settee, where she passed one to Cade before taking a seat in a chair by herself. “Now, if you would.”
Bastian arched a brow at her. “Well, you’re certainly settling in. It took Rynn months to get this bossy.”
“That’s because, for the first few months, she was too busy growling at us every time we so much as looked in her direction,” Cade said wryly before sipping his ale.
He wasn’t wrong. Even though Rynn was more than a little wary of me, she never backed down. If the situation had been different, I might have liked her. But as it was, I’d been keeping this pack safe for over fifty years and I didn’t know how to deal with Rynn and now Selene. Outside threats, I could just kill. But it had been made quite clear that I couldn’t do that here without good reason.
I needed proof they were sending vital information back to their Orders or I needed to catch them in the act of trying to harm one of us. Both of those things were challenging for me to do if I wasn’t here. It was why I’d stuck around so long after Rynn had first come here. But being around Bas was painful, and I was still determined to find what the wraiths were looking for in the mountains. I’d sacrificed so much for this hunt; if I gave up now it would have all been for nothing.
And part of me believed that if I was finally successful, Bas would understand why I’d made the decisions I had. Why I’d chosen the hunt over him.
“Mistakes were made in how we handled Rynn early on,” Cade finally said. “She wasn’t pleased to learn that she would never truly be a member of this pack. In the aftermath of her finding out the truth, Bastian had some ideas about how he could help her . . . be more comfortable here.”
My head snapped towards Bas, who just gave me a lazy grin in response.
“What ideas?” I ground out.
“Ones that involved a lot of sweating and testing of Rynn’s flexibility.” His grin widened.
“That wasn’t the bet,” Cade cut in before I could respond. I broke my stare-off with Bas and caught the way Selene studied us both, clearly trying to figure out our dynamic.
Good fucking luck.
“The bet was just that Bastian couldn’t convince Rynn to stay in his bed until sunrise. Sex was never part of it,” Cade said firmly.
Maybe not officially, but I knew Bas. There was no way he’d have someone in his bed all night and keep it platonic.
“And what did each of you get if you won?” Selene’s expression was unreadable, but there was a hardness to her tone. I didn’t know her well enough to guess if she was upset on Rynn’s behalf or if she was concerned they had made a similar bet for her.
“If I lost, I’d join Bas for a night of debauchery.” Cade grimaced, and my eyebrows rose slightly. Not at Bas suggesting such a thing, but that Cade had agreed to it; he must have been confident in Bas losing.
“And if you won?” I asked in a quiet, even tone.
Cade hesitated, glancing between the two of us.
I scoffed. “You just can’t leave it alone, can you?”
He didn’t have to say it out loud. Cade had been watching things play out between Bas and me from the beginning. At first, he’d stayed out of it, but the last decade, he’d been meddling more.
“The truth can’t be denied forever,” Cade said calmly. “I merely wanted it to be said out loud.”
“It doesn’t matter. I won,” Bas said flippantly. “Rynn was in my bed all last night.”
