I tensed. I didn’t even consider that as an option. “Do you mean because I helped you out?”
“Not only that,” he said, glancing at me, and there was something remorseful on his face. “But because there is a big chance someone saw us together when we ran through the streets. That puts you in danger by far more than mere association.”
“Oh,” I murmured, seeing him return his gaze to the road, his jaw set in a hard line.
He opened his mouth to say something before he seemed to think twice about it and closed it, clutching the wheel and gearshift instead.
Clearing my throat, I returned to the subject at hand, if only to alleviate what I believed was his guilt—even though he had nothing to be guilty about. “And where do you suggest we start?”
“I already have a few suspects in mind,” he replied, motioning with his chin toward the folder in my hands, visibly relieved that we had moved back to our most dire topic. “While I drive, can you read through the files for me?”
“Sure,” I said, pulling the envelope open with a little smile. “You know, I haven’t met many people like me who prefer using hard copies rather than digital files.”
Lucien’s chuckle made my belly flutter. “I’m old fashioned in a way, I guess,” he said, and his light voice drew my gaze back to him. I couldn’t help myself. The small smile on his face made my chest squeeze. “Besides, a manual paper trail is far harder to follow than digital.”
I couldn’t help but smile back. “That’s right,” I said, before I returned my attention to the files and flipped through the pages.
“So, werewolves live in packs,” I said as I read through the files. They mostly consisted of pack members’ profiles, logs of the comings and goings of the members from the pack territory, and handwritten notes about any suspicious activity Remi had found.
“Most supernatural species live in close-knit communities,” Lucien replied. “We’re not very different from humans in that aspect.”
“A community,” I murmured, thinking this through. “Does it work like in the wild, though? I know there’s an alpha wolf that leads the pack, the omega who’s the weak link, and so forth.” I paused. “It works like that in pop-culture books as well.”
To my surprise, his face lit up, and his lips twitched. “You know quite a lot about wolves.”
I arched my brow. “I didn’t realize this was niche knowledge.”
“It isn’t,” he said, “though it was disproved long ago. In the wild, there are no alphas or omegas. Instead, there are family units.”
Intrigued, I leaned toward him. “Family units?”
He nodded. “These units consist of the breeding pair and their children, mainly,” he explained. “There are no battles for dominance or any of those things. One thing is true, though.” He paused, glancing at me briefly before returning his stunning eyes to the road. “Wolves do mate for life.”
His last words made me even more intrigued, but first things first. “So for werewolves like you, does the pack symbolize more of a family, rather than a community?”
Lucien visibly tensed. His knuckles on both hands turned white, he was clutching the wheel and gearshift so hard. I wondered what it was about my question that triggered this reaction, but while curiosity urged me to nag, I kept my mouth shut.
Eventually, he replied. “In most cases, it’s a community, a safe place for werewolves to live their lives. Within that community, there are family units, of course, like with wild wolves.”
He spoke as though he were reading a sentence out of a textbook, his voice was so emotionless. But I didn’t pry and ask him what was wrong. I had some tact. So, I simply scribbled down what he’d said. “So you belong to a pack, then?” I asked once I was done.
He was still tense, and yet his face, which had been lined with tension, was now cleared of any and all expression. As if he’d sucked it out to keephis face carefully, unnaturally blank. “Yes,” he answered plainly, his voice giving nothing away.
I frowned, wondering if I should change the subject, despite the fact I had so many more questions. As I mulled it over, I returned my gaze to the files and saw that at the top of every page, there were three small words written:Pack of Montrévère.
But before I could ask anything, Lucien interjected. “Let’s get to the point. Will you read the profiles for me?”
Hearing the finality in his tone, I didn’t argue. “All right,” I said, my shoulders relaxing. I hadn’t even realized his tension brought mine out.
Grabbing the first profile, I began. “Mack Page, twenty-seven years old. Works as a ...” I squinted. “Um, a Beta?”
Lucien chuckled, and the sound made any remaining tension in the air lift. I looked up, saw the lopsided smile on his face, and didnotfeel flutters in my stomach again. “Unlike wolves in the wild,” he answered my implied question, “werewolf packs have hierarchy. Starting with an Alpha, his Betas, and so forth. Mack is one of those Betas.”
“Oh,” I murmured, and a memory suddenly hit me out of nowhere.
Seventeen-year-old me was sitting in my parents’ home in Seattle, in the backyard. There was a hammock there I was always afraid to climb into for fear of it toppling over, but my younger sister, Willow, who was fifteen at the time, had no such qualms. She was reading a book, leisurely resting in the hammock, and ignoring the giggling and yelping sounds of our youngest sister, Jules, who was twelve, playing with Thayer, our elder brother.
It was summer vacation, and I was already done with my summer homework, so I was utterly bored. I tried tanning on the beach chair, but Seattle didn’t provide such good sun for that, so I gave up and went to annoy Willow.
