Page 35 of Nikolay

Before Sloan could open her mouth, one of the women—honey-brown skin, glossy dark hair over one bare shoulder, silver hoops glinting in the light—slid sideways on the curved velvet bench and patted the space she’d vacated.

“Come sit.”

That was all. No interrogation. No, why are you here? Just room made.

I stared one foolish second too long before my legs remembered how sofas worked.

Sloan dropped into the spot nearest the edge, effectively folding me into the circle whether I had the nerve for it or not. Someone—one of the men, broad-chested and smiling under a close-cut beard—reached across the table and handed me a drink menu without asking whether I wanted one. Another of the women, pale gold eyes and a wickedly observant mouth, leaned across and studied me with open interest.

“Where you from?” she asked.

“Texas.”

The answer left before caution could stop it.

And just like that, the whole table opened.

“West Texas or pretty Texas?” the bearded man asked.

“You watch your mouth, sir. All of Texas is pretty,” I said.

That got laughs from three of them at once.

When one of them asked where exactly in Texas, I heard myself say Dairyville and then, after the expected blink, explaining where it sat relative to anything somebody outside the state might have heard of. They asked about open roads. About storms. About whether the stars looked different out there with no city burning holes in the dark. They asked with the easy appetite of people actually wanting to know, not just making polite noise while waiting their turn to speak.

My shoulders dropped a half-inch.

Then another.

It happened so quietly I only noticed because my chest started hurting less.

Wolf company did that. Good wolf company, anyway. Not magic. Not a cure. But the body recognized its own kind and stopped standing guard at quite so many gates. Nobody here was measuring my pedigree. Nobody was looking at my clothes and seeing lack. Nobody seemed to need me translated.

The alpha had spoken hardly at all.

He listened.

Not passively. Not like a man checked out of the room. Like a man collecting textures while letting everyone else set the pace. Once or twice his mouth moved at something somebody said. Once he reached for his drink, amber liquor catching the light in heavy crystal. Once one of the men tossed him a comment, and he answered with a look that made the whole table grin like they were in on a joke too old to need retelling.

And all the while I was aware of him in that low, animal way wolves sometimes were with alphas. Not afraid. Not submissive. Just aware of the central gravity in the room.

When he finally spoke, he did not raise his voice.

He didn’t need to.

“You’re Bronc’s sister.”

The words cut clean through the conversation.

Every voice at the table stopped. Not startled exactly. More like a record finding its proper groove.

I turned toward him.

His dark eyes were already on me, steady and certain and not unkind in the least. He had probably known it the whole time. Maybe by scent. Maybe by manner. Maybe because packs and reputations traveled farther than regular gossip when they were built on real weight. Bronc’s name had a shape to it in the supernatural world now. Not everybody feared it, but plenty respected it, and the smart ones did both a little.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

One corner of his mouth moved. “Thought so.”