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She stopped stirring. “You’re well read in our procedures.”

“I have to be. For the survival of a hunted pack.”

She glanced up at me. And for the first time I thought I glimpsed understanding in her gray gaze. That tiny gleam affected me with a thud in my chest cavity.

Just tell her she’s our mate and she’ll understand, my wolf said.

Don’t be naive. She’s human. Order. Sent to kill us. Not have pups with us.

That was what I had to remember. Despite the tiniest bit of progress I’d made in this conversation, we still had an enormous gulf between us. I’d been alpha of a hunted pack for over a decade, and I’ve buried too many. Now I sat in this kitchen watching an assassin from the Crimson Order tear bread with her hands meant to kill me. I watched those hands…and thought about those hands…and thought about things I shouldn’t with how those hands would feel.

“How many wolves have been killed by the Order?” she asked.

Slowly lifting my gaze to meet hers, I replied, “Sixty-three since I became alpha.”

“Which was when?”

“Twelve long years ago. We were over a hundred back then.”

She was quiet for a long time after that.

There were more things, but I didn’t tell her yet. Not about what was in the cellar. Or why her grandmother sent her up this path.

She’d get there. Eventually, and it would hurt. She had to get there her own way for it to take hold.

So when our bowls were empty and the fire had gone down, I said, “You can sleep in the loft. I’ll take the floor.”

Her eyes flickered wider, as if the concept of going to sleep in this cottage with the wolf shifter she’d been sent to eliminate was completely unfathomable.

It was. The Order and my pack had been killing for over a decade. This might be the first time two of us sat down in a room together, breaking bread, and listening to each other without going for the throat.

“I’ll take the floor,” she countered.

“Suit yourself.” I stood and retrieved a bedroll for her, placing it in front of the hearth. Then I climbed up the ladder to the loft, grabbing the pillow and blanket. She’d need it more than I did, especially after days of traveling on foot through the cold. “Good night, Ruby.”

As I climbed up the ladder, I glanced over at the table to the leather folder with the Order’s seal, the one she glanced at when we’d eaten. She glanced up at me and followed my gaze.

Was she ready to see what was inside?

RUBY

What was I doing here?

This mission was not going as planned. Nowhere near it, in fact.

I lay down in front of the fire on the bedroll Conan had given me, curled up and warm under the blanket after days of being cold. The scent of the stew lingered in the air, and the warmth of that comforting meal settled nicely in my belly.

The knife was near my hand at my side, in case I fell asleep.

I couldn’t fall asleep. Sleep left you vulnerable, open to attack. But I was exhausted, my entire body weary after days on my feet with little sleep.

How the hell did I end up drinking tea with my mark, eating stew with my target?

Breaking bread with my enemy?

This wasn’t what I was trained for.

It most definitely wasn’t in the order, nor part of any procedure in any field manual.