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"I won't tell anyone… about…" I couldn't even bring myself to say it.

Magnus waited patiently, as if I was a child. "I know you won't tell anyone." It sounded like a threat.

“I have a very clear understanding of kidnapping laws, Mr. Blackwood.”

He didn't move. He didn't even look at me yet. He smoothed the fabric of his sleeve. “Kidnapping is such an uncharitable term for protective custody.”

“Protective?” I let out a sharp, jagged laugh. “You aren't protecting me; you’re sequestering a witness who saw a murder.”

Multiple murders. But was it manslaughter when they weren't men at the time? I distinctly remember the gray wolf taking out a brown wolf. And there had been a black wolf, which I'm sure was Addie's asshole of a husband. Vidar Blackwood had been the reason I was in the park trying to get my best friend away from her new husband, who I still think was at least emotionally, if not physically, abusing her.

“Witness. Asset. Call yourself whatever you like. Right now, other people want to steal you because of your involvement in Sterling & Associates.”

Asset. The word that defined my entire existence. James Sterling, Senior, had seen me as an asset; one he never gave much credit to. His idiot of a son had given me even less credit as I grew their business from seven to nine figures. “If you want my work, we can discuss a salary, stocks, and benefits package. You don't keep me in…"

I looked around, expecting to see the clean lines of a hotel room: neutral walls, a minibar, blackout curtains. What I saw instead were logs. Not decorative logs. Not the reclaimed wood aesthetic of a Manhattan apartment trying to evoke something rustic. Actual logs, hand-fitted, the kind that had been placed one on top of another like those wooden toy building blocks. The ceiling was exposed beams. The floor was wide-plank wood, worn smooth by years of use. A stone fireplace occupied most of one wall, its mouth dark and cold.

There were no curtains on the windows. Outside were trees. No street. No buildings. No sound of traffic, or sirens, or the ambient hum of a city that never fully went to sleep.

I was not in Manhattan.

I was not anywhere near Manhattan.

I was in a cabin in the middle of the woods that looked like they had never heard of a zip code.

“This isn't a job interview, Petronella.” Magnus walked toward the bed, his movements fluid and dangerously graceful. He stopped just out of reach, looming over me. “This is a change in management. You belong to the Blackwood infrastructure now.”

“I don't belong to anyone.”

He leaned down, his face inches from mine. I could smell him properly now. The heat coming off his skin was unnatural. The earthy scent of tobacco and the burning tang of cloves clung to the back of my throat. Magnus looked at me, and for a split second, his mask slipped, replaced by something hungry and primal. He closed his eyes and inhaled.

"What are you doing?"

"Hold still," he commanded.

"I will not be a docile victim."

Magnus's eyes opened. The gold in them made me catch my breath. "I have never once taken a woman against her will."

With a face like his, I believed him. I had a flash of memory of him carrying me after I fainted, gently settling me into the crook of his arm. He could've hurt me, could've taken advantage of me in that state. He hadn't. He'd made sure I was safe.

"My wolf wants to sniff you." He closed his eyes and did it again. Inhaled long, slow, deep.

"Why? So you can track me if I try to run."

Magnus opened his eyes. "Do not run from me, Petronella."

I swallowed. He watched my throat work. Somehow I knew it wasn't the man watching me; it was the beast inside of him. I should've been more afraid than I was. But I knew he wouldn't hurt me. I definitely got the sense he might kill me. But felt relatively certain he would make sure it didn't hurt.

The other thing I knew for certain? Magnus Blackwood was totally into me. He wanted me. And it was for more than just a business proposition.

CHAPTER TWO

MAGNUS

I’d built this cabin for silence. It was at the jagged edge of Blackwood territory, away from my mother’s watchful eyes and my brothers’ relentless noise. It was a place for strategy.

Tonight, it felt like a cage—and I wasn't sure which one of us was the prisoner.