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Thirty minutes cooped up in Old Red alongside a simmering werewolf felt like three hours. But it was better than the alternative—jumping out of the parked vehicle and letting Eric wander around behind my back.
So I stuck it out, made the bare minimum pleasantries, and allowed the shifter to guide me to my destination after the ferry workers finally ushered us off the floating prison on the other side. “Left,” Eric grunted as we turned onto the main street, rolling past huge houses with green, sweeping lawns and lakeside vistas. Ransom might have left Atwood pack central with nothing more than the clothes on his back, but he appeared to have landed quite solidly on his feet.
“Here,” Eric said at last, as we passed an ice-cream parlor crowded with hungry tourists then a small but well-maintained city park. My guide barely waited for the car to slow before opening his door and hurrying down the sidewalk away from me. By the time I’d pulled the key from the ignition, he was already out of sight.
“Now what?” I murmured, sniffing the air surreptitiously. It would be hard to find Eric’s scent in the midst of all of these tourists, people pressing past me as I blocked the flow of the human tide....
But I needn’t have worried. Because as I turned in a slow circle, I caught sight of Ransom watching from behind a restaurant’s plate-glass window. The elder Atwood brother was cupping a mug of coffee, his shoulders hunched ever so subtly. As if being a pack leader in exile was harder than he’d initially assumed.
Or maybe that was just my imagination. Because as our gazes snapped together, my breath caught in reaction. This wasn’t the look of a beaten-down pack leader; it was the stare of a two-legged predator trying to decide whether I’d be better eaten with biscuits or toast.
Run, run, run, instinct told me. And I had to forcibly pry my fingers away from the car door to prevent myself from hopping back inside and gunning it out of there.
We were separated by thirty feet of air and a thick pane of glass, so Ransom couldn’t smell my terror. Still, he must have noted the change in my demeanor anyway. Because his mouth spread into his characteristic smirking smile. Then, crooking a single finger, he raised his eyebrows and motioned for me to approach.
***
“SICK OF MY BROTHER already?” the elder Atwood sibling greeted me as the door whooshed shut behind my back. My muscles tensed in reaction, the reality of being stuck inside a nearly empty restaurant with an alpha werewolf who smelled of fur giving me the urge to turn on my heel and hurry back the way I’d come.
I was done retreating however. Instead, it was time to attack.
“This isn’t about your brother,” I countered as I padded forward on the balls of my feet, magic whirling invisibly around my fingers. “This is about loose lips and strangers suddenly knowing that clan Atwood has taken in two kitsunes. How did that information go mainstream, do you think?”
“Perhaps you should ask my brother,” Ransom countered, bringing the conversation back where he clearly wanted it to stay. “But—wait—Gunner doesn’t know you came to speak with me or you’d never be here unguarded. So what does that make you for sneaking out behind your alpha’s back?”
A mate rather than a sycophant, I wanted to answer, never mind Edward’s assessment of the matter. But, instead, I merely shrugged and murmured, “A fox.”
Despite my best intentions to hold myself wolf-like and tall, I couldn’t prevent my body from swiveling as I spoke, cringing at having my identity outed in a public space. Because I wasn’t on Atwood turf any longer where pack-leader compulsion required that kitsunes be treated respectfully. Good thing the restaurant really was as empty as I’d initially supposed.
Ransom’s laugh brought my head back around to face him. “A cagey fox,” he agreed, pouring a packet of sugar into his coffee then stirring the liquid around with a plastic straw. “But you want something, now don’t you? Which means you’ll give me something in return.”
Ah, here we go. Slipping into the booth across from him, I leaned forward despite the instinct that told me not to squeeze myself into an enclosed space with an alpha wolf. “Perhaps,” I answered. And since werewolves were big fans of dominance rituals, I met and held his gaze for several long seconds after that.
Ransom had eyes exactly like his brother’s. Deep and brown and not quite dark enough to appear black even in dimly lit corners. Also like his brother, Ransom smelled of Atwood ozone, the scent so sharp it made the hairs inside my nostrils itch.
Unlike Gunner, however, Ransom was always on the hunt for an overt show of submission. “I want your debt,” he told me now, voice smooth as silk caressed by sunlight. “Like the debt you owed my brother, to be called in whenever I wish.”
I shook my head, not so much in rejection as in denial of the situation. Because what Ransom apparently failed to realize was that, by coming to him for a favor, I’d already accepted that I’d owe a brand new debt to this exiled werewolf. Accepted that...along with the wedge I knew it would form between myself and his brother, the same brother who called himself my mate.
“No?” Ransom prodded.
“You’re an idiot,” I answered, my words unheated. “Yes, I will be in your debt to the degree you help me track down this kitsune’s history.”
As I spoke, I pulled out my cell phone, Oyo’s picture already drawn up on its screen. I didn’t have any image of my grandmother, but Kira had snapped this shot after our bonding ritual then had texted the image to me for use in my questioning.
I didn’t explain any of that to Ransom, however. Instead, I angled the phone in his direction while bracing myself for smug recognition. After all, the feelers Gunner had put out this morning suggested the neighboring packs were, indeed, sending an unusual number of messages back and forth between the clans. Which pointed a finger at the brother who had means, motive, and opportunity to throw the original Atwood pack to the neighboring wolves.
But all I got from Ransom was cold intensity. “Name?” he demanded as he stared at my phone’s screen.
“Oyo,” I answered. I hadn’t thought to request a surname while she was human so I had nothing else to provide other than a reiteration of my original request. “Do you have any idea who might know that foxes now live within Gunner’s pack?”
“No,” the exiled alpha answered, head shaking as his resemblance to Gunner deepened. Then, giving me the answer I wanted but for a reason I couldn’t quite decipher: “But I certainly intend to find out.”