The first attack hit before Wren Hale could decide whether Alpha Silas Night was protector or captor. Claws tore through the sealed door. Alpha Silas Night shifted between her and the attacker, taking a silver blade across his ribs while he forced a path into the old service tunnels.
They escaped with the sealed record but not the evidence that proved who had signed it. Inside a guarded room, Alpha Silas Night traced its payments and erased seals. Every path led back to someone Wren Hale had defended for years.
Alpha Silas Night placed a contract beside the evidence. For thirty days they would appear united, share information, and never move without security. In return, he would give her access to the one archive capable of proving every photograph Wren takes predicts the next death in Silas's pack. The final clause was strangely specific: neither of them could pretend the attraction between them was part of the agreement.
She laughed once, without humor. “You wrote a rule against falling for you?”
“I wrote a rule against lying about it.”
Their first move together became another ambush. A messenger slipped Wren Hale a key engraved with the date of her greatest loss. It opened a private box containing photographs of Alpha Silas Night meeting the person who had arranged her camera revealed a silver-eyed wolf standing where a murdered senator had vanished.
She pressed the photographs against his chest. “Tell me why I should not leave.”
He did not deny the meeting. He stepped close enough that anger became heat and covered her hand with his over the evidence. The bond between them flared, forcing his forehead against hers while both their wolves recognized the same hidden mark.
“I went there to stop what happened to you,” he said. “I failed. I will not fail twice.”
The lights died before she could decide whether to believe him. A black mirror filled with the face of the person Wren Hale trusted most.
“You have until midnight,” the caller said. “Every photograph Wren takes predicts the next death in Silas's pack. Ask Alpha Silas Night what else he is hiding. Then decide which one of you I kill first.”