“Uh-huh.”
She moves on. I stare at my plate.
Forrester. The name Margaux warned me about. The pack that’s been traditional for generations. The compound northeast of town, the biggest operation in the area. Andtraditional, in the southern wolf territories, means purist. Anti-magic. The kind of pack that would see bloodlines like mine as contamination.
The man from the Railhead. The man whose mouth was on my throat last night. The man whose hands I can still feel on my skin.
He’s a purist. The enforcer of a purist pack.
I can’t finish the sandwich. I leave money on the counter. Thank Patty. Walk out.
The air doesn’t help. The name keeps turning over—Forrester, Forrester, Forrester—and every rotation connects to something else. Briar’s scent trail running within half a mile of the compound. The corridor through their territory.“You don’t route wolves through someone’s core land without cooperation.”
And me, in a bar restroom, with my legs wrapped around the man who helps run it all.
I sit gripping the wheel, letting the information reorganize everything I thought I knew.
I slept with a Forrester wolf. Not just any Forrester. The enforcer. The man who handles threats to the territory. The man who decides what belongs on this land and what doesn’t.
My wolf twists in my chest, and I can’t tell what she’s feeling. Not revulsion; that would be simpler. Something tangled. The pull toward him hasn’t dimmed with the knowledge of who he is. If anything, it’s sharper, edged with a danger that makes my skin crawl. She wants him. She wants himmorenow that she knows he’s forbidden, and that terrifies me.
I drive back to the motel. The room is empty. Briar’s still out.
I sit on my bed. Try to think like an operative instead of a woman whose body is still humming from a man she should be running from.
What do I know? The Forresters control this territory. Purist, anti-magic. Their land is where Briar found the Ravenclaw scent trail. If the families passed through here, the Forresters either saw them and did nothing… or saw them and did something.
I sink back onto my pillow, close my eyes, and try to clear my spinning head.
I hear the door an hour later. Briar comes in, scratches on her forearms from the cedar brush, pale dust on her knees. She drops her pack by the door.
“Made it past the creek,” she says. “The trail continues south on the other side. Still fragmentary—wind’s taken most of it—but the direction holds. Ravenclaw signatures.” She unfolds her map and marks the new section. “The trail isn’t random, Willow. It leads somewhere specific.”
“I found out who runs the compound,” I say.
“Forrester family. Saw the sign on the gate.”
“The younger brother’s name is Conner. The older one—Garrett—is the alpha.” My throat tightens. “Conner’s the enforcer. He handles boundary security. Everything that moves through this territory goes past him.”
Briar stops marking the map. Looks at me.
“And?”
“And I…” I clear my throat. “The dress. The bar. Shit.” I run a hand through my hair. “I think I might have fucked him.”
Something flickers behind her eyes. Calculation at speed. “Mighthave?”
I huff a breath. “Okay, I did. I fucked goddamn Conner Forrester.”
“That’s a problem,” she says.
“I know.”
“Or it’s an opportunity.”
“An opportunity?” I frown, though I think I know where she’s heading.
“He’s inside the pack. He has access to information we can’t get any other way. Whether they’re directly involved or not, they control this territory. They know what moves through it. If he’s interested in you—”