“Both?” I rubbed Aunt Dot’s bony knuckles, worrying the stacked rings covering each of her fingers. “I don’t know, and I won’t know until Graeson decides to shift and tell me.”

The radiant glow drained from Aunt Dot, and cold determination settled over her features. She was shifting from doting aunt to caravan matriarch, and threatening one of hers was a foolish thing to do. “Why does the alpha believe you’re mated?”

I noticed that neither Isaac nor Aunt Dot questioned whether the mating would occur, only accepted that it hadn’t yet.

Hope springs eternal.

“I took blood from a pack member, and part of the shift connected me with the pack bond.” With a thumbnail I tapped a square-cut ruby that had mesmerized me as a child. “Bessemer doesn’t understand—or doesn’t want to understand—that it had nothing to do with being mated. It’s part of my gift. It was an unconscious action, not a deliberate one.”

Isaac studied the faux grain on my tabletop as if mapping the grooves might lead him to an answer. “You barely know Graeson. You should be given time to decide if you two work as a couple before taking on something as complex as navigating pack dynamics.” His fingertips started twitching where they rested on the seat behind Aunt Dot. The itch to pick up and leave, to avoid trouble, was as engrained in us as the pattern in the laminate. “Is this—is your wolf—worth fighting for?”

On my lap, the wolf tensed. I don’t think he breathed again until I said, “Yes.”

My allies were few and far between. I couldn’t afford to lose even one.

“Then it’s settled.” Aunt Dot withdrew from me and patted Isaac’s cheek. “We stay.”

“This is not our way.” The look he gave her was degrees softer. “Do we want to get mixed up with native supernatural politics?”

“This goes beyond our—” I choked it out, “—relationship. I need Graeson’s help.” I hadn’t realized I was stroking his fur until I stopped and he nudged me with his wet nose. “He’s helping me with a case.”

Aunt Dot pierced me with laser focus. “You’re on vacation.”

As much as I wished that were the case, “A forced leave of absence is not a vacation.”

Magistrate Vause felt that between my friendship to Harlow, and my relationship—whatever it was—with Graeson, I was compromised. She no longer trusted me to approach the case with a clear head.

She was right to doubt me. A teen with her whole life ahead of her was missing. And Graeson, he would never stop until Charybdis was dead. He owed his sister that peace in whatever afterlife wargs imagined for their kin.