Breaths coming in short pants, I sucked in the smell of him, but his personal cologne was all his. Not a hint of Imogen lingered on his skin or in his clothes. For that I was grateful, even if I didn’t want to examine why.

“Scared?” He rubbed his cheek against mine.

“Of what I might do to you?” I breathed. “Yes. I don’t want to go to prison for murder.”

A husky chuckle escaped him as he withdrew. “We need to talk.” He extended his hand, but I couldn’t take it. I thought of wargs as being defined by their soul mate culture, but Dell—and now Graeson—had proven the hunt for Mr. or Mrs. Right wasn’t forefront in all their minds. “I thought we could discuss the new developments in the case you mentioned to Dell over dinner. At my house.”

“Your…house.” Not until Dell mentioned Imogen’s cabin had I wondered where the wargs called home. The entire forest was their domain, no structure capable of containing their wild spirits, but they were half-human. I should have put more than a passing thought into where and how they might live. “I— Sure. Okay.”

His fingers slid down my arm without purchase, accepting I didn’t want to hold his hand but unable to resist stealing a light touch. “Come on.” Hands shoved into his pockets, he strolled toward the dense pines. “Let me show you my home.”

Entering the forest at night brought chills coasting over my skin. The sensation of keen eyes peering from the underbrush had me rubbing my hands up and down my arms. Moonlight cast a silver path through the trees, and Graeson walked it with confidence, his heavy steps managing to land time and time again without so much as snapping a twig. By comparison, I felt like an elephant stamping after him, or like the merry calliope piping at the top of my lungs that the circus was in town. After all, whoever those flickers of gold belonged to had come to watch a show.

“Welcome to Silverback Lane. Not everyone lives here full-time. Most work in human cities during the week and return home for the weekends, celebrations and hunts, but each member is assigned their own cabin.” Graeson distracted me from my thoughts. “The alpha lives there, on the rise.”

Twin floor-to-ceiling windows lit with harsh yellow light glared down at us from a slight elevation in the distance, the symbolism clear. The eyes of the alpha were always watching.

Shaking off that creeping sensation, I picked up my pace. “How many wargs are here at any given time?”

“It’s forbidden to share that information with your kind.” He walked on. “It’s dangerous for fae, for the conclave, to be aware of our numbers.”