Ash doesn’t try to explain who we are or why we’re here. Instead, he advances with a measured pace and stops about ten feet away from Logan, leaning casually against a workbench, and waits.

After what feels like an excruciating minute, Logan stops hammering and looks up. The moment he lays eyes on me, I want to look away. He’s ruggedly handsome but with cruel eyes, like the villain prince in a movie.

“Well?” he says, and there’s an unforgiving harshness to his tone. Behind him on the wall I catch sight of a faded wooden sign that reads BAL DES ARDENTS. I only know a handful of French words, but I’m fairly certain ardents means “fiery” or something similar, which not only suits smithy work, but also his demeanor.

“We’ve come to make a trade,” Ash says, like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Although I know him well enough by now to know it’s a front. “A trade for information about Christopher.”

“I’m busy,” Logan says in an uninterested tone.

“So busy that you’ll pass up an opportunity to trade with a Wolf?” Ash says, maintaining his calm. “From what I hear, you don’t get many of us out here since you beheaded Charlotte.”

I gulp. Ash said Logan killed people, not that he beheaded someone from his Family.

Logan grits his teeth and wipes his forehead with the dirty towel draped over his shoulder. He shifts his gaze to me and once again my instinct is to run. “And you?”

Between the coals in the forge and the roaring fire, the barn is warm and I’m overheating in my coat. “If you don’t know who I am, then you don’t need to know,” I say in my best imitation-Layla voice, and I’m actually shocked by how convincing I sound.

Logan grunts. “Leave it to a Bear to be self-righteous.”

I stare back at him, neither confirming nor denying his assessment, and I catch the faintest glimmer of approval in Ash’s eyes.

“And leave it to a Jackal to try to get information through insults,” Ash says, and I take a better look at Logan.

Of course this guy is from the same Family as Aarya—mercurial, dangerous, and probably good at everything.

Logan shrugs. “Let me save you the effort of sweet-talking me, because I couldn’t care less about your decorum and rules. I do have information on Christopher, but as you’re not the first to ask, there are very few things I’m willing to trade. And I’m not going to stand here listening to you cry about how I didn’t accept your terms. I’d rather kill you and use you for fertilizer in my back field.”

My pulse picks up. It’s obvious by his expression and body language that he’s not trying to intimidate us. He means every word.