Chapter 2 2

Sabels's pov

Kieran's headquarters turned out to be a converted warehouse on the waterfront that looked, from the outside, like exactly the kind of unremarkable security firm his business cards apparently claimed it was, and it wasn't until we were three floors underground that the operation's actual scale became clear.

"This is a lot of werewolves," I observed,

watching what appeared to be a training session happening in a converted gym space we passed.

"This is a fraction of the pack. Most of Ashgrove keeps day jobs above ground for cover." Kieran, now dressed, thankfully, led me toward a private office with the same unhurried confidence he'd carried in the alley.

"Sit. I'll get you something for that scrape, and then I owe you the longer version of tonight's very short conversation."

A man appeared in the doorway before Kieran had finished the sentence, lanky, grinning, and radiating the specific energy of someone who had never once in his life read a room correctly before speaking.

"So this is her," the newcomer announced,

looking me over with unabashed interest.

"Kieran, buddy, you didn't say she was pretty. You said, and I quote, 'a skip tracer requires extraction from an active shift incident,' which, frankly, undersold the situation considerably."

"Milo."

"I'm just saying, if I'd known extraction meant this, I would have volunteered for alley duty myself."

Milo stuck out a hand toward me, entirely unbothered by Kieran's flat, warning stare.

"Milo Reyes. Beta, professional smart mouth, and the only person in this building willing to tell you what's actually going on instead of whatever careful, edited version Kieran's currently rehearsing in his head."

"I like him already," I admitted.

"Everyone does. It's exhausting for the rest of us." Kieran's tone was dry, but something in his expression had eased slightly at Milo's presence, like an old, comfortable rhythm neither of them needed to think about anymore. "Milo, can you give us the room?"

"Absolutely not, this is the best thing that's happened all month." Milo dropped into the chair beside mine, entirely uninvited. "Continue. I'll be very quiet."

He was not, in fact, very quiet, but Kieran seemed to have given up on that particular battle years ago, because he simply exhaled and turned his full attention back to me instead.

"Twenty two years ago," he started, "a pack was destroyed in a single night by a hunter faction called the Silver Concord. They target bloodlines they consider unstable, dangerous, worth eliminating before they can breed forward. I was twenty two years old, a junior enforcer in a different pack that had an information sharing agreement with the Concord at the time, and I was present, at the edge of that massacre, under orders I have spent every year since regretting."

My stomach had gone tight and cold.

"What does this have to do with me."

"The pack that was destroyed that night was yours, Sable. You were seven years old. I was not fast enough, or brave enough, or willing enough to defy orders in the moment that mattered, to get to you before the rest of your family was already gone." His voice had gone rough, controlled in the specific way of a man who had rehearsed this confession many times and still couldn't make it come out easily.

"You survived. I have spent the twenty two years since making sure nothing else happened to you, quietly, from a distance, because I did not believe I had any right to get closer than that."

The room had gone very quiet, even Milo, for once, not filling the silence with anything at all.

"You've been watching me for twenty two years."

"Watching is not entirely the right word.

Protecting, when I could. Redirecting danger, funding safer placements when your foster situations turned unstable, making sure jobs that would have gotten you killed quietly disappeared from your radar before you could take them." He met my eyes steadily, not flinching from how deeply that admission violated every reasonable boundary a person was entitled to.

"I understand exactly how that sounds."

"It sounds insane."

"It is, somewhat. I've had considerable time to make peace with that particular truth about myself." Something almost wry crossed his face despite the weight of the conversation.

"I'm not going to pretend the ethics of it are clean, Sable. I'm going to tell you the truth instead, because you deserve considerably more honesty than I've managed to give you across the last two decades."

"Why now. Why tonight, after twenty two years of watching from a distance."

"Because you were never supposed to be close enough to see what I actually am. That was the entire point of the distance." His jaw tightened.

"Tonight broke that arrangement whether either of us intended it to. I'm not going to compound the damage by lying to you on top of everything else."

Milo, apparently unable to stay quiet any longer, leaned forward.

"For what it's worth, he's been genuinely unbearable about you. Nobody in this pack has been allowed to say your name within his hearing for six years because of an incident I am legally required to describe as 'the bad Tuesday.'"

"Milo."

"I'm being supportive."

"You're being a menace." Kieran's ears had gone faintly red, an actual blush on a man who had, an hour ago, casually tackled a shifted wolf to the pavement without breaking stride.

"The point, Sable, is that the Silver Concord has resurfaced. Recently. In this city. And given that your name has apparently crossed paths with a skip trace that led directly into pack territory tonight, I don't believe that's a coincidence I can afford to ignore."

"You think they're looking for me."

"I think it's possible, and I would rather act on that possibility than wait to find out I was right the hard way." He leaned forward, all trace of humor gone now, replaced by the same controlled intensity from the alley.

"I have a proposition. There's a gathering of packs in three weeks, an alliance summit where old grievances get aired and new threats get discussed. The Concord will have representation there, disguised, cautious, but present. I need someone with your specific skill set, tracking, reading people, disappearing into a cover story convincingly, to help me identify exactly who's operating inside that room."

"And where do I fit into that, exactly."

"As my fiancée." He stated it plainly, watching for my reaction with the same careful attention he'd studied me with in the alley.

"A cover engagement gives you a reason to be present at every event, every private meeting, without raising suspicion. It also gives me a legitimate excuse to keep you close enough to protect properly, which, given tonight, I am no longer willing to do only from a distance."

I stared at him, adrenaline and grief and something considerably more complicated all colliding at once.

"You want me to fake an engagement to a man I met an hour ago, to hunt the people who killed my family, at a party."

"When you phrase it that way, it does sound considerably more chaotic than I intended."

"It sounds completely insane."

"Probably," he agreed. "Is that a no?"

I opened my mouth to say exactly that, no, absolutely not, and found, to my own considerable irritation, that the word wouldn't quite come.