章 14: Chapter 14: Shadow

Chapter 14

Finlay

In the space of a moment, the tension flipped from warm anticipation to cold irascibility.

Finlay didn’t recognize the wolf studying them with narrowed eyes, but Reyna did. He felt her hand flex in his, saw rigidity leak into her neck and shoulders. She inhaled and seemed to steel herself before she spoke.

“Royce,” she greeted tersely.

When Finlay felt her hand slowly slipping away from his it took a grand amount of control not to grab her wrist and keep it there.

This wolf didn’t belong to Reyna’s pack. There was an underlying scent when a shifter belonged to a particular pack and Alpha; a magical mixture of the environment and the individuals who ran the pack.

Reyna, for example, smelled of her father, of wildflowers and fresh grass, beneath her own personal scent.

Finlay pegged Royce as Deer Lodge long before Reyna broke the awkward silence.

She introduced them. “Finlay, this is Royce, Zack’s Gamma. Royce, this is –”