“You’re not an alpha,” I said slowly, and this time, I wasn’t throwing the words in Sora’s face. “So technically, if you were to give me advice, it would be …”

“Unofficial?” Sora suggested.

“Exactly.”

Now the reason that Sora was answering the phone at Callum’s house was perfectly clear. Callum couldn’t tell me what to do, but he could send me cryptic homemade gifts and arrange for another knowledgeable source to answer his phone when I happened to call.

It was unfortunate that the knowledgeable source in question was related to the alpha I had in my sights.

“What has Callum told you about why I’m calling?” I asked, wondering how much Sora knew—and, for that matter, how much of what was happening now Callum had foreseen.

“Callum said you might have some questions, and that since my son is now in your pack, if I wanted to answer them for Devon’s sake, that decision was up to me.”

To the best of my knowledge, Devon hadn’t spoken a word to Sora since she’d carried out Callum’s sentence against me. He’d left their pack and hadn’t been home since. Maybe Sora figured this was the least she could do for Dev, and if not mentioning Shay prevented her loyalties from being split …

Well, I wasn’t above telling half-truths myself.

“I need to know if there’s a way for a Were to transfer into another pack against his alpha’s will.”

“Both alphas have to sign off on all transfers.” Sora’s answer was immediate—and not at all what I wanted to hear. “The first alpha relinquishes his hold over the wolf, who then becomes a lone wolf, and the lone wolf can then be claimed by another alpha, with or against his will.”

“What if the first alpha is abusive?” I asked, knowing even as I did that it was a wasted question. Sora had broken my ribs at Callum’s request, and she was my best friend’s mother. Words like abuse didn’t have the same kind of meaning to people with animal instincts. “What if he’s doing horrible things to his pack for no reason other than that he can?”

That question was a little more precise, but still, it didn’t get me the answer I wanted.

“What one alpha does with his pack is not another alpha’s business,” Sora said. “However …” She trailed off after a moment. “Callum has been known, on occasion, to make it in another alpha’s best interest to cut ties with a particular wolf.”

“Well, that’s nice and vague.”

Sora didn’t respond, but I could picture the expression on her angular features almost exactly. It was an expression that said, It’s a miracle nobody has strangled you yet, you obnoxious human child. Since Sora was trying to help me, I attempted to dial the attitude back a notch.

“So you’re saying that if I want another alpha to sign off on letting one of his wolves go, I should …”

“Give him something he wants more than he wants to keep the wolf.” Sora paused, and I sensed her debating whether she should continue talking. “Before you were born, Callum’s territory used to include the northern part of Oklahoma. He gave it up in exchange for Marcus.”

“Marcus?” I couldn’t help the incredulous tone in my voice. Marcus was a greasy, antisocial, horrific a-hole who’d hated me for as long as I could remember. I was pretty sure he hated everyone except for Callum, to whom he was unfailingly loyal.

And now I knew why.

“That’s all I’m willing to tell you, Bryn. Just tread carefully here.”

“Is that the nice way of telling me not to do anything stupid?”

Sora let out a sharp bark of laughter. “That’s the nice way of saying that if you misstep and put yourself in danger, I know Devon will follow you, right to the brink of hell. He may hate me now, but we’ve got the next thousand years to get past that, and I’d prefer you not get him killed before he has a chance to become what he’s meant to be.”

I was going to reply, but before I could, I heard a click, and then the other side of the line went dead. Sora had hung up on me, and I was no closer to finding a loophole than I’d been before I called.

Great. Just great.

To save Lucas, I’d have to give Shay something he wanted more than a punching bag, and without even asking, I knew what he’d want in return.

A female Were.

CHAPTER SIX

THE NEXT MORNING, I WOKE UP WITH A FEELING of dread in my stomach and an unnatural heat playing across the surface of my skin. The smell of smoke was a ghost in my memory, and though I didn’t remember the details of the dream I’d just had, a sense of déjà vu, hazy and ominous, seemed to cloud the rest of my thoughts.

A night plagued by nightmares I couldn’t quite remember had done little to shed light on my current predicament. In an ideal world, I would have woken up knowing exactly what to do and how to read between the lines of what Sora had told me to derive a solution that didn’t involve either turning Lucas back over to Shay or brokering some kind of deal with him and trading one wolf for another.

This, however, wasn’t an ideal world, and no matter how hard I tried to think of an answer, I had nothing.

At this point, the best I could do was stall. Until Shay contacted me, asking if Lucas was staying at the Wayfarer, I was under no obligation to tell him, and Shay couldn’t come here to get Lucas unless I gave him permission. With any luck, distance would have strained Lucas’s bond with the Snake Bend Pack enough that his alpha wouldn’t be able to pinpoint his exact location, and by the time Shay figured out where Lucas had gotten off to—assuming Lucas had been straight with us about how he’d gotten here in the first place—I’d have managed to think of a way to play the Snake Bend Alpha, the same way Callum had been expertly playing all of us for years.

Unfortunately, unlike Callum, I didn’t catch even minor glimpses of the future, so I had no way of knowing that my “wait and see” plan would be effective for less than three hours.

Shay contacted all the alphas, including me, via email, which just felt wrong. Our world was brutal, the kind of place where issues of dominance were settled with a fight to the death. The idea of Shay sitting down and typing out a polite query about whether any of the other alphas had seen his “missing runt” was completely bizarre.

It also didn’t leave me any wiggle room regarding how or when to reply. Once the other alphas started sending in their statements, I had no choice but to send mine and CC it for the rest of the Senate alphas to view.

Treading lightly, I channeled Callum and wrote a polite but pointed reply—one that said that Shay’s wolf had trespassed on my territory, that he’d been out of control of his Shift, and that I’d gladly send the trespasser back Shay’s way as soon as I determined whether he’d been acting on his own agenda or someone else’s, and assured myself that he wouldn’t be a future threat.

Shay didn’t have to agree to give up his claim on Lucas, but by Senate Law, I had the right to deal with trespassers as I saw fit. And if the other alphas wanted to read between the lines and infer that perhaps Shay had sent Lucas here to kill me …

Well, I figured that couldn’t hurt.

After I hit send, I spent the next three hours refreshing my inbox, but the internet was silent, and I was left wondering if I’d done the right thing, or if I’d somehow crossed a line in the sand already.

With only a few hours left in my Thanksgiving break, I tried to distract myself with homework, and when that didn’t work, I played with the twins. Unfortunately, even Katie’s puppy antics couldn’t take my mind off the threat hovering above me and mine, so I went for a walk and ended up at Cabin 13.

The others wouldn’t be happy that I’d gone to see Lucas alone, but I figured they could deal. I wasn’t happy about having to choose between sending an abused kid back to his abuser and risking the safety of people I’d sworn to spend the rest of my life protecting.

I opened the door to the cabin, half expecting Mitch to be standing guard, but he was nowhere in sight, and my pack-sense sent an unpleasant chill down my spine, a way of reminding me that taking your eyes off the enemy was always a mistake.