“True. Still, it’s not that unusual.”

“I bet no one else in that carnival has a passport.”

He frowned at me. “Where are you going with this? They might slip in and out of Canada on the road.”

“I don’t know,” I replied warily. “I just know that she’s different.”

“We already established that. She didn’t go on a hunt immediately after her transformation. That makes her weird as hell.”

I couldn’t deny that, so instead, I asked, “She was pretty, wasn’t she?”

He snorted. “You mean beneath all the blood?”

“As a she-wolf,” I snapped, pissed that he wasn’t taking me seriously. Ethan tended to do that. He was smarter than me, and we both knew it, but I hated when he turned condescending on me. It really fucking grated.

As a partnership, I tended to deal with people, and he dealt with the facts. It made us pretty unstoppable—as our record attested to—but also, every now and then, I wanted to headbutt him for being a robot.

Our past didn’t help us. He’d turned to books and I’d turned to girls, but still, that didn’t make me a dumbass.

“Yeah,” he admitted after a while. “She’s beautiful. Haven’t seen that coloring on a mixed blood before.”

“Gold and silver?” I shook my head. “Me either. Very rare. Wonder what it means.”

He shrugged. “Guess we’ll find out.”

We walked in silence back to the mansion and, from the gates, when we saw that the council party was still going strong, we both groaned, knowing we’d have to face them to leave the clothes and other items in place for Eli.

“Do we have to?” Ethan muttered under his breath.

I shrugged. “We should.”

“We could take them around in the morning. Eli looked like he was more focused on her than her stuff.”

“He’ll want answers first thing,” I stated, certain about that if nothing else.

“Or we could keep an eye out for the fuckers to leave, and then we could swoop in.”

I shot him a grin. “I’m game for that.”

Veering off the drive, we headed toward our place. We were the only people in the pack to live on the alpha’s grounds. That was an honor bestowed to only the alpha’s enforcer. Except in our case, there were two.

Historically, the alpha trusted his enforcer even more than he did his beta. It was why the enforcer lived on the same grounds, because he was always supposed to be there, waiting for his alpha’s command.

The beta was like a right-hand man. The go-to guy for most of the shit that came as part of leading the council.

But an enforcer was at his left. Doing all the crap that no one else wanted to do. As a result, enforcers were always feared, but we were disliked too. Mostly because we were twins. Pups born in multiples weren’t trusted. Ever.

Still, Eli had always had our backs, had always protected us, and as a result, he had the most dedicated enforcers the pack had probably ever known. Our relationship was forged on a loyalty that few could begin to understand, because no one truly knew what it was like to be hated simply for being a twin. Yet Eli? He didn’t hate us. He didn’t even simply tolerate us. He liked us, and we him.

Our house was about a mile away from Eli’s large mansion. It was tucked in the woods, surrounded by trees on all sides, and though small, the cabin was ample for our needs. It blended into the surroundings, easing our security concerns, and from the bedroom at the front, we could see into Eli’s home and know that all was well without having to leave.

Our pace increased now that we knew we were close to the cabin, and as we made it there, I wasn’t the only one to release a relieved sigh.

Both of us hated dealing with the council even more than they hated dealing with us, which was really saying something.

A howl sounded from somewhere nearby, making my brows rise.

“He didn’t return to the house like he said he would,” I murmured, my wolf riding at me to go out and run with my alpha.

“No,” Ethan said slowly. The first inside, he switched on the lights and placed Sabina’s things on the hall stand. I did the same, but I shrugged out of my coat.

“Something had him on edge tonight. And I’m not just talking about grief after Merinda’s death. Did you see how he was with Sabina?”

“No missing it.”

“What’s it mean?”

He shrugged. “No way of knowing.”

“What do you think the council meeting was about tonight?” Just because we were Eli’s left hand didn’t mean we were a part of the upper hierarchy of the pack.

“What is this? Twenty questions? I don’t know, Austin, and it’s not like he’s going to tell us either.”

Punching him in the arm, I muttered, “You’re in a piss-poor mood.”

“Seeing an innocent woman forcibly turned does that to me. What can I say? I’m all heart,” he grumbled.

“Not enough to stop you from eying up her pie,” I muttered back, but because he wasn’t wrong, as I trudged down the log-lined hall, I added louder, “Well, you can take first shift. I’m hungry and tired. Call me if the council leaves and we’ll go over and wait on Eli.”

Ethan didn’t grumble because we both knew he was the night owl anyway.

The cabin had three bedrooms. One at the front on the top floor, one at the back—his room—and then mine, which was a new addition. Until this point, enforcers had only come in single units, and because everyone only ever had one child, there was no need for a third bedroom in any pack member’s house.

Eli had built onto the log cabin, giving me a room on the ground floor because, though we were twins, and while we were glued at the hip, Ethan irritated the fuck out of me as much as I did him. Everyone needed their own space.

Plus, my room was off the kitchen, and who was about to complain about that?

As I slinked toward the fridge and grabbed the makings of a ham sandwich, I kept my ear cocked for the sound of Eli howling again. He did it several times, and though I wasn’t sure what each howl meant in this form, I knew something was wrong.

Not in a ‘we need to get out there and break some bones’ kind of way, but inside him. Something wasn’t right.

Although we were probably closer to Eli than anyone else in the pack, except for his mom, Eli kept his own counsel. As was the way with alphas. He’d tell us if he wanted us to know, and I had to take comfort from that, even if it made me sad to think he was out there with Sabina, doing his duty to a new member of his pack, all while something was eating at him as he dealt with his grief.

When my ham sandwich was made, I didn’t bother cleaning up. Ethan was as much of a slob as me and, undoubtedly, he’d be down for some food later. Though we’d intended on stuffing our faces at the carnival, that hadn’t exactly happened, had it?

Traipsing into my room, I switched on the TV and flicked through the channels until I found a Seahawks’ game. I didn’t hate them, and it was better than just sitting in silence.

Once I toed off my boots, I left them by the door, then climbed onto my bed. I had a little seating area over by the TV, and I even had a desk, but I felt like lying down. Council parties could last for hours, and I was actually tired, so I considered taking a nap before we had to head out to Eli’s.