Page 91 of Nikolay

She giggled as she wandered past us deeper into the house, saying something about having to get things ready for later. She was in her element, and it was a sight to see.

Beyond her, near the far wall, Tristen—I’d recognized him from Obsidian—stood with his arms crossed over a broad chest, beard trimmed close, posture planted wide and easy in a way that still didn’t fool me for one second. Same watchful eyes. Same sense that if a thing went wrong in the room, he’d be moving before most people had even understood wrong had arrived.

He gave me a single nod.

I gave him one back.

That was all. No smile. No need. It was enough to say I remembered him and he remembered me and neither of us was going to pretend this was our first read of each other.

Sage kept me moving with that hand at my back, not crowding, not steering hard, just guiding. I was introduced to a blur of faces and positions after that—important wolves, if my gut was reading the room right, each carrying some variation of authority without having to drape it all over themselves. A silver-haired man with a gaze too direct to be decorative. A woman with a cool, appraising mouth and a laugh that came easy once she decided to spend it. Names came and went. I caught some, lost others, and trusted myself to remember what mattered later.

What mattered most, for the moment, was how the room kept orienting around Sage without seeming to. He never raised his voice. Never called attention to himself. He just moved, and the social current altered to make space. Questions found him. Eyes checked his face before making decisions, even small ones. It reminded me of Bronc in that pure-alpha way, except Bronc felt like open ground and military command welded together. Sage felt... groomed. Curated. Like leadership polished until it reflected exactly what he wanted others to see in it.

The last person he brought me to was a raven-haired woman standing near the buffet, one hand around a wineglass, the other resting lightly on the back of a chair. She was beautiful in a sharper way than Loralee—dark-eyed, elegant, and close enough to Sage’s age that brother and sister might have passed at a glance if the bone structure had aligned differently.

“This is Moriah,” Sage said.

Her gaze moved over me once, quick and intelligent, then softened. “So you’re Maddie.”

There was something dry in the way she said it, not unkind, just faintly entertained by realities finally becoming flesh.

“That’s me,” I said.

“She’s mine and Sloan’s aunt,” Sage added.

I looked between them before I could stop myself.

Aunt.

The word did not fit the face in front of me the way my brain expected it to. She looked, if anything, maybe only a few years older than he did. Maybe. And whatever she saw on my face made her mouth tip.

“Yes,” she said. “I know. I get that look all the time.”

I smiled despite myself. “Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by the look. You just seem... young.”

“It’s fine.” She lifted her glass a fraction. “I am, in fact, their aunt. Also, before you ask the second question, your face is considering, I run with Sage’s pack, not his father’s. Family stuff. You know how it goes.”

That snagged hard.

I had not asked it aloud, but now it flashed brighter in my head than before. Why? What did that split look like? I did not know how that kind of "family stuff" went. How did a woman choose one branch of blood over another in a pack structured this tightly? Was it common here? Political? Personal?

I decided that's not my business.

“Good to know my face is a snitch,” I said.

Moriah’s laugh was lower than I expected, more amused than social. “In this room, all faces are.”

The buffet occupied the far end of the room with a selection of beautiful dishes Aspen would have flipped over. A whole prime rib stood beneath warm light at the carving station, its crust dark and herb-speckled, the cut face glistening ruby and rose where slices had already been taken from it.

I realized all at once how hungry I was.

Not polite hungry. Not nibble-and-smile hungry. Full wolf hungry.

Sage noticed, of course.

“Come,” he said softly.

He drew me up to the buffet and reached for a plate before I could.