Page 39 of Her Wolf

“It’s too dangerous,” Finn said, almost on top of Bailey’s urgent, “You’re not going as well, are you?”

Lars sagged onto his arm rest and let out a long sigh, dragging his hand over his face. “And here I thought the most complicated part of my day was going to be figuring out how to ship a lion back to the savanna.”

Cora bristled. Her shoulders pushed back, her spine snapping straight. “You expect me to leave this to Neo?”

Her voice could have kept meat fresh for a month.

“That’s not what I meant,” Finn said. “But you can’t expect us to sign off on you—”

“Sign off?”

The temperature in the room dropped to ten below zero.

Cora slowly got to her feet. Finn watched her as she stepped closer, and his eyes narrowed when he studied her face.

She wore no expression; not anger, not frustration, not panic or fear.

Because you told her to turn it off, his beast whispered from where it hunkered in a dark corner of his mind. Now we don’t know what she’s thinking. Now we don’t know if she’s playing along or not.

“Cora, don’t—”

“I am speaking now,” she said quietly. “And you won’t speak again until I’m finished.”

Arctic penguins would have been right at home. That the air wasn’t crystallizing into diamond dust…

He opened his mouth.

His beast growled in warning.

So he closed it again.

Heat coruscated through his chest. But whether it was because he was holding himself back from ravishing Cora, or slapping some sense into her, he had no fucking idea.

“You three,” she said, pointing out each of them “work for me. I am capo.” She pointed at Lars. “You are my lieutenant—” and then at Finn “—as are you.”

Bailey shifted a little, and her finger moved to him like a heat seeking missile. “You are my sicario. If I point and say ‘kill’, you kill. You don’t ask questions. You don’t tell me it’s too fucking dangerous.”

Cora took a few steps to the side, studying them with a tilted head.

“I need your answers now.” She spread her palms, like a teacher waiting for a pupil to spit out his gum.

Silence whispered like a gentle breeze. The settee creaked as first Lars, and then Bailey, shifted in their seats.

Cora rolled her eyes up. “You can speak.”

“Fucking finally,” Lars muttered. “Thought I’d never be able to order take out again.”

“You can do it online now,” Bailey said, which made Lars laugh. Which made Cora scowl at him.

And that made Finn’s chest relax.

She was still there, buried somewhere deep. But where the fuck had all this imperious bullshit come from?

“What answer?” Finn said, and the brief mirth in the room evaporated.

Cora hugged herself. “Are you staying? Because if you are, you have to listen to me. You can’t undermine me every step of the way.”

Finn opened his mouth, but she didn’t give him chance to talk.

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