Page 58 of Way of the Wolf

“Whatisinside? Knowing might help me guess where she would have put it.”

“That’s none of your business either. Force her to tell you where it is if you can’t find it on your own.”

“I’m not forcing a woman to do anything.”

“Finding things is supposed to be your great expertise.”

“It is. I’ll keep looking around. I don’t know why you couldn’t get it yourself though. You put it in that heat duct, didn’t you?”

“Years ago. Before I’d figured out how to open it. And before she put out a restraining order on me. Itriedto go back for it, but she’s turned into a real bitch.”

“Since she found out you were screwing other women?”

“Don’t sound so sanctimonious. You were flirting with one ofmygirls right in front of me.”

“She was flirting withme.”

“Fuck off, wolf.”

“That’s no way to talk to someone doing you a favor.”

“You’re charging me a fortune to collect something that’s rightfully mine,” Chad said. “It’s practically extortion.”

“This wasyouridea.”

“Just get the damn case. I wouldn’t have left it if I thought she was going to change the locks and would physically throw me out when I showed up. I thought having it under a werewolf’s bed, however diminished a wolf she always was when I knew her, would be safer than sticking it in a bank vault, but that was a mistake.”

“I’m guessing you’ve made a lot of them.”

“Fuck off,” Chad repeated and hung up.

“He really inspires loyalty in the people he hires,” Duncan muttered.

Unable to contain my anger any longer, I threw open his sliding door and glared into the van.

Duncan fumbled the phone and almost dropped it.

“You werehiredto come here and search my apartment and steal something?” I demanded. “And you had the gall toflirtwith me? Tokissme? When you were working for the one person in the world I truly loathe?”

“Well, if the case belongs to him?—”

“Belongsto him? A priceless, centuries-old magical artifactmade with druid magic? How thehellwould Chad have become the rightful owner of something like that?”

“Druid magic?”

“Hehad to have stolen it,” I roared, ignoring the question. “There was no way my idiot, conniving, and entirely magicless mundane husband got it legitimately. He hasn’t done anythinglegitimatelyin his whole life.”

“I suppose that’s possible.” Duncan looked flustered for the first time since I’d met him. “But you didn’t know it was there, so?—”

“So it was okay for you to barge into my apartment with yourmagic detectorto find it and take it?”

My voice had risen to a yell. Maybe a scream. A couple of people who’d been heading from their cars to their apartments paused to watch us.

Maybe I should have toned it down, but, in that moment, I was too furious to do so. Furious that Duncan had betrayed me. Furious that Chad was still in my life after betraying me over and over again. Furious that my cousin was trying to kill me. Furious abouteverything.

The rage flowing through my veins made my nerves tingle and my skin prickle with heat. Hell, was I going to change in the parking lot in the middle of the day?

No. I wanted to punch Duncan—I wanted to shift into a wolf and rip his throat out—but I made myself step back. Voice hoarse, I said, “Get out of my parking lot.”

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