Chapter 23 · Ceasefire

Ethan's hand closed around my wrist before I even sat down.

"Don't," he said, low, like we were still a couple sneaking around behind the pack house. "Not here. Not in front of him."

I yanked free hard enough that the chair behind me scraped the concrete. "You don't get to touch me, Ethan. You lost that right on a lake-port floor with a camera pointed at us."

Half the room heard it. Good. Let them.

The warehouse Cassian had picked for the ceasefire talks still smelled like diesel and gun oil from whatever the hunters left behind three nights back. Long steel table down the middle, his people on one side, Ethan's father and two pack elders on the other. Cassian sat at the head like he owned the building, because he probably did now — he'd bought the lease the same week he bought my silence with a clinic sign that still had my name on it.

"Sit down, Sloane." Cassian didn't look up from the papers. "We're not finished."

"You're not finished," Ethan snapped.