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It wasn’t a comforting thought.

Sigrid angled her head with lupine curiosity. “Do you come here often?”

With anyone else, he might have made a joke about pickup lines, but Sigrid didn’t know or care about humor. He couldn’t blame her, after what she’d been through. So Ithan said, “When my work for the Aux or my pack demands it. But rarely, thank the gods.”

Her mouth tightened. “The Astronomer frequented this place.” That day Ithan had gone back to the Astronomer’s place to free her, he remembered, the ancient male had been over here buying some part for her tank.

“Any idea who he patronizes?” It was more of a casual question than anything.

Sigrid peered around. If she’d been in wolf form, he had no doubt her ears would have been flicking, picking up every sound. She replied without taking her focus off the teeming market, “A satyr, I heard him say once. Who sells salts and other things.”

Ithan glanced to the balcony level—to the shut green door where the satyr lived. He knew who she was talking about, thanks to all those past visits on behalf of the Aux. The lowlife peddled in all kinds of contraband.

Sigrid marked his shift in attention, tracing his line of sight. “That’s his place?”

Ithan gave a slow nod.

Sigrid shot to her feet, eyes gleaming with predatory intent.

“Where are you going?” Ithan demanded, stepping into her path.

The sprites jolted from their nap, clinging to Sigrid’s long brown hair to keep from being thrown off her shoulders.

“Are we done?” Malana asked, yawning.

“We’re terribly bored,” Sasa agreed, stretching her plump body along Sigrid’s neck. Rithi, the third sister, hummed in agreement.

Ignoring the sprites, Sigrid’s teeth flashed as she faced Ithan. “I want to see why this satyr thinks it appropriate to supply people like the Astrono—”

“We’re not here to cause trouble,” Ithan said, and didn’t move an inch from her path. But she stomped around him, pure Fendyr. A force of nature—one he’d just begun to see unleashed.

Despite that noble bloodline, Ithan grabbed her arm. “Do not go up there,” he snarled softly, fingers digging into her bony arm.

She looked down at his hand, then up at his face. Her nose crinkled with anger. “Or what?”

The steel of an Alpha rang in her voice. Ithan’s very bones cried out to submit, to bow away, to step aside.

But he fought it, pushed against it—met it with his own dominance. The Fendyrs might have been Alphas for generations, but the Holstroms weren’t pushovers. They were Alphas, too—leaders and warriors in their own right.

Like Hel would he let this female push him around, Fendyr or no.

Flynn’s chair scraped the ground, but Ithan didn’t take his eyes from Sigrid as the Fae male stalked over and hissed, “What the fuck is wrong with you two? Go snarl at each other somewhere it won’t be noticed by everyone in the gods-damned Meat Market.”

Ithan bared his teeth at Sigrid. She bared hers right back.

He said to Flynn, still not breaking Sigrid’s stare, “She wants to go confront the salt dealer about his association with the Astronomer. The satyr who got in all that trouble last year.”

Flynn sighed at the wooden ceiling. “Now’s not the time to go on a self-righteous warpath, sweetheart.”

Sigrid looked away from Ithan at last, though the wolf part of him knew she wasn’t conceding in their battle of wills. No, it was because she’d found another opponent to face. “Don’t speak to me like I’m some common female,” Sigrid raged at Flynn, who held up his hands. She whipped her head back to Ithan, “It’s within my rights—”

“You have no rights,” a male voice said. Marc. The leopard shifter had stalked up behind them with preternatural grace. Though he was in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, the male still had an air of sleek professionalism. “Since you technically don’t even exist. You’re a ghost, for all intents and purposes.”

Sigrid slowly turned, lip curling. “Did I ask for your opinion, cat?”

Normally, Ithan would have been glad to engage in some inter-shifter rivalry. But Marc was a good male—her disdain was utterly misplaced. Declan sauntered up beside his boyfriend and slung an arm around his broad shoulders. “I think it’s past someone’s bedtime.”

Sigrid growled. But the sprites drifted from her shoulders to float in front of her face as Sasa said carefully, “Siggy, we are here to … do other things. Perhaps we could come back another time.”