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“And invited yourself out to our place in the meantime?”

He tipped his head to the side, his attention drawn to me once more. “Ah, well, turnabout is fair play, and Six-Mile is usually in the know.” His voice trailed away, leaving silence in its place.

Olivia sighed. “If you want to know anything else, you’ll have to talk to Logan. You know I can’t divulge anything.”

“So I do. So I do. Good day to ye, Olivia.” He whistled softly and doffed an imaginary hat. “Emma.”

After he’d gone, Olivia cursed under her breath. “He knows.”

“Knows?”

“About you.”

“How could he possibly know about me?”

“He’s the most cunning of the fox shifters, and he puts two and two together faster than anybody else realizes there’s a problem to be solved. That’s part of why he’s useful and why we let him come and go.” She took my stick from me, jogged toward the wall, and replaced both weapons. “Come on. We’d better touch base with Logan.”

“How’d he get in here?” I asked, slipping my feet back into my shoes.

“He used my code.”

Hercode. Maybe Queen Olivia wasn’t as infallible as she liked to make-believe.

“Is he always like that?” I asked.

“Jasper?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, he’s a gossip and a man-slut.” Her face split in the biggest, widest grin I’d seen on her. “But his skills in bed are as good as he brags.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

logan

Sunday

My four-wheeler rattled along the trail. I’d opted for the human mode of travel to meet Marcus where he’d be waiting at Five-Tree. The crisp wind zipped through my hair since I’d opted to wear no helmet this time. A walkie-talkie vibrated against my waist. Three clicks would bring the best of our best, those eager to die protecting our territory. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that. Even though I had wanted to bring the whole pack, going alone had been the only way to keep the meeting from turning into a border war.

We couldn’t afford an escalation right now. Of all the shifter clans in Louisiana, the Ville Platte Cats had the silliest name but made me the most nervous. Marcus Steele had been a wild card his whole life. He did as hepleased and answered to no one. At one time, their pack rivaled ours in numbers, and he was on a first-name basis with the alpha of the cat shifters in New Port Orleans while we had no one else in Louisiana. Our sister packs were states away, mostly in Alaska. Marcus was a powerful enemy or an equally powerful ally.

The ATV engine cycled down as I slowed, and the kill switch stopped it entirely. I waited in the middle of the clearing.

A large black panther waited in the largest of the five trees the area had been named after, his amber irises surrounded dilated pupils. He leaped down, shifting midair and landing as a human. “Logan.”

“Hello, Marcus.”

“Any of the others come with you?”

“You know they didn’t.”

He had known when he’d set up camp that I would come alone. It was the only reason he allowed the patrol to see him.

I slid off the seat of the four-wheeler and leaned against it. “What can I do for you today?”

“You have a visitor,” he said. “I want to meet her.”

“Oh? Who told you that?”