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Bolin looked like he was in the middle of being grilled by Izzy’s daughter.

The girl had pulled over a chair to stand on so she was as tall as he.

She was waving her arms and questioning him about who knew what.

Meanwhile, Bolin was gesturing toward his father, trying to get his attention.

When their gazes met, Bolin nodded and widened his eyes significantly toward Jasmine.

“Ah, you are that Jasmine,” Rory said.

“What?” Jasmine stopped fixing my trendy outfit and lowered her arm.

“I can see the allure.” Rory inclined his head politely toward her.

“The what?” Jasmine looked at me instead of Bolin, who was now trying to wave his father away from her, probably afraid Rory would do something to lower his chances of winning her favor.

Before Rory could answer, the siblings returned.

Izzy was scowling, but Ivan said, “Ms. Valens. I am more intrigued than ever to get your professional opinion on something.”

“As a property manager?” Rory asked.

“As a security professional,” Ivan said.

“What is it?” I asked before Rory could point out that I wasn’t a professional in that area.

“Come this way, please.”

Rory remained, likely deciding the invitation wasn’t for him, but Jasmine trailed me as Ivan led us toward a closed door.

Before we reached it, Bolin veered in from the side, the daughter walking with him and asking him questions about druids and if he could change into a bear. She wasn’t being quiet, and numerous people turned toward them with curious or puzzled expressions.

“Jasmine,” Bolin whispered, “can you help me with something?”

He glanced at the girl.

“This isn’t a good idea,” Izzy whispered to her brother as they walked ahead of us. “Don’t give her access to anything. She could come back and take everything you’ve got.”

“She won’t do that,” Ivan replied. “I’m good at reading people. It’s how I’ve negotiated so many successful deals.”

“Oh, please. You lucked into getting into the market at the bottom of the crash, like everyone else here. You couldn’t deal your way to a part-time gig at a convenience store.”

“Have I mentioned how much your sisterly support means to me?”

“You called me up to the Pacific Northwest in the middle of its gray and dreary winter. And I came . How much more support do you want?”

Not answering, Ivan led me into a bedroom larger than my apartment. Bolin had successfully diverted Jasmine away. I didn’t know whether to be concerned about being alone with these two or not.

In the bedroom, a gas fireplace blazed cheerily in front of a seating area separate from the king bedroom set that faced floor- to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake. Outside, it had grown too dark to see much of the water, but the city lights of Seattle were visible on the far shoreline.

“In here, Ms. Valens.” Ivan stepped into a spacious closet, built-in mahogany shelves and cabinets lining the walls. Two posh leather chairs offered spots to sit to put on one’s socks in the morning.

Before I could follow Ivan inside, Izzy grasped my forearm. Her grip was strong, a testament to her lupine heritage, and her fingers dug in.

My hackles rose as I glared at her. “What’s your problem?”

“My problem is that some wolf reeking of the Snohomish Savagers walked into my brother’s party.” Izzy squinted at me. “You’re from that pack, aren’t you?”

I tried to hide my surprise, not that she could tell about my heritage from my scent or aura but that she was familiar with the local pack. Wasn’t she from Arizona? Or had she also grown up in Yelm?

“Yes. So?”

“You’re not to be trusted. None of them are.”

“What pack are you from?” I asked quietly.

She might have filled in her half-brother on my heritage, but he wasn’t a werewolf, so I didn’t want to confess anything in front of him. Someone like Ivan had the power to ruin my real estate ambitions—maybe all of my ambitions.

I glanced toward the bedroom door, thinking of pulling away and leaving. Finding out about Ivan’s missing bracelet and if he knew more about who’d taken it wasn’t that important.

“Before they departed, devastated by the loss of a prominent up-and-coming alpha, I belonged to the Cascade Crushers.” Izzy stared me in the eye. “I’ve been in Arizona a long time, but I haven’t forgotten about my pack or what prompted them to leave this area.”

“Oh,” I mouthed at the unexpected revelation.

Despite the gathering outside, it had grown silent in the bedroom.

Inside the closet, Ivan knelt, touching a panel that slid up to reveal a safe, the side torched black, the door askew.

Not focusing on us, he set about opening it, not with a fingerprint or keypad but a pry bar.

The thieves must have warped the door when they’d broken into it.

“Raoul was my cousin.” Izzy’s fingers dug deeper into my arm. “He was a good kid, a lover, not a fighter, despite his power.”

Yes, I’d often described him that way myself.

The night we’d fought, when I’d lost myself to the savage wild instincts that always lurked, threatening to take over my body and deprive me of my rational mind…

Raoul hadn’t fought back as much as he could have.

As he should have. If he had, he would have defeated me instead of the other way around.

“He was.” I struggled for calm, but the wolf wanted to burst out of me. My body tensed, hating that a threat stood so close, her fingers presumptuously and painfully gripping my arm.

“I think I know who you are, what you did,” Izzy said.

“I loved him.”

“You killed him.” Magic rippled around her, and she released me to step back. Would she shift into a wolf to attack me?

“There we go.” Ivan stepped into the doorway of the closet. “Ms. Valens?”

I didn’t want to tear my gaze from Izzy, not when she was on the verge of changing, when she radiated loathing as well as magic. She must have held this pain, this grudge, for more than twenty years. And for the first time, she saw the opportunity to act upon it.

“Yes?” Out of my peripheral vision, I could see Ivan looking expectantly at me.

“I’d like your opinion on a security matter.

On a theft I recently suffered, in truth.

” Speaking in a calm, matter-of-fact voice, Ivan didn’t notice that his sister was glaring daggers at me and on the verge of changing into a wolf.

Of course, as a mundane human, he wouldn’t sense the magic.

He’d clearly been born to only one parent with lycanthropic blood.

He was, like my sons, perfectly normal. “If you’ve a way to track down robbers, I could make it worth your while.

Monetarily or by putting in a good word with whomever.

” He waved airily, as if either would be a simple matter and wouldn’t bother him.

“I’ll be happy to have a look.”

Izzy growled . It was too low in her throat for her brother to hear, but she could spring at me at any moment.

This might be Ivan’s home and party, but I doubted he had the power to stop her if she turned into a wolf.

I would have to fight her, and then what?

My senses told me I was probably stronger than she was—though they also suggested she was the kind of person to fight dirty and take advantage of distractions—but that didn’t mean I would win.

What if I lost my rational mind and killed her, right here in her brother’s bedroom with a hundred people outside the door?

A hundred potential witnesses? Hell, my employers were out there.

“Great,” Ivan said. “In here, please. Step aside, Izzy, will you?”

She didn’t, not until the bedroom door opened and her daughter peered inside. “Mom? Can druids change into bears? And would it be a grizzly bear? Or like a black bear?”

Izzy clenched her jaw. “Quit pestering that boy. He’s not powerful enough to even draw a bear.”

I bristled on Bolin’s behalf, but the girl waved for her mother to come look at something.

Had Bolin managed to slip away with Jasmine?

He’d looked harried and probably would have slipped away with anyone , especially if it meant avoiding being outed as a quirky person with paranormal abilities in front of a roomful of people he might have to interact with in the coming years.

Izzy didn’t want to leave me, but when her daughter held up something magical—hah, was that one of the bath bombs?—she frowned in concern and stalked away from me. Maybe the kid would accidentally drop it at her feet and entangle her. Were such actions frowned upon at upscale shindigs?

I took the opportunity to step into the room-like closet with Ivan.

“I’ve recently had something stolen.” Ivan pointed toward the safe, the warped door now open.

An air purifier hummed in the corner of the closet.

The torching of the side of the safe had probably left an odor, though I didn’t notice anything now.

“And a lot of things not stolen.” He gave me a significant look.

“How do you think I can help you?” I crouched to peer into the safe where envelopes, presumably full of cash, leaned against one side next to what looked like a fancy USB drive but was probably a crypto wallet. Tubes of coins—gold or silver?—also lay untouched.

“It was a peculiar thief.” Ivan looked at me, as if to imply I was also peculiar, so it would be right up my alley.

Since I’d hoped to gather information on this very burglary, I wouldn’t complain.

“And a peculiar item,” he added. “A bracelet that grants—that’s supposed to grant—the wearer the power of a werewolf for a time.”

“Do you get such a thing at the same place where you buy your gold and bitcoin?”

“Of course not. All such artifacts were crafted centuries ago. You have to go to a dealer or buy them on the black market. Or go on a quest to hunt one down that was lost in a shipwreck or some such.” He sounded wistful, as if he’d always wanted to do the latter.

Something told me this guy wasn’t much like Duncan though. “I’m guessing you got it from a dealer.”

He smirked wryly. “It was one of the first things I bought when I started making decent money.”

I wagered decent money was seven figures a year.

“I was always a little envious of…” Ivan glanced toward the door, his sister’s voice floating in to us. She was lecturing her daughter on accepting weird gifts from strangers. “Well, I suppose you can tell, and I needn’t be coy with you.”

“No.” I hadn’t missed his earlier correction about the artifact and suspected he’d used it from time to time. “No need for coyness here.”

“The bracelet doesn’t have the power to let a person change into a wolf—a bummer since that would be amazing— but it makes you strong and agile and fast for a while. Or it’s supposed to.” He shrugged elusively.

“Are such traits useful to a real estate developer?”

“Sure, if you want to carry toilets around.” Ivan winked. “I’ve had the bracelet for twenty years, and it’s sentimental to me. Also helpful on the tennis court.”

“Where it’s useful to be strong and agile?”

“It is. Though I’d never put such a tool to use. That would be cheating. But because it’s sentimental, I would pay to get it back.”

“I… might come across it. I’ve been dealing with artifact thieves of my own.

” I wished I’d taken photos of Radomir and Abrams, if only to see if this guy had ever chanced across them.

“It’s possible they’re the same thieves that robbed you.

They’re collecting artifacts related to werewolves for reasons I haven’t yet figured out. ”

“Strength and agility.”

I doubted Radomir or Abrams played a lot of tennis but said, “Could be,” with a shrug. “I don’t suppose you got any footage of the thieves? Or hair or other, er, bodily essences that they left behind? The person I mentioned who is good at helping me find people can use such things.”

“Oh, a forensics scientist with a microscope?”

“An alchemist with a cat familiar.” I decided that since he knew about werewolves, he would believe that other paranormal beings existed.

Ivan blinked. “Does the cat play an integral role?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve actually not seen it yet. Apparently, it hates my scent.”

“Because…” He waved at me.

“I gather. I don’t otherwise do anything to pester cats.”

“You just exude the aura of a predator?”

“So I’ve been told.” I cocked my head and regarded him. I’d believed him entirely normal, but if he could detect that…

“My sister said so. Maybe if I had my bracelet back, I could tell myself.” Ivan looked wistfully at the safe, then must have remembered something because he snapped his fingers.

“The police investigator found some hair on the safe that wasn’t mine.

They’re supposedly analyzing it, but I haven’t heard anything back.

There was a chunk in that hinge there. One of the thieves may have caught his hair when he was bending low to destroy my safe. ”

I peered close and spotted a couple of lingering strands. “Do you have a baggie I could put this in?”

“Absolutely. And I’ll grab the footage of the thieves too. It’s from the parking lot and not very good, but maybe it’ll help you.” Ivan strode out of the closet.

I gripped my chin and stared at the safe, considering if there were any other questions I might ask that would help me with my various quests.

I hadn’t learned much that I hadn’t already known.

If I found the sword, maybe I would stumble across Ivan’s bracelet at the same time, but it wasn’t my priority.

“If you’re thinking of stealing anything, you’d better reconsider,” came a cool voice from the doorway.

Izzy had returned, sans her kid. She stood naked, her clothes tossed onto the bed. Her eyes had a feral glint, and I sensed her on the verge of changing.

“I’m not a thief.” I stood straight, arms wide and innocent, though I doubted I could walk out without a fight.

“No? You’re a murderer.”

“It was a fight, not murder, and Raoul died in the heat of battle.” I licked my lips, struggling to get words out to defend my actions that night. Since I’d never forgiven myself, how could I expect this stranger to forgive me?

“You killed him.” Her voice was savage, almost a growl, and she dropped to all fours as the change came over her.