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Chapter twenty-seven

Felix

T he sound of Mira’s voice in my earpiece snapped me back to reality.

“Heads up, they’re starting the awards. Talia presents in eight minutes.”

Eight minutes. Fuck.

Annabella stood inches away, her lips swollen from our kisses, her scent a goddamn intoxicating cocktail of arousal and satisfaction that had my wolf clawing at the inside of my ribs.

My cock was rock hard, aching to be buried inside her.

The memory of her tight heat around my fingers, the way she’d clenched when she came, the taste of her on my tongue—it was taking every ounce of control not to push her back against the wall and sink my cock into her.

But it would be a lie. I couldn’t do that to her.

When I finally fucked her, I needed her to know the truth, needed her to scream my name, not Felix’s.

“We need to move,” I said, adjusting my jacket to hide my raging hard-on.

Annabella’s transformation was something to witness.

One second, she was soft and sated against me, and the next, she was all sharp edges and lethal focus, smoothing her dress and checking her reflection in her phone screen.

Just like that—from the woman trembling in my arms to battle-ready commander.

But something inside of me felt fucking satisfied that her scent still gave her away—arousal still clung to her skin, mixing with the honeyed satisfaction of recent pleasure.

“Eight minutes,” she confirmed.

I caught her arm as she reached for the door. “Annabella. We’ll need to talk, really talk, about this.” I had to tell her the truth.

“Mission first. We’ll figure out… whatever this is… after.”

I just had to pray to the Moon Goddess that there would be an after once she learned who I really was.

“Target is heading toward the stage with two enforcers,” Mira reported as we reached the edge of the ballroom. “Security positioning as expected. Duke, Zeke, and Lydia are ready.”

Annabella gave me a quick glance. “We go with the plan. Intercept after her presentation.”

I nodded.

“Duke, Zeke, stand by,” Annabella murmured into her earpiece. “Lydia, status?”

“In position,” came Lydia’s crisp reply. “Spells prepped and ready.”

We moved through the crowd like any other elegant couple, Annabella’s hand tucked into the crook of my arm with deceptive casualness.

Her body language screamed relaxed socialite, but her eyes never stopped moving—cataloging faces, exits, potential threats.

Professional. Lethal. Fucking mesmerizing.

The MC tapped the microphone, feedback squealing briefly through the speakers. “And now, to present our Leadership in Research Award, please welcome Wolf Council Representative Talia Johnson.”

Applause rose as Talia approached the podium. Two of her enforcers—Cooper and Alvarez—maintained positions in the ballroom, scanning the crowd. The other two—I had caught the scent of Williams and Ulman earlier—would be positioned at the edges of the stage.

I’d trained with all four of them, shared beers with Cooper and Alvarez after tough missions. These weren’t rookie enforcers—they were elite Council security. But still, I’d been expecting more of them after my warning to Gideon.

“Thank you,” Talia’s voice carried across the ballroom. “It’s my honor to present this year’s award to Dr. Eleanor Whitman, whose groundbreaking work in neurotransmitter research has revolutionized our understanding of addiction recovery…”

I studied Cooper and Alvarez while applause filled the air, unease growing in my gut.

Talia never took chances with security. But their positioning was wrong.

Cooper and Alvarez were standing at least four feet apart—protocol required enforcers to maintain a maximum three-foot gap to eliminate blind spots.

Worse, Cooper had positioned himself where he couldn’t see the west entrance, and Alvarez was keeping his back to one of the service doors—a rookie mistake that left a major approach vector unwatched.

These weren’t just small deviations. They were textbook vulnerabilities, the exact kind we’d been trained to avoid. Security 101: never create exploitable gaps in your perimeter. These weren’t mistakes; they were invitations.

“We need to get in position,” Annabella whispered, tugging me toward the door that would lead us to the service corridor.

I followed, my mind spinning through possibilities, none of them good. What the fuck were Gideon and Talia playing at? Had Gideon been compromised? Was he setting Talia up to be captured?

No. That felt wrong. Gideon was many things—reckless, irreverent, dangerously clever—but never a traitor.

“Mira, activate the fire suppression system in ten seconds,” Annabella murmured into her earpiece.

“Acknowledged.”

Annabella’s eyes met mine, fierce and determined. “Zeke and Lydia’s distraction will pull the two enforcers in the ballroom away. Duke will handle the third. That leaves just one with Johnson when she enters the corridor.”

I nodded, tracking each moving piece while my gut continued to scream that something was wrong.

If I was right about the deliberate security gaps, then our plan was walking us right into a trap.

Had Talia pulled the plug on my op? Were they going to take Annabella’s crew tonight?

Something deep inside rebelled at the thought.

And not just because we still needed intel on the warehouse location, and without that, my entire mission was worthless.

“Zeke, Lydia, execute.”

From the lobby came the unmistakable sound of glass shattering, followed by raised voices and the steady beep of a fire alarm.

“Two enforcers moving to investigate,” Mira confirmed through the comm.

“Duke, you’re up.”

My hearing easily caught the commotion from the ballroom—a chair scraping loudly across the floor, then the distinctive sound of a champagne glass shattering.

“Five meetings I’ve requested, Johnson!” Duke’s voice boomed through the space, the perfect blend of alcohol-soaked rage and wounded pride. “Five fucking meetings and your office can’t return a call!”

“Sir, you need to calm down—” a security guard’s voice, quickly cut off.

“Don’t tell me to calm down when the Council’s stealing my grandfather’s land for some corporate bullshit!” Duke’s footsteps were heavy, purposeful. “You redrew the boundary lines without even a site visit! The creek’s been dry for thirty years—it’s not a natural boundary anymore!”

A scuffle erupted, followed by a pained grunt that definitely wasn’t Duke’s.

“Get your motherfucking hands off me.” Duke’s voice dropped to a dangerous register that would raise the hackles of any wolf nearby. “I just want five minutes to show her the survey maps. Five minutes! My kids hunt on that land!”

“Third enforcer engaged with Duke,” Mira reported. “Target’s moving. One escort, heading your way.”

Annabella pressed me deeper into the shadowed alcove of the service corridor, her back against the cool wall, my body caging her in.

To any casual observer, we were just another couple who’d found a private moment away from the gala.

Her fingers tangled in my hair, tugging just hard enough to make my breath catch, while I buried my face in the curve of her neck where her pulse fluttered like a trapped bird.

The position was strategic. It was also pure torture.

“Ten seconds,” she whispered against my ear, her lips brushing the sensitive skin there.

I managed a nod, though listening for approaching footsteps while she was pressed against me like this was like trying to concentrate during an earthquake.

Every nerve ending was focused on the points where our bodies touched—her hands in my hair, her breasts against my chest, the way her leg had somehow ended up between mine.

The service door opened with a soft click, followed by the measured tap of designer heels and the heavier rhythm of dress shoes. Talia and Ulman, right on schedule.

“On my mark,” Annabella breathed.

I slid my hand down her side in acknowledgment, fingers tracing the curve of her waist through silk, while she began sketching invisible sigils against my chest. Magic gathered around her fingertips like static electricity, raising the hair on my arms even through my shirt.

Both Ulman and Talia must have scented me by now, but neither of them showed any sign of it. They were allowing this to happen.

“—should have the reports by morning,” Talia was saying.

“And the Council’s position on the proposed regulations?”

Neither of them spared us more than a customary glance. If this had been a real Council operation to protect one of their members, I’d have had someone’s job over this.

Annabella dipped her head, her signal to move. She pushed away from me with enough force to make it look like we were having a lovers’ spat, spinning toward the approaching footsteps with perfect timing.

“That’s not even my name!” she hissed, her voice pitched perfectly between hurt and outrage. Then, as Talia and Ulman drew level with us: “Excuse me—”

Annabella stumbled slightly, reaching out to steady herself against the wall. Her hand brushed Talia’s arm as she passed—the briefest contact, barely a second of skin meeting silk.

“ Somnus! ”

Talia sank to the floor as Annabella’s spell took effect, the sigils dissolving into her skin like glittering snowflakes. Just before her eyes closed, her gaze locked with mine for the briefest moment.

Not a trace of surprise. Not a hint of fear. Just calm acceptance—and something that looked unsettlingly like satisfaction.

This was all part of the plan. Their plan. A plan no one had bothered to tell me about.

Ulman pivoted at the whispered incantation, hand already reaching for his weapon. His movements were textbook; the kind of by-the-numbers response you’d see in a training exercise, not a real threat situation.

But I was on him before he could reach his knife. He switched to a defensive stance that was solid but predictable. Right arm up to block, left hand reaching for his knife again.

I jammed my forearm into his, disrupting his draw. He countered with a knee strike that deliberately missed my groin by inches—pulling the move just enough that I could feel the air displacement but take no damage.

Clever. Making it look good without actually fighting me.

I played along, catching his arm and wrenching it behind his back. He struggled just enough to sell it, grunting in apparent pain as I forced him to his knees.

Ulman met my eyes for a fraction of a second and gave a tiny nod.

He knew what I had to do and was giving me permission.

I hit him on the side of his head, and he slumped to the floor with convincing finality.

Academy Award-worthy performance on both our parts. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I might have missed the whole charade.

“Nice work,” Annabella murmured, grabbing Talia under her arms. “Extraction route through the kitchen.”

“On it,” I replied, taking Talia’s other side. We positioned ourselves to look like we were helping a drunk friend, supporting her between us as we moved quickly down the corridor toward the kitchen exit.

“Mira, status on the other enforcers?”

“Duke’s still keeping them busy. You’ve got about thirty seconds before they notice she’s missing.”

Thirty seconds. More than enough time to reach the extraction vehicle.

We moved through the kitchen, the staff barely giving us a second glance.

“This was too easy,” Annabella said as we reached the door where our van waited.

“Maybe we got lucky,” I suggested, the lie bitter on my tongue.

She frowned. “Maybe, but this is one of the Council’s most feared members. We took her down in less than a minute.”

“Hubris and the arrogance of power.” I shrugged. “They didn’t believe she could be taken, so they let themselves get sloppy.”

My earpiece crackled, Mira’s voice breaking through static: “Security systems back online. We need to bounce.”

We bundled Talia into the waiting van just as Duke jumped into the driving seat, and Zeke slid into the back with us. Mira and Lydia would take a car parked a block from here.

As the van door slammed shut and Duke pulled away from the hotel, the full weight of what had just happened crashed over me. Talia had let herself be captured. Every security failure had been deliberate. Which meant this entire operation had been a setup.

Just what the fuck was going on?