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I gasped indignantly. He deposited the flute onto a passing waiter’s tray without apology, and his scent dared me to do something about it. I playfully smacked him on the chest with my purse. He caught my hand and pressed it over his heart, and with his other hand lifted yet another champagne flute off another passing tray and offered it to me.
Now who was making a scene at the dowdiest party of the year? Some of the old folks pelted us with significant glances.
“Sterling!” A male voice with an imperious lilt cut over the barely-warm buzz.
I jumped as a hand clapped itself to Sterling’s shoulder, and a man his age draped himself across Sterling’s back. “I heard you got married,” the young man said, his tumbler of whiskey neat sloshing precariously close to Sterling’s jacket.
Sterling pried the newcomer’s hand off him. “Rory.”
“So is this her?” Rory shoved himself in my direction. “Haha, all the gossip is right for once. She isn’t the type you usually showed up with. Get tired of living artwork?”
Sterling said to me, “This is Rory, the host’s son.”
Rory bristled at being referred to as the host’s son. His gorgeous blonde date hurried to his side. I told Sterling, “With that in mind, I need another drink. Want something?”
“Make it a triple of whatever would clean the scum off a fryer vent,” Sterling replied.
Rory threw back his own drink while his date whispered something about maybe he should slow down.
Across the block wouldn’t be far enough away from him. I settled for across the large room at the bar, where two somber-looking men in tuxes kept watch over a small buffet of hors d’oeuvres and crystal glasses.
One of them was a wolf.
The room was awash in the scent of people, perfume, incense, cigar smoke—it was impossible to tell anything, except right there, up close, I caught his scent. Alone, with most of the humans still at the other end of the room, the wolf and I made each other for what we were.
He also had the manners to break eye contact and look down. But not before his eyes had made a quick, nervous scan of the party behind me like he was looking for someone.
I ordered a vodka gimlet for myself, and an especially rancid whiskey for Sterling. The wolf made my drink while the human companion realized they were running low on lemon wedges and headed through a small door. The wolf added a single lime curl to my drink and handed it to me with a murmured, “Luna Winter.”
I paused, taking my glass from him. “You know who I am.”
He kept his eyes averted and his head slightly lowered, but his shoulders remained square. Respectful, but not cowed or submissive. “Yes, ma’am.”
I took my glass, fingers closing slowly. “Pack?”
“GranitePaw, Luna.” His posture remained polite, deferential, appropriate.
The GranitePaw at a party with a ten-figure minimum at the door. Didn’t matter they were serving drinks. They were there. Like they were outside my den. “It’s ma’am in this company.”
His whole body stiffened at the rebuke. A fierce side-eye that reeked of how dare she, then he covered it up. His human co-worker gave us both the side-eye, but practiced the fine and ancient art of minding one’s own business.
I took the drinks and left. Better he think I was annoyed at his using my wolf title in human company then hang around so he could smell how anxious I was, and how many nervous questions I would have assaulted him with.
One of the shadows along the wall moved, peeled itself off the paint, and approached me.
“Winter,” Maya said, dressed all in black, including black tights and black gloves, her hair drawn back in a severe pony tail, around her neck a thick strap with a camera attached to it.
I froze, drinks in hand. “Maya.”
She smiled that unreadable smile at me. “I’m supposed to be seen and not heard.” She glanced around the party. “You’ll tell them we just go to the same gym, hmm?”
It was an infestation.
She cheerfully hefted her camera. “I’m a photographer. Private parties, mostly. Don’t worry, my clients don’t post this sort of thing for all to see. These are discrete mementos, or if someone needs something for a campaign poster, or press release. It’s all very strategic with this crowd. Nothing like those tacky shots of you and Sterling that ended up in the society page in October. Or your friend Gazelle. Nice shoes, by the way.”
I expected a forked tongue, and some rolled sssss to slip out of her lips. She smiled and seemed convinced we’d somehow become friends.
We were most certainly not friends, and I was not falling for the honey-covered trap.
