# MINE IN EVERY LIFETIME
## Chapter Eighteen — *Hello Little Wolf*
Nobody moved.
Not the seven Alphas.
Not Rhen.
Not any of the guards standing at every exit point in the room.
Nobody.
Because the Elder of Ironveil was standing in the doorway smiling and something about that smile made every instinct in every wolf in the room go completely quiet in the specific way that prey goes quiet when it realizes the predator was never actually gone.
Mara looked at him.
She had seen him before. At the Gathering. At the ceremony. Always at a distance. Always elevated. Always surrounded.
This close he looked different.
Older than the platform version. Grey at the temples. A face that had been carefully maintained for forty years and was not bothering to maintain itself right now.
He was not
