Seeing Darian Whitmore standing there — clean, composed, and wearing that same arrogant smirk — made my wolf lurch with a violent, visceral need to kill. The sub-basement was thick with the smell of damp stone and a frequency that hummed in my teeth. This wasn’t the man we dragged out of the smelting plant. There was no soot on his white shirt, no blood on his hands. He looked like he was back in a boardroom rather than in a damp cellar built on a granite shelf. I didn’t lower the rifle, even with the pack behind me. Their presence was a low, rumbling pressure. Finn and Gabe wordlessly moved Tess into the shadow of a stone pillar — exactly where I preferred for her to be. She was protected, but with a clear sight of the servers. Darian’s eyes flicked in her direction for a fraction o

