The shadows in the western kitchen were thick, smelling of rancid mutton fat, wet ash, and the low, collective misery of thirty unranked omegas.
Jaxon stood in the deep recess of the larder archway, his massive frame completely obscured by the hanging sides of salted elk. His hands were tucked into the belt of his heavy wolf-pelt cloak, his posture as still as the mountain granite. To any servant rushing past with a tray of pewter tankards, he was just a part of the fortress architecture, a silent enforcer of the Alpha’s peace.
But Jaxon wasn't watching the meat. He was watching the viper.
Selene was at the central prep table, her small, thin hands buried up to the wrists in a wooden trough of cold lard and coarse salt. She was supposed to be curing the winter fat, a mind-numbing, bone-
