Nolan's composure cracked at the edges.

"Your kind always mistakes instinct for truth. You smell a bond and think it makes you a savior."

The state trooper set down his coffee.

"Doctor," he called, "do you know these people?"

Nolan looked at the uniform, the phones pointed from the windows, and Silas's camera.

"Mrs. Quinn requires medical intervention."

He reached inside his coat and produced a folded form.

"Emergency psychiatric transport authorization," he said. "Signed this morning. She presents an imminent danger to herself and her child."

The paper frightened me more than the SUV.

Grant had never needed chains when he could find a form.

Nolan extended it toward the trooper. "Officer, please separate her from the motorcycle club and place her in my vehicle."

Silas made a sound too low for human hearing.

I felt it through the bond anyway.

The trooper took the paper and read the first page. "This lists the evaluating location as Keene Behavioral Clinic."

"Correct."

"Were you at the clinic with Mrs. Quinn today?"

"Her ongoing condition allows emergency action based on collateral information."

"So no."

Nolan's jaw tightened. "Her husband is a trained officer and reliable reporter."

"Her husband is the subject of her attempted-murder complaint."

The trooper turned the form over.

"And this county judge's signature authorizes transport inside Millhaven County. We're in Pine Hollow."

Ronan's voice came through the helmet. "Paperwork has crossed county lines. Approach with caution."

Someone inside the truck stop laughed.

Nolan reached for the form. "Give that back."

The trooper moved it out of reach. "I'll return it after dispatch verifies the judge."

"It contains protected medical information."

"About the woman standing here asking how you knew what drugs were in her blood?"

Nolan looked at me.

The calm physician disappeared for one sharp instant.

What stared back hated being questioned by its patient.

I knew that look. Grant wore it whenever a locked door failed to stay closed.

"I do not consent to treatment," I said.

"Your consent is impaired."

"Then explain why you drove through a red light instead of calling an ambulance."

The trooper glanced toward the intersection camera.

Another fact entered the record.

Nolan stepped backward.

"Then submit it through the court," I said. "With your billing records attached."

His eyes hardened.

"Grant warned me you would become vindictive."

"Grant warned you because you helped him drug me."

The words left my mouth loudly enough for everyone to hear.

Nolan returned to the SUV.

Silas did not stop him. The state trooper photographed the plate and walked toward us while Nolan reversed.

Before driving away, Nolan lowered his window.

"Ask Blackwood what happens when a wolf takes another man's wife."

The SUV pulled onto the road.

Silence gathered beneath the fuel canopy.

Silas stared after him.

Another man's wife.

The words hurt him. I felt it through the fragile thread between us: jealousy, shame, and a hunger so deep it frightened him more than it frightened me.

The trooper approached. "Ma'am, do you want to make a report?"

"Yes."

My answer surprised Nolan's empty parking space.

It surprised me too.

Silas handed me the phone instead of speaking for me.

The recording showed Nolan naming both drugs, admitting Grant supplied information, and referring to Silas's kind.

"Send copies to Briar and Miriam," I said.

Silas obeyed.

When the trooper finished taking my statement, my legs began to shake. Adrenaline withdrew and left the fear behind.

Silas stood one step away.

"May I?"

I nodded.

His arms came around me, careful for half a second and then fierce when I pressed my face into his chest. His scent—cedar, leather, rain—closed over the chemical memory of Grant's pills.

His body wanted more than comfort.

I felt it in the way his breath changed against my hair, in the hard restraint of his hands staying high on my back, in the wolfish heat that gathered whenever I pressed closer. He wanted to pull me entirely against him. He wanted Nolan, Grant, and every piece of paper calling me Mrs. Quinn erased from the world between one heartbeat and the next.

But he waited inside the embrace I had chosen.

That made the wanting feel more dangerous, not less.

"He called me another man's wife," I whispered.

Silas's jaw tightened against my hair.

"You are."

The honesty cut.

His hand spread across my back.

"And I hate him for it more than I have any right to."

I should have stepped away.

Instead, I held him tighter.