(Kieran POV)
I smelled him before I saw him—young wolf musk tangled with guilt and the lingering trace of Catherine's scent that clung to the castle's eastern wing like perfume. Marcus stood in my study's doorway, flanked by two older pack members who'd dragged him here by his metaphorical scruff, their expressions grim with the particular disappointment reserved for packmates who'd crossed lines that shouldn't exist.
"Tell me," I said without looking up from the ledgers scattered across my desk, though every muscle in my body had gone rigid with barely contained violence. "Tell me you weren't stupid enough to go sniffing around her chambers."
The silence stretched until it became another presence in the room, thick with the kind of tension that preceded either confession or bloodshed.
