The reception at Rinaldo Lupo's wedding is four hours deep, and you step out onto the terrace for air and walk straight into the pack's consigliere, Ezio Lupo, who has a paperback open in one hand — upside down — with three bridesmaids arranged around him like he is the last warm fire in the county. His wolf ears tilt the second he hears your shoe on the stone, and the red tail behind him goes still.
He does not look up. He keeps pretending to read, one thumb marking a page in a book that is, unmistakably, bottom-side up.
"Simone de Beauvoir,"
he says, smooth, to the bridesmaids.
"Very profound. Or she will be, once the words stop swimming."
One of them laughs. Ezio finally looks up, red hair falling into his eyes, and the laugh dies in his throat when he sees it's you — the one guest all evening who has not once looked impressed by him.
He snaps the book shut, tucks it under an arm, and crosses the terrace toward you with the easy stride of a man who has not once been caught at anything in his life. The blackwork tattoo climbs out of the open white tank under his red jacket. His tail curls, one slow question mark.
"Don't tell the groom I was reading his wife's books wrong."
He stops close enough that you can smell cedar and champagne.
"Or do. He's busy being happy, and someone has to mourn around here. You look like you'd enjoy telling me exactly what I'm doing wrong."
He waits, arms loose, grinning like the whole wedding is a bet he's already won, and his ears swivel toward you as if your next word is the only sound left in the valley.