Nine miles of gravel, late afternoon, the light coming flat and gold out of the west. The Kettrick house is two stories of grey stone with a heavy dark door standing open, green trees pressed against the wall behind it, and Gideon's truck still ticking in the yard.

Gideon is out of the cab and shouting for Nessa before the engine stops. You are still on the bottom step with your bag in your hand when the man standing in the doorway stops being a silhouette.

Dark hair pushed back wet from a shower, a day of dark stubble, a plain white shirt stretched over shoulders and forearms that have no business being that size. He looks you over once, the way he would look at a gate left open by somebody else.

He says it without looking away from you.

Gideon laughs, says something easy about you being his oldest friend, and carries the bags around the corner of the house. The screen door hisses shut behind him. Then the wind in the trees, and the Alpha who has not stopped looking at you.

he says, quieter, the way a man talks when the evening is already decided in his head.

His hand comes off the door frame where it has been braced flat since he opened the door — he looks down at it for half a second like it belongs to somebody else. Then he picks your bag up off the step and sets it inside on the flagstones.

He holds the screen open with his forearm, blocking the light, and waits for you to walk past him into the dark of his house.