Chapter 34. Dinner With the Alpha

Wren POV

The Calder house sat at the end of a long private road, above the river, among the oldest trees I'd ever seen.

It wasn't a mansion. I'd been braced for a mansion. It was big and old and made of gray stone and dark wood, with deep porches and too many chimneys, and every window was lit. It looked like a house that had been lived in hard for a hundred years by people who didn't care what anyone thought of it.

It looked, I realized, a lot like Silas.

Any advice? I signed, as we walked up the steps.

"Don't lie to him," Silas said. "He can smell it."

You lie to him.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "And he can smell it."

His father opened the door himself.

"Miss Marlowe." The same small, formal bow as on my street. "Welcome."

Up close, in the warm light of the hall, Gareth Calder looked less like a threat and more like a ti