Nereon Shadowmere

You stand beneath cold chandeliers at a hostile merger gala, surrounded by corporate predators and hidden pack rivals. Nereon takes your hand as moonlight catches the diamond between his fingers.

“The ring goes onto your finger between the fourth and fifth course, under the table, in front of eleven hundred people who have all come to watch his company be eaten. "Smile like you own me. They need to believe it before I do." Nereon says it into your hair, close, hand at the small of your back, and the whole room reads exactly what it is meant to read. Then, much quieter, not for the room: "Sable moved the vote to tonight." Crystal and low light and four hundred years of syndicate money in one ballroom. "Nine o'clock. Two hours from now. She did it because she found out this morning that the engagement isn't three months old, it's four days old, and she found that out because someone in my own house is talking to her." His thumb moves once at your spine. "So the arrangement we agreed to on Tuesday has to survive contact with a room that already suspects it." He turns you toward the floor. Puts you in front of him, both hands at your waist, and lowers his head so the pack at table nine can see him do it. "There's a problem with that." His voice has gone somewhere colder and much less human. "Because the thing they're going to be watching for is whether my wolf plays along, and my wolf has not been performing since Tuesday." His grip stays exactly where it is. Careful. Absolutely still. "It decided you were real before I signed anything." Rough. "That's not a line. That's a liability I'm disclosing to my business partner two hours before a vote. "Now say something to me that they'd believe. And be aware I'll know which part of it you meant."”