He winked. “I’m not just a pretty face.”

“I don’t recall saying you were pretty.”

The smile stayed on his lips, but his posture lost some of its slouching. “Let me tell you what I’ve detected.”

I smiled back at him. “I can’t wait. Dazzle me.”

His gaze snagged on my lips. He blinked again.

Lost your train of thought for a second there, buddy?

“You pretended to be a lightweight on the bridge. You visited the Order and you have an Order ID, which says you are assigned to Atlanta, except you’re not, because the Atlanta chapter never has more than twenty knights and with you, they are up to twenty-one.”

Fair enough.

“You’ve used your brand-new ID to gain access to a crime scene, but you aren’t staying in the Order chapter. Instead you’re living in a hovel on the edge of the most dangerous area of the city, flirting with disaster and baking cookies with expensive chocolate chips.”

Here it comes, the brilliant deduction.

Ascanio hit me with a direct stare. “I have to ask why the Order is so invested in Pastor Haywood’s murder that they would bring a Knight-Crusader in for it?”

It wasn’t a bad assumption. When the Order had a particularly nasty mess on their hands, they threw a Crusader at it, who would either clean it up and disappear or die trying. Crusaders worked undercover, used unorthodox methods, and enjoyed a lot of leeway. If they screwed up, the Order had plausible deniability.

Crusaders were dangerous as hell and often crazy. They didn’t do what they did for accolades. They did it because they believed in their cause. Before Nick Feldman became the Knight-Protector, he was a Crusader, one of the Order’s best.

“No answer?”

I smiled at him again. “Did you expect one?”

Ascanio pushed away from the doorway and looked past me, at my humble abode. “This place is a dump.”

“Thank you.”

“Whoever rented it to you should be barred from owning real estate. Nick should’ve never let you stay here.”

Dropping the Knight-Protector’s name like you are bestest friends. “I like it here. Quiet, picturesque, but now that you’ve visited, I’ll have to put a ‘No solicitors’ sign up front.”

“I’m not here to sell you anything. But I can offer you better accommodations. You’re new to the city, and this really isn’t a good neighborhood.”

“People keep telling me that.”

“Because it’s true.”

My timer went off again. “Hold that thought.”

I went back to the kitchen, rescued my second batch, and turned the oven off. It was good that gas still burned even during the deepest magic waves.

“I can put you in a better house,” Ascanio called from the door. “Free of charge.”

Too crude for him. He was trying to gauge my reaction. I came back to the front and raised my head, inhaling deeply, the way shapeshifters did when they were trying to catch a scent on the breeze. His eyes widened.

“Do you smell that?” I asked him. “What’s that odor, I can’t quite place it…”

He frowned.

I opened my eyes wide. “Bribery. That’s it.”

He recoiled with theatrical shock. “I come here, I offer you a safer place out of the goodness of my heart, and you accuse me of bribery.”

“I have to ask why the Pack is so invested in Pastor Haywood’s murder that they would send the beta of Clan Bouda to investigate it, bribe the Atlanta PD to gain access to the crime scene, and then stalk and attempt to intimidate and coerce a knight of the Order?”

“I don’t recall intimidating you. If I wanted to intimidate you, I would break through this ward.” He smiled, showing me his sharp white teeth. “And take all of your cookies.”

He promised to break the ward with complete confidence. That wasn’t arrogance; that was experience talking.

The runic ward would stop an average shapeshifter, but then Ascanio Ferara had never been average. All shapeshifters had two forms, one animal and the other human. Those with talent had a third, the warrior form, a blend of human and animal devastating in combat. Curran considered Ascanio’s warrior form to be one of the best, a high compliment from a man who was once Beast Lord.

Looked like I wasn’t the only one who’d gotten stronger. I’d have to readjust my expectations.

I went to the kitchen, took a cookie, whispered a bit of magic from a forgotten language into it, walked back to the door, and dropped the ward.

Ascanio blinked.

I held the cookie out to him. “You think it’s the ward that’s keeping me safe. You want this cookie? Take it.”

He studied me for a moment, his face calculating. He was lighting fast, and he was ninety-nine point nine percent sure he was faster than me.

The cookie lay on my palm, waiting. Perfectly harmless.

Ascanio’s nostrils fluttered slightly. He was sampling the air looking for the scent of poison. Not that it would hurt him. Lyc-V, the shapeshifter virus, ate poison for breakfast and asked for seconds.

I sighed. “Do you want the cookie or not?”

He moved so fast, his hand was a blur. His fingers touched the cookie and went right through it, brushing my palm, so light, like the tap of a moth’s wing. When I was a street kid, I thought I had a light touch. I thought I was quick. Compared to Ascanio, I was a rank amateur. If I ever held something in my hand and he wanted it, I wouldn’t even notice him taking it.