Page 105 of A Wolfe in the Woods

Erik Skoll stood a few feet away, hands loosely clasped behind his back, his expression pleasant. He wore an immaculate suit, a predator’s stillness and gaze.

“That piece you’re admiring,” he continued, nodding toward the display, “belonged to our great ancestor and matriarch, the Red Mother, Nyssara—of Lycana’s second bloodline.”

I straightened. “Impressive. Didn’t realize Skoll collected relics.”

“We preserve history.” Erik smiled. “Especially ours. My father searched nearly half a century for that precise item.”

He was laying on the charm.

Erik moved closer, circling. “You’ve done well for yourself, Jonathan. This city remembers you. The Black Wolf of Graymore.” His eyes flicked up, amused. “They still use the name.”

“Do they? I don’t.”

“We may be our fathers’ sons,” Erik went on, “but we are not our fathers.”

Pressure.

My beast recognized the words for what they were, rumbling its discontent. He’d been prowling within me the moment I’d stepped into the elevator.

Erik gestured toward the window, where the city of Graymore was displayed behind the panoramic glass, as if he himself had placed it there as a final finished masterpiece…another in Skoll’s collection.

“Foley was principled. Admirable…but stubborn. The world changed around him while he dug in his heels, mistaking stubbornness for stewardship.” A faint smile touched his mouth. “Me? I prefer momentum toward a better future.”

I hid the surprise of my father’s name rolling off Erik Skoll’s tongue. My beast nearly growled.

“You knew my father?” I asked, trying to keep my tone even and controlled.

What the fuck am I doing here?I couldn’t help but question next.

“I knewofhim,” he corrected. “My father knew him.”

“I’m assuming my father isn’t the real subject here?” I asked pointedly.

Erik chuckled softly, as if appreciating my directness. “No, he isn’t. I brought you here to talk about something far more interesting than the past.”

His eyes flicked toward the city beyond the glass.

“The future.Ourfuture.”

And just like that, the seduction was in play. He laid it all out smoothly. It sounded benevolent on the surface, but I could feel the sharpening teeth underneath.

“And that future includes green initiatives,” Erik continued. “For years, Skoll Corp tried to explore opportunities in the region. Long before I took over. My father believed in doing things properly by working with landowners, respecting the protected status. But Foley made things…difficult. He advocated to neighbors, the localgoodfolk of Juniper Woods,” he said cynically, “to preserve the land, keeping it within the clans. Legacy, he called it.”

I didn’t react to his baiting. Just listened.

“Most of the area was untouchable,” Erik continued, strolling past me as if the conversation were casual. “Environmental protections and all that. I don’t need to bore you with it. But laws change. Communities reassess. Longtime landowners age, and some reconsider what they’ll leave behind.”

Then came a long, measured pause.

“Several already have,” he added.

I felt it then. The quiet implication.

“Our intention is not to target Juniper Woods,” Erik said casually. “Rather, it would beintegrated. Run-of-river hydropower. Minimal footprint. Clean, green energy routed where it’s needed most. Graymore’s infrastructure is lacking, and this would stabilize it for decades.”

He turned back to me, expression open. Reasonable. “Sentiment doesn’t have to be the enemy of progress, Jonathan. Stewardship and growthcancoexist.”

I’d heard this language for years. In conference rooms. In court filings. In back-channel meetings where lives were reduced to line items and inevitability was used like a weapon.