I want to see that wolf I saw last night.
“What do you want?” he asks, voice pinched and small. He still looks as though he might run at any moment. I cross my legs in front of me and lean back on my hands.
“I need to know more about the fights you’re involved with.”
Quinn’s eyes widen. His entire body tenses; he’s ready to bolt. I don’t move. If I’m too quick, push too hard, then I’ll get nothing from him. He’s our best bet for finding out where the high fae have gone, or when they’ll be back again.
“What do you need to know?” Quinn asks eventually. He stops looking at me, turning his attention to the grass, running his fingers through it. There’s not a mark on his hands, of course, even though he was fighting just last night. No sign he was ever there at all.
“If they’ve moved. Where to, if they have. Why there are wolves and vampires fighting with fae. Anything the high fae who run the place have said to you, or promised you in exchange for fighting, or…”
I trail off when I see the way Quinn has paled. He is still not looking at me, but the hand he has moving through the grass is shaking.
“Quinn?”
“I don’t know all of that,” he says. “I don’t think I know any more than you do right now.”
“Yes, you do. Even if you don’t think so, you do. How many fights have you done so far?” I try to remember what the bartender said. “Three? Four?”
“Last night would have been four.”
“So you’ve been there a bit,” I say, trying to keep my voice gentle. I can’t understand why. Whatever Quinn is getting out ofthese fights is not at all evident to me right now. None of that wolf I saw last night is in him at all. “What do you know about the high fae?”
“You mean the twins?”
“Yeah.”
Quinn shrugs. “I dunno. I met them when I first went in. They’re kind of weird, I guess.”
“And they run everything in there?”
“Yes.”
“Have you heard them talk about any other places? Somewhere they might stay when they’re not at the pub?”
“No.” Quinn darts a quick glance at my face, shoulders tense. I frown. I don’t like that. There’s no punishment for not giving me an answer, especially if it’s an answer he doesn’t know. “I thought maybe they stayed in the pub, to be honest.”
“And the non-fae fighters? What do you know about them?”
If Quinn was reticent in telling me anything about the fae who run the fights, he’s even more so now.
“Nothing,” he says, and this time I know he’s lying. “Why are you after them?”
“We’re not.” It doesn’t matter to the Hunt whether or not the fae are fighting each other. Doesn’t really matter if they are fighting vampires or werewolves, either. Wolves are not truly human and never have been, so it is not our place to protect them. And while vampires might have once fallen under our jurisdiction, from my experiences with them, most would rather chew off their own arms than ask for help.
“Not the fighters. The twins.”
I sigh. Obviously, Quinn was still at Deacon’s pack house after we all left—he knows what Maurice asked the Huntsman when he got his blessing back. It doesn’t mean he understands the true gravity of it, of course.
“They’re high fae.”
“Yeah, you said that.”
“They shouldn’t be here.”
Quinn frowns. “Why not?”
“Because high fae aren’t allowed to come and go through the veil as they please. They’re too dangerous. They’re supposed to stay in the Otherworld unless it’s been agreed they can come here.”
