“How can you help me?”
“We need to work on getting you back in sync again. Notfixing, not evenhealing, not fully. Just enough understanding that your wolf feels he can come out of his den. Okay?”
I shake my head. I don’t really get it. “How do you even know about all this?”
He tilts his head to one side, dark eyes boring into mine. “Isn’t it obvious? Before I joined the Hunt, I was a wolf.”
“You—” He can’t be. Can’t have been. I breathe in deep, which is rude of me, but I can’t smell it on him, and I should—I should be able to—
“Breathe, Quinn,” Asher says, and I don’t know when he rounded the table, but his face is suddenly level with mine and his hands are heavy on my shoulders. “Deep breaths, okay?”
“I can’t sense your wolf.”
“I know. He’s gone.”
“Gone? Like mine—”
“No.”
The word is sharp, curt, and I rock back a little to hear it. Asher doesn’t release his hold on me and doesn’t tighten it either. He’s steady, a rock in a churning stream.
“What happened?” I whisper, and Asher sighs, running a hand over his face.
“Can we talk about it in there?” He points at the living room. “I don’t… This isn’t comfortable.”
To talk about or does he just mean sitting? Either way, I don’t want to argue. I nod and Asher straightens up, then extends a hand to help me, too. I take it without thinking. He tugsme through into the living room and when I glance down, his tattooed fingers are dark against mine, dragging my gaze up to that still-exposed tattoo of clasped hands on his forearm.
“I got it tonight,” Asher says. He sits on the sofa and pulls me down with him. It’s a tight fit, our hips pressed together, and Asher doesn’t let go of my hand. “Still has to be set with magic, but I think it’s easier than it would have been before.”
I swallow. “When you had a wolf?”
“Yeah, when I had a wolf.”
“Did you have tattoos then, too?”
Asher smiles faintly. “Tried, once. But back then, we didn’t have the kind of tools we have now. When I was young… A few friends, we tried. Never stuck.” He pulls the collar of his T-shirt aside with his free hand, revealing part of a thorny vine underneath a patch of smooth, unmarked skin. “The first one I had here. Didn’t last the night.”
“You’ve not had anything else put there?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Asher shrugs his T-shirt back into place. “I’m not sure. Doesn’t feel right. Not yet.”
He falls silent, not quite settling back against the sofa cushions. I’m sitting just as stiffly, partially because I’m not so comfortable being here, not yet, and partially because if I relax, I think I’ll fall asleep.
Not that I want to. Iwantto know what Asher has to say, the need clawing at me desperately.
“About three hundred years ago,” Asher says and smiles at the look on my face, “my pack was attacked. By another pack—no, two, I think—and we just, we didn’t stand a chance.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago. I fought with them, for them. Some of the pups got away, but I never did find out if they survived.”
“And you?”
“And I… died. Well, almost. I was dying.” Asher’s gaze goes distant, but his fingers still hold on to mine tightly. “It was winter. It had snowed. I was bleeding, and I noticed…”
