“He’s avoiding us. The past few months, he seemed to be getting better, but then there was that stupid fucking almost-challenge and he’s closed off again. We can’t push too hard. We push too hard, and he’ll run.”
“Know that from experience?”
“Yes.” Sam looks directly at me, and some of the concern I had about his pack fades. “You know I do.”
The mage wars. The fae. More events we couldn’t get involved in but that sat just on the edge of our periphery. Not that I would have been any help, mage against mage and my blessing ever so temperamental, but Maurice… He would have been useful. Paxton even, maybe.
“I’m doing what I can to help him. Iwantto help him.”
Sam studies me for a moment. I don’t feel the flare of his magic, but I don’t think he needs it to read me. “Okay. I believe you. And wherever he’s sneaking off to?”
“It’s under control.”
“So you were standing here tonight for…”
I shrug. “I wanted to get the measure of his pack.”
“Have you?”
“No, I don’t think so.” I can’t read people as well as Vlad, despite his solitary nature. And I haven’t seen much of this pack at all beyond the little peeks I got while serving as Deacon’s bodyguard.
“We are trying to help him, you know.”
“Drew’s not noticed anything off about him?”
Sam frowns. “No. I mean, aside from the obvious. Is there something we should know?”
That’s real concern in his voice and despite it all, I believe him. This is a young pack, full of young people. Wolves who have been pack-raised, who are wilder than most wolves I meet now, but still don’t know all the things they should.
And I know Quinn doesn’t want me to tell. That’s the most important part of all. I won’t violate his trust. I’ll help him heal, at least in this way. And then when he’s ready, he can tell them himself because from what I can see of Sam—and he’s been sent to me to represent his pack—they will rally around him.
Will they feel bad that he didn’t trust them? Probably. But that’s one more thing than I have the capacity to handle.
I want to help Quinn.
“No,” I say. “He’ll be okay. These things just take time.”
Sam nods. He pushes off from the wall and sighs. “Want to come up? We’ve always got extra for dinner, and you look hungry.”
“That’s okay.” I’mstarving, now that I think of it, but if I don’t go and see Vlad, he might come get me himself, and he’s sure to be ill-tempered about it. “I’ve got work to do tonight.”
“Quinn will make it back in one piece?”
“I’m sure he will.”
“Okay.” Sam’s not quite happy, but he seems a little less ruffled. He crosses the road without looking back, but despite his wards and his power, I remain where I am until he’s inside the building and the door has closed behind him.
Only then do I leave and head for the base.
Vlad isn’t awake when I arrive, and I find Grant already in the living room. My heart leaps into my throat, but the heavy curtains are drawn, not a flicker of light making its way through.
“You’ve been gone a bit,” he says. He’s on tiptoes, stretching for a book on the higher shelf, and I reach past him to grab it.
“We need to get you some better books,” I say, pushing it into his hands. Something about the occult, but that thing has to be a couple of hundred years old. “How do you even read this shit?”
Grant grins. “Gotta get up to speed.” He rounds the sofa, dropping into his usual position. “Where’ve you been?”
“Have you slept at all?”
