Somerset went over to the window to look out. At first, his eyes insisted the scene was normal, nothing to see there. Then his brain caught up, and he made a low, frustrated noise through clenched teeth.
Men in dark sweats and T-shirts moved through the frozen vignette outside the hospital as if they’d not noticed the world had stopped around them. They didn’t walk together, but they moved in step with each other. It was as if they were all joined by a single thread, pulled along in a pack.
Gull had rested his head on the window. Sweat dripped down his nose and splattered on the windowsill. It matched the blood that had soaked through his bandages and oozed through his fingers.Theyweren’t stopped. If Somerset didn’t let it go soon, then he’d finish the job of killing Gull after all.
Maybe it wouldn’t only be Gull, either. Thethrumof something pulled tight in his brain was intense enough that he could feel it rattle down his spine. Even using borrowed power, it was no small thing to hit Pause on the world.
Somerset swallowed hard—as if an aneurysm could be dealt with by popping your ears—and grabbed Gull’s shoulder.
“Why are there Wolves in my city?
Gull turned and grabbed the lapel of Somerset’s coat in one hand. “I don’t know. I tried… I told Sin…” he slurred out, his face shock-white and his eyes filmy. “I failed. All I could do was get it to you. You have to keep it. Hide it.”
His eyes rolled back in his head, and his knees went out from under him. Somerset caught him under the arms before he hit the ground and released the wire to let time crash back onto them.
Nurses ran into the room, yelling for crash carts and at Somerset with equal intensity. He unloaded Gull on them and stepped back out of the way. He watched them lay Gull on the ground and cut through bloodied bandages. Raw wounds, edges frayed where the stitches had pulled away, gaped open over pale skin, and bruises covered Gull like paint.
It looked worse half-mended than it would have raw.
Somerset would know. He’d crossed the Wolves before. They served whoever filled their bellies, and plenty of hands from plenty of sides had thrown them kibble over the decades. Whoever had sent them after Gull would find out the truth about them eventually. The Wolveswouldbite the hand that feeds.
More doctors came into the room. A nurse shooed Somerset out, with promises to talk to him once Gull was stable.
Somerset wiped his bloody hands on his coat, the fabric rough again
Bone was the best way to track someone. Skin, or hair, was the worst. Blood was somewhere in the middle. It wasn’t something to leave lying around if you had anything to hide.
Somerset had plenty of things to hide, and that was before Gull made him responsible for hiding something he didn’t have.
Of course…
Somerset put his thumb on that thought before it could go anywhere. He kept it squashed as he stalked down the hall. If he’d wanted to think about it, he would have. He was done with all that—the politics, the factions, the backstabbing, and the brothers. That’s what he’d told the Courts when he left.
Also, he’d told them to shove it up their ass. Luckily, no expected couth from his kind, so they’d not taken it personally.
They should have.
The idea he was trying not to entertain squirmed under his thumb.
If Somerset didn’t have whatever Gull had brought him for safekeeping—and, he might as well admit it now he’d gotten this far, it had to be part of the regalia—then he knew whodid.
Somerset broke stride briefly. Damn it, he thought grimly as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He did know, didn’t he. After all, if Gull didn’t have it and Somerset didn’t have it—which he didn’t—that left one other suspect.
… and just when Somerset had started to believe in the innate goodness of humanity. Or, at least, of one particular, beaky-nosed paramedic.
That idea was too far-fetched to stick, even with self-righteousness as glue.
Somerset couldn’t deny that he liked Dylan or that he’d enjoyed their friendship for what it was. Even being the subject of the man’s brutally obvious crush had entertained him. But that was as far as it went. Dylan was useful at the bar, and he flattered Somerset’s ego. Nothing about ‘liking’ in there, never mind anything else.
There were rules, after all, and punishments. Exile, self-imposed or not, wouldn’t stop the Court applying both to him.
In some ways, Somerset mused as he turned slightly to avoid a lost-looking teen, that was a shame. If the two of themhadbeen friends, Somerset might have known where to find him.
Beforethe Wolves did. After probably wouldn’t be much use.
The doors to the elevator closed as Somerset reached them. A sweaty handful of people clustered in front of the doors as they waved phones and yelled accusations. One woman staggered against a wall to prop herself up, lips vaguely blue around the edges of her pretty-in-pink lipstick. A different woman, hair bleached a brassy blonde, jabbed sharp-nailed fingers in the woman’s direction as she yelled, “She could have died,” at the beleaguered-looking hospital administrator.
Somerset gave the air a discreet sniff and grimaced. He was no wolf, but his senses were better than average. More from necessity over the years than innate advantage, he thought. The sweat and fear stink was acrid enough that, mixed with the metallic tang of blood soaked into his coat, it made the nape of his neck itch.
