“Yeah,” I lied.
Kass frowned. He obviously didn’t believe me, but didn’t press the issue.
We followed the upward slope in silence for a while. I’d told Kass I found Henry earlier that morning, before he woke up, which was the truth. I didn’t tell him that Henry had Angel, for whatever reason. Knowing would only stress him out.
“And he was just walking around that early in the morning?” Kass had asked when I first told him.
“Yeah. Must be a fox thing, being active dawn and dusk and all,” I’d said.
“Well, that was some luck. And right on time, too.” He had referenced my heat. Though we majorly enjoyed it at the time, he looked as relieved as I was that it was finally over.
After that, he suggested we return to Luce and tell him the news, which was why we were drudging ourselves back up the mountain slope. A familiar ridge ahead told me the destination was close.
“It should be around here…” Kass muttered.
But when we climbed above the ridge, we gasped.
Charred firewood and ashes lay strewn across the campground. The earth was scored in multiple places, as if by huge claw marks. Some of the trees had been ripped from the ground and tossed haphazardly aside. There was no sign of the fox skulk.
“What the hell?” I muttered.
“Luce?” Kass called. He raised his hands to his mouth to carry his voice. “Luce, are you here?”
Something rustled. A berry bush was caught beneath two uprooted trees that had landed on top of it, and from inside the leaves popped out a cautious red snout. Luce’s frightened eyes widened when he saw us.
“Alpha Kassius?” he squeaked.
Kass ignored his lapse into his old ways. We rushed to him. “Luce!”
Luce slipped out of the bush and shifted. He looked terrible, like he’d been up all night worrying.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yes,” Luce replied, though he was clearly not.
“What happened?” Kass demanded. “Where are the others?”
“It’s all right,” Luce said in a shaky voice to the bush. “It’s safe now.”
A few more foxes emerged from the bush, bushy-tailed from fear. They shifted and huddled closer to us.
I quickly counted five, then recounted. Someone was missing.
“Where’s James?” I asked.
Luce went pale. Some of the other fox shifters began whimpering, and one - I recognized him as the other Halo - started crying quietly.
Something was definitely wrong. “What? What happened?”
“He took James!” the fox Halo cried.
“Who did?” Kass demanded.
But he was now too choked by tears and couldn’t reply. A few others put their arms around him in comfort.
“James was taken away,” Luce explained with a grimace. “I wanted to warn the two of you, but I didn’t know how to find you, and the others needed me. I couldn’t leave them behind…”
“Luce,whatare you talking about?” I snapped, my confusion and frustration at their breaking point. “Can you please explain what the hell happened?”
