“He shamed me into it,” he confessed, his voice low but his eyes holding Urban’s gaze. “Both the way he was, even knowing what was coming down the pike at him, and when he said that if I didn’t help him, I was no better than the ones who would kill him. He was right.”
It was true, yet it wasn’t the whole truth. There’d been something else inside Colby, something he couldn’t understand, urging him to save Tristan.
Urban’s lips twisted. “Kid’s got a habit of hitting on some uncomfortable truths sometimes,” he said, before turning away and pacing to the other end of the room. “Why did Cale take him in the first place?”
Colby had already told him, but he knew better than to point that out. “It was an accident they ran into him. Nico was going to slit his throat so he couldn’t warn you they’d been in town, but then he thought he might have some information, so he brought him back forCale to question.”
“You’re telling me Tristan survived Cale’s questioning?”
Colby shook his head emphatically.No onesurvived Cale’s questioning unless he wanted them to. “Cale wasn’t there,” he said. “Nico was waiting for him to come back.”
“From where?”
Colby said nothing. It was weird, how the knowledge he was going to die was so liberating. He’dneverhave dared refuse Nico’s questions, but not answering Urban was less terrifying because nothing would change his fate. Didn’t mean he wanted to rush toward it, but it would happen whatever he said or didn’t say.
“Where’s this camp of theirs?”
Colby remained silent and still.
“You want me to believe you’ve turned your back on Cale’s pack, but you’re refusing to pass on information about them. Want to tell me how that works, Colby Williams?”
“I’ve got no loyalty to them,” he said truthfully, looking into those clear green eyes that seemed to be burning into him. “But why the hell would I tellyou?”
As he tensed, waiting for the blow to fall, he was startled to see Urban merely quirk an eyebrow, as if in acceptance of that point.
“If I said you’re free to go, what would you do?”
Not again. This had been one of Nico’s favorite games, offer Colby something good, only to yank it away as soon as he believed it.
“I’d leave,” he said shortly. “Get as far away from here as I could.”
“And the silver wolf?” Urban asked.
Colby frowned.
“He could be worth a fortune if the right—or wrong—people knew about him.”
“I don’t give a crap,” Colby saidtruthfully.
“Tristan?”
Colby stared blankly at him. “What about Tristan?”
“Is there a reason his scent is on you right now?”
Ice-cold sweat prickled down Colby’s spine at Urban’s tone. He couldn’t stop the way his tongue flicked out to moisten his lips before he spoke, even though he knew it gave him away. “It was me,” he said. “All of it. He didn’t do anything.”
He stood for the longest minute of his life under Urban’s steady, cool regard, willing him to believe it, willing him not to punish Tristan.
“I see,” Urban said at last, and wandered back across the room. Colby wondered how he could make a seemingly aimless movement feel so full of threat.
Urban took his seat in the leather chair behind his desk and gestured with his glass toward another chair. “Sit.”
Colby sat down cautiously. He didn’t know what the hell this was. Part of him wanted it to end now, but another, tiny part of him that he tried desperately to quash seemed to be telling him something else was going on here.
“You know when your pack broke in here, they nearly killed Tristan,” Urban said conversationally.
“No.” It burst out of Colby in denial, horror, and shame.
