Wolf form would be less claustrophobic, he decided, and he’d be able to see better. So he began to strip, and Dave swiftly followed his example. After piling their clothes just inside the entrance and shifting, they ventured into the darkness.
DAVE
The passage twisted deeper into the rock, narrow and winding. It was utterly dark now, the kind of darkness that pressed against his eyes like a weight. Dave kept close behind Christian, guided by the soft scrape of claws ahead on dank sandstone.
Every now and then, he caught the edge of something underpaw, brittle fragments that crackled as he stepped. Probably tiny bones from small animals.
The scent of dust and age grew stronger the deeper they went. At one point, his shoulder brushed something that wasn’t rock. He paused and sniffed, identifying old timber, musty but dry. Further exploration suggested it was a crude wooden brace, wedged between wall and ceiling. They definitely weren’t the first to use this tunnel.
Christian moved ahead, his pace cautious but steady. The ceiling pressed lower with every turn, and Dave wondered how Christian was coping because even he was beginning to feel on edge. One collapse would be all it would take to seal them in here. And no one knew where they were.
The air became less stale, and Christian pushed on faster. The tunnel opened suddenly, spilling them into a narrow basin ringed by steep rock. From above, it wouldn’t have looked like anything—just more ridge and scrub. But from down here, the land opened out, wide and secret and silent.
Slopes of loose shale hemmed them in on three sides, while towering cliffs walled the rest. As Dave looked around, he saw small buildings of wood and adobe, cleverly hidden among the trees on the floor of the basin. His heart lurched as he took in the state of them, already half-claimed by nature. One roof had cavedcompletely, and another building leaned drunkenly sideways, with a tree growing through the wall.
The pity of the deserted homes hit him hard. They were hidden away as if the pack had been trying to vanish from the world altogether. He didn’t know what they’d been so scared of to hide away this thoroughly, and still it hadn’t saved them.
Christian was prowling forward, his hackles raised slightly. Dave scented the air around them, but could detect nothing unusual or threatening—it was just Christian being Christian, always expecting an attack or a threat, as if he’d learned early that it was safer to stay angry than scared.
His own hackles rose as he paced slowly beside Christian toward the nearest dwelling. He was still unable to forget the scene they’d found at Cale’s compound, and even knowing that all they’d find here would be bones, he didn’t want to see them curled in fear, trying to shield one another.
But there was no sign of shifter remains in any of the buildings. Just the hollow reminders of life as the wind stirred dust through an open doorway—a rusted cooking pot, a rain-damaged book, a misshapen, rotting lump of fabric that might once have been a child’s soft toy.
As they worked their way around the homes, Dave found it harder to suppress his emotions. They’d wanted some kind of proof they were in the right place, but he hadn’t allowed for how it wouldfeel, witnessing a place that once had been full of life now silent and empty. Worse, that silence was beginning to press upon him. This wasn’t the peaceful silence of a remote, quiet place, but more alack,as if something were missing.
Once they’d checked the last building, Dave returned to the center of the site and sat quietly, listening. He tried to feel the pack that had once lived here, but the place remained silent. So many lives, and not even an echo left behind. Still, he was glad therewas no trace of fear, no lingering grief in the rock. Not like the memories Jesse must carry every day. He ached to think of Jesse living with this emptiness echoing inside him.
Dave knew what most people thought about his attempts to read a place’s energy and his belief that the land remembered. Christian wasn’t like that, though. Oh, he’d roll his eyes and mutter about hippies and incense, but when some guy in a bar had made a crack about Dave and his “chakra bullshit,” Christian had gone still in that way that meant danger was coming. “Shut your mouth,” he’d said, like it was nothing. But the guy had seen the threat in him and hadn’t said another word all night.
And if Dave ever wanted to talk about something, Christian would let him. He never said much, almost as if he wasn’t interested, but then, months later, he’d mention something that gave away how closely he’d listened.
That was the thing about Christian—he didn’t always understand Dave’s beliefs, but he never made him feel small for having them.
Christian came back to his side, nudging at him, impatient to move on. Dave stood, and the silence clung to him, like it didn’t want to let go. He followed Christian back through the tunnel, moving more quickly this time, now they knew where it led.
“That was a big fat wall of nothing,” Christian said as he pulled his jeans on, sounding disenchanted.
“Why weren’t there—d’you think whoever did it buried the bodies?” Dave asked, and hated the way he made talking about the murder of an entire pack sound so natural.
“I don’t give a shit what they say about sandstone being soft, you’re still going to need a pickaxe to break it up,” Christian said. “You think whoever wiped out a whole pack is going to go to that effort?”
“So what doyouthink happened?” Dave asked, surprising himself with how sharp his voice was. The desolate site had rubbed him raw, and he wanted justice. It wasn’t even because their own pack might be next if they didn’t find the murderer but because this pack had done nothing to deserve this. And still, they’d died.
“Fuck knows,” Christian said, and set off up the narrow path to the top of the cliff.
Dave could see the way the site had unsettled him, how he was dealing with it by brushing everything off and moving. For a heartbeat, Dave almost called after him, asking him to stop, to just stand with him for a minute. Not to leave this silence behind like it didn’t matter.
But he didn’t. It’d been carved into him young, what happened if he asked for too much.
He knew Christian loved him. That wasn’t the problem. It was just, Christian never seemed to realize Dave wanted something more. A declaration he didn’t have to read in body language, some kind of tangible admission that he mattered. A touch, a word—something. But he couldn’t ask for it, and part of him felt like he shouldn’thaveto ask.
He sighed, and followed Christian up the steep path.
Chapter Five
CHRISTIAN
Back in their motel room, Christian couldn’t settle. He’d stripped down to his T-shirt and jeans but kept his boots on, pacing across the carpet in the hope that movement would stop the itch under his skin.
