“Maybe try not to insult our hosts again until we’re off their territory?” Karl added.
Leon rolled his eyes. “They deserved it. You know they did.”
One of the many things Karl was coming to know about Leon was how badly he needed to have the last word. So he simply smiled at him, and closed his eyes. Best way yet he’d found to rile him.
“You better not be sleeping,” Leon warned. “I’ve got a whole lecture prepped.”
Karl answered with a snore.
“Unbelievable,” Leon muttered.
LEON
By the time Michael came back, Karl was still in bed, but upright and alert once more.
He’d had a visitor already. Ruth had come in, quiet and alone, full of urgent questions about Jesse. Leon had taken the hint and stepped outside, giving them the room. Karl hadn’t said much afterwards, but when Ruth emerged, she looked changed. Still tamped down, somehow, like she didn’t dare believe it until Jesse stood in front of her, but something in her was immeasurably softer. He hadn’t realized how much grief had been in her face until it was gone.
Now, it was Michael again. Hailey was with him, her hair loose, eyes alert.
Karl was still pale but looked more like himself. The change had come fast these past few hours, like his body had finally remembered how to heal.
Leon kept mostly quiet. This was wolf business, and in the way of wolves, they had to talk it all to death. He listened while Karl explained why they’d gone public about Jesse’s existence, the fact the National Council of Shifters had welcomed him, and that the shifter who’d ordered the massacre was in shifter custody. Thatmeant no plea deals, no human trials, no wriggling out of paying for what they’d done.
Leon saw the shift in Michael and Hailey. It wasn’t peace, but something seemed to ease at the knowledge that what had been done to their pack hadn’t been forgotten or forgiven.
In turn, Michael told them the only reason there’d been survivors besides Jesse was because half the pack had been out hunting that night. His words were clipped, his eyes still haunted by what they’d found when they returned to their camp. They’d buried their dead as swiftly as they could and left, taking only what they could carry, not knowing if the people who’d done it might return.
They wanted to know how Jesse had survived. It had haunted them all, Hailey said, not knowing if Jesse had been taken alive by the monsters who’d killed the others.
“He snuck out to go exploring in the caves that night,” Karl said. “They can’t have known he was there.”
“That little menace,” Hailey said, choking on a sob. “He was even worse than Charlie at sticking his nose into everything.”
“Still is,” Karl said with a small smile. “At least, if it’s anything to do with food.”
“Well, two of my pack are headed to the nearest town,” Michael said. “They’ll find out if you’re telling the truth about all this.”
He didn’t say what he’d do if they didn’t find evidence.
“You couldn’t, I don’t know, google it?” Leon asked, and he tried, so hard, to keep the snark out of his voice. But God, were these wolves from the Stone Age or what?
“You think we’d doanythingthat might allow people to trace us?” Michael’s eyes were flat as he stared at Leon. Yet another of these wolves who wasn’t impressed by him.
Leon smiled as he drew his hair carefully over his shoulder, a reminder of who he was, how he looked, and how little he cared about Michael’s judgment.
Karl finally voiced the question Leon had been chewing on—why had Argents ever gone into hiding in the first place? They’d disappeared from history centuries before.
Michael gave them a brief history lesson. Argents, he said, had always been marked out by the color of their coats. Some shifters had claimed they were demons, shimmering silver in the moonlight. Others just wanted rid of them, resenting the power and deference they’d once commanded. There’d been a purge, and the books said they’d died out.
Michael’s expression turned bleak. “We didn’t,” he said. “We just ran and hid.”
Karl licked his lips before asking his next question. Either because he knew how sensitive it was, or because he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer. “There were multiple Argent packs in the old days,” he said. “Are you the only one left?”
Michael stared at him assessingly, something heavy behind his eyes. “You know, if you prove to be untrustworthy, you won’t leave here,” he said. Then added, simply, “No.” He clearly wasn’t about to risk giving away another pack’s location.
Leon found himself nodding. It made sense. A single pack wouldn’t have survived centuries in isolation without the gene pool getting dangerously tight. Which meant they must have had contact with others. Enough to survive, at least.
As Michael stood to leave, a thought occurred to Leon. “Hold on,” he said, “if you’re Argents, how come that pup’s coat isn’t silver?”
