Kingston chuckled and threaded our fingers together as we started walking again. "This whole day seems surreal."
I looked down at our hands. I wanted to ask himwhat it meant and why he wasn't yelling at me for getting us into this mess. Instead, I took a shaky breath and tried to enjoy it.
"Is Zayn okay?" If he'd killed two humans, no matter what they might have done, that didn't bode well for him. It was much more difficult to hide deaths, especially of rich men who would have people wondering where they disappeared to. "And what happened to Marcos?"
"Zayn attacked him. From what I can gather, they've had to amputate his arm, and he has extensive damage to his neck." Kingston lifted my hand and kissed the back of it. "Things are going to get ugly. I'm kind of out of my element here, honestly."
"This isn't good." My mind started playing through all the scenarios of how this could pan out.
A man in a hospital with injuries from an animal attack was a major red flag for the coalition and warranted an immediate and swift investigation. They were tied in to all of the healthcare networks and were notified anytime certain keywords were used. It was rare a shifter attacked a human and left them alive to tell the tale.
It was doubtful that Marcos would say anything to anyone—he was the type that would want revenge—but the doctor's notes in his records wouldn't lie.There were so many lone wolves in the area that it would be thoroughly investigated. Not to mention the humans would be on high alert for aggressive wild animals, which might make people trigger happy.
Everything would inevitably lead to Trevor waking up my father from his stasis again, and the last thing I wanted was for him to be involved. He might have looked young on the outside, but he was ancient and had seen and done so much in his life.
Which was exactly why I wanted to keep him away from Kingston and Zayn... and Sullivan too. He would challenge them to a duel and they would end up losing.
"Hey, what are you thinking about?" Kingston squeezed my hand, stopping the images of my dad slicing them in half with a ray of light or giving them a virus that turned their insides to mush.
"How to get you three out of this situation." My stomach growled, and I was grateful for my attention turning to how hungry I was. "I'm starving."
Once we were back at the cabin, we decided to find food while we waited for Zayn since he wasn't there. I'd been asleep under the tree for at least an hour and Zola could have been miles away by the time Zayn started pursuing her.
"So, how are we going to do this? I don't want to shift and have you two trying to eat me for lunch." I was more concerned about Sullivan making me fillet of fox than I was Kingston.
"I'm not going to try to eat you, at least not in that way." Kingston shifted and shook out his gray hair like a dog that had been sleeping too long. He let out a bark and danced around me, his wet nose butting up against my bare legs.
I laughed, dodging him. Despite everything going on, he seemed more carefree than I'd ever seen him. Maybe it had something to do with being out in nature.
"I won't eat you. At least not today." Sullivan shifted before I could ask him what the hell that meant. Did he mean literally, or in a way that made my thighs tremble?
He and Kingston sniffed each other and then looked at me, waiting. I wanted to believe they weren't going to attack me the second I shifted, but it took several careful encounters for a wolf to not attack.
Not that long ago, when I had moved from Montana's headquarters to Northern California's, I'd had to spend several sessions a day with the agentsto acclimate them to my fox being a friend and not a foe.
Kingston barked again, his tail wagging as he lowered down and stuck his ass in the air. Sullivan looked unamused and headed into the trees.
"You stay in front of me the entire time so I can see you." If I could see an attack coming, I'd easily get away. I did have speed on my side.
Yipping in agreement, Kingston trotted to where Sullivan had disappeared. He looked back at me and waited.
"Well, here goes nothing." In one fluid movement, my body shifted, and I was running after him and Sullivan.
It had been a while since I'd hunted, and I’d missed the freedom of running through the forest with nothing on my mind except finding food. One of my favorite things to hunt was field mice, but I didn't smell any.
What I did smell were squirrels.
Slowing, I let Sullivan and Kingston run farther ahead while I investigated the delicious aroma coming from nearby.
I heard them before I saw them and moved silently until two squirrels came into view. One of them raised their head from whatever they were upto and then scurried to climb the closest tree. The other stayed focused on eating something that was in some brush.
Using my speed, I had the rodent in my mouth before they even knew what had hit them. My fox completely took over so we could enjoy our meal without hesitation.
After finishing, I followed the guys' scents and kept my distance as they stalked a deer. Kingston and Sullivan looked very similar to each other in size and weight, but Sullivan was a bit more muscular and moved with a more predatory gait. It wasn't that Kingston didn't move that way as well, but Sullivan was clearly more comfortable with his wolf than Kingston was.
I flinched as they took down the deer as a unit; deer had always been sacred to my family. Climbing onto a downed tree trunk, I avoided watching their feast and tried to formulate a plan once we found Zayn.
Trevor was already looking into Marcos's men—a few were dead now—but I still didn't have anything on Marcos. But would leverage against him even work? My gut told me no, which left no other option.
