"Why kill pups? Why?" Feray's voice breaks. "It's so hard for wolves to have babies... It doesn't make sense..."
Her bottom lip trembles harder as she tries to restrain the urge to cry.
The injustice of it claws at me. All those pups. All those families. For what? To find one child?
"I will burn the world to ash if I have to. No one will lay a finger on you. Ever." Easton turns Feray to look him in the eyes. His eyes are orbs of pure fire as he stares at her.
In the centuries I've known the man, I've never seen him this angry. He's borderline nuclear.
And then suddenly, the fire dies.
"Easton..." Feray's voice resonates again, and I watch the fire die in his eyes.
She effectively extinguishes the rage simmering in him like she did with me. Watching it happen is more impressive than having it done to me.
Torben moves closer as he watches us interact. "She's gotten good at doing that. It's a Luna gift similar to what a mother sow does with her sleuth. Just remember—still waters run deep."
We will heed Torben's warning. A mother sow is nothing to be fucked with. A female wolf, especially with pups, is the most dangerous creature on earth.
Khal walksthrough the front door dragging a deer behind him.
Feray pauses and goes deadly still. Her nose twitches, and then her head whips toward the door, seeing the deer.
Without warning, Feray shifts and her wolf tears into the deer, sending fur and skin flying everywhere.
My eyes widen. I've not seen this level of ferocity from her.
Arching a brow, I look over at Torben, who wears the same look of shock.
Easton moves Khal over to the book and catches him up on what we discovered. The rage in Khal's eyes concerns me. Basilisks are not known to keep their rage under control.
"Is this normal?" I motion at Feray's savage display.
"She doesn't feel safe," Torben muses, watching her feed.
"Do you need to eat?" I motion to the deer.
"I will when she's done. My shift can and will eat the bones for the marrow." Torben's tone softens as we watch her.
I didn't know Kodiaks ate bones. A new piece of information to store away.
A good chunk of the deer is gone when Feray comes trotting over. The gentle clicking of her claws on the wood adds to the fixation of watching her.
Feray's shift is seamless, and she manages not to destroy her clothing like mythics can do. Torben kisses her temple before he continues past us and shifts. Feray smiles, watching him, her fingers threading through his fur while he eats.
No one in their right mind would think to mess with Torben while he eats.
"So, what do we do now?" Khal looks from the scene before us, then back to the book.
"We look for the house in the picture." I pull the picture out and show him.
Khal picks it up and stares. "If I didn't know any better, I would have thought this was Feray."
Sighing, he flips to the far back of the book. A rough sketch of the town sits there. A single house south of the graveyard is off the beaten path—to the west of town, with what looks like a small road leading to it across from the windmill.
"We start here. Let's find that road and follow it."
With as simple as Khal makes it seem, hopefully we can find what Feray is looking for.
