He blinked. Then he gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “I can’t do that. I have to finish school.”
The anger boiled over. I gripped his shoulder and pushed him backward—not quite a shove, but close. I was too angry to be touching him right now, and I quickly dropped my hand and put several feet of space between us.
“You have bigger things to worry about than your degree,” I said, my voice well below human range. “We need to leave the country, and we can’t come back for a while.”
He’d gone pale under his tan. “How long?”
“Fifty years. Maybe forty.”
His jaw dropped. “What?” He stepped toward me, a stubborn glint in his eyes. “That’s crazy. I can’t?—”
“You can’t earn your bachelor’s degree if you’re dead, Caleb. And that’s exactly what you’ll be if the elders find out you’ve exposed us.”
He looked like I’d slapped him. “Elders?” he asked after a second. Before I could respond, a faint noise hit my ears.
Sirens.Distant but getting closer. Coming from the south.
Caleb stiffened. He’d heard them, too.
And I couldn’t run from the truth anymore. I had to make him understand, and I had to hope it wouldn’t break him. Or us.
“The Council of Elders has authority over every werewolf in the world,” I said. “They make our laws and punish wolves who break them. I’m one of their enforcers. Except I didn’t do my job this time.”
He went very, very still. “What are you saying?”
“I’m a wolfseeker,” I said. “Teaching is just one small facet of my gift. I can sense another werewolf hundreds of miles away. I can track better than almost any wolf alive. When a werewolf struggles with controlling their beast, I can help them reconnect.” I took a breath, and it was like a knife twisting between my ribs. “But my main purpose is hunting rogues…and the wolves they sire.”
Caleb’s gaze sharpened. “The wolves they sire?” he asked, a dangerous note in his tone. He was smart. It was no surprise he’d immediately zeroed in on the most damning part of my confession.
“Yes.” The sirens were louder. Maybe two miles away. “When rogues bite someone, they pass on their corrupted version of the lycanthropy virus—and nothing else. No gift. No control. Their offspring are always rogues. When Ulfrik turned you, he created you as a rogue. You shouldn’t be able to shift on command or control your wolf. I’ve never heard of someone like you existing.”
Something raced through Caleb’s eyes. He shook his head. “This is crazy. I’m nothing like Ulfrik.”
The sirens grew louder. “No, you’re not,” I said. “Ordinarily, I would have known what you were the moment I found you. Rogues have a distinctive scent, like something is rotting inside them. It comes from the mind, not the body, and it takes a wolfseeker to detect it. You don’t have it, Caleb. Something in you resisted it. I think it’s the mate bond. Your wolf chose me before you’d even shifted once. That connection stabilized you.”
He lifted his chin. “You said you didn’t do your job this time. What job?”
I exhaled, then let the truth spill forth at last. “To kill you.”
Betrayal flashed across his face. Then the scent of burnt rubber hit me.
Fear.He was afraid.
Of me.
The knife found my heart.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. My wolf whined in my head, desperate to go to him, but he spoke again, his voice low and hard despite his fear.
“This Council of Elders sent you to kill me?”
“No,” I said quickly, willing him to believe me. “I found you on my own. The Council had reports of a rogue on the East Coast. There are only a handful of wolfseekers in the world. Everything I told you about my connection to Hale Valley is true. It made sense for me to come here. The Council doesn’t know about you, and they won’t. I promise.”
The sirens were close now, maybe half a mile away. We had minutes at most.
“We have to go,” I said.
He took a swift step backward, defiance in every line of his body. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
