Holy shit.
“Stop!” I shouted out at Harrison before he could plunge the knife down. I wasn’t sure if that shifter was even part of the Burlington pack, but I couldn’t take that risk. Harrison jerked up to his feet, holding the vicious-looking blades out like he was a trained fighter.
What thefuck?
“Elijah?” He sounded as shocked as I felt, but his mask of cool calm that I’d see dozens of times in the locker room flickered back on. His shoulders appeared to drop, and his hands lowered. “I didn’t—you and Gabe. Shit.” He tossed the curving blade into the air and caught it effortlessly. The hilt appeared to be made of some kind of dark stone. “A blind spot I should have picked up on.”
“What thefuckare you doing?”
I moved closer, inching myself between him and the unconscious were I knew had to be Gabe. Harrison didn’t seem to care, his posture still relaxed, considering the situation. He propped a leg up on a smooth stone at his feet.
“How much has Gabe told you?”
“Everything. Enough. But… what are you doing here?” It was like putting a puzzle together through a thick fog. I could make out some of the pieces, feel a few of the edges, fit a couple together, but no matter what, I couldn’t see the full picture. “Are you the one that’s behind this? This pack war?”
He sighed, like he was exhausted from having to go over another bad game with the team. My brain could hardly process the fact that I was speaking to my general manager, but that was probably because I was now focused on how the hell I was going to get out of this.
I had no weapons. I’d brought nothing with me but my fists.
I regretted that. A mistake. But I wouldn’t let it affect me, not now.
I’ve got this.
I had to keep him talking. Maybe one of the shifters would wake up—hopefully, one of the Burlington wolves.
“Yes,” he said. His face appeared etched out of stone,not a single twitch or micromovement. Not even any blinks. I wanted to look away, as if staring into those cold, dark eyes any longer would break me, but I held it. “It was me. All of it.”
“Why?”
“Do you know what happens to someone if they cross an angry were on a full moon? My daughter found out. She went on a short night walk on the trail behind our house. She’d done it hundreds of times before. She didn’t come home. Her body was unrecognizable when we found her.”
Fuck. I’d heard that Harrison had lost his daughter. That the cause had been an animal attack.
“I found her. I knew it wasn’t a wolf or cougar that did that. I started to dig, started looking around.” He flared his blades out to his sides. “I found the Hunters Guild first. They took me in, gave me training. Showed me how to hunt and kill these beasts. But the Guild wasn’t perfect—they follow too many silly rules, traditions. I defected. Dropped off the radar and decided to hunt on my own.”
“So you’re hunting these people? These innocent people? You know Gabe, you know Emmy, Chris. They’re real people, with big hearts and?—”
“Chris, huh? I assumed Gabe and already had a suspicion about Emmy. Who else is caught in my net?”
Fuuuck.
“Why the pack war?” I asked, deciding to stick to questions instead of handing out information. From the corner of my eye, I could see Gabe’s limp were form. He wasn’t even twitching.
Come on. Wake up. Please wake up.
“I needed to draw them all out. I knew Viktor was a were—he was a fool and shifted in sight of a securitycamera I routinely checked. And Gabe had healed quite quickly after multiple injuries. I figured the other ones were better at hiding it, but we know Gabe is a shitty actor. All I had to do was spark a flame between them. Plant an iron collar after a game, leave a severed bobcat head at a hotel, abduct Viktor’s wife and make him think it was the Burlington pack. Easy things.”
The fog over the puzzle dispersed. The entire image was clear, and it made my stomach twist.
“My mission, Eli, is to kill these monsters. I don’t care that they wear human faces during the day. That they laugh like us and speak like us. These are abominations, and I’m going to execute them. I will give you one chance to run and to never look back. And don’t think of tying me to this. When they die in their were forms, they turn to dirt and ash when the sun comes up. There will be no evidence. No body to bury. No human to grieve.”
He took a step toward me. The blades had a wicked glint to them.
“And if you choose to stay, then I will need to finish you too.”
I believed him. He was going to kill me. Either I ran and saved my own life or stayed and gave it up.
It was an easy decision.
