“I’ve heard rumours. He used to run with Tombs’ group, right?”
“The Silver Arrows.” Just thinking the name made my wolf snarl. Hunters were wankers in general, a lot of them joining that particular profession because they had some deep-seated grudge against non-humans.
But then there was Tombs.
I’d only met him once, and back then he’d scared the shit out of my seventeen-year-old self. I’d heard he hunted humans and non-humans alike, whatever the police sent his way. He didn’t care who it was, as long as he got to huntsomething. The way he soaked up the adoration of the other hunters in his group, drinking in the power it gave him, like inhaling a drug.
Gabriel hadn’t looked at him like that, my mind supplied, along with an image still vivid after all this time.Gabriel standing there, bloodied dagger in hand, staring at Tombs with a mixture of horror and fear in his expression.
I stamped the stirrings of sympathy before they could take hold. He’d made his bed the day he joined the fucking Silver Arrows.
Talis’s gentle nudge to my side snapped me back to the present, Falon staring at me, both curious and expectant. Just how long had I been lost to the past?
Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to speak objectively and not from that tiny tender spot that still remained. “Gabriel Mason betrayed my trust once, and personally I’ll never trust him again. But,” I added when Falon went to speak, “that was ten years ago. People change, I guess. He’s no longer a hunter and Max says he trusts him enough to have his back, and I trust my cousin’s gut instinct. To my knowledge, it’s never steered him wrong yet.”
Unlike mine.
Sometimes I wondered if that’s what hurt me the most. Not the fact that Gabriel had betrayed me like that, but that my instincts had. Most of the time I pushed it down deep, out of sight. But in the darkest hours of the early morning, the doubts crept back in. How can I be the best choice for my pack when I can’t trust my own instincts?
Even if it was just once.
“So,” Falon said, pushing off the fence and gesturing for Talis and me to follow him into the trees. “From that, I’m getting that we trust Max and to keep a close eye on Mase?”
I nodded. Not trusting myself to speak. I couldn’t bad-mouth Gabriel anymore without sounding like I thought Max was talking bollocks. And Max was an excellent police officer, who walked that fine line of upholding the law while still retaining the respect of his fellow non-humans and did so with casual ease and a warm smile. But at the same time, I wanted to warn everyone thatMasewas bad news.
Fuck Gabriel Mason for complicating my life all over again.
* * *
Much like my territory,the Sherwood Pines Pack had made use of the holiday lodges built there before they’d bought the land. Instead of housing people enjoying a break from city life, they now served as homes for Falon’s pack.
He’d added to them over the years, buildings sprawling throughout the thick forest. The one he headed to now had pretty purple flowers in tubs on either side of the door and pale-yellow curtains blowing gently in the morning breeze.
Not the house of a teenager, so I guessed Callum still lived at home with his mum.
Sure enough, a woman greeted us as we neared the lodge. She was younger than I’d expected, couldn’t have been that much older than me.
Despite the circumstances, she laughed at whatever expression I’d tried to hide. “Yes, I was young and foolish once, but it got me Callum, so I’m not sorry.” The mention of his name wiped the laughter from her eyes, and her shoulders slumped.
“How is he?” I asked, coming to a stop a few feet away. The smell of sickness greeted us even outside, faint but strong enough to reach us through the fresh air.
“The same.” She darted a glance at Falon.
“You can speak freely in front of Rys,” Falon said, answering her silent question.
“He hasn’t woken since you brought him back. But it’s not a peaceful sleep.” Her fists clenched and unclenched, the agony of watching a loved one suffer tainting the air. “Whatever happened to him isstillhappening.”
A pained whimper sounded from inside, and Callum’s mum flinched as if she felt the pain for him.
“Isn’t he healing?” I looked to Falon. “I thought they gave him something to stop whatever the hunters used to bring him down.” Hunters tended to lace their weapons with aconite. Lethal in large doses to most non-humans, especially if injected directly into a main artery. I could smell traces of it still.
Callum’s mum let out a heavy sigh, resigned in a way that implied she’d all but accepted the inevitable. “The wounds from the hunters are knitting together, slower than normal, but that’s to be expected. But whatever made him…” Her breath caught and her hand covered her mouth, eyes screwed shut as she fought to hold it together.
Her shirt gaped at the shoulder, revealing five angry red gashes that disappeared under the material. If they were still healing on an otherwise healthy shifter, then they must have been deep, almost to the bone. Inflicted with force and intent.
She noticed where my gaze had dropped and tugged the material aside a little more. “Whatever made my gentle boy dothisis still ravaging his body. Still making him lash out even in sleep. We’ve had to tie him to the bed to stop him hurting himself or anyone who gets close.”
What the fuck happened to him?
