“Fuck me.” Talis let out a low whistle.
“Pretty much.”
I could recall that moment like it was yesterday. “Some of my uncle’s pack had got in a fight in a human bar. They’d been to a paranormal bar first, got drunk, and were too out of it to watch their strength. A couple of humans were seriously injured. When the police came, the three shifters fled the scene.
“The police decided they were a danger to the public and called in the hunters. I’d joined my uncle in the search, hoping to get to them before the hunters did. Two made it back to the pack house. We tracked the third to his pack’s land. He’d been headed home.”
“And they killed him anyway?” Talis asked, anger colouring his words.
“No.” I sighed, one hand absently rubbing at my chest. “They tried to subdue him, but whatever he’d been drinking affected his mind and he shifted, attacked them. They claimed self-defence. At least that’s the story they told the police.”
“You don’t believe them?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember much about what happened with the hunters afterwards. Still in shock at seeing Gabriel.” I closed my eyes.
“Gabriel?” I came to a stop so suddenly, my uncle almost sent me flying when he crashed into me. “What the—”
Gabriel’s gaze darted to mine. “Rys.” He looked down at the dagger he still clutched, and his eyes widened like saucers. “It’s not what you think.” He threw the dagger to the ground.
“Rys?” Talis’s voice broke through my memories.
“Sorry.” I shook my head to clear it, focusing on my surroundings instead. “Anyway, long story short, that was the end of our relationship, and I came back home, tail between my legs because I’d been fucking a hunter and never even realised it.”
Not the whole truth, but it was all I could bring myself to share.
“You were only seventeen,” Talis said, and I really couldn’t deal with him taking pity on me.
“It’s no fucking excuse.” I rolled my shoulders, pulling my defences back up and around me like a cloak. “He was ahunter. How could I not know?”
I didn’t realise we were almost home until Talis turned off the main road and pulled the car over onto the grass verge. “Look, I know we like to hate hunters on principal and some of them totally deserve it. But the police use them, for fuck’s sake. They perform a service that we don’t like, but they’re not all bad.”
“Some are, though. And Gabriel ran with the Silver fucking Arrows. WithTombs.” Even now, the thought made me shudder. “I’d spent days listening to my uncle’s pack telling me about their local hunter group, how they’d hunt anything that moved—shifter, human, witch. Didn’t matter. As soon as anyone stepped out of line, they were fair game. They almost always used deadly force, and the police couldn’t touch them.” Friends in high places and fat fucking bribes seemed to be all they needed for the authorities to look the other way.
I met Talis’s eyes. “And all the while I was fucking one of them.”
“I’ve never once known your instincts to let you down, Rys.” He frowned, trying to work it out. “Gabriel must have been different to the others if you trusted him in the first place.”
“The knife in his hand says otherwise.” I’d had as much of this conversation as I could stand. The car started to feel way too constricting, and I needed to be out in the fresh air. “Anyway, that was ten years ago. Max seems to think he’s okay now, so we’ll have to hope that he has better fucking instincts than me.” Without waiting for Talis to answer, I hopped out of the car and started yanking my clothes off.
“What are you doing?” Talis peered out the door at me.
“I need to run.” I threw my clothes onto the passenger seat. “I’ll meet you back at the house later.” Slamming the door closed, I waited for Talis to drive off before closing my eyes.
A deep breath in centred my thoughts. I could shift on the fly when needed, but when I had the time, I liked to clear my head of everything but me and my wolf. Feel the two parts of myself merge, that split second when I was both human and wolf, before the magic took hold.
A quick intake of breath was all I managed before white-hot pain burst throughout my body. Bones lengthened and snapped into place, claws and fangs forced their way out of skin that now hid under a coat of thick dark fur.
Over in the blink of an eye, pain forgotten as quickly as it appeared.
And the forest came alive in ways it never did in my human form. As shifters, our senses were already heightened, but in our shifted form, they were far superior.
Scents on the breeze caught my attention.
Sounds of life came from the main house up ahead, but also further into the forest.
The other non-humans who lived in my territory weren’t strictly pack, not by traditional standards. But in this form, they were all mine.
Mine to protect and keep safe.
