I should’ve picked up on his presence earlier. It was obvious now that he’d left the scene and come back to it.
I’d been too distracted by seeing Gabriel again after all these years.
And that has to stop right now.
“Everything all right here?” Max cast a calculating glance around the group, finally landing on me. “Rys.”
“Max.”
He gave me a quick nod in greeting before snapping into motion. “How is he?” he asked, gesturing to Callum.
“Alive.” Gabriel sent Yates another scathing glare. “Barely.”
“Hey, it was your department that called us in. We were only doing our fucking jobs,” Yates shot back, and my gaze caught on the clenched fists at his side.
Hunters were supposed to be impartial.
Tasked to capture humans and non-humans alike if they were wanted by the police. But every non-human alive knew that most weren’t.
They hated us and we hated them.
Which made me wonder what the fuck Gabriel Mason was doing saving the life of a shifter when it would have been within the law to let him die.
Because once a hunter, always a fucking hunter.
Max stepped up to Yates and the others. He might’ve been a police officer, but the look of disgust was clear to see in their eyes. “I’ve just spoken with the humans who were walking their dogs.” I held back a smirk as Max drew himself up to his considerable height. He had about three inches on the hunters, and the couple behind Yates shuffled uncomfortably. “They were more startled than afraid. Callum came out of nowhere. That’s why one of them screamed. He didn’t go near them or threaten them in any way.”
“We had no way of knowing that.”
“Which is why we always stress that fugitives should be taken alive where possible.” Max kept his voice even, but I picked up on the change in his scent.
Anger, frustration.
Police or not, hunters pissed him off as much as they did the rest of us. The only difference was he had to work hard to hide it, whereas other non-humans didn’t give a shit.
“We used the amount of force we deemed necessary under the circumstances. A feral shifter is a threat to human life. We acted well within the law.” Yates spoke like he was reciting from a book. Which was closer to the truth than I’d like because, unfortunately, everything he’d said was true.
They were allowed to use deadly force if they felt lives were threatened. And technically a feral shifter, or any non-human, could potentially have no control over their actions, therefore putting human lives at risk.
But it wasn’t always like that.
Callum avoiding the dog walkers was proof enough, and yet they’d wasted no time using lethal tactics.
“I bet you didn’t even try to take him alive, did you?” I ignored Max’s warning glare. Gabriel’s sudden reappearance in my life had left me off-kilter, unsettled, and my temper was quicker to flare than usual. “I bet you shot him on sight, no hesitation.”
“Rys, that’s enough.” Max moved in front of me, blocking my view of Yates and the others. “We’ll take it from here.”
That got my attention. “We?”
He gestured to Gabriel. “Mase and I. This is police business now.”
“Mase?” Since when did he call himselfMase? And at Max’s quizzical look I realised I was repeating everything he said, like an idiot. “Fine. But I’ll be calling you later.”
Max rolled his eyes because he knew I’d have a few questions for him. Starting with why the fuck he hadn’t told me that Gabriel Mason was not only in Nottinghamshire but working with the paranormal police division. Turning to Falon, he said, “You can take him with you for now, but we’ll need to talk to him again when he regains consciousness.”
If, I thought, but kept that to myself.
Falon sighed but didn’t have much choice in the matter. “Of course.”
