I hesitated, still half-standing, half-perched on the stool. Did I want to tell him and risk having him look at me like I was a traitor to our kind? I let out a harsh laugh. Like it could be any worse than I’d already received from him.
No, this conversation was long overdue.
Ten years overdue, and whether we got past it or never spoke again, it was inevitable.
I sat back down and met his gaze again. I wasn’t ashamed of the choices I’d made. Not all of them, anyway. And I was going to look him in the eye as I told him my life story.
“I met Caleb Tombs when I was seventeen,” I began, knowing Max was listening. He probably knew a lot of this already, but that was from a report, not the source. “My dad had just died, and my mum was lost to grief. She wanted to return home, through the gateway, and she wanted me to go with her.” I huffed out a bitter laugh. “I didn’t want to. I’d only visited the Fae Realm once or twice, and I’d never felt at home there. Of course, I’d never really tried because I was a stubborn teen.”
Rys kept his word. Listening, but not interrupting. It was more unnerving than I’d anticipated. I couldn’t tell what was going through his head, and I desperately wanted to.
“Anyway, eventually she left and I stayed, with the promise I’d contact her immediately if I needed her.” This next part was the bit I looked back on and wanted to kick myself for not swallowing my pride and following her. “Suffice to say, me living on my own didn’t go to plan, but I was too stubborn to admit I needed help. Tombs saved me from getting knifed in a bar fight that was totally my own fault, and he offered me a place in his group. Told me he’d teach me how to fight and look after myself. And I could work for him in exchange for food and lodgings.
“They had a compound outside of town where they trained and some of them lived. To a seventeen-year-old with nothing to his name, it sounded like the perfect solution. He didn’t tell me what they did, but I wasn’t stupid. After a few days at that compound, I knew what they were, and I was pretty sure Tombs knew what I was.”
Rys huffed.
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, hating the picture this story painted of me. “You think I wanted my mum to know that her leaving for the Fae Realm left me vulnerable? That a hunter group targeted me the minute she finally found some happiness there? I knew I should’ve turned around and walked out of that place, but—” And this was the worst part. “—it didn’t seem so bad to start with. All I did was get up early and train every day until my body ached. I thought if I was good enough, trained hard enough, then maybe I could prevent them from using deadly force when it wasn’t necessary.”Make a difference.
When Rys went to interrupt, I raised an eyebrow, and he shut his mouth.
“It wasn’t until Tombs took me on my first hunt that I realised what a huge mistake I’d made, and by then it was too late. When faced with the reality of what they did, what I was supposed to do, I ran. And he caught me.” I shuddered at the memory. “He didn’t take it well and showed me in no uncertain terms that running wasn’t an option. Not for me. Not after all the work he’d put into training me.
“After that, I was terrified of him. I kept my head down and tried to keep out of his way as much as I could.” I sat back, finished, and gestured to Rys that he could speak now
“So you terrorised non-humans so that you didn’t have to be scared.”
I flinched, his words cutting deep, but on the face of it, he wasn’t wrong. “I didn’t think I had a choice,” I said softly. “I tried to reason with him, to stop the killing when there was no fucking need, but Tombs was all about the thrill of the chase, the capture. He’d hunt anyone. If they put up a fight at the end, then that was a bonus. We often travelled around, picking up jobs from whatever police force had them. There’s a hierarchy amongst hunters, and Tombs wanted to be at the top. The one thing he hated was looking less than in the eyes of the other hunters. And that meant he had zero tolerance for anyone or anything that threatened his standing. Including me.”
“Did you enjoy it?” Rys asked, fists clenched where they rested on the arms of his stool. “Thechase, thecapture?”
I shook my head. “No. Never.” I’d dreaded the moment a call came in, hated seeing the glint in Tombs’ eyes when he picked his crew for the job, knowing that he was going to choose me.
Healwayschose me.
“Why did you do it, then?”
“Because I was young and scared, and I couldn’t see a way out.” It sounded weak when I said it now, but at seventeen, that’s how it had felt. “If I’d contacted my mum and asked her for help I knew she’d have come back in a heartbeat, and I couldn’t have her anywhere near Tombs and his group. Didn’t trust him not to use her against me somehow. Keeping her out of it was all that mattered.” I sighed, looking at the floor rather than seeing whatever expression Rys wore. “Right up until I met you.”
I felt his gaze on me, but I couldn’t look up. I expected him to get up any moment and walk out in disgust, but he sat there, silent, watching me until I couldn’t stand it. “Nothing to say?”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me the truth?”
“I was going to, had every intention of telling you, but then I realised what you were, and I knew once you found out, that would be it for us.”
“You should still have told me.”
“I know.” All the guilt I’d managed to bury resurfaced with a vengeance. No matter how much his actions now pissed me off, the truth of it was that I’d started it all. “I was incredibly selfish. Tombs wasn’t the type of hunter to bait non-humans into losing control, but that didn’t give me the right to keep it from you.”
“No, it didn’t.”
I looked up then, had to show him how much I meant the words I said next. “I never thought things would go down the way they did. I’m so sorry for keeping it a secret and having you find out the way that you did.”
For a split second, his gaze softened, and I had a flare of hope that finally he might hear my apology and accept it, but then the warmth evaporated and his stare turned cold.
“Thank you for answering my questions. I understand why you didn’t tell me. We were both too young to know what we were doing.” He lowered his voice, leaning close until his face was only a few inches from mine. “But you killed a member of my fucking family, Gabriel. And I can never forgive you for that.” He spat the words at me, and it took a moment for them to register.
“What?” I grabbed his arm as he stood to leave, earning a snarl, but fuck that. I’d only ever killed one person and that was only when I’d had absolutely no choice. I’d never killed anyone after that. Not for Tombs and not for any other fucker. A fact I’d paid dearly for more than once.
