Page 60 of Hunted

Mikey scrunched up her face again. “Well, they do have a corporation that supplies most of the governments in the world with rare metals. But they also have the dragons.”

Gunn grabbed the pillow away from her and smacked her with it. “Now I know you’re fucking with me.”

She shook her head. “Sorry, no. Uncle Tristan is the Wolf Hunter commander, and that black dragon he rides? That’s my Aunt Mayah.”

She hooked her finger under the gold chain around her neck, pulling out the amulet he’d noticed before. “This is a present from them. It has Draken spells in it that let me keep anything I’m wearing with me when I Change—like dragons do. And that container I had the antidote in, that you and your guys couldn’t find no matter how hard you looked? Also Draken-made, and spelled to remain hidden.”

Gunn felt like someone had sucked all the air out of the room. Crazy thoughts were chasing each other around his head.

“Are you saying these dragons would protect Outlaw Ridge, if you lived there?”

“I honestly don’t know if they’d agree to officially be our protectors,” she admitted. “But you’re the one who told me that just because we can do things alone, doesn’t mean we have to. I can’t tell any of the Enforcers in my pack about Outlaw Ridge—yet—because I can’t be sure they wouldn’t think it was their duty to shut it down, and the decision might not be totally up to them.”

Gunn’s spirits, which had been cautiously rising, plunged back down again. “So what are you suggesting?”

“I want to talk to my Uncle Tristan about Outlaw Ridge. He wouldn’t tell the rest of my family if I asked him not to. And I am his favorite niece.” She grinned at him. “If I told him my true mate is a guy kinda like him—only hotter, naturally—he might be moved to help us figure out a way to keep your pack and be together.”

That cautious hope started growing within him again. Maybe fate wasn’t totally against them after all.

“There’s still Thanatos to deal with,” Gunn said. “And that thing about you having girl parts.”

“Yeah,” Mikey said. “I had a thought about that, too. But I don’t know how you’ll feel about it.”

“If it involves giving up your boobs or your vagina, I’m opposed.”

She smiled at him, but then her face grew serious. “Back in the day, when Silverlake was formed, the only way the Wolf Council would accept a new pack and concede the territory was for the alpha to find a true mate and bond her.”

“Yeah, I heard something about that,” Gunn said. “They don’t do it that way anymore.”

“They don’t require it any more,” Mikey said. “But the way it worked was, the alpha and his mate claimed each other, and the magic of the true mating bonded the entire pack, and permeated the territory. It made the pack strong, and gave the territory magical protections.”

Gunn snorted, “Come on. You know I don’t believe in those kind of fairy tales.” Believing in the Wolf Hunters and their dragons was already straining his daily ration of credulousness.

“Well, you better believe it,” she said. “It happened at Silverlake thirty years ago. Jace Monroe bonded with his mate Emma, and the power generated by the bonding was so strong he was able to pull magic out of the land and heal her from a fatal wound that same night.”

“Get out.” That had to be just a story.

She shook her head and said simply, “My dad was there. He saw it. And I’ve seen Jace invoke the territory protections myself. They’re real.”

She looked away, and then back at him, her eyes uncertain. “I was thinking. If you and I went back to Outlaw Ridge, and bonded there—” she reached out and lifted his star amulet off his chest— “then maybe our bonding would work the same way. The two of us together could be the heart of the pack, like Jace and Emma are at Silverlake. Then you wouldn’t have to carry the weight of the pack alone.”

She let the necklace slide through her fingers. “And if I were bonded to the pack, then Thanatos wouldn’t have to worry about me turning against them.”

Gunn was… astounded didn’t even cover it. “You’d do that? For my wolves?”

“I’d do it for you,” she said. “And…” She toyed with the ruffles on the pillows again, suddenly looking shy.

“As a kid, my dad was my favorite person. We were besties. But my idol—that was my Uncle Tristan. The Wolf Hunters, they had a—a calling, that needed every ounce of who they were and what they were capable of. Even more than that, they were the place where the misfits fit in. Where the powers that made you different from everyone else were assets. They didn’t just save people’s lives—they gave them new ones.”

She looked up and met his eyes, and he saw something in them he’d never seen before. A kind of fierce desire—to make a real difference, and to give her all doing it. “When they rescued the first shifters, they had nowhere to go, so Tristan and Grandpa Gerard built a village, to give them sanctuary. I used to visit there all the time when I was growing up. They were…”

She shook her head, looking into the distance. “Some of them were so broken. Especially the children. My grandfather is kind of like your Gregor must have been. He takes in everyone; helps them heal. Some of them become part of the pack, some of them move on.

“But it’s a hard, hard thing to do, healing all those damaged souls. My best friend Brock used to do it, and it nearly broke him. I don’t know how my grandfather has done it all these years. And when I look at your wolves, I see the same thing in their eyes that I used to see in the village. People who’ve been through things most people—most shifters—can’t imagine.”

She reached out and touched his face gently.

“Now you’re the one who helps them. You give them purpose. Not everyone can do it, but you can. And I think… I think maybe you have to. I just want to do it with you.”