Page 54 of Hunted

We took our salads, bowls of soup and grilled cheese over to the coffee table on trays and turned on season two of Battlestar Galactica, picking up with the last episode where we’d left off.

“Thank you for making me soup,” I said quietly. “And for feeding my rabbits.” I dunked a triangle of grilled cheese in my ranch dressing and bit it off.

“I will always take care of you, Ellie.” He traced a single finger along the nape of my neck, twining it around a stray curl that had come loose from the knot on top of my head. “Just like when I’m lost, you remind me that I am not the sum of my worst choices. Every day I’m with you, I want to be a better man.” He hesitated. “About what Guillermo said before, I would protect you if you ever wanted to come stay with me at the Tracer compound. And if you didn’t, I can ask for a transfer.”

“It’s just… my research is really important to me right now.” I set down my spoon, wrapping my arms around my middle. “I don’t want to quit now when we’re so close to a breakthrough. And I love working in this lab. But it’s more than that. You grew up surrounded by your entire family, all your brothers, two parents who loved you fiercely. Hayden was all I had. Piper did her best to come see us once a month, but she was barely more than a kid herself when we were growing up. Now that I have Piper and Meera and especially Hayden, I don’t want to be parted from them. We’re a tiny family, but we’re fierce. I can’t give that up.”

I hadn’t realized how hard I’d started shaking until River wrapped his arms around me, drawing me against his chest.

“I would never take you away from them. I can ask for a transfer, to be based out of the Austin field office like Fallon. It may take some time until I’m reassigned, but eventually I should be able to be posted here.”

“You would do that?” I stared up at him, blinking as he brushed a tear from my cheek. “You wouldn’t hate giving up being at the Tracer base? Wouldn’t it mean passing up certain assignments or impact your pack rank?”

“I’d still be deployed on missions that could take me away for days, maybe even weeks at a time. That’s just the nature of the job. But being based here would mean I would spend a lot more time here than I currently am. And no, I wouldn’t hate it. Not if it meant I got to be with you.”

He bent to kiss me, then just as quickly pulled away when something fluffy ghosted past our elbows. I snatched Butternut before he could get to the ranch-drenched salads and took the bowls to the kitchen sink.

“Bunnicula thinks he’s Alpha.” River had Butternut on his chest and was rubbing between his ears. “What does that make me?”

“Hmm… well, every pack needs someone to bring the vegetables.” Moving very slowly, I reached into the pocket of my hoodie for my phone.

River narrowed his eyes. “Don’t even think about it.”

“But… you have my rabbit on your chest.”

“There is no rabbit. It’s only your mind that bends.”

I took a picture. Actually, I took three. There was nothing sexier than a man who loved your fur babies. I slid onto the couch and nestled into the crook of River’s shoulder.

He toyed with strands of my hair. “There’s something else we should talk about. You have to understand that if we’re together long term, sleeping together, that even if we use protection, the risk of infection is possible, even outside the three-day transmission window.”

“You think I’m not aware of how the virus is transmitted? I’ve spent twelve hours a day in a lab for the past year and a half studying the lycan virus.”

“This would be different. You would be like all the other Bittens. And many of them have regrets. Lifelong trauma.”

“I know,” I said quietly. “It’s something Cal and I talk about all the time.”

“I don’t ever want to be one of your regrets. Dallas and Lacey have managed to move past the fact that he accidentally passed the virus to her back when they were in high school. They’re happy now. That’s to both their credit and the fact that Lacey is strong as hell, but I know my brother will feel guilty about how she was changed for the rest of his life. I would hate myself if we were together and you were accidentally infected and then later had regrets. There would be no going back. And being together would always be a risk. Every full moon, no matter how careful we were.”

“You could always turn me.” I hesitated. “I keep going back and forth because I have so much anxiety about the idea I could go feral, that my mental state would destabilize once I was a shifter, but there are drawbacks to staying human, too.”

River stared down at our linked fingers. “You don’t have to be turned. You could stay human. It’s not that big a deal. Guillermo was just being an ass.”

“I’d age. You wouldn’t.”

“Werewolves age. It just takes longer for us to reach middle age because we regenerate faster than humans.”

“How long do shifters live?”

“Best guess is about twice a human lifespan. Enhanced regeneration starts to slow down the older we get. The first shifters were changed right around the time of the Yukon Gold Rush, but many of them were killed off over the years during various wars with the Vampire Nation. Alek is one of the few still alive who’s been around for that long. His Seer blood no doubt helped him escape death a time or two. It’s a really rare gift. He’s one of only two registered seers in the last century. But he doesn’t heal quickly anymore. He has powerful magic and commands a large faction of the Tracers, but if it came down to a physical challenge, he would have to concede or risk being seriously injured by one of the younger, stronger wolves.”

“Wow.” I digested this. “How old is Guillermo?”

“Just over a century.” His phone buzzed. He frowned down at the screen and swore. “I have to take this. Be right back.”

While he went in the other room, I pulled up my text thread with my sister.

Hayden: You okay? Not to ruin date night but I just wanted to make sure you were okay.