Page 59 of Hunted

When they both had clothes on and were back in the bedroom, she sat down on the bed. Gunn stood, leaning against the dresser. He was mad now, and his wolf was upset too.

He wanted to protect her, and she wasn’t letting him.

“Okay,” she said. “The reason Thanatos won’t let me be with you at the Ridge is because of my family, right?” Before he could answer she added, “And, yeah, because I have boobs and a vagina.” She waved her hand dismissively. “But there’s nothing we can do about that, so I’m focusing on the other part right now.”

Gunn said dryly, “The boobs and vagina thing is actually a pretty big deal to him, although not as much of an obstacle as the Enforcer connection. But I don’t see that there’s a lot you can do about that, either.”

Mikey said, “I can’t make them not be Enforcers, no. But his biggest fear is that I’ll tell them about Outlaw Ridge, and they’ll destroy it. Which I wouldn’t do if I were living there, obviously. And your biggest fear about me living there is that I won’t tell my family, and they’ll hunt me down, find out about Outlaw Ridge anyway, and destroy it. Right?”

“Pretty much,” Gunn said. They both knew this already.

She picked up one of the bed pillows and toyed with the ruffled pillow sham. That had to be Aunt Jenn’s work. What fucking safe house had pillow shams? Or ruffles?

Mikey said, “What if I told you the Enforcers in my pack already know about another group of renegade shifters doing black ops, and pretend they don’t? And that those renegades are the rest of my family?”

Okay, not what he’d expected her to say.

“Now that’s something I want to hear about.” Gunn unfolded his arms and rested his palms on the dresser. “Because I can’t tell you how relieved I’d be to know you had some black sheep in your family.”

Mikey scrunched up her face the way she did when she was about to admit something she didn’t want to. “Black dragons, more like.”

“Excuse me?” That had to be a metaphor, because she couldn’t really mean…

“Ever hear of the Wolf Hunters?”

He laughed. “Come on. Everybody’s heard of the Wolf Hunters. They’re a shifter myth—cubs tell each other campfire stories about them. White wolves with superpowers who travel around rescuing abused shifters and whisking them away to a magical world. And… wait. Their commander is the most powerful white wolf of all, and he rides a black dragon who can call down lightning from the skies. Have I got it right?”

She nodded, lips pressed together. “Those are the ones.”

“Come on. You’re not trying to tell me…”

“Yep. They’re my family.”

Chapter 26

Gunn stared at Michelangela. “But… they’re stories.”

“No, they’re my relatives on my mother’s side. Her family is all white wolves.”

“No way.” He went and sat down next to her. “The kind with mental superpowers?” She sounded serious. Then it clicked in his mind. “That’s where you learned to do that mind probe you did on Dobe.”

“It wasn’t a probe,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But yeah, I went into his mind. And if you tell anyone, I’ll stab you. When you’re a white wolf, half the world wants to kill you, half wants to exploit you, and half wants to experiment on you.”

“That’s three halves.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what it’s like. My great-grandparents’ pack was destroyed by shifter hunters. My grandparents spent ten years locked in a genetics lab. And my uncle Tristan was held captive and tortured for, like, five years.”

Gunn whistled softly. “Holy shit.” He took her hand. “I’m sorry.”

She gave an uncomfortable shrug. “It was before I was born. But yeah, from the little I’ve heard, it sucked. After Tristan escaped, he and his mate found and freed my grandparents—along with dozens of other white wolves.”

She hugged the pillow to her chest, resting her chin on it. “The rescued wolves formed their own pack, with my grandfather as alpha, and he and my uncle created a team of operatives that went around the world liberating other captive shifters, and taking down traffickers and labs. In illegal, clandestine, unsanctioned-by-anyone black ops missions.” She gave him a wry smile. “Sound like anyone you know?”

Gunn said slowly, “You’re thinking that if the Enforcers can turn a blind eye to the Wolf Hunters, they might be persuaded not to notice Outlaw Ridge?”

“Honestly, you would not believe the shit going on that they turn a blind eye to. People have no idea.”

“Yeah, but… any group that can get them to do that must have some kind of leverage, to persuade the Council to look the other way. Thanatos has millions—maybe billions—and he still hasn’t done it. The stories say the Wolf Hunters have dragon protectors, and obviously that’s not true, but they must have something.”