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“You won’t have to, though, will you?” I hold his gaze. “Because we’ll see her again soon.”

Kole opens his mouth to speak, but whatever he’s about to say dies on his lips. Instead, he tips his head in the others’ direction. “I’m going to go to the cabin with Luther while Mack and Sam locate Kayla. She might be more willing to help if I’m not there when you ask for it.” He taps his cheek with his index finger. “I hurt her too, remember?”

I nod, but the truth is, I don’t remember. When I was with The League, I never saw Kayla’s face. If she ever spoke to me, I don’t recall her voice or her essence. Kole told me he confronted her when he broke me out with Mack and Luther, told me he half sliced her face open with a blade of broken glass, but I have no memory of that night at all.

I remember noises outside my cell. I remember rage, and fear, and anger coursing toward me like a swirling cyclone or a tsunami. I remember battering the door with my fists and yelling for someone, anyone, to tell me what was happening. And then I remember light pouring in, hurting my eyes. I saw Kole’s silhouette in the doorframe. I heard the words, “We’re here to get you out, Tanner.” Then everything went dark. The next clear memory I have is of waking up in The Hollow and wondering how the hell I went from being The League’s pet empath to lying on a couch in a mansion with a Viking-like mage towering over me.

“Tanner?” Mack interrupts my train of thought.

At some point in the last few seconds, Kole turned and headed back over to Luther. They’re talking quietly while Sam pulls on his sneakers and a dark blue hoodie. Not for the first time, I wish someone could draw me a diagram of how the heck it works when he turns wolf. Where do the clothes go? How do they not get ripped to pieces like Mack’s?

“Sorry.” I blink myself back into the moment and look at the professor. “My head was somewhere else.”

Mack seems like he’s about to ask me if I’m okay, but then—maybe because he’s decided none of us are okay—changes his mind and says, “Can you accompany Sam to find Kayla?”

I frown. Bears aren’t wolves, but they’re better at tracking than empaths. “Sure, but—”

“Sam’s nose is better than mine. He’ll find her and, when he does, it might help to have a sympathetic ear.”

“You mean it might help to have someone who can tell if she’s lying or intending to double-cross us?”

Mack shrugs a little. His beard has become more unruly in the past few days, and it must be irritating him because he rubs it with his palm. “Something like that, yes,” he says. “So, will you? Go with Sam?”

“Of course, but what will you be doing?”

“I have an errand to run,” Mack replies. “I’ll tell you about it if it results in anything useful.”

11

SAM

“Where did you find her?” Tanner asks as we break away from the beach and head into the woods.

“Not far from the barrier. She’d been eating Hellhound leftovers,” I tell him, my stomach lurching at the thought of eating raw meat; despite being part wolf, it’s one thing I never quite got used to. Preparing to shift, I add, “They used to feed us rabbits in the club.”

Tanner pushes a branch out of his way and keeps looking ahead.

“Couldn’t stomach them. It was only when they noticed I was losing weight that they finally gave in and started feeding me something else.” I pause. “Madame insisted.”

I feel Tanner’s eyes flick toward me. I haven’t spoken about Madame very much since I arrived with them, although I’m not sure how much Nova told him.

I try to laugh, but it comes out a little forced. “She didn’t want me losing muscle mass.” I flex my upper arms and wriggle my eyebrows. “Gotta keep the crowds happy.”

“Sam—” Tanner stops and looks like he’s about to give me one of his I’m here to talk lines.

Before he can say anything at all, I point to a tree up ahead. “It was about here,” I say, noticing the rabbit’s skeleton is no longer on the ground.

We push through the undergrowth, and the spot where the professor and I had our ‘moment’ comes into view. My cheeks flush even though I’m trying not to think about it.

“You okay?” Tanner frowns at me. He’s noticed the blushing, and probably the swirling tug of arousal in my body. I try to disguise it, but it’s too late; he’s already sensed it.

Perhaps he thinks I’m feeling it because of him, because he steps a little closer and lowers his voice. “Sam, is there something you want to tell me?”

Casually, I brush my fingers through my hair and shrug. “Not really the time, Tanner.”

“You sure? Seems like there’s something you need to get off your chest.” There’s a twinkling cheekiness in his eyes that I haven’t seen since Nova disappeared. He looked at her that way all the time. Even when shit was bad, and in amidst all the crazy stuff that went down, he still couldn’t help being turned on by her. Now I know he was kept in a concrete box for fifteen years, I guess that explains some of it. He missed his adolescence the way I missed my twenties, so perhaps he’s been playing catch up with Nova.

I roll my tongue over my teeth and contemplate whether I should answer his question. Hesitantly, testing the waters, I say, “Have you and Mack ever…?”