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Isaiah parked beside a towering pine tree and cut the engine. The headlights winked out, leaving the fading night where wood smoke from a dying fire created halos around the treetops.
Isaiah collected the other shotgun, loaded it, and put extra shells in his pockets.
The scent of deer and rabbit meat mixed with the spice of fall leaves spinning in frantic circles on eddies of air.
He made his way closer to the mine.
The faint red of dying coals outlined the broken spit and the strips of drying meat scattered on the stony ring.
Clusters of dimples pot-marked the ground. The size suggested a large bear. It was hard to be sure because human-like footprints crossed over them, erasing most of the details.
But the more Isaiah stared at the disjointed image, the more he was sure the distance between the footpads and toes was abnormally long.
He started to kneel.
“What do you want, Isaiah?” A growl broke up the question formed from barely comprehensible words.
Isaiah turned.
Caspin stood at the edge of the clearing, naked, covered in blood, with a dead buck over his shoulders. Even with the burden of extra weight, not a single leaf shifted under his feet.
He walked over and dumped his kill next to the fire pit.
“Seung is working with the Dekkers.”
Caspin shrugged. “What she does is her business.”
“Not anymore. I need to know where she is.”
Caspin sank his fingers into the belly of the deer and ripped it open, spilling out its insides.
“What makes you think I know?”
“Because you always know where she is, just like she knows where you are.”
Caspin grunted, dug out the liver from the carcass. “You want some?”
Isaiah recoiled.
Caspin took a bite. “I forget, you never hunted.” Blood dripped down his chin.
Isaiah hadn’t, but all the experience in the world wouldn’t allow a man, even one with more speed and strength, to take down a buck by hand.
And Caspin was not a Varu who’d touch a weapon.
“How did you manage to kill that?”
Caspin picked up a flimsy tin pie pan near one of the stones and tossed the remnants of the liver into it before setting it onto the coals. “I thought you were here about Seung, not for hunting tips.”
“You said you didn’t know where she is.”
“And yet you’re still standing in my territory.”
“Because I don’t believe you.”
Caspin rolled a look up, his pale amber eyes as cold and full of feral rage as Isaiah remembered from the times they held him back from the Autem so he couldn’t claim a wolf.
“I need to know where she is.” Isaiah tightened his grip on the shotgun.
