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Silence filled the void once more, and I crossed my legs, studying my fingers and the dirt wedged under mynails.
“You were close with your grandma?” heasked.
“Absolutely. She raised me after wolves killed my parents.” I paused, regretting my words, but when he didn’t make a comment, I continued. “She taught me everything from cooking apple pie to memorizing different herbs.” I brushed away a dead leaf stuck to my big toe. “A day doesn’t pass when I don’t miss her. I keep worrying that one day I’ll forget what her voice sounded like, what she lookedlike.”
“Some say those you love will remain in your heart, so she will always be with you.” He stared into the fire as he spoke and the first trickle of emotion flickered beneath histone.
“Thank you. That’s real sweet. You seem close to your pack… do you consider them a family? Is that how it works in the Den?” I recalled him saying his parents were dead, but everyone needed someone to look out forthem.
“I’d do anything to protectthem.”
Oryn didn’t strike me as a person who got all emotional, but it was clear he loved his clan, so regardless of what his mom and dad had done to him, he’d found a new bond. And his determination to keep them safe showed him to be a caring man… the opposite of what I’d suspected when I’d first methim.
“I have that kind of connection with a fewfriends.”
When silence fell over us again, I racked my brain for a topic of conversation, something to fill the emptiness that reminded me of my troubles, how alone I was in the Den, and how I now wore no clothes. I drew the blanket tighter under myarms.
“Why does your cabin have nowindows?”
He huffed into a chuckle, and the sound calmed me. While the broody expression gave him an air of mystery, seeing him laugh made him super sexy, and left me covered in goosebumps.
“Dagen bugs me about that all the time. He loves natural light, but the place is a resting home, a location to lie low if I need a hiding spot. Plus, windows are much easier to break in to than bolteddoors.”
“Break in? Who would do that? Wolves in otherpacks?”
“No. Bears and even lion shifters enter our land. Scouts come here to scope out potential takeovers. And sometimes a wolf gets cornered, so I built cabins all over the territory with weapons or medical supplies ifneeded.”
I shifted to face him. “Wow. That is so nice ofyou.”
“Does it surprise you to discover we’re not savages?” His voice carried a playful tone, as if proud of proving mewrong.
Leaning back on both arms, I stretched my legs out in front of me, the blaze casting an orange hue across my shins and the blanket reaching halfway up my thighs. “What do hunters think ofhumans?”
He inched toward me, shadows dancing under the blushing bruise beneath his eye. “That you’re skittish of anything that moves and arewarmongers.”
“That’s harsh. I’m not scared of the forest. Well, okay, wolves andbears—”
“And you’re most likely to make yourselves extinct by infighting than any otherrace.”
“Is everyone taking bets on that?” Hmm, I had to agree with that, considering how the priestess treated her own kind. Oryn built sheltered homes for his pack while she imprisoned us if we didn’t follow her strictrules.
“Yep.”
Geez,wewere the savages. “How many members are in your pack?” Iasked.
“On last count, three hundred and thirty-seven. Though we’ve had a few births, so that number’s goneup.”
“Wow. Are they safe at themoment?”
He nodded. “The young pups aren’t affected, and I sent them to Dagen’s pack until we sorted out our mess. It seems only my pack isimpacted.”
“Have you narrowed down the cause?” I asked, remembering a story about a pride of lion shifters falling sick all at once. Turned out a huge kill that had fed the entire clan had eaten a poisonous plant. The pride had passed away. “Did you have a huge party recently, everyone eating the same kill? Orplants?”
Wolfsbane? That wouldn’t turn the wolves feral but would have made them ill, knocked them out as my own wolfsbane had done to Dagen. That memory had my gut twisting in onitself.
He shook his head. “Nothing like that. But I’ll find out what’s going on and make things right again,” hesaid.
“I love how much you care for them. It reminds me of my grandma in so many ways—putting othersfirst.”
