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I looked up at Arrow, who was leaning against the wall and didn't seem completely awake himself.
"What the hell is wrong with you?” I demanded. “Why isn't he properly restrained?"
The other hunter looked up at me, yawning. “Calm your tits. I'm keeping an eye on him."
I clenched my jaw, wanting to argue, but what was the point? Arrow was beyond reason. Hell, he was practically a beast himself.
"He's right, believe it or not," Dr. Kelly sighed. "The wolf has been on perfect behavior. He passed out about an hour ago from the blood loss, but it is a full moon, so I don't expect that will last long.”
I frowned, deciding not to argue with the both of them. "How is he?" I asked, looking over at Bryson.
"He's in and out of consciousness, which is a damn miracle, considering how bad off he was when he first got here," said Kelly. "The new subject’s blood is really something else."
I breathed a puff of air through my nostrils. "So I've heard."
"Where did you say you found him again?" the doctor asked, his voice lilting with curiosity.
"Downtown. We scavenged him off one of the low-level members of the Order," I explained.
"And he was turned?" Kelly asked, his brow furrowing in disbelief.
"So he says.”
The doctor hesitated. "And you believe him?"
"He knows next to nothing about his own kind, and I don't know why he would have reason to lie about that,” I admitted. “It certainly isn't going to afford him any special privileges."
Dr. Kelly snorted. "I guess not. In any case, his blood is extraordinary. Even for an alpha."
"I'm glad he can prove to be of use," I said, looking over at the girl who was carrying a fresh tray of unused vials to the storage closet across the room. "Excuse me, Doctor."
"Of course," he said, nodding to me.
I walked over to my sister, and she looked up with a tired smile. "Castor. It was nice of you to come check on Bryson."
"He's one of my students, which makes him my responsibility," I answered. "Kind of like you, but less trouble."
She rolled her eyes. "And how is the hunt?"
"Same as ever. Bloody and unending."
She grew somber, tucking a dark curl behind her ear. "Is it true Bryson was attacked by the Order?"
"That's the predominant theory right now," was my noncommittal answer. I was all but certain of it, but there was no use getting her or the others worked up over something they had no control over.
Renata was still in training and hadn't yet taken her vows. She wasn't cut out for the life of a hunter, but becoming the doctor's apprentice came with its own challenges. I was only five years older than her, but ever since our parents had left us orphaned, I had been more like a father than an older brother. Unfortunately for her, she got the drawbacks of both.
"If it keeps going like this, it'll be a full-scale war," she said, fear darkening her blue eyes.
"It already is a war," I answered. "And it has been since long before either of us joined the fight, so there's no point in worrying about it."
She gave me a dubious look. "I hate that you're out there all the time. The monsters are bad enough, but now this…”
As much as I didn't want to admit it, she had a point. In some ways, the other hunters were far more of a danger then the beasts we sought relentlessly every night. If there was one thing life had taught me, it was that a beast's hunger knew no bounds, and man's cruelty was much the same.
Of course, to the Order, there was little difference between us and them. Blood infusion was akin to blasphemy in their eyes, and while their insistence that it eventually turned us into the things we hunted was little more than conspiracy, there was a grain of truth to it.
For that reason alone, I had always shunned wolf's blood. I would rather die on the hunt than have my veins tainted with the blood of the creatures I detested most. The things that had taken everything from us.
