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“All of it? Did you weigh them before you burned them? Before you took back what was left of them? I know what your people do. I bet you wouldn’t notice half gone. It’s spilled all over the fucking forest by the time you find the bodies.”
I shook my head. “There’s no way. There’s always so much blood.”
Vin upended his glass of whiskey on the counter. I grabbed a towel, about to curse at him, when it hit me. I watched it spread over the edges, running down the cabinets, into the drawers, and I stood frozen as drop after drop landed on my bare feet.
“That’s one glass of liquid, Dominic. Do you know what eight or ten pints of blood look like? What if they are killed in their wolf form, then what? Double that? How much blood is in the forest? In the ground? Spread over the leaves? Enough to make you think they were killed and torn to shreds for some sort of war or revenge.”
Fuck. He had to be right. And I’d missed it. Not in a million years had I thought…
“This is a business. Not anything more or less. Your people are being harvested.”
“Right out from under my nose.”
“Yes.”
My glass slipped from my fingers, hitting the floor and splitting into a million tiny shards, but I was out the door, half-wolf by mid-leap.
SEVENTEEN
VINKETTIN
“Not again.” While I didn’t blame him for taking off, I would have to find a better way to shed my clothes to keep up with him.
I pushed my hand through my hair and toed off my Italian leather loafers. Socks next. Then the cuff links. They were a hundred years old and emeralds weren’t cut this way anymore. I was quite partial to them. I didn’t want them lost under a pile of leaves. I stopped on the belt. Also Italian leather, but I left it. It would be burdensome to have my slacks around my ankles, trying to run after my feral mate.
I leapt off the deck, glad this one didn’t have a fall like the cabin’s. I tilted one ear to the sky, listening. Thankfully, he wasn’t hard to track with his heavy footfalls. I ran after him, annoyed with my clothes in the first five minutes, but a man sprinting through the forest naked was a lot less socially acceptable than a wolf, so they stayed on. We ran for hours, and the cold burned my feet, but I didn’t dare lose track of him. I wasn’t sure if I was more worried about him getting hurt or what he might do to someone he came upon.
Maybe both.
We ran into the night, my clothes torn on branches and snared by bushes, and still, he didn’t stop. I could only imagine I resembled Tarzan after the first hour, but I needed to be there for him when he finally burned himself out.
I nearly bowled right over him when I broke into a clearing. He stood at the edge, human again. I skidded to a halt, stopping inches from where he faced away. Naked, bathed in moonlight, skin glowing. He didn’t turn around as I took a place beside him.
“It hurts.”
“I know.”
“I’m a failure.” His voice made my chest ache.
“How?” I asked, having my own ideas about his feelings but not wanting to project.
“I’ve sworn to protect and take care of them. They are being hunted, and I haven’t been able to prevent it or stop it.” His head dropped under the weight of an impossible task.
“It’s not your fault.” I placed a tentative hand on his arm, relieved when he didn’t pull away from my touch.
“You don’t understand. It is. I should have seen this coming. I should have figured it out. We could have prevented their deaths had we known.” Sorrow radiated from him. I’d never seen Dominic this way. “They may kill me before I even admit I’ve mated a daywalker.”
I felt helpless. My mate was suffering, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. “They know you are the best person to protect them. Look at how you’ve improved their lives. They used to be starving and on the brink of dying out, whereas now they are flourishing.”
“And being slaughtered like lambs.”
I dug my nails into his flesh. “Dominic.”
He finally looked at me, the pain in his eyes cutting into my soul like daggers. “Yes?”
“You are going to figure this out.Weare going to figure this out.”
“We? Isn’t it against everything you do for a living to put a stop to it?” He locked his nearly black eyes on mine. “We are a commodity to be traded.” His words put a sour taste in my mouth.
