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“Six months ago, I was otherwise occupied.”
I had to fight a gasp, if only because the start of the inhale sent a new wave of pain firing through my chest.Six months had gone by?I knew time had passed; the snow attested to that, but I’d hoped for the beginning of winter, not the end.
The male—the Alpha Heir—read something in my expression, but there was no way he could guess the truth. He frowned, the corners of his mouth turning sour.
“What were you doing trespassing on our land?” he demanded.
Well, gee, I stumbled through a portal and the demon didn’t exactly pick the right spot to dump me.
“I got lost,” I settled on. I didn’t have a better excuse.
This had to be Wind-Blood pack land, at least based on my surroundings. They were more developed than Moon-Ghost gossip led us to believe—I supposed the shirtless, oiled prancing was just for show at the ceremony. The Fangs were distinct for their biker club home base. The black leather and roar of motorcycles didn’t mesh with the minimalistic cabin.
The heir was clearly dissipated by my explanation. He narrowed his eyes at me, like that would coax more answers. “Spy?”
“Ah, yes, you caught me. Rule one of being a spy: admit it when questioned,” I said, unable to help the sarcasm that infected my voice.
Okay, maybe mouthing off to my captor wasn’t a good idea, but hopefully, he didn’t really want to kill me since he’d brought me back to his camp rather than leaving me to bleed out in the snow after maiming me. And truly, I’d had enough cowering for a lifetime—literally.
He was at least reasonable enough to recognize it as a dumb question. “Fine. Who’s your pack?”
I could lie and say Fangs or admit to having been part of Moon-Ghost. Both carried risks.
“Why?” I asked, fishing for more context of how he felt.
His glare offered no answers.
If he was looking to figure out my pack to return me to them and I said the Fangs, they’d know I lied and might rip me apart on principle.
Honestly, I was never built for subterfuge. “I was part of Moon-Ghost.”
“Was?”
“I was cast out.” No grief accompanied my words. The wound had healed. I never would find companionship there. But anger, oh yes, that coated my words.
Questions creased his brow, but they were cut off as someone else entered the room. I still couldn’t sit up to see, only twist my head toward the faint sound of footsteps on the dirt floor, but whoever they belonged to was just out of my view.
“You’re upsetting my patient.” The new voice was strong, authoritative.
“She could be a Moon-Ghost spy,” the heir protested.
The other shifter came into view. Her hair was braided silver, stray wisps framing her face. Her skin was parchment-thin, yet she looked anything but frail. There was muscle to her, at least from what I could see of her bare arms. For a shifter to show their age like that, she had to be a pack elder.
She cast a scathing look towards the heir. It almost reminded me of Hecate, though the two women didn’t resemble each other in the slightest.
Of course, the thought of Hecate threatened to release an onslaught of others. Thoughts of him. So many secrets I needed to unravel. But all that came second to rescuing Daphne.
“Yes, I can see she’s about to leap off the table and uncover our secrets, Xander.” The sarcasm dripped off her tongue as she chastised the heir—Xander. “She’s hardly in any shape to do any spying. You three nearly tore her whole flank apart.”
I grimaced at her description of my condition. It took all of my strength to raise my arm enough to get a glance under the blanket while she shooed the Alpha Heir away. She overruled his protests with the ease of someone who had known the male since he was a pup.
I winced when I saw what lay beneath. It was brutal. I looked more like a mauled animal, barely held together by a thread, than a whole person. Wounds taken in shifter form translated to the human shape. I knew that. But of course, having never spent much time in my wolf form, I’d never realized the brutality that would translate to.
My hand was suddenly swatted, my arm crashing down as that little bit of strength was depleted.
The elder turned her flinty eyes on me. “Don’t undo all my hard work by ripping your stitches. The poultice can only do so much if you agitate it.”
It seemed silly, but it wasn’t until then I realized my right side was entirely numb. No doubt the work of whatever she’d treated me with.
