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“You owe them nothing. They left you to die.”
“No, I left to die. There’s a difference. The hunters might have shunned me, but they are still my people. I will not betray them no matter what you do,” he replies, and I sense the ring of truth in his words.
Jai will never break and betray his people for nothing, not even after they looked down on him.
He’s a far better man than most, but it won’t save him.
“They will try to break you, even if I go back and tell them I can’t,” I admit. “Tell me something, Jai, anything, so I can work with it. You understand duty.” I step forward, lowering to my knees until we are eye level, my hands covering his on the bars.“Please, this is my family too, and I cannot lose them.” I swallow. “Not again. My parents were killed by hunters.” He flinches, his eyes wide. “I was a kid. My younger sister died, as well as my dad and mum. This pack took me in. I cannot lose them too.”
I let him see my true fear. It won’t matter because he’ll die here.
“I can’t—” I swallow deeply. “I cannot lose anyone else I love to hunters. Please, Jai, wouldn’t you do anything to save your family?”
“Quinn, I cannot.” He sighs. “I’m sorry about your family?—”
“Did you know it was Lucien and Vale’s father who killed them?” He stops breathing then, watching me. “I did, and I still saved him. I still healed Lucien. I didn’t kill them. Their father’s sins aren’t theirs. If I promise not to hunt them, will you tell me something I can use to keep my family safe?”
“Why wouldn’t you harm them if that’s true?” he asks suspiciously.
“Because I don’t blame them.” It’s the truth. I might hate what they are, but I don’t hate them. “I will do anything not to let a repeat of my story happen. I was too little, too weak to save them then.” I know he understands that. “I won’t be now. If I have to hunt Vale and Lucien to get answers, then I will. I won’t save them this time. Please, Jai, if not for me, then for them.”
“Quinn,” he murmurs, his fingers twitching under mine as I plead with him.
“Do you want me to tell you how I had to watch my little sister die? Or how I had to watch my pregnant mother be ripped to pieces by your weapons?” He flinches, trying to tug away, but I make him face the truth. “How my father sacrificed himself to save me, staying by his dead wife and kid until the end even though it meant death? You know now that we aren’t animals. We aren’t bad. We are just here like you. My family didn’t deserve to die. My father was innocent, my mother wasinnocent, and my little sister was innocent. Her name was Filly, and she wanted to be president.” I grin. “She would walk around in suits my mother sewed for her. We would watch action reruns together, and my father would fix cars, always smelling of grease. We were not evil, we were just a normal family, and because of those people you are protecting, they are dead and the only time I see them now is in my nightmares because you hunters stole even my dreams of them. I don’t remember the way they smiled or the way their arms felt around me. I remember their screams for help. Your people slaughtered children, an innocent family. Why are you protecting them? No matter what you say, you aren’t evil. You hunt because you have to, because you feel like you protect innocents, so what about me? Am I evil? Was my little sister evil?”
“Stop.” He tries to tug his hands away, but I grip them tighter. If he chooses to protect them, then he doesn’t get to ignore the evil they commit.
He cannot have both.
“Was my pregnant mum evil? Were your parents?” He’s breathing heavily, and his eyes are pitch black. “Is Vale? Is Lucien? There is only one way this ends, Jai, and it isn’t good for either of us. Many will die, including Vale and Lucien, unless we can stop this. We don’t want their deaths. We just want to be left alone. Surely you see that now.”
“We can’t stop this, even if we want to,” he croaks. “We are just tools, Quinn. Don’t you see that? We are just the blades in a century-long war. We cannot change the tides. No one can.”
“We can try,” I argue. “I have to try. Innocents have to stop dying. I cannot live with blood on my hands. My nights are already filled with nightmares. I don’t have room for anymore.”
“You are so optimistic.” He sighs. “Like Lucien.” He debates my words, staring into my face. “If I tell you something to keep your pack safe, will you leave Lucien and Vale alone?”
“If I can, but if they come here, I can’t keep them safe.” I won’t lie to him, not right now. Right now, we aren’t enemies. We are just two souls on the wrong side of the line.
He nods. “Understandable, but if you can, don’t kill my brothers. Unlike me, they aren’t killers. Vale acts like it, but he hates killing. He does it because of his father. Lucien hates it more but does it to keep Vale safe. Both of them are caught in their own cycle of respect and love.”
I can feel his fight. He wants to help and stop his brothers from getting killed, and he knows there is only one way—working together with me. “If a hunter were to redirect them, telling them there was no pack here, then they would leave. We move HQs all the time, or if there were a bigger issue than the wolves, we would have no choice but to give up the hunt. They don’t know where you are. At least, they didn’t when I left.”
I sit back, watching him. He could be lying but at some point, we have to trust one another. It’s the only way this will end without bloodshed. “Could you do it? Could you call them off?”
“Me?” He laughs bitterly. “No, she-wolf, they hate me, even before this.” He jerks his head at himself. “They never trusted me. I guess they knew the truth, even when I didn’t. They would trust Vale, but he would never help you, not now that he thinks you have captured and killed me.”
Nodding, I sit back and debate my options.
I lean into the cage as he does, both of us caught in thought when his voice suddenly breaks through. “What’s it like growing up as a wolf?”
I turn my head to meet his gaze. We are so close that I feel his breath waft over my face. I don’t move away, though, because something about him being this close doesn’t feel completely wrong. It could be my wolf reacting to his, or maybe it’s because we are just two lost, orphaned souls.
While I was adopted by loving parents, Jai was pumped full of hatred and prejudice since he was young. No wonder he turned out the way he did.
But can people really change?
Can he overcome years of conditioning? I don’t know, and the sad part is, I don’t think he’ll ever get the chance.
