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I sink to the floor and wait for my crime to be discovered.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Isit with my back to the cell wall, the small window throwing rays of moonlight across the drab grey floor. Closing my eyes, I draw my legs higher and drape my arms over them. Vale doesn’t want to break out if we can help it because it will draw unwanted attention and make our job that much harder, but as the hours pass, we are running out of options.
Jai could be dying right now, he needs us, but I cannot think of that.
Instead, my mind goes to other places, and before I know it, I’ve opened my mouth. It’s only Vale and me in here . . . and the drunk, but he doesn’t count. There isn’t even an officer nearby, though I can hear one snoring through the open door to the office. Vale has been quiet for far too long, lounging back on the metal shelf they call a bed and pretending to sleep, but his body is too tense for that.
He could never fool me.
“Do you know who she is?” He jerks at my sudden voice, one eye opening to meet my gaze before shutting again.
“Who?” he murmurs, confused.
“Quinn.” I watch his hand fist on his chest. “Do you know who she is?”
“Besides a wolf?” he mutters, his angry tone telling me to drop this, but I can’t. I hate lying to my brother, and there are too many secrets between us right now. I need to discuss this. I need to understand. I have to. When I get out of here, if I’m to kill her and her entire family, then I need to know the truth about why he saved her that night and when that naïve innocence turned into hatred.
“Lucien, what are you talking about?” He turns his head, meeting my eyes, annoyance lacing his voice.
I could backtrack, I could say never mind, but I can’t. I need to know what type of person I am and what type of person my brother is. I need to know why I’m doing this because I don’t know anymore. I really don’t, and that scares me. It terrifies me that I could slaughter people—because they are people no matter how much we fool ourselves—to keep my brother safe.
What if I can’t? What if he’s too far gone to save?
What if he always was?
But no, that little boy saved a wolf. I know he’s in there somewhere. I saw it in his eyes when he really looked at her. I need to know. I need him to understand what is at stake here because it’s not just the wolves’ lives. It’s also my brother’s soul.
Can he hunt monsters if it makes him one?
I don’t know if I can live with that.
No one else cares about us, about him, but I do. I would forsake my very life, my very soul, to save my brother.
“I was there that night when you let that little girl go, when you saved that little wolf girl from our father.” He blinks slowly, his jaw tightening. “I never said a word. I saw her too, and I let her go. Did you know that was Quinn?”
He doesn’t move, doesn’t even breathe before he suddenly jerks upright, his eyes dark and angry as he glares at me. “You’re lying,” he hisses.
“No, you’re lying to yourself. You know it too. You know it’s her. The wolf you saved is Quinn. You saved a little girl, against orders, and that girl grew into a woman. A woman we took captive. A woman we tortured and hurt for being born. I don’t know when we stopped saving innocents, but I think we both know we did, so did you know? Tell me, Vale, I need to know. Did you know Quinn is that girl?”
He stands, moving to the bars between us and wrapping his fists around them as he stares at me. “It can’t be. It’s a coincidence?—”
“You’re lying to yourself,” I mutter as I stare at him. “She recognised you. She knew it was you. She didn’t run from that truth, even if you did. We spoke about it. She saved me because you saved her, paying her debt even after her family was slaughtered by us. Tell me you didn’t know, Vale. Tell me you didn’t know the girl you saved is the one you are hunting and that this isn’t some petty revenge to rectify what you did that night.”
“I never should have let her go.” He grinds his jaw. “That night?—”
“Yes, yes you should have.” I stand, staring him down. “She was a child, an innocent child just like we were. All of us were scarred because of that night, her included. She was a child, Vale. Just a child. Not evil. Not a monster. We made her into one. She might never have hated us had it not been for our father, and before you start defending him, I agree that there are some good hunters and what we do is important, but tell me you don’t see how it’s been warped. Some hunt just for pleasure. Tell me, Vale, do these wolves deserve it? What have they done? What has Quinn done? I sure as shit don’t know, but I do know it is not half as bad as what we have done in the name of justice and becoming saviours . . . in the name of our cause.”
“Those are the words of a traitor,” he mutters—it’s a habit, not a warning.
“Maybe,” I admit. “But they are what I feel. Don’t you? Haven’t you seen us change these last years? We started as heroes, saving our race from those willing to use us as cattle and fodder, but there are evil humans, Vale, as well as good. Why can’t the same be said for wolves? What if Quinn is a good wolf, her pack is good, and we are the evil ones here? What if we are the bad guys and not the heroes?”
His chest rises rapidly, his eyes on the floor before he raises them to me, and I see the painful truth in his gaze—he knows we are the bad guys and he doesn’t care. I stagger back.
“They have Jai,” is all he says.
“He walked into their territory to kill them. Wouldn’t we do the same?” I whisper. “Vale . . . I can’t. I can’t follow you into damnation. I thought I could, but I can’t. I cannot let you slaughter innocents. I won’t let you become our father.”
