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I turned and walked out of the house.
The wolves watched
me through the windshield.
I flexed my hands.
And then walked down the porch and into the gravel.
We were halfway down the driveway when the wolves sighed as one.
“What is it?” I asked.
Joe Bennett said, “His heart. It just… stopped. He’s….”
We headed north.
Joe wouldn’t speak again until we were face-to-face with the hunter David King.
WE CROSSED the border into Canada again.
It felt… different, this time. Like we were finally headed in the right direction.
I wondered how often hope felt like a lie.
I STARED down at the wooden raven.
I zipped the pocket closed before I could pick it up.
I needed to focus.
OUTSIDE OF Fairbanks, Alaska, it was the middle of an oddly mild winter. Patches of green grass peeked through snow, and the stench of blood surrounded a cabin in the middle of the woods.
“He was here,” Carter said, eyes blazing. “He was here.”
“Is he gone?” I asked.
Kelly nodded. “There’s a heartbeat inside, but it’s human. It’s beating really fast. Like it’s scared.”
“It could be a trap,” I said, eyeing the cabin. “We need to move—goddammit.”
Carter had already taken off toward the cabin.
His brothers followed.
“Fucking idiots,” I muttered, but ran after them.
Carter had already burst through the cabin door, causing it to splinter and break off its hinges. He was half-shifted, hair sprouting along his face as his fangs grew. Kelly was right behind him, more in control but eyes bright orange. A large bird screeched overhead as Joe hit the porch, shoes having split as his feet sprouted claws.
I was inside the house only seconds later.
There was blood. A lot of it. It splattered the floor and walls. The cabin was one large room, a kitchen off to the right and a living room/bedroom to the left. The small table in the kitchen had been overturned. The chairs had been tipped over. An old futon lay in pieces, the mattress torn to shreds and streaked with red.
And there, slumped against the wall, was a naked man.
His chest and torso and legs had been slashed. He had ragged, gaping wounds that I knew had been made by claws. His breath was stuttering in his chest, and the skin that wasn’t covered in blood was slick with sweat. His eyes were closed.
Richard Collins was gone.
