Page 12 of The Enemy to the Living (The Wild Hunt #2)

Asher

I ’ve left Maurice to go in and speak to Spectra alone.

Any intel we can get on the twins is useful, and she’s got an ear to the ground when it comes to the fae in London.

I loiter across the street, watching the entrance to Beyond the Veil—disguised as it is as the lobby to a block of flats.

The new tattoo has mostly healed already, small as it is, but I have my sleeve rolled up so I can run my fingers over it, admiring the new sharp shock of ink against my skin.

I look up when someone steps out into the night, eyes narrowing as I instantly recognise who it is.

Quinn.

What is he doing here? He went home, didn’t he? I’m sure he meant to, so how did he end up here?

He doesn’t even look in my direction as he wanders down the street. I frown, hesitating, then follow at a safe distance. I can text Maurice once I’ve figured out what’s going on—he’s got enough control of his blessing that he’ll be able to tell I wasn’t attacked or anything like that.

Quinn doesn’t seem to notice as I follow him down one street and then the next. It takes me a while to realise where he’s heading, and when I do, the same anger I felt earlier tonight flares white-hot.

The Green Man is no place for a wolf like Quinn to spend his time. Maurice doesn’t tell me much about Njáll—he prefers to keep his relationship to himself—but I know he was nearly bewitched by two fae in there, and he’s the vampires’ crai.

Quinn is nobody to them. Being a wolf might make him harder for a fae to magically charm but not impossible, and he’s young and untethered.

I catch up to him and grab his arm before I can stop myself. Quinn whirls around to face me, and I’ve caught him so clearly off guard because he doesn’t react defensively at all; he just stares at me with big, guileless eyes.

The expression vanishes within seconds. A scowl replaces it, but there’s something fragile about his air, as though he is hanging on by a thread. “Asher? What are you doing here?”

“Where are you going?”

The pub is in sight. Quinn wants to look back and betray himself, I know that, but he holds himself rigid instead, shoulders tight.

“None of your business.”

“I thought you were going home tonight?”

“I did.”

“But you’re—”

“Leave me alone, Asher. It doesn’t matter!”

I would. I would . But the anger in his voice is weak, and the sadness that bleeds through makes my heart ache. I meant what I said to Iris, that I know I can’t fix him. I don’t want to. I just want to help.

“Why not?”

“What?”

“Why doesn’t it matter?” To my surprise, the anger I’ve slowly simmered away all evening doesn’t fade. It flares again and has me taking a step closer to Quinn. He swallows but doesn’t move back. “Tell me why. If you give me a good reason, I’ll leave.”

Quinn scowls. “I don’t need you to go. I can just—”

“I’ll tell them not to serve you,” I say, jerking my chin in the direction of the pub. “I’ll tell them not to let you in if I have to.”

Quinn’s face reddens with fury, and I want to grin at the sight of it. There’s my wolf, and my soul sings to see him. “You can’t do that!”

“I can and I will.”

“You’re not my al—” His words cut off, next inhale tight, and I reach for him without truly meaning to. Quinn tenses when I put my arms around him, and his first muffled sob makes my eyes water.

I run my hand up his broad back and into the short hairs at his nape.

Quinn shivers again, but he doesn’t let go of me, instead clinging tighter when I press my face against his shoulder.

I have to hope my blessing can look out for the two of us because I’m in no state to defend him right now.

Each sob rends me in two, and I want to dig claws in and tear out the hearts of anyone who might have hurt him, but I get the feeling that’s already been done.

To an extent, at least.

Quinn comes back to himself in increments, and I murmur encouragements when he doesn’t let go. He doesn’t need to.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. He’s taller than me, has to be hunching a little to have his face pressed against my shoulder the way it is. I don’t care.

“Don’t be.” I rub his back again. “We can stay here all night if we need to.”

He makes another broken sound and clings on tighter. My heart flutters in my chest. I want to keep him in my arms forever, and that thought should hit me harder than it does, but instead it rings with truth, and I hold on to Quinn in turn, my knees suddenly weak.

“What’s going on?” I say, and when he stiffens, add, “Not with the twins. With you.”

A tremor quakes his body, but when he doesn’t let go, neither do I.

Is this what he needs? I think his pack is made up of the kind of people who would offer him unconditional support, but either they aren’t or he doesn’t feel they are and right now, it doesn’t matter which statement proves to be true.

“I can’t shift,” he says, and with the way his face is pressed against my shoulder, it takes me a second to parse the words.

When I do, the relief I feel is almost giddy. Not that it isn’t a serious matter—it very much is—but there are far worse motivations that could have been behind Quinn’s recent behaviour.

“You can’t?”

He’s stopped crying but still won’t look at me. The sound he makes tells me he meant what he said. I play with the hair at the back of his neck and fight the urge to drop a kiss on the side of his head.

“That’s okay. We can—”

“Okay?” Quinn’s head jerks up, eyes wide and disbelieving. His face is red, tear-stained, and I want to do all I can to never have him look this way again.

Unreasonable of me, of course, but I feel I am doomed to be unreasonable where this wolf is concerned.

“How can it be okay?” he snarls through gritted teeth. He wants to snap, wants to bare his fangs, but he’s giving himself away, too—he hasn’t let go. I stroke my thumb over the soft skin under his ear, and his breath hitches.

“It’s fixable, I mean,” I say softly. “What happened?”

“You know what happened.”

“Not all of it.”

I have the vaguest notion of what Quinn went through, tied in with all the other stories from last year, but as the Hunt, we don’t involve ourselves in supernatural affairs except for where they cross paths with the fae.

“I—They—” Anger fades, and Quinn’s expression is pinched with misery. “After he killed my parents, I couldn’t… That’s why I left. They attacked me in the park, and I couldn’t shift to fight back.”

“Your parents? Tamesis?” The rogue vampire who used fae blood to power his attacks on the vampires and wolves who he thought were in his way. He’s dead now, entirely destroyed, but his actions have lingered.

Quinn nods.

“And who attacked you?”

“My pack.”

Anger flares again, but I breathe slowly, swallowing it down. “Your pack. Here?”

“Here…” Quinn’s eyes widen again. “No. No! They saved me. Drew came and got me. Our other pack—Tamesis or Hale made them come after me.”

Okay. I make sure my grip on Quinn is firm but not tight as I think things over.

As long as his pack here hasn’t hurt him, though I’m not certain why they wouldn’t have noticed he can’t shift.

Kieran might not have a wolf, but I’ve heard enough talk about how that’s the only thing he’s missing.

He and his brother are known for being in touch with their instincts.

How could they have missed this?

“I haven’t told them,” Quinn says, and I’m startled that he seems to know what I’m thinking. “My pack here. I was confused at first, and now… What if I can’t shift again? What if that part of me is gone?”

I can’t help myself. I take Quinn’s face in my hands and look at him steadily. “Does it feel like he’s gone?”

“I—How would I tell?”

My thumb strokes over his cheekbone before I move one hand and press it firmly against his chest, just to the left of his heart. “Here. Do you feel a hollow cavern here? Dark and empty, like you’re missing something you can’t ever get back?”

Quinn whines in the back of his throat but shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

“You would know,” I say, and my lips twitch in something I hope he takes for a smile. “And it’s normal for a wolf who’s been through so much to have trouble aligning all parts of themselves. It’s normal, Quinn. Fixable.”

Hope claws its way into his expression, and I know he’s trying to fight that feeling because he’s been hurt so much, but I want him to let it in.

“You mean it?”

“I can help you get him back.”

Quinn swallows hard. His eyes shine with tears again, but his voice is steady when he asks, “How?”

I glance past him at the pub and think briefly about Maurice, who has to be close to done with Spectra now. There’s no avoiding it. Quinn will ask questions because he’s a smart wolf, and I can’t answer them out in the open like this.

“Come with me?” I mean to make it a statement, but command fails me, and it comes out as a question.

“You’ll show me—”

“I can explain. Just not here.”

Quinn’s eyes narrow. He doesn’t move out of my hold, though, and I’m grateful for that. “Where?”

“I have a place. We can talk. Okay?”

I hold my breath as I wait for his answer. Underneath all the fear and sadness and anger—I see that too—is a bone-deep exhaustion, and I don’t know if he’ll let me help with that, but I can try.

“Yeah,” he says finally, and that breath I’m holding escapes me in a rush. “Yeah, okay.”