Page 20 of The Enemy to the Living (The Wild Hunt #2)

Asher

A fter spending the day running around trying to find where the twins might have moved Mischief being one of the only members of the Hunt who can be out in the day is wearing at times like this.

But I come up with no sign of Quinn or the pub, and it’s not long before I’m at my wits’ end.

As I’m coming back to the pack building—because he has to come home at some point, surely—I catch sight of him.

My breath catches. He’s holding himself stiffly, but not like he’s injured. No. There’s something wrong, though, and I rush over before I can stop myself.

“Quinn!”

Quinn stops, shoulders tensing even further. When he first sets his eyes on me, they widen with something close to horror and I swallow hard.

I thought we left things well enough. I let him go without asking all the questions that wanted to burst out of me. Wasn’t that enough?

“What are you doing here?” he asks. A bruise is forming on his jaw, but it will be gone tomorrow. His knuckles are raw, and if I still had my wolf, I know I’d smell blood. I don’t touch him. I want to reach for his hand, see if my blessing can ease any pain, but I don’t do that.

“I came looking for you. I’ve seen the wolf. I need to know where—”

“No!” The horror is panic and my stomach sinks. “I can’t—You shouldn’t be here.”

“Quinn,” I say, pitching my voice low, soft. “Did you—”

He shakes his head firmly, cutting me off again. “Don’t,” he says, and his voice cracks, which makes my heart hurt.

Did he make a deal with his wolf as collateral, too? I don’t know why he would. What could the twins give him? They’ve certainly not helped him get his wolf back.

“Sorry,” I mutter, even as I’m not, as I’m fighting the urge to drag him away somewhere and beg him to reveal every secret. That won’t work. I know better.

“I have to—I need to go to bed,” Quinn says.

He won’t tell me where the fights are. He won’t—or can’t —tell me about the deal he made.

“Did you win?” I ask, and when his mouth twists, I realise he won’t even tell me that.

“I’m sorry ,” he says, and the desperate, ragged tone of the word has me reaching for him without a thought. He steps back. My arms fall. “I have to go. Sorry.”

I don’t follow this time. I watch him scurry up the street, through the wards, into the building. I’ve never been inside, but I can picture it. Picture him hunching down, trying to hide his return.

After a second, I snarl and turn on my heel. Maybe Maurice will have had better luck with the vampires.

Maurice has had precisely zero luck with the vampires, and neither has Vlad.

They haven’t turned up a single one who’s been to Mischief they have their task, and since they added their latest member—their final member—they prefer to focus on that.

And each other, I’ve heard.

“Anything you discover in the meantime, report to me,” the Huntsman continues, “but do not engage the twins alone. How is the wolf?”

Vlad looks at me. I haven’t seen Quinn for two days, but I’ve visited Bryn each night. Maybe he has a day left. Maybe.

“Dying,” I say flatly. He hasn’t woken, which is some small comfort, at least. Comforting because we don’t know what he dreams of.

“You serve the Hunt, Asher,” the Huntsman says, and Maurice jerks his head up, staring at me with wide eyes. A flicker of surprise crosses Vlad’s face, too.

Grant studies me, expression for once unreadable.

“I serve the Hunt.”

He hangs up. Silence lingers for a second, and I swallow the bitterness that pools on my tongue.

I serve the Hunt. I have served the Hunt without fail since the Huntsman took my wolf and gave me his blessing. I haven’t turned anyone or fallen in love with anyone or become embroiled in matters the Hunt should not concern itself with…

“What was that about?” Maurice asks, but I get to my feet.

“I’ll go take another look around,” I say. “At least if we know where they are, it’ll make things easier when he’s done.” I wave my hand absently at my phone. Maurice scowls, annoyed I’ve avoided the question.

Vlad nods. “Fine. Do not go inside, Asher. Even if you find this wolf—”

I’ll want to. I should. We help humans, and we’re helping fae, so why can’t we help wolves, too?

“There’s no telling if it’s even still around,” Maurice says, and I frown at him.

“What do you mean?”

He shrugs. “We don’t know why they’d take a wolf, but they have. I have to assume they have a reason for it.”

“Might just like to fuck around,” I mutter.

“We do not know why,” Vlad says firmly, overriding us both. “And it is pointless to speculate without evidence. Asher, if you find out where they have moved their pub to, then let us know. Do not go inside. We will await the Huntsman’s order.”

I swallow. How much leeway do I have with the Huntsman? Not as much as Maurice, with his mate—more-or-less—and his ability to withstand the loss of his magic. More than Vlad, with how he cares for Grant.

Would the Huntsman even hurt Grant? He seems curious about him. That curiosity might run its course.

But I wouldn’t survive. I’d be that wolf, wasting away to nothing.

I swallow down the bitterness of it and nod once. “Fine. I serve the Hunt.”

Maurice pulls a face, but Vlad only nods in reply.

I’m careful not to storm out of the house, but it’s a near thing. Out on the dark street, I take a deep, calming breath.

It doesn’t calm me that much. I stalk away, not wandering in any particular direction.

I’ll be surprised if Bryn makes it through the night, truth be told.

Yesterday, his breaths were rattling in his chest. A few other lone wolves have been to visit, saying they know him but don’t know what he was up to.

Only one of them I didn’t believe, but when I pressed him, he clammed up the same way Quinn did the other night. I think he’s been fighting at the pub, too. I think he’s been threatened.

And the rest of them are worried. They don’t want to join a pack, but they want to feel protected. I frown, slowing my pace. Did I see any pack wolves aside from Quinn when I was at Mischief & Mayhem? Not as though I could tell.

I wander the street that night, and Bryn makes it through, and the next night I wait outside Kieran’s pack house, my blessing ready.

It’s taken me a couple of days to realise that Quinn must have had some kind of magic keeping him concealed when he left the other night. I wouldn’t have missed the sight of him. So tonight, I keep my blessing on a short leash, and though it pushes at the edges of my boundaries, I hold firm.

The door opens and I watch him step out. Watch him pass through the wards, round the corner and—

When I get there, he’s gone. My blessing lashes out, as frustrated as I am, and I feel…

Magic.

Fae magic.

Fuck. I’m still careful to move slowly, to stick to the shadows as I trail Quinn through the streets.

Once or twice he gets too far ahead, but after a while, I can make out the outline of him.

The magic is making my gaze slide away, not making him invisible, and once I have a grasp on that, things become easier.

A glaistig stands at the end of an alley and I hesitate for only a second before I follow Quinn inside. Fuck the rules. Maybe I can find the missing wolf, and if I know where to look now, then if something happens to Quinn—

It won’t.

I won’t let it.

Inside is the same as the other two times I was here, though the press of fae magic around me threatens to give me a headache.

The advantage of my capricious blessing is that, most of the time, I don’t notice others’ magic, either.

I’m vulnerable like this, and I drag myself over to a corner, still shadowed, trying to catch my breath.

Quinn strides through into the side room, where fights are already happening.

Fingers grip my wrist. I startle, turning to see a fae squinting at me through the shield of my magic.

I recognise them… I think. No, I do. They work with Spectra.