Page 24 of The Enemy to the Living (The Wild Hunt #2)

Quinn

D rew’s words ring in my ears. For a moment, my breath stops because I can’t think how he’s come to that conclusion, how he might think—

“Did he?” he snarls. Silver swirls in his eyes.

“No! God, no. Of course he didn’t.”

“Then why—” Drew darts his eyes away, and I roll my own.

Two mates and he still hasn’t figured it out? Not that Asher and I got up to anything like I think Drew and his mates get up to. Still, my lips tingle at the memory and I sigh, toeing off my shoes.

“I… got into a fight,” I say. It’s not a lie, and I don’t know what he can smell, considering my own senses are atrophying. “Asher took me back to his.”

“A fight?” Drew comes closer, stopping only when my shoulders tense. His hands rise like he wants to touch. “Quinn, you look…”

He swallows hard, and I shake my head. “I’m fine. It looks worse than it is.”

“Shouldn’t you have healed by now?”

“Drew, what are you doing here?”

Drew sets his jaw. We’re all stubborn wolves, but he’s the easiest of us to break, and it’s clear from the way his gaze wobbles when I stare at him. I want an answer. I expected this—that someone would invade my space if I kept ignoring the lot of them—but not from him. Kieran, maybe. Ophelia.

Maybe that would have been better. I’m not prepared for this. And I ache, and that deep satisfaction I felt at feeling anything for Asher has given way to something raw and angry.

I breathe in and fancy I can smell blood. Just my imagination. My next breath shudders out of me.

“No one’s really seen you in a couple of weeks,” he says eventually, softly. “I wanted to check you’re okay.”

“Well, I am. I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

Something twists inside my chest. The deep well of anger I’ve been carrying bubbles up and tastes like acid when I swallow it back down. “It doesn’t matter, okay? I’m here. I’m alive. You can go.”

“Why don’t you want me here?” The words burst from Drew, and I stare at him in surprise. “Is it…”

“Is it what?”

“Is it because I got your parents killed?”

Fuck, he might as well have punched me in the face. That might hurt less. No, I know it would.

“No.”

“But you haven’t been around us. Any of us! And especially me—you leave every time I enter the room.”

My eyes skitter away from his. Have I? Maybe. “I don’t… I haven’t meant to.”

“What is it, then?”

I shake my head. I don’t want to do this. I can’t . All I want to do is shower and lie in bed and wonder if I’ll be called back to fight tonight or whether Celyn and Sorrel will give me time to heal.

“Drew, I can’t—I can’t do this right now, okay?”

“It is that, isn’t it? I should have never left.”

“For fuck’s—” A growl tears itself from my throat, and for a brief, shining second, I swear I feel my wolf in my chest. “It’s not about you , Drew.

My parents died. Were murdered. And Hale, he—He made me watch and I know he did it so it would hurt you, but I’m also not a fucking idiot and I know he was an evil person, okay? ”

Drew stares at me. I shake my head. I can’t stop now.

“And I killed someone too, you know? Not like you killed Tamesis, because Kieran did that for you anyway, but like I chased down this vampire and he begged me, Drew, he pleaded with me to let him go, and I couldn’t do anything but dig my teeth in until I tasted blood.

” I stare at him, breathing hard. “Do you know what that’s like? ”

“No.”

“I am trying, okay? I am trying to work out what the flying fuck I’m supposed to do with my life now because I don’t have it set out for me.

I don’t have a brother there waiting for me or a mate to look out for me—” I drag in a ragged breath.

I can’t stop now. I can’t . “And fuck, yeah, okay, maybe it is about you and Kieran, really. You left. You both left . Tell me you thought about me even once when you did.”

Drew trembles. His eyes are big, shining with tears, but I don’t feel anything when I look at him. My chest is empty again, hollowed out.

“I—We needed to leave.”

“And when Kieran left, did he abandon you?”

“No. I’m his brother.”

“And I thought you were mine!” The words crack on a sob and Drew’s breath hitches, tears spilling down his cheeks.

“I—We—”

“Fuck you, Drew,” I snap. “You didn’t think of any of us, did you? Your father terrorised us, your potential mate, your fucked-up vampire enemy or whatever he was, and we paid the price. All of us.”

I’m not being fair. I know that. Drew came for me when I called, after his dad told me when was best to get away.

I’d already lost my ability to shift by then. The last time I shifted was—

I taste blood, breathe in the imagined smell of it again.

The last time I shifted, I killed a vampire.

But Drew did save me. Kieran has let me join his pack.

I can’t help it. A year or more of impotent anger finally has an outlet, and besides, I am angry at him for abandoning me, even if I would have never gone with him had he asked. He never told me about the members of the Hunt looking out for them. He never told me he was going to leave.

Someone hammers on the door, and I jump. Drew’s crying in earnest now, hitching little sobs, and I scrub a hand over my face.

“Drew?” Sam calls through the wood. “Sweetheart, are you all right?”

For a second, I can’t breathe. Of course Sam’s here—their bond means he can feel that Drew is upset; that I’ve upset him. Fuck. Fuck . I’m not going to be able to stay here, am I? Why did I even try?

“Get out,” I say to Drew and storm through into the bathroom before he can answer. I close the door and lock it, then lean back against it as I try to listen to what he’s doing.

The front door opens. Sam makes a surprised sound, then a soothing one, and I hear the rumble of his voice, but I can’t make out the words. Drew sobs again. I press the heels of my hands against my eyes until they stop burning, and when I take my hands away, my palms are wet.

No chance Kieran will let me stay after that. I’ve just said I blame the two of them for everything that happened—and he’s supposed to be my alpha. I sink to the ground and wrap my arms around my legs.

It’s not only that. I’ve got no one at all, do I? Everyone I know is in this pack, and everyone I used to know is dead or hurting just as much as I am. If I called anyone from home and told them about this—

Why would they care? No one was that surprised when Drew ran off in the middle of the night.

Only me. I was surprised. I hadn’t hesitated to help Drew when Hale arrived. I watched the way Drew shrank away from him, already afraid, and I offered our house for Hale and his betas to stay in before my parents could tell me not to.

And then he was there for months. Months of quiet, taunting threats. Months of anger, of him tainting every corner of my home and thinking it was worth it because at least I was keeping him away from my friend, and then—

I sob into my knees. Everything hurts, head throbbing in time with my pulse. I should go out and lock the front door, but I can’t bring myself to move. Slowly, the room around me grows dark, and I stare into the shadows.

Maybe I should just go back. I have to at some point because the house needs packing up properly and they’ve already floated the idea of me selling it back to the pack.

I don’t even need to ask Kieran, not really.

I could go straight to Alpha Deacon. I could go back up north and clean out the house and—

And what? My lip curls and I lean my head back against the door.

It still hurts, but more from the crying than my injuries; when I feel around, the lump from yesterday is gone.

And live out my life up there? I still have no future.

Besides, what place do they have for me?

They’ve been rebuilding for months without any of us.

I’ll still have no one, too. That won’t change. Just a head full of memories, even worse than the ones that chase me now because before Hale arrived, bringing Tamesis with him, things were generally good .

Tears fall again as I think of all the times Drew and I sneaked off into the woods, long before Kieran left the pack. Hours spent at my house, my parents exasperatedly telling us to go to sleep as we whispered and giggled through the night.

After Kieran left, I was the one he came to. I helped him get away when his dad was too much.

And he listened to me all the same, even though the complaints I had about my mum and dad—a ragged sob tears from my throat because how could I have ever said those things about them—were nothing in comparison.

He cheered me up when I was sad, when my first sort-of boyfriend dumped me, and the fights we had were all over silly shit that never lasted longer than an afternoon.

I’ve ruined it. I’ve ruined everything. And as the tears begin to slow again, I know I can’t stay on the bathroom floor all night.

I move slightly, half-heartedly intending to get to my feet, and my phone slides out of my pocket and onto the floor. I pick it up. Okay, I can do this. Stand up. Wash my face. Phone on charge.

One little step at a time. And if anyone comes, I just won’t open the door.

I stroke my thumb over my phone screen, then unlock it and scroll to Asher’s number without any conscious thought of choosing to. I have one person, don’t I? Asher hasn’t spoken to the rest of the pack. He’s looked out for me.

He kissed me.

My lips wobble and I swallow down a whimper. I press his number before I can talk myself out of it. It rings for a while. Is he in a meeting? Hunting something?

After what feels like an age, he picks up. His tone is terse. “Quinn? Look, I’m kind of in the middle of something right now.”

Tears sting my eyes again. Fuck, I don’t—I will my voice steady. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have called.”

“No, I…” I hear his footsteps moving. “Is everything okay?”

My mouth twists and I dig the fingers of my free hand into my thigh, forcing my voice to be a little steadier. “No, yeah, it’s all—I’m fine. Sorry. I’m feeling better now. That’s all I’m ringing for.”

Asher is quiet for so long that there’s a second where I think he’s hung up. “ Quinn .”

I press my free hand to my mouth and swallow down another sob. I can do this. I can do whatever I need to do alone. “I’m fine,” I say once I’m sure my voice won’t entirely betray me. “Sorry for bothering you while you’re working.”

“No, it’s—”

I hang up before he can finish the sentence. My phone clatters onto the tiles when I let go.

I can’t be a lone wolf; I already know that. I can’t go back home. I can’t stay here.

And any other pack will have to know I can’t shift, won’t they?

My phone lights up, vibrating against the floor. When I see Asher’s name on the screen, I kick it away.

I’ll do my fights. Keep my wolf.

And then, that’s it.

I don’t care where I end up. I just can’t stay here.