Page 30 of The Enemy to the Living (The Wild Hunt #2)

Asher

“ I dunno,” Grant says, shifting around on the sofa. “You just seem… happier.”

I’ve been at the base all night. I was half-tempted to ignore Quinn’s request and go wait around outside Mischief & Mayhem anyway, but I want to start things off better than that.

As it is, waiting for him to text me and tell me he’s done is becoming more and more difficult the closer we get to sunrise.

“Nothing’s changed,” I say, and Grant gives me a flat, disbelieving look.

“Don’t come the old soldier over me.”

I blink. “What?”

He scowls and roots around in the small pile of books on the floor next to the sofa. When he finds the one he’s looking for, he throws it at me.

I catch it with a faint grunt. He’s still not used to his strength. “Victorian slang again, is it?”

“Who said I ever gave it up in the first place?”

Maurice is off interrogating vampires, Jeremiah and Paxton having opted to join him.

Vlad is lurking somewhere around the house.

He hasn’t asked me any more about Quinn, and there’s really nothing to talk about until Maurice and the others let us know if there’s more information we need before tomorrow night.

It means it’s just me and Grant in here for now. I opt to change the subject.

“What about you? You seem better than you did the other day.”

Grant frowns and shrugs. “I’m fine.”

“Are you?” I push thoughts of Quinn out of my mind and turn all my attention to Grant. I think we neglect him a little, and I don’t want to do that. He might be Vlad’s turn, but he’s part of the Hunt, whether he knows it or not.

Whether the Huntsman knows it or not.

“Yeah. You know. All good.”

“Grant.” I use the same tone I would on unruly pups back when—Well. It works all the same. Grant’s gaze jerks up, eyes wide. He smiles, though, and I don’t know why.

“Really, it’s fine. Every so often, I just feel… sad, I guess. I know things are different for me.”

“Because Vlad turned you?”

“Yeah, I think so. I know most vampires experience bloodlust just for the first few decades. I asked Vlad about it, but he wouldn’t tell me, so I asked Maurice a few weeks ago.”

“What did he say?”

“That we do. That it is unusual that I haven’t.”

“Does he know why?”

“No, and I’m not really that bothered about it,” Grant says, and I think he’s only half-lying.

“I tried to put it into perspective. I’m sad that all my—all the people I cared about are out there still.

They’re living their lives, and they don’t have any idea what happened to me.

I want to go see them, but I know why that’s impossible. ”

“It’s inadvisable, but maybe—”

“No. I can’t. But I’m grateful for what I have. If Vlad hadn’t turned me, I’d be dead for real. Dead dead.” He casts a mulish glance at the door that leads out to the front hall and the stairs. “But I wish he’d stop treating me like I’m made of glass. I won’t break that easily.”

I open my mouth to say something pithy, then stop as I take Grant in.

My own transition to the Hunt was difficult enough—losing my wolf, struggling to control my blessing, forging a path with no pack—but I can’t imagine what it was like for him.

Out of all the Hunt, I spend the most time with Vlad, and I didn’t meet Grant for almost a year after he was turned.

He faced the Huntsman as a fledgling. He stays cooped up in this house because Vlad fears what might happen to him if not. He has no life outside of us, and we’re all kind to him, but we haven’t tried to make him one of us, either.

“No, you won’t,” I say, startling him if the brief, wide-eyed look he gives me is anything to go by. “Once this is done with the twins, we’ll train you up. If more high fae are coming through the veil, we’ll need all the help we can get.”

Grant’s mouth drops open. He swings around onto his knees on the sofa, and the book he’s holding falls to the floor, forgotten.

“You’re serious ? What about the Huntsman?”

“He’ll see the logic in it.” He’ll have to. Maurice will back me up on this, I know it. And if Maurice pushes, the Huntsman might just give in.

Grant’s grin stretches his face, but it softens the longer he looks at me. “Thank you. I mean it.”

“Yeah, of course.”

Vlad wanders downstairs a while later, and I leave some time after that. It’s almost sunrise and I haven’t heard from Quinn yet, but maybe he’s spent the entire night at the pub. As it is, I take a bus partway home, and when I’d usually change to a different line, I just hop off and walk.

The night air is cool, turning from inky black to a deep blue with every minute that passes. Not long until sunrise now, and once the sun is up, I’ll call Quinn regardless. Maybe he decided to go back to his pack. I want to see him today like he said, but if he has gone to see them, I’m glad of it.

I spent more time helping Jeremiah and Paxton than the rest of the Hunt did, but still not that much in the grand scheme of things.

I only vaguely remember Drew. I hardly remember seeing Quinn at all.

Kieran was much more present. Much more the focus, the poor boy with no wolf, with a father who so clearly hated that about him.

I’m shaking my head as I turn onto my street. I’m glad they’re out, all three of them. They have space to heal if they’ll only let themselves. Once Quinn is out of the clutches of the twins, that’ll be easier for them all. And tonight he will be. I’ll make sure of that.

Light is beginning to streak the horizon. I pause, my blessing swirling in my chest at the sight of a slumped figure on the pavement leading up to my flat.

My blessing surges, reaches out.

Quinn?

I don’t hesitate. Don’t pause. I race towards him, and when I drop to my knees by his side, pain judders through me, but I don’t care. I roll him onto his back, hands shaking as my fingers flutter over his face.

“Quinn? Can you hear me, Quinn?”

Magic pulses. My blessing sinks into him the way it did the other night, then retreats all at once.

His wolf.

It’s gone.

“Fuck!”

I fumble my phone out of my pocket, looking up and down the path. I need to get Quinn out of here, but I can’t move him yet. Not if it might make things worse.

Maurice picks up on the first ring. “Asher? There’s nothing to be done until tomorrow, is—”

“It’s Quinn,” I say, practically gasping the words down the line. “They took his wolf.”

“What?”

“His wolf, Maurice! The fucking twins—He’s here, he’s outside my place, and I don’t—I need help .”

“Fuck. Okay.” I hear movement. Maurice didn’t come back to the base before I left, so he’s probably with Njáll. “Okay, listen. I’m going to send Paxton straight to you. You need to take Quinn back home.”

“I can’t—” I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Okay. How long will he be?”

There’s a voice in the background. Njáll.

“We’re sending him a car. It’ll pick him up and they’ll come straight to you, okay? Njáll’s going to call Deacon, and—”

“No, not yet.”

“Kieran should be prepared, Asher. Deacon can be there with them both.”

I stare down at Quinn’s face until my eyes blur with tears. His breaths are even but shallow, and as I watch, he whimpers, the sound born of pure pain.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “Okay.”

“I’ll come find you after sundown.”

“No, I’ll—I’ll be at the base. We need to finish this.”

Maurice is silent for a moment. “All right,” he says finally. “I’ll organise everything here. Keep him safe until Paxton gets there.”

As if I would do anything else. I know what he means by it, though. The reminder cuts through the panic and the sorrow, purpose stiffening my shoulders.

“Got it. Thank you.”

“Of course.”

I wait for Paxton’s arrival and never take my eyes from Quinn’s face. Paxton crouches beside me when he arrives, hand resting for a second on my shoulder.

“Come on, Asher. Let’s get him up.”

I almost don’t want Paxton to touch him. I don’t want anyone to touch him, not while he’s so hurt and vulnerable. My blessing puffs up at the thought, but then I look into Paxton’s face, and it settles again.

Pack. Paxton and Quinn are pack. Paxton will help.

The driver—human, I’m guessing—is waiting by the back door, which he’s holding open. Paxton and I get Quinn inside, and I climb in and rest Quinn’s head in my lap. Paxton jumps in up front with the driver and directs him tersely to Kieran’s pack house.

I can’t think about the reception that awaits us. I stroke my fingers over Quinn’s brow instead and watch the way his eyes are rapidly moving behind closed lids. Does he know I’m here? I hope so. I hope he can somehow sense me, even through all the hurt, and that it eases some of it for him.

I’m going to save him. There’s not a chance he’s going to die because of this.

Kieran’s waiting by the kerb as we pull up, body tense like he’s holding himself back. He is. He almost launches himself at the car when it stops, and Paxton leaps from it and pushes him away.

“Let me see him! He’s part of my pack, for fuck’s—”

I don’t hear Paxton’s response through the glass. The driver locks eyes with me in the mirror. “Can I help you with him, sir?” he asks.

“No,” I say, voice hoarse. “No, it’s fine.”

I still don’t move for another minute or so. Not until the shouting’s stopped. Quinn tensed a little at the sound of it—he can still hear, whatever else is happening to him in there—but as the sound winds down, he relaxes a little again.

Paxton opens the back door and pokes his head in. “Ready?”

No. Kieran isn’t going to want me to see Quinn after this, once I’ve saved him. And I don’t want to drive a wedge between them. I stare down at his face for a moment longer, then swallow all of it back down and nod.

I can do this. I’ve lived through the worst thing that could happen to a wolf, and besides, he’s not going to die. He won’t.

“Yeah. Help me?”

“Of course.”