Page 7 of The Enemy to the Living (The Wild Hunt #2)

Quinn

D rew is all smiles when I walk into Hallowed Grounds. He’s only got another fifteen minutes before his shift is over, but he makes me up a coffee all the same, though I’m not sure I should drink it.

The impromptu meeting with Asher has left me jittery, on edge.

The café is pretty quiet, but I still startle when a human walks in and the door chimes.

I need to get my shit together. My sense of smell might be getting weaker, but Drew’s certainly isn’t, and though he won’t go out of his way to scent me, he’ll notice if my emotions run too high.

Lark takes Drew’s place as Drew goes into the back to grab his jacket. He eyes me for too long, and I can’t see through his glamour, can’t scent anything, but I don’t try to.

He’s fae too, of course. High fae, I think, because he gives me the same kind of icy chill as the twins.

I frown at the thought. Does Asher know about him ? Did he lie to me before?

“Wanna go somewhere for lunch?” Drew asks and I swallow down the rest of my coffee before I nod.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

We settle on grabbing burgers to go and enjoy them in a quiet park. It’s a little early for lunch, and I’m not at all hungry, but Drew scarfs his down, ears turning pink when he sees me looking.

“Forgot to grab breakfast.”

“Like I’m judging,” I say and pass him my fries. “Here.”

Drew eats those as I lean back against the bench, watching some pigeons a few feet away. Like most animals, they keep their distance from wolves.

I don’t want to see what might happen if I come here without Drew.

“I’m glad you came today,” Drew says. “Kieran said he was going to remind you about dinner yesterday, but then he got stuck into a bunch of stuff with Lucien, and I guess he forgot.”

“No, he came by. But I’d eaten, so…”

“Coming for dinner tonight?”

I swallow. “I’ll try.”

Drew frowns but doesn’t say anything in response to that, and I swallow down a hard lump in my throat that tastes suspiciously like anger.

It’s not his fault I’m not sure if I’ll go.

It’s not his fault I’ve been avoiding the rest of the pack.

He has his own life, and he can’t be expected to chase me down all the time.

But Sam must have told him I’ve been leaving the pack house every so often, right? Why hasn’t he asked me about that? Not that I want him to ask. No. Asking means I’d have to come up with an answer.

Asking means he cares.

I wrap up the part of my burger I haven’t eaten—almost all of it, really—and debate chucking it in the general direction of the pigeons. It’s no good for them, but it might cheer them up.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Drew says, leg bouncing in that way it does whenever he’s nervous about something. “Did you want to come running?”

“Running?”

“Yeah. I’ve been meaning to ask Dax, but I know he’ll have to get permission from Alpha Levi and I don’t think he shifts as much as we do. So if you wanted to… We could do it on a day when I don’t have work if you don’t want to get up early?”

“I—” The words stick in my throat. I can’t . How do I even broach that? If I tell him, he’ll tell Sam or Kieran, and then it’ll be a whole big thing. Like that challenge was a whole big thing.

“We don’t have to!” Drew’s words are too fast, and I don’t need any sense of smell at all to know I’ve upset him. “I just thought it might be nice…”

“Not right now,” I say and wonder when our conversations became so stilted.

But then what do I have to say? I spend almost all the time I’m not at the fights in my little flat.

I don’t have a partner—or partners —to talk to.

I’m still not working because just like Drew and Kieran once were, I’m not actually qualified to do a damn thing.

Anger rises in my throat, thick and fast, and I swallow it back down again. No point in dwelling on it. It’s not their fault. It’s not my fault. It’s something to be dealt with.

I just don’t want to deal with it, either.

“Okay,” Drew says. I know he’s disappointed. We used to run together all the time at home. Even after Hale arrived; it was a way for him to escape because Hale and his betas knew better than to approach when we were shifted.

“Sorry,” I mutter. “I just… I can’t.”

Drew’s expression becomes complicated, shifting rapidly, and my ears burn when I realise what he must think. He doesn’t know I can’t shift into my wolf, so he thinks I… what? Feel bad or guilty? Of course I do.

That’s why I can’t shift, isn’t it? That, or I’ve betrayed my wolf so thoroughly that even he wants nothing to do with me anymore.

I get sharply to my feet and Drew blinks up at me in surprise. He’s finished eating. I offer him a smile, and he tentatively returns it. “Let’s walk?”

“Yeah, okay.”

We do a round of the park, then wander the streets for a while. It’s been a couple of weeks since I last had dinner with the rest of the pack, but Drew doesn’t bring it up.

Still, I should be polite. “How are Sam and Adam?”

His entire face lights up. I’m happy for him, I am, but my traitorous heart squeezes in my chest.

Oh, I’m not in love with Drew. Never even came close. We weren’t the only two wolves in our pack our age interested in the same gender, so there were enough people for us to experiment with that we never had to resort to each other.

And it would have been resorting to . I know he’s never had romantic feelings for me, either.

“They’re good,” he says. “I think Sam’s more interested in the fae than he lets on. It’s complicated. But Spectra’s really helpful, you know, and he likes her.”

“And Adam?”

It’s not about Drew and Sam and Adam at all. It’s about mates. In our pack, I’d hardly entertained the idea. Our alpha had a mate, and then she died, and all the adults whispered about how it changed him, which put me off the idea entirely.

Then I came here and even through my terror and grief, I saw… I see the way Kieran and Lucien are with each other. I see the way Drew and Sam and Adam are together.

I want that. I don’t want it more than I want my wolf back, but I want it all the same.

Only, without my wolf, how will I possibly recognise my mate, even if I do find him? Kieran had that trouble, I know that. Lucien figured it out as quickly as he did. Drew figured it out faster, but he and his wolf weren’t in sync at the time, so it still took him a while.

Maybe I would feel something eventually, like Kieran did. He’s never had a wolf at all. I shake my head, realising that Drew is talking.

“Sorry, you—”

“Adam’s doing well,” Drew says, smile dipping a little when he realises I’ve drifted out of the conversation. “He’s been going to a lot more of Vince’s self-defence classes.”

“To help, or…?”

“Yeah, to help. He likes it, I think. He likes Dax.”

Everyone likes Dax, me included. I’ve only met him a couple of times, but he’s the kind of wolf I’d like to spend a lot more time around.

It just comes with the entire rest of my nosy new pack, I suppose.

“That’s good,” I say. “That’s good.”

“What about you?” Drew asks. “What have you been up to?”

We go a few more steps before I answer. “Not much,” I say, and that doesn’t feel too dishonest. “Just hanging out, really.”

“I could come by more if you want.”

It’s an olive branch for a fight we’ve not even had. Drew doesn’t know what’s going on in my head. I don’t want him to. He’s found happiness and I want him to keep it. I know he deserves it.

But that anger I feel is directed at him, too. Him and Kieran. Him and Kieran and the rest of my pack that slunk their way back up north and those who stayed here, as huddled and weak as me and the hunters who judged us and the vampires who never stopped Tamesis to begin with and and and—

Drew’s hand curls around my wrist and I come to a sudden halt.

“Are you okay?” he asks. There’s nothing but concern in his expression. My breaths are too shallow, so I drag one deep, filling my lungs, and all I can scent is concern there, too.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

He frowns. “Are you still seeing the doctor? Kieran said to leave it to you, but—”

I snatch my hand away. “I’m fine, Drew. I mean it.”

He stares at me, and of course he knows. He knows me better than anyone else, and up until he met his mates, I would have said that went both ways.

No, before that. I never thought he’d leave our pack. I never thought he’d abandon me to face Hale and Tamesis alone.

“I’m fine ,” I say, trying to reassure us both, I think. My phone buzzes against my hip and I pull it out of my pocket, glad for the sudden distraction.

The text I have is from Sorrel, which is unexpected and sets my heart racing again. Still, when I open it, all I see is an address.

The fights are moving. I’m not quite sure where the street is, but the postcode is Hammersmith, I think. Aside from the address, all he’s written is tonight, 20:00.

I’m to fight again, then. I don’t know if this will count as number four or number five, but I don’t care that much. A wave of relief washes over me; I’ve not lost my wolf entirely, at least.

“Let’s go back,” I say, and Drew nods, looking speculatively at my phone. He clearly wants to ask but is giving me at least this tiny amount of privacy.

“Will you come to dinner tonight?” he asks. “I can make whatever you want.”

Guilt flares again, and I push it firmly back down. My wolf is on the line here. And after today, I need this fight. I need to get the emotions out somehow.

So I say gently, “Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow instead.”