“I don’t think I would.” Dominic murmured, looking at the floor and fidgeting slightly, which seemed oddly uncharacteristic of him from what Zia knew of him so far, but the flicker of something distant in his cool blue eyes hinted he was referring to something specific but relactant to discuss it further.
Zia’s head cocked to the side at the sudden change in demeanor and he sniffed the air lightly, trying to get an idea of what he was walking into. “You sort of have to if you’re a shifter.” He paused, still frowning. “Are you okay?”
“About the only choice we got even if she does wake up on the way,” Darius answered, not liking the idea that that was even a possibility, so he chose to focus on believing Ty could keep her out long enough to get where they were headed and get the girl into containment.
“Okay,” he finally agreed, sounding more like a broken child than anything. He almost looked younger than he was, not that he was very old to begin with, as he tried to latch onto the only bit of hope he had been shown in the last few years. Kayla deserved better than to be…this.
“Hawk. I was looking for Ais– for Layla. Is she not home?”
Her body language relaxed a little. He smelled like a cat and did remember Layla mentioning a brother. “The brother? No, she’s out with her granddaughter for the day.”
Losing his sister had devastated the family. He knew, with a certainty he wished he didn’t have, that Chase and August would both have died if they hadn’t still had him to take care of. Dad had only barely managed not to do anything reckless and get himself killed, Papa barely held himself together. (Losing Dad had been hard too, but not quite so bad. It hadn’t been such a shock.)
He still missed her, despite all the time that had passed. Despite Papa doing his best. At least they’d still had each other.
He saw her all the time, in places she really wasn’t. He’d known a cashier for a few years who had the same eyes. Someone else had her laugh. Sometimes he felt like he was being haunted by her ghost, but he knew that would actually be easier.
So when the stranger grabbed his arm, his brow furrowed and all he could do was stare for a long moment. He couldn’t be seeing what he thought he was seeing. “Uh… sorry. I, um, think I’m seeing a ghost.”
She tried to keep the smile in place, but seeing the way he reacted made her heart ache. Knowing in her heart that her death had hurt him wasn’t nearly as awful as seeing the pain still lurking in his eyes and she wanted so badly to just hug him right then and there.
Instead, a soft, sad laugh escaped her as she shook her head and reached for his hand. “Not a ghost.”
“Hawk, it’s me. I know I smell different, I’m not… I’m not the exact same, but it’s me. And I am so, so sorry for leaving you.”
As if to prove her point, she went up on her toes and tugged him just close enough to rub her cheek against his, the gesture left over instinct from when she was still a lynx and knowing the importance of scent marking between family members.
“Alright! Alright. I won’t say anything about Salem and Genesis, okay? You’re right. I agree. They’re too young. So is Molly. I know.”
He wasn’t just trying to appease her. Against the recommendation of his own father and most of the other hunters he knew, he’d held off on starting to train Molly to track or do anything to help him hunt down other wolves. He hadn’t had much of a choice with Bailey because that pup had already started being used for that purpose before he was given to Zeke after his first pup was killed by another hunter.
His response had her going completely still. None of the other hunters had ever admitted that one of her kind could even possibly be right. Any other time, she wouldn’t have believed him, but she could smell something on him, some emotion the others never seemed to carry and she couldn’t place it.
ofviolentdeath 