"I will admit you got a difficult predicament. Don't think us hunters will take pity on you, though… I’ll tell you what... It wouldn't have mattered, no matter what. Staying in your village or being here. War would have found your people. You'd’ve found out 'bout your witches then, ‘sept you'd be stuck dying with 'em after learning who theyreallyare. It’s a game of who has the most power, and your Silver lot really changes the battlefield."
Rem opened her mouth to speak again but huffed air. Her gaze darted over the grass and dirt. Just what didthatmean?
With a patronizing tone, he asked, “Any more questions?”
Of course, she had more. In fact, she wanted to kick him again until the answers spilled out of him, but she couldn’t get those words out. There was a war coming? Witches dying? Her parents…
She shook her head. Ifanyof those words were true… It was too much to think about in that moment, and she felt like she needed to sit down again.
"Good. Now leave me the fuck alone." He was going to die behaving like a shit, so Rem gritted her teeth and turned around to walk off.
"Rem," Deacon said, following her along with Nia.
"What?" she replied impatiently.
"Did you really almost kill him?"
She frowned. "He abducted me and was taking me to who knows where and then wanted to rape me. The idiot left his gun available for me to grab. So, I grabbed it," she said, leaving out the part about why shecouldn'tleave.
Oliver.
Deacon chortled, running a hand through his dark blonde hair. He was one of the few shifters that didn't style it. "Well, good thing I didn't have a gun on me when we came for you."
Nia narrowed her eyes, and Deacon caught that he nearly revealed the method for which the Callons ‘collected’ her.
Rem, detached, said, "I won't lie; I contemplated how to kill you."
Deacon's eyes looked truly struck. "I didn't hurt you, though."
"Deacon—" She paused and glanced at Nia.
Nia's frown was so low that it made Rem realize she had already said too much, like the she-wolf understood there were pieces of a puzzle being laid out here. Nia rarely maintained her gaze when looking at someone with the rank of Deacon, but this time, she let her gaze burn right into him.
"I am sure you can go visit your family one day," Deacon offered, a slight strain in his hooded eyes, as if to remind her to keep quiet.
She blinked rapidly before looking around the forest, unable to entertain the lie any further.
As Rem aimlessly wandered through the woods, Nia followed quietly behind. Rem spotted Ronan in the distance near one of the trucks. Her stolen glance at the Alpha turned into a curious stare, her entire focus on him. His dark brown hair had slightly fallen into his face from the low bun he usually kept it in, creating a rugged appearance.
For a fleeting moment, she enjoyed everything about the way he looked, remembering how it felt to be on his back. To have his gentler side directed towards her.
Then, they removed his shirt, his shoulders and upper chest visible. A thick belt rose halfway up his abdomen, and she gawked as if he had spellbound her. How could that happen so easily? She didn’t even know anything mundane about Ronan, like his favorite color. Hugo’s had been orange.
I wonder what his is…
Rem’s head spun faster. What was wrong with her? Her brother was in danger, herself abducted, and she was busy admiring the Alpha. Even fantasizing about being close to him again, wanting him to smell her again like he did when they first met, because for some reason shelikedthat…
She squinted.Is that... No, that's definitely what I think it is.The cut on his pectoral was not healing, visible even from a distance. The shifters around noticed as well, pointing at it and looking at each other.
Rem knew that sickness, and she also knew how to heal it. She laughed to herself, as it felt like a gift from her gran, like the aged woman was still with her granddaughter, supporting her from wherever their souls departed.
“What?” Nia asked with caution. “Why are you laughing? Is it your head?”
“No, no. It’s just that… That wound on Ronan? I think I know what it is and how to cure it,” she said, not explaining the complexities of how it all still felt like luck. “Are any of the dead bodies of the hunters still here?" Rem asked.
"Yes. We gathered them over there," Nia carefully said, and pointed to an area behind a large tree that canopied over them. “They’re going to leave them for the wolves and other creatures. Why? What are you doing?”
Rem didn't say more and limped in that direction. Cicadas chittered through the woods, somehow adding to the haunting scene of dead bodies lined up next to each other. These men would have no burial or tombstone, becoming another part of the reclamation of these forests.
