Last Wolf Hunting

by Rhyannon Byrd

  A wry smile curled across Sayre’s mouth, and she ducked her head shyly. “Hi, Jeremy.”

  “You were just a scrawny little runt the last time I saw you.”

  Sayre’s musical laughter filled the glade, and it made Jillian’s heart hurt to think of how her sister had always followed Jeremy around when she was little, as worshipful as an adoring puppy. Sayre had been crushed when he’d left Shadow Peak, and it’d been so hard to explain to the little girl why he wasn’t coming back. “Yeah, well, that was a long time ago,” she said with an easy grace, obviously trying to put them at ease. “Not that I’ve ever managed to outgrow the scrawny thing. I may be taller, but I still look like a toothpick.”

  “Naw. You’ve grown into a beautiful young woman. I bet you have all the boys chasing after you.”

  “Hardly.” She laughed. “But it’s sweet of you to say so.”

  “Is everything okay?” Jillian asked, irritated with herself for the tiny flair of jealousy she felt at their easy camaraderie. “You know I don’t like you leaving Shadow Peak on Challenge Nights. It isn’t safe.”

  Sayre nodded. “Yeah, I know. But I had to make sure you were okay.”

  “I’m fine. How did you find me?”

  Sayre’s cheeks flushed, and she ducked her chin. “It wasn’t hard, Jilly. You were broadcasting pretty loudly.”

  Jeremy arched a questioning brow in Jillian’s direction. “Sayre’s still growing into her powers,” she explained quietly, “but they’re already very strong.”

  “Obviously,” he murmured, staring, and Jillian knew he was wondering just how strong her own powers had grown in the past decade.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Sayre said cautiously, flicking a nervous glance toward Jeremy, “but I wanted to let you know that Eric was waiting at your house. He heard about what happened at the clearing and wanted to come looking for you. It wasn’t easy, but I, um, convinced him to head home and let me check on things. I told him you’d call him later.”

  “Eric who?” Jeremy questioned, at the same time Jillian whispered, “Hell.”

  “Eric who?” he repeated, the words sharper this time.

  “Um, Eric Drake,” Sayre said too brightly, wincing when she caught sight of Jillian’s glare.

  Jeremy’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Why would Drake be waiting at your house for you?”

  Jillian opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. “Not to sound rude, but that really isn’t any of your business.”

  “Wrong answer,” he said silkily. “I’m making it my business.”

  “I’m not doing this in front of Sayre,” she warned him in a quiet voice.

  “All I want is an answer to my question.” Jillian could hear the silent for now tacked onto the end of his statement.

  “We’re…friends.”

  “You and Drake?” he rasped, his tone full of disbelief and the hard, biting edge of anger. “Since when?”

  “A few months now,” she explained awkwardly, alarmed at the way he stumbled back a step, his expression little more than a hard mask, giving nothing away. But his eyes were like a window into his soul, and she knew the idea of her with Eric caused him pain. For years, she’d thought she’d take satisfaction in seeing him hurt, but she’d been wrong. Instead, his pain cut at her like a knife, jabbing and sharp, while shame pooled thickly in her belly.

  “Why?” He didn’t need to say more. She knew exactly what he meant.

  Her hands fluttered nervously at her sides, and she wished she was wearing jeans so that she could hide them in her pockets. “We started working together on a few of the new reform committees for education and housing. We ended up spending so much time together that we’ve become…close—”

  “If you two are so close,” he interrupted, taking a step forward, hands planted on his hips, “why wasn’t he there tonight?” His lip curled in cruel sneer, but she could see the burn of a darker emotion in the deep, smoky green of his eyes. Jealousy burned harder than anger or fear or arrogance, blurring the edges so that only the source flared through, sizzling and sharp.

  Jillian lifted her chin. “I asked him not to come. And he respects my wishes.”

  “I’ll bet he does,” he snorted, the rude sound making her teeth grind.

  She shot a meaningful look at her little sister. “Maybe it would be better if we finished this argument some other time, Jeremy.”

  “Yeah.” He grunted under his breath and started to move away, then paused, his expression intent as he stepped closer and leaned down to whisper in her ear. Then he pulled away, gave Sayre a friendly nod of goodbye, and headed back into the forest.

  * * *

  Sayre walked quietly by J illian’s side as they made their way back to Shadow Peak, until the silence finally became unbearable. “You want to say something?” Jillian huffed, too on edge to be reasonable. “If so, please just spit it out and get it over with.”

  Her sister’s slender shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Not really.”

  “Come on,” Jillian groaned. “I can feel it, Sayre. After the night I’ve had, I don’t have the energy to drag it out of you.”

  “I just…You’re fighting it, aren’t you?” Sayre turned her head, staring at her with solemn eyes that saw too much for a seventeen-year-old. “You love him, Jilly, but you don’t want to. I think you want to give him another chance, but you’re too afraid.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I want. There’s too much history between me and Jeremy. A future between us would be impossible, so it’s best if we just stay away from each other.” Though avoiding him was going to be hard to do, considering it looked as if they were going to be working together, but she kept that thought to herself.

  “But he’s your mate,” Sayre murmured, lifting one delicate hand to drag softly through the changing leaves on the low-hanging branches, sending them tumbling from their perches. They fell a short distance, before being swept up in the chilly wind and carried away…and Jillian wished her troubles could be dealt with so easily. Just brushed off and swept away, floating out of existence like a cloud. “That means you’re meant to be together,” Sayre added. “Nothing good can come of fighting it.”

  “And one of the things you’ll learn as you get older is that things don’t always turn out the way they’re meant to.”

  Sayre made a soft sound of frustration under her breath. “Maybe they would, if we were brave enough to fight for what we wanted.”

  Despite the headache pounding through her skull, Jillian grinned. “You sound like an idealist, Sayre. I hope you never grow out of it.”

  It took her a moment to realize that her sister was no longer keeping pace at her side. When she stopped and turned around, she found Sayre standing beneath an ethereal beam of moonlight, her slender frame vibrating with tension. Her usual easygoing smile had been replaced by a pinched look of temper that had Jillian blinking in surprise.

  “Stop talking to me as if I’m a child, because I’m not one anymore. I know you don’t want to admit it, but I’m growing up, Jillian. I’m growing up and I have a brain that’s fully capable of functioning. I can form my own opinions and beliefs, and I can see more than others. I can see what’s really happening between you and Jeremy, even if you won’t admit it. And I know why. I—I know about mother.”

  A soft breath jerked out of her lungs, and Jillian shook her head as if to clear it. “What?”

  “Mother told me, when I turned sixteen. She wanted me to understand what had happened to her so that I would know to be careful.”

  “What did she tell you?” Jillian asked, wondering what strange cosmic event had occurred in the universe tonight to throw her world into such chaos. She’d been on a steady, even keel for so long, allowing herself to feel so little—and now she felt battered by emotional waves, struggling to stay afloat in an endless, surging sea of commotion.

  “All of it, Jillian. About the Lycan she fell in love with while away at school, about giving her virginity to him and about
how he turned away from her even though he knew she loved him. Even though he knew how she felt, he used her and then abandoned her, because he’d only been looking to have some fun. He didn’t love her in return. She told me that he was your father, and that after he left, she didn’t think she’d ever love again. And then she came back to the pack and set eyes on Dad, and that was all it took. She not only found her lifemate, but a man who returned her love and one who was more than happy to accept you and love you like his own daughter. She told me…everything.”

  The center of Jillian’s chest hurt as if she’d been kicked, and her hand pressed against it in an instinctual move to hold in the rapid pounding of her heart. “I didn’t know that you knew,” she whispered, wincing at the scratchy sound of her voice. “You never said anything.”

  “Mother asked me not to tell you that she’d told me, but I think it’s something that needs to be discussed.”

  “Why?” she asked bitterly. “What good is going to come from it?”

  “Because it’s affecting your life, Jillian.” Sayre tilted her head to the side, her blue-gray eyes luminous and bright in the silvery moonlight. “I think you’re taking Mother’s warnings to heart, aren’t you? Because of what happened to her, you’re afraid of following your heart. You’ve always been afraid.”

  She frowned, knowing it wasn’t that simple. “There’s more to it than that, Sayre. I have my responsibility to the pack, which isn’t one to take lightly. The League has never made any secret about their feelings on the subject, and I have to agree with them. Jeremy isn’t the type to make a sacrifice for others. He would have demanded I stay away from Shadow Peak and abandon those who rely on me. And you know what kind of reputation he has. Any woman foolish enough to trust him is just that. A fool.”

  Sayre gave her a sad smile. “You don’t believe in the power of love? In its strength?”

  “You sound like a romantic,” she muttered, feeling too old and worn-out, as if her youth had been dried up in heartbreak and bitterness.

  “I am, Jillian. I’ve seen love. I’ve seen commitment and fidelity and a metaphysical union of the souls.” Sayre gave a little grin. “However you want to describe it, it does exist. All you have to do is look at Mother and Father to see th—”

  “He’s not my father.”

  For the first time in her life, Jillian watched her sister’s face flush with anger. “Don’t ever let me hear you say that again, because it makes you sound like an idiot. He loves you like his own. Anyone can see that.”

  “I’m sorry,” she breathed out, the shaky timbre of the words betraying her real emotions. “You’re right. He does love me. I know that. I’m just…upset tonight, Sayre. This really isn’t a good time for me.”

  “Jillian, the one who protects her heart from fear of loss ends up with no heart at all. Just an empty chest, because she has nothing to lose. I love you too much to see that happen to you. Look inside yourself. Jeremy may be bold and arrogant, but he’s a good person. I think you’ve let the warnings and fears of the League bleed into your heart and have judged him unfairly. How could you know what he’s willing to sacrifice for you, when you’ve never given him the chance? And you’re already in pain from being near him and not having him. What could be worse?”

  “What could be worse?” Jillian repeated, wiping angrily at the hot, stinging wash of tears she could feel gathering at the corners of her eyes. “How about loving him and discovering that he doesn’t love me the same way?”

  Sayre shook her head sadly, while the wind caught at her pale curls and tousled them around her fey face. “I’ve always thought you were the bravest person I know,” she said sadly, “but you sound like a coward, Jillian.”

  Her mouth twisted into a wry expression that felt more like a grimace than a smile. “You’re probably right.” She took a deep breath, then jerked her head toward the direction of home. “Now, come on and let me walk you back. Mother is going to freak if you stay out past your curfew.”

  When they reached their parents’ house, Sayre unlatched the gate, walked through and then closed it behind her. “He wants you, Jillian. And he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to give up once he sets his mind on something.”

  “I know,” she murmured, recalling his earlier words. He wanted her for sex—nothing more. And he’d reminded her of the fact he meant to have her with those last whispered words in her ear.

  Taking a deep breath, Jillian lifted her face to stare at the moon, as had become her habit over the years. She could lose herself in its soothing light, imagine she was some other woman…in some other life…with a heart that didn’t belong to a man she could never have. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “No, it’s not,” Sayre said softly. “What you’re afraid of is that you won’t be able to resist him forever.”

  Jillian closed her eyes as the truth of those words spread through her. By the time she opened them, she stood alone under the milky glow of the moon, the only sound that of the front door closing softly behind her sister.

  Chapter 5

  Home.

  Jeremy pulled his truck in to the familiar gravel driveway, the sight of the two-story house nestled among the autumn-colored trees sending him into a reeling tumble of memories. The massive weeping willow that he’d played in as a child still swayed like a giant swamp monster at the back corner, its long, leafy arms twisting wildly in the breeze. Even the fall of the curtains in the windows looked the same, the cedar facade as well kept as the day he’d left. The place hadn’t changed at all in the past decade, as if time had stood still. Maybe it had. Damn, the wounds that had been inflicted here still felt as fresh as if it had all happened yesterday.

  Without a doubt, his pride still stung.

  Amazing now to think that he hadn’t been back since things had gone south with Jillian, when he’d finally accepted the fact that she’d never choose him over her beloved pack…that she’d never trust him with her heart and her happiness. That night he’d moved his things to the Alley, and he’d never set foot in Shadow Peak again. Not until he’d gone before the League and submitted his Bloodrunning numbers. It had been late then, just like now, and the town had looked eerily the same after a decade, any changes softened by the concealing shadows of night.

  Time to go inside, he thought, and yet, he didn’t move.

  He swallowed the shaky feeling in his throat, and rested his hands on the steering wheel, amused at himself for being so emotional. He was a Bloodrunner, a hunter of killers, for god’s sake. He couldn’t afford to be sentimental and nostalgic, but damn if his chest didn’t feel tight at the thought of setting foot in the house again after all these years. His parents were at their beach property down in Florida, where they’d spent more and more time over the past decade, visiting with Jeremy at the Alley whenever they were home. When it’d been decided that he would be the one returning to the pack, he’d wanted to rent a cabin on the outskirts of town, but his mother wouldn’t hear of it. She’d wanted him home, in his own room, where she said he belonged, and refused to take no for an answer.

  They’d always had faith in him, unlike some people, and for that Jeremy knew he was unquestionably lucky. But even after everything that had gone down, he didn’t hate Jillian. He’d wanted to, and he’d given it a hell of an effort—but the part of him that belonged to her, that linked them together, wouldn’t let him.

  Instead, his hatred had latched on to the pack itself, on to the archaic laws that set the Runners apart because they weren’t what the others considered “perfect.” That created the social divide between the Alley and Shadow Peak, one based on racism and hatred, bitterness and distrust. A timeless, enduring fury surged through his veins, swift and brutal and vivid in its intensity, just like it had the day his father had first explained to him why he was considered “different” from the other children he knew. Why he and his small group of friends were picked on and called names by the residents of the Lycan town that was supposed to be their ho
me…their family…their rock and their strength.

  Purist bastards.

  No, he’d never planned on coming back.

  Instead, he’d planned to keep hunting, satisfied that his life held a purpose, proud of his choices, determined to ignore the little voice in his head that continually reminded him something was missing. Something vital and important. Something meaningful. Something he needed. And it wasn’t the pack or a place that his life lacked, but a woman. One woman. One who at this very moment was probably snuggling up in front of a roaring fire with Eric Drake.

  Son of a bitch.

  From the moment she’d come home from school, Jeremy had known Jillian was meant to be his. But she’d stubbornly refused to let a relationship develop between them, until that one afternoon when she’d finally given in and allowed him to kiss her. Despite its innocence when compared to his sexual history, that kiss had floored him, affecting him more powerfully than anything he’d ever experienced. He could still remember the way she’d felt against him, in his arms, and how badly he’d wanted to take her out into the fields, lay her down into the soft green grass, strip her clothes from her body and make love to her until neither one of them could move. He could remember how her skin had felt beneath his hands as he’d touched her sun-warmed shoulders, the petal-soft sweetness of her mouth, the mind-drugging scent of her body.

  “Kiss me again,” she’d whispered when he’d finally walked her to her door, so she wouldn’t be late for dinner. He remembered the way his hands had shaken when he’d held her face and pressed his mouth to hers. Could still hear his own fractured groan when he’d lost control and driven the chaste kiss into something dark and hungry and lust-flavored. Wild with craving, he’d been ready to press her against the door and claim her then and there, but the sudden brightness of the porch light being flipped on had wrenched them both back to sanity. As it was, he’d had to cover his erection with his jacket when her mother had opened the door…and she’d known. He’d never been able to get anything past Constance Murphy.