you. We had his mate lined up already, but he said it had to be you. You want to take one of the pack as your mate, then you need to show us.”
My guts fell through the floor, only Jai’s fingers holding me up, digging hard now. I watched the old men nod and confer.
Another spoke next. Jack’s back was ramrod straight, his white hair spilling over his shoulders, and when he looked at me, the eye shine was all the brighter for the cataracts in his eyes.
“Go back to this place. Get more information. Rob wants war? You’ll be the scout, girl. You can get in where we can’t. We do this? People’ll die. They may anyway.” His eyes dropped down to the ground, as if seeing the previous times that had happened.
I felt their words wash over me, then jerked my shoulders free of Jai’s grip.
“You want me to—” I bit the words off, remembering Nan’s admonitions about speaking to the pack. “They… He wants me to be the one to get those samples from those shifters.”
“Familiarising you with your mates. Wise man,” Rusty said.
“I’m…” I glanced around at the kids who were clustered around us. “I’d be assaulting those men.”
“You would.”
“And I’d… Everything Nan told me was always this, always to run. I stayed, I told Rob and Jai, despite everything I saw.”
“So you did, rabbit girl, as was agreed by your Moira,” Rusty replied. “You can run. Jai’ll chase you. Maybe that’s what you want. But you run, you’ll always be a rabbit, always have sharp jaws on your heels, then around your neck.”
When he straightened in his chair, pushing back his hat to reveal eyes that glittered in the firelight, it was then that I could see it. His back might be curved, his fingers clawed by arthritis, but there was an endless strength here. He knew who he was, where he belonged, what his strengths were and how to use them. He might not be the one to do the fighting anymore, but that was his sons and his sons’ sons’ job now.
“My uncle, Eric,” Jack said, not looking at me or the pack, “he was a union man, down at the railway when it still ran. Young man, full of piss and vinegar. Thought he could use that role to fight for our rights.” He shook his head. “Those councillors, Wallace, Moore, and that bastard, Bailey…” He paused, just watching the fire in the drum crackle. “They couldn’t bring him down, Eric. Had no wife, no kids, no points of weakness he thought. Was smart as billy-o. Too smart. Started getting the workers striking, fighting against the conditions…”
Jack’s eyes flicked up at me.
“They couldn’t take him down in a fair fight. They tried that. They couldn’t stop him with the men. They cut people’s wages, stood over their families. Eric was a leader, born and bred. So they did what they always do with power, they used whatever means they could find to take his. Drugged his beer, with the publican’s help, and waited until he staggered out of the place, trying to walk on home. They came after him then, like wolves on a rabbit’s trail. Prey had become predator.”
His lips peeled back to reveal teeth yellowed by age, but still sharp.
“They beat him down, smacked him until he was on the ground, then beat him all the more.” He paused for a moment, and damn the rules, I watched the fire flicker in his eyes. “We can’t be killed with fists, we heal too well, most of the time. They stomped his chest in, that’s what killed him. The bones pierced his heart, and then there was nothing left to heal.”
I expected more, a moral of the story or something. Anything to explain why this horrible fucking tale was told, but there was nothing. Jai waited, everyone waited, and then at some allotted amount of time I didn’t understand, he put a hand on my shoulder and turned me away.
“C’mon, Shan, it’s time to go home.”
Chapter 15
Jai didn’t say anything on the drive home, nor when we got to his place. He watched me fuss over the dogs, then run up the stairs, following me on silent feet. He was a sentinel, watching over me as I grabbed my bags, pawing through them to see if I had the essentials. I was following the wolf’s advice and getting out of Dodge. I’d ask Jai to drop me home, then pack up