You have this carefully calculated plan of where to look, but when we get here, we don’t even do anything.”
“They can’t know we’re looking.” Ezra was barely loud enough to be heard over the crunch of our boots in the snow.
“I get that, but Peter has to know. Or how else will we find him?” I pressed.
“Smell him. Hear him. See him.” He shrugged, but then slowed, almost pausing to look at me hopefully. “Can you still… feel him?”
Whenever ever I had been around Peter before, my body automatically pulled towards him.
I’d walk to him without even trying. My natural inclination had been to be with him, and that would be really helpful in a search party. If we got close to him at all, then my body would just direct us to him. Since my transformation and my bond had broken with him, it didn’t seem likely that I still felt the same way.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, although I tended to think that I wouldn’t be able to.
If I thought about Peter or talked about him, I didn’t get all fluttery and intense anymore.
That could just be because of all the changes I’ve gone through, and that my reaction is now that of a vampire’s and not a human’s, but I don’t think so. I have a bond with Jack, and I can still feel things like that for him, which means that I probably can’t for Peter anymore.
“Oh well,” Ezra shrugged again and tried not to look dejected. His pace picked up again, andI scampered behind him to catch up. “We’ll find him anyway.”
We continued on in silence, Ezra scouring the area around us. We passed over the river where we had met the lycan, and that made my heart skip a bit. He glanced back at me, and I hated that he could hear my heart. It gave him a read on emotions that I’d rather keep private. I could tell that he was about to ask me if I wanted to turn back, but I just shook my head and insisted we plow ahead.
Hopefully, he was better at tracking than I was, because I couldn’t even smell the lycan anymore. They smelled of sheep or horses or dogs that were never let in the house. It was the scent of animals that lived outside, which made sense, because essentially, that’s what they were. When we had come across reindeer earlier in the night, it wasn’t quite the smell as that. There was something edgier about the way lycan smelled, like livestock and… road kill. I don’t know if that’s right, but that’s the best way I can describe it.
There was a crack of a branch loud enough that even a human could hear, and I whirled towards it.
Ezra had moved in front of me, his posture defensive and tense. It had been about an hour since we passed the river, so we were well into their territory, and we had yet to see any animals. I inhaled deeply, hoping to get a read on what was around us, but all I could only smell the cold. Snow. Trees. Dirt.
Maybe an owl…
A flap of wings followed by the rustle of branches, and I saw a large owl take flight in front of the moon. Relief washed over me, but Ezra didn’t relax at all. If anything he tensed up more, but he’d obviously been able to see the same owl I had. I wanted to ask him what his deal was, but then I heard something else too.
The soft crunch of footsteps in the snow, softer than hooves, softer than shoes. Barefoot.
That meant it was either a bear, which didn’t really concern me, or the lycan, which did really concern me.
Even in the moonlight, I could make out anything through the trees, but they were experts on being ghosts. But then I saw him, several yards ahead of us, walking towards us with his hands held up open towards us, the sign of surrender.
It was the kind one, Leif, with the big brown puppy dog eyes. He was wearing the same clothes as he had been the other day, although they appeared to be even dirtier. Ezra, on the other hand, looked rather dapper for a midnight hike. He was wearing a black cashmere sweater with a thick, poloesque collar, but in most ways, Ezra appeared to be an entirely different species than Leif.
“I’m alone!” Leif announced as he got closer to us.
I half-expected Ezra to tell him to stop where he was, but Ezra probably knew that he was in no position to make orders. Leif stopped a few feet in front of us anyway, but that was still much closer than either of us would like. Ezra kept his body partially blocking mine, but he stood slightly less defensively.
“I am alone. I know you don’t trust me, but it’s the truth.” Leif repeated, his voice soft and gentle.
I would guess that he was American or maybe Canadian. He pushed a strand of his thick, dark hair off his forward and chewed his lip nervously. His eyes roamed around us, unsure of where to let them settle, and he glanced up at that moon.
“They’re in Sweden, hunting,” Leif continued, as if we had asked. “Dodge was convinced that we’d scared you away, so they left.”
“But you weren’t?” Ezra asked cautiously, and his stance grew more rigid again. Leif shrugged in response and lowered his eyes to the ground. “Is that why you stayed behind? To see if we came back?”
“Maybe,” Leif confessed, then quickly added, “But not like you think.”
“You don’t know what I think,” Ezra countered evenly.
Leif shifted uneasily and looked back up at the moon again. He rubbed his arm anxiously, and I could tell there was something that he wanted to say but couldn’t seem to find the words. He almost seemed desperate, and his eyes looked pained when he looked back at us.
“You’re after Peter, aren’t you?” Leif asked simply, and Ezra and I stiffened. “Look, I’m not out to get him. He killed my brother… but it was self-defense. Krist had a temper and…” Leif looked around again, growing more agitated. “Peter had no business being here. He was trying to ‘try out’ for the pack, but that’s not how it works. So Gunnar was putting him through all these stupid tests, and Krist was one of them. But Peter started winning…” He looked apologetic, his eyes wide and sincere. “It wasn’t fair what they did to him.
What they’re still doing to him.”
“Still?” The fear in Ezra’s voice made me wince.
Ezra took a step forward and his heart tightened at the thought of them still doing anything to Peter.
My head swam with images of torture, and Ezra had seen far worse than I had. He knew what true torture could be for a vampire, and I didn’t even want to know what he was thinking of. Everything Leif had been saying only made feel sick and scared, but if they were still doing something to him, that meant that he still had to be alive.
“Yeah, he’s alive. He’s okay,” Leif’s voice cracked on the last word, and I had a feeling that okay was rather subjective in this case.
“What are they doing? Where is he?” Ezra demanded in a low growl, and Leif shrunk lower, taking a step back. Any pretense that Ezra had of submitting to the lycans was completely shattered.
He was a pack leader in his own right, and Leif bowed down to that.
“I don’t know exactly,” Leif confessed.
He was clearly afraid, and I didn’t think that worked in our benefit, so I put a hand on Ezra’s arm.
Reluctantly, he responded and took a step back. Leif nodded his appreciation at me and stood up straighter.
He wasn’t going to mess with us, but he wouldn’t have whether Ezra had freaked him out or not. After all, he had sought us out, not the other way around.
“They’re hunting him,” Leif said.
“He’s in Sweden?” I raised an eyebrow. That wasn’t what Ezra had been hearing.
“No, no, he’s still here,” Leif shook his head. “Its just the pack in Sweden.”
“I don’t understand. Why is he still here? If they’re gone, why didn’t he just come home?” I asked, confused.
Leif gave Ezra a plaintive look, and Ezra nodded knowingly. He understood what was going on, and I didn’t appreciate being left out of the loop. Maybe I didn’t full understand hunting properly, but once the hunter was gone, I didn’t see the point in the prey hanging out for them to return. Even with Leif being left behind, he wasn’t a guard of any kind. Peter could easily overpower him.
“What? Why won’t Peter leave?” I demanded, looking up at Ezra since Leif didn’t answer me.
“Us,” Ezra replied thickly. “The pack will track him if he leaves, and follow him back to our house.”
“If they’re so good at tracking, then why haven’t they killed him yet?” I pressed.