Chapter Text
“I did what I had to, and you know it,” she mutters.
“I know,” he replies calmly.
His neutral demeanor betrays nothing, even though she knows he’s furious. He hasn’t quit staring at her since Rodrigue left the room.
They’re set up in some pseudo bachelor’s kitchen, a minifridge stored beneath a table and a microwave stacked atop a filing cabinet. Oddly enough, there’s stacks of plastic water bottles and what looks like bins of dry food and blankets that take up nearly an entire wall. It makes Travis’ outdated 90’s cabin aesthetic look like it belongs in a celebrity house tour.
Now that the adrenaline has bled away, her body is ready to call it a night. It feels like she just ran a marathon holding a dumbbell.
Or bargained with a werewolf for her life.
She disguises her wince with a sip from her soda. Said werewolf was merciful enough to pour a glass for each of them after they got the situation under control.
After he let her go.
Embarrassment weighs on her like a wet blanket. She literally got swept off her feet like a fucking damsel in distress. It doesn’t matter that it was a werewolf, or that it happened so fast that even Travis couldn’t do anything about it.
(and you know what the first rule of being untouchable is?)
What matters is that she let it happen in the first place.
Her hip aches like a bitch, she’s tired, and the last thing they need to do is argue. Really, the last thing he needs to do is get pissy with her for blowing their cover so fast, or for botching her interrogation, or for putting herself into unnecessary danger—
“Laura.”
Her fingers pause their anxious tapping. Travis rests his elbows on his knees, fixing her with a look that’s uncharacteristically subdued.
“Can we do this later?” Her nerves are paper thin. “Please?”
He purses his lips, regarding her with a keen eye as she takes another sip and barely tastes it. Carbonation burns away the many questions bubbling up her throat.
Why do you think Rodrigue is so different compared to Kaylee?
Do you think we can trust him?
The last one is a bullet in a chamber she'll never empty.
Were you really going to pull the trigger?
“Are you okay?” he asks. Concern lines the crease above his brows.
Rodrigue’s heavy footsteps save her from answering.
“Shop is closed for the night,” the werewolf says brightly, plopping himself into a chair at the table.
“I think we should start over, no? Rodrigue Cormier,” he says, flattening a palm to his chest.
It’s hard to say if he’s mocking them, but they’ve already antagonized him enough. Travis must have similar thinking, because he introduces them both with a polite nod.
Rodrigue leans back with a grin, eyeing the two of them with such intensity that it’s a struggle to stay still beneath it. The room is nearly unbearably quiet, save for the soft hum of the fluorescent lights.
“I have a few questions myself,” he says, “but I’ll let you two start first.”
“I’ve been tracking a werewolf that bit my niece six years ago,” Travis says after a beat. “Silas. She’s not his only victim.”
“And you came here because you're trying to … what?”
“We’re following the trail that the Valet family left behind,” Travis says. “They knew something about how to cure them.”
Surprisingly, he chuckles.
“I highly doubt that.” At their shared look of confusion, he clears his throat. “Apologies, didn’t mean to laugh. Please, continue.”
A muscle in Travis’ jaw ticks. He clears his throat, scanning Rodrigue’s languid form.
“They wrote about it. All this time, I thought the only answer was to kill him. But, thanks to Laura,” he juts his chin at her, “we figured out there was more to the poem. We were hoping you could tell us anything you know about what they might’ve learned.”
Rodrigue’s brows furrow.
“What poem?”
Trepidation leaks into her marrow. How does he not know about it? This is the guy who gave the information to the owner of Café de Lune about the Valets. He works at the family's blacksmith-turned-jewellry shop.
Hell, he's a werewolf.
“Every Valet family member that we know of has it carved on their tombstone,” Travis says.
“Ah,” he says, relaxing into his chair. “I think I remember hearing about that from the woman on the phone.”
His nonchalance is confusing as hell. Worse, it’s infuriating.
“They said there’s a cure,” she cuts in.
“We don’t need a cure,” Rodrigue’s reply is sharp and delivered with bared teeth.
Horror, thick with confusion and dismay, lodges in her throat.
On instinct, her eyes find Travis. He’s kept one hand below the table since they first sat down, and simply holds her stare with a face carved from marble. The message is clear.
Relax.
He addresses Rodrigue with the kind of patience that’s either salary-grown or honed through decades of dealing with his own family. It’s always a surprise to see how decent he can be when talking with other people.
“Don’t you want to be free?” he politely inquires.
“Short of dying, I don’t see how any werewolf loses their other form,” he says with what she realizes now is pride, fierce and damning.
Some of the fight bleeds from him as he regards their subdued demeanors.
“I know your niece must be wrestling with a lot of emotions, especially if the werewolf that bit her has since left town. But there’s a lot of good to celebrate—”
“What's there to celebrate?” Travis asks incredulously, cutting him off. “We have two other werewolves in North Kill alone, and they’re all from the same werewolf.”
Rodrigue blanches.
“Now, that’s not possible.”
“He’s not lying,” Laura insists, drawing the attention of those hazel eyes back on her. The way the light glints off his iris is oddly unsettling.
“This Silas would have to be some kind of demigod.” Rodrigue snorts. “Rarely has a human survived our venom, much less more than one. The kind of werewolf that can do that hasn’t been seen in centuries.”
“Centuries?” Laura repeats.
How does he know all of this?
“Yes, centuries.” Rodrigue’s choked laugh sounds more like a smothered groan. “When I say it’s rare, I mean the stars have to align. Why do you think we keep ourselves secret? If everyone was a werewolf, I wouldn’t have to fucking hide in plain site, waiting for the day a pair of hunters like yourselves smoked me outta my hole.”
“I don’t understand,” she says, mildly losing her shit. “Is there some secret werewolf society where you all trade notes? Why don’t you want to be cured? Why are you saying it’s impossible for humans to be turned?”
Laura tosses her hands into the air, ignoring the warning look from Travis.
“What the fuck is going on?” she blurts.
“You came to me, cher,” he says, pointing a hand at her.
“And there’s been basically zero ‘good’ since Silas came to town,” she argues over him. “Every full moon, his niece, my friend, transforms into this— this monster. Kaylee has to be locked up every full moon or she’ll tear apart anyone in her path. And—”
And Silas killed Max.
The words get lodged in her throat. She blinks rapidly to clear her vision. Crying right now is absolutely not on the table.
“There’s already been… incidents,” Travis adds in the silence.
Laura sets her glass down harder than she means to.
“Putain de merde,” Rodrigue mutters darkly.
All amusement has drained from his face.
“What you have described… that does not sound like us. I believe your story, but the ripping clothes, mindless bloodlust,” he waves a hand, “it’s Hollywood. Based on legends we made to protect ourselves.”
Travis shifts in his seat. “I don’t understand.”
“You say your niece’s life has been ruined because she becomes a mindless beast. I don’t lose control on a full moon,” Rodrigue says. “It strengthens me, lets me keep my other form for longer. But I'm still me.”
He retains control.
Laura’s still reeling from this revelation as Travis plows ahead.
“How?” he demands. “How do you stay yourself during the full moon?”
“How do you walk? How do you breathe?” The questions come unfettered. “Both my flesh and my fur are mine, and mine alone.”
The fluorescents cast unflattering shadows across his face, settling into the creases around his mouth and eyes. With the added darkness, they almost glow.
Tapetum lucidum.
That explains the glint to his eyes. It’s straight out of one of her textbooks. Even as a human he has the eye of an animal’s, and they look nothing like Kaylee’s.
“Were you…” she feels borderline insane as two expectant pairs of eyes lock onto her. “Were you born as a werewolf?”
“I was,” he says slowly, watching for her reaction.
“And— and your parents, grandparents?”
At his nod, the words of the poem burn like fire through her mind, cauterizing every other loose thread. Rodrigue eyes them both curiously.
Laura lets out a shaky laugh. Beside her, Travis practically vibrates in his seat, tapping the table definitively.
“I think… this poem is about your kind of werewolf,” he says breathlessly.
Instantly, Rodrigue’s expression shutters.
“The poem that talks about killing us?”
“Not that part,” Travis quickly amends..
As he recites the poem, Laura allows her head to fall back against the wall, closing her eyes. Memories flit back and forth like falling leaves.
“When full the moon above shines first, the beast internal shall outward burst…”
Max’s look of shock, forever immortalized on his cleaved head.
“...and should you yourself be cursed, armed with silver, end the first…”
Travis standing between her and something that surely has never been human, is inherently wrong, spreading limbs and gaping maw—
“...For those who dare to test their fate, may there be more paths to take…”
Eliza’s twisted body set upon a pike, crawling, tearing at the earth—
“...Consider all there is to gain, and find the answer within the beast’s vein.”
A chill lingers in the room. A greater scent of decay follows this turn of the atmosphere, and Rodrigue leans back with a deep inhale, eyes fluttering shut.
“Mais la,” he growls, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You brought a fucking omen to my door.”
“I thought you knew about the poem?”
“Hearing it exists and actually hearing it is completely different, cher.”
Rodrigue scrutinizes the two of them with a dubious look. She wonders what he sees in the pair of them.
“All I know is history, really, and it may not bear much help for your niece,” he says slowly. “But hopefully it can shed more light on your situation.”
Every inch of her feels pulled taut. Finally, he relents.
“I will clarify now that my blood is not mine to give…” The words are low and unyielding. “It runs through my veins, but it belongs to my people. I can give you knowledge, but I cannot risk leaving any trace that would expose them.”
“Deal,” Travis says before she can put together an argument.
His hand finds her knee below the table, giving it a squeeze when she opens her mouth. She barely registers the press of his fingers before the touch dissolves, leaving the ghost of it behind.
“Besides,” Rodrigue continues, fixing his attention on her. A faint, curious smile plays on his lips. “If the Valets needed werewolf blood to make a cure, they would’ve had plenty to go around.”
“Because of the war?” Travis asks, brows furrowing.
Rodrigue shakes his head. “Because the last Valet was married to one.”
Theo and Eimile.
That’s the real reason Theo’s grave had a statue of both Eimile and their ‘dog.’ All this time, he was honoring, grieving both sides of his wife.
A fragile bundle of emotion flutters its wings in her ribcage. Then the rest of their story douses it in gasoline and strikes a match.
She already knows how this one ends.
“If what you say about Silas is true, the only answer I can think of is a mystery that's lived on for several centuries.”
Laura inhales deep, the name on her tongue like a curse.
“The Beast of Gevaudan.”
“His son,” Rodrigue clarifies. “He had several names. Krieg, Cogadh, Secera. My pa called him general.”
The words take a moment to register.
“Your… dad called him that? As in, to his face?”
Rodrigue grins, reaching for an amber bottle on the shelf.
“You sayin’ I look good for my age?”
He pops the cap of the bottle with a finger— no, a claw. Just as quick, the thick, sharp keratin smooths back into a stubby thumbnail.
“We age differently than you folks. For centuries, werewolves all across Europe had been put to death for simply existing. The French prosecution was the last straw.”
He takes a deep swig, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
“My people saw the Americas as a fresh start. The land was supposed to be wide open, plenty of room to go unnoticed by human society.”
The edge of his mouth quirks into a downward smile.
“Krieg wanted a country for all of our people, no matter where they came from. But he believed co-existing with humans was a slow death.”
He pauses, and the silence billows like a sheath of silk, wavering in the air. The clearing of his throat cuts it in half.
“He was a born leader. Stories say he was as big as a horse and white as the full moon. The colonies had just broken from England. Revolution was in the air.”
“How the hell did history forget this…?”
Rodrigue chuckles, a dry, scratchy sound.
“We’re not the only beasts that go bump in the night,” he says vaguely.
“The carnage was blamed on the Indigenous people,” Travis says flatly, cutting to the chase.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t need a history book to know he’s probably right.
“And depending on how long this lasted,” he continues, dark eyes boring into the table, “there were still British raids in the northeast after the American Revolution. It’d be easy to blame the deaths of settlers on anything but the paranormal.”
“Exactly,” Rodrigue agrees. “This wasn’t a war with neat borders or front lines. Raids happened on full moons along trade routes. ‘Keep settlers scared, keep them out.’ It worked for a while.”
He takes a slower sip. The bottle glints, half-empty.
“Nobody thought to blame the small, scattered villages out in the country. Not until the Valets came round.”
Marie Jeanne Valet. Just a young woman tending her cattle, fending off the werewolf of legends with a spear.
“‘Beast hunting’ wasn’t an uncommon family business,” he explains. “It was an old world profession. The Valet and others like them followed the trail of bodies, and c'est tout.”
“And your dad…?” Laura asks.
He hums thoughtfully with a downward stare, swirling the amber bottle like a glass of fine wine.
“He was like any other young man who didn't want to die in an old man’s war. Human settlers arrived every week by boat loads, and the whole point in the new frontier was to start fresh. Not wait for a full moon to kill and be killed.”
“But that’s not the end of the story, is it?”
Rodrigue stands.
“It’ll be easier if I show you.”
.
.
They follow him down a narrow corridor packed with old furniture— wooden chairs stacked like bones, a chipped dresser pushed aside. The pale yellow paint does nothing to cover the cracks in the mortar.
“When his own people became tired with the war,” Rodrigue says, “Krieg began to turn humans.”
He glances over his shoulder.
“I wasn’t exaggerating earlier. Humans rarely survive our venom to actually become one of us.”
They pass into a dark living room lade. Thin, dusty blinds block out the last rays of daylight. A ceiling fan hums low overhead.
“So when new wolves began to appear every raid? The people called him a god.”
He walks to a door and stops, one hand on the knob. The air feels still, like something is holding its breath.
“Only problem is, there was something wrong with the werewolves he turned.”
Rodrigue opens the door. Inside is a small, empty closet. Then her eyes adjust.
Neatly hung in the back is a painting.
It’s old, carefully sealed behind a thick pane of glass. The edges are lined with symbols that mean nothing to her, scratches, spots, innocuous lines of paint.
But in each corner is a mark— those scratches. The same mark that’s carved into the wall at the entryway.
She steps closer.
The symbols frame a dizzying array of wolves, so numerous that their dark silhouettes overlap each other in a frenzy. Fur into fur, jaw into jaw. In the midst of the fray, little specks of crimson and tans are interspersed, barely visible but heavy in suggestion.
In the center is a white wolf that she gathers is Krieg. His fur is streaked with red, but his eyes and mouth are so vibrant, they bleed into the canvas. The many black wolves around him swirl like flies around rot.
Now, finally, it feels like the puzzle is taking shape. If finding the rest of the poem was like opening the box, then this is dumping the pieces out on the table.
Rodrigue speaks softly.
“My pa once told me a poor house was slaughtered by a single wolf. Krieg knew about it, and didn’t do a thing.”
A poor house. Those were essentially care homes for the elderly and disabled, except the conditions were terrible back then. She can see it all too clearly: dank, crowded rooms far beyond capacity shrouded in moonlight. Cries of confusion, anguish. The stench of fear.
Travis makes a small sound of disgust.
“Like animals,” he mutters. “That’s what happens to Kaylee.”
Laura studies the careful paint strokes of dark fur with a frown.
“Did your dad say anything about how they acted before?” she asks. “The humans Krieg turned?”
He shakes his head.
“He didn’t do any kind of reconnaissance like that, though others did. For the most part, our people kept to themselves when they could. But these two,” Rodrigue points to either side of the white wolf, “changed the tides of the war.”
One figure is a man. The other, a massive, shaggy dog rendered in curling brushstrokes.
“That’s Eimile, a faoladh. She and a hunter rallied both sides against Krieg.”
“She looks so… different.”
The statue in the cemetery wasn’t rendered to look more dog-than-wolf; rather, the painting looks like an oversized Irish wolfhound.
“I’m a rougarou— my mamaw was Métis. We come in all shapes and flavors, chere.”
Laura chews her lip. This would explain Silas’ drastically different appearance, but the pieces still aren't fitting together.
“So, this was an unprecedented alliance,” Travis says, interrupting her thoughts. “How long did it last?”
“For over a year. During the daylight, hunters would scout for any strays, and every full moon, vive la résistance. Krieg lost what took decades to establish in a matter of moon cycles. The same night this shop burned down was the last anyone ever saw of him or his wolves.”
“Krieg died here?”
The lines of Travis’ back tense. The implication is daunting.
“Maybe,” Rodrigue says with a theatrical flare. “They never found the bodies.”
“Not even one?”
Rodrigue shakes his head. “All anyone found was Theo’s body and one of the maids. Eimile had been dead for a few months at this point.”
“Well, that makes sense…” Travis says slowly. “Because if Krieg died, then his army should’ve been cured.”
“We’re a different species,” Rodrigue corrects, not unkindly. “Nothing will change that. When my papaw died, that didn’t turn me into a human.”
He scratches his chin, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Hell, maybe that’s why my cousin went bald,” he muses.
She chews her lip. Lines of wolves, of viscera, scatter across their reflection in the glass. There’s no way so many werewolves would vanish without a trace of bloodshed in their wake.
“But why would the Valets have written about a cure?” she asks aloud. “Especially knowing what they did about natural-born werewolves.”
“Maybe ‘cure’ is a nice word for erasure,” Rodrigue suggests lightly.
“No.” Travis says it like a vow, his arms crossing in a steady, almost meditative motion. “His own wife was a werewolf. A man wouldn’t carve false hope like that into his legacy.”
His voice lowers, the words weighted with certainty.
“He cared.”
Plus, it wouldn’t make sense, she thinks. All of that effort, just to go out on a limb?
If Krieg managed to turn humans so successfully, then they have to assume those werewolves were just as successful as Silas. It would only make sense for the Valets to try to cure as many humans as they could.
“Okay,” she says to no one. “Let’s assume Krieg saw the writing on the wall and left to regroup his army somewhere else. Maybe they spread out to assimilate into society and go unnoticed.”
It’s as good a guess as any, but their silence only backs up her mounting frustration at the amount of holes.
If the leader of the resistance died that night, why would Krieg call back his army? He won. Sure, it doesn’t sound like he had the people’s heart anymore, but to simply vanish in the night feels totally out of left field.
“Whatever you may think happened, know that I’ve heard it a thousand times over,” Rodrigue says good humouredly. “The mystery keeps both of their legacies alive.”
Speaking of which, “What happened to the other hunters? If the Valets weren’t the only families—”
The words are cut short by Rodrigue’s apologetic smile.
“As far as I know, most headed west to see if they could pick up Krieg’s trail. The ones that stayed behind, well,” he says with casual affect. “Even though they worked with our folk to defeat a warlord, that wasn’t enough to erase generations of murder. They didn’t keep in touch.”
“But they could be out there.” Travis shifts his weight back, passing a thumb along his belt. “They’re probably handling werewolves like Silas across the country.”
Rodrigue grunts, scratching the peppered stubble on his jaw.
“That’s my best guess, but if that were the case, just one werewolf with a temperament like that would draw eyes from all over.”
“What if someone’s been covering his tracks for him?” Travis says suddenly.
His question is phrased like an epiphany. The werewolf narrows his eyes.
“Now why would a poor bastard do something like that?”
Travis’ raised brow manages to convey an entire obituary.
“Like I said, there’ve been incidents.”
“Maybe if you were thorough,” the werewolf relents. “But I doubt you’d be able to cover all of it.”
A map speckled with pins down the line of the east coast comes to mind. Sure, Travis and his family have been able to control the narrative in North Kill, but come winter when Silas travels south?
“He doesn’t stick in one place for long.” Travis eyes her knowingly. “He hasn't left any other survivors from what I’ve been able to infer. For as much damage he wreaks, it’s still inconspicuous.”
“Then, there you go,” Rodrigue says, gesturing to the painting. “Your Silas is a descendant of one of Krieg’s wolves.”
The painting looms before her. Flecks of red paint, small but numerous, cut through broad strokes of black and white.
“But something went wrong, because they still don't look anything like that,” Laura says.
Travis shifts on his feet, angling his body so that she can see more than just the back of his head. It doesn’t escape her notice that he’s still got Rodrigue in his line of sight.
“If I saw Silas’ wolf form as a more naturalized creature, I’d probably assume he has some kind of wasting disease,” she explains. “There’s a reason why Theo and Emilie were trying so hard to find a cure.”
“You think something’s wrong with the curse.”
Judging by the way Travis’ face hardens, he already reached the same conclusion.
“It would explain a lot,” she points out apologetically. “I mean, we don’t know why Krieg was so strong, but if he managed to turn so many humans when it’s supposed to be impossible… Maybe something wasn't right with his venom.”
Both men absorb this quietly. Travis lets out a harsh breath through his nose, fixing Rodrigue with a begrudging look.
“How does a werewolf conversion usually go?” he asks bluntly.
“I don’t know a single one. Like I said before, humans don’t usually survive it. I’m sure that’s why Eimile never turned Theo. But…”
He scratches the stubble on his jaw with a considering hum.
“I think a friend of my ma’s was a descendant of a turned werewolf. I only met her a handful of times before she moved up north, but she was just the same as any of her cousins. I never heard gossip about her having problems down the road.”
Travis takes this in with a stiff jaw.
“So, for the sake of simplifying this, Krieg’s venom acted like a steroid. He got immediate results, but the body couldn’t process it naturally.”
“Exactly.”
“And now the curse is coming undone,” Travis surmises.
It feels taboo hearing the truth bared with breath and not the thin, quiet fear that's been haunting her mind. Her exhale is shaky, and she presses her clammy palms against her thighs.
“There’s so many variables at play. If Silas is a descendant of one of Krieg’s werewolves, maybe it was never meant to be passed on,” she raises a finger, then another, “If he was bitten, the curse could have mutated through each carrier till he got it. Honestly, it could probably be a combination of that.”
Impossibly, an even worse scenario enters her mind. She hesitates, carefully weighing her next words.
“And if we’re thinking of it in terms of a virus, we have to consider long-term complications.”
Weariness, heavy and dreadful, clouds Travis’ expression. His jaw clenches.
“You’re saying Silas might not have always looked like this.”
“You know what Kaylee’s looked like since day one,” she corrects gently. “But we don’t really know what Silas acted like when he was younger, or before he was cursed. He’d been with the circus for at least three decades—”
“Silas has been out of his mind for years,” his words come out stilted. “His own circus was trying to fix him.”
Just say it, Kearney.
“Maybe Kaylee’s emotional deterioration these past six years hasn’t been entirely psychological.”
It’s a truth that he physically recoils from. Travis rubs a hand across his rapidly greying expression.
“Even in a world where werewolves exist in the— normal sense,” he spits the word,” my family is still cursed.”
And what does she even say to that? It’s true. This scenario is something out of a Shakespeare play. They’re working against a ticking clock, and the countdown started years ago.
It’s not like they’ve been killing time. Finding a cure and hunting Silas has basically been the only thing they’ve talked about for the past month.
But now, in light of the truth about werewolves and the Valet family, she can’t help but feel like all of her tests were worth nothing.
Especially when they have a naturally-born werewolf right in front of them.
It’s this nauseous cocktail of regret and ambition that makes her move towards him— to do exactly what, she’s not sure— but the loud vibration of Travis’ phone stops her in her tracks.
It gets to the third ring before Travis slowly reaches for his phone and checks the caller ID with a rough sigh.
“I have to take this,” he says flatly.
She catches his glance and faintly nods, urging him on. Something unspoken flickers between them, burdened by discovery, gone before it can receive a name.
He walks just past the doorway, barely out of sight but still muffled by the hum of the air conditioning. She allows herself a faint respite before turning back to the werewolf in the room.
And then there were two.
Rodrigue’s mouth draws back in a rictus grin that’s wide enough to expose a gold molar.
Eugh. The longer she’s near him, the easier it is to spot the cracks in his human veneer. It’s like there’s different muscles beneath the skin, pulling flesh in uncanny ways.
Actually, that’s probably exactly what it is. Disgust gives way to morbid fascination.
“Heavy stuff,” Rodrigue says cheerfully, but his eyes are tight. “I hope this helped fill in some of the gaps.”
She nods absently, tapping a finger against her thigh in search of something to fill the silence with.
“Those markings in the entry way. What do they mean?”
A strange glint enters his eye.
“It’s a sign to other werewolves that this place is safe. The more this world gets connected, the harder it is for my kind to hide away. Every building has a camera, every hand’s got a phone.”
“The slow aging probably makes things difficult,” she guesses.
“Among other things,” he says offhandedly.
“So, you help them get new identities?”
Rodrigue hums softly, the indent of his tongue pressing against his cheek.
“My family and I take shifts every couple of years or so to manage the store.”
That explains the stacked boxes of water and blankets in the other room. Not clutter, but preparation. A safe haven for the weary.
“You’re like a lighthouse keeper,” she says, smiling despite herself. Giving someone the chance to remake themself, to keep living, is beautiful. “That’s really cool of you guys.”
His lips curl faintly into a surprisingly soft look.
“We’re all one big pack, in the end,” he says. “Can’t do this life without each other.”
Her smile lingers, but her thoughts snag elsewhere.
If werewolves— and their blood— keep passing through, that means resources. Possibilities churn to the surface like pond scum. She hates herself for even seeing it, but the thought won’t go away.
Everyone has their price. Especially the desperate.
“Don’t make me repeat myself,” the wolf says mildly, but his eyes are sharp. Knowing.
Her mind chews through a dozen way outs like a cornered rat. Travis isn’t here to back her up. Even if he was, he probably wouldn’t approve.
She should walk away, but something a shade darker than curiosity rears its head.
“You’re the key to this whole curse,” she tries.
“You think,“ he corrects her, lips curling into a serene smile. The gentleness he’s using makes her skin itch. “But what I know is if my blood ends up in the wrong set of hands, that could spell the end of my people.”
“I would never—”
“I don't fucking know what you be doin’, but I know mistakes happen. People sell out.” His voice doesn’t rise, but it takes a serrated edge. “We haven't survived this long by sharing things like that.”
It’s just something about him— an inherent predatory aura that makes every instinct raise like the hairs on the back of her neck. Whereas Kaylee comes across like a normal college-aged girl, it’s nearly impossible to see Rodrigue as a human. The guy has to have some of the best luck around to have gone undiscovered for this long.
Or he’s been handling his own loose ends.
A chill runs down her spine. But the opportunity is too good to pass up empty-handed, which is why she steps closer.
“I understand.” She steels herself, self-disgust warring with pragmatism. “But… could I take your spit?”
Rodrigue cocks his head.
“You want my poison?”
She places a hand delicately on his arm. His eyes dilate beyond a normal size, entirely eclipsing the gold like a black sun. The hairs on the nape of her neck stand up.
“Now that we know his niece and the others might be on a time limit,” the words weigh like a gavel, “we need to be aware of our options.”
Even if those options include a horrible death.
Rodrigue wets his lips.
“Look, some in my own family believe the pair needs a ‘soul bond’ in order to complete the transformation. However you interpret that is up to you. But since our venom will sooner kill a human, most tend to avoid getting that close in the first place.”
“Kaylee isn’t human anymore.”
Rodrigue steps close enough that they share the same breath.
“You are.”
He arches a brow as if daring her to deny it. When she doesn’t, his tongue flicks out again, slicking his mouth. The urge to back away flares in her chest, but Laura seizes it with cold fists and steps even closer, tilting her chin up to maintain eye contact.
“Like I said. I want us to have options.”
Her neck is exposed. She can’t think of a more poetic way to say, bite me.
With heavy lidded eyes that burn like a brand, he raises the empty amber bottle to his lips and spits.
She wrenches it out of his loose grasp. Gracelessly, her worn tennis shoes scuff the carpet in her hasty retreat and she barely retains her balance. His rasping chuckle emerges like dried leaves rustling in a gutter. Rodrigue thumbs spittle away from the corner of his mouth.
She follows his gaze over her shoulder to where Travis looms in the doorway.
“They found Silas on the game cams.” His voice is hard as flint.
“Now?”
At his measured nod, she moves.
“Wait,” Rodrigue calls out. “I have something else for you.”
He reaches deep into the closet and retrieves a box with utmost care. It’s a small, basic plastic tub with a white lid that would belong on the shelf of any general store.
“One of the items that managed to be retrieved from the fire was a journal. I believe it was Eimile’s.”
At her look of shock, he shrugs.
“It’s not really legible, and you’ll see why. But I think you’ll have better use for it than the rest of us.”
He presents it as an offering, and Travis brushes past her to take it.
A journal. Actual notes, from someone who actually knew what they were talking about. It’s like he just injected pure hope into her veins.
“I don’t know what to say.”
Rodrigue stretches his arms, looking for all the world like he’s indulging her.
“Don’t think too much about it, cher.” His gaze lingers on her hands. “After all, you’ll need it more than me.”
Her grip tightens on the still-warm bottle. Travis’ eyes flick between the two of them.
“We gotta move, Laura.” His voice is firm, controlled, and she latches onto it like a lifeline.
“Right.”
Every instinct screams when she turns her back, but she forces one step, then another. They’re nearly out of eyeshot when Rodrigue calls to them.
“Happy hunting.”
Despite herself, she casts a glance behind her shoulder. In the dim light, his smile gleams like a sickle moon.