Page 34 of The Enemy to the Living
He stops and swallows, and the look he gives me now is a question. I nod. Has he ever told anyone this before? Does heneedto tell someone about this?
“I noticed that the snow was melting, steaming, because of how hot my blood was.” Asher shuffles on his seat, pulling his hand back a little way, but I move with him, pressing closer. “I was out on my own. A couple of the wolves had tricked me, ambushed me, and I just thought I was going to die like that, there, and with my pack gone, who would find me?”
His eyes shine, and a faint sound echoes from the back of my throat. Asher squeezes my hand and, with the other, reaches over to pat my knee.
“I’m fine, Quinn,” he says. His smile is real, but the tears in his eyes don’t go away. “I am, I just…”
“You’ve not talked to anyone about this?”
“The Huntsman is not known for his emotional warmth.”
I huff. One look at him told me that, back when he turned up at Deacon’s pack house. “What about the rest of the Hunt?”
“We’re not pack. It’s not the same.”
“Why not?”
“They’re not wolves.”
I frown, and he sighs. “My pack isn’t all wolves. Kieran doesn’t even have one.”
“No, I know, it’s just… It’s different, that’s all.”
“Yeah, okay. You didn’t die.”
“I didn’t. He was there, a few breaths before my last. The Huntsman. I knew he was fae—back then, we knew to fight them. We knew our role.”
Our role? I want to ask, but I want to hear Asher’s story more, so I bite back the question.
“He asked me if I wanted to join his Hunt. He could save me, he said, and even give me the power to fight the fae head-on, but at a cost.”
“Your wolf?”
“My wolf.”
“And you—” I snap my mouth shut, my tone way too accusatory for the story Asher just told me. He gave up his wolf because otherwise he’d die. What choice is that?
And me? Sure, I still have mine, somewhere, but I’ve gambled him on the desire to work out my anger. That’s not better.
It’s far worse.
“I’ve always liked having a purpose,” Asher says, “but I can’t pretend that drove my decision. I was dying. I knew it. My wolf knew it. We were already fractured, fading away. Still… I said that yes on my last breath. I don’t regret it, not entirely, but I don’t think I’ll ever make a harder decision in this life.”
He doesn’t look directly at me when he’s finished, and it takes me a second to realise that he’s avoiding my gaze. I edge closer, and when he still doesn’t look at me, I lean in and rest my weight against his side, my chin on his shoulder.
Asher laughs—it sounds wet—and wraps his other arm around me, burying his face in my hair. I want to comfort him. I’m not sure how much of that he gets.
Maybe he has friends outside of the Hunt, but so far he hasn’t mentioned them, and between what I’ve seen of him and heard of Maurice, I don’t get the impression that a work-life balance is really their priority.
“I’m fine, pup,” he says after a moment, and I try not to bristle at the nickname. I’m more than that. “Thank you. I’m fine.”
I don’t sit back, and he doesn’t ask me to. Just rests his cheek against the top of my head and holds me for a while as I thinkabout what he said. All that he said. He had a wolf; he lost it. He gained… what? A life beyond that, I suppose, and not a bad one. And he can help me get mine back. Coax him out of where he’s hiding.
A few more fights. Time with Asher.
Things might be back to normal.
Except I close my eyes, and my father’s dead eyes stare back at me. I jolt upright. Asher blinks at me in surprise; he looks like he fell asleep.
