“Who could have found out?”
“The Dekkers have billions of dollars.”
“That may be, but how did they know to be here, right here, where Luca was? Everything we’ve found suggests Luca ran on his own. He made it here, and the Dekkers were waiting for him. There’s no way Luca and Nash could have communicated with them. Even if they knew how to contact them, they didn’t have a way. And Nash would trust the Mah less than he trusts us.” Especially after Paul had taken Luca.
Tanner watched the other betas across the river, where they stood by their trucks waiting for orders. “Why didn’t the wolves at least tell us when Luca left the motorhome?”
Isaiah shook his head. “Maybe they didn’t see him.”
“Do they have to see him to know what he does?”
They didn’t. Isaiah didn’t need to say it aloud. They should have known. Theywouldhave known.
So why hadn’t they alerted them?
Isaiah’s golden wolf stood under the tree with three of the five blue betas. Their ethereal bodies wavered in and out with the movement of the dancing shadows cast by swaying tree branches.
A thousand years ago, Isaiah could have asked the Fenrir, and if it chose to, it could have answered. But the distance apart made it impossible to hear its voice.
Isaiah kicked the ground. A puff of dirt rode away on the wind.
They might never knowhowthe Dekkers and Seung knew where to go, but Isaiah needed to find out where they’d taken Luca.
Like Isaiah, Seung moved her pack, randomly going from place to place.
But there was one Varu who always knew where Seung was.
Her half-brother.
The White Wolf.
Even before Caspin received his Fenrir, he’d lived like a feral animal. Keeping on the outskirts of their camp. He’d followed them when they moved, but there were weeks no one saw him.
The Clan leaders didn’t exile him because, technically, he’d committed no crime, but they’d denied him his right to stand before the Cana because they’d feared the turmoil he’d cause if he could Phase.
But even Clan leaders learned a lesson the day Caspin became the White Wolf. No one can decide who takes and doesn’t take a Fenrir.
All the Varu standing on the grounds had been paired, and everyone was on their way to feast and celebrate when a white wolf stepped from behind the Cana. And they’d all watched as the Fenrir sought out Caspin who’d been forced to the edge of camp.
After that, there were only glimpses of Caspin in the woods when he came to visit Seung. His form always the Fenrir.
Isaiah thought Caspin had died during the Cataclysm until he caught sight of him at one of the last Clan gatherings held in Oregon when there’d still been enough leaders to hold one.
Caspin had looked just as Isaiah remembered.
Grotesque, feral, living in the woods, scrounging for food. The epitome of everything the Varu had worked hard not to become.
What Isaiah had worked hard not to become.
But for Luca, Isaiah would put aside his civility and do whatever it took to get Caspin to give him the information he wanted.
Even if it meant becoming the monster he never wanted to be.