Caspin pushed his fingers into the thick muscle of the carcass and pulled, tearing away fat strips of meat. “If you’d get your head out of your ass long enough, you wouldn’t have to ask because you’d hear too.”
“Someone in my pack?” The idea that one of his people had actually been able to betray him left Isaiah’s insides knotted. Because he should know. And if he didn’t, why not?
“But you don’t listen. You never have. None of you have.” Caspin threaded the bits of meat onto a stick and hung them over the coals. “It’s why you were stupid enough to try and purge the ichor from Nash Kelli.”
“I was trying to help him, not kill him.”
“But you didn’t care if you did.”
“I cared because Luca cared. I wanted him to be happy. I wanted them to stay together. Nash wanted to be the man, not the Anubis.”
“Like you want to be the man and not the Fenrir.”
“The Anubis is nothing like the Fenrir
Caspin lifted his eyes. “You not only don’t listen, you don’t observe.”
“Are you denying what it did? The tens of thousands it killed? The bodies? The destruction? And Jia?” Somehow Isaiah managed to keep his voice steady.
“You saw what you wanted to see. But the Fenrir can only see what’s there.”
Isaiah gritted his teeth. “Goddamn it, quit talking in fucking riddles and tell me where Seung—”
“Quiet.” Caspin jerked his attention to the shadowed woods filled with briars and dead limbs. He stood. “You were followed.” He didn’t look at Isaiah when he said it.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
A deep growl rolled out of Caspin’s chest. Sound normal vocal cords couldn’t make. Isaiah was so caught off guard, he nearly missed the wind shift carrying in the scent of wet fur.
Isaiah’s wolf flashed in his periphery, and in reaction, he dropped to the ground. The cur burst from between the trees, claws extended. In that second, Isaiah knew he’d never outmaneuver the creature. He would die there in the woods leaving behind too many who needed him.
Light collided with the dark, knocking it out of the air.
It took him a moment to process what he saw, a white wolf. A Fenrir. The first in over a millennium. The Fenrir seized the cur by the back of the neck and shook its head. Bones snapped. Another hard shake and the head was torn from the body.
Two more curs descended. One grabbed the White Wolf by the haunch, the other by the foreleg.
They spiraled, kicking up dirt.
A shadow moved between the saplings. The new cur landed off to Isaiah’s right. Roots, rotting wood, shredded to nothing under its massive claws. Isaiah rolled and grabbed the shotgun. The cur lunged.
Isaiah pulled the trigger, and its head disintegrated.
The White Wolf turned. Its blazing blue eyes a mass of stars. Red stained its fur. Remnants of the cur hung from its muzzle.
Then Fenrir retreated in a web of white, leaving Caspin. “You need to go. There will be more of them.”
“How—”
“Go. Now.”
Isaiah made a run for the truck. Another beast tore through the underbrush, and Caspin leapt, his body vanishing under white threads, and he yanked the cur out of the air.
Another pair emerged.
One turned toward Isaiah as he got into the truck. A spray of gravel shot up from under the wheels before gaining traction. Isaiah steered the vehicle in reverse.
The cur made chase.