“May I?” Mom whispers. “I just have to be sure.”
“Of course. It’s not a problem.”
Mom walks over, takes a moment, then softly prods him.
“Ouch,” Liam gasps, leaping back. “That hurt.”
Mom cries out, her hands flying over her mouth, then erupts into laughter when she sees Liam grinning. We all do, Ramsey looking at me, red eyes flickering like he’s saying,This is the start. We’ll become friends. And me and you, Ruby, we’ll become so much more.
Mom looks at me, smiling like I haven’t seen in a long time. It’s like she’s forgotten about Master Pete and the rest of it.
Then she stops, frowning a little, almost like she feels guilty for it.
“So it’s real,” she says. “A wolf...saved you.”
“Ramsey saved me. And thank you.” I look at him, laughing awkwardly. “I’m not sure if I said that yet.”
He shakes his head. “I wasn’t going to let him hurt you.”
Liam winces. “Sorry, everyone.”
Mom turns away, but I watch as his hand begins to change back.
Ramsey’s words bounce around my mind. He won’t let anything happen to me. He wants to protect me as desperately as I want him to.
Liam rolls his sleeve down as we all return to our seats. It seems oddly regular how we sit around the table after what just happened.
But that was life in the cult, too, a crazy sensory overload followed by a meal, everybody acting like nothing happened.
At least here, now, they’re being honest with us.
“I still don’t understand why he wanted me,” I mutter. “That man.”
“The hunter,” Liam says. “There’s more of them.”
“Who are they?” I ask.
“Some are friends and family of people who bad wolves killed. Some joined up for the sheer thrill of it. Some try to capture us and force us to change them. It’s a mess, all of it.”
“Those wolves,” Ramsey snarls. “Hurting civilians. They deserve what they get.”
“They do. But the hunters don’t ever stop to find out who’s good and who’s bad. They just want to kill us all.”
“But why me?” I ask, my head racing with all the new information.
Liam looks at Ramsey, his expression tight. Ramsey returns his gaze, biting down, his eyes steady until he glances at me. “I have to tell you something, Ruby. But we need to be alone. I can’t...not with people listening, please.”
My heart hurts when he says please, the genuine plea in it. “Yes, Ramsey. Mom? Is that okay?”
Liam’s already standing, gesturing to the door. “You get the first pick of room, Ilsa.”
Mom was about to speak to me, but she pauses, looking at Liam. “I get my own room?”
Ramsey’s jaw goes even tighter like sadness is twisting through him, the same kind which touches me at Mom’s words.
“Of course,” Liam says. “I’ll show you.”
They walk toward the door. Mom stops and gives me a significant look, then Liam does the same to Ramsey, as though they’re both warning us of separate things.