Аманда Хокинг - Flutter

Maybe an owl…

A flap of wings followed by the rustle of branches, and I saw a large owl take flight in front of the moon. Relief washed over me, but Ezra didn’t relax at all. If anything he tensed up more, but he’d obviously been able to see the same owl I had. I wanted to ask him what his deal was, but then I heard something else too.

The soft crunch of footsteps in the snow, softer than hooves, softer than shoes. Barefoot.

That meant it was either a bear, which didn’t really concern me, or the lycan, which did really concern me.

Even in the moonlight, I could make out anything through the trees, but they were experts on being ghosts. But then I saw him, several yards ahead of us, walking towards us with his hands held up open towards us, the sign of surrender.

It was the kind one, Leif, with the big brown puppy dog eyes. He was wearing the same clothes as he had been the other day, although they appeared to be even dirtier. Ezra, on the other hand, looked rather dapper for a midnight hike. He was wearing a black cashmere sweater with a thick, poloesque collar, but in most ways, Ezra appeared to be an entirely different species than Leif.

“I’m alone!” Leif announced as he got closer to us.

I half-expected Ezra to tell him to stop where he was, but Ezra probably knew that he was in no position to make orders. Leif stopped a few feet in front of us anyway, but that was still much closer than either of us would like. Ezra kept his body partially blocking mine, but he stood slightly less defensively.

“I am alone. I know you don’t trust me, but it’s the truth.” Leif repeated, his voice soft and gentle.

I would guess that he was American or maybe Canadian. He pushed a strand of his thick, dark hair off his forward and chewed his lip nervously. His eyes roamed around us, unsure of where to let them settle, and he glanced up at that moon.

“They’re in Sweden, hunting,” Leif continued, as if we had asked. “Dodge was convinced that we’d scared you away, so they left.”

“But you weren’t?” Ezra asked cautiously, and his stance grew more rigid again. Leif shrugged in response and lowered his eyes to the ground. “Is that why you stayed behind? To see if we came back?”

“Maybe,” Leif confessed, then quickly added, “But not like you think.”

“You don’t know what I think,” Ezra countered evenly.

Leif shifted uneasily and looked back up at the moon again. He rubbed his arm anxiously, and I could tell there was something that he wanted to say but couldn’t seem to find the words. He almost seemed desperate, and his eyes looked pained when he looked back at us.

“You’re after Peter, aren’t you?” Leif asked simply, and Ezra and I stiffened. “Look, I’m not out to get him. He killed my brother… but it was self-defense. Krist had a temper and…” Leif looked around again, growing more agitated. “Peter had no business being here. He was trying to ‘try out’ for the pack, but that’s not how it works. So Gunnar was putting him through all these stupid tests, and Krist was one of them. But Peter started winning…” He looked apologetic, his eyes wide and sincere. “It wasn’t fair what they did to him.

What they’re still doing to him.”

“Still?” The fear in Ezra’s voice made me wince.

Ezra took a step forward and his heart tightened at the thought of them still doing anything to Peter.

My head swam with images of torture, and Ezra had seen far worse than I had. He knew what true torture could be for a vampire, and I didn’t even want to know what he was thinking of. Everything Leif had been saying only made feel sick and scared, but if they were still doing something to him, that meant that he still had to be alive.

“Yeah, he’s alive. He’s okay,” Leif’s voice cracked on the last word, and I had a feeling that okay was rather subjective in this case.

“What are they doing? Where is he?” Ezra demanded in a low growl, and Leif shrunk lower, taking a step back. Any pretense that Ezra had of submitting to the lycans was completely shattered.

He was a pack leader in his own right, and Leif bowed down to that.

“I don’t know exactly,” Leif confessed.

He was clearly afraid, and I didn’t think that worked in our benefit, so I put a hand on Ezra’s arm.

Reluctantly, he responded and took a step back. Leif nodded his appreciation at me and stood up straighter.

He wasn’t going to mess with us, but he wouldn’t have whether Ezra had freaked him out or not. After all, he had sought us out, not the other way around.

“They’re hunting him,” Leif said.

“He’s in Sweden?” I raised an eyebrow. That wasn’t what Ezra had been hearing.

“No, no, he’s still here,” Leif shook his head. “Its just the pack in Sweden.”

“I don’t understand. Why is he still here? If they’re gone, why didn’t he just come home?” I asked, confused.

Leif gave Ezra a plaintive look, and Ezra nodded knowingly. He understood what was going on, and I didn’t appreciate being left out of the loop. Maybe I didn’t full understand hunting properly, but once the hunter was gone, I didn’t see the point in the prey hanging out for them to return. Even with Leif being left behind, he wasn’t a guard of any kind. Peter could easily overpower him.

“What? Why won’t Peter leave?” I demanded, looking up at Ezra since Leif didn’t answer me.

“Us,” Ezra replied thickly. “The pack will track him if he leaves, and follow him back to our house.”

“If they’re so good at tracking, then why haven’t they killed him yet?” I pressed.

It didn’t make sense. If they could follow us across the Atlantic, then they could certainly find one vampire in their own territory. While I didn’t want Peter to be dead, it didn’t really make sense to me why they would leave him alive. Especially not after all this time. We’d been in Finland for a week, and the trouble had to have started some time before that.

“They like to play with their food,” Ezra said, and Leif looked sheepishly at the ground.

“They want him to wait in fear, wondering when they’re going to pounce, jumping at every noise. And eventually, he’ll either go mad, or come home, which is a prize in and of itself.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, but an intense nausea was welling up inside me.

“Why don’t you explain it to her?” Ezra growled at Leif. “Since this is your plan!”

“It’s not my idea!” Leif insisted, looking hurt and ashamed. “I’m here, telling you this! At risk to myself! So don’t tell me that this is my idea!”

“You didn’t do anything to stop it, did you?” Ezra roared and took several steps toward him.

This time, Leif didn’t back down. He just stared indignantly at Ezra. “You wouldn’t have said anything us to if you hadn’t seen us!”

“I couldn’t stop it! I can’t go up against them!” Leif shook his head, then lowered his eyes.

“This is my pack. Peter’s just a stupid, arrogant…”

Leif rubbed his neck, and Ezra sighed. Part of him really wanted to deck Leif about now, but he knew that would only make things worse. Regardless of what Leif had or hadn’t done prior to this, he was the only trying to help us now. If we were going to find Peter, he’d be our best bet at doing that.

“I still don’t understand what you want with keeping Peter alive.” I spoke mainly to break the tension between them, but also, I didn’t get it.

“Peter obviously has a bit of a death wish, otherwise he wouldn’t be here,” Leif explained quietly.

“Killing him would probably be a kind of satisfaction to him. They’re waiting for him to leave, so they can follow. And make him watch as they kill everything he cares about. That’s his real punishment. Gunnar probably won’t even kill him in the end, because sometimes, living forever is worse.”