Page 16 of Ruined Wolf

“Why are you trying to dig up dirt on your own mate, Lucas?”

There it was, that bitterness I expected. “I’m not. Someone drove her into that water and hurt her. I simply want to know who.”

“Maybe you should ask her,” Asher replied. “I’m not sure I feel comfortable helping you sneak around behind her back, Lucas.”

“Oh stop being a fucking dick, Asher. She’s terrified, anyone with any sense can see that. At least they can when they haven’t got their head stuck up their own ass. Have you seen the scars on her back?”

“What scars?” he asked, the bitterness gone.

“She’s covered in scars. Not just from the attack the night you found her, but from before. Ash, can you even imagine what someone would have to go through to end up with scars like that? Wounds that were kept open, kept being inflicted on purpose over and over so her body couldn’t keep up? Someone put her through hell for a long time, Ash. Are you telling me you wouldn’t want to hunt them down either? Or have I completely misread you?”

There was silence on the end of the phone. I held it closer to my ear, but all I could hear was clicking.

“Asher?”

Nothing.

“Asher!” I said louder.

“Yeah, yeah, hang on... There. I’ve sent the possible coordinate range to your phone. It should give you a range to start looking. I’ve blocked out places where it isn’t possible to get close to the water’s edge, unless you were desperate enough to jump off a cliff that is...”

He said it as a joke, trying to lighten the situation, but his voice faded away as the same thought occurred to the pair of us.

“Shit, Lucas... She wouldn’t have...”

“Who knows,” I muttered, my voice cold, though it wasn’t directed at my little brother. “She was being hunted... If that were you and you couldn’t shift, how desperate would you be?”

There was a brief silence, and then my phone beeped as Asher’s message came through.

“I’ve got to go. Thanks for the help.”

“Yeah. Lucas?”

“What?”

“When you find out who it is, I want to know. I want to help.” His voice was oddly calm, and there was a note in it I hadn’t heard before. I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I want to know, and I want to help.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather. I grinned. My baby brother was growing up. He wasn’t a pup anymore. “You’ve got it, Ash.”

There was a click as he hung up, and I stared at the phone for a moment, shaking my head in disbelief. No more Mr Nice Guy, I guessed. It looked like Nova had a pretty big effect on him too. Maybe it wasn’t just a crush.

I brought up the message Asher had sent me. It was a link to some kind of online map, showing the coast and the surrounding islands. It looked like he had entered some kind of search criteria or something, because the map was showing a highlighted area that covered part of the coast and the sea between the mainland and the rocks where I was guessing Maverick had found Nova.

I zoomed in, studying the stretch of land on my side. There were various arrows in different colours showing where Nova could have gone into the water and the route she could have taken, calculating the strength of the current against an average swimmer. Could Nova swim? Most wolves didn’t. Part of the sea wolves’ reputation had formed because the majority of the wolves in the pack were good swimmers, even using their skills for stalking and hunting prey along the coast, as well as for other, more violent reasons.

I inched the map along the shaded area, looking at the different locations. It was quite a decent stretch of land, and I realised it was going to take me a while to search it all. Added to that, I had a horrible feeling I might have to let Maverick in on what I was up to. A large section of that land was in High Rocks Pack’s territory, so I might need him to somehow smooth things over and get them to let me search on their land...

I looked up, my eyes wide. How fucking stupid was I being? Nova had been hunted by a wolf pack before being driven into the water. The only other wolf pack anywhere near Desolation Island was farther north, the Icewind Pack, and they rarely went near the coast. Their pack land was huge, and apart from the occasional hunting party for seafood, they didn’t live anywhere near the coast. If Nova hadn’t come through town, and this graph was accurate, the only wolves who could have been involved were the High Rocks Pack. I growled, emitting a low sound that sent a couple of birds fluttering up into the darkening sky.

I turned, looking along the coast at the dark smudge of trees not too far away that marked the beginning of their territory. I had no proof, and I was too well known in the area. I couldn’t just go crashing into the pack village on my own and demand to know what happened. They’d laugh me out of the place, and even I couldn’t take on Caleb’s hunting pack alone. The ramifications for the pack would be huge. It could totally derail the peace negotiations, and after Maverick rejected his intended mate, I highly doubted that they would be understanding. As it was, tensions were running high, and Ethan had already told Maverick that they were a spark away from a pack war—not the cold war we’d experienced so far, but full-on attacks by their hunters. Nova would have known this too. No wonder she hadn’t revealed who her attackers had been. But why had they even attacked her? Caleb was a smarmy wanker, but I didn’t see him as the type to order his hunters to take out one woman encroaching on his territory.

There must be more to the story, and as much as I hated to admit it, I needed proof, so I would need to take it to Maverick. I just hoped he would figure out a way for us to tear them apart without endangering the rest of our pack.

Stuffing my phone back into my pocket, I turned my back on the High Rocks Pack’s territory and headed into town. This time I moved away from the twinkling lights of the harbour and into the more shadowy parts of town. Even Port Moonfall has its seedy areas, and I knew them well. I wandered along the narrow streets, looking for the right place, and it didn’t take long before I found it. A couple of large guys stood outside, the cloud of noxious fumes around them making it clear what they were up to. They eyed me suspiciously as I walked straight past them, not giving them a second glance. Size didn’t scare me. Everyone had a weakness, and it usually didn’t take me long to find it in a fight.