Page 56 of Rivers and Roads

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, apparently so. Misha doesn’t think that. He thinks that we’ve always been here. He thinks that somewhere around the time humans as we know them now evolved, so did Wolves. I thought that had to be bullshit.”

Zane hummed, but he had no time to say anything. One of the agents was waving us over, and my breath caught in my chest until I saw the face of the man who had let us over the first time. He met my gaze with an unreadable expression, and he leaned toward the window and held out his hand for the passports.

Was it a trick? Was it a set-up? Had he just given us that reprieve before he turned us over to Misha’s brother?

“I hope you had a pleasant stay,” he murmured, stamping the forms and handing them back. His gaze flickered behind our car, then back to me. “They’re with you?”

I nodded carefully.

“Have a pleasant journey, sirs.”

I didn’t breathe properly until we were through, and until I saw Aisling’s car pulling up fast on our tail. It seemed too good to be true, but I was willing to accept it for the gift it was. After all, it wasn’t likely luck like that would continue.

“Why did you think it had to be bullshit?” Zane asked, dragging me out of my thoughts.

I turned to him. “What?”

“You said you thought Misha’s theory had to be bullshit. Why?”

“Oh,” I said on a breath, then leaned back and looked out the window at the journey home. “Well, I mean…our eyes, right? It’s not like we blend in. We can hide our shift and our strength. We can flow within their society seamlessly. But we can’t hide our eyes. We can’t even cover them with contacts, and they obviously didn’t have those back then.”

“Mm,” he said with a nod. “I assume he had an answer to that?”

“He thinks our eyes are a genetic mutation in order to set us apart. Like the deep-sea fish that develop those…fuck, I’m not smart enough to remember all those big words,” I told him with a self-deprecating laugh. “You know, how they glow in the dark?”

“Bioluminescent,” he said with a small smile.

“Oh, fuck you, Mr. College Degree,” I snapped, and felt warm all over at the sound of his laugh. “Anyway, yeah that. He says he doesn’t know why it happened—but there’s enough evidence in history to show when people started noticing. He also thinks there’s probably Wolves out there who are living amongst humans—who can pass as humans. Eyes and all.”

Zane blinked, then he glanced over at me for almost too long before turning his gaze back to the road. “Is that what you think Kor and Misha are doing? Looking for those Wolves?”

“I don’t know,” I breathed out. “I think Misha told me that story all those months ago for a reason. And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what Kor’s plans are, and why he had to go away instead of go underground here. He told me he couldn’t trust anyone in our government to lead humans and Wolves alike. But…what if he could find someone who had interest on both sides?”

Zane dragged his teeth over his lip, then nodded. “I think it makes sense. And I think it’s information we might want to keep to ourselves. Because if Misha’s right, and we can convince those people to help…”

“We can put someone up against the humans who has our interests in mind,” I finished for him. “We just have to pray they’re willing to fight for our cause.”

“I think we have a lot of praying to do,” he murmured softly, and I could only agree with him.

Chapter

Twenty-Two

ORION

We made it back to Corland in the dead of night, parting with Aisling and the Betas at the edge of town. Zane was back behind the wheel, and as we approached the street he lived on, he came to a stop, looking at me with something like trepidation in his eyes.

“I don’t think I’m ready to sleep without you,” he confessed. “And I don’t think I’m ready to go home knowing Danyal’s…”

He trailed off, and I reached for him, pulling his forehead against my own. “Let’s go to my place. We can stop by yours in the morning so you can grab something to wear and see how you feel after we’ve gotten some rest.”

“Thank you,” he murmured, and I touched his cheek before pulling him into a kiss.

“Please don’t thank me for doing the bare minimum for you,” I told him.

He looked like he wanted to argue when he pulled back, but he remained silent as he turned back to the wheel and started up the street to my little condo. It was smaller than his, a collection of converted apartments where most of the single Wolves had been living. I hadn’t wanted much, and the place was furnished very barrack-style with the bare minimum to get me through.

Still, when I stepped through the door and smelled home, I felt a sudden urge to cry. I had gone after Zane with the belief that I wouldn’t come back without him, but a still, quiet voice had said I probably wasn’t coming back at all. That belief nipped at my heels from the moment I hit the road, and it almost felt like a fantasy when I turned and saw him hovering just inside the door.

---