Chapter 4 Prey Animals
His grip tightened around my arms hard enough to hurt. “You need to leave. Right now.”
“What are you talking about?” I pulled my hand from him forcefully. “Who the hell are you?”
His eyes darted toward the compound again instead of answering me. Panic sat badly on him. It made him look sick.
“You saw the tattoo.” His voice dropped lower. “That’s why you followed me.”
My chest tightened.
Cole.
The name moved through my head like an old wound reopening.
“You knew my brother.” I mentioned, it wasn’t a question.
He looked back at me then, properly this time, and whatever he saw on my face seemed to make something inside him crack.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I knew Cole.”
For a second I couldn’t breathe. Someone who had actually known him. Questions slammed into me all at once.
How?
From where?
Why was he here?
“What happened to him?” I asked immediately. “What was he involved in? Why do you have the same tattoo?”
“Keep your voice down.” His grip tightened again. “You don’t understand where you are.”
“I understand enough.” I snapped. “I understand that my dead brother somehow knew dangerous people that led to his death and I’m involved in something I don’t understand.”
His face drained even further. “He never wanted you anywhere near this.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“No,” he said roughly. “It doesn’t.”
The wind pushed cold air through the narrow space between the buildings. Somewhere deeper inside the compound I heard wolves howling faintly in the distance.
The man looked over my shoulder again. His eyes darted all over the place, as if dropping his guard for a second would cost his life.
“Listen to me carefully,” he exhaled sharply as he responded. “Cole stayed here for a while before everything went bad. He thought he could fix something. He thought he could outsmart people much bigger than him.”
“What people?”
His jaw tightened. “The kind you don’t survive.”
I stared at him. “That’s not a name!”
His lips trembled. “I’m as good as dead if I tell you that.”
My stomach twisted. “What exactly was my brother doing here?”
“He was trying to leave.”
The words hit harder than they should have. Because I knew that feeling.
The man stepped closer suddenly, lowering his voice further.
“There was information,” he said carefully. “Something people wanted. Cole thought if he held onto it long enough he could bargain his way out.”
That sounded like my brother.
“What information?”
“I don’t know.” His answer came too quickly.
“You’re lying.”
“I don’t know where he hid it,” he corrected immediately.
My pulse spiked.
So there was something.
Before I could ask another question, the man’s expression changed completely.
His eyes lifted past me, every muscle in his body locked.
I didn’t need to turn around to know who was standing behind me.
The air itself felt heavier. Footsteps approached slowly across the concrete.
“You ran fast.” Zarek’s voice came from behind me.
The man in front of me immediately let go of my arms and stepped back like he’d been burned. His eyes stayed glued to the ground.
I turned.
Zarek stood a few feet away dressed entirely in black, one hand tucked loosely into his pocket. His expression gave away nothing, but something cold settled low in my stomach anyway.
His gaze moved to the man.
The man’s throat bobbed hard. “Alpha.” He looked back up mustering a nervous smile.
Just that one word and suddenly I understood something terrifying.
It wasn’t respect. People were afraid of him and not the kind of fear people had for powerful men in expensive suits. This was bigger than that.
Zarek looked at him for another second before shifting his attention to me.
“You left the room.”
It wasn’t phrased like a question.
“How did you know I was here?” I asked him.
“You have quite an unforgettable scent.” He whispered slowly. “I still don’t know why you are here?”
I folded my arms tightly across my chest. “I know him and I saw him from the window.”
“I can see that.”
“You know him?” I arched my brow.
“Yes.”
“Did you know my brother too?”
He paused for a while. “Yes.”
Something about how calmly he admitted it made my pulse jump.
The man beside me looked like he wanted the ground to split open and swallow him whole.
“You didn’t think to mention that earlier?” I snapped.
Zarek held my gaze steadily. “You were overwhelmed.”
That almost made me laugh.
Overwhelmed.
Like tonight hadn’t turned my entire life inside out in less than three hours.
“What else aren’t you telling me?”
His eyes stayed on mine for a moment too long. “Enough for tonight.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “That’s your answer?”
“It’s the only one you’re getting right now.”
Anger flared hot in my chest.
I took a step toward him. “You ask me to marry you, drag me into whatever this place is, and now suddenly everyone here knows my brother?”
“Sylvie.” His tone sharpened slightly.
“No.” I shook my head. “I want actual answers.”
For the first time since meeting him, something dangerous flickered properly across his face.
Like his control was slipping.
The wolves in the distance went suddenly quiet. Every instinct inside me screamed at once.
The man beside me lowered his head immediately. “I should go,” he muttered quickly.
Zarek didn’t even look at him. “Go.”
The man disappeared almost instantly. Leaving me alone with him.
The silence afterward felt enormous.
I suddenly noticed his eyes flashed a dark shade of red for a second, but when I stared at him longer, they were gone.
I guess I was just seeing things because it’s unheard of a werewolf having red eyes.
Then Zarek stepped closer slowly. “Do you know why prey animals survive longer when they stay still?” he asked quietly.
I frowned slightly. “What?”
“Because the moment they panic,” he reduced the intensity in his tone, his eyes fixed on mine, “they stop noticing where the danger actually is.”
A chill crawled slowly down my spine. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
His gaze moved briefly toward the dark tree line beyond the compound walls.
When he looked back at me again, his voice dropped lower.
“It means,” he said softly, “you’re not the only thing that followed us home tonight.”
Zarek didn’t speak again until we reached the building.