“He’s never here.”
“And there’s your answer.”
Michael ticked an eyebrow up. “Where? Come on, man. Zio doesn’t tell us shit. I know it’s your business, but we can’t watch him get hurt. It’s not fair.”
Devan sucked in a shaky breath. “Believe me, hurting him is the last thing on my mind.”
“So why not complete the bond and get it over with? I know it’s weird that you’re from different packs... clans, whatever you call it where you’re from, but it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“Not to me, and maybe not to Zio, I have no idea where he is on that, but it’s bigger than the two of us. I was loaned to you as a healer, not a fighter. Peace between my clan and the southern wolf packs depends on that.”
“So don’t fight.”
“Impossible if I thought someone was threatening my mate—you know what happened when the bond triggered. And regardless, it’s about perception. I’m Shadow Clan, Michael. If I pick a side, it would start a war far bigger than this.”
“I thought Danielo was being dramatic when he said that.”
“Danielo? Dramatic? No.”
Michael huffed out a grunt. “So you really do have to wait it out and hope it fades without killing you?”
“Nowyou’rebeing dramatic.”
“Not really. Unrequited bonds can kill a wolf.”
“What?”
“It’s rare,” Michael said. “And more common in hereditary shifters than those changed by the bite, but it happens. It killed my father’s cousin. When I was a kid, my mum used to say he’d died of a broken heart.”
Devan absorbed Michael’s words and matched them with Luca’s.“We cannot separate you from the wolf while the bond remains unfulfilled. The risk to him is too great.”
No.
That can’t be true.
But one look at Michael’s earnest face told Devan that it was. Fulfilling the bond risked the lives of every soul Zio cared about, but ignoring it could cost him his own life. “Does he know?”
“Zio?”
“Yes. Does he know he’s at risk?”
Michael slowly shook his head. “I don’t think so. He’s never been interested in pack history, he doesn’t pay attention to conversations that don’t directly affect him,andI don’t think Varian wants him to know.”
Comprehension dawned in Devan’s bond-clouded brain. “That’s why you came to find me, isn’t it? Because Varian ordered you not to tell him?”
Michael locked his gaze with Devan’s. “Yes. And I get why Zio worrying he’s going to drop dead at any moment isn’t going to do him any favours, butyouneed to know how dangerous this is for him. Fuck the rest of the world, Devan. Don’t let politics kill my brother.”
* * *
Zio knew something had changed the moment he got back. After a long—and boring—night on patrol, he’d braced himself to face Devan’s inevitable absence. The trail of his scent as he’d left the camp in response to Zio’s return. The empty tent. And the gnawing hunger in his gut he could never sate.
But as he led his team out of the woods, a fire burnt bright in the centre of the camp, tended to by Michael, while Devan cooked sizzling bacon and stirred a vat of scrambled eggs.
“The fuck is going on here?” he murmured. “Michael’s never lit a fire in his life.”
Danielo bounded past him. “Who cares? I’m starving.”
“Of course you are.” Zio rolled his eyes, but that didn’t stop the guilt he felt for keeping his team out long after sunrise. Patrol had been uneventful, like it had been ever since Devan had shifted and apparently scared every enemy unit away, but unsatisfied by the quiet, Zio had circled back again and again, checking and rechecking until the collective rumble of the wolves behind him had convinced him to come home.