“I meanthowdid you know everything I like?”
Devan’s gaze flickered, wary. “Emma wrote it on the front of your file. She said it was the best way to cheer you up if you were terminally pissed off.”
“I’m not terminally pissed off.”
“Why do you think I hadn’t given them to you yet?”
“Valid.” Zio dusted his hands together. “I don’t know why she kept notes like that. It’s not like ginger nuts could ever help a healer reattach a limb or some shit.”
“Not all injuries are physical. Sometimes kindness is enough.”
“You sound super old when you say stuff like that.”
“I prefer wise.”
Devan smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He looked... tired, and Zio realised he’d neglected to ask after the injured scout. He opened his mouth to rectify his mistake, but Danielo called for dinnertime before he could speak, and the moment passed.
“Come on.” He stood and held out his hand. “Let’s go eat.”
“You just ate.”
“So? Those pills you gave me are turning me into a gannet. I’m still hungry.”
“How do you feel otherwise?”
“About what? You?”
“No, Zio. I know how you feel about me... you couldn’t hide it if you tried. I meant how are you feeling physically. Those pills are pretty powerful if the shifter body takes to them.”
“What happens if the body doesn’t?”
“Nothing.”
It was on the tip of Zio’s tongue to stake a claim on nothing, but as the words formed on his lips, he realised they weren’t true. He’d spent his entire life in a bad mood, even before Emma’s death. War had been his constant companion. Violence. Death. Grief and misery. But though the triggers were more prominent than ever and his emotions had been disrupted by Devan as he lost himself to introspection, a cloud had lifted. Worries still gnawed at him, but for the first time that he could remember, there was a distance between him and them. Perspective.How is that possible when we’re in the middle of a fucking war?
Zio had no clue, but he couldn’t deny it—whatever was in those plant pills, he felt fantastic. “I think they’re working.”
Devan smiled for real then. “Good. Now let’s go eat before we find new ways to get in trouble.”
* * *
“Nothing to report?”
Michael shook his head. “We swept everywhere. Sent the drones up to check where we couldn’t reach. No activity. Not even recon units. It’s like they’ve disappeared.”
Zio narrowed his eyes as Michael’s choice of words sank in. Enemy forces didn’t disappear unless they chose to, and why would they do that? Getting over the border was the southern pack’s main objective—it had to be if they wanted to claim northern England as their own. Why would they retreat?
The hospital flickered into Zio’s mind. He sent Michael to get some rest and searched out the satellite phone. It took a while to get hold of Gale. Waiting unsettled Zio’s wolf, so he allowed his thoughts to drift to Devan. It was a strange state of flux to be fighting a war that seemed to have got lost in the post and to be fixated on a shifter that was unlike any Zio had ever known. The routine of patrols that went nowhere, camp meals that put him in a food coma, and games of verbal chicken with Devan were driving Zio slowly mad, but at the same time, in a world he’d ceased to understand weeks ago, he was... happy.
Devan, on the other hand, was not. He barely ate, and Zio rarely saw him sleep.It’s like we’ve swapped personalities.Well, not exactly. Devan was still a better person than Zio, a fact Danielo reminded him of daily.
But still.He’s not happy. And Zio couldn’t live with that.
“Um... hello? Anyone there?”
Zio jumped, even Gale’s soft voice enough to startle him. “Fuck. Sorry. I was distracted.”
“Clearly. Everything okay? I heard about you and Devan.”