Gale laughed, and a trace of real humour danced in his sad gaze. “I take it you’re going to need me to look after your unit for a while?”
“I wasn’t going to ask you to do that.”
“Well, I’m offering. It’s not like I don’t have the time.”
Zio couldn’t imagine how it felt to lose not only his partner but his entire unit too. Gale had been badly injured. Without Shadow Clan healers and human doctors, he wouldn’t have survived. Zio wondered if he wished he hadn’t, but Gale was a closed book. As reticent as Zio was volatile.We can’t let him suffer alone.
“I won’t be alone, Zio. Your boys will take care of me.”
Zio blinked.
Gale’s smile widened a touch. “You’re doing that thing again where you think out loud. It’s okay... really. I imagine I’ll have my hands full trying to keep track of Danielo.”
“Hey.” Danielo glanced up from laying bricks. “I’m a reformed man.”
“Bullshit,” Shannon shot back. “You’ve already knocked off one of the human doctors they brought back from the hospital.”
“And that’s my cue.” Varian rolled his eyes and walked away, as ever the good sport, even with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Gale watched him go, then turned back to Zio. “Did you hear what happened at the hospital?”
“Some. It’s so fucked up, though, I can’t really make sense of it.”
Gale nodded. “Me either. I mean, a stimulant that can withstand a shifter’s metabolism? That’s insane. I can’t even get over that they attempted it, let alone that they succeeded. Can you imagine if they’d held off their attack until they’d developed it properly? If they’d administered it to every enemy wolf in England right now?”
“It’s my fault they attacked when they did.” Guilt twisted Zio’s gut. “They caught me and Devan together with a drone.”
“Then you did us a favour. I’m the one who failed to notice a troop build-up across the road.”
“They had a shield, G.No onenoticed.”
“Yeah, well—actually, never mind.”
Zio spun around as Devan stepped out of the trees. Somehow, despite Zio expecting him, he’d snuck up on them.
A slow tattoo thudded in Zio’s chest. His breath caught, and he waited with painful anticipation as Devan greeted the whole unit with warm, lingering hugs—Bomber first, then Shannon, Danielo, and Michael, ending with Gale until hefinallyhad eyes only for Zio.
Gale said something. Bodies disappeared. Grief and responsibility faded, and the universe narrowed to just them.Just us.
Zio drank Devan in, absorbing his scent, his slow smile, and the fact that he looked a world away from where he’d been a week ago. The grey skin and sunken gaze were gone, replaced with hair that shone like a halo and eyes so dazzling Zio wondered if they’d always been like that or if Devan had emerged from his brush with death brighter than he’d ever been. “You look...”
“Better?”
“Yeah, but that’s not the right word.”
“Then what is?”
“Dunno. Words aren’t my thing.”
“What is your thing, Zio?”
Before Devan, Zio might’ve said war, that he lived for the fight, for the defence of his pack, but his perspective had shifted that fateful night in the club, and he’d long ago accepted that it would never shift back. That perhaps meeting Devan had opened his eyes to the man Emma had seen in him all along. “Family is my thing. I lost sight of that for a while and thought I was alone in the world, but I never was. Haven’t been since Varian saved me.”
“We are lucky that even without each other we are loved.”
“Without each other? Fuck off. That’s not what I meant.”
Humour flickered in Devan’s hypnotic gaze. “I know what you meant. I wasn’t suggesting that we should be apart—”