Page 91 of Wild Thorns

"Okay." Callum's voice, rough with something I couldn't identify. "You have our word."

I opened the door.

He was sitting on the porch steps, exactly where he'd said he'd be. His shirt was destroyed, torn to ribbons, stained dark with blood, and I could see the wounds on his chest. Three parallel gashes, deep enough that I'd seen bone earlier, but now... healing. Visibly healing, the edges knitting together as I watched.

Jasper sat beside him, similarly bloody, similarly healing. Eli stood a few feet away, the cleanest of the three but still splattered with things I didn't want to think about.

They all looked at me with identical expressions. Hope. Fear. Desperate, aching need.

I'd seen that look before too. On Marcus's face, after the first time he hit me. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'll never do it again, please don't leave me, I need you.

"What are you," I said. My voice came out flat. Dead.

"We’re known as Loup-Garou in this region," Eli said. “Though most human stories refer to us as werewolves.”

Werewolves. Fucking Werewolves. I pinched myself. It hurt.

"How long? Have you always been—"

"Born this way. All three of us. Our whole family."

Born. Not bitten, not cursed, not transformed by some accident or choice. They'd never been human. Not once. Not ever.

“Are you gonna bite me?”

“Do you want us to?” Jasper asked with a grin. Eli whacked him across the chest with his arm.

“There are laws,” Eli interjected.

"And the thing that attacked. What was that?"

"An abomination." Callum's jaw tightened.

"Filion Glenn was a natural-born loup-garou like us, but he delved too deep into his studies of the occult.” Eli paused. “He lost his way and began experimenting on himself.”

“Now he’s an eff’d-up bastard who does shady shit for the highest bidder. So why the hell was he here?” I found it interesting that Jasper posed this question to Callum and not Eli.

Callum tilted his head up to look at me. “What did he say to you, before we arrived?”

“He said he was here to deliver a message. He said the Voss boys can’t protect me from what’s coming.”

“So tonight was a warning."

"A warning about what?"

The three of them exchanged glances. That silent communication I'd noticed before, the wordless conversation I was never part of.

"Could be a number of things," Jasper said finally. "Doubtful your ex, but we can’t rule it out. More likely a rival flex. Everyone knows you're living here. Getting close to humans is tricky, like Eli said, there are laws."

“Then I should go.” My heart sank even before I had finished uttering the words.

Silence.

"Should I not go?" I repeated, and my voice cracked on the last word.

"We don't—" Jasper started.

"We're still figuring that out," Eli cut in smoothly. "But they see you as leverage. A weakness they can exploit."