CHAPTER NINE || HUNTER
Imade it about three blocks before the adrenaline wore off and I realized I was shaking. I made it another two before I realized I wasn’t actually angry at all.
Sure, I was pissed at Reed for pushing Daniel too hard.
And at Daniel for letting himself be pushed.
Hell, for welcoming it. He’d already proven himself to the pack time and time again.
I was furious that we’d put him in a position where he felt like he had no choice but to do a spell that was way too much for him.
I paused on the sidewalk outside the general store, my hands trembling and my chest tight, and the ugly reality of it crashed over me like a goddamn tsunami.
I wasn’t angry. I was terrified.
Because that was twice now. Twice in as many days that Daniel had almost died. First the fork that would have gone right through his skull. And then the electrical surge, which would’ve fried him to a crisp.
Hell, it was three times, if I counted the spell—the spell he’d cast alone, even though it had clearly been too much for him.
Daniel may have been pathologically self-sacrificing—one hundred percent—but he wasn’t stupid.
He must’ve known damn well that what he was doing could burn him out, and he’d done it anyway.
Because that was what Daniel did. He gave and gave and gave until there was nothing left to give, and he never once asked if the cost was worth it because he’d already decided he wasn’t worth protecting.
Even if it created a world without Daniel in it.
That thought hit me like a fist to the gut.
I ducked into the alleyway between the general store and the bookstore, leaning against the brick wall, and tried to get my insides to unknot themselves.
I sucked air in through my clenched teeth, waiting for the sudden vertigo to pass and the world to right itself again.
A world without Daniel’s stupid pen-chewing and his cluttered desk.
His too-bright, too-fake smile. The way he locked in when he focused, letting the world fall away from him.
The way he always seemed to be hugging himself, almost without realizing he was even doing it.
Without the mate bond humming between us.
Without the shared dreams that bound the three of us.
Without the possibility that someday things might be different.
Without the one person who had always understood me.
Who had always at least acted like he cared about me, even when no one else ever really had.
A world without the only man I’d ever been stupid enough to let myself love.
It was a world I didn’t want to live in.
I stood there for a long time, breathing, letting the shade of the alleyway cool my overheated skin. Gradually, the shaking subsided. And in its absence, another uncomfortable emotion crept in.
Embarrassment.
I’d yelled at my alpha in front of everyone. I’d positioned myself between Reed and Daniel like I was ready to throw down with the guy who co-led our pack, and then I’d stormed out like a teenager slamming his bedroom door.
Real mature, Hunter.
And it was a crack in the facade I’d built around myself—Lee and I both—that we were always friendly, agreeable, and outgoing. That we belonged. Lee was the only one I allowed to see my bullshit, because he was the only one who could fully understand it.
Except I’d just put a neon sign above my bullshit and thrown it on full display, hadn’t I?
That would be ironic—my feelings for Daniel getting me kicked out of the pack, all because I couldn’t regulate them properly.
And I wouldn’t even be able to blame him for it this time around.
That would be one hundred percent brought to you by Hunter.
The worst part was that, objectively, Reed wasn’t exactly wrong. His urgency made sense. He’d just learned that there was a monster in Crescent Springs preying on civilians. And Daniel was the only person who could track it. He was right that the locator spell needed to happen.
Reed wasn’t being callous or an asshole.
He was being an alpha, making the hard call because someone had to.
With the pack more or less out of commission until we understood what the sympathetic manifestations meant for us, he probably recognized that Daniel was more essential than ever to protecting the town.
Daniel would be fine if he had time to recover first. Lee, way more level-headed than me, had negotiated that. Daniel doing the spell tomorrow, once he’d rested, was reasonable.
It’s just—Daniel wasn’t a machine. He was a person.
A person who had spent years being treated like a tool by Jeremy, the pack’s previous alpha, and who was now so desperate to prove his worth that he’d rather cast dangerous spells alone and hide nosebleeds and collapse on the floor of a bar than admit he actually had limits.
And there had been too many times—way too many times—that I’d watched the people in charge ask too much of him and, so furious and wrapped up in myself, I’d said nothing to prevent it. In my selfishness, I’d fucking abandoned him. The one person I’d always sworn to myself I’d protect.
That stopped today.
I didn’t know what else I was willing to do.
I didn’t know if I could forgive him, or ever trust him again, or let him back into the places he’d once occupied in my heart.
That ship might’ve sailed. But I could do this much: I could make sure nobody used him up completely until there was nothing left. That included Daniel himself.
I needed to go back, I decided. I’d make nice and smooth everything over. Or, more likely, Lee would smooth things over, and I’d keep my damn mouth shut for once and let him do it.
And maybe I’d even try to stop acting like a feral, cornered animal every time Daniel did something that scared me, because the alternative—continuing to watch him destroy himself from a safe, angry distance—wasn’t actually so safe at all.
And while I was at it, maybe I’d figure out how to finish the conversation we’d started in the cabin. The one where he’d locked gazes with me and said you know why and I’d felt the ground shift beneath my feet. Because yeah. I did know why. I knew all too fucking well.
With my mind made up for what I was going to do next, I pushed off the wall of the alley and turned back toward the bar.
I didn’t make it far. Lee and Daniel stepped into the mouth of the alley, intercepting me before I’d gone two steps.
Daniel hung back a few paces on the sidewalk, trembling and exhausted, the strap of his messenger bag clutched in both hands and his face drained of color and vitality.
From the way his shoulders were hunched in, as if trying to make himself take up as little space as possible, and the way he avoided meeting my gaze, he looked as if he wanted to be anywhere else.
Lee, on the other hand, headed straight for me with an expression I’d never seen on his face before. He was livid.
With his jaw set hard and his green eyes blazing, he grabbed my arm and pulled me farther down the alley, out of Daniel’s earshot. He pushed me against the wall.
“Don’t,” he said, his voice low and lethal, “ever do that again.”
“Lee—”
“No. Listen to me!” His grip tightened on my arm, pinning me in place.
“Daniel already feels awful! He already thinks everything is all his fault! He already believes he’s not worth protecting!
” His voice dropped, low and dangerous. “And you just confirmed every single one of those beliefs by storming out like that!”
“That’s not what I—”
“It doesn’t matter what you meant or what you wanted!” Lee hissed, his voice dropping even lower. “It matters what he saw. And he saw the person he loves abandoning him because he wasn’t good enough. That’s what he fucking thinks, Hunter! And you did that!”
His words felt like a blade sliding between my ribs.
Lee said it with such conviction that I knew he wasn’t guessing. He’d been standing right there. He’d seen the aftermath.
I wanted to get angry. Because I knew how to be angry. But I didn’t know how to be—whatever the hell this was.
But instead, I deflated.
“Yeah,” I said, guilt crashing through me. “I overreacted.”
Lee blinked. His grip on my arm loosened. Whatever he’d been expecting me to say, it wasn’t that. “You—wait, what?”
“I said I overreacted. You’re right.”
Lee stared at me for a long moment, visibly recalibrating. Then he stepped back, his expression shifting from anger to cautious surprise.
I looked past him to where Daniel stood a few yards away, watching us. His dark eyes were wide and miserable, and his shoulders were still hunched, making him look even smaller than he was.
Fuck. Something in my chest clenched tight, seeing the unhappy expression on his face.
I pushed past Lee, who trailed after me, right on my heels—probably still half-expecting me to say something terrible—and stopped in front of Daniel.
The warlock looked up at me. His expression was wary, guarded, the too-bright smile nowhere to be found. It was just Daniel, stripped bare, without his armor, waiting for the killing blow.
“I’m not apologizing for getting pissed when you give away everything you have just to make other people happy,” I said flatly. “And I’m never going to apologize for that.”
Daniel’s lips parted, surprise flickering across his face.
“But I flipped out.” The words were harder to get out than they should have been. Apologizing wasn’t exactly my strong suit. “It wasn’t cool. I could’ve handled it better. I’m…” I swallowed. “I’m sorry, Daniel.”
He stared at me blankly, as if I’d said something in another language.
Behind me, I could practically feel Lee’s shock radiating off him in waves.
“I don’t want you to feel bad,” I added. “I just don’t want to see you get taken advantage of. By anyone. Including yourself.”
Daniel was quiet for what felt like a very long time. His throat worked. He looked away, blinking rapidly. His fingertips tightened on the strap of his messenger bag.