Chapter Eighteen

Getting to the scene of the deaths wasn't an easy feat, but Niko, Davor, and I already knew the park generally had people fly in instead of driving. The BSA did most of the talking for me there, making sure the park had stopped all visitors to see if the "bear" could be found and that more experts were on the way. During the flight, I had some questions, but when it came to the conversations between different government agencies, I knew I would never get answers unless I wanted to put a substantial effort into finding them.

I wasn't willing to put in that effort, and Davor, upon thinking about it as well, didn't care, either.

The small crew on the plane, only three humans, were often used by the BSA when they needed to fly to different parts of Alaska. They were well acquainted with the Fairbanks werewolf pack, having a contract with them for flights when their own pilots weren't available. It didn't surprise me that all the locals knew of each other. We were the first werecats they had ever met, but there was no avoiding that conversation. I had been on television more than once, just smiling and waving as things happened around me, on top of the fact that the videos of my Change were still circulating on the internet after being leaked.

I tried to be gracious and kind, keeping as much attention off my brothers as I could. When we landed, I took a picture with the crew, giving a peace sign and a smile, even if I wasn't feeling it.

"Have a safe flight home," I said, waving as they got back on the plane, walking backward to get to my brothers with our things.

"Thank you! Hope everything turns out well for you folks," the pilot called out.

I waved until I knew the humans wouldn't be able to tell I stopped and sighed.

"All right, so I looked at tons of pictures of the area, and this is still surprising to me," I said, gesturing around us.

"Same. This is the sort of place rogues roam through. We're far enough north that we're firmly in the tundra. Not a lot of cover…" Niko looked around as well, his gear with him, ready to get hiking.

"There are more wooded areas around the park," Davor reminded us. "The couple was camping among trees. I have their location marked on the map, and I know where we've landed. During the flight, I calculated. If we can maintain a relaxed walking speed, nothing that could draw too much attention to us, then we'll be there in five to six hours. It would also conserve our strength in case we end up stumbling on the werecat before we've really had a chance to get an idea of its territory."

Nodding, I grabbed my gear and got everything securely strapped to me. Niko started walking the moment he saw Davor and I were ready. I didn't understand how he knew what direction to go or if he just wanted to move, but Davor didn't correct him, and I knew he was annoyed with me for snapping at him at the BSA's facilities. I saw no reason to force a conversation.

As we walked, Davor would direct Niko just a little as we passed landmarks like one of the prominent rivers of the area, but for the most part, Davor hung back with me quietly.

"How are you?" I finally asked him, my words breaking the silence of nature around us. It felt loud to my ears, and I regretted it, but I also wasn't enjoying the dead silence we were existing in. "Back at my place, you said you've been working on things, but… If I'm prying, feel free to tell me off, but I just want to know…"

"I've been better, of course, but things have been improving for me recently," he replied, a small, insecure smile forming. "I started talking more with Jabari, and with Mother trying to take a more active role, she's started exchanging emails with me, one every few days. We've talked a lot since that mess in Germany. I always knew I could have gone to talk to her, but it's hard being so distant. Niko leaving Europe with you made me realize how much I relied on having a brother close by, and I think Mother knew that I was going to need someone. He and I were both Changed around the War. Me, right before it, and him during it. While we were running and fighting, we still had a lot of family contact and time that the family generally didn't have."

"I know how hard it is to reach out for help when there's no one physically nearby to remind you that they're there," I said, nodding. "For some reason, there's still a level of isolation even if you know you can call people who want to be there with you, but they can't come help you get out of the hole you live in. You still have to pull yourself out."

"It's a curse for me, the physical loneliness of having no family nearby or a group of friends," Davor said, nodding. "Though, I guess it's a curse for all werecats, right?"

I blinked, having never truly considered the full negative like that.

"Oh, yeah," I said, really letting it sink in. Fighting depression alone while your brain lied to you about everything, letting you sink further and further down, but as a werecat, you could barely go see someone. Other instincts told us not to leave our territory, not to go to another werecat's. It took practice and effort to do it without being on edge constantly, especially the first few times, and those feelings never really went away. With deep depression and the nature of what we were, I could only see all too well how Davor felt like he was utterly lost and sinking fast.

"Nothing excuses how I lashed out at you and Niko," Davor continued.

"It doesn't," I confirmed, letting that statement hold for a moment before continuing. "But I know the pain, in my own way, and I can't say I wouldn't have problems similar to yours. I was under a mountain of different things happening in my life. Dead fiancé and a newly Changed werecat, I was in a different place than you… but I would hope that my family also gave me a second chance if I ever needed one after losing a loved one and going to a dark place."

"Exactly," Niko said, not breaking his stride as he kept moving. "We're a family, and we only have each other through the good times and the bad. It's like what we're dealing with Hasan right now."

"The important part, Davor, is that you recognize what you did and how your behavior was damaging, and you've tried to make amends without many, if any, expectations of me," I said, smiling a little. "I really appreciate how you started healing but didn't pressure me to forgive you immediately or anything. You let me recover from my hurt on my own."

"Is that what Hasan needs to do?" he asked, and while I had intentionally avoided Niko's reference to the patriarch of the weird and wild family we were in, I knew Davor was probably done talking about himself.

"I think Hasan needs to get over himself," I said, growling softly. "But that would be oversimplifying the problem."

"It would be," Niko agreed, not looking back.

"He hurt me by saying some things, but I… I could have continued to suck it up with the comments, even if they hurt. I kept trying to prove myself, only to hear more comments. He threatened the people I protect. He has issues, all very understandable, but… he finally crossed a line there was no coming back from. The way he acted in Germany… I just can't associate with that. Couldn't then. Won't going forward. I draw the line at that."

"You made that clear. I don't blame you," Davor said. "I've never been fierce enough to stand up to him like that, but I was ready to get up and stand by you. Dirk and Landon didn't deserve any of that."

"They didn't," I agreed. "But back to your original question… It's harder with Hasan. He didn't just hurt me. He hurt a lot of people I care about as well. I can't make him heal and move on from Liza or everything he's done and been through. If he can, I'll be happy for him, but I can only talk for myself. I can't, and will never, force Dirk and Landon to try to have a relationship with him. I'll respect however they want to deal with it. Hell, I don't even want to ask Heath to try, and he's an incredibly reasonable man. He'll make his own choices, and I'll respect them."

"I'm sorry you've been placed in the position you have been in," Davor said, looking at the ground. "I know it's not only because you fell in love with a werewolf. It's not really your fault, even if being together with Heath is an inciting incident."

"It's because we've been a pretty shitty family for a long time without wanting to see it, and all we can do is to be a better one. The one we always thought we were. Or maybe the family used to be what we believed it was, but we're the three too young to really remember it." Niko's words had a finality to them that ended the conversation.

"We were better when we had Liza," Davor murmured, and the flood of pain that filled the air was strong enough to make me close my eyes for a moment. It dissipated as quickly as it had appeared, though, and I looked at Davor. He smiled. "We still had our problems then, don't let me mistake anything. While I was immensely happy with Liza—she was my mate, after all—the family still had deep problems we didn't want to address. Like Niko feeling the need to keep everything with the Black Forest a secret the way he did."

Niko snorted, probably not enjoying the reminder of the problems he had accidentally let fester in the family from his corner of the world.

"Of course," I said, feeling proud of Davor at that moment. It was easy to look back on losing a loved one and only remember the perfectly happy moments and grieve them. It was another to be mature enough to know that things had not, in fact, been perfect. It was also heartbreaking in its own way, and I knew it well.

We kept walking, and I knew I wasn't the only one getting sore as we hit the four-hour mark. Davor and I were clearly not in the same shape as Niko. He and I started leaning on each other, making sure we stopped for each other and drank as much water as we could, not caring that we would run out of clean water. We could safely drink river water, being what we were, even if it tasted terrible. On the bright side, Niko didn't give us a hard time. He was patient, clearly understanding that his lifestyle in Germany was very different from the lives Davor and I had.

With probably another forty-five minutes to an hour to get to the campsite, all three of us caught the scent of the werecat within seconds of each other.

"It's not strong enough to believe he came back here since the killings," Niko said first.

"We haven't found a territory border yet. He could have slipped out of his territory on a hunt and doesn't do that very often," I theorized. While Niko and I were focused on what we thought of the scent, Davor was the one who walked around, sniffing to see if the werecat had led a trail somewhere else.

"He made a loop, as if he was turning around," Davor concluded. "Doesn't lead anywhere else."

"Then we keep walking," Niko said, moving once again, with Davor and me on his heels.

The tension ramped up in that second. When we had been hiking quietly, knowing this moment would come, there was something still relaxed in our energy. Now, we were all turning every time we heard something, seeing animals bound away as we came too close. There was a new jumpiness in all of us as we followed the werecat's scent to the campsite.

For all the hiking we had done, this was by far the slowest and most agonizing section. I couldn't tell for Davor, but my legs stopped bothering me as my heart rate jumped up a little, and something told me I had to keep moving.

"There it is," Niko said, sighing softly, his voice low enough not to disturb any of the wildlife that hadn't yet noticed us.

Once there, we put our gear down. I didn't need the pictures to tell how the campsite had been laid out in the space now that I was here. I could see broken limbs that hadn't been moved and areas flattened or disturbed by what had happened. The footprints of others were there, but their scents were faded. I couldn't identify any of the humans, but that didn't matter to me. We weren't there for the humans.

"Same thing as earlier… the scent is old enough to confirm it hasn't returned since it killed them," Niko murmured.

"With how many people have been in and out of this area since, would that be considered unusual?" I asked. I certainly thought it was, but I wasn't the one with any practice in this.

"Very," Niko confirmed. "If it hunted here, it would have killed any human that it saw. The park's employees that found this, the BSA… I've been thinking about it, actually. The werecat would have run into at least one of those groups, and it didn't."

"We never entered its territory," Davor pointed out, the obvious thing that was now weighing on our minds. "It never came back here."

It's the one thing we were most worried about…

"It's a rogue," I said flatly, knowing everything just went from bad to worse.