(FREE TO READ) Bad Moon

chapter 29; revealed

Jaylin curled his fingers through the soft cotton threads of the bathroom rug, watching the way his human hand treated the fibers so tenderly. On the other side of him, his black appendage gripped into the mat with a fierce, clumsy fistful.

No one knew quite where Olivia had gone. Quentin, Imani and Felix had chased her into a thicket of wiry blackberry bushes, over creeks and up dangerously soft and decaying terrain. But at some point, miles in the unforgiving forests of Western Washington, Olivia had escaped.

Jaylin told them her address and Quentin sent one of the Sentinels to post outside of her apartment. The others stayed at the Sigvard Manor. Izzy—the redhead who'd pulled him from the cupboard—explained that each alpha appointed their own people into a kind of infantry organization. They were called Sentinels, a small group of around a dozen wolves assigned to different territories in each Alpha's ruling. Quentin had eight of these militias posted over the entire West Coast. One in Western Washington, one in the East. Two splitting Oregon down the middle and four stationed at each corner of California. They were his paladins; they defended every living being, wolf and human, from external forces. Forces like him.

Izzy explained that there were two main threats the sentinels are called out for, the first being scouts—stray wolves who migrate from the Eastern states, where bounties for abnormalities like lichund were plentiful. Even at times when lichund were onlyword of mouth, the scouts had been known to slip over territory lines. It was the Sentinel's job to chase them back out.

Then there were rivaling forces, other Sentinels mostly, who battle for territory claim. Izzy said that she was grateful for a leader like Quentin, who preferred the peaceful approach. Instead of declaring wars, he scheduled meetings. There was no point in losing lives over a few miles of uninhabited land.

Then there was a third threat, Izzy said. The lichund, like him. They were more frightening than any of the above because Quentin's Sentinels weren't to harm the lichund. It made the process of capturing them so much more dangerous. Sometimes they had no choice, she said. And Jaylin wondered if she was talking about Anna.

He brought his cigarette to his lips at the sound of a rap on the door. It cracked open and Quentin stepped inside, his hair still dewy from his shower, and the stench of blood mingling terribly with the soap on his skin. He plucked the stick from Jaylin's fingers as he passed and tossed it into the sink, taking a seat on the rug beside him.

"Those'll make you sick now."

Jaylin didn't respond, he only watched the purple fibers move under his obsidian skin.

"What is it with you and bathroom floors?"

This time the grin he cracked was too difficult to ignore. Jaylin looked up to him, and then to the beer he offered.

"I came to a party here once with my ex," Jaylin said, taking the bottle and ripping the cap off a little too easily with the sharp talons of his freakish hand.

"Do I know them?"

"Yeah. You were there the night he beat the shit out of me."

Jaylin batted a glance in his direction and regretted it the moment he had a taste of Quentin's expression. He looked conflicted, stuck somewhere in the median between surprise, disgust and a generous dash of realization.

Three things were hitting him all at once, Jaylin thought. One, his pliable sexual orientation—but maybe he already knew that from the night they'd nearly kissed. Two, the fact that he had a history with the same man who nearly left him dead in a cemetery. And three, the idea that through this twisted web of small world who-knows-who's, they were related on a much bigger scale. It wasn't fate that had brought Jaylin into his world. It was a jackass with a whole lot of jilted promises and a pair of steel-toed boots.