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Lance shook his head. He’d long since gotten up from his place on the ground, but he hadn’t bothered to wipe off the dirt or wet leaves that had stuck to him yet. His glasses were crooked as well. Lance seemed much too excited by what’s he’d seen to notice or bother with any of that, however.

“They can’t do that. It’s against your rights.”

“We’re not human, so we have no human rights,” James said.

“Think about the way humans treat animals,” Markus said. “And  I’m not talking about cruel or evil humans either. Everyday humans use animals all the time for their benefit. Whether it’s to eat them,

wear them, and there’s nothing wrong with that. We hunt and eat and  wear animals all the time. I mean we’re wolves. But if humans decide

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that we are an animal species, we’re all going to be fucked.”

He waited for that to sink in. Lance didn’t respond. A frown  marred his features as he thought over what Markus and James were  telling him, but he clearly still wasn’t entirely on board with what was  being said to him.

“Isaac,” James said then nodded to Lance. “Show him.”

Lance backed up a step when Isaac pulled his guns out.

“Whoa.”

“He won’t hurt you,” Markus assured him, and just to offer the  other man some comfort on that front, he went and stood just a little  closer to him as Isaac came forward.

He wasn’t pointing his guns at them, but he held them by their grips, pointed down to give Lance a good view of the Glocks. Isaac had said he wouldn’t put the clips in the magazines, but the man would still never point a weapon at a friend, even if it wasn’t loaded.

“These are real guns,” Isaac said. “They’re basically a police standard and aren’t hard for anyone else to come by if you have about five hundred bucks.”

Lance looked up at him. “Why show me these?”

Isaac clenched his jaw. “I’ve used these guns to kill werewolves.”

“What?” Lance stepped away from him. He looked from Markus to Cole and James and then back down at the guns. “How could you—Why?”

When Lance’s eyes looked back up at Markus, fearful and wide, he understood. Lance was wondering what a man who had killed werewolves before was doing standing calmly with a group of three more of them.

Markus cleared his throat. “Isaac is a former hunter. He used to

hunt and kill shifters for his living. We won’t tell you why or how he  came to be with us just yet. That’s his business, really, but he’s been  with us for, what is it? Almost a year now?”

“It’ll be a year in May,” Isaac said.

Markus nodded. “He mated with one of our omegas, and he’s a

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friend now. You don’t have to be scared of him.”

“But he’s killed people!” Lance looked at Isaac now. “How could  you do that? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Markus had seen some of the newer members of the pack chew  out Isaac a time or two, and he always seemed to take the verbal  lashings with the kind of patience Markus himself didn’t possess.

Isaac saw it as deserved, for his time as a hunter. Even though he  was paying to fix up the cabins and helping to buy new toys for the  pups, and hell, even though most of the pack had come to accept him,  there would always be those times when someone had to yell at him  for the things he’d done.

Isaac wet his lips. “People like me exist all over the world. We  basically live in as much secrecy as the shifters do. We get licenses to  hunt big game when the season comes around, and when it isn’t in  season, we hunt them anyway. Then we go out and find shifters to  kill. Waiting until they’re in their animal forms is considered best,  especially when you want to skin them and sell the pelts.”

Lance looked like he was about to be sick, and this was exactly  what James and Markus, and every other member of the pack, had  hoped for. Lance needed to understand why he couldn’t write on his  blog anymore.

Markus looked to the others. “I think I got this now, you guys,” he  said. “I’ll take him back to his room.”

He expected some sort of warning to come from James, or at least an order that he should return to the pack afterward.

James said nothing, and the three men turned around and disappeared through the trees, leaving Markus alone with Lance.

Guess James didn’t want to make any assumptions about whether or not Markus would be spending the night with his mate. Markus didn’t even know where he stood on that front anymore.

Now that they were alone, Lance really started to shake.

“Hey, are you all right?” Markus put his arms around the other man, expecting him to be cold.

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He was, but not enough to produce that sort of trembling.

Markus was grateful when Lance didn’t shrug out of his hold, however.

“Jesus Christ. Jesus,” he said.

“I’m sorry I had to put that on you. It’s usually a lot for people to

take in.”

Markus got the feeling that it wasn’t just that that was producing

this reaction out of Lance.

“Oh my God. That guy’s a killer. And you, you’re a…” Lance

trailed off. He couldn’t seem to finish.

Markus sighed. James had been right. The confirmation that  Lance had been searching for all these years was too much for him to handle. There was more to it than Lance had realized, and now it was

overloading him.

“I’ll take you back to your room,” Markus said. He’d long since  got dressed again, so he didn’t have to pick up any of his clothes. He  helped Lance to his feet, and together the two of them exited the dark  woods and were back under the yellow lights of the dreary and quiet  highway.

It took all of ten minutes to get back there.

Markus opened the door for Lance when his hands shook too  much to get the key into the lock. He gently pushed the other man  inside, not sure of his welcome at all. He didn’t yet turn away when  he saw the MacBook sitting on the table. Should he stay a little longer  to confirm that Lance wouldn’t write anything? He didn’t know what  to do.

Lance noticed him still in the doorway, and as though suddenly fearful that he would leave, he beckoned him inside. “You can come

in. I’d really like to not be alone right now.”

Markus entered, and he quietly shut the door behind him.

This room didn’t have very good air circulation, he realized.  Markus could still vaguely smell the scent of their sex from earlier  today. The thought made him crack a smile. “At least now you know I

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wasn’t poking fun at you.”

Lance had grabbed a glass of water from the tap in the bathroom,  and he stopped suddenly as he lifted it to his mouth. It seemed to take  a second before he got what Markus was saying. He laughed a little.  “I should probably apologize to you for that one.”

Markus shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Most people think  we’re a little crazy for the howling. I should’ve tried harder to keep it  in check.”

Lance wet his lips. Then he looked at his computer, sitting innocently on the table, and then back at Markus. “Do you know what you’ve asked me to do? I’ve worked my whole life to find you and have been ridiculed by everyone you can think of for the things I’ve said. My parents put me in therapy because I wouldn’t let the story of that boy go. Now I see you standing there, and I know there’s so many more of you, and I can’t say anything at all?”

Markus nodded. “Basically, yes.”

Lance put his glass on the nightstand beside the bed. He sank down on it, and he ran his hands through his hair.

Markus hesitated, and then went and sat down beside him. “I’m

sorry. We brought Isaac with us so you could understand just why  we’re hiding from other people. It’s not like the secrecy is something  we keep to because it’s tradition or something, or that we’re that  afraid of humans. It has a little to do with that last part, but there  really are people out there who are an immediate threat to us. We  can’t be telling them where we are.”

Lance held his hands together between his knees, as though he  were keeping them warm. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

Markus didn’t want to answer this question. He did, and did it  truthfully, because Lance was his mate. “I have. Sometimes hunters,  and two other times it had been a werewolf from a rival pack.”

Lance looked at him sharply. “You kill each other, too?”

“It’s not what you’re thinking.” Markus got the feeling that Lance  only continued to sit beside him because, at this point, he had no

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choice but to give Markus the benefit of the doubt. “There are a lot of  packs out there who aren’t as well adjusted as mine. We’re lucky to  have such a good leader in James. He’s the alpha with the scarred face  you met today. He keeps us all safe and doesn’t abuse his power over  the omegas. There are other leading alphas who aren’t like him,  though. Some of them are constantly fighting over land, membership,  food, anything you can think of.”

Markus couldn’t believe he was spilling all of this onto Lance, but  the other man was still just sitting there, waiting and listening with  absolute patience. “There’s been a couple of times when my pack was  attacked by wild werewolves, or even a rival pack. You have to kill to  defend yourself in those situations. If you don’t, they’ll kill you and  take your land, and the omegas.”

What those werewolves would have done with the omegas had  they been able to take them was something Markus didn’t like to  think about it. “It’s how Isaac met his mate. Tristan was an omega  who was trying to get away from the leading alpha of another pack.  They met, and Isaac realized that not all werewolves are the evil and  dangerous things he thought they were.”

Lance nodded, though his mind still seemed to be far away.  Markus just hoped that little bit of information would be enough to  make Lance believe that Isaac wasn’t the serial killer he seemed to

think he was. He also hoped that, if Isaac ever found out that he’d told  Lance this, he wouldn’t think it a betrayal of information. It wasn’t  like he’d told Lance why he’d become a hunter, after all.

“I’m going to have to give up my work, aren’t I?”

Markus reached out and took hold of Lance’s hand. “I’m sorry for  that.”

Lance squeezed his hand back for support. “Me, too.” Then he sighed. “I guess it’s the least I can do. That boy saved my life. He didn’t have to. I’ll probably never find him, but if this is the way it is, then I shouldn’t expose your secret.”

Markus forced a smile onto his face. “To be honest, and don’t be

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mad when I say this, but I’m kind of glad you haven’t found that other

guy.”

Lance turned to look at him, confusion on his face.

Markus had to explain himself through the building heat in his cheeks. “I don’t really want to share you with anyone else.”

Lance shoved him, but he was smiling when he did it.

They sat there for a time before Lance released his hand, got to his feet, and went to the computer. He turned it on. “I should delete my website and blog.”

Markus got up to stand beside him. “It’s not that I don’t trust you or anything, but…”

Lance saved him from explaining himself. “You can watch me do it. Probably better that way. I won’t chicken out.”

Markus didn’t think Lance was a chicken at all.

Still, he watched as Lance logged into his accounts and deleted his webpages, his blog, and even cancelled his domain name.

His shoulder sagged when he finished.

Markus wrapped his arms around him from behind, and he placed a gentle kiss on his neck. “Thank you.”

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Chapter Ten

Buddy noticed almost right away when the website went down.  He had it saved to his phone, along with a few other choice sites, so he could check on them periodically and see if anything was found.

He’d learned that it was a good idea to make a habit of keeping tabs on his projects like that.

The fact that his bookmark produced one of those error messages was confusing at first. When he tried again five minutes later to the same thing, he called the service provider, and the domain name provider, and was given the same answer by customer support.

The webmaster had authorized the accounts to be deleted.

Fucking hell.

There was only one thing that could mean, and so he put away his cell phone, packed his bags, and got into his truck.

Brampton was only maybe a seven-hour drive away from where he was. He could get there soon enough and find out just what it was that had Lance disappear off the face of the earth.