Greykin Valley

| 21 | Sixteen Hunters

Jackson felt sick. How could these people sleep at night knowing they were torturing others? Just because Caeleste were different didn't mean they deserved this. Cages and chains...silver bullets and bear traps. It was disgusting. It was atrocious. And now, Jackson was beginning to understand more and more why every Caeleste he met expressed their hatred for hunters.

The men and women laughed and joked, sitting around their fire, burning wolfsbane while they ate their meat. Jackson had no idea what they were eating; he could see a corpse on a butcher table, but he was going to spare himself the horror of working out what it was.

He looked around his cage as best as his sore, frozen body would let him. To his relief, he wasn't lying in blood or piss; the reason he felt wet was because his clothes were drenched in his own sweat, which must be a result of his wound. His bags were gone, though, which meant the amulet was out of his reach. So the hope of using that to escape was shattered.

What if he connected with Damon somehow? He knew that mated wolves could talk to one another from afar; he saw Damon doing it with Aysel—despite the fact that Damon was only claimed by her—and Tokala had also told him about it.

But how? He closed his eyes and concentrated on the fact that he and Damon were mated—they were connected. Though, all he found was emptiness. Nothing. He couldn't even feel his wolf. His ethos was silent. He felt...strange. Like everything he'd worked for since coming to Ascela had been drained out of him.

It was the silver, wasn't it? The cage was keeping him from being able to do anything that required ethos, and when he realized that, what little hope he had left withered.

What the hell was he supposed to do? He wasn't going to just lay around and wait to be rescued again. He was stronger now. But he couldn't use that new strength. Right now, he was no stronger than he was before he came out to Ascela.

The hunters started laughing again.

But then, with the sound of whipping fabric and heavy boots hitting the snow, the croup sitting around the fire quietened down and all looked over at one of the tents.

Jackson looked over there too, setting his eyes on a tall, dark-skinned man. He wore animal fur and clothes made of hide just like Riker, and a ghastly scar cut diagonally down his face from his right temple to his chin. He glared at the hunters with an irritated scowl, and everyone seemed to shiver a little.

"What the fuck are you all laughing at?" the man growled. "We lost thirty good people out there. Thirty!"

The hunters adorned shameful expressions and looked down at the ground.

"Those fucking dogs killed our friends, our family!" he exclaimed as he started pacing around them like they were a bunch of schoolchildren being scolded. "We have no reason to be celebrating!" he yelled, slamming his hand against the bars of the cage Sebastien lay in. "We don't laugh, we don't cheer, we don't drink! Not until every single one of those fucking wolves' heads is on a pike!"

One of them nodded. "Yeah, pikes!"

"We know they're out there," the man who was evidently their leader continued. "We know they'll be coming for this piece of shit—" he kicked Jackson's cage— "and when they do, we're going to make them wish they never fucked with Riker. Right?!"

Every hunter yelled, "Right!"

The man then glowered at Jackson, peering into his cage. "And you," he growled, gritting his teeth. "You're what's going to lead all those little packmates of yours right to us."

Jackson flinched when the man banged the cage with his fist. A shiver of trepidation shot through him, and as the man walked off, Jackson trembled. Damon would know this was a trap, right?