Hunter's Heart

Chapter 30

Hatred, anger, resentment, fear, pain, curiosity ... Quinn felt it all as she found herself sitting in a room that seemed to be a cross between an old armory and a small university lecture hall. The front of the room was dominated by an ornately carved oak table that seated fifteen. In front of the table were fifteen desks that could seat only two, each occupied with an Alpha General and his second seated to his right. Behind these desks was a stepped gallery of benches that rose diagonally upwards so that everyone sitting in the benches could watch the proceedings below, which was precisely where she sat now, alone. It seemed the rest of the Alphas in the room preferred to keep as far away from her as possible.

The wood paneled walls of the room were lined with shields of different colors that seemed to proudly display their crests to the center of the room and each of them had a pair of swords tucked neatly behind them. Interspersed between the shields were glass cases filled with ancient looking weaponry, from swords to knives to maces to morningstars to whips. When she'd first noticed them, the presence of the weaponry struck her as strange. Why would werewolves need to use weapons when they themselves were weapons?

This is one hell of a Meeting Hall, Quinn mused as her gaze came to rest on Christian and Liam sitting at the desk in front of her. She was acutely aware of the stares and covert glances she was receiving, but she tried her best to ignore them. Every now and then she would get a flash of someone else's memories, every one of them unpleasant and involving what one Hunter clan or another had done to his or her pack over the years. Quinn tried her best to shove those visions aside, to focus on the here and now, but it was as if she was attuned to only the pain and misery her people had caused, and her hands were shaking with the effort to stay focused.

The familiar touch of Christian's mind against hers calmed the chaos going on in her own. 'If it gets too much, I'll have Liam get you out of here.'

Though his tone was calm and business like, Quinn could tell he was worried. Before they had left their suite, Christian had once again reminded her that no matter what happened he would never stop being her Alpha, as if he was worried that whatever was said in the Meeting would have her believing otherwise. And on their way down to the Meeting Hall, Quinn had watched the relaxed warmth on his face become an unreadable mask of stone. Nothing she said could make his expression change, not even when she tripped over her own feet, making him have to catch her before her face slammed into the floor. His eyes had twinkled in amusement for a few seconds as he righted her, but that carefully blank expression had returned. Even now, as she watched him, he seemed coiled tight as if he were ready for an attack.

She would have told him that she could handle what she was sensing from everyone else, if only to give him one less thing to worry about, but at that moment, the double doors behind the long oak table opened and a group of people filed silently into the room, the first of them Quinn recognized as Mira. As the old woman stood behind the seat just to the left of the middle one, her eyes locked on hers unerringly for a moment before she let her gaze sweep over the rest of the room, her lips forming a hard line of displeasure when she saw the empty tables in front of her.

Behind Mira came a middle aged looking couple whose gaze homed in on Christian and Liam as easily as Mira's gaze had landed on her. The man was tall and greying, with grey eyes and a stern face, while the woman was a head shorter than him, slender and had a streak of white hair against her still mostly brown hair. One look at them and Quinn knew instantly they were Liam's and Melissa's sires. The two siblings were a perfect mix of the couple.

These were Christian's adoptive parents.

As she watched them take up seats just to the left of Mira's, the woman's gaze moved from her sons to rest on Quinn, going from her face to the rest of her and landing squarely on her shoulder, the one Christian had marked. Out of nowhere she was hit with a blast of cold hostility so strong it took everything in Quinn not to gasp out loud in response.