Free Kidnapped by the Werewolf Hunter [DeWitt's Pack 13] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) by Marcy Jacks Page A

said.
    Everett frowned. “Yeah, I did. I guess I kept on thinking that they might be a little crazy, but I also thought it was for the right reasons. I thought werewolves were more dangerous.”
    Cole tried to remember back to their earlier conversations that they’d had in the last couple of days. “You said, or I think you did, I was a little angry at the time to be paying too much attention.”
    Everett snorted a laugh.
    “You said that you weren’t involved in any werewolf killings?” He wanted to tread lightly here. He needed this confirmation. He needed Everett to tell him once and for all that he hadn’t killed anyone.
    If it had been in self-defense, like how Cole suspected, and what had happened with that hunter, then Cole could easily forgive him. Even if that was the case, however, he wasn’t too sure about the forgiveness that his pack would offer to him.
    There was a former hunter in his pack, and while most of the pack members didn’t have any sort of problem with Isaac, the newer members tended to steer clear of the man, and more than once, James DeWitt, their pack leader, had been forced to wrestle an angry alpha or disrespectful omega onto their backs to put them back in line.
    “No, I told you that. But there were things I did do,” Everett said.
    Cole’s heart thumped loudly. The fire was dying in front of them due to lack of attention, but all his focus was on Everett. “Like what?”
    Everett’s eyes sank shut, as though he were attempting to hide from the memory. “I was a hunter, Cole. I helped them track down werewolves. I set up traps, I prepared the tables they used to torture them, and there were times when I woke up in the morning and walked across the camp to see a wolf skin stretched out and drying on a rack.”
    Cole shivered. Suddenly, the whole not actively killing anyone didn’t look so much better.
    “Were they wild werewolves?”
    “Does it matter?” Everett asked.
    “Actually, it does. Wild werewolves can be as dangerous as the hunters paint us to be. They’re the reason why hunters even exist. A wild werewolf will attack someone’s farm and rip everyone to pieces in a blind rage, and the farmer who survived will blame all werewolves for that. They’ll go out killing normal werewolves for revenge, thinking they’re all the same when they’re not.”
    He gave Everett a minute to let that sink in. He did seem to be thinking very deeply about it.
    “Did you notice if any of the shifters you captured, while they were in human form, did any of them appear normal to you?”
    Everett shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. You said that you were forcibly changed by a werewolf. I doubt that left you exactly normal in the beginning either.”
    Cole had to give him that. He had nearly gone wild and was at least half-crazed by the time he and the others finally managed to track down James DeWitt and his pack of werewolves.
    “See? What does it matter if the shifters we killed were wild when they could’ve had the chance to recover?”
    “Some don’t want to recover. That’s part of the thing about being wild. Some shifters genuinely do go on a power trip, and they hurt people because they like it. I’m not saying that all the shifters you captured would’ve deserved to die, but if they were wild, then at least it wouldn’t’ve been like you had someone screaming at you that they didn’t do anything wrong. If the wolves you killed were wild, then the chances are you saved more lives than you helped to take.”
    Everett still looked unconvinced. Maybe that was a testament to his character, that he wouldn’t so easily release himself from any blame.
    “You’re not going to forgive yourself, are you?” Cole asked.
    “I think that would be the least amount of punishment I could get for the things I’ve done.”
    There was more that Cole wanted to ask, but he became silent. This one conversation alone was depressing enough, and the fire had burned down to smoking