Free Wild Hunt by Bilinda Sheehan Page A

You hurt him … hurt all of them,” I said.
    Jason shook his head and a bitter smile slid across his face. “You don’t know my brother as well as I do. He won’t forgive me, especially now that he knows how I feel—” Jason cut off and sucked in a deep breath. “My father knew where I was, he knew the truth. It was all a pretence and one I’d prefer Nic continue to believe.”
    “Wait, your father knew?” I asked, pushing aside the nervous butterflies that danced in my stomach over what he’d almost said. Nic couldn’t be right; I wouldn’t let him be.
    “Yeah, we come from a long line of Saga Venatione. Nic was supposed to join too, but…” Jason said with a shrug. “Your car is here.”
    “Why didn’t Nic join?” I asked, my stomach slowly beginning to sink.
    “I really don’t know. I guess he just wasn’t in the right place at the right time for it to happen. Although from where I’m standing, I’d much rather be in his shoes and not have what I am fighting against me at every turn.”
    “I better go,” I said, turning for the door and swallowing down the bitter bile that crept up the back of my throat.
    Nic was supposed to be a Saga Venatione. I’d certainly suspected it; the thought had occurred to me more than once and Graham had mentioned something in passing about Nic’s father, but I hadn’t paid enough attention to it.
    What would happen if he did become what Jason was? Would he still love me? Or—and this was the thought that bothered me most—did Nic like me only because of his potential as a Saga Venatione? What if everything was nothing more than an elaborate spell set in motion millennia before?
    I practically raced out to the car and hopped into the back seat before Jason could say or ask me anything else. What I needed now was time to think and I wasn’t going to get it here.

Chapter 12
    A s soon as we were out of range of the prison, my phone buzzed to life, the messages pouring in until my inbox was practically full. From the looks of it, they all seemed to be from Graham.
    Reading one of the messages, my stomach clenched. There was another crime scene and Graham’s suggestion for me to bring sensible shoes didn’t fill me with joy.
    “Can you drop me at National Park instead of the address you picked me up from?” I asked the driver, catching his eye in the mirror. He nodded but didn’t speak as the car swung off the road and started back toward King City from a slightly altered direction.

    * * *
    T he drive back did nothing for my crazy thoughts and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake the worry that Nic was only interested in me because of what he’d read about in one of his books. But how could I confront him about it—what if he didn’t know that he had been destined to be a Saga Venation just like his brother?
    The more I thought about it all, the crazier it sounded, and as the car pulled into the parking lot of the National Park, I pushed it aside in favour of focussing on the scene laid out before me.
    Thanking the driver, I climbed from the car and was instantly greeted with a wave of reporters. Their shouts and demands to know what exactly was causing such slaughter in King City did nothing for the migraine that was beginning to creep into my head.
    Crossing the gravel parking lot as quickly as I could, I ducked beneath the crime scene tape and out of the reach of the reporters. The only good thing was that at least the crime scene was hidden from view by a thick wall of fir trees. I followed one of the tech crews up through a practically invisible path in the centre of them.
    The reason for Graham’s suggestion that I bring sensible shoes became all too apparent the moment I felt the ground slope up ahead of me. Glancing up the side of the hill, I searched for any signs of the crime scene I was about to stumble into, but there was nothing but trees to see.
    I could hear the low babble of voices but the forest was so dense it made the climb