Free Hunter's Rise by Shiloh Walker

the display. Innocence stared back at him. Innocence broken, destroyed… killed. And their families… left without answers. Had he left behind a family like that?
     
    It was something he’d never know, and the pity he felt for both the children and their families, the rage he felt for what had been done to them, tore at him, and he felt the burn of something he hadn’t felt in too long.
     
    He could fix this.
     
    Damn it, he could fix this… get those answers for the families. He could never have them for himself, but he could get closure for them. And after that— he could maybe see to it that Pulaski suffered an unhappy, painful accident.
     
    “You don’t need to worry about my hot temper. I can do what needs to be done for those boys,” he said softly. “And if there are three, there may well be more. They deserve answers.”
     
    On silent feet, he moved to stand in front of the screen, so close that the faces on it blurred— it didn’t matter. They were burned on his mind. He lifted a hand and let it hover above the screen and then he turned, met Rafe’s gaze across the quiet room.
     
    “You don’t know what it’s like to not have answers— to live your entire life with that ache inside you.” The growl was back in his voice, but this time, it had nothing to do with temper, nothing to do with rage. Stripped raw and bare, he said gruffly, “I do.”
     

C HAPTER 6

     
    R
     
AFE wasn’t surprised when Nessa and Dominic arrived on his doorstep not long before sunset. Although he was jealous, he’d never admit it. Not in a hundred years. At least not around Agnes Milcher— no. Ralston. They’d married. She was known as Agnes Ralston— Nessa Ralston.
    There were benefits to being married to a freaky strong witch, Rafe knew. Studying Dominic’s face, he glanced out at the sinking sun. He could take some rays, but only some. Out and traveling around the daylight? Different story. “Kind of early for you to be up and crawling around, isn’t it?”
     
    Nessa patted a hand against his chest as she came inside, Dominic grinning, his teeth a brilliant white flash in his face. And although Rafe hadn’t voiced his envy, his friend already knew.
     
    “We were in the Bahamas a few weeks ago,” Dominic said. “I watched the sun come up over the ocean.”
     
    “Jackass.”
     
    Nessa chuckled. Then she stopped in the middle of the brightly lit foyer, her head tilted to the side, wisps of blond hair escaping from her braid. “He’s not here.”
     
    Dominic frowned at her. “Who?”
     
    “Toronto. He’s gone.” She turned to face Rafe, a solemn look in her blue eyes. “You didn’t set him after the mercenary, did you?”
     
    Rafe didn’t bother asking how Nessa knew about Sylvia James. This was Nessa. He’d be more surprised if she
didn’t
know. “Is that a problem?” Something in her voice made a sliver of cold run through him.
     
    Nessa sighed. Then she closed her eyes, pressing the tips of her fingers to one temple. “It would seem that wolf finally found a way to let his past catch up to him.”
     
    K
     
EEPING her attention split between watching her back and searching for her target slowed her down. Sylvia’s first spot was Pulaski’s home. Not that she expected to find him there, but she could always hope.
    It was empty, and as much as she’d hoped to find clues, or a glaring neon sign to point the way, there was nothing.
     
    Since she couldn’t find a glaring neon sign, she checked her iPhone and followed that instead. She’d done a search for areas where she’d find those with particular tastes in Memphis, and that meant another drive.
     
    She might not find him there, but maybe she could find somebody who knew him.
     
    It always started like this, these vague sorts of chases. Little bits of nothing, until she finally had something.
     
    Sylvia suspected she’d been chasing little bits of nothing for a while.
     
    Before she climbed back on her bike, she sent