Blood Bond by Kit Tunstall Page B

you among
those who would care, sister?”
    She frowned. “Of course. You are my
brother.”
    He felt a lump forming in his throat and
tried to ignore it. “Do you still consider me so?”
    Her eyes softened, and she brushed back his
hair with a motherly gesture. “There is no way to undo the last six years,
Sorin. I followed Mother’s lead when she ostracized you. The Pack made no
attempt to intercede, and when you went to the vampires, you were considered
dead to many.” Her voice broke. “I shouldn’t have been one. If I had been older
and wiser—“
    “It doesn’t matter.” It truly didn’t. A
void inside him had already begun to fill with her words, and he realized his
anger had never been with her for not acknowledging him as her brother or
defying their mother. His anger was more general, aimed at all members of the
Pack who had allowed his mother’s lover to beat him, and then hadn’t said a
word when his mother left him naked and bleeding, with the word Abomination carved on his chest. None had come to his assistance, causing the anger to
increase.
    Six years had turned the rage to a dull,
bitter emotion he carried around without thought. He could feel it fading away
as he met the teary eyes of his sister. His own eyes blurred, and he closed
them, pretending he was close to sleep in an attempt to hide his sudden
vulnerability. The process of forgiveness might have begun, but he wasn’t ready
to announce it to anyone else, even the sister who seemed to want to know him.
     
    * * * * *
    Lucian’s wolf eyes scanned the forest in
front of him when he lifted his head from sniffing a footprint. The man—and he
knew it was a man from the smell he left—was probably a skilled hunter. It had
taken Lucian almost an hour to find any trace of him, but a mile back, his prey
had grown careless and left a footprint. Now, a mile later, there was a partial
imprint of the heel of his boot. The man’s scent lingered heavier in the air,
letting Lucian know he was close.
    He increased his pace, allowing his nose
and instincts to guide him. He sent his mental powers out ahead of him,
searching for the presence of another. During the hunt, he had occasionally
sensed the essence of other wolves and assumed they must have joined the hunt.
His focus remained on the man who had tried to kill Sorin, and he filtered out
the odor of any other werewolf in the vicinity.
    He jerked when his mental tentacles
collided with a human presence. He was pleased to note the underlying scent of
fear in the man’s stink when he breathed in deeply. He could sense the other’s
flagging energy and once more increased his pace, knowing his prey would tire
much sooner than he would.
    His extra burst of speed brought him to the
top of a hill, where there was a partial clearing, ringed by fallen logs. A
form crouched low near an overturned tree. Lucian saw the glint of silver as
the man shot his crossbow. Instinct made him twist away, and the arrow whistled
by him with several inches to spare. He didn’t allow the hunter to make another
shot as he jumped from an awkward angle.
    Lucian righted his gait in mid-leap and
landed on the back of the hunter, knocking the man to the ground and pinning
him there. He transformed into human-form and resisted the urge to tear out the
man’s throat without getting answers to the questions he should ask. “Who are
you?” There was still a heavy growl in his tone, making the question
animalistic in sound. The man seemed disinclined to answer, so Lucian cupped
his throat and tightened his grip. “Answer me.”
    “A-abel Schneider,” the man managed to push
out breathlessly, with a thick German accent. He had little volume, because Lucian
hadn’t eased his grip.
    “What are you doing in our forest, human?”
Schneider’s blue eyes looked close to popping onto his cheeks. The stench of
urine filled the air, and Lucian growled with disgust. He did loosen his grip
slightly, in case the man’s wide eyes were