His Forbidden Human

Chapter 7: What Rennick Wants

Cole and Marcus stayed for lunch.

This was apparently not unusual. Ethan moved around the kitchen with the particular efficiency of someone who had fed people before, and Cole set the table without being asked, and Marcus stood in the doorway with his arms crossed doing what Maya was starting to recognize as his default setting, which was looking like he was thinking about four things at once.

Maya helped without asking. It felt strange to just sit there.

Ethan noticed. He didn't say anything about it, but he handed her things — the bread, the plates, a knife for the cutting board — in a way that felt like acknowledgment.

It was a small thing. She noticed it anyway.

"So," Cole said, once they were all sitting. "Maya."

"Cole," Ethan said.

"I'm just going to ask her normal questions. Establish some rapport. Is that not allowed?"

"It depends on the questions."

"What do you study?" Cole asked her.

"Environmental science."

He pointed at her. "That tracks actually. A person who walks in forests at night studying the environment. Very on brand."

"I hadn't thought of it that way."

"What year?"

"Third."

"Do you like it?"

"Most of it. I could do without the statistics component."

"Nobody likes statistics," Cole said, with the conviction of someone who felt very strongly about this. "It's a universal truth."

Marcus made a sound that might have been agreement.

Ethan ate and said nothing, but he was listening. She could tell. He listened to everything, she was realizing. Filed it all away behind those careful eyes.

"Can I ask you something?" Maya said, to the table generally.

"Yes," Cole said.

"Probably," Marcus said.

Ethan said nothing, which she was taking as a yes.

"The Hollow Pack. What do they actually want? Not the general version — what do they specifically want, from the people they take?"

The table went quiet in a different way than before.

Cole looked at Marcus. Marcus looked at Ethan. Ethan set down his fork.

"There are things," he said carefully, "that exist in our world that humans don't know about. Not just werewolves. Other things. Old things." He paused. "Some of those things require a human element to work. Old magic, old agreements. The Hollow Pack has been collecting — components."

Maya stared at him. "Components."

"I told you it was complicated."

"You told me they were taking people. You didn't tell me they were using them for—" She stopped. "For what, exactly?"

"We don't know the full picture yet," Marcus said. "What we know is that each town they've passed through, one or two people have disappeared without explanation. No bodies found. No trace." He met her eyes. "And in each town, before the disappearances, they spent time watching. Learning. Identifying specific individuals."

"Like they were looking for something particular," Maya said.

"Yes."

She was quiet for a moment. Outside, a wind had picked up, moving through the trees in long, slow waves. She watched it through the window.

"You said before that there might be something about me," she said to Ethan. "Something I don't know about."

"Yes."

"Do you have any theories?"

He was quiet for just a beat too long.

"Ethan."

"One," he said. "I need to confirm it before I tell you."

"That's not—"

"Maya." His voice was even, but there was something underneath it. Something that wasn't quite patience. "I will tell you when I know. If I tell you a theory that turns out to be wrong, it will scare you for nothing."

She wanted to argue. She looked at his face and recognized that this was not a door she was going to open today.

"Fine," she said. For approximately the fourth time in a week. She was getting very tired of that word.

Cole cleared his throat. "So. The meet."

Ethan's expression closed slightly. "I told you—"

"I know what you told me. I'm telling you that Rennick isn't going to give you a choice." Cole leaned forward. "He already knows she's here. You know that, right? He's known since the second night."

"How?"

"Because it's his territory and she's a human and you're—" Cole gestured at him. "You. He noticed."

Something passed through Ethan's expression. Quick and dark and gone.

"What does he want?" Ethan asked.

"What he always wants," Marcus said quietly. "Acknowledgment. You're in his territory, operating outside his authority, and now you've got a human wrapped up in a Hollow Pack situation. He wants to know where you stand."

"I don't stand anywhere. I'm not part of his pack."

"You're not part of any pack," Cole said. "That's exactly the problem."

The table was quiet.

Maya looked at Ethan. He was staring at the middle distance, jaw tight, something working behind his eyes that she didn't have the context to read yet.

"Would going to this meet help keep her safe?" Marcus asked him.

A long pause.

"Potentially," Ethan said.

"Then you know what you have to do."

"What does that mean for her?" Ethan asked. "If I go to Rennick. If I acknowledge his authority over the territory. What does he do about her?"

Marcus and Cole exchanged a look.

"He'll want to meet her," Cole said carefully.

"No."

"Ethan—"

"She's not a bargaining piece. She's not a show of good faith. She's not—" He stopped. Something in his voice had changed. He heard it too. He set both hands flat on the table and looked at them for a moment, then back up. More controlled. "She's not part of this world and she doesn't need to be presented to anyone."

The kitchen was very quiet.

Maya was looking at him. He wasn't looking at her.

"Okay," she said.

He looked at her then.

"I'm not saying I want to meet this Rennick person," she said. "But I'm also not a child. If going to this meeting keeps me safer, then—"

"It's not that simple."

"Then explain it to me." She held his gaze. "You keep making decisions about my safety without explaining the full picture. I understand you're trying to help. But it's my life." She paused. "Explain it to me and let me be part of the decision."

The silence stretched.

Cole was very carefully looking at the wall.

Marcus was watching Ethan with an expression Maya couldn't read.

Ethan looked at her for a long moment. Something shifted in his face — not surrender exactly, but something adjacent to it.

"Rennick collects debts," he said finally. "If you walk into his territory, into his meet, you become known to him. And things that are known to Rennick have a way of becoming useful to Rennick."

"You don't trust him."

"I haven't trusted him in a very long time."

"But you think going to the meet is necessary."

A pause. "Yes."

"Then we go," she said. "And you stay close."

Cole made a sound. She looked at him. He shook his head slightly, still not quite smiling.

"What?" she said.

"Nothing," he said. "Just — nothing."

Ethan was still looking at her. She couldn't fully read what was in his expression, but it was different from the careful blankness he usually wore.

"Two days," he said. "I need two days to prepare."

"Okay," she said.

She picked up her fork and went back to eating.

Across the table, she felt more than saw Ethan do the same.

And outside, the wind kept moving through the trees, long and slow and patient, like it had all the time in the world.