Link jerked Tobias’s arm and squared up to him, eyes sparking. “If you were me and you had a shelf life because your animal was taking over. If you knew you were going to die at the claws of one of your friends. If you knew you would want to hurt people because you’re going mad, wouldn’t you try? I need this, Tobias. I need to make sure I tried everything before I just give up and give in. And I know that sounds selfish, but I didn’t just contact the witch for me. You weren’t there when Elyse was bleeding and standing over Ian’s body. Your brother’s body! I could see it in her eyes. She knew she was going to die, and still, she popped round after round into my pack to protect him. That should’ve never happened. You Silvers shouldn’t be hibernating. You want to know why I really care about your family? Elyse is good, Tobias. I mean really good to her marrow, and I’m lucky enough to get to be around someone like that. And Ian is a match for her. I’ll stay saner longer just for knowing them. I was part of the pack that hunted her. Hunted. Her. And then she took me in, gave me a place to live on her property, fed me when food got low at the end of winter, and she told me I’m good. No one has ever said that to me! I’m not just asking you to go meet with this woman because I want to live. I’m asking so we can rule out any chance of Ian staying awake this winter so Elyse doesn’t have to be alone. Because when I die, and oh, I can feel the madness coming—when I go, who will watch her while Ian sleeps?”
Tobias shook his head over and over in denial of what Link was saying because it did Link no good for Tobias to build up his hope. There wasn’t a cure. It didn’t exist, but Link was staring at him with such desperation and, dammit, Tobias owed him since he’d been a part of saving Elyse and Ian last winter. Link had talked about how good Elyse was, but Link had kept her safe, patrolling her property all winter to make sure the remaining McCalls didn’t come back for her and her mate’s hibernating body. Elyse was right. Link was good, or as good as a half-crazed werewolf could be.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “What’s this lady’s name?”
“Vera Masterson.”
At the sound of her name, a strange, warm feeling unfurled in Tobias’s chest and made it hard to draw a breath. “Doesn’t sound like a witch name to me.”
“So you’ll do it?”
Tobias let off a long, irritated sigh. “On three conditions.”
“Name them.”
“I go alone. Whatever trap I’m walking into, I don’t want you involved. I’ll call you when it’s done.”
“And the other two?”
Tobias leveled him with a hard look. “You don’t tell anyone about this, and you don’t get your hopes up.”
“Why not?”
Tobias turned and strode toward the edge of town, adjusting the package in his grasp as he went. Over his shoulder, he called, “Because there is no cure.”
Chapter Two
It took Tobias way too damned long to get to Perl Island on account of having to refuel halfway there, and by the time he spotted the landing strip he’d used a couple years ago, the weather had turned.
Perl Island was all mountains, as if she were pointing daggers at the sky, daring any bush pilot to try her. Tobias had been flying a long time, though, and he knew exactly what his plane could and couldn’t do.
The churning storm clouds that hovered right above the island didn’t surprise Tobias at all. For some reason, this place got hit with the worst of Alaska’s weather. While it was a pain in the ass for him when his plane hit some serious, stomach-dipping turbulence, the storms and tsunami threats kept people off the island, and for the most part, the misfits were left alone. Which was probably the real reason he hadn’t been sent out on a kill mission to this place yet. Clayton, the head of the Shifter Enforcement Agency Tobias begrudgingly worked for, didn’t care as much about shifters warring with each other. Not unless they were drawing attention to themselves. Clayton cared if shifters were hurting humans, and since there were zero-point-zero humans crazy enough to make a home on this island, the misfits could likely do whatever they wanted without reprimand. Yeah. That sounded much better than the island was controlled by a witch.
The farther he flew away from Link, the more sure he was that Vera Masterson was just some backwoods shifter mixing herbs in the dirt, smoking copious amounts of weed, and chanting to herself because she was just as crazy as the other misfits. A shifter didn’t get exiled out here for no reason. Hell, if Clayton thought he stood any chance of keeping the crazy McCalls in one place, he’d probably cage them all here and sleep better for it.
Tobias dipped the nose of his plane slightly, lowering under the turbulence as he took a wide turn to square up to the rough landing strip. The edges were overgrown, but the center was covered with short grass, as if there had been other deliveries out this way that had kept the wild foliage from growing too high. Which made sense. He couldn’t be the only delivery here. The island wasn’t huge, and to support the twenty or so shifters, it would have to produce a lot of game, especially in the winter months.
Someone was feeding these people.
The landing was rough, but better than he’d expected. The first time he’d landed here, the runway was dotted with brambles, and he had plowed through a trio of young, knee-high alders which had almost dumped him on his butt and given him his first crash landing. But when he scanned the leftover runway out of the front window of his plane, sure enough, those alders had been trimmed with what looked like smooth machete slices. Thanks to whoever is keeping this runway viable. They’d just saved him damage to his new Cessna 185.