It was a long couple of moments before Eli spoke again. “I’m not sure what made James do what he did, exactly. If something happened or if he could just sense our luck was running out. He always did have a knack for staying ahead of the shit storm. Untouched.”

His eyes closed and he took a deep breath. “To make the long story short, a group of humans became aware of us, or thought they were, anyway. We had no one to turn to without admitting our own guilt. James told me he had a plan. He just needed my help, my trust, and we’d all be fine. Of course, he was lying. He’d made his own deal with the humans. His safe escape with half the fortune we’d acquired in exchange for...me. A very, very slipped me. Humans have an easier time believing the only monster in the room is the one that looks monstrous. James didn’t look like a monster, so he could convince them I was the only unnatural thing there and just...walk away. He left me trapped with people who kept me in fur on a chain like a guard dog, a yard pet.”

Eli opened his eyes but didn’t quite look at Cooper. “Even still, I thought it was all part of one of his clever plans and that he was coming back to get me any day now. I don’t remember when I finally realized no one was coming. I don’t remember a lot about that time in the usual sense. When Ollie and his uncle found me, I’d been in fur for quite a long time.”

“Jesus,” Cooper murmured, feeling ill.

“Mmm. The Park pack did what ruling packs are good for. Bought silence, pulled strings, sent lives hurtling toward certain disaster. I wasn’t really tuned in for that. Afterward, they took me in. Gave me a chance to heal, the choice to stay with them, if I wished, and a promise that they would never force me to use my slip.”

“And James?”

“In the wind. Later I found out James had betrayed the rest of the rebels as well. Everyone was dead and he’d just walked away scot-free. The humans were evil, hateful creatures, but it was James I was most angry at. He was my pack, my kin, my kind. He knew what it would do to me to be treated like—like that. He knew.” Eli’s voice cracked a bit. He pursed his lips and shook his head as if to keep the words inside. The silence lingered on, growing increasingly tense and painful. Not between the two of them, but between Eli and himself. Like a dark, malignant thing within him had heard its name called and woken from a long slumber.

“Are you okay?” Cooper asked.