Eclipsed Hearts

Breakfast Meeting

[Bailey]

After breakfast, we split up, well, kind of. Keaton was with me for the first two of the hour and a half long sessions that were hosted in some of the meeting rooms on the ground floor of the hotel. Ian was in two different ones. He was with Gino in those.

The original plan had been for him to have two with Gino, then for me to have a couple with Gino. After that, there would be some groups where neither of us would be in the same room as him and a couple where both would.

Once we took Keaton’s schedule into account, he actually was in a couple of those sessions that had neither of us. It was promising. That meant we could manipulate the werewolf into place. When we were finally off this island, we could enact Keaton’s plan. After that, the plan was for us to meet Keaton at a designated spot in Colorado and for him to take us to Storm Moon.

He had even worked up a reason for me to turn off my phone and go no contact with my family. Keaton said I could tell my leader that I was told in great detail about how my family was murdered to make him think I needed time to myself. I asked him what he knew, because he obviously knew as much as, if not more than, Ian did. I rarely liked to be left out of information, but I was sure I wasn’t ready for the truth of their deaths.

A few people eyed me during the lecture that we were watching about some buzzword filled garbage I wasn’t listening to. People really paid money for this bullѕhit. I crossed my arms and sighed.

Keaton elbowed me and scowled like a parent who caught their kid goofing off in church. I straightened up and pretended to pay attention while also monitoring the people who kept glancing at me. We’d sat at the back, against the wall, to avoid someone being able to sneak behind us.

He was as observant as I was without drawing attention to his monitoring. No one would think that we were watching every person in this room. We seemed like a perfectly normal duo of either friends or family. For the story we had, which was that I was his cousin and staying in his room because someone busted my door down, which we reported to the hotel this morning. It was perfect.

Our work meant we often had to pretend to be more familiar with people who we didn’t know. His ease at the mock relationship was impressive. It felt comfortable and organic.

At the lunch break, Ian met us in the restaurant. There was a buffet set up, and we loaded up plates. They ate a lot more than I did, getting an entire tray with two plates. As I examined the dining room, I could see quite a few tables housing similar settings.

The realization that there were so many werewolves made my pulse speed up. Almost half of the people here were werewolves. I’d never been around so many in my entire life.

“Calm down, Mari,” Keaton whispered.

“The story. They could counter the story.”

“The story was created for the humans to believe. Neither of us ever thought for even a second that the werewolves would be fooled. They could smell that you weren’t one of us. Get your food and get ready. We’re going to go make contact with the target,” Keaton replied under his breath.

I nodded and continued to add food to my plate before getting a drink and following Keaton and Ian to a table. Keaton set his tray down and then pulled out a chair for me. Everyone at the table had a tray with a couple of plates of food on them.

The wolf we were hunting was looking at Ian with a scowl, then turned his attention to me. His eyes climbed my body in a way that turned my stomach. He was definitely wanting more than to just kill me.

“Mr. Clarke, I hear you have some issues with me tapping Mr. Meier to help me out with protecting our guest,” Keaton said without waiting even a moment.

Gino opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then looked at Ian’s nametag, then at mine. He knew I was a Damson, probably knew my real last name was Walker, but Harris definitely wasn’t me. Then again, Keaton’s nametag didn’t have his real name either.

“How can we help, Alpha Black?” a woman at the table asked.

“I thought I saw you here, Melo. Davian and Faaro as well. Livy and Oliver didn’t tell me they’d have their favorite wanderers at this conference. As you all probably know by now, someone has put a hit out on this woman. She’s the daughter of a hunter couple who quit and took their children out of the lifestyle. Her father believed that werewolves and humans could live in harmony. He thought that all we needed was to find an understanding. My father was greatly dismayed when he heard that his new friend was killed,” Keaton said, looking directly at Gino.

Gino’s body seemed relaxed, but I could see a small bit of panic in his eyes. It wasn’t extremely obvious, but it was enough that I almost laughed. The monster I was afraid of for most of my life was afraid of the monster next to me.

Apparently, he told something to his friends, because they looked at him with an expression that said he was a deadman walking. How was Keaton planning to change this into giving me to Gino? I knew I wouldn’t be part of that conversation when it happened, but I was more curious now.

“Who’s your friend, Melo?” he asked.

“Gino Clarke. He’s still a rogue. We all worked with him a few times. Can’t convince him to join Storm Moon,” she replied, looking at me speculatively.

Nothing Keaton said about me implied I was a hunter, only that I had knowledge of them. But it had to be in the briefing to werewolves, because when I saw her and the men standing with Ian at the mixer last night, I saw all of them looking at me exactly how werewolves often did when they decided I was better off dead.

“Alpha, you know she’s actually a hunter, right? We should kill her now,” the African-American werewolf said. “She’s a fuсking Damson.”

He looked at me like I was trash. I didn’t back down, but I also didn’t act aggressive or overly confident. I leaned a little more toward Keaton, but didn’t look away from him.

“Davian, can you prove that she’s a hunter?”

“That’s what’s included in the packet on her. There are even pictures of her training.”

Training. That made me think of the implication that it was someone in my family. If a werewolf or someone else managed to get a picture, they had to be very skilled, because we monitored our property very well.

“Everyone who lives there is required to train, no matter their age or job. Even the spouses of hunters who will never go on a hunt,” I replied honestly. “Do you have any pictures of me on a hunt? I bet you don’t.”

For a moment, he looked angry, then thoughtful. “You’re right. Are you a hunter?”

I knew they had sensitive senses of smell. After the conversations I’d had with Ian and Keaton, I knew they could likely smell the physiological changes when a person lied. That was what he was banking on.

“Yes and no. I would hunt werewolves who did bad things. Ones who your people didn’t control. I never went on raids and I have never killed anyone who wasn’t an adult and a threat to me or someone else. I’m only planning to do this until I find out who killed my parents and sister and return the favor,” I answered, not letting my eyes wander to the man I knew was responsible.

“Seriously? You’re only a hunter for revenge?” he pressed.

“I hunt werewolves for the same reason Blood Moon hunts hunters. I would never lie about that. The fact that my clan kills children and families disgusts me, but I wasn’t left with a ton of options when some werewolf slaughtered my family when I was only a kid. Both of my parents came from hunter clans, but my father’s clan was the only one I had any contact with. It was that or the foster system and I won’t let my family’s killer just walk away,” I told him.

As I glanced around the table, I could see Gino looking at me with interest again. He knew I would fight him more if I knew what he did, and I showed I was weaker than other hunters. Weaker than him. If he was anything like some men in my clan, my dislike for the murder of those who couldn’t defend themselves would make him cоcky. Like them, he would underestimate me. And like them, he would suffer for it.