#heyatn

When he wasn’t sleeping, the humans held meals with him. Unperturbed by his stubborn silence, they would chatter on just as much as they had back when he’d taken refuge under their floorboards, the thread of conversation frequently derailed by quips and rambling anecdotes.

He thought he had figured it out after that first night, between the food he’d assumed was drugged and the sting of the silverware in his grip— not pure silver, but close enough to burn.

But he’d only felt more and more clear-headed as time passed, and the moment one of them had noticed his fingers spasming around a fork, they’d all kicked up a fuss and instantly swapped the silver utensils out for carefully carved wooden ones.

As though that wasn’t enough, Logan continued to check on his wounds with precise regularity, and despite the fear that rose in Virgil whenever the scent of medical supplies filled the air, the human never took so much as a hair from his head.

His care seemed designed to be as painless as possible, from the way he carefully instructed Virgil through each step of administering treatment to the damp, oven-warm cloth he would press against bandages to keep scabs from tearing free when the padding was changed.

It was bizarre, and Virgil didn’t know how to handle it.

He could see why they would want to keep his wounds clean and uninfected. It made sense; they wanted him all healed up by the full moon, not sickly and delirious in the grips of a fever.

That didn’t explain the rest of it. The meals, the sleep, the way they listened.

The way restraints still hadn’t appeared, even as he slowly but surely regained his strength.

They might have called his bluff, somehow realized that he was too weak (too attached) to turn his teeth against them, but any hunter worth their blade knew better than to rely on such an uncertain assumption.

Especially not when he could potentially do so much damage, placed in the soft, unguarded center of their home.

There was nothing to gain. His body would serve its purpose to them whether it had spent the last few weeks on a silk cushion or a stone cell floor. Why would they risk it?

Once he’d successfully spent most of the day awake, and even shuffled through the house without tearing any stitches, they seemed to deem him well enough to hold a coherent conversation.

(He’d actually been trying to count all the potential exits, maybe even see what sort of lodestone Logan was using for the ward. When Patton had caught him slinking around, he hadn’t seemed suspicious or angry at all, only overwhelmingly enthusiastic about his health improving.

He also hadn’t seemed at all wary about stumbling upon the unrestrained captive that had taken him hostage the last time they were alone, because of course he hadn’t. How had these idiots even survived this long?)

“Did you like the meatloaf?” Patton asked him, over halfway through his own meal. The three of them tended to occasionally neglect their dishes in favor of rambling conversation or spirited arguments, so Virgil was almost always done well before them.

They also tended to not ask him such direct questions, and Virgil blinked in silent surprise for a moment, waiting for him to realize his mistake.

Instead, Patton let the silence stretch, unperturbed, for long enough that Virgil finally gave a half-hearted shrug.

“His plate speaks for itself, does it not?” Roman jumped in eagerly, tilting his head towards the empty space where the meatloaf had– very briefly– sat.

Virgil resisted the urge to snort, shifting in mild discomfort at becoming the topic of conversation. They could have put basically anything edible on his plate and gotten the same result. He knew better than to turn down food.

“Dishware can’t speak,” Logan informed him blandly. “Or consume and judge the quality of food, for that matter.”

Virgil felt a flare of amusement at the look on Roman’s face, and the words slipped out without thought. “He’s got you there.”

Three pairs of eyes flicked over at the barely-audible statement, and he only barely resisted the urge to shrink back. Surprisingly, none of them seemed mad, although Roman was visibly torn between surprised delight and dismay.

“Well, I thought it was just loaf-ly,” said Patton, because he was the funniest one there. Virgil’s lips twitched as Roman settled fully into dismay with a groan.

“Must you mock me?” Logan asked with a longsuffering air.

“Your recipe was delicious!” Patton continued. “I’d love to meat the ones who made it!”

Roman groaned louder.

“You’ve already met my family?” Logan replied, confused. “My mother– ah. You were engaging in more juvenile wordplay. More the fool I.”

“I pan do this all day!” Patton paused, and then shrugged. “That one would have worked better if it was still in the baking pan.”

Roman cleared his throat.

“Wow, Specs, I didn’t know this was your family’s recipe,” he said, his words just a little too over-exaggerated. “Are they going to come to visit any time soon?”

Virgil kept his gaze on his cleared plate, trying to force down the sickening lurch in his stomach. More humans. Just what he needed.

Logan hummed. “At this point in the season, I imagine they’re very busy with the farm. If they do decide to visit, they will let me know well in advance. And yours?”

“It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a letter.” Roman’s expression soured. “Not that it matters. If he decides to visit, he’ll let me know about five seconds before he kicks the door in. Probably by screaming at the top of his lungs.”

Despite all the irritation in his expression, there was worry hidden there, too. Virgil was also feeling worried, admittedly for entirely different reasons.

(For some people, hunting was the sort of thing that ran in the family.)

“At least his visits are always… exciting!” Patton tried, sounding a little uncertain himself. “What about you, Mister Wolf?”

The words registered a beat late, and Virgil’s head jerked up enough to see that they were all looking at him, again. “What?”

“I know you’ll only be here for a little bit, but I know I always worry when my loved ones are injured, especially if I can’t be by their side,” Patton elaborated. “Should we be on the lookout for any potential visitors?”

Understanding hit Virgil like a fever, his blood running cold for a moment before spiking into an unbearable furious heat.

So that was why. He should have known.

“You won’t find anyone out there,” he forced through grit teeth. A low growl had started vibrating in his chest, and he relished in the way the three of them went taut at the noise. “There’s no one to find. If there was, I would never give them up. No matter what.”

Maybe he should have lied, pretended that there was a reason for them to keep treating him with this targeted kindness. Lead them on with stories about a pack that didn’t actually exist, make them believe he was nothing more than a naive idiot, act as though he didn’t have a single clue as to what they were trying to do. It would probably have made escaping easier.

It didn’t matter. Anger had overtaken fear, sharp and fire-bright, and now all he wanted to do was burn. They could do whatever they wanted to him, use the stick now that the carrot had so miserably failed, and it still wouldn’t ever be enough to make him give up a pack. Not to a fate as cruel as this.

Movement caught his eye, and his head snapped up with teeth bared, a snarl at the tip of his tongue as he braced for an attack–

The humans had retreated.

“We’ll leave you be,” Logan said, and Virgil realized that at some point, he’d corralled the other two out of the room and into the hall; he could see Patton’s arm around Roman’s shoulder, the two of them casting worried looks back as they shuffled away. “We didn’t mean any offense. Please call on me if you need anything.”

When Virgil only stared, his growl still rumbling from deep within him, Logan nodded once and slid the divider door into place, his footsteps retreating shortly after.

The dishes had been left where they were. Virgil’s plate was shattered, the ceramic pieces laying heavy on his lap. It was quiet.

They’d left him alone. By now, they had to know baiting him wouldn’t work. And still, they’d given him space, backed off instead of pushing on with other, more painful tactics. It didn’t make any sense.

Unless they had some other way of getting what they wanted.

Virgil curled in on himself, his growl cutting off as panic doused him. Logan knew enough about spellcraft to make potions, to set wards, to locate leylines. If they knew something Virgil didn’t, if they knew enough about magic to twist it to their own ends, and if they knew a way to find other wolves through him without his participation– if they knew about packbonds, and had a way to reveal his…

So what? He didn’t have a pack, not anymore. He didn’t have a pack. He didn’t, except.

Did any packbond count? Even ones that had only existed for a day?

The thought sent icy nausea through him, and he gripped a shard of the ceramic hard enough to break skin, his breath coming too-quick and catching in his throat.

No, no, no. He couldn’t panic. He couldn’t afford to pass out, not when he didn’t know what they might do to him while he was under. Who they might find.

Unfortunately, knowing he had to stop panicking and actually calming down were two entirely different things.

Black spots dotted his vision, and he passed out between one frantic inhale and the next.

—

He woke to something touching his shoulder, and ingrained reflexes had him snapping a hand out, lips curling up to bare teeth.

“Oh!” a voice exclaimed quietly, and Virgil froze.

It took a few blinks to make out Patton’s form in the dark. He had the human by the wrist, his claws pricking at skin, but he seemed more sheepish than anything.

There was a blanket slipping off his shoulder, one that hadn’t been there before.

The sight of it sent a miserable curl of guilt through him, one that was quickly dampened by the memory of what had happened before he’d passed out.

His hand sprang open as he scanned the room for the other two, desperately straining his senses for any trace of magecraft that had been performed on his person, only to come up empty on both counts.

It was only Patton, standing there in the dark with his hands clasped tightly.

There was a beat of silence, in which all he could think about was that one ephemeral, damning packbond, and everything he’d do to keep it undiscovered.

If he could just convince them to settle for one. For him. He could behave, he would swear it, he would beg–

“I’m sorry,” Patton said, which was so surprising that it practically stole the voice from his throat. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, asking that sort of thing at dinner.”

‘Didn’t mean to hurt’ him? How stupid did he think Virgil was? Or worse, how cruel?

“How would you feel,” he forced out, “if I’d asked you that. And it was your pack.”

The words were hardly more than a rough whisper, but Patton reeled back as though struck.

“I know,” he replied after a moment, his voice thicker now. “I know. We weren’t– It wasn’t meant to bring back painful memories. I swear. We only wanted to know if there was anyone missing you, and we didn’t think about how you would feel if… if there wasn’t. We– I, of all people, should have known better.”

Virgil’s brow furrowed as he listened, a small spark of hope flaring to life in him. It sounded like… like Patton had taken him at his word.

Was it possible that he had a chance, after all?

“Yeah, well. I should have known you’d ask,” he said, trying to keep his voice under control. “Still, it doesn’t change my answer.”

Patton inhaled, his words coming out slightly wobbly. “You really don’t have anyone? It’s… It’s just you?”

Virgil swallowed, aware that he was walking into the trap of his own volition. Once there was nothing else to drag from him, there was no reason for them to keep treating him like this.

“Yeah. It’s just me.”

Patton exhaled, slow and shaky, and reached out for Virgil’s hands. His face was hardly visible in the low light, but he was moving slow enough for there to be a question in the motion. Trying to see if he would cooperate?

Restraints right away, then.

Well. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t fight if it would keep them from tracking down the only good thing left in his past.

He held his hands out and braced himself for the burn of silver.

Instead, he felt two warm points of pressure against his palms. Patton was holding his hands firmly but harmlessly, in a grip that Virgil could break away from with a twitch. He was rubbing small circles on the side of Virgil’s hands with his little dull-edged thumbs.

It was a soothing gesture. A gentle one.

Virgil stared dumbly down at the shapeless mass their hands formed in the dark.

“Why?” he asked, unable as always to keep himself from looking the gift horse in the mouth. “Why are you treating me like this? You have to know this isn’t necessary.”

Patton withdrew slightly, seeming almost startled.

“I’m not doing it because it’s necessary, kiddo. I’m doing it because I want to. Because it seems like maybe you need it.”

“You don’t even know me,” Virgil replied, his hands twitching the slightest amount. They were beginning to tingle with that strange warm sensation that he’d felt when Logan had carried him.

“I know that you protected my partners,” Patton replied steadily. “I know that you probably saved my life, and got hurt something awful in the process. Is it so strange that I’d want to comfort you?”

Virgil paused.

That’s right. He’d saved them.

It wasn’t that he’d forgotten, it was just that he hadn’t expected it to matter. The moment they’d realized what he was, his fate had been sealed. To humans, shifters were dangerous and valuable, and so they couldn’t be allowed to live.

Even his humans knew it. Why else would he be here, locked behind wards to wait for the full moon?

It was a necessity, but that didn’t change who they were. He’d spent all this time bracing for a blow, waiting for the cruelty and malice that he’d experienced at the hands of humans before. Yet it hadn’t come.

Maybe it wasn’t coming at all.

“You want me… to be comfortable,” he tried, the words strange on his tongue.

“Of course!” Patton replied. “It’s the least we can do to repay you.”

Virgil nodded slowly, finally grasping the shape of the puzzle that had been placed before him.

Back when he was a pup, his pack had run across a solitary wolf, badly wounded. There was nothing they could do to save her, but the pack stopped anyway. They’d curled up around her, shared what meat they had from the morning’s hunt, and invited her to sing when dusk fell. For the handful of hours she’d had left, she’d been one of theirs.

His humans had their own sense of honor. They couldn’t afford to let him live, but it was thanks to him that their small pack hadn’t been torn to shreds. This gentleness, the way they held meals with him and offered him conversation and tended his wounds, it was their way of showing gratitude.

He could trust it would stay.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

-----

That first full moon, he'd been surrounded by his humans. Dealing with the apparently-greater-than-he-could-have-thought misconceptions aside, it had been nice. 

Mostly. 

He hadn't paid much attention to it, of course, not with the I'm-a-bigger-idiot-than-even-I-knew revelation. But there had been something missing. Something off. Something that could have been better.

Over the next several months, and subsequent full moons, things changed. (He could practically hear Patton's 'You mean aside from your Shifting?' joke, and resolved not to bring up that particular turn of phrase out loud, (at least not around Logan, for his sake.))

He certainly shifted around the full moon, but it wasn't exactly a rare moment that he was found in his wolf form the other three weeks of the month. He didn't necessarily sleep while shifted, but when he did, one or more of his humans would join, cuddled around him, arm over his furry pelt like he was nothing more than a slightly oversized dog. 

But that was the rest of the time. Around the full moon was another story entirely. He hadn't realized it fully back when he was by himself in the forest, day in and day out, but his personality was naturally a little…different around the time of the moon. 

He'd always had a natural inclination to monitor the perimeter of his forest, watching over it. He'd always prevented it from magical damage, unnatural threats, dangerous intruders, save three humans that could have so, so easily been threats. That had been true no matter what point in the month it was, so he'd never noticed an increase in feelings when the moon was waxing. 

Now, however, he'd noticed that he'd become a little more territorial. Or, maybe a little more than a little more territorial. He'd been embarrassed when Logan had idly asked him about it one day, in between moons, but he secretly felt that he couldn't help himself. Especially after all they'd been through, back when he'd had those unbelievable beliefs. 

So it was now common that in the days leading up to the full moon, he'd give an extra lap or two around the forest, mine, no one touches, mine, nobody hurts it, nobody hurts them, mine, nothing comes between me and what's mine, mine, mine. His humans, meanwhile, would pile up in the big bed, able to fit all four of them with room to spare, and they would not cuddle up around Virgil. 

Instead, they arranged themselves all pressed together, and allowed Virgil's big, fuzzy body to lie across all three of them as he snuggled into them. 

It was thus that Virgil found himself in bed on his back, a mockery of that first time he'd exposed his weak point to them, with Patton finally giving him belly rubs. He had to admit, they were really quite nice. Patton was the only one of his humans that was ready for bed right now, but he was able to push down the urge to worry about the others, mostly because he could see them from his current position. He watched as they brushed their teeth (taking turns at the sink in the bathroom visible from the bedroom) and putting on their pajamas with the door closed.  

Virgil at least had enough sense that he didn't listen to the part of him that said he had to watch them get dressed. Privacy was privacy. But even if they had been willing to have him in the room with them…well, that was a layered issue, anyway, and he'd get to dealing with that hopefully never. 

For now, he enjoyed the belly rubs that Patton was so enthusiastically giving. The second that Logan came nearer to the bed, Virgil turned and jumped off, prompting a small yelp of surprise from Patton. He'd feel worse about that later, but he was too intent on circling around Logan, sniffing him to make sure everything was alright. If something had happened to him in the short time he hadn't been paying as much attention, he couldn't allow it, nobody could touch…

But he was fine. Virgil allowed himself to relax that much more, but not fully, until Roman was back, too. He listened to Patton and Logan chatting idly, determining what their sleeping arrangements were, as Logan took off his glasses and other accessories. It wasn't long before Roman entered, and Virgil enthusiastically gave him the same once-over (okay, maybe thrice-over) until he was satisfied. 

Roman chuckled and scratched behind Virgil's ears. He ended in a light tap on his nose, muttering a quiet boop! Patton pulled down the covers beside him invitingly, and Roman bowed, once to Virgil to excuse himself, and once to Patton. Logan and Virgil shared an eyeroll, but he followed after him as he headed for the bed anyway. 

Roman climbed on, settling next to Patton, and Logan followed suit. Virgil finally jumped on top of them, delicately, if he bruised them or scratched them or made them bleed or- and lay down with his head on Logan's chest. They exchanged goodnights, Virgil doing the best that he could in this form, and they gradually fell asleep. 

At some point during the night, Virgil woke to the sensation of someone trying to get out from underneath him. Well that was just unacceptable. He growled lowly, opened his eyes, and turned his head to see Patton trying to wriggle his way from under his haunches. He growled again, and Patton frowned, not stopping his movements. 

"I'm sorry, Virge," he whispered, trying not to wake the others, "but I have to pee." Virgil just growled at him again. That meant that he had to get up. Not allowed. Virgil had to be on top of him to protect him, and Patton had to be in the bed to be protected. "Viiiirgiiiiiiiiil," he whined. "I've gotta go, come on!" Virgil shook his head back and forth once. Didn't he know in the calm of the night was a dangerous time to be up and around alone? 

Patton sighed. "Okay, how about you walk me to the bathroom, so you can watch over me?" How did he know that was what the problem was? Logan must have discussed his theories with them. And knowing Logan, his theories were probably dead on. He should be mortified. Instead, he was glad of the offer, even as he grumbled in apparent reluctance. 

He gently rose onto his legs, careful not to shift the mattress too much, and lightly jumped off of the bed. Patton made a relieved noise as he joined Virgil on the floor, immediately heading towards the bathroom. They were halfway through the door, Virgil, alert, at his side, when they heard Roman shift, and speak. They looked back at the bed. 

"Mmmm…….. cold." And that was all the warning that he gave before hefting Logan up and over onto his body like a living blanket. Logan yelped loudly, waking up immediately and struggled for a moment, until he was able to gauge what had happened. Roman, somehow still half-asleep, eyes closed, shushed Logan, patting him on the face. He huffed and accepted his fate, relaxing slightly, before giving Virgil and Patton a defeated look. Patton was shaking with silent laughter, leaning against Virgil slightly for support. 

Virgil gave Logan a wolf-y grin, nudging Patton until he was upright, and came behind him to guide him the rest of the way to the bathroom. He waited outside the door, Patton's snickering eventually tapering off as he did what he needed to.  Virgil kept an eye and both ears out, listening for anything off, either in or outside the house. Soon, he heard Patton call out that he was almost done, along with a flush and the sound of him washing his hands, before coming back out to Virgil. He gave him a few scratches around his ears before returning to the bedroom with him. 

They had to pause at the doorway again, to allow Patton to be overwhelmed by cute. Logan seemed to have fallen asleep as he was, on top of Roman. As they composed themselves and walked closer, Logan's eyes fluttered open. 

"Help," he implored, not looking all that urgent. Patton hid another snicker before getting back in bed, gently tapping Roman on his shoulder. 

"Ro," he attempted to peel off one of his arms wrapped around Logan. "Come on, Virgil's back, you can let go now." He gave another tug, which seemed to wake him enough to relax his grip, and Logan was able to escape back to his spot with a heavy sigh. Roman started frowning again, hand reaching over towards Patton, so Virgil took that moment to jump onto the bed, back to his position by Logan, and returned to his protective sleep pose.

Immediately he felt Roman relax, which prompted him to relax also, safety assured once more. There was minimal movement as he waited for them to all fall asleep again, not content until they did, not able to quell his instincts until he was assured they were safe enough to stop watching over them. 

Maybe at some point, they'd have to have a talk about it, or he'd be ashamed of it. Right now, though, as he felt Patton's arm swing over him, Roman clutching at his fur like a lifeline, and Logan cuddled up with his front paw between his arms, he didn't think they had much of a problem with it. In fact, he realized as he heard their breathing even out, it almost seemed as though they needed to watch out for him, as much as he needed to watch out for them. 

He was asleep within the minute.

---

Hey, I've got a discord based around my cursed fic, come join!

He stayed on the couch. Though Roman had offered to build him a bed of his own, Virgil still felt somewhat unsure of his place in the pack, and he declined. What he told them was that it brought him peace of mind to know that nothing could come through their door while they slept without him knowing. It was true, just not the whole truth. And by the time that he was sure enough that he had indeed become part of his humans’ pack, Virgil was used to sleeping on the couch.

On his second full moon with them, Virgil allowed himself to shift when he first felt the urge, and was spared the pain of holding it back. Patton insisted on sleeping beside him again each wolfy night, and the others joined them on the night of the full moon proper. It was good, Virgil thought, closing his eyes and feeling his humans’ hands resting on his fur, to be part of a pack.

When the moon was half full and Virgil felt equally comfortable in either skin, Roman asked him if he’d like to accompany him on a hunt, eagerly explaining that he’d seen wild turkey in Virgil’s woods.

They left before sunrise, slipping quietly out of the house while the others were still asleep.

This was different than all the times Virgil had accompanied Roman on hunts before. Then, he had stayed out of the human’s sight, following him protectively, and secretly, at a distance. Now, Roman knew he was there, and while Virgil still kept an alert eye out for any threats to his human, he did so from beside him, and in human form.

It wasn’t long before they spotted a flock of turkey. They were eating small green things that had begun to grow up through the thin layer of snow still remaining, and they didn’t seem to have noticed the hunters yet. Still at a distance, so as not to spook the birds, Roman strung his bow. Virgil shifted into wolf form, dropping to all fours and wincing at the somewhat uncomfortable sensation of skin, muscle, and bones rearranging themselves. When he had caught his breath again, Virgil looked over at Roman. The human nodded, putting an arrow to the string and raising his bow. Virgil crouched, eyes on the birds again.

Roman’s first shot struck true, and the rest of the turkeys scattered in a panic. While Roman nocked another arrow, Virgil leapt forward, chasing after a startled bird. He made sure to keep to the right, while Roman fired arrows to the left, so as to not risk accidentally getting hit.

When the snow and feathers settled, they had the larger half of a baker’s dozen birds. Three had Roman’s arrows sticking out of them, and the other four’s throats had been ripped out by Virgil’s teeth or claws. If he had been hunting alone, as he was used to, Virgil would have ripped into the fallen prey right then, but he knew that wasn’t how Roman did it.

“Good work,” Roman congratulated proudly, lowering his bow. He crossed to where Virgil stood licking blood off his muzzle and patted his shoulder. “We should do this again sometime.” Virgil grinned a wolfy grin at him, and Roman added, unstringing his bow, “Would you mind gathering them together?” 

As Virgil dragged the carcasses into a pile, Roman took a waxed cloth from his pack and spread it on an unbloodied portion of ground. Then he began to systematically field dress the first turkey, plucking it, draining it of blood, and removing its entrails. At that point, Roman hesitated. “Do you want these?” he asked, holding up a handful of innards.

Virgil nodded. He liked the taste of heart and liver.

Roman tossed him the entrails, and Virgil pounced on the bloody meat, devouring it with a few snaps of his jaw. Roman put the field-dressed turkey on the wax cloth and they repeated this for the remaining six turkeys. By the time Roman had finished, it was early afternoon. The human used a handful of snow to clean the blood off his knife and his hands, whereas Virgil simply licked the remaining blood off his muzzle. Next, Roman folded and laced the wax cloth so that the turkeys were securely contained within, and lifted the strap to his shoulder. “Alright, let’s go home.”

Virgil shifted. He needed to be able to speak in a way that Roman could understand. “That still leaves a scent trail, you know.”

“What?”

“Your…” Virgil gestured at the bundle. “That. Dragging a carcass. Your cloth thing muffles it, but you can still smell the blood on the ground. Or, I can, anyway. Could lead a predator right to your doorstep.”

Roman looked at the bundle again. “Do… you have a better idea?” he asked slowly.

Virgil shrugged. “I bet I could carry it,” he said.

Roman looked startled. “This is easily over a hundred pounds!”

“So?”

Roman was stunned into silence. Finally, he said, “Okay,” dropped the strap, and stepped away from the bundle.

“You’re gonna have to help me get it on my back,” Virgil warned before shifting again. He lay down next to the bundle to make it easier, and Roman, with a not inconsiderable amount of effort, hoisted it up onto Virgil’s back. Virgil stood, and the turkeys immediately fell off again on the other side.

They both stared at the fallen bundle for several seconds. Then Roman said, “What if we did it cross-wise instead of lengthwise?”

Virgil lay down again, and Roman once more heaved the bundle of turkeys onto his back, this time lying across his shoulders. When Virgil stood, they stayed in place, and Roman grinned.

“Alright!” He took a step toward home, then hesitated. “I think I’m going to stabilize it on the way back, just in case.” Roman put a hand on the bundle to hold it steady, and they started for home together.

Virgil didn’t like how the added weight made his forepaws sink a bit more deeply into the snow and what portions of the ground were soft, but he didn’t complain. This was still better than leaving a trail of blood-scent on the ground for any opportunistic predator to follow right to his pack’s home. Not that such a thing had happened yet, in the months his humans had lived there (the bear hadn’t been attracted, merely wandering through, he was sure), but he didn’t want this time to be the first.

Back at the house, they went not to the cabin, but to the hunter’s shed next to it. There, Roman helped Virgil to dump the bundle more or less gracelessly onto the workbench by the window, opened it up, and hung all but one of the turkeys up on hooks.

“I’ll be a while,” Roman said, holding out the last turkey toward Virgil. “Would you take this to the kitchen, please? Patton wanted to cook it for dinner.”

Virgil shifted again, taking the bird. He had a feeling Patton wouldn’t be too eager to accept a turkey carried in a wolf’s mouth, even if that wolf was Virgil. Careful not to let it drip on the floor, Virgil carried the turkey inside. Their other two packmates were in the living room, and as Virgil opened the door, Patton got up. Virgil lifted the carcass proudly. “I killed this for you,” he said. It had claw marks, not an arrow wound, so he was sure of this.

Patton grinned. “Good job,” he praised. “Would you help me get it in the pot?”

Virgil nodded, following Patton into the kitchen. There was already a large black pot out, and after a quick glance at Patton to confirm that this was the right pot, Virgil put the turkey inside. He stepped back to let Patton do whatever he was going to do with it, absently licking his fingers.

Patton looked startled. “Don’t you want to wash your hands instead?”

Virgil shook his head. He was a shifter, after all. He could handle raw meat.

“Well, okay,” Patton said hesitantly. “But wash them before you touch anything else, please?”

“Fine.”

Patton smiled again, moving the pot over to the stove and lighting it. “Have you had cooked turkey before?” he asked.

Virgil thought. “Have you fed me turkey yet?”

“No…”

“Then no.”

“Well, you’re in for a treat.” Patton filled a mixing bowl with water and poured it over the turkey. “It’s pretty good.” He put a lid on the pot and grinned again. “Simple, too. Pretty much just gotta let it sit for a few hours.”

Virgil nodded.

“Did you have lunch?” Patton asked suddenly.

“No,” Virgil admitted. He and Roman had eaten a quick breakfast before they set out, and Roman had shared some jerky with him on their way to where they’d found their prey, and of course he’d had the entrails of seven turkeys, but he hadn’t quite had lunch.

Patton frowned. “Can’t have that,” he said. “Wash up, and I’ll make you something. What are you hungry for?”

Virgil tried to protest, but somehow he ended up on his couch again with a blanket wrapped comfortably around his shoulders, a venison sandwich in one hand, and a warm mug of spiced cider in the other. It was delicious.

After he had supped, Virgil fell asleep, and didn’t wake again for several hours. When he did awaken, a delightful scent met his nostrils, and he quickly sat up.

“Good timing,” Logan commented, and Virgil looked around for him. Ah, there he was, in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. “I was about to wake you for dinner.”

So that was what the smell was. Sure enough, a moment later, Patton and Roman came into the living room as well, each carrying two plates. Patton handed his second plate to Logan, while Roman handed his to Virgil.

There was a pile of turkey meat, some of it light and some of it dark, and next to that was a mound of a fluffy whitish stuff, with a depression that had been filled with a thick brown liquid. It all smelled wonderful.

Roman held out a fork to him, and Virgil took it. The others settled on the furniture around him, and all began to eat. Virgil ate several pieces of meat first. It was different than raw turkey, and he found that he liked it. Next he thought he’d try the white stuff, but first he watched the others to see how they were eating it. Roman had mixed it with the brown liquid, while Patton was taking bites from the depression where the liquid was, and Logan took some from the outside and dipped it into the liquid. So, it seemed, there was no one right way to do it. Virgil decided to try Patton’s method. With his fork, he scooped up a small portion that had been touching the liquid, and put it in his mouth. It was… strange. But good. It tasted like turkey too, somehow. The texture reminded him of yam, but it wasn’t sweet like yam, or orange, so he was confused.

“What is this?” Virgil asked. Everyone looked at him, and he indicated the strange food with his fork.

“Mashed potatoes and gravy?” Logan said.

Patton looked worried. “Do you not like it?” he asked.

Virgil considered the dish again, then took another bite. “I like it,” he decided. “It tastes like turkey.”

Patton relaxed, smiling. “It’s turkey gravy,” he explained.

Virgil ended up eating everything on his plate, and when offered seconds, ate that too. It was very good.

“I like cooked turkey,” he told Patton after the meal. Roman had gone to bed already, tired from hunting and cleaning their game, and Logan was currently washing the dishes, so it was just the two of them in the living room at the moment.

“Good,” Patton said. “Tomorrow, do you want to help me make a new meal out of the leftovers?”

Virgil thought about it. He hadn’t done a lot of cooking before. But he would like to spend time with Patton. “Yes.”

~~~~~

Instead, he tried to focus on coming up with some sort of ward-breaker method, attempting to drag his thoughts back into some form of coherency. The longer they walked, though, the more difficult it became to pay attention to anything except the warm points of contact where the human was holding him.

The last scraps of lingering adrenaline had long since faded away, but his skin still felt like it was buzzing under the slight pressure of Logan’s grip. The sensation was prickling, and grew more uncomfortable by the moment.

When the front of the cabin came into view, Roman was nowhere in sight, but Patton was waiting, seated on the steps of the porch. The moment he caught sight of their approach, his face split into a relieved smile.

Not the way Virgil would have reacted to the sight of a packmate toting around a hostile monster with seemingly no regard for his own safety, but whatever.

He’d already figured out that whatever rules these humans operated on, they were much different than what he was used to.

Patton pulled something from under his shirt; a small, wooden whistle.

Virgil tensed slightly, hands twitching with a barely-concealed impulse to cover his ears, but managed to refrain. If sound was the worst punishment he’d get for his escape attempt, he was getting off lucky. Better to just endure it.

“A moment, Patton,” Logan called, and when Virgil darted a glance up at him, he found the human was looking right back.

His lips curled back automatically, but Logan didn’t even give him the satisfaction of looking uneasy. He stepped up the porch steps with the same measured steps as always.

“Wait until I’m inside,” Logan told Patton nonsensically, and then, “After, if you could grab the kit from the kitchen, I would appreciate it.”

Patton nodded. “Of course! Are you alright?”

The pause dragged on as Logan didn’t reply, becoming stilted, and Virgil pulled his gaze away from the distant trees at the edge of the clearing to see that those soft brown eyes were locked on him, not Logan.

He scowled to hide his confusion, eyes narrowing into a sharp glare. “What does it matter?”

The human’s face grew impossibly sad, but Logan cut in before he could ask Virgil any more bewildering, meaningless questions, moving towards the cabin’s interior. “Later, Patton.”

Once the door closed behind them, Virgil heard two long, carrying trills, and then three short rapidfire ones. The whistle was much less shrill than he’d expected, enough that he even managed to keep from flinching.

He was carried through the kitchen, where he absently noted that the firewood had been set down in a haphazard pile on the table. Now that he knew about the ward, he kind of wished he’d taken the opportunity to knock all the wood out of Logan’s arms earlier. Petty, yeah, but petty victories were all he was likely to get from now on.

Logan set him down on the couch in the same cozy room from before, as though he’d never left the cabin at all. The moment the human pulled away, that odd burning sensation faded away into an empty chill. Virgil shivered.

The couch was still as soft and restraint-free as it had been when he’d woken up on it, though some of the blankets had been dragged onto the floor during his extremely poor attempt at a hostage situation. He slumped back into it, feeling the slight dizziness of blood loss beginning to set in.

His gaze flickered back up to Logan wearily, but the human didn’t say anything, only watching him with that assessing gaze, seeing far more than Virgil wanted him to.

Uneven footsteps clattered around nearby, and then Patton popped into the room with a white wooden case, setting it down on the table next to Logan and popping it open.

He couldn’t really make out the contents with Patton standing there rifling through them, but the sickening smell of antiseptic was telling enough all on its own.

Virgil tried to shove down his rising panic. He should have expected this. Non-fatal harvesting methods often doubled as effective punishments for the more efficient hunters out there. Logan was the efficient type, so it was probably pure coincidence that he’d chosen this, of all things.

The best thing he could do for himself now was to force himself calm, keep them from learning how badly it rattled him. The more he gave away, the easier it would be to control him. He knew this. He knew this.

Damn, but he was out of practice at pretending.

A few years in the safety of his own company, with only the forest’s soothing presence at his side, and he had softened his defenses. Slowly but surely, he’d let himself believe that he was free of it all, that he wouldn’t ever have to exist like that again. Idiotic.

Fingers wrapping around his wrist jolted him out of his thoughts, and he yanked back sharply, letting out a high-pitched snarl on instinct. The grip vanished, and as the world came back into focus, he saw that it had been Logan, that the human was now holding both hands up, palms facing him, completely empty.

Where was— there. Patton was sitting on the floor next to the table, doing a very poor job of not glancing between them worriedly.

“—don’t want me to touch you, that’s perfectly fine as well,” the human was saying, cadence even and calm. “I can instruct you from here, and you can handle the physical actions yourself, if that’s what you’d prefer?”

Virgil blinked at him blankly for a moment as the words registered, and then nodded slowly. It was a unique sort of torture, to have to do it to himself, but it also meant that he had control over how fast it went, how badly it hurt. He was more than familiar with what could be done to draw harvests out, multiplying the agony of them, and wasn’t keen on renewing that experience anytime soon.

Logan didn’t seem irritated by his choice, meaning that this was a matter of efficiency, that he didn’t care if the punishment wasn’t particularly sadistic as long as it got the message across.

Some of the tension dropped from Virgil’s shoulders despite himself. He shouldn’t feel so relieved about something so small, something that wouldn’t save him, but he couldn’t help it. When faced with the heartbreak of the alternative, the very idea of these humans hurting him just for the sake of hurting him…

He was already going to be hurting physically soon enough, he didn’t need to be hurting emotionally, too.

The easiest and most renewable components to take would be hair and blood, though if they were really insistent on trying to get him into his shift, they might also want teeth or skin– the sort of things that were far more painful after removal, and healed slower while he was human-shaped.

Joke was on them; he knew exactly what was in store for him if he shifted, and he’d take a slow, painful death by exsanguination over that any day.

The first thing Logan handed him was a pair of small medical shears, seeming to prove his assumptions entirely correct, and the only reason Virgil didn’t start getting it over with the moment those metal handles touched his fingertips was because he wasn’t sure yet if it was hair or skin they wanted.

“Cut alongside the bandages on your side, please,” Logan instructed, immediately throwing Virgil for a loop.

That meant… skin, right? He slowly moved the blades of the shears over to where thick white bandages were wrapped around his torso, small blots of bright red visible along his side, where he’d reopened his wounds.

Before he could work out the logistics of using such ill-suited blades on the skin below his bandages, Logan spoke again. “You’ll want to slide the flat of the scissors down beneath the bandages first, and then turn the sharp edge up vertically. That way, the point doesn’t catch on your skin.”

Didn’t that kind of miss the point, pun mostly unintended? Virgil squinted at him, almost opening his mouth to ask, before deciding it wasn’t worth the trouble or potential backlash. Maybe they wanted his whole torso exposed, for a better idea of where to cut the best leather from.

Possibly a smart move, going by how bruised his skin was the more bandages fell away with the slow snip-snip of his shears. The flesh wounds were still covered by the gauze dressing, which was practically glued in place by a mixture of fresh and dried blood.

Curious, Virgil pried the cottony fabric away with one sharp yank, gritting his teeth slightly at the pain of taking a fair bit of scab with it. Simultaneously, Logan and Patton seemed to inhale sharply, and Virgil pretended to be too busy inspecting his wound to look at them.

“I’ll have to be more expedient with the wet cloth next time,” Logan muttered, exasperated and low enough that he probably thought Virgil couldn’t hear. Patton made a low hum of agreement, the kind of noise made through lips pressed tightly together.

“I’m gonna go put something together for replenishment,” he answered softly, using Logan’s knee and then shoulder to help push himself up to a standing position. His crutches were passed over, and he limped from the room with a farewell wave.

Random statements from his captors aside, his wound wasn’t as bad as expected. Heavy bruising and a cracked rib or two were never fun, but in terms of actual mauling? The long gouges curving along his side weren’t great, but they hadn’t pierced any of his organs, and they didn’t seem infected yet.

They were bleeding a fair bit more, though, now that Virgil had effectively torn even more of them open anew. Whoops.

Rather than hand him a collection vial or even just a finer blade, Logan spent the next half-hour walking him through the step-by-step process of wiping the wounds clean, applying some stinging antiseptic paste, and pressing pads of fresh gauze along the still-bleeding bits. Even the bandages were changed out for new, fresh ones. Maybe he wouldn’t get an infection at all.

After that, he was put through an even more bewildering series of questions, mostly about his head, the slight bump from hitting it against the ground, how the more deep set bruises along his torso felt (bad), and how his ribs felt when he inhaled deeply (worse).

A few times, Logan paused to write something down in a little leather-bound book. Virgil had no clue what, since the man hadn’t properly collected a single ingredient from him yet, let alone enough to require keeping written stock.

Finally, he closed the book with a decisive snap and began packing all the tools back into the kit, leaving Virgil sitting there, still all in one piece, the way shifters never were after harvesting sessions.

He didn’t get it. They definitely knew what he was, which meant they also had to know what he was worth.

Some amateur hunters were more ignorant about magical theory and the ingredients it typically entailed, but these three had known enough to locate ley lines and leave satisfactory offerings. Between the sword at Roman’s hip and the books along Logan’s shelves, there was absolutely no way they were unaware of the properties of shifters, of the natural magic that lingered in their flesh and blood and fur.

So they definitely knew. And there was no reason to stall in harvesting from him. It was smarter to start the cycle of removal and regrowth as early as possible, to squeeze the maximum amount of profit out of him before the final harvest.

Except… These humans weren’t a band of nomadic hunters with constant access to bustling markets and customers to barter with, were they? Whatever they harvested would likely be for them, and them alone. There was no point in collecting an excess of mediocre materials when they could simply wait until the full moon, where his innate magic would be at its fullest, and then get everything at once.

The thought made some knot in his stomach loosen slightly. If it was true, if he really wasn’t going to spend the next few weeks enduring a constant, repetitive torture, it would make it a lot easier to try and escape.

And even if he failed, it would only be one night, and then it would be over and done with. He wouldn’t be stuck in the same unending hell as before. That in itself was enough to take some of that unbearable pressure off his shoulders.

Logan was saying something else now, but the last of Virgil’s willpower had burnt out, and any desire to stay awake had fled along with it. Whatever they’d drugged him with was still thick in his system, enough to make his limbs feel dull and slow and his eyelids heavy.

He was in the same spot, on the same couch. Roman was sitting in the nearby armchair, which had been turned slightly so that it was facing the couch more directly.

The hum was coming from him, a cheerful tune that had completely concealed the soft sursur of a polishing cloth against metal.

The runes on the hunting sword weren’t activated, but the hairs on the back of Virgil’s neck abruptly prickled anyhow, a chill running down his spine.

Roman glanced over at him without pausing his polishing, completely casual about the threat implied in each careful motion. “You’re awake! I’d say good morning, but we’re nearly at sunset now.”

Virgil couldn’t bring himself to tear his gaze away from the blade, not even to confirm that he’d slept another day away. He felt as though the moment he glanced away, he’d look back to find the point of that sword buried deep in his chest.

He’d expected they’d try to get him to shift as soon as possible, but somehow, he hadn’t expected them to threaten him physically. They had to know he would call their bluff, didn’t they? No matter how much they might not want a monster under their roof, human greed superseded hatred, and killing him now would be like throwing gold down a bottomless well.

His mouth felt glued shut when he swallowed, unwilling to let a single syllable through. He reached for his earlier bravado, his miserable confidence that death would be better than being caught, and found the bitter bravery rang hollow in the face of that singing metal.

The human’s hand had paused mid-swipe on the blade. When Virgil forced his eyes to flicker upwards, he found that Roman was staring at him with a distinct wrinkle to his brow.

He jolted upon making eye contact, and then tried for an uncertain smile.

“No need to worry,” he said, shifting the blade up slightly. “This is for Patton, not you.”

The words took a moment to register, but when they did, they landed sharper than any slap. Virgil felt the blood drain from his face quickly enough to leave him dizzy.

His humans were— they were different, weren’t they? Surely, they wouldn’t go so far as to punish Patton just because he’d been taken hostage, not when they’d all failed to contain him in the end.

So why? Sure, Virgil had threatened— threatened with that, but Roman had been watching so closely, he must know that Virgil hadn’t actually bitten Patton. Except. Some hunters believed any physical wound inflicted by a shifter was ‘infected’. How tightly had he gripped the human before? Had his nails bitten into clothing, or skin?

The memories were fuzzy, hazed over by adrenaline and drugs alike. He wasn’t sure.

“He’s not– he’s not,” Virgil started, and the words caught and tangled in the back of his throat like barbed wire. He yanked his arms free of the blanket tucked around him and pushed himself further upright to meet Roman’s gaze more directly. “I didn’t turn him. He’s not turned.”

In the back of his mind, a familiar refrain: Don’t kill him. Please don’t kill him.

Roman visibly reeled back, his grip on the sword’s hilt tightening in surprise, and then he let go of the blade altogether, leaving it balanced delicately across his lap, polishing cloth still folded over it.

“No! I mean, I– I know that, not that it would– even if he–,” He cut himself off, took a breath, and tried again. “I was only joking. I would never threaten Patton with any sort of violence, sword-inflicted or otherwise, even if he is atrociously bad at remembering that he is injured and should be avoiding straining himself as much as possible.”

Even with the emphasis, his voice was more exasperated than truly angry, and there was no sign of deceit in his manner. Patton was fine, Virgil had just– overreacted.

He needed to calm down. Hunters or not, there was no point putting ideas in their heads. He tried to force his body to relax, to ease away the tension that so visibly lined his frame, with little success.

Patton was safe, but he obviously wasn’t off-limits for violent threats, after all.

“Right. Well. How are your wounds?” Roman asked, apparently having correctly inferred that Virgil wasn’t much of a conversationalist. “We can’t give you any more pain medicine, not without risk of making things worse, but nothing should be debilitating. Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t tear more stitches.”

He’d forgotten about his injuries amidst the sudden rush of terror, but sure enough, his side still felt awful. It was like he’d gone a round with a magically-corrupted grizzly bear or something.

Virgil slumped back against the couch to try and relieve some of the pain, but kept his jaw clenched shut. There was no point in them knowing how well he was healing, and he certainly wasn’t going to be the one to tell them which wounds were the worst off. Those were the most painful places to be hit.

There was another long stretch of quiet, and Roman let out a gusty sigh, lifting his hand up— Virgil barely concealed his flinch— and running it haphazardly through his hair.

“Look,” he started, leaning forwards, “I’m not sure what you—,”

“Dinner is ready,” said Logan, who had appeared in the doorway between one blink and the next. “How is— oh.”

Roman jumped, like he’d been caught red-handed, but Logan’s gaze had already flicked over to Virgil. “Good evening. It’s encouraging to see you awake. Do you feel up to walking? I am more than capable of carrying you again if not.”

“Don’t touch me,” Virgil snapped on automatic, too consumed by the phantom memory of that odd burning sensation to hold his tongue.

“Alright,” Logan said simply, not a single hint of temper at the attitude. Somehow, the absence felt almost more frightening. “We normally take meals in the kitchen area, down the hall here, but since we have two injured parties, the sitting room will work as an acceptable substitute.”

“I’ll get Patton!” Roman volunteered, having subtly kicked his sword under his chair midway through the conversation.

“Get the sheath for your blade while you’re at it,” Logan replied dryly. “Patton will have your head if you get sword polish on the rug again.”

“I was careful!” Roman protested, but he kicked his blade up into his hand as he fled from the room regardless.

Virgil barely resisted the urge to stare after him, bewildered that he’d gotten through the encounter without a single cut. Maybe Logan hadn’t been made aware of the plan to threaten him, and his unexpected arrival had interrupted it…? Or maybe it was a planned entrance, and this was a psychological tactic meant to stress him out.

Virgil sighed. Maybe Roman was just too hungry to postpone dinner. There was no point dwelling on it.

“I’ll be back momentarily,” Logan told him before leaving as well, completely scrapping Virgil’s earlier prediction of a constant watcher.

They were still underestimating him, probably assuming the ward had demoralized him. He hadn’t ruined all his chances of escape, after all.

He barely had time to try and assess the room more clearly before Logan returned, an impressive amount of dishware balanced in his arms. He spent a few concentrated moments setting them all down on the low table and then rose to his feet and left the room again without a word, an air of distraction about him.

Virgil glanced between the dishes set out, wishing his sense of smell wasn’t quite so good. Just as he’d forgotten his pain until Roman had asked after it, he’d forgotten how hungry he was until there was food in front of him.

He wasn’t dumb enough to think it was for him, of course. Even though they hadn’t said anything yet, he had a fair idea of what the humans were playing at.

He knew how to count, after all, and he could plainly see that there were only three of each dish set out. It was another incentive to shift, one that had been used against him before. They’d wait until he was starved, he expected, and then offer him raw meat, or some other carrion that only a wolf could eat.

It was a little cruel of them to eat right in front of him, going so far as to move their normal dining location, but he couldn’t deny that it was an effective tactic. The sharp ache in his side had already been joined by a dull pang in his stomach.

There was a breadbasket, there in the middle of everything. The tops of each roll were shiny with butter, but if he grabbed one from the sides, it probably wouldn’t leave a trace on his hands.

… What were the odds that they’d counted how many rolls were in there?

By the time Roman swept back into the room with an amused Patton in his arms, Virgil was carefully arranged in the same exact position as before, and the warm roll in his hoodie pocket was well-concealed by the folds of the blanket still draped partially over him.

Patton was deposited on the plush armchair closest to the fireplace, and he offered Virgil a smile as he carefully propped his injured leg up on a stack of hand-embroidered pillows.

“Sorry for the mess,” he apologized. “We’ve normally got things a little more put together than this, but I was relegated to potato peeling duty after I dropped half the silverware while trying to set the table. Turns out holding plates and crutches is a recipe for dish-aster!”

Roman groaned theatrically from where he was arranging everything out on the table, but he was still exceedingly gentle with the tray he set on Patton’s lap, an artful arrangement of silverware on either side of the meal. “You already murdered two of our poor plates, now you have to slander their good names with puns?”

Patton laughed, and said something else, but Virgil was having a hard time registering the words through the low ringing in his ears.

It was so strange, watching them joke around and chat casually, as if nothing was wrong. With the hunters, there had always been an air of impatience or malice, a sick glee in making him suffer.

His humans weren’t acting like that, but there wasn’t a trace of uncertainty in their manner, either. It was as though this was just another day for them, as though they’d always been capable of doing something like this, so much so that it was an unremarkable event.

It wasn’t the outright hatred of before, but it still felt bad in a different way.

“Sir Wolf?” Roman’s voice broke through the haze in his mind, and his head jolted up slightly as he realized the name was meant to refer to him.

It was certainly nicer than some of the things he’d been called.

The two humans were looking at him with open concern, Patton leaning towards him as far as he could without unbalancing his tray.

“Hey, kiddo. Are you back with us?” he asked.

Virgil blinked at him strangely for a moment— he hadn’t gone anywhere— and then was immediately, sharply distracted by a hand moving closer in the corner of his vision.

He flinched back, hard enough to make his injuries twinge, and the room went quiet for a beat.

“My apologies,” Roman said, his tone subdued. “I only meant to check your temperature; sometimes infected wounds can cause fevers and disorientation.”

“We won’t ever hit you, kiddo,” Patton swore firmly, and the pity in his voice rankled against Virgil, like a hand scrubbing his fur the wrong way.

How could they sit here and pretend to be soft, when they were so willing to hurt him in other, more insidious ways? He clenched his fists, teeth digging into the edge of his lip, but before he could spit out the acid words building on the back of his tongue, Logan appeared in the doorway again.

“Apologies for the wait,” he said, carrying a fourth tray in his hands. He shot a sharp glance at the other two, making them recede from their hovering with sheepish expressions, and stepped close enough to extend the tray out in offering.

Virgil stared at the normal, delicious-looking food in front of him, bewildered. There was no rotting carrion or raw, bloody meat. In fact, the only difference between the dishes set out on the table and the tray being offered to him was that the food was already portioned, rather than in large dishes to serve oneself.

“I’ve added a few malnutrition aids, and they’re most effective when freshly brewed, hence the delay,” Logan continued, still patiently holding the tray out. “I’m entirely confident that they will help– at worst, they’ll do nothing– but if it would put you more at ease, I can sample the food myself.”

They’d dosed it with something. Something that wasn’t immediately fatal enough that they were willing to ‘sample’ it to prove it was ‘safe’. Or, they’d realized he really wasn’t going to shift to heal and were offering genuine health-aiding tinctures to speed up the process.

Better to figure out which it was now. Besides, even drug-laced food was food, and it was in his best interest to play along until he had an actual plan to escape.

He took the tray without protest, half-expecting it to be yanked away the entire time, and settled it across his lap.

“Alright, now that we’re all here, let’s eat!”

Patton smiled at him, and suddenly, the gesture didn’t feel false and insincere. His previous anger had melted away in the face of his confusion and, admittedly, his relief that he would get food at all.

Virgil swallowed, and ducked his head to stare at his tray instead of the others’ faces.

Those feelings were dangerous. Just because they weren’t as bad as the hunters in one specific way didn’t mean he could trust them. Not even if he wanted to. Especially not if he wanted to.

Rather than some cold stone basement or a silver cage, he was in what appeared to be the living room of the cabin. As though to add to the surreal nature of it all, he had been laid out on a couch and swathed with warm fur blankets and hand-patched quilts. His hands weren’t even cuffed.

He stared down at his bare wrists, turning them over and inspecting them as though some binding rune would reveal itself if he squinted hard enough.

Maybe this was a dream. Some dragged-out hallucination the forest was granting him as a parting kindness, offering him warmth and calm in his last few moments before he bled out for real.

The idea wasn’t as reassuring as he wanted it to be. How would he know when it was time for the dream to end?

Feeling a few steps removed from his body, Virgil attempted to push himself fully upright, swing his legs to the side and stand, with some vague idea of exploring the rest of the cabin to see what his faltering mind had conjured up.

The moment he tried to sit up properly, however, a wave of dull pain crashed through him, stealing the breath from his lungs as every muscle in his torso tensed up in a harsh response.

He sucked in one shallow breath after another, all semblance of calm suddenly out of his reach. There was nothing fake about that pain, radiating from where the bear’s heaviest strike had landed. The edge of it had been blunted– medicine?-- but it would have jarred him from even the deepest dream regardless.

This was real. He was alive. The humans– the hunters had taken pains to make it so, when they could have just left him to his end and let his flesh return to the soil.

They’d seen him shift, they knew what he was, and they’d kept him alive.

A cold certainty settled into him, chasing the warmth from his bones. There was only one reason hunters kept monsters alive. These humans weren’t so different from the ones he’d known, after all. Not in the end. Not where it mattered.

Virgil shook his head once, sharply, ignoring the way it made his vision throb. There wasn’t time for the gut-wrenching betrayal churning within him. No space to mourn what he’d only ever imagined for himself in the first place.

He pushed himself free of the blankets, this time braced for the pain as he stumbled to his feet. His vision was swimming, his balance unsteady; they must have drugged him. It explained the lack of restraints well enough: they simply hadn’t expected him to be awake at this point. They couldn’t have anticipated that his body had already built up a resistance to most of the tranquilizers commonly used for shifters.

A resistance was far from an immunity, though, and going by the way he wavered with every step, he wasn’t going to be able to stay on his feet for long.

There were slow footsteps in the hall. Virgil scrambled the last few steps to the wall, the pain of injuries suddenly secondary to the rapid pulsing of his heartbeat urging him on. He held himself still, waiting as they drew closer and closer–

The moment Patton passed the corner into the room, he lunged, one hand clapped over the human’s mouth and the other arm shoved against his throat. The plan had been to pin him against the wall as quietly as possible and get answers on where the others were and how to avoid them.

The plan was immediately and thoroughly derailed by the wood-carved crutch that Patton had been leaning on, which slipped free and fell to the hardwood floor with a distinct, noisy clatter.

“Patton?” Roman’s voice called from a room away. “Are you alright?”

When there was no response– for Patton’s mouth was still covered and Virgil had wasted a long moment staring down at the fallen crutch blankly– another pair of footsteps hurried down the hall.

Virgil jolted back into action, spinning Patton around in front of him so that he was between Virgil and any other humans. He twisted one of his impromptu hostage’s arms behind his back and then wrapped an elbow around his throat to keep him still. Patton made a little choked noise, his free hand tapping politely at the arm around his throat, and Virgil hurriedly loosened his hold a bit.

Now that he thought about it, Patton was still injured, wasn’t he? He shifted back slightly so he was bearing most of the human’s weight, keeping him from putting too much pressure on his wounded leg. His bruised torso shrieked at the extra effort for a moment, but then faded into the background with the rest of the sharp aches he was ignoring.

Keeping track of his own strength was considerably harder in his current state, and he was focusing so hard on keeping his hold steady instead of strangling that he nearly missed the second pair of footsteps charging into the room.

He snapped his gaze up to where Roman had stopped short, wide brown eyes flickering between Patton and Virgil. His sword was sheathed and strapped to his belt, but the presence of it still made Virgil’s hair stand on end.

“What’s– What are you doing?” Roman finally asked. His voice was incredulous, as though he’d walked in to find something ridiculous instead of a monster threatening the life of his loved one.

A shiver worked its way down Virgil’s spine. It couldn’t have all been a lie. They cared about each other, he knew, he’d seen it– but Roman took another step forward like he wasn’t worried at all.

“Don’t come any closer,” Virgil snapped, baring his teeth in threat above Patton’s shoulder. “I’ll bite him. I’ll– I’ll turn him.”

Patton went a little tense under his grip and Roman froze immediately, his expression darkening like an approaching thunderstorm. Virgil felt oddly relieved at the sight of it.

“Let him go,” the hunter demanded, and his hand had yet to settle on the hilt of his sword, but it was only a matter of time. His voice went lower, quieter, an order and a plea all in one. “Don’t hurt him.”

There was a nausea building in him, and he couldn’t tell if it was because of the drugs or the situation. “Tell me– Tell me how to get out of here, and I– I won’t have to.”

“Kiddo,” Patton started, and Virgil growled deep in his throat before the human could get out another word in that sickeningly faux-worried tone. Roman twitched, his gaze still locked on Virgil’s bared teeth.

“No, no talking. None of– Just let me go.” It was supposed to come out as a demand, but somewhere along the way, the words became edged with a thin, high whine. It was a show of weakness he couldn’t afford.

Roman’s brow furrowed, but before he could speak, there was the long creak of old hinges. Virgil recognized the noise from months of stalking: it was the back door swinging open.

His way out.

He didn’t waste a second, hefting Patton up just slightly more before practically tossing him at Roman. The hunter dove to catch him, and Virgil took full advantage of the distraction to dart past him, down the hall and through the kitchen to where the noise had come from, and at the other end of the kitchen–

Wrapped up in a thick coat and his arms full of vision-obstructing firewood, Logan didn’t even realize Virgil was in the room with him until he was already clumsily ducking under his arm and through the open back door.

The outside air was cool against his face and smelled of damp earth.

A cacophony of overlapping voices rang out from the cabin as he fled, but he wasn’t listening, too busy focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and feeling a faint hope began to spark in his chest.

He’d made it out. He’d gotten free, all on his own.

Sure, he was exhausted, wounded, and burning through the last of his energy, but it didn’t matter. He just had to get past the edges of the clearing and he’d be back in his forest. It would hide him away while he slept off the rest of the drug and recovered, and then he could run or fight or call for help.

It was the forest’s utter lack of response that tipped him off.

There was no breeze dragging through his hair or leaves rustling in greeting as he drew closer to the treeline, only a muted silence that put him so on edge that he slowed down despite the blood rushing in his ears.

He reached out, and the air in front of him sparked. His heart sank heavily in his chest.

Looking down, he could see the lodestones set into the earth, engraved circular rocks placed in carefully even intervals along the border between the forest and the cabin’s clearing.

It was a ward. A strong one, no doubt placed by Logan.

He couldn’t get past it. He was still trapped. Far more than before, even.

His legs finally gave out, as though the knowledge had turned into a physical burden weighing him down, and he sat back in the grass and the mud, his eyes burning.

Knowing this could be the last time he spent outside, he felt the urge to sink into the comfort of his wolf form and savor the thousand little details that his human senses were too dull to pick up on. The temptation was strong, but he took a deep breath and forced it back, keeping his fingers dull and his face flat.

They wouldn’t get what they wanted from him. Not without a fight.

By the time soft, hurried footsteps approached him, he’d lost all of the desperate energy pushing him forward and was sinking back into the haze of the drugs in his system. Whatever tranq they’d used must have been seriously good quality, because it dulled the pain of his freshly-reopened injuries, too.

Whichever human had come to retrieve him seemed to have spotted the injuries as well, going by the sharp inhale that cut through the air.

“Hello? Are you conscious?” a familiar voice asked, and Virgil cracked an eye open to confirm that it was Logan now crouched next to him. He looked paler than normal. “Oh, thank the stars. Can you shift?”

The attempt was transparent enough to earn him a low snort from Virgil. They were going to have to try harder than that.

“Please, you’ve lost a lot of blood. You could suffer serious side effects,” Logan continued, his voice oddly strained. “I’m aware that shifters have more enhanced healing in their nonhuman forms. If you’re able to access your other form for even a short time, it would be in your best interest to shift.”

It was a weak threat; Virgil already knew that his ‘best interest’ would be to cooperate in hopes of a quicker death. He just didn’t care.

After a long, expectant pause, Logan seemed to grasp that Virgil wasn’t going to give in. He sighed shortly, and Virgil’s body turned rigid, waiting for a blow.

Instead, Logan said, “I am going to pick you up now, so we can return home. Please don’t be alarmed,” and wrapped one arm solidly around his back, the other curling under the crook of his legs.

Virgil snarled on instinct, more surprised than angry, but Logan didn’t even flinch as he lifted him up into the air. Virgil’s first thought was that he was about to be dropped as punishment, but Logan’s hold remained stable and steady around him.

“I know it must hurt, but please try to hold on,” he said gently, as though he really believed it was the pain that was behind the low growl rumbling in Virgil’s chest. “We’ll be back to the cabin soon.”

With that, he curled Virgil even closer against himself and set off.

Each jarring step caused little flare ups of pain from his injuries, but he could hardly focus on that, because his head was resting on Logan’s shoulder, mere inches away from the human’s jugular.

Logan kept his pace steady, as though he wasn’t holding a monster right next to the most vulnerable point of his body. As though Virgil couldn’t lunge forward and tear out his trachea in a heartbeat.

And he was right, wasn’t he? Because Virgil couldn’t. He should, he really should, even if it took harnessing all the spite and fear building within him, as a last act of defiance. Even if just to hurt them the way they were going to hurt him, to vent how unfair it was that he saved them and ended up captured.

He didn’t even have to kill him. He could close the gap between them and turn Logan with a single bite. See how he liked being a valuable monster in the grasp of hunters.

Maybe the others would just put him down instead, out of respect for their former bond. The thought was bitter and sickening, and it made something in Virgil recoil sharply.

He couldn’t do it.

It wasn’t worth it. It wouldn’t save him. It would only destroy the three of them, and despite everything, there was still a part of him that was attached, a part that had watched their care for each other with a desperate longing. He didn’t want to be the one responsible for tearing them apart, even if that was exactly what they were planning to do to him.

Virgil wondered if this convoluted tangle of hatred and loyalty was what it meant to have a pack, after all. If there was something intrinsically broken about him that always led to this.

He tore his eyes away from Logan’s neck, letting the vicious urge seep out of him along with the last of his energy. He wouldn’t give in, wouldn’t shift for them, but he wouldn’t hurt them either.