All Chapters of Knotting the Hunter: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

Dax"We're keeping the head."Noah announces it to the field like he's calling dibs on leftovers.Everyone looks at him.Then at the head.It's lying in the weeds being beautiful at us, which is a lot of nerve for something that lost its body an hour ago."Keeping it," Reena repeats carefully."The council's gearing up to hunt a vampire for this. I need proof of what actually fed on Dana, and a theory won't cut it. A corpse will."He holds a folded tarp out to me that he found in the bed of my truck."Wrap it up. We have to take it with us.""Why me?""You've got two working arms."Like it’s the most logical argument in the world.He's filthy, exhausted, and pointing that splint around like a scepter at a field full of werewolves twice his size.Every drop of adrenaline in me is converting into a very specific plan for the rest of the morning.Later.First, logistics.The wolf hasn't settled since the head made it’s dive.He's pacing my skull, high on smoke and blood, and he has opini

Dax"Your mother," Noah says, watching the road instead of me. "You said she hasn't left her house in a month."We're four minutes from Vintage and he picks now to ask."She hasn't. She doesn’t leave it often.""Is she sick?""No."He waits.He's good at waiting.It's one of his more annoying professional skills."My dad died when I was seventeen."The wheel is suddenly very interesting to hold."Three years ago. Fast and unexpected. Don’t make me go into the details, because honestly I don't have all of them.""And your mother?""She loved him in a way that didn't leave room for anything else. When he died, most of her died with him."I take the turn onto Caldwell."Including the part that remembers she has a son."Noah doesn't say sorry.He puts his hand on my thigh and leaves it there, which is better, and we drive the last two blocks like that.The ‘stay’ is still sitting between us too.Asked, never answered, interrupted by a vampire with impeccable timing.Neither of us has brou

Noah"That's five."Dax stops with the fridge door open."Five what?""Five questions you've dodged since the rail cut this morning. I've been counting."He takes out two beers like we're having a normal evening.Sets one in front of me on the counter.A peace offering with a twist cap.I don't touch it."Noah.""What happens after you catch one? Dodge. What Maxim wants it for. Dodge. What the term was. Dodge. What your mother meant in the driveway. Dodge. And just now I asked when the watches start and you told me a story about Finn's truck.""It's a good story.""Dax."His phone buzzes on the counter.More corridor logistics, probably, the schedule he won't discuss with me.He silences it without looking, which from him is basically a declaration of war on his own nature."Walk me through it," I say. "If they run tonight.""Reena and Mato are on patrol. If there’s any movement, they call, I go, I take the last wolf in the line."Dax opens his beer."You stay here.""That's not the p

NoahHe pushes into me slow.Like he's got all night and intends to spend it right here, one endless inch at a time, his chest sealed to my back and his arm under my head and my leg hooked over his, and by the time he's all the way in I've forgotten every other way this has ever been done."Breathe," he says into my shoulder."I am breathing.""You're planning to breathe. Different thing."I breathe.He's everywhere.In me, around me, under me, his heartbeat going hard against my spine, and he still doesn't move."Dax.""Mm.""Any decade now."He laughs, low, and I feel it inside me, which is a level of unfair I didn't know existed, and then he starts to move.If you can call it that.A deep, slow grind, barely pulling back, hitting something on every pass that empties my head out through my ears.No pace to brace against.No fight to win.Just him, taking me apart at a crawl."Turn your head," he murmurs.I turn my head and he kisses me over my shoulder, deep and unhurried, and looks

Dax"Run it again," Finn says."The part where you pull a panicking wolf out of a moving line without killing him or getting killed by the others.""I hit the last one after the line clears the bend. You're between me and the rest of them, making yourself enormous. Reena's on the west bank keeping an eye out in case she’s needed. Mato stays downwind, ready to join the party if it’s clear everything’s going to shit.""And the wolf you're sitting on politely agrees not to chew through his own tongue.""That part's still in development.""Great plan. Airtight.""You're welcome to improve it.""I'm marinating."We're at my kitchen table with a map of the area pulled up on my phone, the quarry road a pale scar through all that green.Finn has eaten all four of the chocolate bars he brought for me.'Finally,' the wolf says, pacing. 'Months of strangers crossing our ground and we get to put one on the dirt. Take the big one at the front.'We're taking the last one. We don’t want all the othe