Greykin Mountain

| 64 | Wolf-Bears and Redbloods

⥐ ⋞ ☽ ⋟ ⥐

Jackson wasn't sure how long he spent laying on the couch with Damon, but by the time they decided that they should sit up, it had grown much darker outside.

          But as he shuffled around, something small and hard stabbed into his thigh—it felt like a stone. He frowned irritably and reached into his trouser pocket, and when he pulled out the gold, black onyx-encrusted ring, he gawped down at it.

          "What's that?" Damon asked.

          Jackson glanced over at him. "Oh, uh...just one of the things you brought me to sell while I was in that town."

          "You kept it?"

          He shrugged as looked down at it again. "Well...yeah, but not for me." With a nervous frown, he turned to face Damon. "I actually kinda thought it'd look good on you."

          For what might be the first time, Jackson saw a look of surprise on Damon's face, and with it, the Alpha asked, "What?"

          Jackson nodded and held it out to him. "I know it's not the same as me like...buying something from a store, but I don't know. I felt like it would look good on you."

          Damon took the ring from him as a smile flickered across his face. But instead of slipping it on one of his fingers, he reached over to the table beside the couch and put it in the small drawer. "I'll find some string or something later so I can wear it around my neck. I wouldn't want it to fall apart when I shift."

          "I didn't think of that," Jackson said with a nervous laugh, dragging his hand over the back of his neck.

          "Thank you," the Alpha said, and then leaned closer and kissed his lips. "Should we go and see what the stray has to say?"

          Jackson nodded.

          Damon led the way out of his room and into the cell block. Jackson followed him to the end cell, and when they both stood in front of it, Julian sat up from the pile of straw they'd been resting on and stared at them both.

          "So...I guess now's the time for that variant chat, huh?" Julian asked.

          "If what you have to say is useful to us, good things can happen," Damon said, crossing his arms.

          "Good things—like what?"

          "Privileges," the Alpha answered.

          "Privileges like...you'll let me pee outside in the snow and not in this bucket?" they asked, nodding at the bucket in the back right corner of their cell.

          "Perhaps."

          "And food. I'd like more than that crusty bread stuff. Meat. I want meat," they said, wide-eyed.

          "As I said, it depends on what you have to say."

          Julian looked as though they were pondering for a moment...and then shrugged. "My group and I saw at least two different variants when we were scoping out the pit."

          "One of them was a prowler, right?" Jackson asked.

          They nodded. "It was trying to climb the walls with its weird lanky arms but kept falling."

          "And the other?" Damon questioned.

          "We didn't really get a good view of it, but it was big."