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I breathe a laugh. “True. They’re also in charge of contacting the Appalachian Clans. However, River only agreed to allow them freedom with the radio if I promised something you are not going to like.”

Ren’s eyes flash dangerously in the dim train car, a reminder that although he is body-bound, there is still a wolf inside of him. “What did you promise?” he growls.

“There’s a family living at Grand Prairie that escaped the bunkers,” I say calmly. “One of them came with us, the female wolf you might have seen with Raine? Her brother is a shifter too but stayed at the compound with their aging parents.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“Well, River learned from their family that there was medical testing on Biters in the bunkers, and somehow, he knows that there are folks in our lands that have been studying that research. He wants in on it.”

“Absolutely not,” Ren snarls. “I have risked my entire life for my work, and I am not sharing it with some stranger.”

I take a deep breath and remind myself that this reaction was expected given everything he’s been through. I try a different tactic. “River told me a story while I was there. His and Raine’s mother died nearly ten months ago, and when River attended to her body at their burning grounds, he found a healed bite.”

“Okay, well⁠—”

I cut Ren off before he can jump to any conclusions. “A healed Biter bite.” His mouth clicks shut. “At first, he thought it was a healed mate bite, but River knew that was impossible because his parents had been a committed beta pair. Upon closer inspection, he noted that the scar tissue was marbled with tiny black veins.”

Ren’s eyes dart to Ferris through the open door. My wolf mentally licks his chops, gotcha.

“River is willing to give you all the information he has about his mother and what he found if you share what you know about the Biter infection. I even negotiated that you’d speak with one of the former bunker members, not River, since this information belongs to those that survived them. I would love to say you have a choice, but I left two of our people there, and I need you to cooperate for their safety.”

I can see Ren’s mind spinning. He loves a puzzle, and I’ve dropped a huge one right in his lap: the story of a woman who survived a bite, and an alpha currently fighting to do the same. He drums his fingers on his arm where they’re crossed over his chest. “Which bunker did these people escape from?”

I hold his eyes. “Yours.”

His muscles stiffen. Ren speaks very little about the horrors he endured in the bunker, but his father, Shawn, has said enough for both of them. It’s my own running theory that severe trauma is one thing that can body-bind a wolf, and Ren is as bound as they come. Easy math. Yet, the stillness of his body speaks to shock more than fear.

“Names,” he hisses. “What are their names?”

I cock my head to the side as his usually soft driftwood scent explodes around us in a cloud of mineral musk and sun-soaked salt. “The parents are Gail and Ben. Your contact in Grand Prairie will be Clay, and the omega that came with us is named Vale. No surname that I’m aware of.”

Ren’s dark eyes swirl with glittering bronze. “I’m in,” he says, shocking the hell out of me.

“That easy?” I ask, confused.

“Nothing about any of this will be easy,” he warns, then stalks out of the train car into another, leaving me to return to monitor Ferris’s unconscious body.

Sunlight creeps across the room until the shadows have been chased away. Ferris still sleeps. His eyes occasionally twitch under his eyelids, and his chest moves up and down in ragged, fast breaths, but he doesn’t open his eyes.

Raine brushes his curls away from his forehead and lays her hand across his clammy skin. “Feverish,” she mutters.

“Makes sense,” Tore says from the doorway where he watches with tired, haunted eyes. “His body is fighting like hell.”

I nod, too exhausted and emotionally turbulent to respond.

“You two eat yet?” Tore asks.

“No,” I croak.

“I’ll get some food put together,” he says, turning away.

“Why doesn’t he wake up?” Raine asks. “If Mother went through this too, I would have remembered her being this sick. Hell, it probably would have killed us if she’d been incapacitated like this.”

“I don’t know,” I breathe. “I’m worried that I did something wrong when I knocked him unconscious. Maybe I should have left him awake, but he smelled like he was going to bolt. My wolf demanded that I stop him and keep him with us.”

“I can’t even feel him through our bond,” she whimpers. “Shouldn’t I be able to feel something if he is . . . still there?”

I have no answer, so silence descends again while Raine gently cleans the bite on Ferris’s shoulder and we wait for Tore to bring us food. My wolf is angry that we never got to feed our mates meat after rut like we wanted to. When we get home, I’m going to hunt down the biggest deer in the mountains to make up for all of this. Then, once everyone is strong and recovered, I’m going to bite Raine’s pretty little neck and finally complete our pack bond.