A Pack of Love and Hate

by Olivia Wildenstein

  Liam nodded. “Can you shift yet?”

  I frowned but then realized he was talking about the injection. “Greg didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “I’m not the one he inoculated.”

  Liam’s eyebrows tipped toward his nose.

  “August volunteered. And no, he can’t shift yet.”

  My news thinned Liam’s mouth. “You should’ve run this by me.”

  “August didn’t give me a choice. Besides, I didn’t want to bother you. I knew you had other stuff to deal with.”

  “The pack always comes first, Ness. No matter what.”

  I felt a twinge of regret for Tamara, because she would always come second to the pack. Perhaps it would be enough for her, but for me, it would never have been enough. And this made me appreciate August more, because I knew with complete certainty that he’d always put me first.

  40

  As promised, August arrived with lunch. But he didn’t leave afterward. He rolled up his sleeves and stayed through the afternoon, lending the walls of our house his time and expertise and sneaking me kisses when my uncle wasn’t looking.

  While I painted my bedroom, the ambush ran on a loop inside my mind. I wanted to discuss it with August; I wanted to get his opinion on the matter but was worried about what it might be. What if he aligned with Lucas and Liam and insisted Sarah was a traitor?

  Could someone else have sent me the message?

  No, it had been her handwriting.

  Had they forced her to write the message? My fingers itched to call her, but what if they’d forced her to con us? Then getting a message from me would only seal her fate . . .

  Dusk was falling when I emerged from my bedroom, dizzy with worry and paint fumes. “I’m done.”

  August glanced away from the baseboard to which he was adding a final coat of white paint. “I’m almost finished here.”

  “Me too,” Jeb said, dragging the lambs-wool roller over the ceiling in the hallway. Paint dribbled down his arm and onto the plastic tarp blanketing our lustrous floors. “How does Chinese takeout sound to you guys? I could go get some while this last coat dries.”

  August caught my eye.

  “Um.” I bit my lip. “I, uh . . . already have plans.”

  Jeb nodded even though disappointment was written all over his face.

  August rose from his crouch and dunked the brush into the almost empty paint bucket. “Maybe you could change your plans, Ness?”

  I tipped my gaze up to meet his and mouthed a thank you. “Yeah. Maybe I could meet my friend after dinner.”

  “Or maybe your friend can join you for dinner,” August said, and my heart performed a little backbend because inviting said friend would reveal who said friend was.

  “It’s okay, Ness,” Jeb said. “Derek’s always up for getting out of his house. Let me call him.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” He rolled the brush one last time before setting it down and going to grab his phone from the kitchen counter that was also covered in plastic. He dialed Derek, exchanged a couple words, then gave me a thumbs up. After they disconnected, Jeb grabbed his car keys. “I’ll be back in an hour. Don’t lock up, okay?”

  “’Kay.”

  As soon as the van vanished down the short driveway, August came at me with a predatorial gleam in his eyes that made him look more wolf than man. “You have some paint”—he dipped his fingers inside a bucket, then raked them down my side, over the patch of bare skin beneath my crop top—“right here.”

  Goose bumps rose beneath the white paint dripping down my ribs. “Huh. Clumsy me. I must’ve brushed up against a wall.”

  He smiled, then brought that smile closer to my mouth.

  “A very big one,” I added.

  “Very big,” he echoed. “We should clean you up, and I know just the place.”

  I rolled my eyes but smiled nonetheless, and it dispersed some of my clinging stress.

  When car beams splashed the window, I sprang away from August.

  Jeb blustered back in, face so white it looked as though he’d dunked it in the bucket of paint. “Ness! Ness, you . . . she . . . Lucy . . .”

  My spine snapped into alignment. “Lucy what? What happened, Jeb?”

  “Lucy is . . . at Aidan’s.” He was breathing so hard I had trouble understanding the next words out of his mouth. I caught the last, though. “Dead.”

  “Dead? Lucy’s dead?” I asked.

  My uncle shook his head from side to side. “No. Maybe Aidan. She doesn’t know.”

  Color leached from August’s skin. “What do you mean, she doesn’t know?”

  “Aidan’s house. I need to get to Aidan’s house,” Jeb whispered.

  My skin bristled, and white fur spouted from my pores. I was shifting. I pushed my wolf back before she could rip through my clothes and race across the forest toward the hateful Creek’s estate.

  “Give me your car key,” August said, taking charge. “I’ll drive.”

  “August, you can’t shift. I’ll go with Jeb—”

  He shot me a glare that shut me up. “Like hell I’m letting you go without me. Get in the van.”

  We all sprinted outside and into the car. My uncle was muttering to himself. I tried to make out what he was saying, but his words were all garbled.

  I leaned between the front seats and said, “We should call Liam.”

  August’s gaze was narrowed on the road he was hurtling down at breakneck speed. “I texted Cole.”

  When, I wondered? I hadn’t even seen him use his phone.

  He tore his gaze off the road to look at me. “When we get there—”

  “Don’t tell me to stay in the car.”

  He slammed his gaze back on the windshield and took a turn so fast I had to dig my nails into his headrest to stay upright. He veered again and then the van lurched up the long driveway toward Aidan’s glass and wood mansion. My aunt stood on the threshold, shivering like a strip of cut-out paper dolls.

  Jeb flung open the passenger door and leaped out before the car had come to a full stop. He ran to his ex-wife and hugged her.

  August spun around in his seat. “Ness—”

  “Together. We go in together.” I jumped into the passenger seat and out the door that was still open.

  August rounded the front bumper, long strides devouring the flagstones.

  Amidst chest-wracking sobs, my aunt said, “He’s downstairs. With a knife in his throat.”

  “Lucy!” Jeb said, gaping at her in terror.

  “He helped Alex murder our son, Jeb. I heard them joking about it. Joking.”

  My uncle made a pained sound as he gathered his ex-wife against him again.

  “I went to the police,” she said. “They asked me for proof. I told them Aidan put a tracking device in the Jeep. They called me back saying they’d gone to the impound lot and checked the car. They told me they didn’t find anything.”

  “Oh, Lucy,” Jeb said. “The police . . . they’re corrupt. You should’ve come to us.”

  “You hate me.” Her voice trembled. “You all hate me.”

  “Lucy . . .” He squeezed her tighter to him.

  “Stay out here with her,” August told my uncle whose face had gone as pale as his beard.

  I started toward the door when Lucy called out my name.

  Her lids were so puffy her eyes were mere pinholes. “I’m sorry for . . . for everything.” Tears ran down her cheeks, mixing with the blood splatter. “Everest, he was my baby. He could do no wrong.”

  My uncle’s lips wobbled.

  “But he did do a lot of wrong.” Lucy’s body shook anew, jangling all her bracelets. “And I helped him. And now he’s gone.”

  My aunt’s apology was so unexpected that it rooted me in place.

  “Ness . . .” The urgency in August’s voice broke the spell.

  “Get her out of here, Jeb,” I said. “In case—”

  “We’ll wait fo
r you.”

  “Jeb, if she killed him, the Creeks will hunt her down.”

  Lucy released a whimper that had my uncle’s face contorting with indecision.

  “Go!” I hissed.

  He jolted, then latched onto her arm and guided his ex-wife to the car. After he shut the door, he sprinted back toward me and crushed me against his chest.

  In a rushed whisper, he said, “I’ll come back for you. I promise.”

  I nodded. “Just keep her safe. Keep yourself safe.”

  He broke away and jogged to the car. As the van rumbled to life, I sent a silent prayer up into the heavens that someone would watch over them so they didn’t end up in a ditch like their son.

  I watched the car turn before drifting into the house behind August. As soon as I stepped into the foyer, I pushed out my senses for sounds other than my gunning pulse. A faint thump hit my eardrums.

  “Did you hear that?” I whispered.

  August nodded, narrowed gaze sweeping the house.

  Canine whines and scratches ensued.

  “Just his dogs,” August murmured, but he nonetheless raised the umbrella he’d grabbed from beside the front door, positioning it over his head like a baseball bat, before stalking toward an open doorway.

  When I realized he was following a trail of bloody footprints, my stomach contracted.

  “Stay behind me, Ness,” he said as we crept through the kitchen that was white and black like a checkered board, and glaringly bright.

  The only color in the room was an abstract neon-yellow painting on the far wall and crimson droplets on the shiny floor. As we passed the knife rack, I grabbed a small paring blade that almost slipped out of my clammy fingers. The damp scent of blood wafted through the air, made my lungs cramp.

  August was calm, his pulse barely speeding, a person used to the sight of carnage, a person used to storming into homes and seeking out criminals and corpses. He tipped his head toward a door smeared with red handprints, gaping like an open wound.

  Were those Lucy’s handprints?

  Nausea made monochromatic dots dance in front of my eyes. I’d wanted the man dead, yet the idea of finding him swimming in a pool of blood had my stomach roiling. I flung my hand out to clutch the black marble island before I blacked out. The knife clattered from my fingers, and I heaved, but nothing came out.

  August hissed my name.

  “I’m okay,” I murmured, blinking to clear my eyesight.

  His concerned and lengthy gaze told me he didn’t believe me.

  “I promise,” I added.

  Another long second passed before he raised his hand to the door and drew it open. The hinges creaked like in a horror movie. He touched his ear, and I understood he was asking me to listen. I closed my eyes and concentrated.

  A faint but steady thud had my eyes flying open.

  Either there was someone else in the house or Aidan Michaels wasn’t dead.

  August nodded once in understanding, and then he started down the stairs just as an arm hooked my throat. I screamed as I was hauled backward.

  August spun and lunged back up the stairs but froze on the landing.

  A wet voice rasped against my temple, “I called Sandy . . . She’s on her way.” Aidan’s speech was slurred, as though he were gurgling on mouthwash. “So you go on . . . and leave now, Watt.”

  Something sharp prodded the skin on my neck. Without moving a muscle, I glanced down and caught sight of a glinting blade soaked in blood. I thought of my own knife and flexed my fingers, but then remembered I’d dropped it.

  “Let Ness go, and we’ll leave,” August said calmly.

  Aidan didn’t let me go. The blade even nicked my skin.

  For a brief second, I wondered if Lucy had set us up, but the pain in her eyes . . . her apology . . . No, she’d really tried to put an end to this man’s life.

  “Who do you . . . take me for?” Aidan’s voice was jagged and slow. “The village idiot? Ness will be staying with me . . . until my pack arrives . . . to make sure no other . . . Boulder attacks me.”

  Something hot dripped down my neck, over my collarbone.

  I needed to get out of Aidan’s chokehold. I concentrated hard, trying to force magic into my extremities to sprout claws and fangs. As my neck thickened and lined with fur, the knife burrowed deeper into my flesh, and I yelped.

  “Don’t you shift,” Aidan warned, his tinny breath reeking of death.

  Howls sounded outside, and Aidan flicked his gaze to the doorway.

  If his pack was here . . .

  I stared at August, my eyes misting with tears.

  If the Creeks were here . . . they would . . .

  I shuddered, unable to bring myself to envision what they might do to us.

  41

  “This is your last chance, Michaels. Let her go or die.” My navel pulsed with August’s barely contained fury.

  When claws clicked in the foyer, Aidan pulled me back, tightening his hold on my neck that was long and thin again, delicate . . . human.

  Three furred beasts erupted into the kitchen, eyes aglow, thick bodies tensed, tails horizontal.

  Boulders. Not Creeks!

  The black wolf’s lambent yellow eyes met mine, and relief careened up my spine.

  Our wolves had come. Not Aidan’s.

  I used the distraction to my advantage.

  Willing my nails to transform into claws, I shifted my hips to the side and swiped my paw between Aidan’s legs. When my sharp claws pierced the fabric of his pants and met skin, he let out a shrill shriek, and the knife popped away from my skin. I whirled, and remembering what Liam had taught me, shoved Aidan’s flailing limb under my armpit, clamping down on his elbow with both my palms to immobilize him.

  Aidan’s face had become a patchwork of whites and reds glossed over by sweat. He puffed out his cheeks and agitated his wrist. The blade scraped my shoulder before clattering onto the floor.

  Suddenly, his body was torn out of my grip and airlifted. Even though he was still in skin, August snarled as loudly as the wolves circling us. He flipped Aidan around, squashed him against his chest, then wound his arm around the Creek’s shoulder and cupped his chin.

  Aidan’s eyes bulged behind his glasses that sat askew on the bridge of his nose.

  Our Alpha barked and then shouted into our minds: STOP! Don’t kill him!

  August stared fixedly at Liam, and then at my neck, absorbed the cut that must’ve been deep because it was still dribbling blood. With a flick of his wrist, my mate snapped Aidan’s neck.

  NO! Liam’s voice exploded inside my skull.

  August unwrapped his bicep from around Aidan’s shoulders, and the limp body of the man who’d destroyed my family crumpled, his cheek smacking the floor like a dead fish, his glasses tinkling against the stone like a Christmas ornament.

  I squinted at his chest to see if it still rose and fell. Weren’t we more difficult to kill?

  In a croaky whisper that barely carried over Liam’s barking, I asked, “Is he . . .?”

  Ignoring our Alpha, August stepped over the prostrate body. And then his arms were around me and his face burrowed into my hair. “Yes. He’s gone. He can never hurt you again. He’s gone.”

  Both my neck and navel burned, one with blood and the other with fear and fury. The dregs of adrenaline made me shiver so hard my teeth rattled. All of my bones felt as though they were rattling.

  “Are you sure?” I murmured.

  “Sweetheart, I severed his windpipe. Even we can’t—” A guttural oomph surged out of August as we rocketed forward, hitting the yellow painting on the wall. He cushioned the back of my skull with his palm, his knuckles getting the brunt of the blow.

  What the? I peeked over his shoulder and found Liam back in skin, his incendiary gaze burning a hole into August’s back.

  “Liam!” I gasped at the same time August wheeled around, muscles twisting beneath his skin.

  Our Alpha punched August in the jaw. “What p
art of no didn’t you understand, Watt?”

  August growled, “Aidan was a threat to the pack, and to Ness. He didn’t deserve to live. He should’ve been killed six years ago!”

  Liam snarled. “You don’t realize what you’ve just done, do you?”

  “I neutralized a threat.”

  “Neutralized a threat?” Liam snorted. “This isn’t the fucking Marines, Watt!”

  “Liam, calm down,” I said

  “Calm down?” He yanked on the roots of his hair as though trying to tear it off his scalp. “Do you not remember what we promised Morgan, Ness?”

  What we’d promised Morgan?

  What had we promised Morgan?

  Oh . . .

  Realization hit me as hard as a kick to the gut.

  “Yeah.” Liam bobbed his head a tad maniacally. “I hope you’re ready to duel, because now, it’ll be on their terms.”

  “What are you talking about?” August asked.

  “I’m talking about the fact that we promised Morgan no harm would come to her son or her cousin until after the duel! I’m talking about the fact that if one of them died at our hands, then the choice of time reverted back to them! That’s what I’m talking about!” Spittle flew out of Liam’s mouth and smacked August’s grinding jaw.

  “Lucy . . .” I whispered, my fingers coming up to my neck. Wetness slicked my shaky fingertips. “She’s the one who attacked him. She’s not a Boulder. We can pin the murder on her.”

  Liam’s nostrils pulsed, and his shoulders still heaved, but his heart rate was slowing. I could feel the echo of it in my own chest. “Our smells are all over Aidan.”

  “We could burn him and his house down.” The new voice had me peering past August’s rigid arm.

  Cole was crouched over Aidan’s lifeless form, fully clothed, which told me he’d come by car. Matt and Lucas, though, prowled beside him, both in fur.

  “Aidan said he called the Creeks,” I said. “That they were on their way.”

  “He was bluffing.” August’s voice was alarmingly flat.

  “How do you know?” I stepped around August whose temper had bled into his eyes, stamping out their natural brilliance.