“I’m sorry, Evelyn.”
Moisture clumped her black lashes together. “Oh, querida. Please, no more danger. Please.”
“I promise I’m done with duels and contests for the rest of my life.”
“Bueno. Now tell me, how do you feel? Frank said you heal fast, but I worry.”
When did she not? “I feel fine.”
Her dark eyes inspected my covered face, making me wonder if the gauze was soaked in blood. As I raised my fingers to feel it, there was a knock on the door.
“Can we come in?” Frank called.
Evelyn looked over her shoulder, then back at me.
“Who’s we?” I asked her quietly.
“The men you call the elders.”
“All five of them?”
She nodded.
I hoisted myself into a sitting position and finger-combed my hair. Not that they’d notice my rat’s nest when half my face was swathed up. “C-come in!”
The door opened, and they entered, one after the other, August closing ranks.
Last night, I hadn’t noticed the violet shadows beneath his eyes or his ashen complexion. I wanted to tell him to go home and rest, but Eric stepped in front of him and started speaking to me, saying what a spectacular fight Liam and I had led, and then Derek mentioned how I’d go down in the Hall of Fame of Boulder Wolves, which made me wonder if my pack had an actual Hall of Fame. And then Frank, placing his hand on Evelyn’s shoulder, said that my courage changed the course of pack history.
Even though tears were probably out of character for the warrior they were painting me as, emotion rose and overflowed.
Evelyn knitted her warm fingers through my chilled ones.
“We are so proud of you, Ness. You will forever have our gratitude,” Frank added.
I swiped my palm against my wet cheek just as another knock sounded. The person didn’t ask to be allowed inside.
He just barged in.
This was so like Liam that it made me smile. He walked over to my bed, winding through the picket fence of elders. For a moment, he didn’t say anything, neither out loud nor in my mind.
Could he still speak into my mind, or was that bond broken too?
He cleared his throat. “Could you all give me a moment with the girl who saved my life?”
The girl who’d saved his life . . . “I didn’t save your life, Liam.”
He didn’t answer, but his jaw worked.
The elders patted my arm before leaving. Frank kissed my cheek, and then he tugged on Evelyn’s hand.
“I will be back this afternoon. Or earlier if you need me,” she said.
After she left, Liam said, “You too, Watt.”
August stiffened. Even though no tether connected us anymore, I could feel his reticence at leaving me alone in a room with my ex.
“I’ll go get us some coffees,” he finally said.
I nodded. “I’d like that.”
Rigidly, he walked to the door.
When the door snicked shut, Liam said, “I can’t believe you bit her!”
I winced from the shrillness of his voice but then squared my shoulders. “It got you what you wanted.”
“You died, Ness! You. Died!”
“I know. I was there,” I said drily.
He shook his head, not appreciating my morbid humor. His shoulders seemed broader, his arms ropier. Even his height seemed to have changed. Although his face was unscathed, I couldn’t help but wonder what his abdomen looked like. Had he healed, or was his stomach crisscrossed with scars?
After heaving a sigh, he dropped onto the foot of my bed and ran his hands through his hair. A wayward lock fell into his amber eyes. He shoved it away, but it just tumbled back down.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
He grunted. “How do you think I’m doing? You died,” he repeated. The morning sun slanting through the blinds made his eyes seem shinier, as though he were about to cry.
I captured the hand with which he was wringing the scratchy bedsheet. “You didn’t think I’d let you become the only living legend?” I fit a smile onto my lips and winked. “Way neater than being a dead one.”
He grunted, but his fingers softened in my grip.
My smile grew, but so did the ache in my face, so I leveled my lips. “I’m getting inducted into the Boulder Hall of Fame apparently.”
“Didn’t know we had one of those . . .”
“And you call yourself Alpha?” I rolled my eyes—well, my eye. I hoped Greg would come soon . . . “Aren’t Alphas supposed to be all-knowing?”
Something I said destroyed Liam’s fragile tranquility. “About that.”
I frowned.
“I ate Morgan’s heart.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I heard. Did it taste black and bitter?”
“I’d rather not recall what it tasted like. The point is, if I hadn’t ingested it right after the duel, I wouldn’t have been able to connect our two packs.”
“Okay . . .”
“But it wasn’t mine for the taking.”
I cocked my unbandaged eyebrow up.
“Ness, you defeated Morgan. That heart belonged to you. Our pack . . . it belongs to you.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“You deserve to be Alpha, and I’m here to make that happen.”
I dropped his hand as though the mere contact of his fingers could somehow transfer the link. “Um. No.” I clasped my fingers in my lap. “I most definitely don’t want to be Alpha.”
“Why not?”
“Because that was never my ambition. I signed up to be your Second to help you. Now that that’s done, I want to go back to college and”—I shrugged—“live. Like, really live. Without having to scheme and run half-marathons and watch over my shoulder.”
He glanced at me through his long lashes. “Are you certain?”
“I’ve never been more certain of anything.”
“I owe you. So much. I owe you everything.”
“You owe me nothing, Liam.”
“I do. Money, for starters.”
“I don’t need any money.”
He raised a quizzical brow.
“At least, not right now.” Maybe once I spoke to Isobel and Nelson to return what their crazy son had given me.
“You tell me as soon as that changes, all right?”
“I will.”
“And if you need anything else—and I mean, anything—come to me, and I’ll make it happen.”
I nodded.
“I mean it, Ness.”
“I know you do.”
A beat of companionable silence ensued.
“Feels strange,” I finally said.
“What does?”
“That it’s over.”
“Over? It’s just beginning. The pack’s so big now. Speaking of”—his eyes practically glowed—“I’m going to need Betas. Would you consider being one of them?”
“Me?” I squeaked. “Why? Did Lucas turn you down?”
The smirk was slow to come, but it made an appearance on Liam’s hard-edged face. “Haven’t asked him yet.”
“Well, you should.”
“I’m going to need at least two or three.”
“I’m no politician, Liam, but maybe you shouldn’t designate only Original Boulders for the job.”
“I was thinking of making Sarah a Beta.”
I smiled. “She’ll make a great Beta. And so would Lucas. Now you just need a Creek, and you’ll have a holy trinity.”
His expression gentled. “You’re right. So wise, Miss Clark.”
“Why thank you, Mr. Kolane.”
We smiled at each other a moment, and then his gaze dropped to my abdomen.
Worried he might mention the tether, I said, “Morgan mentioned they were six. Well, five, because Aidan wasn’t living with his pack back then.”
He raised his gaze back to my face. “Huh?”
“Original Creeks.” When he frowned, I added, �
��Did the others have tainted blood too, or was she the only one?”
“Oh.” His nostrils flared. “Funny you should ask. I just had a long chat with Lori about that.”
“You trust her?”
“I trust she wants to live.” He rubbed his palms against his thighs. “One of them was Cassandra’s father—the one supposedly murdered by Julian. The other was her grandmother; she died of old age two years back. And then there was Lori and Alex, but they were never exposed to the toxic spring since they were born years later. However”—he rested his hands on the bed—“they were exposed to something else.”
I frowned.
“The heavy dose of Sillin Cassandra ingested after the poisoning, it transferred to them during the pregnancy, which gave them a very high tolerance to silver.”
How interesting . . . “Like a new and improved race of shifters.”
“Exactly.”
“So the only OC left is Lori?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And you’re sure she has no silver in her blood?”
“I had Greg run tests on her. No silver showed up. Besides, Lucas killed Alex, and his blood didn’t poison him, so it’s safe to assume Lori’s silver-free.”
I chewed on my bottom lip. “How did Cassandra survive when the rest of her pack died?”
“Because she was the Alpha’s niece. He reserved the highest doses for his surviving relatives. Him and his mother never shifted again, but Cassandra somehow managed to tap into her werewolf magic. Took her years, according to Lori.”
“So it is possible to shift with Sillin in our blood?”
“Lori thinks it was the combination of silver and Sillin. Cassandra never got rid of either.”
I frowned. “It stayed in her system? So she wasn’t still taking it?”
“No.”
“Then why did they steal our Sillin?”
“Because they didn’t want us to have it.”
My frown deepened.
“As long as we had it, we could heal from her silver blood.”
My eyebrows shot up so fast it tugged on my left cheek.
“Cassandra’s plan was to annex us because we had a good foothold in the region. That’s why she had Everest take our stock.”
“So she didn’t come in peace?”
“No.”
I stared a long minute at Liam, trying to arrange all this information inside my slow-firing brain. I didn’t know if it was the medication they’d given me or my week-long coma, but my head felt wadded up with cotton. “Why did they go after ours instead of the Pines?”
“Apparently it was next up on their to-do list. Lori said her mother wanted to start with ours because we were more dissipated, and therefore, easier to take over.”
I fingered a crease in my bedsheet, trying desperately to smooth it out. To think I’d once longed to meet this woman. To think I’d once been impressed with her. I’d sink my fangs into her neck all over again if I had to.
Liam reached over and trapped my hand in his. “I can’t do this without you, Ness.”
“This?”
“Reorganize three packs and make them one.”
“Of course you can.”
“I don’t want to do it without you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I promised him, easing my fingers out of his grip.
He made a fist, his knuckles turning paler then redder as he tightened and released them. “I heard the mating link’s gone.”
My heart stilled a moment. After several breaths, I said softly, “Doesn’t change how I feel about August, though.”
He shut his eyes. “Maybe, in time, it will.”
“Liam,” I whispered, “you have a pack to take care of, a son on the way, a woman who adores you, friends who would do anything for you. You don’t need me.”
His lids flew up, and his amber gaze flared. “You’re wrong!”
I let the intensity of the emotions rolling off him settle before adding, “Guilt and gratitude are coloring the way you think of me.”
“Guilt and gratitude?” he scoffed.
“Yes. Guilt because, for some reason, you feel like you took this position from me. And gratitude for saving your ass. ’Cause I sort of did save it, didn’t I?” A corner of my mouth tugged up, in turn yanking on my injured cheek. “Could you call Greg? I’d really like to get this bandage off.”
Adam’s apple bobbing, Liam stood to extract his phone from the pocket of his jeans. As he phoned the doctor, the door to my room flew open.
61
“Ness!” Sarah raced to me. Her arms went around my shoulders and pulled me into the fiercest hug. After a couple long seconds, she pressed me away. “I’ll have you know, I’m really pissed at you! You can’t go playing hero and dying on me like that.”
“Says the girl who dated Alex Morgan to gather info.” I inspected what I could see of her body. “Did he hurt you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, hun.” She shuddered as she said this, which made me sit up straighter.
“What happened?”
“I’ll tell you everything some other time. I think you have enough to deal with right now.”
“I have nothing to deal with right now besides getting this bandage off.”
“Greg’s on his way,” Liam said.
“Thank you, Liam.” Then to Sarah, I said, “I hope he’s going to take this thing off. And discharge me.”
Sarah and Liam exchanged a glance that made my stomach tighten. Had they seen what lay beneath the bandage?
“Did I lose my eye or something?” I thought I still felt its presence, but perhaps it was like a phantom limb.
“Your eye’s still there,” Liam said.
“Then why does everyone keep blanching when I bring it up?”
“The reason I sent you that message in the shoe is because I overheard Alex and Justin talk about how they’d found out the location of the Sillin stash.” Even though I was glad for an explanation, I sensed Sarah was feeding it to me to evade my question. “I was honestly certain they knew where it was. I didn’t think they were using me to find it.”
I flicked my gaze up to Liam. “I’m very tempted to say I told you so.”
He flashed me a pained smile. “Go ahead. Say it.”
Lucas sauntered in then, shaggy-haired and shiny-eyed. “Back from the dead so soon, Clark?”
I shook my head in amusement. “Would you rather I have haunted your ass, Lucas?”
“Did you just . . . did you just”—he slapped a palm against his chest—“swear?”
While Sarah rolled her eyes, I snorted. “I’m happy to see you, too.”
“You gave us quite the scare last week.” A genuine smile now graced Lucas’s lips.
“Wasn’t my intent.”
“Can you tell Matt it was? ’Cause I sort of have a bet going with him that you did all that for the attention.”
I gawked at him.
He smirked. “Kidding.”
“So I got you something,” Sarah interjected, digging into her enormous Mary-Poppins handbag. “I got us something.”
She pulled out a firetruck-red silk bomber jacket.
“Wow that’s really . . . red.”
“Wait for it.” She flipped the jacket around. On the back, in flowy white embroidery, was written Boulder Babe. “I have a matching one for myself. Obvs.”
My eyes—or rather eye—dampened again.
“I suggested Boulder Bitch, which would’ve been species-accurate, but this one”—Lucas pointed to Sarah—“vetoed my proposal.”
Sarah gave him the stink-eye, which made laughter burst out of me. I never thought I’d laugh about anything containing the word bitch, but hey, I hadn’t thought I’d die and come back to tell the tale.
“Do you love it?” Sarah asked, her wild curls glinting in the sunlight.
“I love it.”
“Good.”
The sound of someone knocking had all of us turning toward the open door.
/>
Why was Ingrid Burley standing on the threshold of my hospital room? When August walked in behind her, I realized they must’ve bumped into each other in the cafeteria, because they were holding matching takeaway coffee cups.
“Hey,” she said, watching him bring me one of the coffees. “I’m sorry for bargin’ in here, but I heard you were finally awake.”
I wrapped my fingers around the warmed paper cup, unsure as to why she was in Boulder in the first place.
“Ingrid’s the reason I managed to unite the packs,” Liam said, as though he’d heard my thoughts. When I frowned, he added, “She brought us the Sillin.”
Ingrid shrugged. “That’s what allies are for.” She drew her fingers through her long, glossy strands, working out a tangle. “I’m just glad we made it in time.”
Perhaps I should’ve been thankful the Rivers had aided us, but it nagged me that she’d used it as an excuse to fly out here with Nelson. More importantly, though, why was she still in Boulder a week after the duel? Was she still holding out hope for August to change his mind?
“Congratulations,” she said.
“Thank you.” I offered her a stiff smile.
“Are you heading back to Tennessee today, Ingrid?” Sarah asked.
“Not sure yet.” She took a sip of her coffee, glancing over the rim at Liam. “Might stick around a few more days.”
I squeezed my lips shut to prevent myself from asking why.
“Liam, can you and I talk a sec?” she asked.
Liam nodded, then cupped the nape of my neck and rested his cheek on my forehead. I wish I had been the one to deserve you.
My heart jounced at the sound of his voice in my mind. Unlike the link connecting me to August, the one connecting me to Liam hadn’t shattered.
I ducked my head out from underneath his. “I heard you,” I whispered, remembering another time when I’d spoken the same words to him with the same amount of wonder.
He frowned. “Why wouldn’t you have heard me? You’re my wolf.”
“I just thought . . .” I glanced up at August who stood so rigidly he looked carved out of wood. “I just thought that link might’ve been gone too.”
There’s nothing more powerful than a bond to an Alpha.
I craned my neck to look at Liam.
Nothing, he repeated, gaze leveled on August.
A Pack of Love and Hate Page 30
