A Pack of Blood and Lies

by Olivia Wildenstein

  “Lucy was out of her mind with worry—”

  “Lucy was worried?” My voice sounded slightly unhinged. “She tried to stop me, Jeb. She told me girls shouldn’t play at boy’s games. Wonder where she got that from.”

  Jeb blushed. Like a full-on blush. “We were trying to protect you, Ness. We didn’t want you to get hurt, and you did. You weren’t supposed to find a way of getting there.”

  “So that’s why Everest vanished from the face of the Earth?”

  He nodded.

  “I may be your ward, Uncle, but this is my life.”

  “So we should just stand back and watch you kill yourself? You think this is what your mother would’ve wanted?”

  “I’m not going to die.”

  “You kids… You think you’re so invincible, but you aren’t. Look at that sweet girl Everest was dating.”

  “She tried to commit suicide. I’m taking part in a competition. Besides—”

  “A competition no one wants you to compete in! No one. And I’m not talking about Lucy and me. I’m talking about the whole”—his voice dropped to a hiss—“pack.”

  His comment hurt. “I’m out of the running anyway,” I mumbled. “And for your information, the whole pack just invited me to go out with them tonight.”

  He drew his shoulders back until they formed a perfect T. “I thought you wanted nothing to do with them. I thought you weren’t looking to fit in.”

  Outside, a car honked, and then Amanda waved from the passenger window of a silver Dodge sedan.

  “I thought so too, but I’m trying to make the most of my time here. But don’t worry. I’ll be out of your hair soon.”

  What I’d wished for the most had finally come true, except leaving wasn’t what I wanted most anymore.

  Matt honked again.

  “I’ll see you later,” I said.

  Jeb pinched his lips together. Either he was all out of unsolicited advice or he’d understood giving me any was useless.

  I pushed through the revolving doors, the deep-blue night air slapping my warm cheeks, then pulled open the back door of the Dodge. Someone was already sitting in the backseat.

  Sienna. Her fingers worked the hem of her baby-doll top, rolling it over and over.

  “Hi,” I said.

  Keeping her gaze cemented to her hand, she murmured, “Hey.”

  I wasn’t certain why, but I felt guilty all of a sudden. As though entering the Alpha contest had prompted August to leave—which wasn’t true. He’d left because he’d needed to get away. It had nothing to do with me.

  Matt spun around and gave me a wolfish grin. “Little Wolf’s in the house!”

  I smirked at the nickname. “Should you be driving?”

  “I’m a righty.” He wiggled the fingers of his good hand. “Thank goodness for Amanda.”

  Amanda flicked his big arm and tittered.

  I didn’t catch the correlation between his fingers and his girlfriend, until Sienna said, “TMI, guys.”

  Oh. “Eww.” I wrinkled my nose.

  A soft smile settled on Sienna’s face.

  Matt belted out a laugh that was as large as his ribcage, then spun the dial of his stereo until a rap song shook the car. And then he revved up his engine and took off, headlights zipping over the darkened landscape as fast as laser beams.

  “You might want to put your seatbelt on,” Sienna yelped, strapping herself in. I think she added, “Not that you can die from a car crash,” but the music was so loud and her voice so soft I wasn’t sure.

  Couldn’t I, though?

  Werewolves were stronger than normal humans, but they weren’t immortal. If Heath could drown in a pool, couldn’t I die from a car crash? Couldn’t August perish from a detonating grenade? I filed the question away for later.

  I would ask Everest.

  After yelling at him for ditching me, I would ask him.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The pack along with two bartenders and a couple grizzly-faced beer drinkers made up the small crowd at Tracy’s.

  As I walked inside, I started regretting coming along. Wherever my enthusiasm to hang out with the pack had stemmed from, the second I crossed the threshold, it shrunk like the Colorado River during hot, dry months.

  I straightened my spine and raised my chin. I was here now. Might as well make the most of it. Besides, I was leaving, so it wasn’t like they’d have to endure me much longer.

  Several gazes raked over me as I trailed behind Amanda and Matt. Even though I was mad at Everest, I desperately sought him out, but encountered Taryn’s narrowed blue gaze instead. She elbowed Lucas, who leaned on his cue stick as he turned toward me. On the other side of the felt table, Liam was lining up his pool tip to the cue ball. He was so concentrated on making the shot that a deep wrinkle plowed the spot between his eyebrows. Next to him stood Cole, and next to him, Tamara.

  Whereas Tamara looked at me as though I were a leper come to contaminate her, Cole sent me a smile.

  “You got Ness to emerge from her lair.” Cole pumped his fist against his brother’s uninjured one.

  “Can’t take credit for that. It was all Amanda’s doing.” Matt draped his arm around his girlfriend. “Everyone knows you can’t say no to my girl.” He craned his neck to look at me. “I tried when she pursued me. She was relentless.”

  “Poor baby.” She pouted up at him. “You’re such a victim.”

  He laughed and kissed her temple, then tightened his grip. “A real content victim,” he purred into her ear.

  “They’re annoyingly cute those two,” Sienna said, her tone slipper-soft. There was no jealousy in her voice, though, just genuine affection.

  “When did you move to Boulder?” I asked her.

  “In my junior year of high school.”

  “Where from?”

  “Tucson.”

  “You like it here?”

  She shrugged a freckled shoulder.

  “First round’s on me.” Matt made a beeline for the bar that was decorated with sticky ring marks.

  The hygiene freak within me cringed. How hard was it to wipe down a bar?

  “Name your poison, Little Wolf.”

  That nickname. I shook my head. “Sam Adams.”

  “Coming right up.”

  I was tempted to follow him to the bar, feeling strange just standing here next to the pool table, especially after Sienna and Amanda had flocked over to Taryn and Tamara. I watched Liam finally hit his shot—miss it, to be exact. The tip of his stick skidded right off the cue ball, which spun on itself without making contact with any other ball.

  “Performance anxiety, Kolane?” Lucas’s gaze sparked with delight, while Liam scowled.

  He straightened, studying the cue ball as though it were a live thing that had dissed him.

  Cole chuckled, then lined up his stick. He hit the eight ball and sunk it in.

  When he leaned over for another shot, I asked, “Isn’t that a foul?” I wasn’t a huge pool player but was pretty certain the black ball was supposed to go in last.

  “We’re playing cut-throat,” Liam said, chalking up the tip of his stick.

  “How do you play that?”

  Without taking his eyes off the game, he explained the rules: each player had a section of pool balls and they had to sink their opponents’ balls in. Matt arrived then and handed me a sweaty bottle of beer.

  “Thanks.” I took a sip and felt it drip into my empty stomach. I needed food. And I probably needed it before I drank the beer. “I should eat something,” I told no one in particular, but then I offered to get the others food. I prayed no one would ask for anything, or my bank account would take a serious hit.

  After everyone said they were good for now, I walked over to the bar, sat on a stool, and then grabbed a laminated menu that was as sticky as the bar. I ordered nachos with cheese and bacon, then spun on the stool and watched the pool game. Again, I wondered what got into me to come tonight. I heaved a sigh, then wheeled back
toward the bar and took my phone out of my bag.

  August had answered me. Glad you’re okay. Heard you’re Matt’s favorite girl now too.

  I smiled. No. Still just yours. He has Amanda. Only after I pressed send did I realize how flirty that sounded. I dragged a hand through my hair that was now completely dry.

  August sent me a smiley face.

  Not for the first time, I wished he were here instead of across an ocean. That thought filled me with abrupt guilt. Guilt that made me glance at Sienna. She was laughing at a story Cole was telling her. I studied her a moment, analyzing her body language. Her eyes glittered a little as she looked up at the mammoth blond with the buzz cut. Maybe her eyes always glittered. Or maybe she was over August.

  I ducked my face back down and wrote: You’d be proud of me. I’m at Tracy’s with the pack. I’m trying to be social.

  A couple seconds later: I hope they’re on their best behavior.

  No one’s called me any names yet.

  And if any of them do, you tell me, OK?

  I’ll be fine. Concentrate on staying alive out there. Which had me thinking… Are we as killable as humans?

  Don’t get your question.

  I took a swig of beer, then set it back down and typed: Can we die of something other than drowning or silver poisoning?

  Dot-dot-dots appeared. Then: Silver, fire, or asphyxiation. Why? Are you planning on killing Lucas?

  I grinned. LOL. Even though I wish you’d taken him with you, no. No homicidal plans on my end. I was just wondering.

  Strange thing to be wondering about.

  The bartender came back with my dish and the bill. As I dug out my wallet, I remembered I owed Liam fifty dollars. I paid for my meal, then took out the owed amount and slid it inside my bag’s front pocket.

  When I looked back down at my phone, August had written: Want me to call you?

  I frowned.

  One more line of dialogue appeared: For a refresher course. Wolf 101.

  I did need one. I was about to type yes when Matt sidled up next to me at the bar. He ordered more beer and filched a soggy tortilla chip from my bowl. “Who you sextin’?”

  The chip I’d been chewing on went down the wrong hole. I coughed, then grabbed my Sam Adams and took a long gulp.

  “I wasn’t sexting,” I wheezed out.

  A goofy grin slashed his jaw. “Sure you weren’t.”

  “Seriously, I wasn’t.”

  He snatched another chip. “Who were you texting, then?”

  “Everest.”

  “Liar.”

  My spine tightened.

  “You couldn’t have been texting Everest ’cause he’s right there, sucking face with some chick.”

  I spun on my stool. Everest was here? Sure enough, he was sitting on a brown leather couch in a dusky corner of the room, making out with the girl from the music festival.

  “So? Who were you really talkin’ to, Little Wolf?”

  “No one, Hulk.”

  His smile grew larger. “As long as it ain’t that creep you went out with the other day, I’m cool with it.”

  I snorted. “It wasn’t, but thanks for your consent.” Even though I would sooner swallow a live goldfish than admit this to Matt, I was sort of touched by his concern.

  “You looked out for me, so now I look out for you… Only fair. Unless someone’s already doing that?” He looked at Everest again then, and I did too.

  Like the hunger crimping my stomach, Everest’s fickleness pinched my heart. It had barely been a month since Becca’s suicide attempt, and he was already kissing someone new. Sure, I’d thought it was healthy for him to be flirting, but making out with someone…that was too much too fast.

  “August just wrote back,” Matt said.

  I whipped my face toward Matt and swiped my cell off the bar. I didn’t check the text message, just stuffed the phone inside my bag. My heart had leaped a good couple inches into my throat. “We’re just friends.”

  As he paid for his beers, he said, “I’m not judging. I like the guy.”

  I wanted to add don’t tell Sienna, but that would’ve sounded incriminating. I scooped up some plasticky cheese and crunchy bacon bits with a chip and stuffed them inside my mouth.

  “Lucas wiped me out.” Liam was suddenly here, right next to me. He swiped a beer from Matt’s stash and drank half of it. “Your turn, Mattie.” As though just noticing me, he asked, “Unless you want to play, Ness?”

  My heart performed a strange little twist as I looked up at Liam, as I imagined him carrying my limp, naked—ugh—body in his arms. They’d probably had to draw straws, and he’d gotten the shortest one.

  “I can barely move my arms.”

  He settled on the stool next to mine, gaze roaming over my arms. “You got a serious thrashing out there. All those rocks.”

  Had he been there?

  Before Matt left to play, he tossed out, “If Liam annoys you, call out my name. Or Hulk. I’ll respond to both.”

  I smiled.

  “Did Ness Clark just crack a real-ass smile?” Matt winked at me, which had me shaking my head. He scooped up the three beers and then returned to the others.

  “I heard I had you to thank for getting back to the inn.” I twirled a chip in the air, twisting the string of cheese glued to it until it snapped off.

  Liam didn’t say anything.

  Without taking my eyes off the chip, I said, “Tell me I wasn’t naked.” Some people could sweep things under rugs; I was the type who’d rather vacuum them.

  “You weren’t.”

  I exhaled a long breath.

  “They covered you up the second you changed.”

  Another breath rushed out of me. “I wonder how the other packs—the ones with females in them—I wonder how they…operate.”

  “You mean does everyone get naked together?”

  Heat curled up my throat.

  “I would imagine nudity isn’t such a big deal for them.”

  I finally dared look away from my chip. Liam raised his beer to his lips and tipped it, his Adam’s apple bobbing sharply under his dark stubble.

  “At least I don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

  He laid a long, muscled forearm on the bar. “What do you mean?”

  “Now that I’m out of the pack.” Out of Boulder…

  “You’re not out.”

  “They said that if I failed, I couldn’t get into the pack.”

  “But you didn’t fail.”

  “I did. I changed during the trial.”

  “Ness, you’re still in the running. Matt’s the one who’s out.”

  I knocked my beer over, and it spilled onto Liam’s jeans.

  “Shoot.” I grabbed a handful of napkins and dabbed his thigh.

  He wrapped his hand around my wrist and stilled my fingers. I froze as something pulsed against my knuckles.

  I snatched my arm back. “Sorry,” I mumbled, ogling the row of backlit liquor bottles and wondering how many of those I should ingest to forget that my hand had just connected to a very private part of Liam Kolane’s anatomy. I wiped my shaky fingers on a napkin. “I broke the rules…” My disloyal voice was wobbling. I prayed Liam would think it was the emotion of not being disqualified that was affecting my larynx and not—

  “To save his hand,” Liam said huskily.

  I feigned great interest in the baseball game on the TV hanging from an articulated arm over the liquor shelf. “He wouldn’t have gnawed it off.”

  “He might’ve. In wolf form, we can act like animals.”

  I side-eyed him.

  Pale arms slid around his chest. “Baby, you abandoned me.” Tamara tried to kiss him, but he twisted his face, and her lips landed on the hard line of his jaw.

  I ogled my half-eaten basket of tortilla chips. When minutes later she was still trying to coax him off the barstool, I stood.

  “Before I forget.” I slid out the fifty-dollar bill and extended it to him.

>   Tamara stared at the bill, nose crinkled. “Are you paying him for his company?”

  I frowned. “What?”

  She shot me a sweet smile that was anything but sweet. “Isn’t that how you make your living? Cash for company?”

  She could’ve thrown a glass full of ice at my face, and it would’ve chilled me less than her comment.

  Liam pried her arms off him.

  “Excuse me?” I said, playing dumb in case I was reading too much into what she’d insinuated.

  “The boys said you were a wh—”

  “Tamara!” Liam’s complexion went a little ruddy.

  She pushed out her lower lip in a pout. “What?”

  In what world did I think I had friends here? I backed up, and then I turned, emotion burning on my lids. My ears buzzed as I stepped onto the street. I felt drunk and sick to my stomach, but I was neither. What I was, was ashamed. And angry. It wasn’t like I could explain what I’d been doing on an escort service website in the first place.

  I started walking, not caring where I ended up. I just needed to get away.

  “Ness!” someone called out.

  Even though my legs ached, I quickened my pace, but someone stepped out in front of me, blocked my path.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I tried to sidestep Liam.

  He shuffled, blocking me again. “Ness, I’m sorry.”

  “About what? Telling your girlfriend I was a whore? It’s true, isn’t it? So there’s nothing to be sorry about.” I walked off, but Liam stalked next to me.

  “We never said you were a whore.”

  They’d probably used the word escort—big whooping difference. I started to cross the street to get away from him when a car honked at me.

  Liam yanked on my arm, reeling me back onto the sidewalk. My shoulder screamed in pain from the sharp tug.

  I gritted my teeth as I flung his hand off and rubbed my sore joint.

  “Shit.” Liam palmed the back of his neck. “Did I hurt you?”

  “Don’t give yourself so much credit.”

  “Oh, will you stop acting like you’re fucking made of steel. A rock almost spliced your spine Saturday. You’re allowed to be in pain.”