A Pack of Blood and Lies

by Olivia Wildenstein

  When my updo was done, I grabbed my bag, cell phone, key, and then slid on my black heels. On my way out of the inn, I crossed paths with Jeb. I prayed he had no inkling of what I’d done.

  He crossed his arms as I passed by the bell desk. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m having dinner with Everest.”

  His forehead grooved. “Where’s he taking you?”

  “He said it was a surprise for having forgotten to take me to the first trial.”

  Jeb’s pupils twitched with guilt.

  “’Night, Jeb.”

  He peeked over my shoulder at the parking lot, probably to check whether I was telling the truth about going to dinner with his son.

  I climbed into Everest’s car with little grace, the dress constricting my movements. “I didn’t know they made straitjackets out of black leather.”

  Everest cracked a grin, one of his incredibly toothy grins, and for a second, it made me forget that this was possibly one of the crappiest days of my existence. And I’d had my fair share of crappy days.

  I hooked on my seatbelt. “So, who was that girl you were swapping spit with at Tracy’s?”

  “Just a girl.”

  “Same one from the music festival, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And you met her…randomly?”

  The tips of his ears flushed. “She’s not an escort.”

  I hadn’t meant to imply he’d met her through Sandra. “What’s her name?”

  He flicked his gaze to me. “Why do you want to know?”

  I was a little taken aback by that. “Because I’m your cousin, and your life interests me. But if you don’t want to tell me—”

  “It’s Megan. She’s a freshman at UCB.”

  Glancing outside, at the narrow sunlit road hedged with pines, I rubbed my thumb over my bag’s strap. “What about Becca?”

  “What about her?”

  “What happens if she wakes up?”

  “It’s been a month, Ness.”

  “So you’re giving up?”

  “I’m not giving up, but neither am I going to wait by her bedside for the rest of my life.”

  I was no relationship expert, but moving on from someone he’d loved after just a month felt incredibly brusque.

  “I didn’t mean to make you feel guilty,” I ended up saying.

  “I don’t feel guilty.” His answer was dry, brittle almost.

  For a long moment, we both watched the ribbon of road we were traveling in silence.

  When we crossed over into the Pine Pack territory—a border delineated by sour piss and a pristine, ten-foot metal fence guarded by two wolves in skin, I asked, “How come you went to the Pine Pack for help?”

  Everest eased his window open and gave the guard our names. The man waved us through, and we set off down a cedar-shaded alley lined with floating white balloons.

  “Because they hated Heath.”

  I mulled this over. “What’s in it for them?”

  “Julian will tell you.”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “Because he’ll explain it better.”

  “Do they want something—”

  Everest slapped his steering wheel. “God, Ness, have a little patience, okay?”

  I bristled from his snappishness. He was delivering me to a den of wolves—literally. The least he could do was hint at what was expected of me.

  “Are you coming in with me?”

  “No. It wouldn’t look good if I were there.”

  “But my presence won’t set off warning bells?”

  “You are not a Boulder wolf. You have every right to be here. And if anyone gives you grief, tell them Julian paid you for your company. He’ll corroborate the story.”

  I wanted to scream that I wasn’t an escort but reined in my irritation.

  He came to a stop in the looping driveway of the Pines’ headquarters—an all glass and wood structure that resembled a luxurious country club. A cut above the simple gray stone building the Boulder Pack convened in. Then again, the Boulder Pack made good use of the inn, which was perhaps the reason they’d never invested heavily in expanding their headquarters.

  A white-gloved waiter opened my door.

  “Are you picking me up?” I asked.

  “Julian will have someone drive you home.”

  “Can’t you pick me up?” I sounded like a whiny child, but I didn’t like being in unknown territory.

  He sighed. “Fine. Call me when you’re ready to go.”

  “Thank you.” I shot him a weak smile. “Thank you for everything, Everest.” My throat was closing up again.

  He didn’t look at me as he answered, “What’s family for?”

  Clutching my bag against me, I turned and ascended the wide, peony petal-dusted stone steps like a prisoner walking toward their execution.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I’d researched Julian on the internet to find out what he looked like and what he enjoyed doing. He wasn’t a particularly private person, so I’d unearthed plenty of shots of him surrounded by his “family.” I even got to see my favorite Pine Pack member, Justin Summix, in a couple shots. I’d had the urge to print one out of Justin so I could stick pins into his face and crotch. Misogyny brought out the worst in me.

  As luck would have it, Justin was the first person I laid eyes on. Perhaps I noticed him first because he was the only person I knew. Others were vaguely familiar, but grief and distance had blurred my memories of them. Justin elbowed the boy he was standing next to and pointed me out. Subtle.

  A girl, not much older than me, with a mass of long kinky blonde curls and lips colored a bright pink, placed a hand on my forearm.

  Her nostrils flared. “Excuse me, sweetie, but I believe you have the wrong pack gathering. I smell Boulder wolves all over you.” She pressed on my arm to turn me around. “We don’t take their leftovers here,” she explained sweetly.

  I pasted on a pert smile and brushed her hand off my bare arm. “Good thing I’m not a Boulder leftover then. I’m looking for…” His name withered in my throat when I spotted him at the center of the room. Like a pebble tossed into a pond, everyone rippled around Julian.

  As though he sensed me looking at him, Julian turned his clear-blue eyes up toward me. A frown gusted over his face, followed almost immediately by a slow, slow smile.

  I walked down the steps, my heels clicking on the stone. Nostrils flared, and more than one set of eyebrows hitched as I approached my date.

  “Mr. Matz,” I said.

  “My, you are striking, Miss Clark.” He picked up one of my hands and held it to his lips as though he were about to kiss it. His lips never met their mark, but his gesture did. The weres I’d felt closing in around me began to back up. He twirled me around so that I had my back pressed against his bordeaux-colored dinner jacket. A tiny gasp escaped my lips, and he loosened the arm he’d wound around my waist.

  “Everyone, Ness Clark is our special guest tonight. I expect you all to be on your absolute best behavior.”

  My gaze crossed paths with many sets of wide, startled gazes. Everyone seemed to wait for an explanation as to why I was their special guest, but instead of adding anything, Julian released me and then offered me his arm. I supposed not taking it would be in bad form, so I looped my arm through his.

  “Let me introduce you to the couple of the hour.”

  He led me through a set of open doors that gave way onto a sprawling, manicured lawn planted with perpendicular hedges. Their corners were so straight I imagined the gardener using a ruler to chop them.

  Julian raised one of his hands, where a pinkie ring glittered with a diamond the size of his nail. “Robbie, Margaux!” he called out to the couple who were having their picture taken by a team of professionals.

  The photography equipment looked as expensive as the bride-to-be did with her white lace dress and the river of diamonds wrapped around her swan-like neck.

  Julian’s nephew tu
rned toward me first. He raised his nose the slightest bit and sniffed the air. His eyebrows slanted just like those of his fellow shifters. Obviously Julian had not announced my visit to anyone other than the guards at the gate.

  “This is Ness Clark.” Julian’s pouty mouth curved, which accentuated his nephew’s frown.

  “Callum Clark’s girl?” Robbie asked.

  Julian nodded. “The very one.” He released me and leaned in toward his future niece-in-law—or whatever she was to him. “Margaux, darling, you look ravishing tonight.”

  “As do you, Uncle.”

  “Always a kind word for your graying uncle.”

  “You are not graying.” She let out a tinkling titter, as though her lips were made of crystal.

  I sniffed the air, wondering what she was truly made of—skin or fur. She smelled like Robbie, as though she’d bathed in his scent.

  When the camera crew asked if they could get a picture of her with Julian, he obliged.

  Robbie crossed his arms as he watched his uncle dip his future wife over his arm. She laughed, her eyes glittering for the camera as wildly as her diamonds. I looked up at Robbie and wondered if he worried about the way Julian touched Margaux. After all, Julian was the Alpha, and Alphas liked to take things that weren’t theirs for the taking…at least that had been true in our pack.

  “You’ve grown up lots since the last time I saw you.” Robbie glanced down at me. “How long has it been?”

  “Six years.”

  “Six years…” he mused, his gaze back on his future wife who was now giggling because Julian had scooped her up. “I always wondered something.”

  “What?” I asked him.

  “Why didn’t your pack punish the hunter who killed your father?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The last hunter who injured one of ours was mauled instantly. I thought the Boulders abided by the same rules as we did.”

  My body, which I’d angled toward Julian and Margaux, pivoted fully toward Robbie. “They do. The hunter was killed right after I left Boulder.”

  He frowned deeply. “The man’s very much alive, Ness.”

  My heart, which had behaved until now, hurdled against my ribcage.

  “You were with your father that night, weren’t you?”

  “I was, but it was dark, and it was one of my first runs, and my sense of smell was still developing, and—”

  “So you don’t remember the hunter?”

  “I never even saw him. At least, I don’t remember seeing him.” I remembered hearing the gunshot, the hot spray of blood, the metallic smell of it, but that was all that remained of the devastating night. “But the pack sniffed him out. And they”—my voice caught—“they killed him.”

  The pity crinkling Robbie’s expression made my skin crawl. “For a dead man, he looks and sounds awfully real.”

  Bang. Bang. Bang went my heart. Like the rifle that had stolen my father from me. Robbie was lying, trying to get a rise from me.

  “How do you even know who it is?” I asked.

  “You don’t think we carry out our own investigations? The death of a shifter affects us all.”

  His words rubbed my nerves raw. “Why should I believe the man is still out there? For all I know, you’re trying to rile me up so I go and kill an innocent man. A man whose death would be convenient to the Pines?”

  “Passionate little thing, aren’t you?”

  “Answer my question. Why should I believe you?”

  “Truth is, you shouldn’t. But if I were you, Ness, I’d go ask your pack for the truth.”

  “I don’t have a pack.”

  He tilted his head to the side. “So the rumors I heard that you were competing for Alpha are deceitful?”

  “I’m not competing anymore. I have no interest in being a Boulder.”

  He folded his strong arms in front of his broad chest. “So a lone wolf it is?”

  “No. I’m leaving Boulder.”

  “Not shifting will shorten your lifespan. It’s unnatural for your body not to go through the change. It would be like a woman not menstruating.”

  His comparison had me wrinkling my nose.

  Margaux burst back next to us as Julian posed for a couple shots by himself. She latched onto her fiancé’s arm but then let go to fuss with the white ribbon wrapped around his short blond ponytail.

  “We should return to our guests, Robbie.”

  He kissed her, and then to me he said, “Enjoy the party.”

  Hand in hand, they went back to the crowd that had spilled out the French doors onto the paved terrace where all the faces and finery blurred into a vibrant, glittery cloud.

  A hand wrapped around my elbow. “They’d like to take a picture of us. Would you pose for one with me?”

  I turned to Julian. “No.”

  He studied my expression, then flicked a hand toward the photographer’s assistant who had trailed after him. The woman scurried away.

  “Mr. Matz, who killed my father?”

  Julian gave his head a little shake. “Robbie. Robbie. Robbie. Always sticking his nose in matters that don’t concern him.”

  “Tell me his name. Please.” I had a violent need for the truth.

  He dipped his chin. “If I am not mistaken, you had dinner with him a few days ago.”

  “I had dinner with my father’s killer?” My voice was loud, too loud. It echoed inside my ears.

  Julian’s lips settled into a grim line. “Aidan Michaels.”

  Every sound, color, flavor, and scent faded as the name sank into my mind.

  I’d sat at a table with my father’s assassin. I’d made conversation with him. I’d taken his money.

  I raised a hand to my neck and gagged on the bitter taste careening up my throat. I clamped my teeth shut, and sweat broke out over my upper lip. An arm wound around my waist, steadying me. The world eddied, before coming back into sharp focus.

  “I’m sorry to be the bearer of such dire news, Miss Clark.”

  Stupidity left a vile taste in my mouth. Here I’d thought my pack disliked me, but if they hadn’t avenged my father, then their dislike ran deeper than I’d assumed. Loathing throbbed beneath my skin. Claws curled from my nailbeds.

  “Breathe. Your eyes have shifted,” Julian instructed.

  I breathed, and the simple act of inhaling and exhaling managed to drive my claws back. What it didn’t manage to do was ease my fury.

  “Heath had too many business dealings with Aidan Michaels to afford killing him.” Julian leaned toward me, his whisky-scented breath brushing my ear. “You did the world a great favor by killing him.”

  My heart felt like a shard of ice. “Everest said you could help me.” For the first time since my cousin had informed me I was a murderer, I didn’t care.

  An amused, almost satisfied expression creased his eyes. Unlike what humans believed, werewolves aged at the same rate as humans, yet Julian looked ancient, like he’d been alive far longer than his forty-seven years.

  “I am well acquainted with the PI Liam hired. One word from me, and he will direct the focus of the investigation off of you.”

  “What will that word cost me?”

  “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

  I squared my shoulders, and the leather dress tightened around me like a second-skin. “What will it cost me?”

  “You go on with that little game your elders have organized.”

  I jerked my head back. “I don’t want to be part of my pack.”

  “You wouldn’t just be a part of it. You’d rule it.”

  “I have no desire to rule a bunch of pricks.”

  “Why did you enter your name in the first place, then?”

  “Because I didn’t want another Kolane to have that sort of power.”

  “And you’ve changed your mind?”

  “No.”

  A slippery smile eased over Julian’s lips. “You go on with those silly trials then, and I will not only make sur
e that your name is cleared, but also that you win.”

  “How and why?”

  “Don’t bother yourself with the how. As for the why…” Julian closed his hand over my elbow and steered me up the lawn. “I want there to be peace between our packs, and I believe you are the instrument of that peace. There is something incredibly special about you, and not simply because you are the first female born to your pack in a century. Although, perhaps your sex does color my conviction.” He pulled me to a stop on the first step of the grand stone staircase leading up to the terrace. “Do we have a deal, Miss Clark?”

  His flattery and backing were honing my ego into a dangerous weapon. “The Boulders detest you. They believe you are the source of all evil.”

  “I don’t doubt this.” His eyes flared like silver bullets. “But would an evil man desire peace?”

  I tried to glimpse the wolf lurking beneath the human casing of tanned flesh, pouty mouth, and powder-blue eyes that were Julian Matz. I sensed his wolf was an impressive specimen.

  “I could sweeten the pot by having my weres deal with Aidan. Would you like that?”

  “I like to clean up my own messes, but thank you for the offer.”

  “So, will you go on with the trials?”

  Did I have a choice? Besides hitchhiking away from Boulder, I had no way out. “Yes.”

  Julian’s teeth flashed. He lifted my hand to his mouth and laid a kiss there to seal our deal. “How proud you would’ve made your father.”

  Glass shattered against stone, and then screeching voices exploded above us. I wheeled around and found an almost unrecognizable man glowering down at me and Julian. Blood poured from Liam’s temple and gushed from his nose.

  “Get away from him, Ness!” Liam’s voice struck me like a bolt of lightning, but instead of making me tremble, it electrified me.

  With an almost clinical detachment, I cocked my head to the side and watched as he struggled against the three shifters restraining him. I wondered if they were the same weres who’d rearranged his features into a bloody, pulpy mask. Liam bared his teeth, then whacked the back of his head against one of them. His captor gasped and teetered back. Blood dripped from his nostrils, mixing with Liam’s on the slabs of limestone.