I raised my chin up a little higher and walked closer. I held out my palm and opened my fingers. When he tried to pluck it out, I snapped my fingers closed around the noxious wood and hid it behind my back. “I’m not giving it back.”
Frank cocked a bushy eyebrow. “If you don’t give it back, you’ll be disqualified.”
“I know what it does,” I said, shaking with anger.
He dipped his chin into his neck. “I assumed as much.”
“How could you use this? How could you perpetuate such savagery?” I murmured disgustedly.
Liam and Lucas turned their attention to Frank.
“Could we discuss this in private, Ness?”
“Why? Are you afraid of how your boys will react, Mr. McNamara?”
One of his eyes twitched. “No. Actually, go ahead and tell them. This shouldn’t be a secret anymore.”
He was bluffing. He had to be bluffing. The Alphas and elders had kept this a secret for a century.
“It’s too late anyway,” he said. “For their generation at least, it’s too late.”
“What does it do?” Liam asked.
Frank raised his gaze to me. “Shall I tell them, or should I leave you that honor?” When I didn’t move my lips, Frank said, “A trifling amount of the wood is mixed into your pledge drinks. It destroys female sperm.”
Both Liam’s and Lucas’s eyes widened. Both their mouths gaped. They’d really had no idea.
“Genius,” Lucas said.
I balked at his answer. But of course he’d find it genius. I looked at Liam, waited to see his reaction, but besides a slackening of his stance, he didn’t utter a single word.
“Not the reactions you were expecting, are they?” Frank said.
To think my father had had to answer to him as a boy.
“Do you also find it genius?” I asked Liam, loathing how desperate I was for him to say no.
He blinked but didn’t speak.
“I don’t think the pack could’ve dealt with more girls,” Lucas said, which made Frank’s lips quirk up.
I wanted to whack the smile off his face and almost swung the yellowed fossil into his cheek, but I held myself back.
“At least,” Frank said, serious again, “we don’t kill off female embryos like they do in the other packs. Because that’s what happens in the other packs. Women interrupt pregnancies when they find out their offspring is female.”
“Not the Pines.”
“Even the Pines. Why do you think there aren’t as many females to males in their pack? They just cover it up better than the other packs.”
“That’s a lie.”
“No, Ness. It isn’t a lie.”
I wanted to growl, and I did.
Frank held out his hand. “Last chance to stay in this contest.”
Shaking my head, I slapped the rancid stick against his palm. He could have his evil gender selection tool back. If I became Alpha, I’d destroy it. And if I didn’t rise to the top, I wouldn’t have to worry about the damn thing, because I would no longer be part of the Boulder Pack.
“Did Callum not drink it, Frank?” Liam asked. “Is that why he had Ness?”
I held my breath.
“He drank it,” Frank said, “but it made him sick. We believe that’s why it didn’t work on him.”
I released the captive air, hating how much relief Frank’s explanation brought me.
“Aw, man…” Lucas grumbled. “I had a bet going that Ness wasn’t a Boulder.”
“You bet that my mom cheated on my dad?”
“Lucas,” Frank chided him. “Not only is that inappropriate but—”
“Oh come on, Mr. McNamara. Wasn’t that one of the reasons Heath didn’t accept Ness’s pledge? Because he wanted to spare her the heartache of uncovering her heritage through a communication glitch?”
“What are you talking about?” I all but snarled.
“If you’re not a Boulder,” Lucas said, “you won’t hear the Alpha.”
Silence caked the warm breeze. I tucked a long tendril of hair behind my ear before remembering the hand I used had been the one to clutch the pack artifact. The lingering stench made my eyes water.
“Do you also doubt my lineage, Mr. McNamara?” I asked.
Frank hooked a finger into his black bowtie and tugged as though it were on too tight. “Your mother was a good woman.”
A non-answer.
“I suppose we’ll find out for sure if you win, Ness,” Lucas continued. “If none of us can hear you—”
“Enough! Enough.” Frank’s face was so red it made his eyebrows appear whiter. “Who will you choose as your opponent for the last test, Ness?”
I hated the uncertainty that had again crawled underneath my skin. I exhaled an annoyed breath, then looked at Lucas and Liam—a rock and a hard place.
I finally made my choice.
“Liam,” I said. “I pick Liam.”
And then I walked away, finding my way home the same way I’d found my way out of the maze.
Alone.
Chapter Forty-Two
I’d tried to drown my overactive mind in a book, but to no avail. After three pages, the contents of which had pinged against my skull without leaving a trace, I tossed the book aside and turned off the light on my nightstand. I shut my eyes and prayed sleep would devour me.
But it didn’t. My nerves were too raw to sleep.
“Oh, Mom,” I murmured. “Whose child am I?” A tear slid down my nose and into my pillow.
I rolled onto my back, and then I stared at the immaculate white paint on the ceiling, crumpling my comforter between my fingers. I felt a nonsensical bout of nostalgia for the water stains that had adorned our ceiling back in Los Angeles.
A knock on my window had my pulse spiking. I sat up quickly, and the world spun. Had I imagined it? Another knock, this time more insistent. I got out of bed slowly, swiping my room key off my desk and fitting it between clenched fingers.
Who would knock on my window? Everest maybe—
I drew the drapes open.
Liam stood on my balcony, barely distinguishable from the night in his dark clothes. Only his face stood out, pale as the moon behind him.
Nerves shrilled in my ears, and I shut my curtains.
“Ness, let me in.” He banged on the glass again, and I felt his fist inside my chest. “I’ll wake up the whole damn inn if you don’t let me—”
I shoved the curtains aside and opened the door, and then I backed away from him, fingers wrapped tightly around the key.
He thrust the door closed so hard it sucked in a piece of beige curtain.
He scowled as his gaze caught the glint of metal in my fist. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
I didn’t loosen my grip on my makeshift weapon. “Why are you here then?”
“I’m here for answers.” He inhaled a rough breath. “Why are you Julian’s puppet?”
“I’m not his puppet.”
“Oh, come on!” Liam smacked an open palm on my desk. I jumped. “You vanish into a fucking maze with him, and then you come back out all victorious and smug.”
“Is it so hard to believe he might enjoy my company?”
Liam let out a cruel laugh. “It is, actually.” His voice was hostile. “Julian is a manipulative bastard, and don’t tell me you don’t realize that, because you might be a lot of things, Ness, but you’re not dumb. Now, please tell me what the fuck is going on, because I am this close”—he held out his index finger and thumb, which were a hairbreadth’s away from touching—“to my breaking point.”
I pressed my lips shut, not to keep my confession from sliding out, but to keep Liam from seeing how they trembled. I squared my shoulders for the same reason.
“Did you think Lucas wouldn’t kill me? Is that it?” he asked.
My heart punched my ribcage. “What?”
“Don’t tell me you weren’t aware that the last test is a kill game.”
Those two words should never
have been part of the same sentence. “A-A kill game?”
A shadow lapsed over Liam’s brow. “Winner takes all. Including loser’s life.”
The key tumbled out of my slack fingers and clinked against the wooden floor.
His eyebrows writhed in surprise. “What? You didn’t know?”
“They’re going to—” I swallowed, but it did little to displace the lump expanding like a vacuum bag inside my throat. “Make us—” I’d convinced myself I’d meet Liam’s punishment with my chin raised high—whatever that punishment may be. But that was because I hadn’t really believed he would kill me.
I wasn’t ready to die.
I didn’t want to die.
“Is this some sick joke?”
“No. It’s not. I wouldn’t joke about something like that.” Liam raked his hand through his hair, ramming back a lock that had fallen over his forehead.
A thought whispered across my mind. He’d planned on selecting Lucas as his contestant. Had it been to spare me? “You would’ve been ready to kill Lucas?”
“I wouldn’t have had to kill Lucas, because the elders would’ve let one of us concede. They wouldn’t have wanted to eliminate a pack member.”
His words trickled through me like grains of sand in an hourglass, and like those grains of sand, they were marking the time I had left.
I realized then that this was the perfect way to get rid of me for good. “But because it’s me—a non-pack member—they’ll take conceding off the table?” I swayed a little but caught myself on the back of my desk chair. My knuckles whitened. “Is that why you’re here? To finish this stupid contest?”
His gaze turned a forbidding shade of black. “Do you really think I could kill you?”
Silence rang in my ears. “You want to become Alpha more than you want anything else, Liam, so yes, I think you could kill me.”
He dropped down on the foot of my bed and let out a gravelly sigh. “It’s true. I used to want it more than anything else. For my father, for the elders, there was no doubt I would be the next leader. It was what I was reared for.”
I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. My fingers shook. “And you’ll make a great Alpha, Liam,” I admitted softly. “I didn’t use to think so. I assumed you were like Heath, and sometimes, you do remind me of him, but you also remind me of your mother, and she was a good woman who always cared for others more than she cared for herself. At least, that’s what my mother told me. I don’t remember her very well.”
He snorted. “You don’t have to be nice to me. I’m not going to kill you.”
I released the chair and went to sit next to him on the bed. “I mean everything I just said.” I twined my fingers together in my lap and marveled at how quickly my fingernails had grown back, how strong they’d become, almost as hard as my wolf claws. “I entered this contest to spite you but stayed in it because I’m proud and hated to be considered lower than low because I’m a girl. I wanted to prove to you, to the pack, and to myself that I was worth something, but I wasn’t planning on even trying to win the last contest. That’s why I picked you and not Lucas. Because…because I wanted you to win.”
“Ness—”
“Let me finish.” I squeezed my fingers together. “I don’t want this, Liam. I don’t want a pack that doesn’t want me. And certainly not at the cost of a life.”
I’d killed once.
Never again.
Never again.
“I’ll leave Boulder and never come back. They can’t make you kill me if I’m gone, right?” I turned my head to look at Liam, who was staring back, eyes wide.
“No.”
“It won’t work?”
He shifted, and one of his knees knocked into mine, creating a spot of heat on my cool skin. “You shouldn’t have to leave your home because of me.”
“My home?” I let out a soft snort. “I don’t have a home here, Liam.” I lifted my eyes to the untainted ceiling. “I live in a hotel. With an aunt who, for some reason, really despises me and an uncle who doesn’t think very highly of me. My only friend was my cousin, but he up and left me. And my newest friend is a girl I keep being warned not to be friends with because she’s the enemy. The only other person who was nice to me is off fighting in the Middle East. I might have a roof over my head, and a woman who cares about me like I was her own granddaughter, but I don’t have a home.”
One of Liam’s hands came up to my face, his fingers cradling my chin, angling it toward him.
“You can’t leave,” he said, his voice a husky whisper.
“Why not?”
His warm breath rushed over my face. “Because then I’d spend my days tracking you down instead of focusing on the pack. What sort of Alpha would that make me?”
I lowered my lashes. “You think they’d make you track me down?”
“No one would make me do it.”
The room was so quiet I heard him swallow.
“Do you…feel anything for me…besides contempt?” His lips worked on a smile but tumbled nervously back into a straight line.
“Would it change anything if I did?”
Emotion flared over his face, fast and bright like lightning. “It would change everything.” He spoke the last word so slowly goose bumps erupted over my bare legs and arms, over the slice of bare stomach peeking between my sleep shorts and tank top. “Do you?”
The goose bumps breached my skin and skittered over my ribs. “What do you think?”
“I don’t want to think; I want to know. Do you?” Even though his grip on my chin was gentle, his fingers were not. They dipped into my skin as though trying to leave marks.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Before my next heartbeat, he’d splayed both his hands on my hips, lifted me, and propped me onto his lap. I bent my knees around his thighs. And then one of his hands was in my hair, his other on the base of my spine. And his lips…his lips were on mine, hard and soft, punishing and kind.
A series of explosions went off in me.
I was kissing Liam Kolane.
Liam Kolane was kissing me.
When his tongue swept over the seam of my mouth, my entire body rocked with a shiver. My hands, which had been resting lightly on his biceps, reached up to grip his shoulders. I burrowed my fingertips into his t-shirt, afraid that if I loosened my grip, I would tumble off him.
I parted my lips and took his tongue in. He growled into my mouth, his hands pressing harder into my skin. In his bruising grip, he scooped me up and stood. I locked my legs around him, locked my mouth on his. He walked to one side of the bed, knelt on the mattress, then lowered my body beneath his. Slowly I untangled my legs from around his waist and stretched them out underneath him. He braced himself on his forearms and pressed his lips against mine, tangling his tongue with mine.
Kissing Liam Kolane felt like running through a starlit field in my wolf form—the purest form of power and sensation there existed in this vast, dark world.
I ran my fingers over the runnel of his spine, then dipped my hands beneath the fabric of his black t-shirt to touch the warm, tanned skin I’d barely ever dared glimpse. His muscles roiled underneath my exploring hands; tendons pinched, flesh tensed.
He broke the kiss.
“Not fair,” he whispered hoarsely.
I arched an eyebrow.
He rolled me over so that I was on top, so that his big hands could slip underneath my tank top.
“I’ve been dying to touch you, Ness. Every fucking inch of you. My turn.”
His hands stroked my spine, the sides of my body, the indents of my waist before traveling upward, his thumbs trailing over my stomach, my ribcage, the underside of my breasts, stilling on my nipples. His touch sent so many tremors through my bent arms that I almost collapsed over him. He drew a line of kisses from the edge of my jaw all the way down to the hollow of my collarbone.
I moaned. Embarrassingly loud. And not just once.
He fit his mouth back over mine and swallo
wed the rest of my sounds, then slid his thumbs back down.
“You are so fucking perfect,” he murmured against my lips.
Those words were my undoing. And not in any romantic way.
I began to cry, hundreds of tears.
If he knew what I’d done to his father, he wouldn’t think me very perfect.
He wouldn’t want to kiss me.
He wouldn’t want to touch me.
“Hey.” He slid me onto my side, then brushed his knuckles over my face to dry my wet cheeks. “Hey. What’s going on?”
A savage sob raked up my chest, erupting from my mouth. I threw the back of my hand against my trembling lips and bit the thin skin to silence myself.
He combed a lock of hair behind my ear. “Tell me what’s going on.”
The words shivered on the tip of my tongue but never made it out. I couldn’t tell him.
I tried to turn my face away from his, but he forced me to look at him.
“Do you also think my mother cheated on my father?” I croaked. It wasn’t what had set me off, but it was troubling me almost equally.
The tension burst from his taut features in time with his breaths. “You have his dimples. And his smile.”
Were dimples and smiles proof of genetic affiliation?
He caressed the side of my neck. “Is that all that’s bothering you?”
I swallowed before I lied, “Yes.”
“Good.” He smiled, the slow scrape of his nails agonizingly pleasurable.
I shivered, and not because of how good his touch felt, but because I knew, with unfaltering doubt, that the next time his fingers would come in contact with my neck, it wouldn’t be to caress it, but to snap it.
Chapter Forty-Three
Liam left a little after midnight. I’d pretended to have fallen asleep so he wouldn’t soil his lips further on mine. The guilt of having let him kiss me was tenfold-worse than the guilt of having drugged Heath.
In the gray hours of the morning, glum thoughts turned my mind the same dull shade as the sky. I got up and walked onto my balcony. A warm wind combed through the tall evergreens, making them shiver, making me shiver. My skin itched to shift, and I let it. I pulled off my tank top and sleep shorts and transformed into my other self, and then I jumped over the balcony and raced away from the inn, not caring if any guest had awakened. They all looked forward to wolf sightings anyway.
A Pack of Blood and Lies Page 23
