The lavender sky was no longer littered with stars, and the air was calm, abuzz with the beating wings of oblivious things. By a stream, I ran into a herd of mule deer. Even though I meant them no harm, their perky ears twitched at my approach. When their large, shiny eyes zeroed in on me, they pranced away in a blur of gray-brown fur.
I watched them leave, like everything else in my life.
Only Evelyn remained.
Evelyn…
I needed to get back to her. I needed to speak to her. But what would I tell her? I hadn’t decided what to do. To leave or to stay?
I stared at the horizon.
I could run.
Right now, I could run. As a wolf, I’d cover a lot of ground.
But Liam could run too. I had no doubt he’d track my scent with ease. Even if I had hours on him, his legs were so much longer than mine that he’d catch up. And then what?
A fly buzzed by my ear, droning loudly. I flicked my ears.
If I could get away, I’d have to relearn to live only as a human, my body frozen in a single shape. I’d done it once. I could do it again, but did I want to? The need to shift had become visceral, part of me, like the blueness of my irises and the blondeness of my hair.
I watched the horizon as it yellowed and greened, and then I turned and started to run back, savoring each tread of dewy earth, each crunch of crumbling rock, each crush of springy grass. I breathed in heavy lungfuls of the sweet dawn, cherishing them as though each breath were to be my last.
I thought of Liam. Of his mouth and hands. And my muscles swelled with adrenaline. I was thankful for last night. Thankful to have felt desired. I almost wished I hadn’t pretended to sleep, that I’d stripped Liam of his clothes and let him peel mine off my body so I would finally know what so many accused me of taking against payment.
But it would’ve been greedy and unfair.
I was grateful for what we’d shared, even though I was haunted by the hatred he’d feel once he knew who the girl he’d called perfect truly was.
Ahead of me stretched the hedge of pines that separated me from the inn like a picket fence. I slowed.
If these were to be my last moments in wolf form, I’d savor each second.
I made it back to the inn without being discovered, leaping onto the little balcony Liam had scaled just a few hours ago. I trotted back into my bedroom, my claws clicking on the hardwood floors, and then I changed back.
Swift as it had appeared, my fur retracted, leaving behind flushed skin. Sweat salted my lips. I licked it away as I pushed off the ground and rose to my feet. I headed toward the shower but stopped when I spotted a folded sheet of paper by my bedroom door. Muscles tensing, I approached and snatched the letter up, unfolding it in the same breath.
If you want to see Evelyn again,
go through with the last trial.
Speak about this note and she dies.
My fingers turned as cold and hard as ice chips and crimped the paper. I read the words; reread them. The letters blurred and fragmented, then knit back together and smoothed.
Who would do this to me?
Someone who was aware of how much I cared for Evelyn. I’d never made it a secret, but still…how many people possessed this knowledge? She so rarely left the inn that it would have to be someone close to me.
Who could possibly want to blackmail me into killing Liam?
Or was their intention to get me killed by Liam?
Could it be Julian? He’d guessed Liam cared about me—made several allusions to it last night—and wouldn’t want to murder me, which would force me to kill Liam and become the Alpha Julian so desperately desired as an ally.
But Julian didn’t know about Evelyn. Or did he? I’d told Sarah about her when we’d had lunch. Had Sarah been spying for her uncle? Was her friendship an act?
My stomach turned as cold as my fingers.
But Julian had seen how determined I was last night. He couldn’t possibly know I’d chicken out of the last test. Unless he’d heard what it entailed…
Something hardened inside my mind. Whoever sent me this note knew what the last test would be. They knew blood would be spilled. Mine or Liam’s. Whose death were they rooting for?
Lucas hated me and had never hidden how much he wanted Liam to become Alpha. It wouldn’t have been difficult for him to find out about my relationship with Evelyn. I could go to him and confess my plan, but if he hadn’t sent me the note…
I brought the paper closer to my nose—crushed flowers. The scent could’ve drifted from the dirt embedded underneath my fingernails. I sniffed the paper again. There was another scent. Something almost sour but also a little sweet. I inhaled so many times that my head started to spin, and all the smells melded together. I crumpled the paper and tossed it against the door.
A violent chill curled around my skin but was soon replaced with heat. My body smoldered with anger. One person would die today…and it wouldn’t be me or Evelyn or Liam.
It would be whoever fucking wrote this.
Chapter Forty-Four
I tossed on the first things I found in my closet and then flew through my bedroom door.
Evelyn’s door was unlocked, her bed unmade. Whoever had taken her had snatched her from sleep, because she always made her bed. I touched the creased pillow—cold. And then I crouched next to the bed. The fabric smelled faintly of menthol but also of something else—cold smoke.
Evelyn didn’t smoke.
Which meant her captor did.
My phone vibrated in the back pocket of my shorts. I straightened up, staring at the unknown number flashing on my screen. Could it be the kidnapper?
Slowly, I slid my finger across the screen to answer the call. “Hello.”
“Ness? It’s Frank.”
His voice shrink-wrapped my hope.
“McNamara,” he added.
As though I could’ve forgotten… “What is it, Mr. McNamara?”
“We’d like you to meet us at your father’s old factory. The one the Watts took over.”
Blood beat against my skin, making every inch of it tingle. Just what I needed. A trip down memory lane. “Why?”
“We need to discuss a…development with the pack.”
I looked toward the sash windows that gave onto the employee parking lot. When we’d arrived, I’d tried exchanging my room with Evelyn’s so she could have a better view, but she insisted that being on the ground floor was better for her. I didn’t see how it had benefited her in any way considering she so rarely went out.
The edge of Evelyn’s curtain fluttered. I lunged forward and drew it open so briskly a handful of tiny hooks ripped off the metal rod.
Heart twitching, I stepped into the parking lot.
“Ness? Are you still there?” Frank’s voice sounded tinny.
“Yeah. I’m here.” I shaded my sore eyes from the sun spiking through the fir trees lining the lot and scanned the premises.
“Liam came to speak with us.”
My stomach knotted like a climbing rope. Had Liam asked them to cancel the last trial? Had he told them I was ready to concede? What would happen to Evelyn if they voided the contest?
“We need you to come see us. The pack is waiting for you. Your uncle said he could take you.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
His firm response made my fingers curl hard around the phone. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
The warm air smelled of car exhaust, rancid garbage, and evaporated dew. Dark stains dappled the asphalt. My heart gave a shudder. Forcing my stiff legs to bend, I crouched and sniffed.
Oil.
Not blood.
My phone vibrated with a message from an unknown number. Frank must’ve forgotten to tell me something.
The message said: Tick tock.
Not Frank.
A car honked so shrilly I bounced onto the balls of my feet. A black minivan with the Boulder Inn logo backed into the employee lot. Another honk.
The strident sound shrilled in my skull.
“I tried to call your room,” Jeb said, leaning out the driver’s side window to peer at me. “What are you doing out here?”
“I stopped by to see Evelyn.”
I watched his face as I said this. He glanced toward the open window, but didn’t ask me how she was doing. Did he know she wasn’t there?
“Did Frank get ahold of you? The pack’s expecting us at the Watts’s warehouse.”
“I had him on the phone.”
“Are you ready to go?”
No. I wasn’t ready, but did I have a choice? I threw open the passenger door and got in.
Tick. Tock. The words echoed through me at the same time as a deafening deliberation. My aunt was a heavy smoker.
“Where’s Lucy?”
“She’s with Everest.”
“Where?” My voice was so brusque my uncle frowned.
“I don’t know, Ness.”
Could Lucy have taken Evelyn? Forcing me to compete in a death match would be a convenient way of getting rid of me. I stuck my elbow on the door handle and cradled my pounding forehead.
“I wish you’d listened to me.” My uncle’s voice broke, and a thick sob lurched out of him. “I wish you’d never entered this contest.”
I pried my head off my fingertips.
My uncle was crying.
Over me.
He was crying over me.
Surprise momentarily displaced my raging edginess.
“I failed your mother,” he croaked, wiping his eyes.
I didn’t think anyone besides Evelyn would ever mourn my death, but apparently I was wrong. Apparently Uncle Jeb would.
“I’m not dead yet.” My words were thin, flat. I couldn’t deal with his grief or his remorse. Not now. Maybe not ever. To each their own. “Can we please just go? I want to get this over with…”
That set him off all over again. Hearing a grown man cry used to irk me, but as I sat there, watching the tears drip around his mouth, I was numb.
When he still hadn’t started driving, I repeated, “Can we please go?”
He inhaled deeply, stared at my stony expression, and finally…finally started driving.
The world smeared into one long strip of color outside the window. I hadn’t taken this road in years. It had changed. There was still the Mom and Pop ice-cream shop with the flickering neon cone and the gas station—empty at this early hour, but new buildings had sprouted on the sunburned grass. All of them carried the word Watt.
August and his father had expanded the business. I was glad it had been so profitable even though seeing their name on those plaques instead of my father’s pinched my heart.
The flat-roofed gray warehouse—the original workshop—materialized in the distance. It looked the same as it had the dusty afternoon Mom and I had driven over to hand Nelson the keys and the deed.
Jeb parked in front of the loading bay, which was gaping wide. I climbed out of the van and then closed the door.
A figure stepped out of the shadowy workshop, cutting across the lot.
Liam. Mute sunlight played over his handsome face, danced across his lips.
My heart became very quiet. When he reached out for me, I took a step back. If he touched me, I’d break. Shading my eyes, I stared around the lot, then back at him, at the slant of his eyebrows.
He stared around the lot too. “Are you expecting someone?”
“No,” I said fast.
Jeb came around the car. “Morning, Liam.”
One glance at my uncle’s tear-streaked face, and Liam’s eyes widened, as though he understood my moodiness.
“The fight’s off,” he said. “But only if we both concede.”
Uncle Jeb squinted his red-rimmed eyes. “Then who becomes Alpha?”
“Lucas,” Liam said.
As though he’d heard his name, Lucas stepped out of the warehouse, his black hair devouring the rays of pale sun.
A chill swept up my spine. If he became Alpha, then Lucas wasn’t the one blackmailing me.
Unless he didn’t want the title.
No. He wanted it. Even though he wouldn’t have willingly taken it from his friend, there was no way he would turn this down.
Maybe it really was Lucy, but wouldn’t my uncle be aware of his wife’s machinations?
Unless Julian was behind the whole thing.
“You need to tell the elders you’re conceding.” Liam placed his hand low on my back to guide me into the warehouse. His pressure was light, and yet I felt like his fingers were imprinting into my flesh.
Every set of eyes fixed on me. On Liam. On the place where his palm connected with my body.
The warehouse was so quiet. Or maybe I couldn’t hear anything over the deafening sound of my thundering pulse. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I jumped. My gaze sped over every man and boy. I checked their hands for phones. None of them held one.
With rigid fingers, I extricated it from my pocket. The silicone cover caught on the crumpled note, which slipped out and tumbled onto the sprinkling of sawdust like a cluster of down. I watched in horror as my uncle crouched to retrieve it. Time slowed as he rose, the paper tucked in his palm.
The world tipped, and Liam’s fingers curled around my waist.
“This fell out.” Jeb handed it to me without so much as glancing at it.
My knuckles seemed to have fused with my phalanges, yet somehow, I managed to hold the paper and stuff it back into my pocket.
A groove materialized between Liam’s eyebrows. It deepened when I stepped away from him to read my newest text message.
I tried to reason that it could be from anyone.
Maybe it was from August.
The number was unlisted. I see you.
Nothing else. Nothing more.
My throat locked up.
Someone touched my shoulder, and I jumped.
“Everything all right?” Jeb asked.
I powered off my phone. If they were watching me, that meant they were here. That meant they no longer had to communicate with me through enigmatic text messages. I wanted to yell at whoever was sick enough to toy with me to man up and step forward, but I didn’t yell. I barely breathed.
“Has Liam filled you in on what we’re offering?” Frank’s white hair frizzed around his leathery face like a halo.
I gave a sharp nod.
Eric frowned at me, light pinging off his bald head. “It’s a great sacrifice he’s making to save your life.”
“Do you forfeit, Ness?” Frank asked.
The cement floor shifted, yet everyone remained upright. The strips of lights on the ceiling droned like wasps. Mouths moved, but voices didn’t reach my throbbing eardrums. I wanted to scream yes, I forfeit, but the words on my phone seared my corneas.
I. See. You.
Julian wasn’t here.
Unless he was seeing me through a surveillance camera.
I swallowed, choking on my saliva. I coughed.
Liam stepped in front of me, face tipped down toward mine. “Ness?”
“No.” The world lurched out of me like a bullet. “I don’t forfeit.”
Liam’s gaze cut through me like a knife. “What are you doing?”
“But I want to fight in wolf form because I don’t stand a chance in human form.” I prayed Evelyn’s captor wouldn’t figure out the true reason I wanted to fight in wolf form.
“You’re a cheat, Ness,” Lucas hissed. He stood next to Matt. Matt who’d once looked at me with kindness. There was no more kindness in his green eyes. “If you win this, I will never answer to you.”
Matt lowered his gaze and then he turned and stalked away, his big body graying in the shadows of the warehouse.
Frank glanced around him. After the other elders nodded, he said, “We agree to your terms.”
“I don’t agree to them,” Liam blurted out.
“You’d rather fight in skin than fur?” I asked him.
His temper flared.
“I’m not fighting you.”
“Please.”
“Please?” He scraped his hands over his face. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing’s wrong with me. But something’s obviously wrong with you if you don’t fight for what you want.”
“I am fighting for what I want.”
That splintered my heart. My lids fluttered closed a moment. Be strong. Be strong. When I opened them, my resolve was back. “Should we shift, Mr. McNamara?”
“You may proceed. But remember, conceding will no longer be allowed after this.”
I nodded, then kicked off my shoes and yanked off my tank top.
Liam stepped in front of me, blocking the sight of my body with his. He radiated anger. His taut muscles pulsed with it. “Ness, this is crazy.”
I unbuttoned my shorts and let them fall to the floor. I didn’t bother taking off my bra or underwear. I’d never get them back anyway.
The dead had no use for undergarments. Or any garments for that matter.
Before my teeth turned into fangs, I whispered, “Don’t make me wait too long.”
And then I dropped on all fours.
Come on, I begged, but all he would hear was a whimper.
As wolves, we understood human speech.
As humans, we didn’t understand wolf speech.
I pawed at the sawdust, impatient for him to be able to hear my last confession.
My last apology.
Chapter Forty-Five
Liam shouted something at Frank that I didn’t try to understand. I was too busy looking around me to see if someone else would shift.
No one shed clothes. No one transformed. Most were too busy gaping between me and Liam.
Sawdust puffed beneath me as a black t-shirt hit the floor. I craned my neck up as Liam kicked off his jeans, swearing beneath his breath.
In seconds, he became a black beast with gleaming eyes.
Don’t react at what I’m about to tell you, I said.
His nostrils flared.
I’m being blackmailed. Someone took Evelyn, and they said they would kill her if I didn’t go through with the last trial.
A Pack of Blood and Lies Page 24
