A Pack of Blood and Lies

by Olivia Wildenstein

  “You’re Gloria, aren’t you?” I murmured at the same time as she said, “I am sorry.”

  Heartache bloomed inside my chest. I hadn’t wanted my uncle to be right.

  I blinked away the sudden blurriness. “Was it a coincidence we met?”

  She shook her head.

  I gripped the armrests.

  Her lips trembled behind the fence of bottle-black strands draped around her face. “It does not change the way I feel about you, Ness.”

  I studied the perfect arc of light cast by my nightstand lamp on my white wall. “Just tell me everything.”

  Evelyn—no, not Evelyn—Gloria sat up straighter. “My name used to be Gloria. I changed it to Evelyn so my husband wouldn’t find me.”

  I frowned. Husband?

  “I was born in Mexico, but I moved to the U.S. as a child. To pay for college, I took up housekeeping jobs. That is how I met…him. I married him for papers, and he married me because his grandmother refused to give him access to his trust fund as long as he was a bachelor.”

  My gaze leaped off the wall and back onto her.

  “The romantic in me believed that maybe we would fall in love. He was handsome and well-educated, but he had a lot of secrets. Dark secrets. He would spend most of his days locked in his office, and when he left the house, he would lock the door. I became so terrified of him that I confronted him.” Her mouth set in a grim line. “He told me that if I ever questioned him again…if I ever went into his office, he would have me deported, so I stopped prying and kept my distance. Well, as much distance as you can put between two people sharing a house.

  “One day he forgot to lock his office door. I feared it was a trap and almost did not go inside, but I was desperate to know what sort of man I was living with. What if he was a serial killer? Or a terrorist?

  “It was a trap. He caught me before I could find anything, and then he blackmailed me. He said that if I wanted to stay in America, I had to do something for him.” She turned to look out the window. “He made me seduce a man. That man was Frank McNamara.”

  Shock pinned me in my seat. “Frank?” The memory of their encounter before the music festival flashed inside my mind. And then the kiss he’d placed on her cheek earlier…

  “You’re from here?” I croaked.

  Without turning away from the window, she nodded. “I was so scared, Ness, that I did as my husband told me. Frank was a married man. Seducing him went against all of my beliefs.” She held a knuckle underneath her nose and drew in juddering breaths. “Frank fell for my act. But soon it was no longer an act.” She closed her eyes, and a tear slid down her pale cheek. “We fell in love, and I told Frank the truth. And it was terrible.”

  She bit her lip that had started to tremble.

  “After I told Frank the location of all the listening devices I had planted, he made me leave. I went back to the house I hated, to the man I detested. I only had months left to get my papers, but I could not stay so I packed my bags. My husband came home then. He already knew I had removed the surveillance equipment. I told him I was done. He said he would call the police, and I told him I no longer cared. I made the mistake of turning my back on him.”

  She stretched her bad leg in front of her.

  “He shot me. The bullet was meant for my heart, but a wolf attacked him, and he missed. And then Frank was beside me. I do not remember much, but I do remember something…something that did not make sense until a couple days ago. I remember seeing the wolf turn into a man. For years—decades—I thought it was a delusion brought on by loss of blood.”

  Her voice broke on a sob and then on another. For a long moment, she wept.

  “I had deceived Frank, spied on him, and yet he saved me.”

  Every fiber of my being urged me to go over to her, but my muscles had gelled with shock.

  “He took me to a man who fixed my leg as best he could, and then he drove me out of Colorado and into Arizona. He had a great aunt who lived in Tucson. He asked her to take me in, and she agreed. She was such a kind lady.”

  Evelyn—Gloria—rubbed her hands together slowly, the same way she did when her palms were dusted in flour.

  “Before he left, he got me new papers. I became Evelyn Monroe. I lived with his great aunt for many years, and during all those years, Frank visited only once. For her funeral.” She closed her eyes and inhaled a deep sigh. “Frank allowed me to live there, in his house, many more years. I cleaned stores and offices but never made enough money to pay him back for all he had done for me.

  “He came back into my life six years ago. I thought he was bringing me news of my husband. That he had finally died.” She looked up at me. “But it was not that. He came for a favor, which I agreed to. I would do anything for this man.”

  My ribs trembled from the rapid drumming of my heart.

  I knew what was coming.

  “He asked me to move to Los Angeles to watch over you and your mother. He knew that if he sent anyone else to care for you, your mother would have made you move. He did not want to lose sight of you. He did not tell me why you were important. Not that he needed to explain himself to me. Especially not after telling me…”

  Silence as thick as my duvet settled between us.

  “What did he tell you?” I whispered.

  She raised her eyes to mine. Like moonlit ponds, their black depths shivered. “That it was my husband’s fault you had to leave Boulder.”

  My mind whirred with rapid calculations. None of them made sense, and yet I asked, “You were Heath’s wife?” Had he had a second wife?

  “No, querida. I was married to another monster.”

  There was a more monstrous man than Heath Kolane?

  She pursed her lips in shame. “I was married to the man who shot your father.”

  I swallowed, and my throat smarted as though I had consumed shards of glass, then I sputtered as though the glass had embedded itself into my lungs.

  “El diablo.”

  I couldn’t draw a full breath. “Y-You were married t-to Aidan Michaels?”

  “Keep away from him, you hear me?”

  I gave a sharp nod. The dinner I’d sat through made me want to throw up. “Is that why you don’t leave the inn?”

  She squeezed her lips. “Sí.”

  “You shouldn’t have come back here, Evel— I mean, Gloria.”

  “Do not call me Gloria. I am not her anymore.” She stood, walked toward me, then took a seat again, this time in front of me. She held her hands out, palms up. When I didn’t touch them, she said, “I might have found you for the wrong reasons, but please do not doubt how much I love you. You are like a granddaughter to me, Ness.”

  My throat clenched.

  “Please, querida, do not hate me for my lies. I cannot lose you. Te quiero tanto…”

  My heart bounded in time with my hands that landed on Evelyn’s. She closed her fingers around mine as though afraid I might change my mind, but I wouldn’t. I could never change my mind. It didn’t matter how she got into my life. What mattered was what she’d done since she’d been in it, and all she’d done was love me. As deeply and fiercely as my parents had.

  I had so many more questions, but one took precedent over the others. “You really didn’t know what I was?”

  A slow smile curved her lips. “No. I did not know that men or women could change into wolves.”

  “Frank never told you?”

  “No. After the night he saved me, I never dared ask him. I think part of me did not want to know the truth.” Her mouth stayed curved a while longer. But slowly, her lips settled back into a soft line. “He came by to check on you a few hours ago.” Her thumbs traced the tops of my hands. “He asked me to convince you to join the…pack.”

  I inhaled so sharply the air seared my nostrils. Was this a possibility now?

  “I told him I would do no such thing. That it had to be your decision. But…” She tapped her thumbs on the back of my rigid hands.

  “B
ut…?”

  “But I think you should consider it. I worry for you, querida. I worry that without the pack’s protection, someone could hurt you.”

  “My father had the pack’s protection, and he’s dead.”

  Her thumbs stilled as horror leached the color from her already insipid skin.

  “The pack can’t protect me from everything, Evelyn. Look at what my own family did. To you.” To me. Did she know that Everest had made me take the fall for his crime?

  “I suppose you are right.” She fell silent for a long moment, her eyes directed on the crescents she was sketching over my skin. “Frank says my ex-husband did not murder Heath, but I think he says this to reassure me. It is probably just my imagination.” She exhaled a deep sigh. “What a relief that you know everything. What a relief.”

  I trembled to tell her the truth about Heath—if only to reassure her that it wasn’t the monster she’d married who’d killed him.

  I was about to launch into that convoluted story when she said, “Liam is outside. He has been waiting to speak with you all day.”

  I jerked my gaze toward my balcony.

  The corners of her lips tipped up further, and then she laughed. “You think I would let a man linger outside your bedroom?” She shook her head. “He has been waiting for you on the inn’s porch all day. Frank came, but so did Liam…so did Liam.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  I didn’t run off right away after Evelyn left. I spent long minutes processing everything she’d told me, coming to terms with the facts that our encounter hadn’t been motivated by a random act of kindness; that she’d once been married to the man who’d killed my father; that Frank had cared enough to send someone to watch over me. I’d been convinced everyone in the Boulder Pack detested me.

  My heart sped up when I closed my fingers over the doorknob and turned it. The walk down the carpeted corridor seemed interminable, and my lightheadedness made the floor feel as though it were swinging like in a fun house. Several times I had to lean against the wainscoting to steady myself.

  The cavernous living room was dimly lit and occupied with a couple of guests sipping wine. I was surprised the inn hadn’t been shut down after what had happened. Was Jeb even here?

  I scanned the terrace for Liam, found him leaning over the balustrade. I stared at him for a long moment, watched how the white moon delineated his long body. The summer night was warm and frosted with a perfect round moon.

  The elders must be running with the pack. It was strange to think there would come a time when I could no longer change at will.

  Liam hadn’t sensed me yet, or maybe he had but didn’t dare acknowledge me, afraid to spook me. I walked over to him slowly, then placed my forearms over the balustrade even slower.

  He kept his gaze fixed to the sprawling, jeweled immensity stretching before us. “I’m sorry, Ness.”

  “What are you sorry for?”

  “For not catching Everest before he fled. For what my father did to your mother. For having rejected your plea to enter our pack after your father died. For hurting you.” He touched my cheek, the marks he’d clawed there, then his gaze dipped lower, and I knew he was apologizing for another night.

  “I incapacitated your father, Liam. And then I went after something you wanted just to annoy you. If anyone needs to apologize, it’s me.” I surveyed the gentle sway of the tall pines that were almost as green as during daylight in this bright darkness. “To think I befriended Julian because Everest told me the Pine Alpha could protect me from your retaliation once you found out what I’d done.” My eyes were so hot that the cold air made them sting.

  He shifted so that his entire body faced mine. “Is that why? I thought you were having an affair with him.”

  “God, no.” I shuddered.

  He mistook my shivers for a chill and coasted his hands up my bare arms. That just made me shiver harder.

  He frowned. “Are you cold?”

  “No.”

  A smile started on his face. He glided one of his palms over my shoulder, toward my neck, settling his thumb in the hollow of my collarbone. His four other fingers rested lightly on the knobs of my spine. My frenzied pulse pounded against the pad of his thumb.

  “You know, the night it happened—probably moments after you left—my father called me. He was agitated and drunk. And angry. Really angry. He ordered me to set fire to the inn. He said your family would be the pack’s downfall. I told him he was drunk and crazy, and that no one was setting fire to anything. And then he called me a coward. A coward like my mother. And then he said—” His fingers clenched almost painfully around my neck.

  I wrapped my hand around his and dragged it away.

  His lids slipped shut.

  “What did he say?” I murmured.

  He squashed his lips hard. So hard I thought they would never open again. But they did. “He said that he’d hoped getting rid of her would make me more of a man.”

  My hand froze against his. “Getting rid of—”

  “Dad would beat Mom. Often. The night she died…” His voice juddered. I squeezed his hand to steady him. “They fought because of something I did.” His voice broke on a strangled sob. He pressed his lips tight again, but again, they reopened along with eyes blackened by tears. “I always suspected that he’d beaten my mother to death, but I’d never known it for certain. Not until he confessed to it. I lost my shit then. I told him I would kill him. And then I hung up.”

  My heart shattered like Liam’s stance. He sagged against me, sobs rolling out of him. I wasn’t sure if they were for his father or for his mother. I led him to an Adirondack before the weight of his sorrow could knock us both over. He pulled me down with him and hugged me like a frightened child hugged their mother, clutching the fabric of my tank, crying against my collarbone.

  Liam’s sobs finally subsided, but he didn’t raise his face from where it pressed against me. “Lucas and August had been sitting next to me, so when my father was found floating in his pool mere hours later, they were convinced I’d killed him. They went so far as to discuss this with Frank. I went ape-shit crazy on them and carried out my own investigation. I hired a PI and had him look into you. I’d smelled you on my father’s couch. I didn’t think you’d killed him—at least not alone.”

  I ran my fingers through his hair, hoping my touch could soothe him a little.

  “It took Everest leaving town for it to suddenly click into place. I’d learned about Becca by then and made the connection. And then, when Frank told me Everest had stolen the Boulder relic—”

  “Everest stole it?”

  He nodded.

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure. For leverage?” He sighed, and his warm breath pulsed against my skin. “Tomorrow, I’ll start looking for him, but tonight… Tonight, I want to spend the night not thinking about my father. Not thinking about Everest. Not thinking about the heart attack you gave me when you asked me to end your life…”

  He released the fabric of my tank top and gazed up at me, his hands finding purchase on the small of my back. His breaths slowed, evening out. The heat of them raised goose bumps everywhere.

  I was suddenly conscious that it wasn’t a child who was holding me, and my fingers faltered. His lips connected with the sharp bone in my shoulder and stayed there—not quite a kiss. I never thought a shoulder could be so sensitive, but every nerve ending in my body converged in that one spot.

  He raised a hand to the base of my skull and tugged my face infinitesimally closer.

  “Frank wants me to join the pack,” I blurted out.

  “He’s not the only one.”

  With the tip of his index finger, he traced a line down the center of my face, down the middle of my throat, stopping only once his finger reached the patch of skin underneath which my heart beat a fevered rhythm. He spread his fingers and pressed his palm there.

  “You really think Frank would have had us fight to the death?” I asked, my voice a litt
le hoarse.

  “Probably not, but there was no way I was going to risk your life to find out.”

  His eyes glimmered in the violet darkness, reflecting the sheet of stars suspended over our heads.

  He leaned toward me and fit his lips to mine. The fragrance of his skin tangled with that of the forest and of the moon and of the warm earth. His hold became crushing as his mouth parted mine, as his tongue twirled around mine.

  Liam kissed the same way he did everything else in his life, with a deep, savage, territorial hunger.

  In the distance, a wolf howled, and I swear my body responded, my skin bristled. Liam’s too. Soft, hot skin transformed beneath my fingers into softer fur.

  He broke off the kiss to curse.

  “Full moon,” he explained.

  I frowned.

  “It makes our bodies crave turning more than anything else.”

  I was pretty sure I craved him more than anything.

  “Fuck it. I’d rather stay in skin tonight.”

  Another howl tore through the dark fabric of the night, alluring and deep, an invitation. My fingers tapered into curved claws. Liam’s eyes glowed an inhuman hue, and the slightest hint of fang appeared over his lip.

  “Do you have any plans tomorrow?” I asked him.

  He frowned, and his teeth shortened. “No.”

  “Want to spend the day with me? In human form? We could get to know each other…and not just in the proverbial sense.”

  Heat stained my jaw.

  He pushed a strand of hair off my face. “I didn’t think Ness Clark ever blushed.” He placed a kiss on the base of my neck.

  I shuddered. “Run. I need to run.”

  “Hmm…is that what you need?”

  I swatted his shoulder, and he winked. Tightening his grip around my waist, he stood, then set me down.

  Another howl punctured the night.

  Liam weaved his fingers through mine, and then together, we raced down the staircase that was carved in the side of the wide deck and crossed the moonlit field.

  Someone yelled for us to watch out for the wolves. I glanced back at the inn, my hair whipping my face. Guests stood against the railing, gazes plunged on the forest beyond. Their mouths moved, but we could no longer hear them. I guessed they were discussing the reckless girl and boy running toward certain death.