I understood then why the pack hadn’t avenged my father. What would these people do to us if they found out magic ran in our blood? Would they be holding rifles loaded with silver bullets or recording devices?
Neither scenario was pleasing.
And yet letting a man like Aidan Michaels live was the least pleasing of all.
Chapter Fifty
In the cover of the forest, Liam stripped. My gaze caught on the perfect shape of his anatomy. It wasn’t the first time he’d been naked in front of me, but it was the first time I let my gaze slip lower than the sharp dents at his waist.
“Your turn.”
I jerked my gaze up to his face. He was smiling, his incandescent eyes more yellow than brown, burning a path straight for me.
“R-Right.” I needed to get naked to change or I would have no more clothes left in my wardrobe. Checking that no other sets of eyes glowed my way, I awkwardly removed my tank top, getting my hair stuck in the process.
Not that he’d been far away, but Liam stepped in closer and reached over my bare shoulders to help me untangle the mess of cotton and blonde strands. His chest brushed against my bare breasts. I could tell it was calculated because after he tossed my tank top on the ground, he moved again…
And again…
“Need help with your leggings?” His voice was as soft and husky as a caress.
“No,” I breathed, hooking my fingers into the elastic waistband. “Turn around.”
His pupils pulsed. “Really?”
“Really.”
“I’ve seen you naked, Ness.”
I was about to ask when but remembered. The first trial. He’d been the one to carry me back to the inn. If he’d seen me, it probably meant the rest of the pack had had an eyeful too. Damn.
“I was unconscious, so it doesn’t count.”
He shot me a crooked smile, and ever so slowly, he turned, smearing a hot trail across my navel that glistened in the moonlight falling around the pine branches.
When seconds passed, and I hadn’t looked away from the mark he’d left on me, he asked, “Are you sure you don’t need my help?”
I hurried to remove my leggings, kicking them aside. However turned on I was, my first time wouldn’t be in the middle of the woods against a tree. I shut my eyes and flipped that small switch that transformed me from human to animal. When I blinked, I was on all fours beside a looming dark beast. He nuzzled my neck, and it sent a delicious shiver down my spine. Although chaste, the gesture felt almost as intimate as a kiss.
Liam tipped his face toward the sky and let out a long howl. A moment later, a deep keening answered us. The pack was on the Flatirons.
We took off toward them, Liam gentling his speed to match my own. Every so often, I would stop watching the dark forest floor and glance over at him. The irony of how much I enjoyed running beside him and being with him didn’t escape me. I’d spent my formative years despising both Kolane men, believing they were equal in deserving my contempt.
Son and father were nothing alike.
As Liam ran, he looked at me, his eyes glowing so bright they resembled fragments of stars. Did anything ever happen between August and you?
His question made me trip and stumble on a sliver of rock that nicked my hock. Liam stopped so suddenly his claws dug into the earth and raised dark dust. Startled, it took me a second to regain my footing.
He bent his long neck toward the warm trickle seeping from the slice on my hind leg and licked the blood away. Again, my whole body quivered.
No. Nothing ever happened, I finally said. But it’s not the first time you ask. Why don’t you believe me? Did August say something?
He shook his head. I smelled you on him the night he left.
Weird. But then I remembered my last meeting with August in the laundry room. I did hug him.
The fur on Liam’s forehead rippled with a frown. He smelled like you’d mated.
I blinked at him. You mean, like we’d had sex?
He looked off into the distance, as though embarrassed to be asking this question.
Liam, I’ve never had sex with August, or with anyone else for that matter.
He swung his head back toward me. Gone was his embarrassment. In its place was pure astonishment.
Oh, God, he really thought I’d whored myself off.
Never? He took a step closer, and his nose bumped into mine.
I only became an escort to meet your father.
And Aidan.
Ugh. My shoulders tightened at the sound of his name. Dinner with him was an accident. Well, not an accident. I told the escort agency I was no longer interested, but apparently Aidan insisted on meeting me. I said no, but he offered three thousand dollars. I regret every second of that dinner.
You were so mad when I dragged you out.
Because you think I would’ve admitted to you how relieved I was? I was still convinced you were the devil’s spawn.
His eyes turned somber. I was…I am.
I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I—
It’s the truth, Ness. My father was a horrible man. He didn’t speak for a long while after that. Just drew in breaths, one after another.
I licked his muzzle, and that jolted him out of his dark deliberations. You’re nothing like him.
Well isn’t this sweet?
Liam whirled around, stepping in front of me to block me from the sight of the whiny-voiced wolf. It didn’t take me long to figure out who it was. A skein of wolves spilled out on either side of the creature who’d spoken.
Julian, Liam said tightly.
I thought one of you would be dead by now. Personally, I was hoping it would be you, Kolane. No offense.
Plenty taken, Liam gritted out.
Julian walked around Liam to see me. Not that I was cowering behind Liam. I was just too busy gauging the intentions of the Pines to move a muscle.
Ness, darling, I believe we need to have a little chat.
I searched for Sarah in the lupine faces and thought I saw her, but it could’ve been one of the other females of Julian’s pack.
I lost. Sorry, I said, distracted by the flash of teeth from a dark-brown creature. I’d lay my paw in a snare it was Justin Summix.
Sorry? Well, then so am I. Shall I tell Liam what you did, or would you like to?
Go right ahead.
The brown wolf snarled at me—probably from the lack of respect I was showing his Alpha; I snarled right back.
Julian remained quiet for so long that I finally looked up at him. He was much more impressive in fur than he was in skin, and yet he inspired no fear in me.
Turns out I didn’t kill Heath, I said.
After a long moment, he said, It was Everest, wasn’t it?
It’s none of your business, Julian, Liam growled.
An Alpha killer is every Alpha’s business.
My father wasn’t targeted because he was an Alpha. He was killed because he was a cruel man.
That took Julian a long, long second to process. He was still and silent for such a slow stretch of time that I started to think he would never recover from his shock. Perhaps I have misjudged you, Liam.
He had.
Like I had.
Who will become the next Boulder Alpha then? Julian asked.
Lucas Mason, I said.
My answer elicited intakes of breaths and ragged chuffs. I deduced that Lucas wasn’t much admired by the Pines. I shared in their antipathy, but he was Liam’s friend. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as I deemed him to be; or maybe he was, and Liam was blinded by their shared history.
A feminine voice rose above the others. Ness?
Sarah? I asked.
Sorry. I was chasing after a rabbit. She advanced toward us, her wavy gold fur gleaming with sweat and moonlight. What did I miss? Blood was smeared over her smile. She licked her muzzle.
Lucas Mason will be sworn in as the next Boulder Alpha, Julian said.
No effing way, she said in a low, rumbling
voice.
She stopped beside me, sniffed the air, then sniffed my fur. She frowned, and then her eyes snapped very wide.
Lots of surprises in the Boulder Pack tonight, huh? A wolfish pout-smile flourished over the Pine Alpha’s face. Word of advice, in fur, it is equally pleasurable.
My body temperature soared so fast the air around me surely trembled. Sarah made a noise that sounded like a chuckle. I shot her a death-glare. She was still laughing softly when Julian called her away.
Julian, why did Everest give you the Boulder relic? I asked.
He stopped and turned his neck to face me. He said it was to help you.
Help me? More like help himself. My cousin didn’t care about me. He’d been willing to sacrifice me.
May you have a truly enjoyable night, Julian said, and then he was off.
The sound of paws thundered through the forest as the Pines raced after their Alpha. Liam stared after them in silence for so long that I nipped his neck. He twitched back to life. And then his head curved toward mine.
How will you punish Everest? A gust of wind tickled my fur.
That will be for Lucas to decide.
My stomach writhed with nerves. He’ll kill him…
Liam watched a bird take flight in the tree above us, disrupting the rustling stillness. Doesn’t he deserve to die?
I hated my cousin. There was no doubt about that. But did I wish him dead?
He nuzzled a spot next my ear. Don’t worry yourself with that now.
All thoughts of my cousin puffed out of existence as Liam slid his wet nose down the length of my neck and back, taking the scent of me deep into his lungs.
A delicious shiver ran through me as his hot breaths pulsed against my taut flesh. You marked me on purpose, didn’t you?
He circled around me, lowering his face to mine. Are you angry that I want everyone to know you belong to the Boulders?
How hard my parents had fought for me to belong. How hard I had fought for this myself.
To me? he added raspingly.
No. I pressed my cheek into his jaw, feeling the sprint of heartbeats beneath his black fur.
His pulse matched my own.
That wasn’t true.
My pulse wasn’t sprinting.
My pulse was dancing.
Epilogue
the following day
Even though I was still undecided whether to pledge myself to Lucas Mason, I decided to attend the ceremony held at the Boulder headquarters.
I was going for Liam. Sure, he promised he was fine about having lost out on the chance to rule the pack, but I believed he was saying this to assuage my guilt.
“Did you think it over?” He reached out across the center console of his car to take my hand in his. His palm was calloused from his midnight run, his nails jagged, and yet it was the gentlest hand I had ever held. “Ness?”
I jerked my gaze away from our twined hands. “What?”
“Please pledge yourself.”
I bit on my bottom lip. I would be lying if I said last night, running with a group of men who were like me in every way, except anatomically, hadn’t been magical. Because it had been. But how much of that magic was due to Liam?
If he’d been the one to become Alpha…
“Does the offer come with an expiration date?” I asked.
“Of course not, but I want you with me, Ness.” He slowed to a stop at a traffic light. The last one before the winding path that led to the headquarters. “Wasn’t last night incredible?”
“It was.”
“Then why are you hesitating?”
Keeping my gaze fixed on the windshield, I said softly, “It was incredible because of you.”
He tugged on my hand, dragging me nearer. “Look at me.”
I looked. At his swept-back hair, his dark eyes, his full upper lip, his slightly thinner lower one.
“I once told you about my oldest memory, but I never told you about the memory that’s marked me the most. The one that’s been playing on a loop in my mind for the past six years. You, tiny, skinny, fragile you, coming into the headquarters and asking us to train you, to accept you.”
The memory crimped the edges of my heart. “You all said no. Well, all of you except August, Nelson, and Everest.” I tried to snatch my hand from Liam’s, but he tightened his grip. “I let you go once—we let you go—and it was a mistake. I would love to blame it all on my father, but that would be unfair. Truth is, we were cowards. Almost all of us. We were a brotherhood. We thought having a girl in our midst would change us, would change everything. And it does change everything, Ness, but the Boulders are ready for change.
“A new Alpha will rise tonight. A new era will begin. Be part of it. You are as strong, as cunning, as resilient as the rest of us. And a hell of a lot better to look at.”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what? Telling you the truth?”
“You already won me over, Liam.”
A smile tipped his lips. “And you won over the pack.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I’m serious. Matt still talks about how you saved his paw. And then Frank told us about your life in L.A., how you cared for your mother until the end, and for Evelyn. And then I caught some of the elders discussing how smart and strong you’d turned out, just like your father, but with your mother’s fiery temper.”
“Seriously, stop it.” I knuckled a tear from the corner of my eye but smiled at the mention of my mother’s temper. My mother had always blazed brighter and hotter than most women.
“Ness, you’ve earned their respect. You’ve earned everyone’s respect.”
“Except Lucas’s.”
Not that Lucas’s respect mattered. Lucas didn’t matter to me.
“Babe, last night, you let me stay out with them. When I insisted on going back with you, you insisted I stay with them. Lucas’s greatest fear is that a girl comes between us.”
“That’s not seriously his greatest fear…?”
“It sort of is. Lucas lost his parents young.”
Lucas had been involved in a car crash a couple years after I was born. A shard of glass had sliced through his eyebrow, leaving behind the nasty scar he still bore. He’d survived because he’d forgotten to wear his seatbelt. His father and mother hadn’t been as lucky, and when the car tumbled down into Coot Lake, they hadn’t managed to unstrap themselves.
“And then, when his granddad died,” Liam continued, “we were all he had left. He doesn’t hate you.”
I blinked wet eyelashes at Liam. The air shimmered around his face. I blinked again, and the shimmer was gone, but his face remained.
Solid.
Real.
I reached out and touched his jaw. “I’ll think about it.”
He stopped the car on the side of the road. “You’re not still worried about not being a Boulder, are you?”
I bit my lip.
Giving his head a little shake, he leaned over his gearshift and closed the distance between our mouths, forcing my lips to open. The kiss dimmed my gnawing anxiety.
When we pulled apart, the sky was a rosy lavender, and the pines a gilded green.
We drove the rest of the way in silence. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking about, too concentrated on all I was thinking about. How I longed to tell my mother about Liam, about the trials, about Frank’s invitation to join the pack. I closed my eyes and saw her eyes glitter with a smile. The memory flickered behind my lids like birthday candles. I thought about my father next. About how he’d taught me about constellations and crafted stories of strong, alien, warrior princesses sprinting through clusters of stars. His princesses were always blonde, always had dimples, and always had wide blue eyes, like me. Each night, thanks to his boundless imagination, I would live a new life, on a new planet, face new challenges, new enemies. I wouldn’t always be victorious, though. A loss will teach you more than a win, Dad would tell me on the nights my alter-ego alien-self returned home to her parents
, defeated.
I no longer had parents to run home to when I lost.
But I did have Evelyn.
And now I also had Liam.
He stroked the top of my hand. “We’re here.”
We rolled through the open rusty fence and parked next to a long row of cars. I smoothed my hair into a knot at the nape of my neck, then tucked my mother’s ring into my sky-blue camisole so the gold band rested against my heart.
Liam walked around the front bumper of his car and then collected my hand in his. We strode slowly toward the stone building that glowed with yellow light. Bodies milled inside. Excitement rippled through the glass windows that had been propped open to let the warm July evening in.
When we entered the spacious room, gazes fell on our twined fingers. Liam let go of my hand, snaked his hand around my waist, and tucked me closer.
Matt stepped in front of us, holding out a wicker basket full of razor blades. “Less pain than claws.” Liam took one, but I didn’t—even though Matt waited a long time for me to change my mind.
“The Alpha will slash the skin over his heart, and the rest of us will slash our wrists then touch them to his chest,” Frank was telling the younger ones. I felt him glance my way, and then I felt him glance beyond me, and something shifted in his expression.
A new scent layered itself over the ones rising from the broad bodies around us. One I hadn’t smelled in weeks—sawdust and Old Spice. It suddenly nulled all the other smells. My heartbeat fluttered as I glanced over my shoulder, daring to hope August was back.
There he stood, in a dusky corner, body steeped in shadows. When our gazes met, a smile broke over my face. He didn’t smile; he froze.
I swiveled back. “You didn’t tell me August was coming home.”
Liam’s jaw set a little tightly. Wasn’t he happy to see his friend? His brother?
“Give me a second.” I pried Liam’s rigid fingers from my waist, then walked toward August who seemed to burrow deeper into the wall behind him. “You came back!”
A Pack of Blood and Lies Page 27
