He palmed his buzzed hair, muscles twisting beneath his dark-copper forearms. “Yeah, but just for the ceremony. I deploy in a few hours.” His green irises eddied. “So you and Liam, huh?”
I looked behind me. Saw Liam staring at us, shoulders squared, expression stern. Was he still mad at August for having assumed he’d been involved in Heath’s death? Or was Liam jealous?
I took a small step back but felt a hard tug forward that destabilized me. I checked August’s hands, assuming he’d held me back, but his hands were shoved deep inside the pockets of his army fatigues.
Frank clapped, and I jumped. “We are all here, so let’s begin.”
A circle formed around Lucas.
August walked off first, and I felt him distancing himself from me like a mooring line stretching tight. What the hell? I returned toward Liam slowly, palm pressed against my navel.
Liam watched August, who’d situated himself across from us, arms crossed firmly, gaze sunk on Lucas.
“Are you okay?” Liam asked me.
I nodded, then added a smile when I noticed my nod hadn’t seemed to reassure him.
Lucas slashed one of his wrists. Crimson ribbons of blood leaked down the inside of his forearm.
“Your chest, son,” Frank said. “You have to slice here.” He tapped two fingers against his heart.
But Lucas disregarded his instruction. He walked over to Liam. “Take off your shirt, Kolane.”
A deep groove appeared between Liam’s eyebrows. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not taking this from you.”
“Lucas, I don’t—”
“Shut the fuck up and strip, man.” Under his breath, Lucas added, “Never thought I’d say that to you, huh?”
When Liam didn’t pull his shirt off, Lucas said, “Hope you weren’t too attached to this thing.” He yanked on Liam’s shirt and sliced through it with the razor blade and then shoved the limp material aside and carved a narrow slit over Liam’s heart.
I gasped.
Lucas pressed his wrist to Liam’s wound and then kneeled before his friend. “I pledge myself to thee, Liam Kolane, for as long as I shall walk the world in fur. Long may you live and rule.”
For a moment no one moved, and then everyone moved at once. Even though men shoved me to get close to Liam, to swap blood with their new leader, he held on tight to my hand, anchoring me at his side.
When it was Augusts’s turn, a hush fell over the room. He slashed his wrist, then pressed it to Liam’s rising chest. Rivulets of red ran down the carved planes of his stomach, absorbed into the waistband of his jeans, tinting the blue a dark crimson. August didn’t speak any words. I supposed words weren’t necessary for the magic to bind them together.
He tipped his head toward Liam and then left without so much as a passing glance at me. And again, I felt something tighten behind my belly-button, stretch thinly, coming close to snapping when his pick-up’s taillights vanished past the rusted fence.
“May you lead us well, son,” Frank said, gripping Liam’s shoulder and giving it a short squeeze.
The ceremony took almost an hour for everyone to pledge themselves. When it was Jeb’s turn, my uncle walked over, eyes and cheeks more sunken than I’d ever seen them. He shot me a pained look, then, trembling, he sliced his wrist and touched his blood to Liam’s.
“Thank you, Jeb,” Liam said.
Jeb’s lips quavered, and then his shoulders hunched and he retreated to the back of the room. Frank went to him. I watched them talk, watched my uncle cry as he nursed a reddened tissue around his wrist.
And then I stared back at Liam and pried the razor blade from his grip. He looked at me, at my fingers guiding the blade over my wrist. When blood beaded there, wonder shimmered in his umber eyes.
I pressed my wound to his slashed skin. His chest pumped harder as I spoke my own version of the pledge. “In fur and in skin, I belong to you, Liam Kolane.”
He didn’t smile, but he caught my wrist in his hand and held it there, against his heart. Something palpitated inside my chest, but it wasn’t my heart. It felt as though a link were clicking into place, fastening me to my Alpha.
He raised my wrist to his lips and kissed it. When he brought it back down, his curved lips red with my blood, I heard words in my head, As I to you.
I blinked back tears. “I heard you,” I whispered hoarsely. “I heard you.”
His smile grew and grew, as did the noise level around us. The air vibrated with the thrill and significance of the moment we had all just shared.
My uncle’s soft wail snapped me out of my enchantment. I retracted my arm that was still stretched toward Liam and went to Jeb.
“Did you know what Lucy and Everest had planned?” I asked him.
“No.” The word came out garbled. “I swear I didn’t, Ness.”
Suddenly he hugged me, and I let him. I even patted his bowed back.
“I’m so sorry. So sorry,” he kept repeating.
And I believed he was.
“I’m so ashamed of what was done to you.”
Frank placed a hand on Jeb’s shoulder and squeezed. “You’re getting blood all over her pretty top.” The elder’s smile deepened his crow’s feet.
Jeb jerked away from me.
“Don’t worry. Evelyn taught me a foolproof way to wash blood out of clothing,” I said.
“Meat tenderizer mixed with water,” Frank said.
His answer had me gaping, until I remembered Evelyn’s earlier confession.
“Thank you for putting her in my life,” I told him.
Jeb frowned so hard his brow scrunched up. “Evelyn?”
“Mr. McNamara sent her to watch over me and Mom.”
“What?” Jeb gaped at Frank.
“Ness, please call me Frank. As to Evelyn, she and I share a tumultuous history,” Frank explained, which just had Jeb gape wider. At least he was no longer sobbing. “I owed it to Callum to take care of his little girl. He was a good man.”
At the mention of his brother, a strangled sound jerked out of Jeb’s mouth. He dug his fists into his reddened eyes.
“I’m glad you joined the pack, Ness.” Frank touched my cheek, then leaned over and placed a kiss on my forehead. “Welcome to the family.”
Little butterflies whirled around my stomach, and I smiled gratefully up at him. “Can I ask you something, Frank? Would you have made us kill each other?”
He smiled a little as he said, “That, you’ll never know.”
But I did know. His expression told me all I needed to know. Frank wouldn’t have made us spill blood. That was something Heath would’ve done.
I stayed next to my uncle after Frank left. “Where’s Lucy?”
Jeb drove the heels of his hands into his reddened eyes. “Eric…Eric locked her up in his basement”—his words were labored—“until she talks. Until she reveals where Everest is hiding.”
She’d sooner die than hand over her only son. “What happens if she doesn’t talk?”
“They’ll make the pack track him down.”
I’d meant to her, but I didn’t clarify my question. This was hard enough on Jeb.
“Let’s hope he went far, far away then,” I whispered just loud enough for Jeb to hear.
His puffy eyes widened, as though he couldn’t believe I wasn’t first in line to rip out his son’s jugular.
I wanted answers, and corpses don’t talk.
I gave Jeb a tight smile, then started to turn away when he called out my name.
“I have something that belongs to you.” He dug through his jeans and produced a key that he tucked into my palm. “It took me a couple years to get the money, but I bought back your house.”
That was how Lucy had gotten in…
I pushed that morose insight away as he continued, “It’s in your name.”
“I can’t—”
“You can.”
“But it’ll take me years to pay you back.”
“It�
��s a gift.”
“Jeb…”
He closed his fingers around mine, forcing the key into my palm. “I couldn’t prevent Aidan from killing my brother. I couldn’t prevent Heath from hurting your mother. And more recently I couldn’t prevent my wife and son from using you to terrible ends. Let me make amends.”
“But none of those things were your fault.”
“Please, Ness. Please take it. It’s in a dire state, but Nelson said he could help you. Or maybe August—”
“Thank you.” Heat blurred the sight of his pale features. “What’ll happen to the inn?”
He sniffed. “It’ll keep running. I’ll hire a new manager.” He stared down at his brown loafers. “Maybe after the summer, maybe I’ll close it down for a little while. I don’t know yet.”
I supposed working would keep him from dwelling on the fate of his family. “I’ll help out.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to.”
Can I get you back now?
The voice in my mind jolted me. Liam hadn’t moved from where I’d left him, and although he was surrounded by his pack, his full attention was on me.
“Thank you again for”—I nodded to my fist—“this. It means more to me than I could ever tell you.”
Jeb squeezed a smile onto his collapsed face.
I weaved myself between the large bodies until I reached Liam.
“Hey, sister from another mister.” Matt enfolded me in a bone-crushing hug, lifting me off my feet.
“We’re good again?” I asked once he’d set me down.
“As long as you’re good to my man, you and I are good, Little Wolf.” The warning was sugarcoated but clear.
Lucas held my gaze for a second. We didn’t exchange words. Unlike what Liam had told me in the car, I could sense I was far from Lucas’s favorite person. Maybe we’d grow on each other. Maybe not. We didn’t need to be best friends, but we would need to be friendly, for Liam’s sake.
Fingers gripped my chin and lifted my face gently.
A vein throbbed in Liam’s temple. Come home with me tonight?
Like the feather duster I’d been carrying when we’d met after so many years of being apart, Liam’s voice swept everything in the room away: the feral, rowdy men encircling us, my uncle’s intractable heartache, August’s strange chilliness. Even the musky male scents seemed to dim in the beam of Liam’s dark gaze.
“Yes.”
He smiled and then he kissed me, and whistles and cheers erupted around us. When he lifted his mouth off mine, I was completely breathless. And I could’ve sworn the tie that bound us together tightened a little harder.
What happens next? Find out in A Pack of Vows and Tears…
Afterword
I hope you’ve enjoyed Ness’s story. She’ll be back soon in A PACK OF VOWS AND TEARS which is already up for sale.
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Acknowledgments
I’ve had a fascination with werewolves since I was a little girl, so it was about time I indulged myself and wrote a story featuring my beloved humanoid wolves. The plot took shape in my mind after an extremely brief night of sleep, and then thickened during an exhausting drive back down from the mountains. Who knew staring at bumpers could fuel creativity? It did help that I had a fabulous passenger by my side.
Vee, thanks for being such a great sounding board and leading me to the idea of a magical pledge drink without which an all-male pack would have made little sense. Also, thanks for being a kick-ass sister. How I wish we could live in the same country!
Katie, Theresea, and Astrid, my three favorite readers and authors, how lucky I am to have you girls in my life. Thank you for reading each one of my manuscripts and challenging me—even if this leads to a lot of rewrites! My plots and characters grow and mature thanks to your input.
To my editor, Krystal, this was our first collaboration but definitely not our last. You saw the potential in my story, and coaxed it to the surface. Not only did you improve my prose—often by simplifying it—but you also perfected the story’s flow and rhythm.
To my awesome proofreader, Josiah, thanks for catching the pesky errors that blend into the forest of my words.
To my designer, Monika, I love how you encompassed the darkness and magic of A Pack of Blood and Lies into a single image. It’s everything I wanted and more.
To my publisher, may you soar.
To my children and husband, I love you guys to the furthest reaches of the universe and back. You inspire me each day.
To my parents, I would be nothing without you…literally. Thanks for making me. And for loving me, even when I’m not all that loveable.
Last but not least, to you, dearest reader, thank you for coming along on this lupine adventure. I hope you’ve enjoyed Ness’s tale and will read on. I have so much more in store for her in the next installment.
Also by Olivia Wildenstein
YA URBAN FANTASY
The Lost Clan series
ROSE PETAL GRAVES
ROWAN WOOD LEGENDS
RISING SILVER MIST
RAGING RIVAL HEARTS
RECKLESS CRUEL HEIRS (coming 2020)
A Pack of Blood and Lies series
A PACK OF BLOOD AND LIES
A PACK OF VOWS AND TEARS
A PACK OF LOVE AND HATE
YA MYSTERY
Masterful series
THE MASTERKEY
THE MASTERPIECERS
THE MASTERMINDS
YA STANDALONES
GHOSTBOY, CHAMELEON & THE DUKE OF GRAFFITI
HARSHVILLE (Spring 2020, SwoonReads)
About the Author
USA TODAY bestselling author Olivia Wildenstein grew up in New York City, the daughter of a French father with a great sense of humor, and a Swedish mother whom she speaks to at least three times a day. She chose Brown University to complete her undergraduate studies and earned a bachelor’s in comparative literature. After designing jewelry for a few years, Wildenstein traded in her tools for a laptop computer and a very comfortable chair. This line of work made more sense, considering her college degree.
When she’s not writing, she’s psychoanalyzing everyone she meets (Yes. Everyone), eavesdropping on conversations to gather material for her next book, baking up a storm (that she actually eats), going to the gym (because she eats), and attempting not to be late at her children’s school (like she is 4 out of 5 mornings, on good weeks).
oliviawildenstein.com
[email protected]
A Pack of Blood and Lies Page 28
