“I wouldn’t know,” Eric said.
“Why don’t you ask one of your customers to buy you one?” Lucas shot out.
I snatched my hand out of my pocket and flipped him off, which just made him smile.
“I can ask the wife if she’s got one,” Eric offered. “She’s about your size.”
I blanched at his suggestion. If his wife was as old as he was, then I couldn’t imagine her owning anything I’d want to wear. But beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Maybe Taryn has one she could lend Ness. They’re about the same height.” Liam’s suggestion made me as rigid as the bookcase.
I’d rather wear a vintage dress than anything owned by Terrible Taryn.
Lucas didn’t answer. I bet he was glaring at Liam.
I pinched my lips and muttered, “I’ll find something.”
A thought crawled into my mind. Perhaps I could ask Julian, as part of the package of helping me out.
“Okay, then.” Eric clapped his hands once to signal that the meeting was adjourned.
“I have one last question,” Liam started.
I scrutinized my grass-streaked sneakers.
He continued, “There’s only one thing to find and three of us.”
“Good question, son,” Frank said. “The person who finds it gets to choose his or heradversary for the last trial.”
I snapped my neck up, and my gaze collided with Liam’s. His dark eyes glinted with brutal hope…hope to disqualify me. I bet Lucas and Liam would even work together to retrieve it. Little did Liam know that Julian would give it to me
I could finally eliminate Liam.
My heart pounded, and the adrenaline bled into my eyes. I felt them shifting. I blinked the transformation away
When I cracked my lids, everyone had risen.
I peeled myself away from the bookcase and voiced the concern that had been gnawing at me for the last twenty-four hours. “Why wasn’t my father’s death avenged?”
Everyone froze. Great waves of shame rolled over the elders’ weathered faces, excavating their wrinkles. Or maybe I wanted to believe it was shame. Maybe it was simply discomfort. There was an elephant in the room-me-and I was forcing them to acknowledge it.
“We haven’t avenged Heath’s death either,” one of the elders said, and a chill spider-crawled up my spine.
My eyesight dotted as blood pounded against my temples. Would the fact that it had been an accident sway them to spare me?
“I’m not talking about Heath right now.” Keeping my voice steady, even though my lungs felt vacuum-packed, I said, “I’m talking about my father. Why is Aidan Michaels still alive?”
No one spoke for a painfully long minute. Eric palmed his bald head, and Frank sighed.
“Why-” I was about to reiterate my question when James interrupted me.
“‘Cause he’s got a detailed file on us, complete with pictures of us shifting.”
“So? Werewolves aren’t a secret,” I said.
“Just because a handful of people know about us in these parts doesn’t mean we want the entire world to find out werewolves are real. Do you realize how many crazies that sort of news would attract?”
I chewed on my bottom lip. “But if Aidan is dead, the file disappears. So it would be a win-win.”
“If he dies, the file getsreleased.”
“How?”
“He’s made copies, Ness. He’s given it to key people,” Frank explained. “Too many to track down. I’m sorry, but we just can’t risk it.”
I pursed my lips. “Was he punished at all, or did he get off scot-free?”
Frank scrubbed a hand against the back of his neck. “Heath reprimanded him. Told him that if he ever killed again, he’d stop doing business with Aidan.”
Heat scorched my eyes. “You’re kidding me. All Heath did was threatento end his business dealings?” My voice echoed shrilly against the exposed wooden beams running across the ceiling. “Did he hate my father? Is that it? Did he hate him because he had a girl instead of a boy?”
“Ness…” Frank started, but I held up my palm.
“I thought Alphas were supposed to put the pack before everything else. I guess I was wrong.” My chest pounded with fierce breaths and fiercer heartbeats. I stalked out of the living room, out of the house like a wild creature, my gaze going in and out of focus.
I needed to calm down, and I needed to do it fast or my body would shift and rip up my favorite shorts and t-shirt, and force me to enter the inn in my birthday suit-again.
I yanked my phone out of my back pocket and typed Aidan’s name in the search engine. A second later, pages of data on him spewed over my screen. Only one thing interested me though. The minute I found it, I memorized the information, then I downloaded a recording app.
I would exact my own justice.
When night fell, I borrowed a mountain bike from the inn’s private fleet and pedaled the three miles of rough trails that led to Aidan Michaels’s estate. Maybe he wouldn’t be home, but I was a patient person with a desperate need for answers and nothing better to do on a Wednesday night.
I could wait.
Fortunately for me, his palatial glass and stone house was lit up, cutting tall squares of light on the landscaped bushes and peach flagstones tiling the path to the front door. I pedaled harder, checking for security cameras. I was pretty sure I caught sight of several glowing red dots, but that could’ve been my overactive imagination.
I leaned my bike against the manicured bushes by the front door, then slid my phone out of my bag and turned on the microphone. After carefully placing it back inside my bag, I walked to the front door and punched the doorbell. Like a gong, the sound reverberated against the lofty panes of glass…against the walls of my chest.
As I waited, I licked my lips which felt chapped. Footsteps sounded inside the house, claws skittered on stone, and then a lock clicked and the door opened.
“Ness!”
Aidan grabbed the collar of his dog and held him back. The dog growled, not at his owner, but at me.
I’d forgotten he had a dog. I swiped my tongue against my lips again, praying he wouldn’t let the hound charge me. I’d have to kick it, and I didn’t like the idea of striking a dog.
“Is this about the discount?” he asked.