“It’s going.” I lowered my gaze to the red chiffon swirling around my ankles.
“Then why are you putting off competing?”
I faltered and would’ve faceplanted if he hadn’t been holding me up. It didn’t help that my skinny heels kept burying themselves in the soft earth. “I’m not putting it off-”
“Ness, spare me the lie. I’m not an idiot. While Lucas and Liam roamed my house, you stayed planted on my lawn like a gloomy poppy.”
He led me around a sharp, leafy corner, then around another. I was disoriented. Not only by the thriving labyrinth, but also by his admission. He knew why we were here. How? I opened my mouth but not to speak. Just to gape.
“Did you assume my invitation to attend my nephew’s wedding was sent out of geniality?”
I tried to shut my jaw, but it hung open, its hinges shattered by shock.
“I possess something dear to your pack, and McNamara knows it. It was a matter of time before he sent his boysto retrieve it.”
I finally got my mouth to work. “But how… How did you know it would be part of the contest?”
“I made sure it became a part of it by tendering an invitation onto my estate.”
A loud squawk sounded. I raised my eyes to the sky to spot the bird capable of releasing such an ear-splitting sound but saw nothing flying overhead.
“If I’d been Frank, and your pack held something of mine, instead of breaking and entering, I’d jump on the opportunity to stroll through the front door.”
“So your pack really did steal it?” I whispered into the dusky air.
“No.”
“But then…how-”
“Someone gave it to me in exchange for a favor. I knew it was of great importance because Heath had paid me a visit a couple days before he died to demand I return it to him. At that point, I had no idea what in God’s good name he’d been raving about. But of course, his request rendered me extraordinarily curious. And when what he’d been pursuing dropped into my lap some time later…well, you can imagine my absolute delight.”
Julian stopped walking, pulling me to a stop too. He frowned and released my arm. I assumed someone was coming but heard no footsteps, smelled no other body. Then again, it was difficult to smell much of anything over the sour scent wafting in the air. He reached around me to pluck a leaf that stuck out from the smooth green wall of vegetation.
The reason we’d stopped.
My skin turned bitterly cold as I realized that if I stepped out of the line he’d drawn for me, he’d probably snap my neck like he’d snapped that poking imperfection
Julian returned his attention to me. I took a step back, my bare shoulder blade brushing against the bristly hedge. What had gotten into me to follow him deep into a maze he knew like the palm of his hand?
The sky had dimmed to a periwinkle blue that matched Julian’s eyes as he drank in my dread like a man savoring a delectable vintage.
He held out his arm. “Shall we?”
I swallowed, forcing my limbs to move, even though the mere thought of touching Julian had goose bumps pebbling my arm.
As we started walking again, he said, “Shortly before we met, I contacted McNamara to let him know I held what Heath had been so desperately seeking and promised to hand it over if he explained its importance.”
My throat moved with another swallow. “He mustn’t have told you if you still have it.”
He tsked. “Ye have little faith in me, Miss Clark.”
My eyes widened, soaking up the silvery outline of his gelled hair. “He told you?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t return it.”
Another loud squawk. I tipped my head upward again.
“I had every intention of giving it back-until I heard what they used it for. Then I had every intention of destroying it, but I held off, waiting for a new Alpha to rise to power in your pack. It is more challenging to barter with ashes.”
“What do they use it for?”
Julian stopped walking again, but this time, it was simply to face me. “Have you really no idea?”
I shook my head.
“They grate the wood into the drink pledges have to ingest the day they join your pack.”
I frowned.
“Have you never wondered why only males are born to the Boulder Pack? Did you truly think it was an evolutionary trait like your elders claim?”
The world held still for a moment, and then it tipped. Julian slid his palms underneath my elbows to hold me upright.
“I hope this will renew your desire to compete.”
A gust of wind cartwheeled through the maze, blowing against the glossy leaves that waved at me like tiny hands. Anger bloomed in my chest, chasing away the chilling numbness I’d felt all week long.
“Once you become Alpha, you can destroy it and change the course of your pack’s future.”
Color must’ve seeped into my cheeks, because Julian raised a wide smile that barely crimped his too-smooth, too-shiny brow.
He leaned in close. “Shall I tell you where I’m keeping it hidden?”
“Why are you helping me?”
“I’ve already told you. I want a friend in your pack, and I think you’d make a good friend.”
“You already have Everest.”
“I would not call your cousin a friend. Merely an effective purveyor. But if you’d rather not be my friend, then-”
“Where is the damn stick?”
A slow smile drew his pouty lips upward, revealing the perfectly polished enamel of his teeth. “That’s my girl.”
“I’m no one’s girl.”