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.
“But…?”
“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.”
Ididn’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.