I didn’t think he was hurt that I didn’t want to be with him, after all, he considered me like his sister… people didn’t want to get with their sisters because that was all shades of unnatural and wrong, but he probably hadn’t appreciated me voicing my disgust quite this brashly. I slid the elastic out of my hair to busy my suddenly shaky hands and to curtain off my face.
“Didn’t mean to piss you off,” Sarah apologized.
I rested my elbows on the table and cupped my forehead with my palms. “It’s not you, Sarah. It’s this whole stupid situation.”
She sighed just as Kelly brought over our food. She deposited the plates a little heavily, gaze trained toward the boys.
“The other burger goes over there.” Sarah pointed to Lucas.
They’d all gone back to playing. Including August. He had his back to me, as though to avoid facing me. More than ever, I hated our link because suddenly I feared it might erase our years of shared history and render us both bitter strangers.
I felt Sarah eyeing me. Whatever she was thinking, she kept it to herself.
Between greasy, ketchup-laden bites, she said, “I’m going to be an aunt soon. My brother and Margaux are expecting.”
I blinked at her.
“Twins. They’re having twins. A girl and a boy.” She took a big bite of her burger.
“The wedding was last week. She didn’t even look pregnant.”
“She was. Just not showing yet. It’s early though-like six weeks or something-so they’re not really telling people yet.”
“Six weeks! And she already knows the gender?”
Sarah cocked up one of her dark eyebrows. “We don’t need ultrasounds to know these things.” She wiped her fingers on her checkered paper napkin before tapping her nose with her index.
“We can smell the gender of the baby?”
“No. We can smell pregnancies. The gender’s purely maternal instinct. She could be wrong, but shifter mamas are rarely wrong.”
So if my mom had been a werewolf, she would’ve known I was a girl before I came into this world. My parents had never done an ultrasound, so convinced I would be a boy. Why would a baby born to the Boulder pack be anything else? I wondered what would have happened if someone had found out I was the wrong gender before being born. Then I stopped wondering because it was an answer I never wanted to find out.
“Did you ever date someone in your pack?” I asked.
“Yeah. Back in high school, I went out with this dude called Channing. Then I picked guys who weren’t in the pack, mostly kids from UCB.” She swallowed a long gulp of her soda. “My mom will probably force me to marry a wolf, so I’m getting my fix of human boys. They’re less conceited than pack boys.”
“UCB? Do you attend UCB?”
“Starting year two in a couple weeks. Why? Are you considering enrolling?”
“Apparently I can.”
“What do you mean, you can?”
“Liam told me the pack sets money aside to cover tuition.”
Her eyes lit up. “So you’re applying?”
I nodded. She squealed, which made everyone look our way again. “Oh my God, that’s so exciting! I’ll finally have a friend.”
“Oh, come on. You don’t have any friends there?”
“Hun, I’m opinionated. Most people don’t like opinionated girls. Most people like them submissive and pleasant. Mom’s always on my case about being more pleasant.” She smirked. “You’re, like, my first friend.”
I peeled a strip of bacon off my mayo-soaked bread roll. “Does that mean I get full access to your closet?”
She tossed her head back and laughed, but then shot me a nice-try look.
I grinned. Even though it was thundering outside, and I was nervous as hell about what was happening within my pack, I felt momentarily happy. “You’re my first girl-friend too.”
She raised her glass and held it up, waiting for me to clink it with hers. “To firsts.”
I tipped my glass into hers just as Lucas slid his empty plate onto the table and reached out between us to grab a handful of napkins.
“Didn’t strike me as a virgin, Sarah,” he said.
“If you’re trying to get under my fur, Mason, it’s not working.”
He leveled his eyes on her chest, then raised them slowly. “I’m sorry, but I don’t do Pines.”
Her grin faltered. “That wasn’t me propositioning you, you prick.”
Cocking one side of his mouth up, he filched a fry from the plastic basket next to her plate, his forearm brushing against her chest. She jerked backward. His eyes flashed with undisguised amusement that heightened when Sarah glared at him.
She relocated her basket, shoving it to the farthest most edge of the table. “Hands off my fries.”
“Possessive, aren’t we?” Lucas wiped his fingers slowly on his wadded-up napkin, as though buying himself more time. “You deejaying tomorrow night, blondie?”
“Like every Thursday night.” Her skin tone had returned to normal, but her earlier glee was gone. “Don’t forget your earplugs. Or better yet, don’t come at all.” She turned back toward me. “Will you go, Ness?”
I was about to say maybe when the front door of Tracy’s flapped open, dragging in the scent of summer rain and male perspiration. My heart stuttered when I laid eyes on Liam. His dark hair was slicked back, and his body was wound so tightly it looked like he was about to pounce on someone.
Pissed.
He looked pissed.
All the more terrifying was that he looked pissed at me.
I stood up so fast my knees bumped into the table, sending bolts of pain through my shins. The last time Liam had looked at me with so much scorn was when I’d come out of Julian Matz’s maze brandishing the Boulder relic.
Aside from the low drone of the sports commentator and the unrelenting rain niggling the windows, the bar had become eerily quiet. When a cue stick hit a resin ball, I jumped.
For a long moment, Liam didn’t move. Neither did Matt who flanked him.
Lucas’s thick eyebrows dipped as he watched his Alpha, the slant deepening when Liam stalked over to me, boots pounding the worn flooring.
“You ratted us out?” Lucas asked, voice low. So very low.