“Liam asked me when I was leaving,” he finally said. “I’ll get out of this goddamn place when I’m ready, not when someone tells me to, understood?”
My mouth fell open. Not jealousy.
My navel pulsed as though August’s anger had somehow yanked on the tether between us. And then my heart began to pulsate in time with it. As fast as it had flooded me, the strange heat receded. I was mortified to have believed him jealous.
The darkness beyond August suddenly turned brighter, noisier. A van sped down the road, kicking up a pale cloud of dust. I kept my gaze locked on the approaching car because if I looked at August, I would either yell at him for thinking I was somehow complicit in trying to get him to leave Boulder, or I would start crying. I wasn’t sure which was worse.
As I stalked toward the van, I tossed out over my shoulder, “I’ll tell him to stop harassing you.”
Had August concluded that Liam and I were a couple again after seeing us together in the hospital room or had Liam implied something?
As I took a seat next to Jeb and answered his questions about how my day had gone, I typed out a lengthy diatribe to Liam. In the end, I deleted all of it, sensing our Alpha would take it out on August.
So I simply sent: I forgot to ask, do pack tuition loans extend to out-of-state colleges?
Liam’s answer came an hour later, while I was having dinner. Why?
ME: Because I’m thinking of applying elsewhere.
He called me then. Not sure I’d be able to control my tone, I declined the incoming call and texted: Can’t talk right now. But I can text.
A couple seconds later, he sent me: Your application’s already being processed. You should be getting the welcome packet soon. And no, pack money and influence are only good on pack territory. We need to keep our wolves close.
Then why are you trying to send August away?
I felt I knew the answer to that.
The doorbell rang then. I inhaled long and hard, expecting Liam’s scent to hit me, but the smell was a mixture of antibacterial soap and ground coffee. Definitely not Liam’s, unless he’d changed his soap to the hospital-grade kind and was jacked up on caffeine.
“That must be Greg,” Jeb said, going to open the door.
Exhaling a relieved breath, I set my phone face down on the couch and stood up to get my eyes examined by the pack doctor, praying he wouldn’t spot all the anger that brewed beneath my irises.
The following day, Liam stopped by the warehouse to see me, seemingly none too happy that I hadn’t picked up the two calls he’d made after his last text went unanswered.
When he strode into the office, I kept my gaze fastened to the computer monitor. I felt him at my back though, felt his body thrum and his scent invade the entire room.
“Why didn’t you answer any of my calls?” he exclaimed.
“Because I was mad at you.” I still didn’t look at him even though he’d moved to stand in front of the desk.
“I got that. But why are you mad at me? What did I do now, Ness?”
I clicked on the keyboard, then moved the cursor to the next tab.
“Goddammit, don’t ice me out.”
I finally leaned back in the chair, crossed my arms over my chest, and stared up into Liam’s narrowed eyes. “Did you ask August to leave town again?”
His pupils pulsed and pulsed, and then his eyes turned yellow as though his wolf was about to leap to the surface.
Finally, he shook his head. “I asked him if he was planning on leaving soon. I didn’t ask him to leave. Excuse me for wanting to know what my wolves plan to do with their lives! Especially when so much is fucking happening around Boulder. Did you hear that some Creeks pissed all over Julian’s fucking hedges? Same wolves Lucas smelled around my house.”
I blinked frenziedly, feeling suddenly petty for believing this had been about an amorous tryst.
“So no, I wasn’t chasing your mate out of Boulder. I was trying to figure out if we could count on him if more Creeks arrived.” Liam growled all of this, and his growl intensified the scudding of my heart.
“I’m-I’m sorry, Liam. I just assumed.” I shivered, feeling as though someone had spun the AC to its lowest setting.
Liam didn’t storm out like I was expecting him to. He just stood there, jaw clenching and unclenching, making me feel even more foolish.
I dropped my arms onto the armrests, then pushed myself up and walked toward him, laying a hand on his forearm, hoping he’d construe my gesture as a ceasefire. “What can I do to help?”
“We don’t need your help,” he bit out.
My hand slipped off his arm and landed on my waist. “But you need August’s? You’re not actually planning on making me watch from the sidelines, are you?”
“It could get dangerous.” He rubbed his twitchy jaw.
“I’m not afraid.”
He snorted. “You might not be, but I am.”
Did he mean for me or for the pack?
“We have no clue what they’re thinking, and their Alpha can’t be bothered to pick up the damn phone. Robbie’s dying to go to Beaver Creek to meet her, but Julian says to stay put. Like me, he’s afraid it’s a ploy to lure some of us to them.” He stopped rubbing his face, but the hard lines of his posture didn’t slacken, which told me he was still pissed. At me or at the Creeks?
“Maybe it is worth sending some of us to meet her.”
His Adam’s apple jerked in his throat. “Some of us? I hope you’re not planning on volunteering, because my answer would be no.”
“Why?” I exclaimed.
“Because you don’t know the first thing about Creeks or diplomatic visits between packs.”
“Then teach me.”
“It can’t be taught.”
“Bullshit! Everything can be taught.”
“I’m not sending you out there. I’m not sending any of my wolves out there. The Creeks want to talk, they come here. We are stronger on our turf than we are on theirs.”
Slowly my hand slid off my waist and found purchase on the desk beside me. “What if they all come? All one thousand of them?”
“They wouldn’t leave their territory unguarded.”
“Even if half their pack came, they would grossly outnumber us.”