Julian gasped. “Aidan Michaels is a wolf?”
“Yes.” Cassandra cast Aidan an affectionate glance. “My cousin.”
No one spoke, but a couple of the Creeks snickered.
“He doesn’t smell like a wolf,” Liam said.
She stuck her nose in the crook of Aidan’s neck. “It’s slight, I’ll admit. The Sillin he’s been ingestin’ during all the years he’s lived amongst you has weakened his scent.”
Aidan Michaels is one of us.
It made absolutely no sense. Why would he threaten to reveal the existence of werewolves to the public if he was one himself?
Everyone turned to me, and I realized I’d spoken this out loud. I was so shocked I didn’t even flinch from the onslaught of attention.
“It enhanced my cover story,” Aidan said.
“So you don’t have files on us?” I asked.
“Oh, I have files on each one of you, or rather Sandy does.”
“But not your lawyers?”
He took off his wire-rimmed glasses and cleaned them on the hem of his blue dress shirt, then placed them back on his nose and peered at me through them. “I know what you’re getting at, Miss Clark. You’re thinking nothing’s standing in your way of killing me.”
I held his gaze. “Isn’t a life for a life the law of all packs? Or do the Creeks play by different rules?”
Cassandra was the one to answer me. “We play by the same rules, Ness, but I strongly discourage you from killin’ my cousin.”
“Why is that, Mrs. Morgan?”
“‘Cause then this whole terrace would turn into a bloodbath, and we honest to goodness came in peace.”
“But he killed my father.”
“And Julian Matz killed mine!” Her voice rang out shrilly over the terrace. “Yet you don’t see me lungin’ for his neck. We’ve all lost people, Ness. Which is the reason I’m here. Because I think it’s time we unite instead of fight. But first, I’d really appreciate seein’ my son.”
“He’s indisposed tonight, but you’ll see him in the morning,” Liam said.
She glared at him a long moment. “He better be alive and well, Kolane.”
“He’s alive.” Liam said nothing about his condition.
She turned her attention to her cousin. “Aidan, you said there would be food.”
Aidan clapped, looking through the crowd until his gaze set on Lucy’s. He nodded to her, and she scurried inside. I didn’t have time to see her expression, see if she shared my shock in learning that the hunter was a wolf. Did anyone have suspicions about him, or had he really flown underneath every single Boulder and Pine’s radar?
Servers spilled onto the terrace, as well as music. I recognized Emmy and Skylar but not the others. They weaved through the mismatched crowd, platters bobbing from their fingertips. Had they heard anything that had been said? Did they know what we were? Emmy caught my eye, but then her gaze lowered to the tray of mini sandwiches in her hands, her face uncharacteristically pale.
She’d heard.
She knew.
Would they tell more people? Or had Aidan Michaels somehow bought their silence?
“What a fucking fuck-fest,” Lucas muttered behind me.
“Couldn’t agree with you more, Mason,” Sarah said.
“You’re agreeing with me? Shit, can I get that in writing?”
“Shut the hell up.”
Their banter unfortunately didn’t ease my stress. I wondered if it eased theirs?
When Cassandra started toward me, I stood my ground even though I wanted to leap over the railing and run far away from the inn, from Boulder, from this woman who was a stranger, and yet who wasn’t.
But I wanted answers. And I sensed she had many of them.
Stay calm, Liam whispered through the mind link, making his way back to me. Whatever she says, stay calm.
That was easy for him to say, harder for me to do. She’d manipulated me. I liked being manipulated as much as I liked slicing my finger on a kitchen knife.
Suddenly, Cassandra was standing right in front of me. She was so tall that even in my heels I had to tip my head up. I hated having to tip my head up to her.
“I understand why your pack’s been going through such an upheaval since your return.”
I disregarded her bizarre compliment. If that’s what it was. “Was it you who hacked my phone?”
“Not me personally.”
“But someone from your pack?”
“We tried to warn Everest ourselves, but he didn’t believe us. We were just trying to help him.”
“You mean, get him off your land before the Boulders arrived and realized your connection to him.”
When her gaze grinded into mine, I realized I’d struck a nerve. Well, I was about to strike a whole bunch more, because I wasn’t done with her.
“Whose idea was the escort agency, Sandra?” My voice was as tight as my spine. “Everest’s or yours?”
She cocked her head to the side, lips pursed. She was older than I’d assumed. Fifty, sixty perhaps. Tiny wrinkles ringed her mouth. What held my attention, though, was the odd bluish tinge to her lips-a recent bruise or a strange birthmark? Or maybe she was chilly. The nippiness in the air definitely made me regret not having taken a jacket.
“It was my idea,” she said.
I blew out a relieved breath. “Why?”
“To get insight into other packs.”