“My people will stay away from them,” Liam finally relented.
Her eyes lost their inhuman glow. “Good. Do you have any more demands, Kolane?”
Should I ask her to take her pack and leave Boulder until the duel? Liam’s voice tickled my mind.
Since I couldn’t communicate the same way my Alpha could, I shook my head.
As much as I didn’t want Creeks wandering our woods, I also didn’t want to banish my best friend and her family from their hometown. I couldn’t do that to Sarah. She might be a Creek now that her uncle had been defeated, but at heart, she’d always be a Pine.
Besides, there was a reason the saying keep your friends close and your enemies closer had endured through the ages. We’d have an easier time of finding out how Cassandra had cheated by observing her and her pack.
“We have no further demands,” Liam finally announced.
“Then it’s settled.” Morgan started to lift her hand, probably to shake on their deal.
“Who will you choose as your Second, Mrs. Morgan?”
Cassandra’s hand halted in midair. I still had trouble reconciling that this woman was the same one who’d set me up on dates through a fake escort agency. The same way I had trouble coming to terms that my cousin had allied himself with her and pinned Liam’s father’s murder on me.
“I was gonna pick my daughter Lori . . .”
The thin woman, who bore the same narrow facial structure as Cassandra, seemed to stand a little taller.
“But I’m tempted to go with one of my new wolves.” The Creek Alpha raised her gaze to the deck where Sarah stood, her straightened blonde hair gusting around her taut shoulders.
As much as I wanted to spare Sarah the perils of being involved in a duel, if she became Cassandra’s Second-
“Better not pick me,” my friend yelled. “I’d let them kill you.”
Hand coming back down to her side, Cassandra grinned. “Dear Miss Matz, I don’t believe you’d let them kill me. I believe you’d do it yourself.”
“You’re right. I would.”
Liam’s best friend loomed closer to Sarah. I wasn’t sure when it had happened, but Lucas, who’d always abhorred the pack that shared our land, had decided Sarah wasn’t hateful, or at least, not as hateful as non-Boulders.
“Are there any volunteers who’d care to duel at my side?” Was this her way of testing her new wolves’ allegiance?
For a long moment, no one spoke.
But then, a voice I despised more than the Creek Alpha’s rang across the blue summer air. “I’ll do it, Alpha Morgan.” Justin Summix stepped away from his two buddies, his white wifebeater and the skin around his nostrils still speckled with blood from the beating August had delivered after the creep insulted me.
As he approached, Cassandra sized him up. “And you are?”
And here I thought she’d done her homework on all foreign packs . . . Justin Summix must not have been of much interest to her. He was a petty and vile shifter who’d insinuated more than once that being the pack’s only “bitch”-however biologically correct, I hated the term-meant I was a Boulder slut. He’d touted this barely an hour ago when I strolled up to the inn in August’s company.
“Justin Summix, ma’am.” He palmed his brown scruff that was the same length and shade as his buzzed hair.
Her gaze halted on the blood splatter before rising to his pulsing nostrils. “Why do you want to duel at my side, Justin?”
“‘Cause I know how the Boulders operate.” One side of his mouth curled in a sneer. “And I’d really enjoy bringing these two to their knees.”
All three Morgans surveyed Justin.
I glanced up at my Alpha, whose lips had arched into a smile. I sensed the turn of events pleased him. Was it because he felt like he knew how Justin operated?
“What happened to your nose?” Cassandra asked.
Justin locked eyes with me. “Like I said, I know how the Boulders operate.”
Did you do that?
I didn’t answer Liam’s question, busy pondering what Justin was hinting at. Was he saying he knew about the mating link? That he would go after August to get to me? My navel tightened from this conclusion, or maybe my navel tightened because August was contemplating wringing Justin’s thick neck.
Cassandra licked her lips, removing some of Julian Matz’s blood. “Mr. Summix, a duel isn’t a settlin’ of scores.”
I blinked. Was she turning him down?
Justin’s yellow-brown eyes widened.
“However,” she continued, “I’m willin’ to accept your candidature.”
Of course she was.
“Are we good, Kolane?”
Liam nodded.
She extended her hand again.
Liam looked at it, then looked back up at her.
“Keep your phone on, Morgan.” And then he whirled around and yelled into our minds with such authority that my forehead spasmed. We’re done here! On our way back toward the deck’s staircase, he added, Ness, you’re coming home with me.
I stumbled, just managing to catch myself on the handrail. He’d said those exact words to me a month ago.
Our work starts today.
I swallowed.
August started down the stairs, but Liam stepped into his path and said, “I said we were done here.”
“Get out of my way, Liam.”
Liam must’ve spoken directly into August’s mind, because my intended’s jaw turned as hard as bark, and then his gaze fell on me, narrowed on me. He backed away, before stalking into the inn, stretching the tether so violently that, for a second, I feared it would snap.
But it didn’t.
It simply thinned and weakened until all that was left behind was a dull hollowness.