To spare Liam’s heart, I’d maimed August’s.
I didn’t speak to Liam during the ride over to his house, because I was angry at how he’d dealt with August. I was also mad at myself for not having put up more of a fight. Then again, I’d been trying to get Liam to calm down and leave the inn with his heart still locked in his chest.
I propped my elbow on the door handle and my forehead on my fingertips. A headache was blooming against my temples. Too much stress and too little sleep. I didn’t regret the too little sleep part, though.
Spending the night with August had been . . . well, it had been something I would never regret. My lips still tingled from the heat of his mouth, and my heart still pounded from the memory of his beating against mine.
Would I ever get another night with him? What if he left Boulder until the Winter Solstice? Or what if he stayed but shunned my existence?
That made my heart start twisting.
Before being my intended mate, he was my friend, the boy who’d taught me to climb trees and read stars, the boy who’d picked me up from school when my parents couldn’t, the boy who’d sat in my darkened room so the monsters under my bed couldn’t reach out and harm me.
When the mating link clicked into place between us on the night of Liam’s swearing-in as Alpha, I’d been desperate to break it. After all, Liam was still my boyfriend then. But that relationship lasted a whopping four days. The rain-soaked afternoon Liam called me a traitor was the end of him and me. However much he’d groveled once he figured out I hadn’t backstabbed my own pack, I couldn’t bring myself to forgive him for his rushed and erroneous judgment. And then last week, he’d slept with his gorgeous, red-headed ex, Tamara, which hurt, but the pain of losing him was nothing compared to the fear of losing August.
The black Mercedes SUV bumped along the short dirt driveway, jostling me out of my morose deliberations. Once we were parked, I reached for the door handle.
“I know you hate my guts right now, but I didn’t force you and August apart to annoy you, Ness. My life’s on the line, and I need a hundred percent of your attention.”
I side-eyed my Alpha. Like I would believe that. He’d been willing to give up his life minutes ago.
“Do you have any food?” I asked, forcing the topic away from August.
Liam’s tense expression stuttered. “Yeah. Matt’s mom sent me lots of stuff a couple days ago.”
“Good. Because I’m starving.”
I got out of the car and walked to the front door of his sleek one-storied cabin with the glassed-in living room. I didn’t tap my foot as I waited for him, even though he was taking his grand old time. He checked his phone and typed out a message before finally making his way to me. He unlocked the door and gestured for me to go ahead of him. My nostrils flared at the scent of mint lacing the air, which had once felt like silk against my senses, but now felt like sandpaper.
“Why don’t you take a seat? I’ll get the food.”
I crossed over the cowhide rug and sank into his brown leather couch. As he banged around in his kitchen, I checked my phone for messages. I had plenty, but none from August.
I opened one of Sarah’s. The first read: WTF?
The second: You volunteered to be his Second! Are you insane?!
The third: Why did you leave with Liam?
The third: Call me.
The fourth: I’m worried. Please call.
I was touched she was concerned considering she’d lost her uncle today. I should’ve been the furthest thing from her mind. I pressed on her phone number, then held the phone to my ear.
Big mistake.
Her voice poured out of the receiver so shrilly I winced. “What the hell, Ness? You’re going to duel Cassandra Morgan? And Justin? Did you see how he was looking at you? Like he wants to kill you, that’s how he was looking at you! And knowing him, he’ll try! I know I said I wanted Liam to take over the packs, but-”
“Sarah!” I spoke her name sharply to make her stop yelling. “Your mom was Julian’s Second, and she’s fine.”
“But Julian’s not! He’s not fine! He’s . . .” A sob lurched out of her. “He’s dead. Julian is dead.” Another sob. “Oh, God . . . I think I’m going to puke again.” Her words were muffled, as though she’d clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Is someone with you?”
“Yeah. Robbie and Margaux. We’re going to the . . .” She sniffled. “To our old headquarters.” She blew her nose. “We’re holding a vigil for Julian.”
“Oh, sweetie.”
“I can’t believe he’s dead. I can’t-”
A thought occurred to me. “Sarah, did your pack have a stock of Sillin?” The word tasted bitter, because the anti-shifting drug had caused so much harm.
First at the Alpha trials, when Everest blackmailed me into entering the last duel so he could steal the Boulder’s stock from HQ. Then, when he’d reneged on his deal to sell the pills to the Creeks, and Alex Morgan drove my cousin’s Jeep off the road.
The night I decrypted his last voicemail and found the Boulder’s stock-minus one packet-under the loose floorboard of my childhood home, I hadn’t felt any pride or relief. Just despondency, because it had been too late . . . my cousin was already gone forever.
Werewolves possessed magic, but resurrecting the dead wasn’t part of our arsenal.
Unless the fable Liam had told me of the wolf resurrecting her mate with a love bite was true, but I doubted fangs sinking into flesh could do much else than stop a heart. It was a pretty legend, nonetheless.
“Robbie says we have some,” Sarah answered just as Liam walked out of his kitchen, toting two plates and silverware.
He set everything down on his wrought-iron coffee table, then took the two bottles of water he’d secured underneath his arm and placed them on top of a huge glossy tome.
“Before you go to the wake, can you grab them and hide them?” I asked Sarah.
As he sat in the armchair across from me, he lifted an eyebrow.
“We’ll go get them now,” Sarah said.
“Thank you.”
“If you need anything else, Ness, anything at all, call me.”
I smiled in spite of the hellish day I’d had. In spite of the hellish days to come. “Is the wake open to other packs?”
“If Cassandra shows up-” Sarah started.
“I was asking because I’d like to come.”
“Oh.” She paused. “You don’t need to, Ness.”
“I never do anything I don’t want to do.”
“You signed up to be Liam’s Second,” she said.
The tendons in Liam’s neck strained against his tanned throat. Even though Sarah wasn’t on speakerphone, his hearing was sharp enough to hear her.