“I volunteered to take Sillin to test its long-term effects.”
“You what?” he choked out.
I was pretty certain he’d heard me.
His eyes gleamed with anger. “And Liam okayed this?”
I got those two had baggage, but that didn’t give August a right to blame Liam for this. “I didn’t give him a choice.”
“He should’ve picked someone else to experiment on. You can’t be taking Sillin and doing all that training!” He clapped the table, which made me jump. “You shouldn’t even be doing all that training in the first place. You shouldn’t have signed up for another duel!”
“Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?” I muttered.
His nostrils pulsed. “I hate this. All of this.” He carved the air with his hand. “Ness, I lost you once before”-his voice shook with anger, but also with something else-“and I don’t want to lose you again.”
I leaned over and placed my hands over his. “That’s why I’m experimenting with the Sillin. We suspect Morgan’s taking it, and she fought a duel.”
“She’s an Alpha, Ness. The way things affect her body isn’t comparable to the way things affect yours.”
I slid my hand off his and curled my fingers into my lap.
He leaned back in his chair, making the rungs creak, then looked toward my uncle’s closed bedroom door. There was no other heartbeat in the apartment-Jeb wasn’t home.
August crossed his arms. “Besides, she wouldn’t have been able to shift if she were taking Sillin.”
“I’m trying to see if a habituation to the drug modifies the body’s response to it.”
“Habituation? How long are you planning on taking it?”
I studied the bloodied tracks on my forearm. Unspoken words saturated the air between us. He wasn’t pleased, but was it with me or with our theory? Or was it with something else altogether?
“Maybe the happy news will knock some sense into Liam and make him cancel the duel,” he grumbled.
So he’d heard about Tamara.
I peeked up at him through my lashes. “You think Morgan would accept canceling the duel?”
August sighed. “She didn’t seem overly keen on dueling the day Liam challenged her. And she did offer Liam a peace treaty. Maybe it’s still on the table.”
“That was to save her son. Alex is free now.”
“He could become unfree.”
“You’re not actually entertaining thoughts of kidnapping him?”
“If it saves your life, I’m entertaining many thoughts. Killing Justin’s another. In case you were wondering.”
I leaned forward and touched his arm. His tendons twitched under my fingertips. “It’ll turn this town into a bloodbath.”
“So it’s okay if your blood’s spilled, but no one else’s?”
I’d signed up for this, so yes, I supposed it was. I refrained from pointing this out to August.
It dawned on me that instead of resolving this with violence, we could resolve it with words. Morgan was a smart woman. Surely wise, too. She’d understand that things had changed for our pack.
Besides, she’d told me to pay her a visit. I decided it was time I took her up on it.
The front door opened then, and Jeb walked in. He blinked as he took us in, bloodied towel and all.
“What the hell happened?” he asked.
While I was trying to decide what to tell my uncle, so as not to worry him, August said, “Bar brawl with some Creeks.”
So much for not worrying Jeb. His light-blue eyes went as wide as doorknobs. “Creeks?”
I got up. “August will fill you in. I’m going to bed.”
As I stepped past August, he caught my hand, then flipped my arm around and inspected the wound. “Still not healed.”
“It’ll heal during the night.” I added a smile to reassure him, but it seemed to miss its mark, so I leaned over and placed a kiss on his forehead. “Don’t frown so much. You’ll get premature wrinkles.”
His forehead didn’t smooth out as I freed my hand from his grip and walked to my room. If anything, the grooves seemed to deepen. After washing my arm with soap and wrapping gauze around it, I pulled on my sleep shorts and a long sleeved tee to keep my bandage in place, then slid under the covers.
August and Jeb were still talking in the living room. I tried to stretch my hearing to grasp what they were saying, but however hard I tried, their words sounded like gibberish. Was the Sillin to blame for this too?
I pressed my hand against my abdomen. Would the tether also fade if I kept ingesting the drug?
My heart held still, then skittered, making my skin prickle from the release of rapid beats. I didn’t want it to fade.
I pressed the pillow against my face and let out a muffled cry of frustration, because I was so damn confused about everything.
If only one thing made sense . . . If only one thing could go right . . .
Mom would tell me to count my blessings, so I did. Evelyn was alive and happy. August was sticking around Boulder. My house was almost in livable condition. I was starting college on Monday. I was turning eighteen on Friday. Isobel had beat cancer.
I counted my blessings until sleep zippered over me.
Even though I’d dressed for the gym, Lucas texted me that there would be no working out this morning, which suited me perfectly. My arm had stopped bleeding but was in no shape to swing or block a punch. After a cup of bitter black coffee, I knuckled my uncle’s door and asked if I could borrow the van.
“Sure.” The word was garbled. He popped open his door, a toothbrush dangling from his mouth. “I’ll get Eric to pick me up. He was planning on helping me out at the house this morning anyway.”
“Thanks.”
“How’s the arm?”
“Still attached to my elbow, so there’s that.”
He took his toothbrush out, and pasty-foam dribbled out. “Is it still bleeding?”