My heart began to beat a rhythm more hectic than the one blaring out of the SUV’s speakers.
Liam squeezed my hand to garner my attention. “Ness, if I fall tonight, you are not to challenge her, understood?”
I blinked as emotion rushed into my eyes. And then I squeezed his fingers back. “The day I signed up to be your Second, you said you wanted my admiration. Well, you’ll get it, but not if you don’t get back up.”
A gentle smile settled over his lips, and then he squeezed my hand one last time before letting go and exiting the car. The pack swarmed him, whispering words of encouragement. I hopped out after Liam, and Matt and Lucas came to stand at my sides like two giant bookends.
I looked for August, but Cole’s car hadn’t pulled up yet. Hadn’t they been right behind us? Had they stopped at a red light? Or missed a turn?
“You look a bit green, Little Wolf.”
I tried to feel out the distance using the tether, but my stomach was in shambles. “Can you call your brother, Matt?”
I wasn’t looking to stress him out, but my quiet plea had him craning his neck toward the long driveway.
He all but tore the seams off his shorts pocket in search of his phone as we climbed up the stairs and entered the buffed stone atrium. “He’s not answering.”
“I’ll try August,” Lucas said, taking out his own phone. “Matt, call Greg.”
As we descended the staircase, I watched the crowd milling beyond the French doors along the sharp hedges of the maze. The slender moon crescent cast an eerie glow over the land and the dueling ring that stretched from the maze to the stone terrace.
“Did you reach them?” I asked, returning my gaze to Matt.
He shook his head.
Liam had gone down the terrace steps, but one look at my pallid cheeks had him lumbering back up. “What’s going on?”
“We can’t reach Greg, Cole, or August,” Lucas said quietly, darting a glance at the assembled Creeks below who were all-and I mean, all-staring at us.
“Can you sense them?” I asked Liam hopefully.
He closed his eyes. After a while, he said, “They’re a couple miles out but approaching fast.”
A breath whispered through my lips just as someone spoke my name. I turned around to find Frank.
He hugged me, cinching my rigid body. “You go on out there and show them what Boulder females are made of, okay?” He rubbed his bristly jaw against my temple, marking me with his scent in a show of affection.
Heels resonated in the quiet headquarters. I pulled away and peered past Frank, praying I’d see August or Sarah, but found my friend’s mother and sister-in-law instead. They strode toward the terrace, arms locked together.
“We believe,” Margaux whispered.
They believed what? In us? That we’d win?
No other footfalls disrupted the silence; no car tires crunched the pebbled driveway.
“Boulders, it’s mighty impolite to keep your hosts waitin’.” Cassandra’s voice bellowed from the center of the torch-lit field.
Liam lifted his gaze to mine. They’re coming, Ness.
I hoped he was saying this because he felt them approach through the blood-link and not as some inane reassurance.
He tipped his head toward the garden. In perfect synchronicity, we walked down the stairs. Memories of another time flashed through my mind-Liam, lip bleeding, yelling for me to come home with him while two Pines shackled his wrists.
I didn’t like that memory. There’d been too much hurt in Liam’s eyes that night, hurt I’d put there.
I realized then that what had broken Liam and me wasn’t Tamara or my mating link. What had broken us was that we’d spent more time fighting each other than fighting alongside one another.
They’re getting closer.
The words whispered into my mind made my skin buzz with renewed hope. I became acutely aware of the tether which swelled and effervesced with something dark and sour.
“Something’s wrong,” I whispered to Liam.
Liam frowned, zeroing in on the ring of shifters and then on Cassandra, whose blue lips twitched with a smile.
Remembering her confession, I placed my palm in front of my mouth before murmuring, “With August. He’s angry. Really angry.”
A mane of wild blonde curls caught my attention in the first line of shifters. Sarah stood directly ahead of us, her hand clutched in Alex’s, her eyes glistening as though she were crying. Was he hurting her, or were her tears for us? Had she found out something else but not found a way to relay the information?
Suddenly, she gasped, and her eyes rounded as they set on a spot over my head.
I whirled around.
August, Cole, and Greg burst through the open veranda doors, sweat glossing their flushed cheeks and bruises marbling their jaws. Blood had seeped into the collar of Cole’s gray T-shirt and speckled the oatmeal fabric of August’s torn Henley.
I started in their direction, but Liam clapped his hand over my forearm.
Don’t. They’re fine. They’re here.
“They’re not fine,” I growled. Then to Cassandra, I yelled, “What did you do to them?”
“Me? I’m a werewolf, honey, not a magician. I’ve been here waitin’ the whole time. I didn’t do nothin’ to these men.”
But someone had.
I caught Justin exchanging a loaded glance with Alex Morgan. Of course . . .
I searched my intended’s gaze for a hint of what had happened, but all of his features were ironed too tight to read anything besides absolute fury.
I noticed Greg’s empty fingers balling and uncurling at his sides at the same time as Liam.
They took our Sillin, his voice sputtered inside my skull.
That was why they’d been attacked . . . Not to keep August away, but to keep the drug away.
Doesn’t matter.
Didn’t it? Could he eat her heart without a Sillin injection?