A Pack of Love and Hate

by Olivia Wildenstein

  A PACK OF LOVE AND HATE

  Olivia Wildenstein

  Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  COVER

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Want more Paranormal Romance?

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Olivia Wildenstein

  TO FINDING YOUR TRUE MATE.

  Prologue

  Minutes ago, I volunteered to be my ex’s Second in his duel against the ruthless Creek Alpha. In other words, I signed up to referee a fight-to-the-death between the two most powerful werewolves in Colorado.

  Both my heart and stomach were a mess of nerves, but not for the same reasons. Where my heart pounded with dread, my stomach clenched from my mate’s heightened pulse.

  I craned my neck and squinted into the bright midday sun until I located August standing on the deck overlooking the lawn, light-brown skin a shade paler than usual, and the spray of freckles across his nose and cheekbones a shade darker.

  I bit my lower lip. He was about to get a lot angrier once he learned the extent of my deal with Liam. Even though I itched to touch my navel that was fluttering with August’s fury, I didn’t want to draw attention to our bond, so I clenched my fingers into fists and locked them against the frayed hem of my cut-offs.

  Liam strode ahead of me onto the sun-soaked lawn of the inn. “Set Alex Morgan free!” he bellowed to the males of my pack holding Everest’s murderer.

  Blue eyes flashing with confusion, my uncle leaned over the wooden railing of the inn’s deck. “Free? He murdered my son, Liam!”

  Releasing the enemy Alpha’s son was a risky move, but it was the only one that gave us leverage on this godforsaken duel. By cutting Alex loose, Liam and I were buying time to figure out how Cassandra Morgan defeated the Pine Pack Alpha. Even though Liam wasn’t convinced she’d cheated, I was. Julian had thrown up after biting her. A throatful of fur and blood shouldn’t have upset a werewolf’s stomach. My theory was that she’d rubbed a toxic but odorless lotion into her skin, odorless because Julian’s Second inspected the Creek Alpha’s body before the duel and didn’t notice anything amiss.

  Cole freed Alex’s arm and stepped aside.

  “Watt, let Alex go!” Liam repeated, voice clapping the air.

  Color darkening his jaw, August all but tossed Alex’s arm, making the Creek shifter stumble. The boy steadied himself against the railing, then pushed his blond hair off his bruised face—the Boulders who’d held him captive had done on a number on him—and started down the deck’s staircase, a small limp in his gait, probably a result of my pack’s roughness. The limp didn’t damage his self-assurance, though. His confidence was as potent as the scent of day-old sweat and caked blood that wafted from his body. I backed away as he passed me, then backed away some more when his gaze zipped over me.

  The boy might’ve resembled a Renaissance cherub with his golden curls and arresting violet eyes, but as far as I was concerned, he was the devil.

  Liam stepped in front of me. “Eyes off my wolf.”

  I cringed. Technically, Liam was my Alpha, so I was his wolf, but I sensed that wasn’t how he’d meant it. And from the heightened pounding inside my abdomen, I took it August sensed the insinuation too.

  I looked over my shoulder, imploring him with my eyes to calm down. After a moment, the pulsing quieted. Not to say it became quiet. Oh no. My navel still ticked like a time bomb, but the sensation stopped overwhelming all my other senses. I returned my attention to Cassandra Morgan, who’d finally cloaked her naked body in a white sheath that made her look more wraith than werewolf.

  “Alexander Morgan.” Tipping her face down toward her son, Cassandra ran her knuckles over his cheek.

  Alex wasn’t short—he had a good three or four inches on my five-seven stature—yet the top of his head only reached Cassandra’s chin.

  Suddenly, the same hand that had caressed him slapped him. Hard.

  Alex jerked in surprise. “What was that for?”

  “Scarin’ your poor old ma. Now”—she turned the full force of her tapered blue eyes on Liam—“state your terms, Kolane.”

  I sidled up to Liam. What sort of message did cowering behind my Alpha like a frightened pup send? Definitely not the right one. I didn’t think I could ever inspire fear in someone, but I hoped to come across as a worthy enemy.

  I was so close to Liam that I could feel the steady beat of his heart. Would it still be drumming had I not raised my hand to be his Second? The memory of Cassandra eating Julian Matz’s heart to acquire his link to the Pine Pack had my gaze drifting over the field, toward the sheet-shrouded body of the fallen Alpha. Bile surged up my throat at the sight of the ruby stains that had bloomed over the white cotton. I gritted my teeth.

  “As discussed, Ness and I will set the date and location for the venue, and we don’t need to give you more than a half-day’s notice,” Liam said.

  “I’m not at your beck-and-call.”

  “Then we don’t have a deal.”

  Cassandra pursed her lips. “I agree to the twelve-hour notice, but we duel before summer’s end.”

  “We duel when my Second and I decide,” Liam answered.

  “Be sensible, Kolane. We have packs to govern and care for. It’s not fair to them to drag it out. Let’s get this over with as soon as possible. I’m sure it’s in your best interest, too.”

  Was it in our best interest, or simply in hers?

  Liam peered down at me. “Ness?”

  Summer would end in a little over a month. Would that be long enough?

  Even though I hated giving Cassandra an inch, I nodded.

  Liam focused on the Creek Alpha again. “Before summer ends it is. But, Morgan, if your son, or any other Creek for that matter”—Liam’s brown gaze surfed over the field dotted with shifters in skin before returning to Cassandra—“if any of them so much as harm my wolves or their families, your son and cousin will be executed without trial and without contest.”

  Cassandra’s cousin, who’d posed as a werewolf-hating hunter for de
cades in order to gather information on our pack, eyed Liam and me through the wire-rimmed bifocals propped on the bridge of his nose while thumbing his earlobe.

  “Alex will behave, just like I said he would.” Cassandra wrapped a hand around her son’s wrist.

  The duel had blunted her nails that, last night, had looked sharp enough to gouge out an eye, but somehow hadn’t chipped her burgundy polish. Or had it? As I squinted at her fingers, she released her son’s wrist and curled them into her palm.

  “This goes both ways, though, Kolane. If any harm comes to my son or to Aidan before the duel, the choice of time and date reverts back to us.”

  A warm breeze blew tendrils of my blonde hair into my eyes. I wrenched the strands back, but they escaped a moment later. “Alex and Aidan are living on borrowed time, so you have no right to make demands.”

  “Ness is right,” Liam said. “You’re lucky they’re even alive, and that we’ve returned Alex.”

  A crooked smile touched her blood-stained lips. “Careful, Kolane,” she said, taking a step closer to Liam, “you’re grossly outnumbered.”

  The Creek pack had swelled by a hundred today, making my pack, with its forty wolves, an even tinier blip on the shifter map.

  “Is that a threat?” Liam growled.

  “It’s a warning.”

  “I thought you came in peace,” I said.

  “We offered peace,” she snapped. “Your Alpha turned it down.”

  My jaw set tight. She was right. She had offered, but Liam insisted on dueling her.

  “My request that you not harm my son or my cousin is far from outrageous.”

  “They won’t be killed,” Liam said after a beat. “Satisfied?”

  “Or tortured,” she added.

  Liam crossed his arms.

  As she waited for Liam’s answer, Morgan’s eyes became incandescent, as though her wolf were fighting to surge out.

  “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.

  To spare Liam’s heart, I’d maimed August’s.

  1

  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.