A Pack of Love and Hate

by Olivia Wildenstein

  “Are a lot more of you coming?” Sarah asked after they reached us.

  “Why?” Lucas waggled his eyebrow, the one slashed by a white scar. “Afraid of running out of finger food, blondie?”

  Liam coughed, probably trying to signal that Lucas’s joke was in poor taste, but Sarah laughed, which won her many scowls.

  “I don’t know if more of us are coming.” Liam scanned the room, which from his vantage point, was way easier than from mine. Not quite as tall as August’s six-and-a-half foot frame, Liam was still up there. “Did they release Julian’s body?”

  Sarah shook her head. “I doubt they will.” She took a small step toward me, almost as though she were about to drop a kiss on my cheek. “I got all the packets out.”

  I squeezed her wrist in gratitude.

  “What packets?” Lucas asked, ever so subtle.

  Liam must’ve answered Lucas through the mind-link, because the latter blinked.

  Sarah nodded. “I put them somewhere safe and cool.”

  “Not in your house, I hope,” Lucas said.

  Her cheeks pinked. “No.”

  “Remind me to play poker with you. You’re a shit liar.”

  She flushed a little more.

  “Lucas . . .” Liam started, a warning in his voice.

  “She shouldn’t keep that shit anywhere near her,” Lucas growled.

  Panic tightened my throat. “He’s right, Sarah. Look at what they did to my cousin.”

  “Oh.” Even though Sarah’s lids were bloated with tears, they lifted a little higher. “Where should I put them then?”

  “You could give them to us,” Lucas offered.

  I could tell from the way her head jerked back that she wasn’t fond of the idea. “I don’t think Robbie will go for that.”

  Lucas puffed out a breath. “Your brother knows?”

  “He helped me get them out,” she murmured.

  A nerve ticked in his jaw. “And he let you keep the stash?”

  Sarah splayed her hands on her hips. “He trusts me, Lucas.”

  I didn’t think trust was the issue.

  Before I could say anything, a hush fell over the room, disturbed only by the swish of fabric and the clink of jewelry.

  “Don’t stop talkin’ on our account,” came a voice that was becoming familiar all too quickly.

  I whirled toward the sweeping staircase. At the top of it stood Cassandra Morgan, barefoot and sheathed in a tunic that resembled a burlap sack.

  Sarah hissed before clapping her hands over her ears.

  “What did she say?” I whispered.

  “She called us her little Creeks,” Sarah muttered.

  Cassandra gestured behind her. “I’ve come barin’ a gift.”

  Two men with bulging muscles entered the room, hefting a stretcher. On top rested Julian’s naked body. No sheet covered it. No blood or dirt either. The Creeks had cleaned him up and sewed his thorax shut with thick black thread. Considering how waxen his flesh was, I assumed they’d syphoned away his blood. Unless they’d left him in the field until he’d bled out completely.

  Gasps thundered through the crowd, and then a jarring sob ripped across the room, louder than all the gasps.

  “Justin urged me to return your fallen Alpha. So here I am, returning’ him. Consider it a peace offerin’.”

  The men behind her crouched, depositing the stretcher beside the framed picture; then they backed up and remained standing shoulder to shoulder by the front door.

  A raucous voice swam through the bewildered crowd. “Cover. Cover,” it said, and then heels clicked on the stone stairs as a gray-haired woman tottered up to the landing. She vanished through a small door, before returning with an armful of lavender hand towels monogrammed with golden Ps. Complexion almost as pallid as her dead Alpha’s, she kneeled and gently covered him, strip by cottony strip.

  Once Julian was mummified in terrycloth, Casandra started down the stairs. “Aidan said Boulders weren’t empathetic, but I see my cousin was wrong. I thank you”—she inclined her head toward us—“for showin’ my people such kindness.”

  “We are not your people!” Sarah’s voice pinged against the buffed stone floors.

  Cassandra narrowed her eyes, and Sarah clutched her head, shrinking into herself.

  “You can hear my voice in your head, can you not, Miss Matz?” the Creek Alpha asked pleasantly.

  Sarah didn’t say anything, but her spine tautened.

  “If you can hear me, then you are mine.” As Cassandra strolled through the room, shadows played across her features, staining her eyes. “Just as I am yours.” She stopped when she reached Sarah’s brother, who’d gathered his shoulder-length blond hair into a ponytail. “You were next in line if I’m not mistaken.”

  Robbie nodded cautiously, his hair glinting gold in the dim lighting.

  “I’d like you to tell me about your pack so that I may lead it well. Shall we take a walk in the gardens?”

  Before he acquiesced, Robbie’s eyes flashed to his sister’s. I moved in front of Sarah as though I could somehow deflect his glance, but Cassandra trailed his line of sight, and although her gaze paused on me, she tilted her face, which told me she hadn’t missed the true object of Robbie’s attention.

  Dread pooled in my stomach. Robbie probably hadn’t considered the repercussion of looking his sister’s way, but I did, and I didn’t like it one bit, the same way I didn’t like that he’d left the Sillin in her care. If he didn’t have all the answers Cassandra wanted, she’d come looking for Sarah, and I didn’t want the Creek Alpha sniffing around my friend.

  Cassandra claimed she’d come in peace, but if that were true, she wouldn’t have brought her shifter army with her . . . she wouldn’t have created an escort agency to spy on other packs.

  We should leave. Liam’s silent command startled the air out of my lungs.

  I sucked in a breath before nodding and turning toward my friend. “Ready to go?”

  Sarah’s dark eyebrows quirked. “Go?”

  I spread open my eyes to drive my intent home; I wasn’t leaving without her. “My car’s right outside.”

  Maybe Cassandra wasn’t after the Pine’s stock of Sillin, but what if she was?

  As understanding crept over Sarah, color leached from her skin. “Let me say goodbye to Mom.”

  “Of course.”

  She wound around her pack toward her mother, who was slumped on a couch, pallid cheeks shiny with tears.

  “Ness?” Liam nodded to the entrance.

  I set off alongside him and Lucas. As we took the stairs, my gaze wandered to the lavender shroud atop Julian’s still form.

  “If anyone ever buries me in fucking tea towels, I’m going to haunt their ass,” Lucas huffed under his breath.

  Laughter burst out of me. Even Liam’s lips quirked up. I pressed the back of my hand against my mouth to stifle the sound that was so incredibly inappropriate that even Cassandra’s bodyguards gave me a hard stare, and I doubted they had any love for Julian and his pack.

  I elbowed Lucas as we exited. “They’re all going to think I’m heartless now.”

  Lucas dragged his hand through his shaggy black hair, grinning. “You should always keep your enemies guessing.”

  “The Pines aren’t my enemies.”

  “They’re no longer Pines,” Lucas said just as Sarah surged out of the building.

  She must not have heard him, because she didn’t react to his comment. She hooked her arm through mine and all but dragged me down the stairs. “I’ve changed my mind. I’d like you guys to take the stuff.”

  It took me a second to compute what the stuff was. When I did, I turned and exchanged a quick glance with Liam.

  “Lucas”—he tossed him the car keys—“take Sarah home.”

  Lucas frowned at first, but Liam must’ve elaborated, because he nodded. “How’re you getting home? Running?”

  “Ness has a car.”

  I clutched my keys tight eno
ugh to leave an imprint. “I think it’s better if you go with them, Liam.”

  A dark lock of hair fell into his eyes.

  “I’d feel better if Sarah had both of you with her,” I added.

  A half-truth.

  The other half of that truth was that the drive took a little more than a half hour, and I felt like Liam and I had spent enough time together for one day.

  And I might not have trusted his intentions concerning me yet.

  It took a couple minutes—maybe seconds—for Liam to unglue the soles of his black boots from the flagstone path. Shoulders wrenched back, he strode to his car.

  Lucas looked between us before going after our Alpha.

  Sarah bit her lip. “I’ll call you tomorrow, hun.” And then she was gone too.

  And I was finally alone.

  The drive home took me straight past the Watts’ warehouse. Even though it wasn’t late, August’s apartment, which flanked the warehouse, was pitch-black.

  I tried to feel him through the tether, but my stomach was a giant jumble of emotions. I parked on the side of the road, grabbed my phone, and typed out a text: Don’t leave Boulder, ok?

  In the starlit darkness, under a moon that was almost full, I waited for August to reply.

  No reply came.

  3

  At 6:15 a.m. the following day, I peeled my body out of my warm bedsheets and got ready for my early morning run with Matt. I was lacing my sneakers when he messaged me that he was downstairs. Stuffing my key and phone in the zippered pocket of my track jacket, I tiptoed past my sleeping uncle’s room, opened and shut our front door discreetly, then bounded down the porch stairs.

  “Sorry you got saddled with me.”

  He pushed away from his silver Dodge sedan, palming his cropped blond hair. “Don’t sweat it, Little Wolf. I owe you.”

  “What do you owe me for?”

  “Stopping Liam from dueling Morgan without backup.”

  I tightened my ponytail, sighing. “If only he’d taken her deal.”

  “You’re telling me.” Matt Rogers was a big guy but as gentle as a puppy. “Should we get going? I need to be at work in an hour.”

  I stretched out my calves. “I’m ready.”

  Thirty minutes into our ridiculously strenuous workout—Matt had picked a trail that wound up the flank of the mountain—I wheezed, “I don’t get . . . why I have to train. Your brother said . . . Seconds rarely get . . . dragged into the fight.” I gulped in some much needed oxygen, then puffed it out. “Look at Nora . . .” My heart rate became so frenzied I had to take a minute off from speaking.

  “If Julian’s sister had gotten involved, he might still be alive today.” Perspiration beaded on Matt’s forehead, but unlike me, he wasn’t panting like a bull in a pen.

  I came to an abrupt halt, which forced Matt to stop, then bent at the waist and pressed my palms into my thighs. “The poison was already . . . in his system.”

  His gaze swept over the fence of evergreens on our left, as though he were expecting to see furred creatures with perked ears and glowing eyes. “I heard about your theory, but Morgan could shift. If she’d been jacked up on Sillin, there’s no way she could’ve transformed.”

  “I don’t think it was . . . in her blood.” I sucked in a lungful of hot, dry air. The sun was peaking, brightening the pink hue of the mountain lupines lining the steep path. “I think it was . . . on her skin.”

  “Stuff on your skin penetrates your bloodstream.”

  I straightened, crossing my arms in front of my still-heaving chest. “Don’t tell me you think . . . she won fair and square.”

  “Nora Matz seems to think so.”

  I wasn’t in wolf form, yet I growled at my friend. “That’s impossible.”

  A slow smile lit up his ruddy face. “I agree. I mean, she is female—”

  “Prick.” I slugged his huge bicep, which just increased his smirking.

  “You know I don’t actually think your gender is feeble, right?” His smirk turned back into a smile.

  “Yeah. I know.” It had taken me months to prove that a female could hold her own in a pack of all-male wolves. Did I regret entering the Alpha trials at the start of summer?

  No.

  Okay . . . Maybe a little.

  After all, I’d almost lost my life during a landslide and then again during the final duel, which thankfully had been aborted when my crafty cousin had his mother kidnap Evelyn.

  As Matt and I started down the mountain, I asked him about work, which was merely a roundabout way of getting to August since he was Matt’s boss.

  He told me they were putting up the walls on some luxury lodge on Valmont Road. “Place is wicked.”

  “Is August . . . Does he help with the building part?”

  “Yeah. He gets his hands dirty.”

  “Is he on site every day?”

  Matt cast me a sideways glance. “What exactly do you want to know?”

  I bit my lip but released it to gather some oxygen. “Did he stay?”

  “You seriously think he up and left? He got the girl. He’s never going to leave. At least not without you.”

  A flush creeped up my neck. Hopefully Matt would attribute it to our strenuous exercising. “Liam’s making me keep away from him.”

  “What do you mean, making you keep away?”

  “He told me that since he’s entrusting me with his life, he wants my entire focus to be on him. He said that until the duel, I couldn’t hang out with August. That if I did, he’d duel Cassandra on his own terms.”

  Matt didn’t say anything, just focused on the dust puffing under his sneakers.

  “You think he’s really worried about August being a distraction, or do you think it’s his way of getting me back?”

  Without breaking stride, he said, “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think, Matt. I don’t know Liam like you do.”

  “He’s not over you, Ness.”

  Even though my limbs felt on fire from running, a chill crept into my bones. “You think he’d really face Cassandra without my help if something happened between August and me?”

  “I’d hope he wouldn’t do something so dumb, but he was ready to challenge her without a Second, so yeah, I think he’d really schedule a showdown without you. Men will do stupid shit to impress girls.”

  “It wouldn’t impress me, though. It would just piss me off.”

  “It’ll get your attention.”

  I sighed.

  “Look, I’m not sure I’d take my own advice, but if you can rein in your urges, then do it.”

  I snorted. “Rein in my urges? I’m not some animal.”

  Matt grinned. “Beg to differ, Little Wolf.” After a beat, he added, “At least, try to repress your lustfulness.”

  The flush, which had started on my neck, engulfed my entire face.

  “Did I just make Ness Clark blush?”

  “Shut up,” I grumbled, breathing hard again. “And I’m not blushing . . . I’m just overheated from this stupid . . . run.”

  “Uh-huh.” He simpered all the way to his car. “Look, if anyone can tame their urges, it’s you.”

  Hand pressed on the hood of his car, I pulled my ankle into my hamstring to loosen my thigh.

  “Besides, we’re talking days, right? Not weeks?” Matt asked, muscles bunching in his arms and thighs as he stretched.

  “I don’t know how long it’ll take.” I kicked a stray cigarette butt off the sidewalk and into the gutter. “Perhaps it’ll take the full five weeks we have.”

  As he got into his car, he said, “Well, I’m sure August’ll understand.”

  Yeah, I wasn’t sure about that at all. He still hadn’t answered the text I’d sent him last night.

  “Same time tomorrow?”

  I whipped my gaze off the squashed death-stick. “We’re running tomorrow?”

  “Every day until the duel. I’ll plan a different route, though.”

 
; “What the hell did I sign up for?” I grumbled.

  “You signed up to save your Alpha’s ass.”

  “I don’t need muscle for that, Matt; I need a working brain and time to think.”

  “Little Wolf, if the fighting gets dirty, you’ll want the muscle.”

  Matt’s comment eclipsed all my residual annoyance.

  Before taking off, he added, “We can’t make you unbreakable, but we can make you strong enough to break Justin Summix.”

  When he put it that way . . .

  He shot me a quick grin and a wave as he drove off.

  I watched his taillights become mere pinpricks and then vanish altogether. Before heading inside, I checked my phone, hoping I’d gotten a text message.

  I sighed when I saw that I had, but not from the right wolf.

  Liam had sent me the address of a gym I was to meet him at after lunch. At least I had the morning off. It would give me time to deposit his check and pay Evelyn a visit. Two things that made me happy.

  I’d have to find a lot more to keep myself sane in the coming weeks.

  4

  After a delicious homemade breakfast at Evelyn’s and plenty of bone-crushing hugs to last me throughout the day, Frank McNamara insisted on walking me out to the Boulder Inn minivan.

  “I didn’t tell her about the duel,” he said as I set the container filled with cinnamon rolls on the passenger seat. “I suggest you don’t either.”

  “I don’t plan to, Frank. She’s already so worried about . . . everything.” Evelyn had only recently learned of the existence of werewolves. I’d been so afraid she would stop loving me and start fearing me, but she hadn’t. “Did you tell her about Aidan? About what he is?”

  “I did.” He rubbed the white stubble coating his jaw. “Said she wasn’t surprised.”

  “Really?”

  “Apparently he had this room in the basement that locks from the inside. A bunker of sorts. And it had all these scratch marks on the walls. When she asked him about it, he said it was where he kept the dogs that weren’t housebroken yet. She didn’t believe him of course—I mean the lock was on the inside of the room—but back then, she thought he used it as a torture chamber.”