A Pack of Love and Hate

by Olivia Wildenstein

  His eyes turned a murderous shade of black. “Check your car,” he said, his voice as sharp as the knife blade Aidan had held against my throat yesterday.

  I sprang toward my silver SUV. Thankfully the doors were all locked, and the vandals hadn’t shattered any windows, but they’d raked their claws through the silver paint, leaving grooves everywhere.

  “Those fucking Creeks,” August growled from behind me.

  We stared at the destruction a moment longer, and then he snatched my palm tree keychain and opened the passenger door for me.

  He didn’t say anything as he drove too quickly down the quiet Boulder streets toward my apartment. Fear that it, too, had been defaced made me wring the life out of the grab handle.

  The second I stepped over the threshold, I exhaled the breath I’d been holding since leaving my house. August walked to the sink and lathered his hands with dish detergent, scrubbing his skin until it turned pink. After almost a minute, he shut the water off and tore the dish cloth hanging on the oven handle.

  “I’ll fix your house.” His eyes were animated with the same ferocity I’d spied last night when Aidan held me hostage.

  I wanted to tell August he didn’t need to do that, that I’d do it myself, but nausea roiled in my stomach at the memory of the blood and piss, so I clamped my lips shut. As he lifted his cell phone to his ear, I went to change into shorts, a tank top, and my black hoodie. I took off my necklace and buried it in my underwear drawer, then stuffed my feet inside my scuffed boots. Even though we’d sprayed our shoes with air freshener last night to camouflage any lingering smells, I thought it safer to wear some that hadn’t been in contact with blood and smoke.

  Suddenly, a horrific thought speared my mind, and I sprinted out of my bedroom. “August!”

  He dropped the phone, and it clattered against the floor but didn’t break. “What?”

  “You need to get out of Boulder!”

  His eyes, which had widened with panic, now crimped with confusion.

  “They sabotaged your pickup, which means they know you were involved.” The words rushed out of my mouth.

  His eyebrows pinched closer together, darkening his already murky gaze. “I don’t care.”

  “What if they try to hurt you during the duel? Or after the duel? Or—”

  “Sweetheart”—he gripped the back of my neck—“I’m angry but I’m not scared. If anyone should be scared, it should be the people who did this, because, mark my words, I’ll find out who was involved.” His fingers were hot and unyielding. “Besides, how can you even think I’d run away without you?”

  I bit my lip. “Fine, but tonight, during the duel, you need to look out for yourself, or I’m not letting you come.”

  Smirking, he chucked me under the chin.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Not letting me come . . .” He tsked and shook his head. “I respect the hell out of you, Dimples, and I know you’re strong, but don’t ever ask me to stay away or flee. It’s insulting.”

  I crossed my arms. “I didn’t mean it as an insult.”

  He nodded, smirk gone. “I know.”

  “I’m scared, August.”

  “I know.” Sighing, he pried my arms out of their tight knot. “But don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Everything will be—”

  “Don’t!” My heart jolted into my throat and beat there. “Don’t finish that sentence!”

  He frowned.

  “It never comes true.”

  Dipping his chin into his neck, he gathered my stiff body in his arms and held me.

  Just held me.

  And I held him.

  Until my heart settled back behind my ribs. Until my pulse quieted. Until my temper appeased and my muscles stopped spasming. Until I was ready to take on the outside world again.

  45

  Before going over to Liam’s, I called Evelyn because I wanted to see her.

  I needed to see her.

  She told me she was already at the restaurant, prepping for their popular Sunday brunch, so we drove there. While August parked the car, I went inside and straight into the kitchen. I hugged her before even saying hi, which wasn’t smart of me. Instantly, her pleasure at my visit wilted into concern.

  Her all-seeing eyes skipped over all my haggard features. I hadn’t bothered improving my appearance with makeup this morning, so I knew I looked part ghost, part zombie, possibly worse than when I’d gone “rock-climbing” on my own, which had been the story fed to Evelyn when I’d been returned to her after the first Alpha trial.

  “Querida, what is wrong?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t sleep well. That’s all.”

  She hunted my face some more, seeking the truth I was holding back.

  Did she know about Aidan? Did she know that my uncle was gone? Did she know there would be a duel tonight?

  “You do not fool me, Ness Clark. That is not all.”

  From the worry tightening her crimson lips, I guessed Frank hadn’t imparted any of those things. I was glad he’d protected her. I hoped he would shield her from the world for the rest of her life in case I wasn’t there to do it myself.

  The thought made my heart drop to somewhere below my ankles.

  Seconds rarely engage, I reminded myself, but then I also reminded myself that I would be facing Justin.

  Justin delighted in hurting people.

  “It is. I promise.” I smiled but then followed the arc of her gaze as it moved to a place above my shoulder.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Biting my lip, I turned back toward Evelyn. I hadn’t even considered how it would look arriving with August so early on a Sunday morning.

  On any morning, for that matter.

  I hesitated to lie and tell her we were on our way to work on my house, but I didn’t want to risk her coming there after her shift.

  “Morning, Mrs. Lopez.” He didn’t touch me, but his body heated my taut spine.

  Without taking her eyes off mine, she said, “Good morning, August.”

  Her sous-chef glanced our way, a giant knife rocking rhythmically against a white onion, dicing the slimy flesh into tiny little squares that flecked the air with stinging fumes.

  Even though Evelyn had given me her blessing two nights ago, I sensed it would take her a little more time to accept August and me together. “There is a waitlist for the brunch, but I am sure I could find you two a table.”

  I smiled. “We can’t do brunch today. I just came by to say hi.”

  Her thin eyebrows writhed a few times. “Dinner then? Tonight. At the house. I would like”—she fixed her eyes on August again—“I would like to get to know the man my baby girl has decided to let into her heart.”

  God only knew in what state we’d be tonight. I slipped my pinky’s fingernail between my lips and chewed on the edge of it. “Tomorrow would be better. The restaurant’s closed on Monday nights too, right?”

  She nodded. “Before you leave, Trent’s wife wanted very much to meet you. She is in the dining room. Will you go out there and introduce yourself, please?”

  I took my pinky out of my mouth. “Sure.” I kissed her cheek and then turned to leave.

  When August started after me, Evelyn called him back. “Can I speak to you a moment longer, August?”

  I cringed, but August squeezed my arm in reassurance. I mouthed, good luck, which kicked up one side of his mouth.

  There were three women in the dining room. One of them had served us the night of my birthday, so I assumed she wasn’t Trent’s wife.

  “Hi, I’m looking for—” I racked my brain for the family name but wasn’t sure if I even knew it, so I went with: “Trent’s wife?”

  The waitress tipped her head toward a woman clipping the stems of poppies on the mirrored bar.

  “Thank you,” I whispered as I traipsed toward the blonde with a sharp bob cut. “Hi. I’m Ness. Evelyn’s granddaughter.”

  The woman twirled away from her flowery spread and extended her hand.
“Ness!”

  I blinked as she smiled at me.

  When I still hadn’t taken her outstretched hand—because shock had made me forget my manners—she said, “It’s not contagious. I promise.”

  I jolted my hand into hers and shook it. “I’m sorry. It’s not—What, um . . . how come . . .?”

  “My lips are blue and my nails purple?” Her smile was still intact. “I have something called Argyria, which is sort of ironic considering the name of my restaurant.”

  I slipped my hand out of hers and gripped the crossbody strap of my bag.

  “Anyway, it’s my dentist’s fault. He put all these silver fillings in my molars . . . I won’t bore you with the details, but know that it looks way worse than it is. I’m Molly, by the way.”

  I tried to snap my jaw shut, but it wouldn’t close. “I’msorryI’mstaring,” I said in a single breath.

  “It’s okay, honey. A lot of people do. Besides, if it truly bothered me, I’d wear makeup.”

  “I know this woman who has the same thing,” I blurted out. “At least, I think it’s the same thing. She told me it was a birthmark.”

  “Yeah, some people are a little embarrassed by the condition.” She fingered one of the poppies’ fuzzy stems. “Tell her that if she needs someone to talk to, she can find me here most days. Especially now that the kids are back in school.” She gave me one last smile. “I should get these flowers into water before they wilt. It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, and thank you again for lending us your grandmother. She is a godsend.”

  “Thank you,” I said. And I didn’t mean for employing Evelyn—even though I was grateful for that—but for giving me the answer to a question which had tormented me for the past two and a half weeks.

  My speculations were accurate—Cassandra Morgan had poisoned Julian. But not with Sillin. With silver! I wasn’t sure yet how her blood could contain the toxic metal without killing her, but it didn’t matter.

  We could call the duel off now that I had proof she was cheating.

  As Molly turned back toward her flowers, August came out of the kitchen.

  I rushed to him and threw my arms around his neck, waves of relief coursing through me, breaking the stress that had devoured me since Liam’s phone call.

  “Were you worried I wouldn’t survive?” August asked, a lilt to his voice. “It was a close call.”

  Smiling, I pressed away from him, crooked my head up, and whispered, “I know how she did it.”

  A groove appeared between his eyebrows. “We’re not talking about Evelyn now, are we?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll explain everything on the drive over to Liam’s.”

  46

  August whipped his eyes off the road to stare at me. “Silver? In her blood?”

  “It’s called Argyria.” I gasped as a memory collided into my brain. “Trent’s mother told me about it. The day I met her in the bank.”

  To think I’d known all along . . .

  I watched the dashboard without seeing it. Thank God I wasn’t at the wheel of the car; I would’ve been incapable of staying on the road.

  “How can she have silver in her blood, yet still be alive?” he asked.

  Something niggled at me. What was it?

  I spun toward him as my synapses fired off a hypothesis. “After Dad was shot, I was given Sillin because I’d licked his gunshot wound.” Bile rose in the back of my throat. “What if that’s why she needs Sillin? To neutralize the silver.”

  His brows rose. “Still doesn’t explain how she can shift.”

  “Does silver impair shifting?”

  “No, but Sillin does.”

  “You don’t think that she’s somehow figured out a dose that cancels each substance out?”

  “We’d have to ask Greg. Although I’m not sure he’d even know.”

  I rested my head back and expelled a sigh, which made August reach over the center console and pluck my restless fingers off the latch on my bag.

  To think of something else for a short while, I asked, “What did Evelyn want?”

  “She asked me the real reason you’d stopped by.”

  “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

  “No. I told her you came to check whether she was truly okay with us being together.”

  “I’m sorry you had to lie.”

  He squeezed my fingers. “Some lies are kinder than some truths.”

  As we turned down Liam’s driveway, I asked, “Is your dad home?”

  “Not yet. He’s coming back today.”

  Through the picture window, I spotted Liam sitting on his couch. Cole, Matt, and Lucas were there too. I was glad Liam wasn’t alone. I didn’t hear any human heartbeats, so I guessed Tamara wasn’t around.

  I started to disengage my fingers from August’s, but he held on to them.

  I smiled at him. “Can’t get out of the car if I’m holding your hand.”

  “I’m worried what’ll happen once I let go.”

  “Once you let go?”

  His gaze shifted toward Liam.

  Oh. “I’m yours, August.”

  “Say it again,” he whispered, his tone an octave deeper.

  “I’m yours.” I leaned over and kissed him, sensing several sets of eyes on us.

  My promise combined with the kiss loosened his fingers but didn’t do much to ease the tension in his shoulders.

  Liam’s front door was open. As I strutted inside, all eyes turned to me. Probably because I was giving off way-too-cheery vibes.

  Lucas’s scarred eyebrow hiked up. “How many bowls of Lucky Charms did you ingest this morning?”

  I rolled my eyes and then announced, “I know how Cassandra killed Julian!” I said it so loudly Morgan herself probably heard me all the way back at the inn.

  Liam, who’d been sitting a little hunched, straightened.

  “She’s been poisoning herself with silver.”

  The silence that ensued was deafening.

  “Forget the Lucky Charms, what the fuck have you been smoking?” Lucas asked.

  I shot him a genial scowl. “What she has on her mouth isn’t a birthmark. Silver poisoning causes lips and nails to turn blue.” They all stared at me as though I’d morphed into a squirrel.

  “That’s impossible, Clark,” Lucas said. “Silver kills us.”

  “Not if you take Sillin to balance it out,” I countered, feeling more and more certain about my theory.

  “If she’s ingesting Sillin, then there’s no way she can shift,” Cole said.

  Their mood was seriously starting to put a damper on mine. “Liam, remember her story about the toxic waste poisoning? What if the toxin was silver? What if she somehow built an immunity to it? Would that be possible?”

  “What toxic waste poisoning?” August asked. The first words he’d uttered since stepping inside Liam’s house. He was leaning against a wall, long sleeves pushed up to his elbows, arms crossed in front of his chest.

  Lucas tipped his head in my direction. “The day she went to have tea at the inn with Morgan—”

  August’s expression darkened. “You went to the inn?”

  “Yes, but not for a tea party.” This time, there was nothing amiable about the scowl I shot Lucas. “I went to talk to her about canceling the duel, which she refused. And then she filled me in on her pack’s history. She told me that what decimated the original Creeks was their water source. Apparently, it was polluted.” I perked up again as an idea materialized. “Is there a way to see the topography of their old territory? Maybe there’s a mine, or a news article.”

  “Cole?” Liam said. “Can you look it up?”

  Cole nodded and went to take a seat at the game table where a laptop was already powered on. As he clicked away on the keypad, I walked over to him.

  “Can you shift?” Liam’s voice was taut and low.

  I glanced over my shoulder.

  “No,” August said.

  “When did you do the injection again?”


  “Nine days ago.”

  “Have you tried shifting this morning?”

  “Yes. It didn’t work.”

  “Show me.”

  “Why?” Tendons writhed beneath the skin of his forearms. “You think I’m lying?”

  A nerve ticked in Liam’s jaw. “Greg will be over soon. He can test your blood to see how much Sillin’s left.”

  Wishing those two could bury the hatchet, I sighed and returned my attention to Cole’s computer screen.

  “So . . . anything?” Matt asked, slinking toward me as though to move as far away as possible from Liam and August.

  Windows were popping open on the computer, one over the other, and then a map appeared. Cole zoomed in, then clicked on something that turned the flat map 3-dimensional.

  He squinted at the screen before leaning back in his chair and clucking his tongue. “So Ness is a little genius.”

  My skin prickled. “There’s a mine?”

  “There’s a mine. A silver mine. And a bunch of class action suits filed to have it shut down by a certain Henry Morgan.”

  “Was that Cassandra’s father?”

  “Uncle.” Liam’s breath burst against my temple.

  So concentrated on the screen, I hadn’t heard him come up behind me.

  “He was the Creek Alpha at the time,” Lucas explained.

  I turned toward my Alpha, goose bumps scattering over my arms from the thrill of our discovery. “Liam, you realize this means we can call the duel off?”

  His eyes gleamed as brightly as his teeth, which were on full display.

  His smile unsettled me. “What?”

  “Babe, we’re not calling it off. Thanks to you, we now know how to defeat her.”

  My stomach hardened like a fist. “Thanks to me, we know how she cheated. We have no clue how to beat her.”

  “Of course we do. By not getting any of her silver-tainted blood in us.” Liam backed up and started pacing the cowhide rug. “Julian bit her. That was the beginning of his end. I won’t bite her.”

  I gasped, not okay at all with the turn of events. “How are you going to kill her if you don’t bite her?”

  “Claws. I’ll use my claws.”

  “What if she wounds you and rubs her blood into your wound?”