A Pack of Vows and Tears

by Olivia Wildenstein

  “A conflicted Alpha can get sloppy, and that can impact the entire pack.”

  I crossed my arms. “So what? Are you suggesting I go down there and give him a big old hug and tell him I forgive him for breaking my heart?”

  “Did he?”

  “Break my heart? Yeah, he did.”

  Although the tinny scent of death stained the air, most of the bloody patches on the lawn were hidden behind clusters of shifters—some in mourning, some in celebration. Someone had covered Julian with a white sheet from which only his feet and head protruded. Blood bloomed on the white, so much of it that I didn’t think any amount of meat tenderizer would be able to get it out.

  “You cared that much about him?”

  “I did.”

  “He still cares about you.”

  “He’ll get over it.”

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  “Did you get over Taryn?”

  He watched Sarah as she rose and craned her neck to stare into the sun. Maybe she was hoping its blazing heat would dry her tears.

  “I don’t miss her anymore,” he said.

  She squinted toward the inn. When she caught sight of us, she headed for the porch steps, treading fast, as though in a hurry to get away from her new pack, ironed hair glinting like a swath of gold. When she reached the deck, she lurched toward me. I just had time to open my arms before she sprang into them.

  “We told him not to challenge her.” Her tears soaked the collar of my tank. “We begged him not to do it.”

  I rubbed the top of her spine.

  “He’s gone. And now we’re . . . we’re . . . Creeks.” Her voice cracked on that last word. “It’s her voice I’ll hear in my mind. She’ll be the one to tell us what to do.” She pulled away from me, fixing me with her shiny brown eyes. “I. Hate. Her,” she bit out, trembling all over. “I hate all of them.” She glared at a small group of Creeks passing below us.

  There were five of them, not much older than us. Where two of the boys and one of the girls stared at us with restraint, the other two—a boy and girl, who looked so much alike I assumed they were siblings—watched us with unabashed interest.

  “They can’t all be bad,” I whispered to her, trying to soothe her.

  “I still hate them,” she muttered.

  “I know.” I smoothed her hair back.

  She pressed away from me and shot her red-tinged gaze toward Lucas. “Liam has to challenge her. He has to take the packs back. You guys have to tell him to challenge her.”

  The blood drained from Lucas’s face, turning his complexion as white as the scar that slashed his black eyebrow. “No way. If she doesn’t challenge him, then we’re advising him to stay out of it.”

  “I’m sure she cheated, Lucas. I don’t know how she did it, but I’m sure of it. Julian wasn’t throwing up fur balls out there. I bet she poisoned him.”

  “If she had”—I wrinkled my nose for what I was about to say—“she couldn’t have eaten his heart without it poisoning her.”

  “Ness is right, Sarah.”

  Sarah scrubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “But she did something. She must’ve. Maybe she managed to slip him Sillin. It would’ve weakened him.”

  My brow puckered. “How would she have done that?”

  “I don’t know, but—”

  Lucas interrupted Sarah. “Wouldn’t Sillin have made him shift back into his human form?”

  Would it? “It keeps us from shifting when we’re in skin,” I said, remembering what it had done to me, “but I’m not sure what it does when we’re in fur.”

  “It’ll show up on his tox screen,” Lucas said.

  The same way it had shown up on Heath’s . . .

  “If we’re even allowed to run one,” Sarah muttered.

  “If she doesn’t allow you to run one, it’ll be as much of an answer. It’ll prove she has something to hide.”

  Cassandra had finally shifted back. Her body was bruised and bloodied, yet pride squared her shoulders and her jaw. A man was wrapping a bandage around her thigh that was still weeping blood.

  “What if it’s in her blood?” I whispered.

  “What if what’s in her blood?”

  “The Sillin. What if it’s in her blood?” I kept my voice so low that both Lucas and Sarah strained toward me. “Her wound should’ve sealed up by now.”

  “But she managed to shift into a wolf,” Sarah said.

  “She must’ve swallowed it while in wolf form,” I said, scanning the makeshift dueling ring for what—white pills, a crushed foil packet?

  “Mom would’ve seen her eat something and signaled it.”

  “Maybe your mom missed it?” I suggested.

  Sarah inhaled a swift breath. “You know what this means, though? That she’s weaker now. That if Liam challenged her, he might very well win.”

  “Unless she poisons him, too,” I murmured.

  Color had returned to Lucas’s face. “If the Sillin’s in her system, there’s no way she can shift back into fur. Not for a couple hours. Possibly days, depending on the dose.”

  “Could they duel in skin?” I asked.

  “Would be atypical, but why the hell not?” Lucas sounded pumped.

  I didn’t like his enthusiasm. Feared it. Feared it might incite Liam to act recklessly. Before I could quiet him, Lucas shouted, “Great Alpha Morgan, shift back!”

  Everyone turned to stare at him, and I mean, everyone.

  “Excuse me?” Cassandra said.

  Lucas had his arms crossed in front of his chest. “Shift. Back.”

  “Why, Mr. Mason?” I was impressed she knew his name. Then again, she must’ve spent decades studying all the files her cousin had sent her.

  Her cousin, who was standing next to her, looking like the cat who ate the canary. How I despised Aidan Michaels.

  “To satisfy my curiosity,” he said.

  “I bet you, she won’t do it,” Sarah whispered.

  “Very well,” Cassandra said.

  Keeping her gaze locked on Lucas, brown fur poured from her pores, and then her eyes flashed with an inhuman glow, and she landed on all fours, trampling our Sillin-theory the same way she trampled the broken blades of grass underneath her paws.

  52

  A whoosh of breath lurched from Lucas’s mouth. “How?” he whispered.

  Sarah blinked hard at the wolf that was slowly turning back into a woman.

  Once Cassandra was in skin, she craned her neck to look up at us, pulling the bandage that had slid down her thigh back up. “Have I satisfied your curiosity, Mr. Mason?”

  Lucas’s lips were still parted, but no sound came out of him.

  Could she have applied a cream to her body that would’ve made Julian sick?

  “Was Julian allergic to anything?” I asked Sarah.

  She shook her head, eyes so wide there was white around her irises.

  “Fuck,” Lucas finally said, just as heavy footsteps pounded the terrace floor.

  We all turned toward the disturbance.

  Gripped between August and Cole stood a boy no older than I was. Was this the infamous Alex Morgan? Everest’s killer?

  Alex had the blond curls of a cherub, a boyish jaw that had yet to be chiseled by life even though it was riddled with fading bruises that matched the violet shade of his eyes. He was more pretty-boy than cold-blooded killer.

  “Damn, she’s way hotter in real,” he said, gaze raking over me.

  August smacked his elbow into the side of Alex’s head.

  “Ow. What was that for?” Alex carped, trying to raise his hand to cradle his head, but both Cole and August clamped down on his wrists, pinning them behind his lanky body.

  Alex really didn’t look like he needed two mammoth shifters to keep him in check. Then again, there was something slippery about him, as though he were more eel than wolf.

  “He killed Everest?” Sarah asked.

  “I know, right,” Lucas grumbled.

  Ale
x smirked at Sarah, or rather at her rack. “The region’s good to its females.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Lucas growled.

  Alex grinned, seemingly getting off on irritating everyone. He stared beyond us then, at the lawn. “Hey, Ma, I’m home!”

  A couple muffled laughs rose from the Creek pack.

  “You said you wouldn’t hurt him,” Cassandra snarled at Liam.

  “No. We said we wouldn’t kill him. And we didn’t.” Liam sounded chillingly calm.

  Cassandra gave him a hard stare. “Your terms. What are they?”

  “You take your pack and leave Boulder immediately.”

  Sarah gasped.

  I put a hand on her arm. “He surely doesn’t mean you,” I murmured reassuringly.

  “I doubt my new pledges—” Cassandra began.

  “Pledges?” Sarah’s fingers curled into fists. “We didn’t pledge ourselves to you. We would never!”

  Cassandra flicked her gray gaze onto my friend. “My new compatriots . . . Does the term suit you better, Miss Matz?”

  Sarah scowled.

  “I doubt they want to abandon their land,” Cassandra continued, returning her attention to Liam. “Technically, my land.”

  “So you don’t accept my terms?”

  “I do not accept your terms,” Cassandra said calmly.

  I snuck a glance over my shoulder at Alex. He was no longer grinning, but he was also not peeing his pants.

  “Technically, Kolane, Everest was already a dead man, was he not?” she continued.

  “We’re not in a court of law. Your son isn’t getting off on a technicality. This is pack law, and pack law forbids inter-pack murders,” Liam said, a pointed edge to his voice. “We have proof your son deliberately ran him off the road. We found yellow paint on Everest’s Jeep. Yellow paint that rubbed off from your son’s Hummer.”

  “Paint? That’s your proof?” Cassandra’s lips puckered. “When Everest took off from our property, he back-ended my son’s car. That’s why—”

  “Just before the crash, he called me!” My voice fired across the field, leaving a trail of billowing silence. “He said he was being chased.” I swallowed hard. “So don’t you dare claim he crashed into that ditch by accident!”

  Cassandra’s eyebrows quirked in surprise. She licked the blood off her lips that seemed bluer in the sunlight.

  Fingers twined with my own. Slender fingers. Sarah’s. She squeezed my palm tight.

  “Look, Kolane,” Cassandra said, “if you give me back my son, I swear in front of every Creek and Boulder that I’ll never challenge you to a duel.” She tapped the spot over her heart as though to prove her sincerity. “I’ll let your pack go on. I’m willin’ to sign a treaty with you this very minute.”

  A spark of hope ignited within me . . . within Liam. I felt the speeding up of his heart inside my own chest.

  “I didn’t come here to challenge Alphas,” Cassandra said. “I came here to create alliances.”

  “Says the wolf who just murdered a man,” Robbie interjected.

  “I didn’t challenge your uncle!” Cassandra’s temper exploded all over her haggard face. She took a few steps back, a noticeable limp in her right leg. “He challenged me! And he lost.” She stopped backing up and jerked her arm toward Julian’s remains. “That’s what hubris does to men. It makes them feel like gods but act like fools.”

  Liam studied her for a long moment. I prayed he was considering her terms.

  “Take her deal,” I whispered, not that he could hear me. “Take it.”

  Sarah glanced at me, conflict written all over her face.

  “No!” Liam’s answer was like an explosion—terrifying. “You fight me right here. Right now.”

  My blood became ice.

  “Liam!” Lucas rushed the handrail so fast I worried he would break right through it.

  Cassandra scrutinized Liam. “Trying to take advantage of my injuries, Kolane?”

  “Do you accept?” Liam asked.

  “Liam, no!” I yelled.

  “Do. You. Accept?”

  “Didn’t you listen to a word I just said about hubris?” she asked calmly.

  “Are you afraid to face me?” Liam asked.

  I willed her not to accept.

  “You’ll need a Second,” she finally said.

  Liam wheeled toward us and craned his neck. “Lucas—”

  “Don’t fucking ask me to do this, man.” Lucas shook his head so fiercely his black hair flogged his sheet-white jaw. Liam must’ve said something else to him, this time through the mind link, because Lucas growled a loud, unflinching, “Absolutely not!”

  Liam flung his gaze on Matt.

  Matt jerked, and then, like Lucas, shook his head. “No.”

  Liam’s eyes narrowed.

  A smile lilted Lori’s lips. “Your pack doesn’t seem very confident in your abilities—”

  “Rodrigo?” Annoyance chafed Liam’s tone.

  Rodrigo’s face glistened with perspiration. “Take her deal, Liam.”

  Have faith in me! His voice raged inside my skull.

  I clapped my hands against my ears. I wasn’t alone in doing this.

  I can defeat her! She is weak. I can do this! But I have to do it NOW.

  A whimper escaped me.

  Liam fastened his eyes on mine for a long moment. So much passed between us then. Regret, resentment, disappointment, affection.

  Don’t do it, I mouthed.

  Finally he spun back around. “I challenge you without a Second.”

  Epilogue

  Cassandra drummed her fingers against the bloodied bandage on her thigh. “Dueling without a Second is unheard of.”

  “Unheard of but not unlawful,” Liam said, his voice taut with determination. “Besides, it puts me at a disadvantage. You should be jumping at the opportunity.”

  Cassandra studied Liam. “I don’t jump. I calculate risks.”

  I frantically scanned the faces of the Boulders surrounding me. Some had gone ghostly pale.

  August’s gaze struck mine. “Liam—”

  “Don’t even think about giving me advice, Watt,” Liam barked.

  I sucked in air, but it seemed devoid of oxygen. I pulled in another breath, and it went down the wrong pipe. I began to cough so hard I thought I would hack out one of my lungs.

  Perhaps Liam could defeat Cassandra, but what if he couldn’t?

  Then . . . then she’d . . . she’d eat his heart.

  Not for the first time today, bile shot up my throat. I was about to spin back around when my gaze landed on Alex’s. He was smiling as though he could taste his freedom, as though he sensed his mother wouldn’t walk away from the challenge, as though he knew she’d be victorious.

  I flipped back around. Cassandra was stroking her narrow, bloody chin. Next to her, Lori and Aidan stood side by side, both relaxed and smiling as easily as Alex.

  “I volunteer,” I shouted suddenly. “I’ll be his Second!”

  “What?” Lucas roared, at the same time as August yelled, “Out of the question!”

  Before anyone could stop me, I flew down the stairs and raced toward Liam.

  His dark eyes were wide with shock.

  “But since I’m the Second, I get a say in when the duel happens.”

  “Ness—” Liam started.

  “Right?” I all but screeched, my throat on fire.

  “No. Only the challenged party gets a say in when and where it happens,” Lori said. “And we’d—”

  “Release my son, and you’ll get to decide when and where the duel takes place.”

  “Like hell we’re setting him loose,” Liam said.

  “My son won’t harm anyone. I’ll give you my word.”

  “Your word means shit.”

  “Then let’s fight now.” She was limping and bleeding, and yet she was willing to go back into the ring?

  “Liam.” I jutted my head toward the indoor pool.

  Jaw set tight, he h
eaded for the inn, slid open the glass door, and after we’d both stepped inside, he shut it so hard the glass rattled in its frame. Before I could talk, he exclaimed, “Are you trying to screw me over?”

  “Screw you over? No, Liam. I wouldn’t have signed up for this if I were trying to screw you over.”

  His pupils pulsed and pulsed.

  I glanced through the glass at Cassandra, who was rubbing her body down with a wet towel to get rid of the blood and gore, and then around the pool room to check for surveillance equipment.

  I didn’t see any cameras, but it didn’t mean the place wasn’t bugged, so I dropped my voice to a hissing whisper. “She did something to Julian, and I plan on figuring out what that is, so it isn’t your heart she eats next.”

  “Why do you care what happens to my heart?”

  I dragged my hand through my hair, my fingers snagging on some strands. “Beats me. I just do.”

  “You chose August.”

  I squashed my lips together. This was so not the moment to have this discussion. Then again, there would never be a good time to have this discussion.

  “You spent the night with him.” It wasn’t a question.

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “You’re my wolves. It is my—”

  “No, Liam. What happens between August and me only concerns him and me.”

  A nerve ticked in his clenched jaw. For a long moment, he simply stared at me.

  “Look, I know you don’t want to release Alex, but it’ll buy us time. We need time.” When that didn’t extinguish the bloodlust lighting up his irises, I tossed my hands in the air. “You know what, if you don’t give a shit about dying, then by all means, be your usual hotheaded self and go fight her now, but you’ll be doing it alone, because I won’t stand by to see you get gutted!”

  Doubt finally smudged his eyes. “Fine. Fine, I’ll wait.”

  “Good.”

  “But I’ll only take you on as a Second on one condition.”

  “No conditions. You either take me on or you don’t. But if you don’t, you’ll lose.”

  “Maybe I won’t lose.”

  I growled with annoyance. “Liam. Come on. This isn’t some joke. This is your life! Don’t you care about seeing another night? Another year?”

  “My condition is simple. All I’m asking is—”