A Pack of Vows and Tears Read online

  “Let me guess.” He raised a finger. “Carrot cake muffins, preferably frosted.” He flicked up another finger. “Chocolate-zucchini bread.” A third finger came up. “Warm sourdough with salted butter.” Another finger. “Cinnamon rolls with a hefty layer of icing.” And then his pinkie leaped up. “Bacon—the thickly cut kind—with scrambled eggs.”

  I blinked at him, impressed by his memory. He’d just listed all of my favorite breakfast items. Not that I was the pickiest person, but I really did have a thing for cinnamon and fatty food. Discussing food brought me back to the meal I’d shared with Liam in his kitchen when he’d asked what I liked eating. August already knew all that about me. For some reason, this flustered me. I got up and hobbled to the kitchen to pour myself a mug of coffee.

  With my back to him, I said, “Coffee. Just coffee. I don’t really eat any of that stuff anymore.” I wasn’t sure why I was lying to August. Maybe it was because I didn’t want him to think he had me all figured out. Even though he did.

  I turned and leaned against the linoleum countertop. The edge bit into the sliver of skin on display between my crop top and my sleep shorts. Again, I thought about going to put on some more clothes, but I lived amongst wolves. They probably didn’t even notice bare skin anymore.

  August frowned at me, and then he frowned down at the white ceramic mug clutched between my fingers. I blew on the steam, watched it disperse and melt into the air.

  Feeling like a jerk, I said, “If you really do have time, I’d appreciate some help with studying for my exam.”

  His gaze returned to my face. For a moment, I thought about confessing I’d lied, that he’d been right, that those were still all of my favorite things, but I couldn’t get the words out. It was disarming to have someone know me so intimately. I hadn’t eaten cinnamon rolls or carrot cake muffins in months, yet the mere mention of them made me salivate. It also brought back a whole slew of memories that included a table full of people—most of whom weren’t part of this world anymore.

  My mom had made the best cinnamon rolls.

  And my father’s usual Sunday activity—besides waltzing his wife around the house to a Roberta Flack song—was grating several pounds of carrots for her baking.

  “Sure,” August finally said. “Do you have the booklet?”

  “No.” I blew on my coffee again. No steam rose this time. “Can you pull up the questions on your phone?”

  He nodded. As he quizzed me, his tone was so stiff that I knew I’d wounded him, yet I couldn’t confess my deception. I might’ve been loyal to a fault, but I was one hell of a stubborn liar.

  25

  I didn’t end up hiking. But I did pass my driver’s permit without making so much as a single mistake, and then I celebrated at the lakeside picnic with all of my favorite people—when Isobel had pulled up in front of the DMV, Evelyn was in the car.

  I’d almost cried from how happy I was that Isobel had thought to invite Evelyn. Also, I was feeling pretty emotional from getting my permit on the first try. Now I only needed fifty hours of driving experience and a vision exam, and I’d be all set to cruise around Boulder—or around the country—on my own. I was drunk on the freedom that loomed at my fingertips.

  Buoyed by the thoughts of all the places I would go, I walked to the lake’s edge, slid off my sandals, and waded into the crisp water that felt delicious against my blistered feet. I picked up a stone and skipped it on the glassy surface just as Isobel’s contagious laughter rang through the warm summer air.

  This was a perfect day.

  One of the most perfect days I’d had in a long time.

  “Not bad.” August stared at the ripples on the water as my rock sank to the bottom.

  “You think you can do better, Watt?”

  He answered me with a confident smile, the first one he’d given me since I’d shot him down earlier. With that smile, all was right in the world again.

  His flat pebble leaped over the surface four times before plunging to its watery grave. “That was just a warm-up shot.”

  I snickered. “Uh-huh.”

  His freckles seemed to burn a little darker. He crouched and spent almost an entire minute scouring the rocky beach for just the right stone. I remembered making fun of him once for devoting half an afternoon searching a meadow for the most faultless red poppies to give Isobel one Mother’s Day. I’d ripped up the first stalks I could find and squashed them into a bouquet, which wilted on the way to my house. Mom had still complimented their beauty and displayed them in a vase on her dresser.

  Slowly, August unfurled his long body, the smallest and slimmest rock nestled in his palm, and walked over to the water’s edge, crouched, all of the muscles in his body purling as he frisbeed the rock in one perfect sweep.

  He pumped his fist in the air. “Take that, Dimples. Nine!”

  I flung my gaze toward the water, which still undulated. I’d missed his exploit. For all I knew, the pebble had skipped twice before sinking, but I couldn’t admit that, because then he’d know I’d been ogling him instead of the rock, and he’d wonder why.

  I wondered why.

  Perhaps it was the violently hot sun.

  Or maybe it was the incessant cacophony of crickets.

  “You win,” I conceded, wading in deeper. Water snaked up my bare thighs. I should’ve worn a bathing suit but hadn’t thought of it. My cut-offs and tank top would have to do. “I’m going for a swim.”

  A dragonfly skimmed the water’s surface, its green pearlescent body adding to the lake’s pulsing shimmer. I swept my hand toward the insect, and it dashed off the same way bunnies ran from me when I was in my other form.

  “Want to join me?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at August.

  He rubbed his chin as though debating, but then he lowered his pants and yanked off his tee. I turned my prying gaze away and submerged myself completely, staying under until I felt my blood cool down. When I popped back out, August was lying on his back next to me, floating like driftwood.

  He looked peaceful.

  Too peaceful.

  Smiling deviously, I pressed both my palms into his abdomen and drove him downward. And then I laughed so hard that when he emerged and shoved me under, I snorted in an ungodly amount of lake water.

  I propelled myself away from him like a squid. “Not fair,” I said, laugh-snorting.

  He grinned. When I saw him cut through the water toward me, probably to dunk me under again, I raced to the middle of the lake. Only then did I stop to take a breath. From the shore, I caught Evelyn shading her eyes. I waved to her to reassure her that I was okay just before I got dunked again.

  When I broke free, I tossed my hair back. “Oh. You’re going to regret that!”

  August shot me a challenging grin. “Am I? What are you going to do, Dimples? Stick itching powder in my bed again?”

  Ha! I’d forgotten about that. “Not a bad idea . . . ” I racked my brain for something worse, though. When it finally came to me, I swam up to him and started tickling his sides. August was the most ticklish person in the history of ticklish people.

  He roared with laughter until he managed to cuff my wrists. Then he tried to take revenge, but I wasn’t ticklish. I’d never been. He must’ve remembered that fact at some point because he stopped prodding my ribcage and simply rested his palm against my waist. I wasn’t cold, but my skin pebbled and my heart . . . it skipped a beat.

  Possibly two.

  Before he could detect my weirdness, I kicked away from him. “Nice try, big guy,” I said, hoping my voice sounded normal. “Race you to the shore?”

  His green eyes honed into the shore with the same intensity they’d honed into me a moment ago. August had never been competitive—not ever—and yet the way he looked at that shore made me wonder if he’d changed. Maybe, in the past, when we’d played backgammon or scaled a tree, he’d let me win, because I was so much younger.

  “You’re going to need a head start,” he finally said.


  “I’m all grown up now. I don’t need any more head starts.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yep.”

  “What do I get if I win?” He submerged his chin and mouth and blew out bubbles as he treaded water next to me.

  “You want a prize for beating a girl?”

  He popped his head back out of the water. “That’s a low blow. How am I supposed to beat you now?”

  I grinned at him, my dimples feeling like they were excavating my cheeks. “Ready?”

  He grunted, which I took as a yes.

  I propelled my limbs, wheeling them so fast they blurred, and my pulse skyrocketed. Unlike August, I had always been competitive. Which had been one of the reasons I’d entered the Alpha trials.

  His body plundered the water parallel to mine. I didn’t stop to check who was in the lead though, not until I reached the embankment. The minute my fingers grazed the shore, I shot out of the water and whipped my hair off my face. August touched the shore a couple seconds after me.

  “Yes!” I smacked the water triumphantly, but then I noticed he was barely out of breath, and my triumph waned. “Did you let me win, August Watt?”

  He pivoted and sat facing out. “Nope.”

  “Liar.”

  He side-eyed me, and there was something in his penetrating gaze that made my grin crumble like crushed chalk. It was as though he was saying, that makes two of us. Maybe I was reading too much into his expression. Maybe I was only seeing what I was feeling.

  Whatever it was, I got out of the lake, cool water bleeding down my legs and between my breasts. When I reached the picnic blanket, I sat down and wrung out my hair. Isobel tendered me a towel, which I wrapped around myself.

  “Remember those parties we used to throw down here, Jeb?” she said to my contemplative uncle.

  His gaze was fixed to the pines swaying gently around the crystalline body of water. “I remember Nelson tossing me in one night with all my clothes on because I mentioned how pretty you looked.”

  Nelson chuckled, a tad sheepishly, whereas Isobel flushed but smiled as big as her son.

  Keeping her gaze trained on August’s back, on the caterpillar-like scar that extended the length of the waistband of his black briefs, she said, “Those were the days.”

  I didn’t ask whether my parents had attended those lake parties. I sensed they had. They’d all grown up together. They’d all splashed around the lake together. They’d all kissed and gotten married and birthed babies together.

  Shifters were a community, and like all communities, they’d been rattled by tragedy, but somehow, they’d all stuck around and lifted each other up when life had weighed them down. Until my father died.

  Would our generation be supportive? Would I one day picnic with August and Matt and their respective wives and laugh about the good old days?

  I hoped so. I hoped I would get what Isobel, Nelson, and Jeb had. I hoped I would get a real family again.

  26

  The week following Everest’s burial smeared into a long blur. Every day, someone from the pack would bring us breakfast and suggest an activity—a movie, a card game, a walk. At some point, Jeb started to turn people down, and then he stopped coming out of his room altogether, which meant I got to hang out with our visitors and prove I had everything under control.

  And I did.

  I ached, but my sadness was tempered by the fact that Everest had dug his own grave, even though I still didn’t understand why he’d done all that he’d done, or why the Creeks had silenced him. Was it for the Sillin, or was there more?

  When Matt dropped by at the end of the week, brandishing a bag of homemade blueberry muffins his mom had baked, I made him sit and tell me what was going on, because I was certain a lot was going on.

  The blond bear of a man sank down onto the couch, palming the pale stubble on his square jaw. “Julian and Liam have contacted the Creek Alpha to ask for a meeting. She hasn’t gotten back to them yet, so Robbie suggested heading out there to confront her.” He sighed and sat back, hooking one arm around the back of the couch and dropping the other on the armrest.

  I handed him a mug of the minty tea I’d just brewed and sat on the opposite end of the couch, folding my legs beneath me. “Do you think he was killed because of the drugs?”

  “It’s the likeliest scenario.”

  “Has anyone spoken to Aidan Michaels?”

  “Aidan Michaels?” Both of his honeyed eyebrows shot up on his sun-reddened forehead. I guessed he’d been working outdoors this week. “Why would he know anything?”

  “Because one, he had his own business dealings with Everest. And two, he’s made it his mission to know everything there is to know about werewolves. Why would his interest in packs not extend over the Boulder town limits?”

  Matt thought about this so hard his large forehead puckered. “True. I’ll talk to Liam.” He took a sip of his tea. “Or maybe you should?”

  “No way.”

  “Why?”

  I set my mug down before I could squeeze the tea right out of it. “Seriously, Matt? You’re asking me why? You were there.”

  “I know, Ness, but we were all under pressure, and between the text and the voicemail—”

  “He should’ve given me the benefit of the doubt. You all should’ve.”

  Matt chewed on his lower lip. “He hates himself for it, but you gotta understand, that’s Liam. He’s always been a little . . . impulsive.”

  Impulsive? “So I’m supposed to forgive and forget?”

  Matt went back to rubbing his jaw. “No. But I think you guys should talk. You don’t have to get back together or anything, but he’s real miserable, Ness. And his temper’s gotten even shorter.”

  “Not my problem.”

  “He’s your Alpha, so it sort of is your problem. It’s all of our problem. If he flips a switch, he could do something that could endanger the pack.”

  “I’m not a shrink, Matt. Liam needs therapy. And I’m not saying that out of anger, but because his father really screwed him up. There’s nothing I can say or do that can fix that sort of damage.”

  Matt screwed up his lips. “Tamara’s sniffing around him again.”

  “Did she ever stop?”

  “I guess not, but she’s really coming on strong this time.”

  I stared out the window at the rolling mountains flecked with evergreens and grass. My heartbeat slowed as I pictured Liam’s red-haired ex and the sneer she’d directed at me the night I’d gone out to Tracy’s with the pack. The night she’d all but called me a hooker.

  “She can have him,” I said.

  “Are you sure?”

  I finally dragged my gaze back to Matt. “Yes.”

  He studied his dirt-flecked work boots. “Is it because of August?”

  “August is like an older brother to me.” One who’d stopped visiting since our lakeside picnic. Not that he’d promised to come every day, but it would’ve been nice to see his face or hear his voice.

  “I heard you two are mates.”

  “Just because we’re supposed to be mates doesn’t mean we’re attracted to each other.”

  Matt snorted, which made me bristle.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Why did you snort?”

  “Because you’re hot, and August’s a guy. And even if he might feel like a brother to you, the fact is, he isn’t.”

  “So?”

  “So he shot Sienna’s advances down the other day. And then this waitress, who he used to hook up with before Sienna, asked if he wanted a nightcap, and he rejected her too.”

  I could see how him turning down girls could be misconstrued, but he was probably worried about his mother. Her surgery was on Monday. I was worried.

  “He’s got a lot going on, Matt.”

  “No unattached guy has that much going on that they turn down easy lays, Ness.”

  I sat up and placed my mug down on the glass c
offee table. “I might have a theory.”

  “I’m listening.”

  This isn’t going to be weird . . . Then again this entire conversation was weird. It was the sort of conversation I should be having with Sarah instead of Matt. Not that Sarah and I hadn’t had it already. Sarah had been picking me up most afternoons to give me driving lessons in her red Mini, so the subject had come up.

  Jeb said she was probably trying to squeeze information about Everest and the Creeks out of me, but I doubted it. One, she could’ve gone to her uncle for information, and two, we didn’t discuss pack dynamics all that much. We mostly listened to music while discussing UCB and the courses I should take. I hadn’t gotten my acceptance letter yet. I imagined it, as well as my tuition, were contingent to a talk with Liam. I hadn’t been ready to face him, but I was slowly getting there.

  Next week perhaps . . .

  “So?” Matt’s voice broke me out of my daydream. “What’s your theory?”

  I dragged my hand through my hair. “The mating link makes our bodies unreceptive to people who aren’t our mates.”

  He frowned.

  “We can’t be . . . um”—heat eddied through me—“intimate.”

  “Huh?”

  “Oh come on, Matt.” I yanked my hand through my hair again so hard this time I plucked out a few strands. “Don’t make me draw you a diagram. This is embarrassing enough.” So embarrassing that I kept my gaze locked on the blank TV screen in the corner.

  “Whoa. You mean you can’t have sex with a random person? Whoa . . . ” He repeated whoa a couple more times. “Now I get why Liam tried to get August to leave town. Whoa.”

  “Yeah. Sucks.” For August more than me. I didn’t know what I was missing.

  “I don’t get why August isn’t hauling ass out of Boulder. I mean, I do get it. His mom being sick and all, but after that . . . ” He rubbed his hands together. “After that, Ness, if he sticks around Boulder, he’s sticking around for you.”

  I folded my fingers together. Not in prayer. Just to do something with them. This conversation had me feeling restless. Not to mention uncomfortable. Tremendously uncomfortable. I was antsy for Matt to leave.