Chapter
One
“Isaid no.”
Wow. If Liam was actually a werewolf, he would be quaking in his boots. His brother was, but Rory had always seemed different than the rest of them, right? So Liam just didn’t care that the big pack alpha was yelling at him.
“But—”
“Liam, what the fuck did I say?” That was a wild roaring growl.
Liam tilted his head and settled on counting to ten, but he only made it to about three before he held up one finger. “One, my dear friend Jameson, I didn’t fucking ask your permission. Two”—he held up another finger—“I am not part of your pack. I don’t take orders. Three, I paid you the respect of letting you know I was going. I know you’re busy. I’m not waiting, so you can either get on your pony and ride with me, or you can just chill the fuck out and understand that I’m a grown fucking adult who can do what the hell he wants to. You do not own that land, and I have to go.”
Rory was standing there, his brother open-mouthed and about as pale as sheet, but Liam didn’t care. He was being calledto go. Something was up there, up in the mountains where the dragons had lived; he knew it, and whatever it was felt like a weird alien beacon in the center of his brain.
Maybe that was what it was.
Aliens. Like aliens with brain-sucking technology that made people they wanted to probe come to them.
Maybe it was more dragons.
Maybe he was crazy.
Maybe Liam just needed to go up into the altitude and have a stroke. He’d heard of it happening to people when they climbed Everest and shit. They would have cerebral edemas and just die in the cold.
He didn’t care, but he was going, and he wasn’t putting it off another day. He’d been patient, waiting for everybody to get their shit together, but the snows were gone, and he was tired of twiddling his thumbs and explaining himself and asking permission to do something that he didn’t have to ask permission to do because his brother decided that he was a fucking werewolf.
Asshole.
“Are you quite done?” The other alpha, Jameson’s brother, Keegan, stared him down, so Liam arched an eyebrow and just stared right back. They were a co-alpha pack, and that was a wall of muscle and aggression glaring at him.
“That’s going to be up to you. If you try to put me off again, I might rant and rave some more.”
Obviously, these guys were not used to having their authority challenged.
Again, Liam didn’t care. He wasn’t sure what the fuck the pair of werewolves who ran the pack wanted, but he did know he didn’t care. He had to get up the damn mountain. Urgently.
Liam shouldered his backpack. “I’m not going to harm anything, I just have to go up and see. Consider this me filing myflight plan. I’m heading up there—” He pointed up the mountain. “I’m going to look around. I will probably spend one night at the old compound because it’s a long damn haul even on my bike, and then I’ll be back.”
Jameson huffed out a hard breath. “You could stop at Loyal’s.”
“I could, and if I get up there and figure out I can’t go any farther, then that’s what I’ll do. But I’ve got this mountain bike. I’ve got food, I’ve got clothes.”
Keegan rolled his eyes. “Get in the fucking four-wheeler. We’ll put the bike on the back. I’ll drive you up as far as we can until the four-wheeler can’t make it.”
“Cool.” He bit back a grin and did not pump his fist in the air like he wanted to, but he’d won. He helped Keegan strap his bike to the all-terrain vehicle before he hopped on, letting Keegan do the driving.
See? He could be reasonable.
“Be careful,” Rory murmured. “We have no idea what’s going on up there.”
“I’ll do my best,” Liam agreed. He would be careful. As careful as he could, anyway. But he’d been like a compass needle pointing up that way for months.
Liam kissed Rory’s daughter on the top of her very little head when his brother offered her over. “I will. I’ll be back, I just have to go see. Ineedto.”
He nodded, because that was that. And they headed up into the heart of the Uintas, Keegan still rumbling a little bit. “I can’t believe you just did that.”
“Did what?”
