“I hope this will renew your desire tocompete.”
A gust of wind cartwheeled through the maze, blowing against the glossy leaves that waved at me like tiny hands. Anger bloomed in my chest, chasing away the chilling numbness I’d felt all weeklong.
“Once you become Alpha, you can destroy it and change the course of your pack’sfuture.”
Color must’ve seeped into my cheeks, because Julian raised a wide smile that barely crimped his too-smooth, too-shinybrow.
He leaned in close. “Shall I tell you where I’m keeping ithidden?”
“Why are you helpingme?”
“I’ve already told you. I want a friend in your pack, and I think you’d make a goodfriend.”
“You already haveEverest.”
“I would not call your cousin a friend. Merely an effective purveyor. But if you’d rather not be my friend,then—”
“Where is the damnstick?”
A slow smile drew his pouty lips upward, revealing the perfectly polished enamel of his teeth. “That’s mygirl.”
“I’m no one’sgirl.”
He scraped a dry finger against my cheek. His hand smelled so strongly of acetone and lotion it momentarily dispelled the repulsive scent blistering theair.
I bristled away from histouch.
“Take every right turn from now on. At the center of this maze, you’ll find the cage in which I keep my glorious pets. What you’re looking for isinside.”
A cage?Was that the source of the squawking and revoltingreek?
Julian handed me a little key. “You will be needingthis.”
I closed my fingers around the gold key and started walking away when Julian called out tome.
“After you were born, your father came tome.”
I didn’t turn around, but I waited, spinetight.
“He asked if I could enlighten him as to why he’d been given adaughter.”
“He must not have drunk the celebratory concoction,” I saiddrily.
“Perhaps. Anyway, at the time, I didn’t have an answer for him. I told him he should ask his Alpha. He told me that he had. Would you like to know what Heath toldhim?”
“He instructed him to kill me and try again. Oh… and he also suggested a paternity test.” My tone dripped withacid.
The ensuing silence told me Julian hadn’t expected me toanswer.
But then his voice rose again. “I know you feel guilt, Ness. I sense it weighing heavily on your shoulders. Cast it away. Heath Kolane was not a good man. Besides, think of your father. Think of what a victory it would’ve been for him to see you, his strong, beautiful daughter, rise to the highest rank of a pack who cast her away because of hergender.”
My heart hardened to steel. My resolve too. I didn’t delude myself into thinking Julian was my friend. He was an oily, manipulative man, but he’d just given me two tools—courage and knowledge—to right one of the many wrongs inside my pack, and for that I wasgrateful.
I started up again and took the firstright.
The first of manyrights.
Chapter Forty
