“Don’t tell me you weren’t aware that the last test is a killgame.”
Those two words should never have been part of the same sentence. “A-A killgame?”
A shadow lapsed over Liam’s brow. “Winner takes all. Including loser’slife.”
The key tumbled out of my slack fingers and clinked against the woodenfloor.
His eyebrows writhed in surprise. “What? You didn’tknow?”
“They’re going to—” I swallowed, but it did little to displace the lump expanding like a vacuum bag inside my throat. “Make us—” I’d convinced myself I’d meet Liam’s punishment with my chin raised high—whatever that punishment may be. But that was because I hadn’t really believed he would killme.
I wasn’t ready todie.
I didn’t want todie.
“Is this some sickjoke?”
“No. It’s not. I wouldn’t joke about something like that.” Liam raked his hand through his hair, ramming back a lock that had fallen over hisforehead.
A thought whispered across my mind. He’d planned on selecting Lucas as his contestant. Had it been to spare me? “You would’ve been ready to killLucas?”
“I wouldn’t have had to kill Lucas, because the elders would’ve let one of us concede. They wouldn’t have wanted to eliminate a packmember.”
His words trickled through me like grains of sand in an hourglass, and like those grains of sand, they were marking the time I hadleft.
I realized then that this was the perfect way to get rid of me for good. “But because it’s me—a non-pack member—they’ll take conceding off the table?” I swayed a little but caught myself on the back of my desk chair. My knuckles whitened. “Is that why you’re here? To finish this stupidcontest?”
His gaze turned a forbidding shade of black. “Do you really think I could killyou?”
Silence rang in my ears. “You want to become Alpha more than you want anything else, Liam, so yes, I think youcouldkillme.”
He dropped down on the foot of my bed and let out a gravelly sigh. “It’s true. I used to want it more than anything else. For my father, for the elders, there was no doubt I would be the next leader. It was what I was rearedfor.”
I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. My fingers shook. “And you’ll make a great Alpha, Liam,” I admitted softly. “I didn’t use to think so. I assumed you were like Heath, and sometimes, you do remind me of him, but you also remind me of your mother, and she was a good woman who always cared for others more than she cared for herself. At least, that’s what my mother told me. I don’t remember her verywell.”
He snorted. “You don’t have to be nice to me. I’m not going to killyou.”
I released the chair and went to sit next to him on the bed. “I mean everything I just said.” I twined my fingers together in my lap and marveled at how quickly my fingernails had grown back, how strong they’d become, almost as hard as my wolf claws. “I entered this contest to spite you but stayed in it because I’m proud and hated to be considered lower than low because I’m a girl. I wanted to prove to you, to the pack, and to myself that I was worth something, but I wasn’t planning on even trying to win the last contest. That’s why I picked you and not Lucas. Because…because I wantedyoutowin.”
“Ness—”
“Let me finish.” I squeezed my fingers together. “I don’t want this, Liam. I don’t want a pack that doesn’t want me. And certainly not at the cost of alife.”
I’d killedonce.
Neveragain.
Neveragain.
“I’ll leave Boulder and never come back. They can’t make you kill me if I’m gone, right?” I turned my head to look at Liam, who was staring back, eyeswide.
“No.”
“It won’twork?”
He shifted, and one of his knees knocked into mine, creating a spot of heat on my cool skin. “You shouldn’t have to leave your home because ofme.”
“My home?” I let out a soft snort. “I don’t have a home here, Liam.” I lifted my eyes to the untainted ceiling. “I live in a hotel. With an aunt who, for some reason, really despises me and an uncle who doesn’t think very highly of me. My only friend was my cousin, but he up and left me. And my newest friend is a girl I keep being warned not to be friends with because she’s the enemy. The only other person who was nice to me is off fighting in the Middle East. I might have a roof over my head, and a woman who cares about me like I was her own granddaughter, but I don’t have ahome.”
