“But…?”
“But I think you should consider it. I worry for you,querida. I worry that without the pack’s protection, someone could hurtyou.”
“My father had the pack’s protection, and he’sdead.”
Her thumbs stilled as horror leached the color from her already insipidskin.
“The pack can’t protect me from everything, Evelyn. Look at what my own family did. To you.”To me. Did she know that Everest had made me take the fall for hiscrime?
“I suppose you are right.” She fell silent for a long moment, her eyes directed on the crescents she was sketching over my skin. “Frank says my ex-husband did not murder Heath, but I think he says this to reassure me. It is probably just my imagination.” She exhaled a deep sigh. “What a relief that you know everything. What arelief.”
I trembled to tell her the truth about Heath—if only to reassure her that it wasn’t the monster she’d married who’d killedhim.
I was about to launch into that convoluted story when she said, “Liam is outside. He has been waiting to speak with you allday.”
I jerked my gaze toward mybalcony.
The corners of her lips tipped up further, and then she laughed. “You think I would let a man linger outside your bedroom?” She shook her head. “He has been waiting for you on the inn’s porch all day. Frank came, but so did Liam…so didLiam.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Ididn’t runoff right away after Evelyn left. I spent long minutes processing everything she’d told me, coming to terms with the facts that our encounter hadn’t been motivated by a random act of kindness; that she’d once been married to the man who’d killed my father; that Frank had cared enough to send someone to watch over me. I’d been convinced everyone in the Boulder Pack detestedme.
My heart sped up when I closed my fingers over the doorknob and turned it. The walk down the carpeted corridor seemed interminable, and my lightheadedness made the floor feel as though it were swinging like in a fun house. Several times I had to lean against the wainscoting to steadymyself.
The cavernous living room was dimly lit and occupied with a couple of guests sipping wine. I was surprised the inn hadn’t been shut down after what had happened. Was Jeb evenhere?
I scanned the terrace for Liam, found him leaning over the balustrade. I stared at him for a long moment, watched how the white moon delineated his long body. The summer night was warm and frosted with a perfect roundmoon.
The elders must be running with the pack.It was strange to think there would come a time when I could no longer change atwill.
Liam hadn’t sensed me yet, or maybe he had but didn’t dare acknowledge me, afraid to spook me. I walked over to him slowly, then placed my forearms over the balustrade evenslower.
He kept his gaze fixed to the sprawling, jeweled immensity stretching before us. “I’m sorry,Ness.”
“What are you sorryfor?”
“For not catching Everest before he fled. For what my father did to your mother. For having rejected your plea to enter our pack after your father died. For hurting you.” He touched my cheek, the marks he’d clawed there, then his gaze dipped lower, and I knew he was apologizing for anothernight.
“I incapacitated your father, Liam. And then I went after something you wanted just to annoy you. If anyone needs to apologize, it’s me.” I surveyed the gentle sway of the tall pines that were almost as green as during daylight in this bright darkness. “To think I befriended Julian because Everest told me the Pine Alpha could protect me from your retaliation once you found out what I’d done.” My eyes were so hot that the cold air made themsting.
He shifted so that his entire body faced mine. “Is that why? I thought you were having an affair withhim.”
“God, no.” Ishuddered.
He mistook my shivers for a chill and coasted his hands up my bare arms. That just made me shiverharder.
He frowned. “Are youcold?”
“No.”
A smile started on his face. He glided one of his palms over my shoulder, toward my neck, settling his thumb in the hollow of my collarbone. His four other fingers rested lightly on the knobs of my spine. My frenzied pulse pounded against the pad of histhumb.
“You know, the night it happened—probably moments after you left—my father called me. He was agitated and drunk. And angry. Really angry. He ordered me to set fire to the inn. He said your family would be the pack’s downfall. I told him he was drunk and crazy, and that no one was setting fire to anything. And then he called me a coward. A coward like my mother. And then he said—” His fingers clenched almost painfully around myneck.
I wrapped my hand around his and dragged itaway.
His lids slippedshut.
