“Let me introduce you to the couple of thehour.”
He led me through a set of open doors that gave way onto a sprawling, manicured lawn planted with perpendicular hedges. Their corners were so straight I imagined the gardener using a ruler to chopthem.
Julian raised one of his hands, where a pinkie ring glittered with a diamond the size of his nail. “Robbie, Margaux!” he called out to the couple who were having their picture taken by a team ofprofessionals.
The photography equipment looked as expensive as the bride-to-be did with her white lace dress and the river of diamonds wrapped around her swan-likeneck.
Julian’s nephew turned toward me first. He raised his nose the slightest bit and sniffed the air. His eyebrows slanted just like those of his fellow shifters. Obviously Julian had not announced my visit to anyone other than the guards at thegate.
“This is Ness Clark.” Julian’s pouty mouth curved, which accentuated his nephew’sfrown.
“Callum Clark’s girl?” Robbieasked.
Julian nodded. “The very one.” He released me and leaned in toward his future niece-in-law—or whatever she was to him. “Margaux, darling, you look ravishingtonight.”
“As do you,Uncle.”
“Always a kind word for your grayinguncle.”
“You are not graying.” She let out a tinkling titter, as though her lips were made ofcrystal.
I sniffed the air, wondering what she was truly made of—skin or fur. She smelled like Robbie, as though she’d bathed in hisscent.
When the camera crew asked if they could get a picture of her with Julian, heobliged.
Robbie crossed his arms as he watched his uncle dip his future wife over his arm. She laughed, her eyes glittering for the camera as wildly as her diamonds. I looked up at Robbie and wondered if he worried about the way Julian touched Margaux. After all, Julian was the Alpha, and Alphas liked to take things that weren’t theirs for the taking…at least that had been true in ourpack.
“You’ve grown up lots since the last time I saw you.” Robbie glanced down at me. “How long has itbeen?”
“Sixyears.”
“Six years…” he mused, his gaze back on his future wife who was now giggling because Julian had scooped her up. “I always wonderedsomething.”
“What?” I askedhim.
“Why didn’t your pack punish the hunter who killed yourfather?”
“Excuseme?”
“The last hunter who injured one of ours was mauled instantly. I thought the Boulders abided by the same rules as wedid.”
My body, which I’d angled toward Julian and Margaux, pivoted fully toward Robbie. “They do. The hunter was killed right after I leftBoulder.”
He frowned deeply. “The man’s very much alive,Ness.”
My heart, which had behaved until now, hurdled against myribcage.
“You were with your father that night, weren’tyou?”
“I was, but it was dark, and it was one of my first runs, and my sense of smell was still developing,and—”
“So you don’t remember thehunter?”
“I never even saw him. At least, I don’t remember seeing him.” I remembered hearing the gunshot, the hot spray of blood, the metallic smell of it, but that was all that remained of the devastating night. “But the pack sniffed him out. And they”—my voice caught—“theykilledhim.”
The pity crinkling Robbie’s expression made my skin crawl. “For a dead man, he looks and sounds awfullyreal.”
Bang. Bang.Bangwent my heart. Like the rifle that had stolen my father from me. Robbie was lying, trying to get a rise fromme.
