“Check. It.Liam!”
He grabbed it, fingers moving deftly over the screen. I waited. Waited for him to see that he had it all wrong. But then . . . then his eyes blazed, and my heartstopped.
He snorted, the sound so ungentle. “Your message is right there, Ness.” He flipped my phone around and leveled it in front of my face. “Right . . . fucking . . .there.”
My gaze raced over the bright screen, soaked up the black letters:Liam is coming for you. Aidan told him where you were hiding.Run!
The words smeared together. “I didn’t—” I looked over my phone at Liam. “I didn’t write that. Someone—I didn’t—” Tears rolled down mycheeks.
Nostrils flaring, he shook his head and thrust the phone into my numb fingers. “Don’t lie to me, Ness.” His labored breaths punched my throbbingforehead.
“I’mnotlying.”
“Hey, could you guys take this outside?” Kelly asked, darting wary glances at hercustomers.
Is that why you were with me? To get insider information?His words were ringed with a mixture of bitterness anddejection.
“No.” Each one of my breaths snagged in my throat. “No! Someone hacked my phone and sent him that message.” I wheeled around toward Cole. “That’s easy to do,right?”
“It is,” Cole said, but his narrowed eyes told me that, like the others, he believed I was trying to cover up my tracks by pinning it on ahacker.
“If I’d sent him a message, you really think I would’ve kept a trace of it on my phone? You really think I would’ve shown it to you? How dumb do you all think I am exactly?” I croaked, looking at Liam, then at Matt, then at Lucas. I didn’t bother turning around to check if Cole and August, too, were glaring. I sensed the weight of their stares on myback.
“You didn’t raise your hand yesterday,” Lucassaid.
Wariness spread over Matt’s face likeink.
“So that automatically makes me a traitor?” My voice shook with tremors. My entire body shook with tremors. “Liam?” I didn’t care what the others thought. As long ashe—
He lowered his gaze to the floor. “You’ve backstabbed the pack before,Ness.”
Overwhelmed by anger and disappointment, I pursed my lips and backed up but collided into a body. Hands set on my shoulders, tried to pin me in place. I brushed them off as though they were cobwebs, then grabbed my bag, dug out my wallet, and tossed a bill on the table to cover my half-eatenlunch.
“For the record, I’m glad Everest got away,” I spat out as I elbowed my way past Liam andMatt.
“Ness!” Sarah called, but I didn’tstop.
I dove into the crashing rain, slamming the door of Tracy’s behind me, and sprinted across streets without looking for cars. Humorlessly, I felt like if a car hit me, I’d inflict more damage to it than it would tome.
You’ve backstabbed the packbefore.
Liam’s words played on a loop inside myhead.
Like cement, disgust poured through me, drying between my ribs until their cage became a solid wall. My eyesight sharpened. My wolf was coming out. I raced faster down the drab streets, zigzagging through bobbing umbrellas and shoving past hooded passersby. I didn’t apologize. I couldn’t apologize. My teeth had extended into fangs. I was shifting, and I was still in the middle oftown.
I waded through the storm-soaked streets faster, slowing only when I came upon an alley. I couldn’t repress the need to shift. Didn’t care to. I ran past corroded metal bins overflowing with the sour reek of food waste, relief flooding me when I noted that the alley spilled onto a parking lot edged with pines. Behind one of the bins, I pulled off my necklace and stashed it inside my bag before stripping out of my clothes. They were so waterlogged that peeling them off was a feat. Especially when my fingers began receding into stumps. I managed to kick off my jeans just as my knee joints snapped inward and forced me onto allfours.
I gritted my jaw as my wolf magic swept through me in fierce, raw waves, transforming my feeble human body into a resilient mound of white fur and taut muscles. When the change was complete, I sprang out from behind the bin, ducking behind parked cars, checking forhumans.
I could hear their hearts beat in the buildings surrounding me; I could hear the timbre of their voices vibrate behind the lit windows; I could hear toilets flush, a baby wail, a young girl hum a slow tune, car tires squeal, raindrops ping off car hoods. The world turned so cacophonous and sharp it transmuted my lupine body into alivewire.
I dashed and zigzagged until my paws hit soft earth. And then I increased my speed. For a moment I was disoriented, but did it matter? I wasn’t running toward something; I was running away fromsomeone.
Away fromLiam.
My fur rippled with a full-body shiver. I’d thought a Kolane could be a decent and unprejudiced man, but he’d trusted Aidan Michaels over me. Hadn’t even given me the benefit of thedoubt.
Thank God my body had locked Liam’s out last night. If I’d lost my virginity to him— I couldn’t even finish that terrible thought, so I shoved it out of my mind and focused on not losing my footing on the dicey mud and slick grass. I let the awareness of my surroundings flood me, fillme.
