I tightened my ponytail, sighing. “If only he’d taken herdeal.”
“You’re telling me.” Matt Rogers was a big guy but as gentle as a puppy. “Should we get going? I need to be at work in anhour.”
I stretched out my calves. “I’mready.”
Thirty minutes into our ridiculously strenuous workout—Matt had picked a trail that wound up the flank of the mountain—I wheezed, “I don’t get . . . why I have to train. Your brother said . . . Seconds rarely get . . . dragged into the fight.” I gulped in some much needed oxygen, then puffed it out. “Look at Nora . . .” My heart rate became so frenzied I had to take a minute off fromspeaking.
“If Julian’s sister had gotten involved, he might still be alive today.” Perspiration beaded on Matt’s forehead, but unlike me, he wasn’t panting like a bull in apen.
I came to an abrupt halt, which forced Matt to stop, then bent at the waist and pressed my palms into my thighs. “The poison was already . . . in hissystem.”
His gaze swept over the fence of evergreens on our left, as though he were expecting to see furred creatures with perked ears and glowing eyes. “I heard about your theory, but Morgan could shift. If she’d been jacked up on Sillin, there’s no way she could’vetransformed.”
“I don’t think it was . . . in her blood.” I sucked in a lungful of hot, dry air. The sun was peaking, brightening the pink hue of the mountain lupines lining the steep path. “I think it was . . . on herskin.”
“Stuff on your skin penetrates yourbloodstream.”
I straightened, crossing my arms in front of my still-heaving chest. “Don’t tell me you think . . . she won fair andsquare.”
“Nora Matz seems to thinkso.”
I wasn’t in wolf form, yet I growled at my friend. “That’simpossible.”
A slow smile lit up his ruddy face. “I agree. I mean, sheisfemale—”
“Prick.” I slugged his huge bicep, which just increased hissmirking.
“You know I don’t actually think your gender is feeble, right?” His smirk turned back into asmile.
“Yeah. I know.” It had taken me months to prove that a female could hold her own in a pack of all-male wolves. Did I regret entering the Alpha trials at the start ofsummer?
No.
Okay . . .Maybe alittle.
After all, I’d almost lost my life during a landslide and then again during the final duel, which thankfully had been aborted when my crafty cousin had his mother kidnapEvelyn.
As Matt and I started down the mountain, I asked him about work, which was merely a roundabout way of getting to August since he was Matt’sboss.
He told me they were putting up the walls on some luxury lodge on Valmont Road. “Place iswicked.”
“Is August . . . Does he help with the buildingpart?”
“Yeah. He gets his handsdirty.”
“Is he on site everyday?”
Matt cast me a sideways glance. “What exactly do you want toknow?”
I bit my lip but released it to gather some oxygen. “Did hestay?”
“You seriously think he up and left? He got the girl. He’s never going to leave. At least not withoutyou.”
A flush creeped up my neck. Hopefully Matt would attribute it to our strenuous exercising. “Liam’s making me keep away fromhim.”
“What do you mean,making you keepaway?”
“He told me that since he’s entrusting me with his life, he wants my entire focus to be on him. He said that until the duel, I couldn’t hang out with August. That if I did, he’d duel Cassandra on his ownterms.”
