Summer would end in a little over a month. Would that be longenough?
Even though I hated giving Cassandra an inch, Inodded.
Liam focused on the Creek Alpha again. “Before summer ends it is. But, Morgan, if your son, or any other Creek for that matter”—Liam’s brown gaze surfed over the field dotted with shifters in skin before returning to Cassandra—“if any of them so much as harm my wolves or their families, your sonandcousin will be executed without trial and withoutcontest.”
Cassandra’s cousin, who’d posed as a werewolf-hating hunter for decades in order to gather information on our pack, eyed Liam and me through the wire-rimmed bifocals propped on the bridge of his nose while thumbing hisearlobe.
“Alex will behave, just like I said he would.” Cassandra wrapped a hand around her son’swrist.
The duel had blunted her nails that, last night, had looked sharp enough to gouge out an eye, but somehow hadn’t chipped her burgundy polish. Or had it? As I squinted at her fingers, she released her son’s wrist and curled them into herpalm.
“This goes both ways, though, Kolane. If any harm comes to my son or to Aidan before the duel, the choice of time and date reverts back tous.”
A warm breeze blew tendrils of my blonde hair into my eyes. I wrenched the strands back, but they escaped a moment later. “Alex and Aidan are living on borrowed time, so you have no right to makedemands.”
“Ness is right,” Liam said. “You’re lucky they’re even alive, and that we’ve returnedAlex.”
A crooked smile touched her blood-stained lips. “Careful, Kolane,” she said, taking a step closer to Liam, “you’re grosslyoutnumbered.”
The Creek pack had swelled by a hundred today, making my pack, with its forty wolves, an even tinier blip on the shiftermap.
“Is that a threat?” Liamgrowled.
“It’s awarning.”
“I thought you came in peace,” Isaid.
“We offered peace,” she snapped. “Your Alpha turned itdown.”
My jaw set tight. She was right. She had offered, but Liam insisted on duelingher.
“My request that you not harm my son or my cousin is far fromoutrageous.”
“They won’t be killed,” Liam said after a beat. “Satisfied?”
“Or tortured,” sheadded.
Liam crossed hisarms.
As she waited for Liam’s answer, Morgan’s eyes became incandescent, as though her wolf were fighting to surgeout.
“My people will stay away from them,” Liam finallyrelented.
Her eyes lost their inhuman glow. “Good. Do you have any more demands,Kolane?”
Should I ask her to take her pack and leave Boulder until the duel?Liam’s voice tickled mymind.
Since I couldn’t communicate the same way my Alpha could, I shook myhead.
As much as I didn’t want Creeks wandering our woods, I also didn’t want to banish my best friend and her family from their hometown. I couldn’t do that to Sarah. She might be a Creek now that her uncle had been defeated, but at heart, she’d always be aPine.
Besides, there was a reason the sayingkeep your friends close and your enemies closerhad endured through the ages. We’d have an easier time of finding out how Cassandra had cheated by observing her and herpack.
“We have no further demands,” Liam finallyannounced.
“Then it’s settled.” Morgan started to lift her hand, probably to shake on theirdeal.
“Who will you choose as your Second, Mrs.Morgan?”
