As the five finally snapped into movement and walked past us, two of them fluttering their eyelashes at Liam—had they not seen him lick my mouth?—I went back to strangling my bag strap in lieu of their necks.
Liam chuckled. “You know, there are better ways to stake your claim on a fellow wolf than stare-downs.” His eyes glittered with amusement and perhaps a little lust. Not perhaps. There was definitely some lust. “You could toss that rule of yours out the window and put kissing back on the table.” He rubbed his mouth against the top of Storm’s head. “Would be quite practical actually and preclude certain mothers from tossing their daughters my way.”
My gaze narrowed on Liam, the surrounding world fading to black mist. “Which mothers?”
Lips still soft, he tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “I’d better not give out names when you’re looking so very murderous.”
Storm let out a frustrated whimper, which broke me out of my homicidal spell.
“I feel your pain, little guy. I could devour a large animal right about now.” Liam dipped his head, dark eyes fastened to mine. “And a smaller one . . . if the smaller one is interested later.”
My internal temperature rocketed to a degree hot enough to melt Saint Mary’s Glacier. Liam inhaled and then he smiled, pleased, because my body had managed to convey, without words, just how interested I was in being devoured.
But then the smile warped off his lips, and his body locked up before beginning to vibrate. Storm must’ve sensed the change in Liam, because he grew very,veryquiet and very,verystill, head tipped back, big eyes bolted to his father’s glowing ones.
With a calm that was almost frightening in its intensity, Liam pressed his son into my arms. “Take Storm to your parents’ house. I’ll meet you there.”
All of the heat drained from my body. “Why? What’s going on?”
Before he could answer, I picked up on a growl. Several growls. And then bodies. Some in skin, others in fur. All of them prowling around Lori’s house. When I looked back toward Liam, he was already half a mile away, body blurring from how fast he crested the hill.
Although the shouting and snarls had calmed, Storm gripped handfuls of my sweater, burrowing his face against my chest as though to block out the frightening sounds, and then he began to cry.
“Shh.” I readjusted him, then hoisted up my bag, and keeping my gaze on the tensed bodies, tucked his head under my chin and started to tell him the legend of the child who ate the moon, thus becoming the first werewolf.
Slowly, he calmed. I thought he might even have fallen asleep and stopped talking, but then he peeked up at me like a critter rousing from hibernation, so I resumed my tale, making sure to keep my voice low enough to appease his skittishness but loud enough to drown out the argument that had started up again.
By the time I met up with my parents, both of them standing on their front stoop, contemplating the rambunctious shifters, I was shivering, and not from the cold but from the dread gnawing on my insides.
I heard snatches of David Hollis’s demand that Lori be put on trial for her disloyalty. “You are endangering us by keeping her alive, Liam. You are endangering humans!”
If Liam responded, he did so through the mind link.
“Let’s go inside. Tempers run too high close to the full moon.” Mom curled her arm around my shoulders and pulled me into the house.
The moon did heighten everything inside of us—from our moods and desires, to our senses and heartbeats—and yet, I was entirely certain that David and his cronies wouldn’t abandon their fight when the sky darkened.
They’d keep demanding blood until it flowed from Lori’s veins and penetrated back into the land.
Unless . . .
Unless she cured Bea tomorrow.
Chapter 42
Dinner came and went, the compound calmed, and yet Liam didn’t return. At some point, Mom took a slumbering Storm into her bedroom, to the crib she’d set up in the corner, and told me to go home.
As I put on my coat, she added, very casually, that I should inform Liam she’d taken custody of his son for the night and not to crash their sleepover. And then she’d shooed me out of the house, claiming she was exhausted and needed a long night’s rest before the brief one we’d all have tomorrow.
On my way down the hill, I texted him what she’d said. I didn’t exactly add an invitation but hopefully he’d sense it was there. A hookup was probably not on his agenda, though. Until tomorrow came and went with its trials and tribulations, keeping the peace in the pack would be the only thing on his mind.
As I brushed my teeth, staring at my reflection in my bathroom mirror, I twisted my face from side to side. The bruise on my temple was finally gone, but my bottom lip was slightly swollen from where my fangs had pierced my skin. Lycaon . . . when was the last time I’d been bruise-and-scab free?
I rinsed my mouth, then splashed cool water over my cheeks and crawled into bed. I attempted to phone Adalyn, because the two of us had a lot of catching up to do, but it went straight to voicemail. She was probably busy with my brother. I pushed that thought aside and curled up with the remote, watching my virtual boyfriend, Simon, until my eyelids drooped and the world fell away.
I had some pretty great dreams that night.
All of them involved Liam. They’d felt so real that when light streamed through my blinds the next morning, I wasn’t surprised to feel drained. I stretched out and rolled onto my back, freezing when my arm brushed up against an incredibly warm and solid wall of flesh.
