My spine jammed tight. “Why?”
Nash rammed his hands through his short spiky hair. “The halfwolf just died.”
“Like, for real this time,” Adalyn added.
Liam went so still it was eerie.
I, on the other hand, was vibrating from how hard my heart was beating. “How?”
“Nate thinks it might be due to the injuries she sustained post attack. That there was some internal bleeding they failed to catch.”
Every tendon in Liam’s neck and arms twisted, every bone in his face pressed up against his skin. He set Storm gently down on the rug beside him, then stood just as Mom appeared in the living room.
“Sorry, Meg.” His lips barely shifted as he spoke those words.
“Will you please stop apologizing?” She went over to Storm, whose eyes had grown as wide as my own. He was surely so finetuned to his father’s mood that he sensed the alarm ringing through Liam as our Alpha pivoted and left.
Nash went after him. “Wait up. I’ll come with.”
I didn’t know if it was the door shutting, or Adalyn’s earlier exclamation, but Dad suddenly showed up in the living room doorway in his bathrobe. He looked at Mom. Adalyn looked at me. Storm looked at all of us.
“You think she really bled out, or the attacker came back to finish the botched job?” My voice bounced with anxiety.
Dad rubbed a towel over his wet hair which, like Mom’s, was shot through with silver. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions.”
“Nolan and Avery are at the bunker, canvassing the area for unfamiliar scents.” Adalyn plopped down beside me on the couch. “So, I guess we’ll know soon enough.”
Soon enough turned out to behourslater.
Chapter 7
Even though I tried not to worry, whoever claimed no news was good news was obviously not a shifter. In our world, silence never heralded good things. Nature never got quiet when something pleasant was about to happen.
Although Adalyn and I tried to distract each other by discussing stupid Grant, her upcoming winter wonderland wedding, the design of her mating tattoo, and Storm’s total cuteness, the wait hung over us like soupy fog. We’d come up with so many conspiracy theories that Mom rolled her eyes at us and urged us to get out of the house. So we’d gone down to Pondside,the compound’s one and only watering hole that Dad had opened a decade ago and whose daily operations he still oversaw, with Nolan’s help now.
After several hot chocolates topped with plenty of gooey marshmallows, we finally got a message from Nash saying they were on their way home. We got up and trudged up the steep slope, my knee creaking so hard Adalyn actually heard it at some point. She insisted we slow down, and I insisted I was fine.
The scent of chimney smoke embalmed the night air, and the waning crescent moon, although crosshatched with clouds, trickled light over the white expanse.
We reached the house at the same time as car tires crunched up our driveway. I scraped the snow off my boots before kicking them off by the front door and hanging up my jacket. Car doors clicked and clapped as four large bodies hopped out of our Alpha’s gleaming black Mercedes SUV.
I tried to decipher Liam’s expression, but the car beams were too bright. I backed up to let him pass. His eyes held mine for a second, and I shivered.
“Meg, they’re home.” Dad came out of the kitchen, patting his hands on the apron I’d gotten him two Christmases ago, the one that said:Mr. Good Lookin’ Is Cookin’.
Niall, who’d gone shopping with me that day, had suggested I buy the one that read:I Like My Butt Rubbed and my Pork Pulled. I’d slung him a hefty side-eye. Our father had a great sense of humor, but he was our father. Niall ended up buying the other apron for Nolan, who’d shaken his head at Niall’s quirky sense of humor.
Mom emerged from her bedroom with a bathed and pajamaed Storm, who chirped at the sight of his father. Liam didn’t reach out for him immediately, seeming lost in thought.
“What happened?” I looked over at Adalyn.
Her slack jaw told me she’d already gotten the lowdown from Nash through their mate link.
Liam’s jaw twitched and twitched as though he were fighting down a howl. The strangest urge to reach out and lay a reassuring hand on his arm came over me. Thankfully, I reined it in. I doubted he’d want to be touched, especially by a girl who was still a stranger. In truth, he didn’t strike me as someone who enjoyed being touched by non-strangers either.
He stared at his son, the silence stretching uncomfortably tight.
Finally, his shoulders loosened, and he relieved my mother of the squirming infant. “We’ve got another halfwolf on our hands.”
