Then Lucas said, “The pack and our Alpha come before all, Nikki. We took an oath.”
“Nate was trying to protect her,” I croaked.
“Which her you speakin’ about?”
“Both of them. He was trying to protect both of them.”
Liam tilted his head to the side, as though seeing me in some new light, one that painted me as a traitor instead of a docile follower. “Which cost three humans their lives, Nicole.”
“The coroner and his wife are dead?”
“No,” Lucas popped out. “But they probably will be if we can’t find a way to heal’em, ’cause we can’t exactly let them run amok and create a new breed of shifters, now can we?”
A car engine rumbled outside.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “If you kick him out, Liam, my whole family will leave.”
Liam, who’d started to turn, paused. “Is that a threat?”
“No. It’s not a threat; just a fact. Freemonts stick together, for better and for worse.”
He eyed me long and hard. I tried to locate the man I’d given my body to during the night, the one who’d generously given his body back, but found only a stranger in his stead. It was as though our intimacy had never happened.
I willed myself not to look away first, but the cool intensity frightened and hurt, so I dragged my gaze to the window that gave onto the forest and watched the distant conifers drenched in burning sunshine, wondering what would become of my brother . . . of my entire family.
Would Liam be fair and forgiving, or prove as ruthless as his predecessor?
Chapter 30
“What the—Lucas?” My brother’s stunned voice made my heart miss several beats.
I spun my gaze back toward the bedroom door but couldn’t see a thing past Liam’s body. Determined to get off Bea’s soiled bed, I dug my palms into the fleece cover and pushed through the pain of what felt like my skull being hacked into a thousand tiny shards.
The room wobbled as I sat and slid my legs over the side of the bed. I focused on my breaths until I no longer felt strapped to a Tilt-A-Whirl. Once the floor beneath my boots stopped shifting, I stood and took a step.
My head.
My poor,poorhead.
I raised a hand to the wound, mostly to make sure my brain wasn’t protruding. When my fingers came away sticky with blood, my stomach heaved, and my vision swam.
I stumbled, holding out my hands to keep from crashing into the floor. I ended up crashing into a body that would probably have made the wood feel like foam tiles.
Liam banded one of his arms under my armpits, keeping me upright and pinned me to his side.What exactly are you attempting?
“I need to see my brother.” I gestured to the door, bloodied fingertips bobbing in the air. Bile shot into my throat at the sight and smell. I clamped my jaw shut. I would not puke. I’d keep it together. Once my insides settled, I murmured, “You can let go now.”
Liam muttered something I couldn’t quite catch over the blood battering my eardrums.
“Nikki?” My brother stood in the doorway, red rising into his jaw. “What the fuck did you guys do to her?”
Crap.I hadn’t thought of how this would look. “It’s not . . . they didn’t . . .”
He stomped across the room and tried to wrench me from Liam’s grasp, but our Alpha must’ve barked something inside Nate’s head, because my brother’s fingers froze a hair’s breadth from my body.
“Is it true?” Nate’s throat bobbed. “That you fell?”
“Yes.”
