I looked up so fast it felt like my head were glancing over the jagged rock all over again. “You followed me here?”
“Not quite.” Lucas stood in the corner of the room, as though trying to become one with the shadows. He was doing a pretty good job of it.
“Bea’s bracelet on the crime scene.” Liam linked his fingers together. “It got me wondering, and I phoned up Lucasto do a little recon work.”
I sank my teeth into my lower lip.
“Were you ever planning on sharing the effect of Lori’s miraculous venom with anyone besides your fiancée, Nate?” Liam cracked his knuckles. “Or did you not trust me enough with the information?”
My brother toyed with a hangnail until it began to bleed. “I didn’t even mean to tell Bea about it.”
Bea, who’d been sitting on her hind legs, sank onto her stomach and whimpered.
Nate looked her way and winced. “As for sharing it with you, Liam, Lori begged me not to say a thing since she’d never bitten anyone before, but promised she was going to tell you once you were no longer in mourning.”
“I wasn’t in mourning when I took over the pack, and I haven’t been in mourning for several months now, so when exactly was Lori planning on volunteering this information, and how did she even know the effect if she’d never bitten anyone?”
“Alex . . . he wasn’t as disciplined, and Lori had toclean uphis messes.”
I sucked in a breath. “How many messes did she clean up?”
“Too many.” Nate sighed. “But thankfully, their venom only transmits the gene during full moons and when they’re in fur.”
“Lori tell you that during your pillow talk?” Lucas asked placidly. “Or were you on theclean-upcommittee too?”
My brother’s neck snapped very straight, and his gaze darted to me.
“It’s okay, Nate.” I squeezed his knee. “I heard and I’m not passing any judgment. About the pillow talk bit.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I fucked up, Liam. I let you down. Let down the pack. Let down my fiancée.” His voice caught on that last word, and then his eyes reddened, and for the second time in my entire life, I saw tears glide down my brother’s cheeks.
“Does anyone else know about Lori’s potent venom?” Liam asked.
“No one alive.”
Even though my head throbbed every time I moved, I scooted closer to Nate and wrapped my arms around his hunched middle.
“Oh, Pinecone, I screwed up so bad.”
“We’ll find a way to fix it,” I whispered.
“I don’t think there is a way to fix it.”
“The full moon’s this Friday. Maybe it’ll positively impact their condition.” It made sense since the moon affected our shifter magic. The elders in the pack, who could no longer shift at will, had no trouble transforming into fur when the moon was bloated and bright.
My brother blinked tear-bright eyes at me. “I don’t dare hope . . .”
As I rubbed slow circles over his spine, I hunted Liam’s expression for a glimmer of optimism, but the corners of his lips were tipped downward.
A rattling breath snuck up my brother’s torso. “What are your plans for Bea . . . and for me?”
“For Bea, she needs to be brought to the bunker. That brother of hers”—Liam eyed me as though I’d somehow plotted to ambush him with Miles—“was about to pay her a visit today. If he caught sight of her in this state . . . well, you know how that would end for him.”
My brother’s entire body tightened, and he nodded.
“How would it end?” I feared the answer was death but hoped—I was doing a lot of that recently—it wasn’t.
“Not well,” Lucas supplied cryptically.
