4

“Did they abuse you?” His expression darkened. In a heartbeat, he looked ready to tear someone apart limb by limb.

“No! Nothing like that.” She sighed inwardly. For the first time, she realized she’d been wrong to be so tight-lipped about her childhood. Apparently, he and the rest of the pack interpreted her silence to mean she’d been mistreated. The humans who raised her after her parents died had been decent, if somewhat strict. Aside from some uncomfortable ogling from their oldest son, she’d never been abused or neglected.

She leaned around Remy and glanced at the door, choosing not to whisper —the more wolves who heard her story, the better. “I didn’t run away because they were cruel. I mean, being a foster kid isn’t the greatest. They had five kids of their own, and they didn’t have a lot of money. I didn’t realize it until I was older, but they took me in because they needed the money from the state. But they weren’t bad people.” She took a deep breath, grateful to Remy for his willingness to listen without interrupting. “Things were fine until I turned thirteen. I started…changing. Not like the change, although I guess that was part of it. I started to hit puberty, and I got these… urges.” She couldn’t describe it.

“You felt like crawling out of your skin,” he murmured.

Yes. He knew. Of course he knew. “I thought I was going crazy.” She’d wanted to climb the walls. Some nights, she’d woken to the sound of a low, menacing growl only to realize it was coming from her.

At first, she thought it was something every girl experienced—some strange passage from childhood to womanhood. But when she tried talking to her foster mother about it, the woman took her to the family’s minister for a “spiritual cleansing.” A few weeks later Lizette started getting unusual cravings, and her foster father caught her sneaking bites of raw hamburger from the fridge.

And then the other cravings started…

She avoided Remy’s open, earnest gaze. He didn’t need to hear about her foster parents’ frantic phone calls to the church, or the surprise exorcism in the family’s shag-carpeted living room. She settled on an abbreviated version of the truth. “I ran away because I knew I’d never fit in. I thought something was wrong with me, and I didn’t want to be a burden.”

He ducked his head until he caught her gaze. “Nothing is wrong with you. Everyone goes through a weird stage before they make their first Turn. I just can’t believe your parents—your real parents—didn’t tell you the truth about what you are.”

“They might have…eventually. Remember, I was only seven when they died.”

“Seven is old enough to keep our secrets.” He hesitated.

“What is it?”

“They didn’t die at the same time, Lizette. Your dad must have had a month or two—”

“Three weeks.” At least that’s what she’d been told. Her memories were vague. Werewolves mated for life—literally. When one mate died, the other followed. A werewolf who lost a mate might linger for a year, maybe two, but most passed within a few months. The weeks after her mother’s death were fuzzy, but she remembered her father’s hair turning gray overnight. One morning he rinsed Lizette’s cereal bowl in the sink, placed it in the top rack of the dishwasher, and walked out the back door. She never saw him again.

“He should have told you,” Remy insisted.

“They weren’t connected to a pack. Maybe he tried and ran out of time.”

“Maybe.” Remy bumped her shoulder with his. “I’m just sorry it took us so long to find you, Liz. But we’re here now. You’re with your family. Your real family.”

She looked away so he wouldn’t see her stupid tears. He might be the pack’s class clown, but his meathead exterior hid a sensitive core. Somehow he sensed how brittle her confession made her feel. If he’d tsked and gathered her into his arms, she might have shattered. And because he knew her better than she liked to admit, he also knew she hated feeling vulnerable.

She scrubbed her hands over her face and shoved her hair behind her shoulders. With the threat of an emotional breakdown off the table, she could move on to the more immediate crisis in her life. She lowered her voice again. “Are you going to tell me what he wants?”

“Can’t.” Remy plopped on her bed, the springs squealing under his weight. He leaned on his hands behind him and bounced a few times. “This mattress sucks.”

“Remy.”

He sighed. “Max wants to talk to you himself. Even if I knew what he wanted...which, by the way, I do not admit to...I couldn’t tell you.”

He was rapidly losing his status as her favorite cousin—never mind that he was the only one she had.

Annoyed, she whirled to her dresser, where she caught a glimpse of her face in the framed mirror propped against the wall. She was pale, which was a bad look for someone with ivory-colored skin. Fine lines bracketed her mouth and lined her forehead. At twenty-four, she was a little young for wrinkles. She puffed out her cheeks and raised her eyebrows. Then she pinched her cheeks and bit her lips a few times to give them some color. After a couple of seconds, she smiled. Her dark blue eyes looked a little less haunted, and her cheeks were fuller—or at least less corpselike.

“Is this what women do when they’re alone? Make weird faces at themselves?”

She looked down at the assortment of bottles and makeup scattered across the top of her dresser. After a moment’s debate, she grabbed the cherry red train case sitting to one side and popped it open, then swept the whole mess into the case with an outstretched arm. “Not entirely,” she said, setting the train case on the bed next to her duffel. “We also think of ways to torment the annoying people in our lives.”

“Easy, killer.” He closed his eyes, and a frown puckered the smooth skin between his brows. He cocked his head like he was listening to a far-off sound. “Dom says hurry it up.”

She paused in the act of choosing which pajamas to pack. “He could have just talked through the door.”

Remy shrugged, as if telepathy was no big deal.

It reality, it was a very big deal. Although all wolves were blessed with certain abilities, more often referred to as Gifts, the ability to speak mind-tomind was rare. Dom and Remy were the only telepaths she knew. Most wolves inherited common Gifts like enhanced vision or accelerated speed— tools useful in battle or the hunt. Wolves with an advanced sense of smell were called Trackers for their ability to detect emotions and lies. Healers could mend wounds faster than any human doctor.

Lizette had heard it theorized that plenty of wolves were born with socalled rare Gifts. They were just vulnerable to wolves who were superior fighters and thus less likely to live long enough to pass on their genes. Some wolves with mental Gifts took great pains to hide their abilities for that reason.