Page 14 of A Pack of Lies and a Big Bad Wolf

I try to take deep breaths to calm myself, but it fails. Every breath I take is another couple of seconds where I can’t find my brother. I am practically in tears when I grab one of the servers by the arm and ask if anyone knows where my brother is.

"Stephen?" The woman flashes me a puzzled glance. I let go of her arm, and she resumes wiping down a table. "He's over in the gym with Bram."

“Why?” I demand. “Why isn’t he here?”

She shrugs. “Pretty sure Alpha Kieran told him to.” She turns away and moves on to another table.

What the h-e-double hockey sticks?

Bram is a hardass. He’s mean. He hits hard. And now he is teaching my baby brother how to take a punch because His Royal Hiney ordered it.

Stephen has been punched enough in his life, thank you very much. He’s been the target of bullies since the other kids figured out that he couldn’t shift.

He’s been sad and quiet since he was fourteen years old, and I have spent every one of those years standing between him and anyone who wanted to make him feel worse about himself, and nobody gets to decide what happens to him without going through me first.

My wolf is up and pacing. For once, we agree on something – we want to bite the Alpha’s damned face off, chew it up, and spit it out.

I stalk out of the canteen and across the white gravel to the pack meeting building.

Teresa is at the front desk. She takes one look at my face and stands up.

"Miss Crowley. The Alpha is in a meeting."

"Great. I'll wait."

The meeting, it turns out, is not a quiet one.

A man is booming away in there. A woman’s voice keeps sailing over the top of him, higher and sharper. Teresa types on, serene.

"—the strongest healer in the country, and you're telling me she won't lift a finger for my son? She’s so precious she can only work on your own pack members? We said we’d pay!”

I lean forward, craning to hear.

Kieran answers, too low to make out. Whatever he says, it doesn't help.

"Don't you quote policy at me." The woman now. "He's nineteen. He limps in his wolf form and his human form, from that silver injury! Everyone else says silver injuries can’t be healed, but I know your sister could undo it!”

"We came to you in good faith," the man bellows. "The Briarwood pack will remember this."

I have no idea who the Briarwood pack is, but based on this sample, I'm guessing they're a real treat at parties.

The door bangs open. A big gray-haired man barrels out with his face brick red, an expensively dressed woman clicking along behind him with angry stomps of her heels. Between them limps a boy — teenaged, tall, shoulders up around his ears, his right leg swinging stiff from the hip. He fixes his eyes on the floor and keeps them there.

Him, I feel bad for. His parents came in swinging the pack name around, but he's the one who has to live with that leg.

The woman stops in front of me. "The nerve," she announces loudly. "The absolute gall. This is the pack everyone raves about."

Then they're gone with a slam of the door, and the lobby is very quiet.

Teresa keeps typing.

"Does that happen often?" I ask. “Him refusing to let his sister work on people?” I wasn’t aware until now that he had a specific rule on not working on people outside of the pack. When they turned my brother away, I honestly felt like they were being snobs. We were poor white trash, not worth helping.

It’s possible that years of living in a tiny falling apart shack and wearing second-hand clothes and frequently having to hunt food for myself and my brother because we can’t afford groceries have left me with a bit of a chip on my shoulder.

"The Alpha will be unavailable for the rest of the morning," she says, which is not a no.

Fine. My face-biting agenda will keep.