Page 3 of A Pack of Lies and a Big Bad Wolf

My entire body is pulsing with desire. My heart hammers in my chest, my nether regions are damp, my nipples swollen and rubbing against the thin cotton fabric of my blouse. My hands are shaking.

It’s mortifying. How dare he? And why?

Kieran stands up from his chair in one swift motion. “You want to find out what’s wrong with your brother? Walk with me.”

His sister, the pack’s strongest, best healer, who hadn’t even condescended to examine my brother when he came, flashes him a startled glance. The girl who looks like a teenage version of the sister is watching the drama, eyes bouncing from Kieran to me and back again. The big beefcake guy, who is clearly related to Kieran, says, “Uhhh…what?”

The short, gray-haired woman with the pad of paper and pen resting on the table in front of me must be the pack secretary, Teresa. She’s staring at me bug-eyed, mouth open in shock at my terrible behavior.

I know there are Alphas who would rip my face off for what I just did. I don’t care. These bastards are ruining my brother’s life. Kieran’s sister is widely known as the strongest healer in the country and they were literally his last hope. We went massively into debt to borrow the money for the payment, and with the interest on the debt I don’t know how I’ll ever repay our loan-shark lender Gary.

Kieran strolls out of the tent without bothering to check if I'm following. Because of course I'm following. He holds my brother’s fate in his hands.

Anger churns in my belly. I drove all the way from Mississippi to give this bastard a piece of my mind, to make him as miserable as he’s made us – and now he’s dangling hope in front of me like a carrot leading a donkey?

And yeah, I’m the ass in this scenario.

I follow him out into the market. The noise and the smell wash over me — booths jammed together, cider and fried dough, sizzling meat on a grill, a country band playing. Hundreds of shifters crowd the aisles, but they part like the Red Sea as he walks by. Not once does he say ‘Excuse me’.

We reach an empty space near the end of the market, by the Moonstone pack’s section, and he slows down and turns to face me. My heart skitters in my chest, as I brace myself for bad news.

“Are you playing games with me?” I demand. My hands tremble. Please don’t be playing games with me.

He shakes his head, his expression cool. “Call your brother and tell him to return here tomorrow. We’ll have a cabin ready for him. This may take a little while.”

I take a deep breath, clenching my fists. I want so badly to feel hope again, to believe that my brother has a future.

My brother’s inability to shift has cost us…everything.

When Stephen turned fourteen, our father, humiliated and furious that his son couldn’t shift, drove him hundreds of miles from our packlands and dropped him off – right next to a human town, too.

Humans and shifters may have an uneasy peace with each other since the Shifter-Human Accords of the 1960s, but inter-species relations are still fragile. My brother didn’t dare go to human social services and ask for help – if they’d found out he was a shifter, even one who didn’t know how to shift, who knows what would have happened?

For months, he slept in alleys and dumpster-dived and wore the same clothes every day, living in a hostile city with not a friend in sight. I was frantic with worry, not knowing if my baby brother was alive or dead.

Our mother, who has always enjoyed the perks of marrying into a wealthy family, didn’t even try to fight for him. She knew it would cost her her marriage, and her shopping privileges. She’s obsessed with fashion, with buying things, with turning heads, so much she sneaks off into human towns to buy the things she couldn’t get in shifter towns.

I was seventeen when it happened. When my brother reached out to me through one of his pack friends, and I told my mother I was going to go get him, she said that if I did, I was dead to the family.

So, now I’m dead, apparently.

And that’s how my brother and I ended up moving in with another pack in Mississippi, eking out a meager living and always feeling like outsiders. That’s why my brother was always an object of pity, of curiosity.

“I can get you the money for your fee in a day or two,” I say, struggling not to let my voice shake. The money’s going to be an issue, and I’m already in debt forever, but I will do literally anything to help my brother.

Kieran shakes his head. “No fee. But there is a condition.”

“Name it,” I say, and then I quail. Maybe I shouldn’t have spoken so fast. What would a mage want from me? My soul? My internal organs? Eye of newt, but instead, eye of Olivia?

“You need to stay here too.” And he turns and walks away again, plunging into the crowd.

As I hurry after him, I stumble and bump into a produce booth, knocking over a stack of melons. I gasp in dismay as the melons roll off the wooden shelf. Kieran spins around and waves his hands at the melons as they tumble. They quickly drift back up onto the booth, rearranging themselves.

Show-off. Ooh, look at me, I’ve got powers.

“Slow down!” I call after him, but he ignores me, heading for a booth that sells sandwiches.

I stifle a groan of frustration. I’m light-headed, exhausted after the drive, and whatever lust-spell he’s cast on me isn’t helping either.