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I was glad to have changed into my boots, now. The lawn was damp and spongy, and my heels would have sank into the grass with every step.
Sucking in a deep breath, I stepped under the main arch and into the dark gloom. Even with the moon still nearly full, and with my heightened vision, it was impossible to make anything out in the blackened corridors.
Supernatural sight was a lot like night vision—there needed to be some light in order to have something to see. I could make out the edges of turns, but nothing else. Just me, the maze and the midnight shadows.
The vampire in me wanted to call out to her, to coax and tease her like a cat with a mouse. But the werewolf in me won out. She knew the proper way to hunt was to do so with silence and stealth. To wait until you were certain no mistakes would be made, and then strike.
There was no room for mistakes here.
Every turn I rounded was a new opportunity for my heart to lurch into my throat. Yet each time I found only more darkness. The hem of my dress rustled where it brushed against the thick walls of ivy, or whatever plant had been used for the hedg
e. The sound was quiet, but louder than I would have liked. A whisper when I was hoping for silence.
It also made it impossible for me to move with my back against the wall, as I normally would have. In order to stay as stealthy as possible I needed to walk down the center of the path, where my skirt couldn’t touch the leaves.
I stopped walking and sniffed the air.
The scent of wet grass and bushes was overwhelming. It wasn’t like the pine forests I was used to back home, but the aroma was similarly woodsy and wild. The night itself smelled cold—there was no better way to describe it. Crisp, fresh and so clean it almost hurt to breathe it, that’s how cold smells.
My bare skin responded with a shiver.
The musk of wolf was everywhere, covering everything. I shouldn’t have been surprised—this was where the pack came for each full moon. Lucas probably had them run through the maze as training for…well, who knew. But it made sense in a twisted, wolfy way. One never knew when there’d be a tough spot to get out of. Putting the pack through drills like that was something I could imagine Lucas coming up with.
Just thinking about Lucas made me sick to my stomach.
It was bad enough I had to be here, at his home. I didn’t want to be thinking about how clever it was of him to put our pack through their paces. Our pack. Was it even ours anymore? Days ago I’d thought I belonged. I’d become a wolf, I’d run among others of my kind and I’d felt like I was finally a part of the thing Lucas had been calling ours for so long.
I’d believed I deserved to be their queen. Or at the very least I’d earned my role as pack protector. Knowing I could meet the pack on their level had made me feel free. It made me feel accepted. I no longer had to hide from them on full moons. They wouldn’t question my loyalty.
And now what?
Morgan was trying to kill me because she would never believe I deserved the position more than she did. She couldn’t be the only one who thought it, even if she was the only one to act on it. And what would the pack think of Lucas’s commitment to me now? Mated or not, he had scorned me, and everyone knew it.
How had he missed the plot Morgan had hatched? Had he blinded himself to her betrayal because he had other reasons to believe he could trust her?
I stopped walking and fought to catch my breath.
Why would any man foolishly believe a woman’s lies? Why had I let Lucas trick me time and time again? Love, sure…but that wasn’t how he’d gotten things past me. No, Lucas had distracted me with passion. Pure, burning lust. It was how he’d activated the mate bond. And what had we been doing before the mate ceremony in Louisiana?
We’d been fucking.
Was that it? Was that how Morgan had made him too stupid to see what she was up to? She’d managed to have her assassins find me everywhere I should have been safe. On the highway and at Callum’s compound in the south.
I’d been an idiot not to suspect her before, but I trusted her because Lucas trusted her.
Had she been the reason he stood me up too? Surely it benefited her to have me there alone, though I can’t imagine she ever meant to get caught red-handed pulling the trigger. I knew she wanted me dead so she could have her chance with Lucas.
But maybe she’d already had a taste.
I gagged.
I didn’t want to believe it. It didn’t seem like something Lucas would be capable of. I knew I hadn’t been virginal and innocent, but he’d known about my relationship with Desmond. He’d even encouraged it, to a point. The soul-bond meant something. It transcended simple lust. He and Desmond had known since before they met me that it might create conflict, but they also knew I would be with the king in the end.
I didn’t like having a polyamorous relationship, but I never lied about it. Lucas knew I spent most every night in bed with Desmond, and Desmond knew I had my nights with Lucas. None of us were thrilled about it. It wasn’t like those happy-go-lucky ménage scenarios that cluttered up romance novels. We always knew a time would come when three would be whittled down to two.
But I’d never dreamed Lucas would find fulfillment elsewhere.
The more I thought about it, the more flustered I became. Maybe I was losing my mind, reading too much into it, but it was hard not to imagine Lucas as a villain given how he’d recently behaved. When this was said and done and Morgan was in the ground, Lucas would answer for his actions.
