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I couldn’t hide in here forever. I needed to know which King brother had tracked me down.
There was a knock on the door so low and quiet it seemed unlikely to be Stone, unless he had… changed. I didn’t dare hope too much for that. But was it Shaw? Cole wouldn’t betray Stone, I knew that. The certainty that Cole would never come for me without Stone’s permission felt like a hard lump in my chest.
And Liam… Liam hadn’t left pack territory in the years since he had returned to the King pack.
It was either Shaw or Stone, and the difference in how I felt about facing the two of them made my fingers tremble as I leaned against the door to look through the peephole.
Dark hair. Head down. Broad shoulders. The powerful build of an alpha. My heart beat frantically in my chest, but I didn’t want him to force his way inside. Instead, I unlocked the door and swung it open.
Liam raised his face and his gray-eyed gaze met mine. My heart flip-flopped and I gasped in relief.
His gaze widened, as if he were reacting to the way I just looked at him. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t have any way to get in touch besides knocking.”
“It’s alright.” I could barely speak, so dazed to have Liam on my doorstep, especially when I was still dizzy with terror. I checked that I had my key card and then stepped out, closing the door softly behind me. “How did you get here, Liam?”
I looked behind him, convinced that Stone must be following right behind him. Stone was as fiercely protective of his brother as he was confused by him.
“I drove,” he gestured behind him at his car.
I squinted at the SUV, which had dark tinted windows.
“It’s technically Stone’s,” he said, answering the question I hadn’t asked. “but he doesn’t deserve it.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling overwhelmed by the sight of Liam. “Is he coming?”
“He’d better not be.” Liam frowned. “He has his own job. He’s supposed to take care of Nathan Longroad.”
My stomach twisted at the mention of his name. “Nathan is alive?”
He nodded. “I had a vision.”
Liam kept talking, but I couldn’t hear him. The world had blurred in a sudden sense of panic, my vision narrowing to a tunnel.
Nathan was alive.
Nathan would find me.
I never should have left King pack territory.
Dylan… I twisted frantically to find him, pulling open the door. I was suddenly sure that Nathan had somehow snatched him away while I was distracted. Nathan would use him to hurt me. I was sure of it.
But that tuft of auburn hair still stuck out from the sheets. An irrational need to pull back the sheets took me over, so intense that my hands shook.
“Amelia.” Liam’s voice cut through my panic, and I looked up to find him gazing down at me patiently. His hands reached to cup my shoulders, but then he hesitated, so his hands just hovered. Warmth still raced across my skin as if his hands held heat, comfort. “It’s alright. I’m here. Nathan isn’t going to hurt you.”
I made a sound even I couldn’t quite identify.
“I’m here,” he said again quietly.
I didn’t know which one of us made the first move, but a heartbeat later, I was wrapped up in his arms, my head pressed against the hard, warm planes of his chest. He held me against his body, rocking with me faintly.
“I don’t think Stone really believes me, but he has a lot of anger to burn off right now. He wasn’t bothered by the idea of going to your pack and trying to track down Nathan.”
A shudder ran through me. The memory of the man screaming when Stone ran him down seemed to echo in my ears. “I don’t want him to hurt anyone. Besides Nathan.”
“I thought you were meant to kill Nathan,” Liam said. “but then you ran away, so I guess not.”
Running awaysounded so cowardly. It shouldn’t have struck me and hurt—I’d had to run—but it did. I gently disentangled myself from Liam’s arms. I could stand on my own two feet. I didn’t fall apart.
