Chapter Six

"What the fuck was that about?" Callum snarled.

"You're choking me," Liam panted out.

Callum shoved off his throat and let him slide off the side of his house. "You'll show her the respect she deserves. Mentioning Iris's name? Refusing her hand?"

"It's not her—"

"It is her!" Callum roared. "She even has the same birthmark on her inner thigh."

"You sure work quickly, Alpha," he snarled, rubbing his throat.

"You know the curse. I only have until Halloween night."

"Yeah? And what about the others Alex found? The ones that weren't her. The ones that weren't Iris's reincarnation. They were just lookalikes, unable to break the curse. What about the times you got the pack's hopes up?"

"What is the real problem here, Liam? I thought you would be happy we found her. She will break the curse."

"She won't."

"I have to believe she will. I don't want to do this anymore." Callum had shocked himself with those words, and it drew him up straight. He repeated them. "I don't want to do this anymore. I never wanted immortality for us, Liam. I never wanted to hurt the pack. I never wanted you to be lonely. You think it feels good to be the reason for all of this?"

Liam slammed his shoulders back against the side of the house and slid down it, draped his arms over his knees. "You're changing things that don't need to be changed. We're happy now. We've all accepted the way it is. You were the one who drew in Matilda. You drew her in and—"

"And she double-crossed me," he growled. God, he hated talking about this. There was no coping with something so horrible. "I offered the witch an alliance, and she took everything from me. It was supposed to be her using the power of our pack bond for seven days. That was it. Seven days on the bond to feed whatever spell she was doing, and she would make me indestructible, and I could keep all of you safe. No alpha would be able to come in and take any of the pack from me. No one would ever split us up, we would only grow. I was going to build a fortress for us, but Matilda did something awful instead. Something I can't fix or take back. You think I wanted any of this? You think I wanted to lose…" He squeezed his eyes tightly closed and inhaled deeply. The wolf wanted to rip out of him, just thinking about how he'd found Iris. The witch had tortured her for power. Callum clenched his teeth and sighed. "I was young. I had a growing pack and we were controlling our animals and we were doing okay in human society. I thought I had it all figured out. And I fucked it up. I took the witch at her word and I've spent every year since then wishing to God I could fix what's been done to us. But I can't until I find her."

"What if the pack doesn't want to be mortal?" he asked in a soft, snarling voice.

Callum looked to the circular driveway, where several members of the pack were beginning to arrive. "We'll find out at the meeting tonight." He looked back to Liam. "Who would want to keep this life?"

Liam didn't answer. He only stared at the ground in front of him, and Callum didn't understand. They'd always had a plan. The focus for so long had been to break the curse, and now Liam was acting strangely. It wasn't like his best friend to keep anything from him, but now he'd clammed up.

"What's going on?" Callum asked.

Liam cracked his knuckles and stood, then made his way to greet the rest of the pack. Over his shoulder, he repeated Callum's earlier words. "I must've just had a long day."