The flickering light from the lamp caught a sheen of moisture on his eyes. I swallowed hard and dug my fingernails into my palm to keep from breaking apart.

“What if I can’t do it?” I trailed a finger over the picture of Sarvarna and Ananda. “What if I do it, but I can’t live with myself after?”

The silence stretched out forever. Just when I thought the conversation was over, Liam spoke.

“I keep thinking about his family. He was married. Had two kids.” Unable to look at his face while he spoke, I watched the flickering shadow thrown on the wall by the lantern. “Maybe he deserved to die, maybe he didn’t. But this is war, and he was a solider for the other team, so I killed him like I was supposed to. And I’m okay with that part, but his family…” The shadow rubbed the back of its head. “Those kids don’t deserve to grow up without a dad. His wife doesn’t deserve to be a widow. This isn’t their war, but they’re the ones who have to live with what I’ve done.”

God, I had never even thought about whether or not Travis had a family. I didn’t think he had kids or anything, but surely he had parents. It’s not like he could have sprung fully formed from Stefan’s head or anything.

“I can’t do it.” My hands were shaking, and I thought I might have to make a mad dash to the outhouse to regurgitate my tuna fish dinner. “I can’t kill her, Liam. I just… I can’t.”

He moved around the table to stand in front of me. “Look at me.” I stared at my shaking hands instead, certain I could see blood embedded in the fingernails. “Scout, look at me.”

I felt the tears fall as I tilted my head up. “I can’t, Liam. I can’t.”

Grey eyes held mine. “You can.” He steadied my hands in his own. “You will. You have to.”

“Why? Why me?” It wasn’t fair. I didn’t ask for any of this. “Why do I have to do it?”

His gaze was gentle, as was the squeezing of my hands. “Because no one else can.”

“You’re not going to give me some crappy line about it being my destiny or fate or whatever?”

The corner of Liam’s lip turned up, but it wasn’t a smile in the classic sense. “You’ve got the wrong brother. I’m not much for all that pre-destined crap. I’m more of a responsibility and greater good kind of guy.”

“And killing Sarvarna is for the greater good?”

“Overthrowing the Alpha Pack is for the greater good. Killing her, and anyone else who opposes us, is the unfortunate way we achieve our goal.”

“And the responsibility… It’s all mine? I have to be the one to go all Thunderdome on Sarvarna? And then the rest of the Shifter world?” I remembered Jase’s reasoning for Liam not taking on the task himself. Was I just a weapon, like Liam had said? “Where will you be while I’m bathing in the blood of our enemies… or getting myself good and dead? Watching from the sideline? Maybe waving a pom-pom, spelling out my name and trying to convince the world if I can’t do it, then no one can?”

Liam’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Gee, Scout. I’m going to get a big head with your high-as-the-sky opinion of me.”

Refusing to let him intimidate me, I leaned forward. “I believe in the cause. I understand the necessity of fighting. What I want to know, is why do I have to do it alone?”

“Why the hell do you think you’re going to be alone?”

“Why the hell would I think otherwise?”

He lunged, and my body reacted before my brain could even process the movement. By the time my mental faculties caught up, I was sitting on the table instead of the chair, my legs wrapped around Liam’s waist. One hand was bunched in his sweater, while the other held his head to mine. Even then I entertained few thoughts other than the feel of his lips and the taste of his tongue. A growl rolled through the room, and I had no idea from which of our throats it originated, nor did I care.

His hands, whose span had been clinging to my outer-thighs, traveled up and around to my lower back to nudge me closer, as if it was possible. For the first time in months, I didn’t feel the cold. All I could feel - all I could smell, taste, or see - was Liam.

Then, it ended just as it began - much too abruptly for me to realize what was happening. One minute he was there, pressed against me, sending tiny electrical storms of sensation all over my body, and the next he was striding out the door. I waited until I heard him moving through the trees, away from the cabin, before sliding off the table and onto the floor. I spent the rest of the night in that spot, my fingers trailing over my kiss-swollen lips, waiting to see if happiness, lust, embarrassment, guilt, or betrayal was going to win out as the dominant emotion.

Chapter 20

Liam didn’t come back that night. Some time shortly before dawn, I crawled in the bed and dozed off. When I woke up, freezing cold from sleeping alone, Liam was sitting at our one and only table, a can of peaches by his elbow as he sketched something on one of the papers he gave me the night before.

I’ve been in many awkward and uncomfortable situations in my life, but sitting there, wondering how I was supposed to act around Liam after the most amazing kiss anyone ever kissed in the history of kisses, was by far the most awkward and uncomfortable. It might have helped if I managed to figure out exactly how I felt about the whole situation, but I was still filtering through about a million different emotions a second. Maybe if he was someone else, if I hadn’t loved his brother first, it would have been different. Maybe I would have called after him last night, begged him to stay. Maybe I would have told him how much I missed him when he wasn’t right beside me or how his smile could instantly make my day happier.

Then again, maybe not. Maybe I would have still wondered if it was actually Liam who made me feel all sorts of warm, fuzzy emotions, or if I was just reaching out to the only other person in my tiny, cabin-fevered world.

I was in one of those emotionally-wrought, my-soul-is-so-filled-with-angst-I-can’t-breath places the emo kids are so fond of. I’m talking listen to bad country music and wail along in despair kind of thing. Would it have killed him to at least pretend he was feeling something?

“By my estimate,” he said, apropos of nothing, “there are at least a half dozen men who will stand beside us, close to two dozen who might, and more than fifty who will support us once we’ve established new Alphas.”