by T. S. Joyce
“I love you,” he said in a shaky whisper, leaning his cheek against the palm of her hand.
The slow smile that took her full lips softened the growl in his throat.
“I love you, too,” Morgan murmured.
Chapter Five
Morgan dressed for the meet-and-greet between knowing glances and shy smiles with Grey. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her. Marissa played with Lana in the joint living room, so she and Grey had the bedroom to themselves. She pulled on charcoal-colored skinny jeans tucked into brown, heavily buckled riding boots and a forest green tank top that showed a little cleavage. She wasn’t hiding tonight! She turned from side to side in the full-length mirror. Good enough. She pulled back her long, dark hair into a ponytail, and the smoky eye shadow over her lids played up the light purple of her eyes. She bet they wouldn’t turn blue again until they left Summit. Her top revealed half-healed claw marks up and down her forearms, and her still fresh pack brand was proudly on display. Let them all see it.
Frowning at how pale she looked in her reflection, she puffed air out of her cheeks and hooked her hands on her hips. “Well…here goes nothing.”
They didn’t have far to walk since their cabin was closer to the end, but as soon as they stepped out of their rooms, the boys were bombarded by friends they had met over the years from past Summits who had been waiting to see them. Immediately, they were fielding questions about Silver Wolf. They crowded her, introducing themselves, and the weight of their energy made it hard to breathe. Grey didn’t take his eyes off her. He brushed his fingers across her hand and it settled her a little. Just a touch from him, and she could pull air into her lungs again.
“We’re going to the meeting,” Grey said gruffly when he’d apparently had enough of social hour. That or he could see the flee-for-her-life look in Morgan’s eyes and was creating an out for her.
He wrapped his big strong hand around hers and led her right out of that crowd and toward a huge metal building at the end of the row of cabins.
The building where the meet-and-greet was held was a mess hall with tables and a huge kitchen made for cooking meals to feed large groups. Attached to the right side was an open pavilion with picnic tables and a basketball court farther off.
When they stepped into the mess hall, the smell of testosterone was so strong, it overwhelmed her inner wolf. Morgan froze when her boots hit the cement floor.
Grey squeezed her hand comfortingly. “Morgan, you’re safe. You’re here with me. I’ve always got you.”
Wide-eyed stares met Morgan’s and the noise of conversation died to silence. She tried to control the heat in her cheeks while Dean talked to a man behind a check-in table. Bright lupine eyes shone from every last one of the werewolves in front of them.
Rage was emanating from Grey, and when Morgan looked up at him, he was glaring down the closest wolf to them. The red-haired man lowered his head and backed up a few steps. Probably smart.
At the check-in table, Dean hunched his shoulders and turned slowly, gave the Dallas pack a warning look. “Y’all gonna start a fight with everyone?” he asked.
“Thinking about it,” Jason deadpanned from Grey’s other side. “If these motherfuckers can’t stop staring.”
“It’s…” Marissa cleared her throat from Morgan’s other side and hugged Lana tighter on her hip, then tried again. Soft as a summer breeze, she whispered. “Staring is rude.”
“Well, what do you expect?” a man with a grizzly beard and a scarred-up face asked from across the room. “Ain’t nobody here seen a Silver Wolf before. Her eyes are purple. Freaking purple. And she smells different.”
“Okay, then,” Dean muttered. “This is just as awkward as I expected it to be. Come on, Dallas pack. Let’s find our table.”
As Morgan settled into a seat between Marissa and Grey, the conversations in the mess hall came back slowly and quietly. The boisterous laughter and teasing camaraderie had died down, but at least people were talking again. Slowly, the tone of the room changed to one of speculation and frank curiosity. No sooner had she settled into her seat and plastered on a white, sticky tag with her name in an eye-scorching red color, than the first of the other wolves approached. She smiled at the two males who were approaching the table, but when she parted her lips to say hello, another voice behind her chilled her blood.
“I made you famous, you know.” Alexis’s voice was still as cruel as ever.
Morgan stood, and turned toward the awful angry Barbie Werewolf, and punched her square in the face. The crack of her nose was so satisfying against her knuckles, and Alexis doubled over, holding her face. Blood poured through her fingers. “That’s for biting me, bitch,” Morgan informed her.
Morgan snapped herself out of her daydream and composed her face to a mask of languid indifference and turned toward her Maker. Alexis stood with her arms crossed in all of her blond-haired, blue-eyed glory. She was in a skin-tight red dress that showed off toned legs, and tits for days. Four tall men flanked her, and not a single one of them looked like they had all their marbles. Their eyes were all too bright, and they looked like predators on a cornered animal.
“How do you know the Silver Wolf?” one of her followers asked.
“Of course I know her.” Her feline smile widened. “I made her.”
She wanted to fucking kill her. Morgan stood and clenched her hands at her sides. She hadn’t only changed the course of her entire life, she had put her and Lana and everyone she cared about in danger. Blood boiling, Morgan bit out, “She didn’t mean to be my maker. She tried to murder me.”
“Save you’re whining. You don’t even have a limp anymore, and now you are Silver Wolf. Everyone melts when you walk in the room. You are desired by everyone. You can thank me any time you like.”
Her malicious smile faded off her face with every word, and her eyes lightened to a lime green. Morgan had never seen such hatred in anyone’s face, but she got it. She hated Alexis just as much. “What do you want?”
“From you? Nothing.” Alexis cocked her head and her gaze glided to Grey. “Hey lover,” Alexis purred. “It’s good to see you again.”
That shitty excuse for a woman took a step closer to her Grey. Morgan snarled and reared back her hand, but Rachel cut off her view of Alexis.
“She’s trying to get into your head, Morgan.”
Rachel was right but good God, it was hard to pull off the ass beating that bitch deserved.
Go around Rachel. Finish her, the wolf inside her advised. You’re faster than Rachel.
“You treat this like a game,” Grey murmured. His voice was deadly quiet, and he sat relaxed back in the chair beside where Morgan stood. He wore an empty smile and his eyes were so bright, they were yellow, like the sun. He smelled of fury. “You’re the type of woman who likes to play games she thinks she can win. And I think you’ve gone your whole miserable, worthless life winning games that didn’t mean anything. Games that gave you this false sense of confidence that you can get whatever you want. And for now, you’ve made the mistake of thinking you got away with hurting Morgan.” The smile dropped from Grey’s lips. “Listen to the truth in my voice. If my mate doesn’t kill you…I will.”
“Ha,” Alexis said. She looked around at her followers. “He wouldn’t. He has this thing about hurting women.”
“You aren’t a woman.”
Alexis gave him a filthy look. “What the fuck is that supposed to me—”
Grey stood fast and slammed his fist on the table so hard, a long crack zigzagged through the middle. “A woman cares for her people and you care for nothing. A woman lifts others up, and I’ve only seen you lift yourself above everyone else. A woman doesn’t chase. Or torment. Or berate and belittle the ones around her just so she can feel better. A woman doesn’t put herself on a fucking pedestal she built herself and then aim pain at everyone she thinks is beneath her. She doesn’t try to kill someone just because she’s taking something that was never hers in the first pla
ce. You aren’t a woman, Alexis. You’re a monster.”
“Is this your new pack?” he asked. Grey stood to his full height and closed the distance between them with slow, deliberate footsteps. “Tell them again. Tell them how safe you think you are. I want to hear your voice shake when you do it.” Oh, his voice wasn’t human anymore. It belonged only to Wolf.
Alexis backed up a step and uncertainty stretched across her features. “You can’t hurt me. Not anymore. Missed your chance, asshole.”
“Yeah? And yet you showed up here, and came right up to Morgan, taunted me right away, giving me your neck once again. Stupid move, Alexis. You’re full of them.”
“You can’t hurt me because I’m not alone! I’m mated to someone powerful.”
“To who?” Dean asked from behind Grey.
Alexis stopped her retreat, right between two bruins from her new pack. She lifted her pointed little chin high. “I’m mated to Jonathan Reeves, alpha of the Denver pack.”
“The hell?” a man from two tables over asked. He was a dark-haired man with silver eyes and the deepest frown Morgan had ever seen. “Is there another Jonathan Reeves I didn’t know about?” the man asked, standing.
“I choose you.”
“Since when?” Jonathan asked.
“Since right now.”
He pointed to Grey, who was baring his teeth. “I’m not fucking fighting that thing for you, if that’s what this is all about.”
One of her packmates snorted, and hid a smile.
Jonathan was shorter than Grey, around six foot tall, but stocky. “I’m sorry for whatever pain Alexis has caused you,” he said formally to Morgan. “She’s…”
“Fuckin’ horrible?” Her redheaded packmate who had been hiding a smile offered.
Alexis punched the man in the arm, and not playfully. Like…she blasted her fist into his shoulder and rocked him. He put his massive hand in her face and shoved her away, then did an about face and said, “I hate this pack since she came into it,” and walked away without another look back.
Alexis’s hair was all messed up on one side from that man’s face-palm-and-shove. Now… Morgan was a firm believer that women should fix each other’s crowns and all, but Grey was right about her being a monster, and Alexis couldn’t wear crowns on account of her horns getting in the way.
So, here she sat, enjoying the sight of a fully made-up, dressed-up Alexis wearing an expression like she sucked on a lemon, and with a rat’s nest on one side of her hair.
Morgan was pretty sure she heard Marissa’s camera phone click.
“It’s nice to meet you, Silver Wolf,” Jonathan said, bowing his head slightly.
Alexis clacked her teeth together and growled, and Morgan couldn’t help a laugh at how red her face was turning. “Your face looks like a cherry,” she informed Alexis as she shook Jonathan’s hand. “Nice to meet you, too.”
“Well, your face looks like a hairy butthole,” Alexis retorted.
“Alexis, shut up,” Jonathan advised her.
Morgan laughed at the look of absolute disgust on her face. “Don’t talk to me like that!”
“I’m your alpha.”
“And my mate!”
“Polite decline.”
“I’m part of your pack, Jonathan. You’re supposed to have my back.”
“Mmmm, remember on the way up here when me and all the boys talked to you about matching effort? If you have our back, we will have yours. One for one. You don’t earn loyalty by being a bitch.”
“Don’t call me that!” She lifted her knee to slam her high heal into his foot, but Jonathan bent in a rush and yanked her shoe off. She went off balance and stumbled backward and Jonathan, one of Morgan’s new favorite people in the whole world, snapped her heal off and tossed the two pieces of the ruined shoe on the ground by Alexis’s feet.
Alexis screeched an awful sound and picked it up, clutched it to her chest. “Those were thirteen hundred-dollar shoes, you asshole!”
“Probably should’ve used them for better than stomping on someone’s foot like a child then,” Jonathan said, as cool as anything. He didn’t even have red in his cheeks and he didn’t seem frustrated. Just handled Alexis like a bawse and owned it.
“I see you’re taking good care of our girl,” Dean said. Was that a smile in his voice? When Morgan looked at him, his face was a study in seriousness, but his eyes gave him away. They danced with amusement.
“Been trying.” The Denver pack alpha looked pointedly at her still pouting face. “Alexis, you have something to say to Dean.”
“No, I fucking don’t,” she assured him, still hugging her broken shoe.
“You do, or you can sleep outside with no protection from me or the boys, Alexis.” He gave her an empty smile. “I mean mate.”
Alexis narrowed her eyes at her new alpha and cleared her throat. Tilting her chin primly, she arced her attention to Dean and said, “I’m sorry. Not about her.” She shot Morgan a glare. “I would bite her again but better. I’m sorry for disappointing you, though.”
Dean huffed a surprised laugh. “Alexis, that is literally the worst apology I’ve ever heard in my life.”
Alexis shrugged. “It’s more than you deserve.”
“God, I do not miss you in any way,” Rachel murmured.
“The feeling is mutual, Rachel,” Alexis said. “Where is Brandon? I’ll stay with him tonight.” She tossed Jonathan a dirty look, but he looked like he wanted to yawn.
Silence descended on their small space like a vacuum had sucked the conversation right out of the room. Rachel asked Dean, “Did no one tell her?”
“Tell me what?” Alexis demanded.
It was Dean who spoke. “There was a war. Brandon is dead, Alexis.”
Alexis shook her head in disbelief. “You’re lying.”
“I would never lie about something so awful,” Dean murmured. “You know me better than that.”
Alexis bottom lip trembled. Surprise, the ice queen had a heart after all.
“Let me guess. It was because of her.” Alexis jabbed a finger in Morgan’s face, seriously tempting her to bite it off.
It was Marissa who spoke up. “No, it was because of you. Your big mouth about Morgan started rumors that brought three packs down on us at once. They tried to kill every one of us to get to her and Lana. Brandon died honorably, but if anyone is to blame for his death, it’s you.”
“Jesus,” Jonathan murmured. “I think I’m partly to blame, too. Alexis tole me and the boys you had a white wolf. I called around asking if other people had ever heard of one, and it didn’t take long for someone to research it and figure out what she was. By then, it was too late. The information was already out.” His earnest eyes fell on Morgan. “I’m sorry.” He seemed to be apologizing for more than just his part in what had happened.
“Forget it,” she told him. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Regardless of how everyone found out, it doesn’t change what I am. We would have had to deal with the backlash sooner or later.”
A loud rap on a podium at the front of the room settled everyone down and focused their attention on an older gentleman with light blue eyes and chin-length silver hair. He tapped on a microphone attached to the podium where he was standing. “Welcome to this year’s Summit. As most of you know, my name is Marcus Whitten, and I will be your host this year. If anyone has problems or questions, you may come to me. Some of you are new to our community or have never been here before, and I want to extend a special welcome to you. We have these gatherings every year to gain friendships, to tighten our community, to gather important information, and to address concerns. We also hold them to integrate fun and competition to break down the barriers of the pack lines. If you picked up the itinerary when you came in, you can see the pack hike and scavenger hunt will be set for tomorrow morning directly after breakfast. Each pack will be paired with another, and the challenge will be to learn to work together. A premium-cut steak package will go to each of the winners as
a prize. Y’all, this prize pack is one you want to go after. It’s valued at $800 and comes with a combination package of rubs, seasonings and six different flavors of barbecue sauce.”
An excited rumble erupted into the room.
“A bonfire will be held tomorrow night where dominance and strength challenges will be made, first for males, and then for females, if any of our lovely ladies want to sign up this year. Afterward, anyone who would like to is welcome to Change and run together. Keep the fighting to a minimum on the Summit run, please. Punishment will be quick, so don’t test us.” The man took a deep breath and swung his gaze to Morgan. It seemed like he spoke to her as he said, “Alphas will be omitted from this function as we will be holding a mandatory meeting about a new development in our community. I think everyone can guess who I am talking about. Silver Wolf, welcome to your first Summit.”
Dean stood and lifted his hand into the air, and Marcus pointed to him with the gavel. “Yes, Dean, alpha of the Dallas pack.”
“I move that alpha’s mates also be admitted to this meeting. I think with this delicate situation, the female’s opinions could prove to be invaluable.”
The old werewolf nodded. “Well said. Does anyone second this motion?”
Grey raised his hand along with a few other wolves throughout the room.
“All right, alpha’s mates will also be expected to attend the meeting. Before I let you get back to visiting, I would like to bring Morgan Crawford up to the front so she can have a formal introduction into our community.”
He held his aged hand out as if she could take it from where she sat.
What Morgan wanted to do was slump in her chair and cross her fingers that everyone would look around, fail to see her, and give up on her parading in front of the room. Luck like that didn’t exist for her, not since she had been Turned. Instead, she stood, patted Lana’s hair from where she was sitting in Marissa’s lap, straightened her spine, and headed for the front of the room. A couple hundred pairs of eyes followed her in a slow arc as she made her way through the crowd and up the stairs to the stage. Her bond caressed her as Grey followed right behind. He didn’t have to touch her physically for her to know he was there. When she turned to face the crowd, the looks on their faces ranged from to curious to calculating. An awkward silence filled the room until it was hard to breathe.