Brand of the Pack

by Tera Shanley

  “Don’t. I really don’t care about anything you have to say. I am right where I want to be, and obviously, you aren’t my type.”

  She stepped into the house, and when the door snicked closed behind her, she pressed her back against it. The man’s angry, muttered words drifted to her but she didn’t care enough to decipher what he had said. She was too busy trying to keep herself from falling into a million pieces. Grey had to fight him?

  “Honey, are you all right?” Mom asked. “You’re shaking.”

  “I’m fine. I’m just nervous about everything going well tomorrow, that’s all. It’s been a long week, and I guess it’s catching up with me.”

  Raised voices carried through the walls so she led her mom toward the kitchen. If they got much louder, human ears would be able to hear them.

  “Did Rachel show you the wedding cake? It’s in the refrigerator. She baked it today.”

  The kitchen was a mix of log cabin meets modern amenities. The counters were made of granite threaded with browns and golds, and the island was a giant block of natural wood. Six chairs sat the edge where Marissa and Brent sat with Lana, frozen in place, listening.

  “What was that?” Mom asked. “Out on the front porch. What happened? Everyone was having a good time, and then they stopped talking all of the sudden, and all at the exact same time. Did someone say something wrong?”

  Morgan tried to laugh, but she sounded like a lunatic. Her voice wrenched up an octave. “Oh no, there isn’t anything wrong. Everything’s fine.”

  What are you doing? Brent mouthed.

  She’d been kicked out of high school theater for a reason.

  Rachel presented the wedding cake. “I’m having trouble deciding how to finish decorating it. I was thinking of using the flowers she has in her bouquet around the edges, or I could do frosted pearl buttons all over, or leave it plain white with frosted edges. What do you think, Hannah?”

  Score one for Rachel. She really was much better at distraction and stalling. Mom and Rachel chatted back and forth about the cake until they’d managed, as a little mixed-species team, to make it perfect.

  When they were finished debating, they all migrated to the game room, which was conveniently located on the opposite side of the house from the challenge that had begun outside. Marissa and Brent challenged Mom and Rachel to a game of doubles on the pool table but Morgan hung back, listening and waiting.

  At the sound of the first feral snarls, she ran upstairs, feigning a bathroom break. She crept to a darkened window and crouched low by the sill to watch. This fight looked nothing like the first one against Rodrigo. Where Grey and Rodrigo had seemed graceful in their conflict, the raging scene below was brutal and breathtaking. The big man was still a smaller wolf than Grey, but he was thick, probably outweighing Grey by ten pounds. His coloring was like Wade’s, dark brown, with lighter brown points.

  One of the wolves had already drawn blood. Dark flecks stained the grass beneath them. Her heart pounded as she tried desperately to decipher whose it was. Little crimson droplets flung away from them every time they made a quick movement. The eyelash moon was a selfish creature, stealing much of the light and leaving little for the spectacle below. Even with her extensive night vision, she couldn’t make out where Grey ended and the other wolf began. This fight was jerky and so fast, they seemed to blur into one another until one would break away to circle the other before they attacked again. The fight lasted a hundred years.

  Grey was visibly limping but unrelenting in his attack. She twitched her fingers to rid herself of the tingling that had started to spread through her body. So immersed was she in watching the fight in the yard below, she had no time to worry about the wolf inside of her howling to be let out. The men observing the fight were perfectly still and silent as Grey finally stood over the other wolf, jaw working over his neck. This was the first time the other wolf was still long enough for Morgan to assess his wounds. One of his ears had been completely ripped off, his front right leg was bent at an odd angle, and a wound on his neck was bleeding profusely. Grey waited for him to yield for only a second. When the other wolf only looked defiantly into his furious eyes, without hesitation, Wolf ripped his throat out and sat back to watch him bleed to death.

  Grey focused a dead glare on the shocked witnesses the challenger had brought. They held their distance. Smart wolves. Long minutes dragged as the dead wolf Turned back into a man, and the witnesses dragged his body to the trunk of their car. Grey’s head swiveled slowly as he watched them leave. She stood, giving action to her need to touch him and assure herself he was safe. Grey collapsed, and the strands of white lights, so romantic half an hour before, illuminated his dark, wet, matted fur.

  “Grey!” The Change came before she could stop it. All she could do was focus on not making pained noises that Mom would hear from downstairs. The last thing she needed was for her to walk in on her like that. How would she even explain it? Hey Mom, sorry you saw me while I looked like this creepy creature on the floor, but it’s okay. Grey just killed a man so now I’m safe. Also, don’t get too close. I bite. Her mother would run screaming from her house and her life.

  When at last she could move, she scrabbled forward, nails scratching and clicking across the wooden floors.

  “Aw man! Who let the dog in?” Marissa complained as Morgan bolted down the stairs. Marissa jogged to open the door for her, and as her hand rested on the doorknob, Mom exclaimed, “Oh, what a beautiful dog! Is she yours?”

  Marissa paused. “Uh, yeah. Morgan gave her to me for my birthday last week. She is still potty training so we try to keep her outside.”

  When she opened the door, Morgan rushed out and rocketed off the porch steps to find Grey. Hopefully, they could keep her mother distracted inside. There was no way to explain away the aftermath of a werewolf fight.

  Wade carried Grey’s limp body toward the woodshed. She paced behind him with her tail lowered.

  “Jason,” Wade clipped out. “Go get Marissa and be subtle about it.”

  Logan hauled the huge plastic bin of medical supplies Wade always carried in his truck from the back, then bumped the tailgate closed with his hip. Dean leaned heavily against the doorframe of the woodshop as Wade lowered Grey onto a long workbench. Dean’s eyes were fever bright as his gaze stayed anchored on Grey’s limp form. Friends or no, his wolf wanted to fight Grey for dominance when he was vulnerable, and something about that realization filled her veins with red fury. She could almost see Dean’s animal calculating his odds at besting him.

  Morgan bolted through the shop door and let out a low snarl as she placed herself between Dean and the table where Grey lay. He glanced down at her with a half-deranged look that said he had a half-cocked notion he could fight her while human.

  After a charged moment, he held up his hands, and in a strange voice said, “I’ll go inside with the others and stay with Rachel.”

  She sneezed and shook her head, baring her teeth. He backed off slowly toward the house. Rachel would get him calmed down and take him home if she thought he needed it. Incorrigible dominant wolves. She liked Dean, but if he was going to let his wolf challenge Grey in this state, he’d learn exactly what lengths she’d go to in order to protect him.

  The medical kit thudded onto a low table when Logan dropped it. He turned and swiped everything off the workbench onto the floor below. Grey lay unresponsive on the sawdust-coated wooden planks. Wade, apparently used to an injured dominant on his table, was keeping his growling to himself. Logan, on the other hand, was staring. His light blue eyes were frozen on her blood-soaked mate. She lunged and snapped at him, teeth grazing his arm and drawing blood. He jerked away, backed out of the shed, and followed Dean to the house. Pacing the doorway, she didn’t return until both blood-lusty werewolves were back inside the house. Behind her, Wade worked feverishly on Grey. Sweat ran the gauntlet down the scar that marred the side of his face, and his usually passive expression was knotted w
ith worry.

  “Morgan,” Wade said. “We need him to Change back as soon as possible. I need to stitch him up and see what kind of damage we are dealing with. I can’t do that when he is Wolf.”

  She swung her head back to the yard. Marissa was running toward the shed. Satisfied more help was coming, she turned and jumped up on the workbench. The table groaned slightly under her added weight. She stood over him, whining and licking his face, his dark fur coarse against her tongue. It tasted of sweet copper.

  There was so much blood, it pooled beneath him. Her licks became frantic. What if he was already dead? She paused, listening. His faint heartbeat thrummed softly against his sternum.

  Grey, Grey, Grey. He had to wake up.

  Wade dug through his medical box. “He is going to be pissed when he gets a whiff of this this. I have smelling salts, but they are stronger for a wolf nose so we need to try and keep him calm.”

  Waking Demon Wolf like this was a horrible idea, but for lack of a better one, it would have to do. Her heart pounded away like jackhammer and the smell of her fear filled the room.

  She was about to get bitten.

  Chapter 7

  Wolf jolted awake with the smell of something awful and strong in his nose. Heavy pressure pinned him against something cold and hard, and before he could register sight or smell, he lunged, raking sharp teeth across the culprit’s neck. A yelp and long whine sounded as the weight disappeared off him. And then he smelled her. Morgan.

  Grey blinked unfocused eyes as the pain consumed him. It burned him up from the inside out. He roared, scrabbling to get upright and out of such a defenseless position. Someone was trying to soothe him, which only made Wolf angrier.

  He would kill everything.

  Twisting his body, he fell off the table hard enough to puff the sawdust beneath him into the air. A warning snarl ripped through him, and he pulled his lips back over bared teeth. His focus landed on a light spot in the corner. A white wolf was cowering there, shaking. A red stain spread across her throat. He tried to right himself to make his way to her but only got halfway when his leg gave out from under him. He lay still and whined, trying to get her to come closer. He had hurt her, and even through the haze of pain, was desperate for forgiveness.

  Tail tucked under her hunched body, weaving back and forth, she approached. He whined again, and she rushed over to him on her belly, then licked his face. He tried to nose the wound on her neck, but the pain kept him from focusing long enough.

  “Grey,” Wade said, kneeling close. “You have to Change before you pass out again. I have to work on your injuries, but I can’t do it when you are Wolf. I could miss something.”

  Morgan lay beside him, whining. He understood what had Wade said, but adding the pain of the Change on top of what he was already feeling had his mind skittering away from the idea.

  “She needs you, Grey. Morgan and Lana and Marissa, they all need you. You have to Change,” Wade encouraged him.

  He began to Change, pushing it quickly. His roar turned into the agonized scream of a man. The edges of his vision blurred and collapsed until the thick, black folds of unconsciousness relieved him.

  As much as he fought to wake up, he was only able to do so in short spurts. He would open his eyes to the pain—always the pain. Morgan was there as an anchor to focus on. Her soft fur, always reassuring under his fingertips. Her eyes so full of worry as Wade and Marissa worked over him. The red on the matted fur of her neck. Her scent, just strong enough to hold him for a few minutes before his eyes grew too heavy to keep open anymore. There was only time to worry about her injured throat for a second before the darkness dragged him back under, again and again.

  When at last consciousness washed over him and held, he stared in confusion at the slowly spinning ceiling fan above him. He searched for pockets of coolness under the familiar sheets but the motion stretched newly stitched skin. He froze and sucked air quietly through his teeth. God, that hurt.

  Morgan lay beside him in her human form, lacking a single stitch of clothing save her engagement ring. She was sound asleep. She didn’t even wake as he adjusted his position to get a better look at her. The blanket draped around her hips, and rays of early morning sunlight caressed her soft cheek. The webs of light brought out the auburn highlights in her dark hair as it cascaded across her pillow. He had seen her body before, but it had been right after she was kidnapped, and she’d been covered in bruises. Now, her skin was unblemished alabaster. Damn, she was beautiful.

  She had healed from Montana. Only a long, thin scar along her hairline was visible. He pulled his hand up to touch her cheek but stopped when he spotted the large bandage where his teeth had grazed her last night. It brought a sick pang to his stomach. When he looked back at her face, two light purple eyes stared steadily back at him.

  “You scared me last night,” she said in a sleepy voice.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “No, not that. I knew you were going to bite me when Wade gave you the smelling salts. I meant I was scared I’d lose you.”

  He shrugged off the things about this life he couldn’t avoid. “I have to protect you and there will be times when it’s going to have to be like this. I’m sorry.”

  “You can’t understand how hard it is to not be able to defend myself. I have to watch the man I care about do it for me and try my best to clean up the pieces afterward. The scars on your body are because of me.”

  Touching the bandage on her neck, he said, “Yours are from me.” They were both marked. Unable to take his eyes from her bare breasts, he trailed his finger down until he brushed the weight of one. “You know, this is the first time we slept together in our bed.”

  “I wanted to sooner,” she admitted, sliding over him and straddling his hips. “I’ve been ready for a while. Do you know how hard it’s been to resist going down to the guest bedroom and finding you at night? This bed feels too big, too cold without you.” She raked her fingers just above where his cock was pinned under her. He gripped her waist at the sensation. Gooseflesh ran in waves across his skin under her touch, and a slow shiver made its way up his spine. She was already wet as she rocked forward and pulled a long stroke against his erection. Eyes rolling back, he exhaled as she undid him completely. Just a touch and Wolf was whimpering for more.

  “Jesus, Morgan,” he rasped as she slowly pressed her hips forward against his again. Every fiber of his being ached to claim her right now and have it done.

  Her hands splayed his chest and her raven hair fell forward, surrounding their faces and making her eyes seem even more ethereal. “Grey?”

  “Mmm?”

  “You’re already mine.”

  He chuckled and tucked a strand behind her ear. “You’ve been mine since I was human.”

  “Could you ever have imagined that awful night in the woods would lead to this?”

  The pillow under him rustled as he shook his head. “The happiest day of my life was born from the worst.”

  “Would you take it all back if you could?”

  She’d stopped moving, so he grabbed her hips and pulled her forward against his shaft. “Never.”

  Growling, he rolled her onto her back and hovered over her. Her eyes were bright, and her lips parted invitingly as he pushed her legs open. Dipping down, he tasted her mouth.

  She ran her hands up his arms, caressing the tensed curve of them. She nipped his bottom lip. He was so close, the need to be buried inside her was all-consuming.

  But…

  “If it’s bad luck to see each other before the wedding, doing this seems pretty dangerous.”

  “Yeah, because up until this point our luck has been awesome. Stop talking, Crawford,” she said through a wicked grin.

  “Morgan,” he warned, at the end of what he could handle.

  Her grin broadened and she wiggled against him. His head brushed her slick folds. One thrust and s
he’d be claimed. She’d be his in all the ways that mattered. Almost.

  Cursing, he whipped the sheets from the bed, wrapped them around his waist, and escaped the temptation. Running a hand through his hair, he gritted his teeth. He wanted to hang his morals by their intestines from the nearest tree. “You said you wanted to be married,” he said, voice thick and gravelly. “I promised you I’d support you in that. I’ll be damned if I fail you by three hours.”

  Propping herself up on her elbows with a decidedly disappointed mew to her delicious looking lips, she asked, “Do you want me to help you shower?”

  “Woman, are you actually trying to kill me?”

  “I pinky swear I’ll be good. Helpful Morgan only in the shower, not Morgan the Molester. Wade dialed back your pain meds so you won’t be groggy today so you’re going to be pretty sore.”

  He did feel like his skin was on fire. “Yeah, I could use a little help,” he said, letting his eyes travel the length of her uncovered body.

  She laughed and rolled gracefully out of bed. “Nearly dead and still you can only think of one thing.”

  “No, this one’s on you, climbing into my bed all naked and irresistible.” He turned her in the mirror and stood behind her in their reflection. She was flawless, and he dug his thumbs into her dimples of Venus that sat just above her perfect ass.

  He, on the other hand, looked like he’d been run through a wood shredder. That bruiser wolf had done a number on him. He hadn’t been as focused as he’d needed to be from the beginning of the fight. He’d been too damned happy and excited about the rehearsal that preceded the day he and Wolf got everything they wanted. It had been hard for him to settle down to the task of killing the man who had threatened to take it all away. The challenger had been a dirty fighter and big enough to use his weight as an advantage, making it harder for Grey to win. He had been able to pull it off unfocused, but barely. With a last lingering kiss to her neck, he limped stiffly into the bathroom and hit the warm tap. He should start to keep a running tally of how many stitches he ended up with in his lifetime. He was starting to look more and more like Frankenstein’s monster.