by Anna Lowe
Man, was he impossible to read.
Three pickups drove into the compound and parked by the ramshackle barn used as a meeting house. Summer watched as several shifters she didn’t recognize exited their vehicles.
“Time to get started,” Thomas said. His nostrils flared, and his shoulders grew stiff.
“Started?” Summer asked.
He nodded toward the barn. “The meeting. Why don’t you come?”
She froze and stared at the barn. Community meetings in this pack were a men-only thing. Only a select few women attended — like Gretchen, of course. Summer had never been to a meeting, and with the Whytes in charge, she’d never considered asking to attend.
“Please come,” Thomas said in a softer voice. “I’d like you to come.”
His eyes were softer, too, and for a second, she thought she caught a whiff of the telltale scent of a wolf’s arousal.
Her stomach flipped. Shit. Thomas couldn’t be interested in her that way, could he? She didn’t want the attention or the complication.
I just want Drew, her wolf cried.
Gretchen scowled in open disapproval.
“Sure,” Summer said, following Thomas. What choice did she have? “That would be great.”
The scratch of hurried footsteps behind her said Gretchen was coming, too, and when Thomas held the door open for her, Gretchen shouldered through first.
Summer sighed. That woman was as into hierarchy as the worst of the men.
Thomas winked at her, and her gut roiled. What if her whole plan went wrong and Thomas forced her to help in more attacks? After all, Emmett and Victor Whyte had been considered charming in their day.
She glanced over at Mett and hid a frown. Obviously, charm could skip generations, too.
When Thomas touched her arm, she wanted to run. Instead, she took a deep breath and followed him. But when he took a place at the front, she slipped around behind the crowd and tried melting into the woodwork as she scrutinized every face.
There were a dozen locals there already, most of them older men who’d gone along with the Whytes’ sick dream without actually participating in any attacks — at least, as far as she knew. The newcomers seemed to have come separately, and more were still filing in. Wolf shifters, all of them. The men shook hands and leaned in close to each other in private conversation.
Can’t wait to go kill some more innocent shifters, she imagined one saying to another. Or was the man saying, It’s about time we dissolved this crazy-ass pack?
The strongest alphas — those who might vie for leadership of this pack — were easy to spot. They were the ones exuding testosterone with every bold step, every sidelong glance that put others in their place. As more and more shifters arrived, she gaped. How did she miss that this meeting was going to take place?
She shook her head at herself. Of course, there’d be a meeting sooner or later. And of course, no one would have told her about it because it wasn’t her place. She looked up a second later, determined not to slip into her old ways. She’d tune in to every word, analyze every gesture.
“All right, let’s begin.” One of the older locals called the meeting to order. “We’re here for nominations for leadership of the Blue Blood pack.”
It sounded so civilized, though she suspected it would end in the usual bloody mess. Wolves didn’t just run for candidacy. They fought to the death.
Everyone’s eyes slid to two men: Thomas and a scarred old wolf from somewhere farther west. After a weighty silence, they both stepped forward and glared at each other.
“I’m for Thomas,” someone to her right whispered to a friend.
“I’m for Dryver,” the other said. “He’s older. More experienced. He already leads his own pack. We could join them.”
Summer scribbled notes on her mental notepad. The problem was, neither Thomas nor Dryver was transparent enough to understand. Well, no alpha ever was. Even when the crowd started lobbing questions at the men, they both danced around the issue of continuing the so-called crusade against unpure shifters.
“Who are you for?” Mett slid up beside her and whispered in her ear.
She flinched. “Whoever’s the better leader, I guess.”
That sounded vague enough, didn’t it? Vague and airheaded, like she’d used to be. But inside, she considered what her true answer might be. Thomas? Dryver? Neither?
Summer took a long, deep breath, trying to memorize which person raised which point. Many of the men in the crowd seemed to want nothing more than peace and prosperity, but a few seemed sympathetic to the Whytes’ cause as they threw question after question at Thomas and Dryver.
“What qualifies you to lead this pack?” That question came in various forms, and both candidates parried it easily.
“What would you do about this pack’s debt?” someone asked as the questioning went on and on.
“What do you think this pack needs most?” Summer spoke up at a pause.
A dozen surprised heads turned, none more disapproving than Gretchen’s tightly drawn face.
I don’t remember you speaking up in meetings before, dear, her drop-dead expression said.
I didn’t think for myself before, Summer wanted to say.
“Stability. Time to recover,” Thomas said immediately. “Strong leadership.”
Dryver nodded and shot out an equally neutral reply. “Firm rules and a common goal.”
She was about to ask what that goal might be when the door swung open and a ray of sunlight sliced into the room. Every head in the room turned, and a pregnant pause ensued — the kind that announced the entrance of a powerful alpha who could change everything. From the shocked look on some faces, she half expected Ty Hawthorne, the imposing leader of Twin Moon pack, to stride into the room.
Whoever it was took a long time to enter. A whisper went through the crowd, but she didn’t catch the words. She was too busy focusing on a sound. The sound of feet wiping on a doormat.
Right, left. Right, left.
Her heart skipped.
A burly figure stepped slowly over the threshold, rubbing a thickly muscled shoulder against the doorframe in a bold move that said, I might not own this place, but I am not a man to be fucked with.
A rumble went through the wolves gathered there as they sniffed his oaky scent.
Drew, her wolf cried. Drew!
“Ho-ly shit,” someone exclaimed.
“A bear? Who the hell invited a bear?” another person whispered.
Drew looked around slowly as if to say, Go ahead and challenge me. No one did. They just stared dumbly.
She stared, because it was Drew, but it wasn’t Drew. This was a rougher, tougher, rawer version of the man she’d kissed. Meaner, almost. All the gentleness had gone out of him, and he was all warrior, all power.
Ho-ly shit was right. Back at Blue Moon Saloon, he’d never shown his full strength. Perhaps he hadn’t had the occasion to. But now…
“Man, oh, man. Let’s not piss him off,” someone whispered.
“To whom do we owe the pleasure?” Thomas said in a carefully neutral voice. He stretched to his full height and turned on his alpha wolf glare that Drew met, watt for watt.
“Pleasure’s all mine,” Drew said. His deep voice resonated throughout the room.
“What the hell do you want here?” Dryver barked in open challenge.
Summer held her breath, watching Drew’s fists clench.
Chapter Four
Drew paused, taking in his surroundings. The room crackled with anticipation like a thunderstorm that had dead-ended in a box canyon. Fear, hate, and suspicion swirled around the room, and a rush of whispers reached his sensitive ears.
“A bear! A bear!”
What, had they never seen a bear shifter before?
“Don’t tell me he’s one of those no-good Vosses,” someone else growled.
Just a distant relative, but hell, yeah. He was all on board with his cousins. The problem would be hiding that from th
is ugly crowd.
That, and hiding his attraction to Summer. Pulling this deception off. He could scent her from across the room, and his bear was screaming to run over and smother her in a kiss.
Inside, his bear paced, but on the outside, he battled to keep perfectly still. Soren had been right to keep him from following Summer, saying it was much too obvious that he was interested in the she-wolf.
Interested? He was damn near obsessed. He’d barely slept over the past week, and the few hours he’d caught were filled with dreams of Summer smiling at him or nightmares of her screaming for help. He’d even charged out of bed one night, determined to race to her side, but Soren convinced him to turn back, saying Summer was safer without anyone there to give her true mission away.
But then an anonymous message had reached the Blue Moon Saloon, and that changed everything.
I don’t fucking believe it, Soren had muttered, reading the email that came in from an account they couldn’t identify.
Inside man willing to work with you to keep Blue Bloods under control, the message said. There’s been enough violence. Might need your support. Are you with me?
The writer had signed with an X. Nothing more.
Could be a trick, Soren said.
Could be the real thing, Simon shot back.
Can’t trust anyone, Drew had thrown in.
Soren and Simon had deliberated it with the wolves of Twin Moon Ranch and finally decided to send Drew to Hope Springs while they tried getting more information out of the author of that note.
If this guy is legit, we don’t need Summer up there, Soren had said, and Drew had just about exploded out of the saloon in his rush to depart. But Soren wasn’t finished. If they’re trying to con us, Summer could be in more danger than we thought.
Which was when he really did explode out of the saloon and hit the road. And now that he’d finally made it, all the emotions Summer triggered hammered him at once. Love. Lust. Joy. Fear. It took everything he had not to swivel in her direction and reveal all that. Hell, it took everything he had to resist running over and pulling her into his arms.
He took a deep breath and ordered himself not to betray his emotions. A good thing he had some practice hibernating — it helped him force his heartbeat to a crawl. And hell, he’d never had to do that quite as much as right now. His pulse was thumping, his nerves twitching. His bear wanted to maul every wolf in sight, grab Summer, and steal her away from this bad place. Every shifter pack suspected outsiders, but these wolves had knives in their eyes. How had Summer survived a week here?
“What the hell do you want here?” a man barked.
Drew ignored the scarred old wolf and kept his eyes on the younger, fair-haired one. Every instinct told him that was the wolf to watch out for. That one was smarter, subtler, and much harder to read. Was it he who sent the message to Soren?
Drew doubted it. The guy seemed cocky as hell — not the kind to ask for outside help. Was it that older woman sitting to one side, listening intently? She looked capable of anything — like selling out her own pack or faking a call for help. Impossible to tell which. The three bearded men looking at him closely from the front row looked old and weary before their time. Could they have sent the message?
Jesus, was there anyone here he could trust?
No one. Well, apart from Summer.
He channeled all the power of his bear clan into a fierce look and made a slow sweep of the barn, studying every face. He forced his eyes to run smoothly past Summer, but boy, was that hard. She looked drawn and thin — thinner than before. He ached to take her home and feed her berry pancakes covered in honey. His favorite treat. Could it be hers, too?
He buried the thought in the back of his mind and trained all his focus on the two alphas up front. To whom did they owe the pleasure?
“Drew Kovacs of the Katahdin clan,” he said, letting a hint of warning fill his voice.
“Powerful East Coast bear clan,” someone murmured.
His chest puffed out a bit. Damn right.
“Thomas Miller,” the blond guy said. He didn’t mention a pack, which meant he’d either been kicked out of his former pack — unlikely, given that obvious strength — or was the second or third son of a powerful alpha who wanted to run his own pack. The dangerous kind — accustomed to privilege and hungry for power.
“Dryver,” the old guy said next. “Of Deer Mountain pack. You any relation to those Voss bears?”
Every shifter in the room leaned forward, and more than one set of claws was unsheathed. He could sense them sliding silently out as the wolves barely held back.
A moment of truth. What he said next would make or break his entire mission.
“Cousin,” he admitted.
Alarmed voices broke out around the room, but one look from Thomas silenced them. Yep, he was definitely the wolf to watch out for here.
Drew had rehearsed his lines a hundred times on his way north, so they came easily now.
“My clan is concerned about the behavior of our relations out West.”
That was near enough the truth. There were plenty of bears at home who disapproved of his cousins breaking tradition and taking mates who weren’t bears. The disapproval was nowhere near the murderous knee-jerk reaction of these killer wolves, though. More like a little headshaking among the older bears. But he didn’t have to share those details.
“They sent me out to talk to the bears who run the Blue Moon clan.” That was mostly true, too.
“It’s not a clan. It’s a disgrace!” someone shouted.
He ignored the source and focused solely on the reaction of the two alphas before him. Were they as radical as he feared?
Dryver bared his teeth at the man who’d called out — more in a you should be seen and not heard gesture than I disagree with your stance disapproval.
“And you came here to…?” Thomas leveled a cool gaze at Drew, still impossible to read. Funny how every look, every question felt like a trap. An ugly, steel-jawed bear trap.
I came here to get my mate out of this sick place, his bear wanted to roar. To take her home and tell her just how I feel about her.
“The leaders of my clan sent me here to report back on the activities of the Blue Bloods. Nothing more.” He kept his voice carefully neutral, just like his choice of words.
Thomas tilted his head in a that can be interpreted in more ways than one gesture, which was exactly what Drew intended. His words could be interpreted to mean that the Katahdin pack was considering supporting the Blue Bloods in their quest for purity. Which was utter bullshit, but Thomas didn’t know that. Second, his careful word choice prevented the scent of a lie from slipping out, because the statement was true, in a way. Soren — a member of his clan, at least in the extended sense — really had sent him to Utah for information.
And to maim, rip apart, or kill any wolf who threatens my mate while I’m at it, his bear added.
Even Drew could smell the warning that wafted off his own shoulders with that thought, but that was fine. Let the wolves see him bristle. Let them stay on their toes.
“To report.” Thomas echoed his words, arching his eyebrows in a question.
A question Drew sure as hell wasn’t going to field right now. The less he said, the longer he could pull off his ruse.
All I want is my mate. Get her to safety. Make her mine, his bear growled.
Yeah, well. He wanted that, too, but there was more to the situation than just him and Summer. The future of all shifters was at a tipping point.
Grizzled old Dryver folded his thick arms and glared at him. “That is our pack’s business, not yours.”
“Whose pack?” Drew retorted, looking between the two men before him to make his point. Who would lead the Blue Bloods, and what would his agenda be?
The old man scowled. “That will be decided soon.”
Soon could never be soon enough for him — and Summer felt the same. He could feel her impatience, even from this distance. The
tension, too, that he wanted to massage out of her shoulders. The anxiety about what might transpire next.
He kept his arms away from his sides just in case, because the crowd had broken into dozens of separate conversations — all of them heated. A brawl might erupt any minute, and he’d better be prepared to fight his way to Summer and help her escape.
But Thomas and Dryver managed to get the place settled down again — Thomas with seething looks and no noise whatsoever, Dryver with harsh shouts. Drew would put his money on Thomas winning the position of alpha. That was the easy part. The hard part was figuring out what Thomas would do next. Would he lead the pack into a new era of live and let live, or would he set off a shifter war?
“Order! Order!” Dryver pounded his fist on a table. Between that and Thomas’ glare, the place settled down.
“The alpha of this pack will tell you what you can report to your clan, bear,” Dryver said. His voice dripped scorn at the word bear.
“Yes,” Thomas murmured. “He will.”
“That question will be settled tonight,” Dryver replied, giving Thomas the evil eye.
The crowd broke into chatter again. “A fight! A fight!”
Drew looked around. Shit. He’d never seen shifters so eager for blood.
“Tonight.” Thomas nodded.
The gauntlet had been thrown down; the challenge accepted. Everyone started jabbering at the same time, and all the focus was on the two candidates for alpha. The two who would duel, wolf style, for leadership of this pack.
Drew risked a glance at Summer. Every wolf in a fifty-mile radius would attend the fight, which meant…
Summer’s warm brown eyes sparkled as she caught the gist of his thoughts.
If everyone was glued to the fight, no one would notice the absence of one quiet she-wolf and one brawny bear.
His inner beast all but rubbed his paws together in anticipation.
He turned away from Summer before anyone could notice and faked a bored look that said, Wolves. Such heathen creatures. Nothing like bears.
Which was partially true. Bears deliberated carefully, while wolves reacted from the gut. Bears proceeded with caution, not hot heads.
