by Tera Shanley
He grabbed the trashcan and shoved everything that was in the refrigerator into it. The smell clung to everything, but at least Morgan’s scent would be masked.
He set the garbage bag by the front door to take out later and wiped down the inside of the fridge. Next, he unloaded the groceries, and Marissa came in to help. A tiny object sticking out from under the bed caught his attention and he went to pick it up. In his large palm lay one of Lana’s little gloves. Anger loosed Wolf and he yelled, throwing the mitten into the wall. He ran his hands through his hair and Marissa disappeared out the front door with the trash bags in hand. For a child, she took hints incredibly well.
He jumped in the shower and let the hot water soothe his screaming muscles. Leaning against the teal-colored tiles, he let the memories of what he’d had wash over him. He couldn’t go forever without thinking about her. She’d been everything once. A man didn’t just get over someone who’d changed the course of his entire existence for the better. He’d lost her. Lana too, and that wound would be held open, unable to heal, for the rest of his miserable existence.
Marissa was asleep on the couch when he got out. Her face was completely relaxed when she slept, and she looked even younger than her thirteen years. When she was awake, she always looked haunted. Like some terror in her life had aged her eyes a hundred years. It was as if she knew so much more than a child should’ve ever been exposed to. But there, lying on the couch, she was fragile and naïve and childlike again.
He cocked his head to the side. When they’d met, Wolf had terrified her. She hadn’t even been able to look directly at him, much less hold a conversation with him until the night Alexis had Turned Morgan. For all the months of fear, it was strange that she felt safe enough around him to fall asleep in his den.
He didn’t want to wake her, so he turned the television down and covered her with the red down blanket that was draped across the back of the couch. He collapsed in his sheetless bed and passed out just as the light of afternoon shifted to that of evening.
Moments later, someone shook him awake. Bright green eyes hovered over his face and he lurched straight up in bed. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m hungry,” Marissa whispered.
Panicked, he searched the dark. Where was he? Where were the trees of the forest and the clean breeze?
“You’re home,” she said, cowering to the edge of the bed. “Everything is okay. I just need food.”
Slowly, his muscles relaxed and he rubbed his hands over his face. “What you need is to go home. Let me find my keys.”
“I already called Dean, and he said I can stay over here if I want to. Logan and Jason are still there, and I don’t want to deal with them.”
“You have to deal with them sometime,” he snapped. “They are in your pack, so you are bound to run into them sooner or later.”
She arched her eyebrow. “I still need food.”
“Fine. We’re going out though. I can’t stand being cooped up in here anymore.” He needed to build a house and right away. Living as a wolf for a couple of weeks had greatly skewed his view on living in his cramped city apartment.
The tiny diner down the street with the eye-scorching neon sign and black and white checkered floors would have to be good enough. The food was terrible there, but it was the only close place he could think of that he hadn’t taken Morgan and Lana. When they slid into the sticky seats of a booth, he ordered them a couple of root beers and flicked the menu in front of his face to deter conversation.
“Have you ever heard the phrase every werewolf has a sob story?” Marissa asked.
He peeked over the menu and narrowed his eyes at her. Maybe he’d been wrong about her ability to take hints. “No,” he said with a sigh. “Why?”
“Did Dean ever tell you why I’m here?”
“Like why you are here on this planet?” he asked, confused.
“No, why I’m here in this pack. I’m from Nevada originally.” At his blank stare, she pressed on. “Okay, did you ever hear about a serial killer a few years back in Nevada? It was before your time, but he was a werewolf, a man-eater, whatever you want to call him. He went on a huge killing spree through three states before the Old Ones were able to track him down and end him. They called him the Lady Killer, because that’s what he was.”
He dropped his gaze back to the menu. Werewolf story time didn’t interest him any more than the picture of greasy chili-cheese fries featured on the plastic in front of him.
“Well, he liked little girls. They were sort of his specialty.”
“Marissa,” he said, putting his menu down. “Is there a point to this story, other than to kill my appetite?”
She huffed a sigh. “His name was Raul, and he was my maker.”
“What can I get for you,” a burly waitress with eye-scorching white teeth interrupted.
He leaned back and motioned for Marissa to go first. He needed a moment to recover from her dark confession before he spoke.
Marissa pursed her lips as she plucked at the lamination that had come apart at the corner of her menu. “I think I want a number seven, but could you hold the peppers?”
“That sounds good. I’ll have the same, but leave the peppers on there. Thanks.” He smiled stiffly through his sunglasses and handed the waitress his menu.
The waitress sauntered away and he leaned forward. “What the hell, Marissa?”
“He picked me up about halfway through his little adventure. I lived with my mom at the time because my dad died when I was a baby, so it was just us. Raul came into our home one night, forced us in the trunk of his car and took us out to his workshop. That’s what he called it. I won’t bore you with the details, but my mom didn’t make it. Raul decided he liked me and turned me. He kept me in a cage until we moved to the next location. We moved a lot. He called me his mate and did things, bad things to me whenever he wanted. Afterward, he would make me watch him kill other girls. I was ten.” Her voice faltered, and she paused and closed her eyes. Her hands shook and she pulled them into her lap, out of sight.
“Look, my point is, when a girl goes through something traumatic, such as watching a person she loves die, her view on the world gets messed up. She wonders why did she lived when the person she loved didn’t?
“Morgan’s pushing you away because she is scared. Life is short, and losing her sister in such a way? It will make her want to live her life to the fullest to honor her. She won’t want to tether herself to a man for the wrong reasons. She is wrong, obviously. Even a human could tell how strong your connection is, but she’s scared of making the wrong decision. She is feeling like you don’t want to marry her for the right reasons, so she’ll push you away until you give up. You have to show her you care about her. Her. Not the silver wolf. Morgan. You are a beast, Grey. Your wolf is a freaking brute and you just let her leave. I get that you don’t want to push her after everything she’s been through, but buck up and go get your mate.” She leaned back for the waitress to put her plate of food in front of her. “But then again, what do I know? I’m only a kid.”
He took a long pull of root beer and studied the girl. No wonder she had been afraid of him. She looked like a child, but really, that part of her life had been stolen from her. And for as much as she seemed to function normally, what Raul had done would haunt her life forever. He wanted to kill the man who’d done this to her. Wanted to torture the black soul who would ruin a little girl like that psychopath had done. She was wise beyond her years and she was right. Everything she’d said made sense, where he’d felt nothing but confusion for weeks. He’d messed up and explained it wrong, and when he should’ve been fixing things with Morgan, he’d let Wolf take over instead. “When did you become so brave, telling the Big Bad Wolf when he is being thick-headed?”
“When I figured out the Big Bad Wolf would probably understand me better than anyone else in my pack. Our makers were both monsters. Rachel told me about yours. I know I’m a fre
ak so it’s nice to have another freak around for company.” She smiled and threw a french fry at him. “This is awful, by the way.”
His steak sandwich did smell a little ripe. He chuckled, pushed his plate away and then flagged the waitress and asked for the check. If Marissa could brave telling him about her past, he could stand taking her to the Italian bistro down the street that he and Morgan had frequented. Memories be damned. After everything she’d been through, Marissa at the very least deserved a decent meal.
Chapter 3
Naked trees lined the long gravel drive to Dean’s house, their dry, crackling cover now blanketing the forest floor below. The color of fall leaves had turned to the grays and browns that now painted the landscape in a messy, muted winter canvas. The shocks on Morgan’s truck were decent, but still, potholes that had been washed out in the rain threatened to swallow her oversized tires. Around another curve, Dean and Rachel’s house came into view, as beautiful as the first time she’d seen it two months ago. God, it felt like so much longer. Sometimes she felt like the wolf inside of her had always been there--that she’d always been a part of the wolves’ lives. Or perhaps it felt like she’d known this place forever because every moment without Grey dragged on for eternity.
A cream-colored wolf with a darker saddle across her back ran through the woods adjacent to the road. Not sprinting, not trotting, but maintaining a speed that kept her beside the truck.
Morgan smiled and looked in the rearview to see if Lana had seen Marissa’s wolf. The little girl had her hand pressed against the glass of the window, and a smile curved her plump cheeks.
“Is Mr. Grey going to be here today?” she asked.
Gripping the wheel, Morgan dragged her gaze back to the road ahead of her. “No, baby. We won’t see Mr. Grey anymore.”
When she dared a glance at her ward again, the smile had drifted from the child’s face and her lips were puckered slightly.
She was doing the right thing, she reminded herself as she pulled to a stop in front of the baby-blue Victorian-style home. Silver wolf or not, it was her responsibility to find someone who wanted her because she was Morgan Carter. Not because he was obligated to take care of some ancient cursed wolf. And that’s exactly what being a silver wolf was--a curse. No one in their right mind would ever wish to be what she was.
If no man ever filled that space and loved her for who she was, she was okay with raising Lana herself. She’d live an entire lifetime pining for Grey if it meant she knew exactly where she stood. Morgan’s sister, Marianna, had been her hero for mothering Lana like she had, and independent of the child’s deadbeat father. Morgan could be strong enough to carry on Marianna’s legacy and wait for the right person to complete her makeshift family.
Nights were the hardest though. She missed sleeping beside him, and some evenings, after Lana was tucked up safely in bed, she couldn’t stop crying. She had spiraled. Hell, she was probably still spiraling, but desperation to hide her heartbreak from Lana made her stronger somehow. Still, she missed the way he smelled. The crisp spiciness of his shaving cream in the mornings, the clean scent of his skin, the piney woods, and always, always, the smell of animal, subtle, delicious and alluring and burned into her memory so completely it visited her dreams.
In her weakest moments, she’d pull out pictures of them together and fold them until the background was limited. The picture didn’t need filler when he was there, smiling or looking at the camera lens with the intensity she’d come to love. And his eyes, golden and burning when they fell on her, thickened her throat until it was impossible to breathe any time she imagined him.
She pulled the truck into park and inhaled, long and slow. The ache in her bones had been humming for two days, and the anticipation of the pain of turning had her hands shaking. Sometimes, she wished he’d never come back for her. That he’d never found her again and that she was still naïve of the existence of the supernatural.
She wouldn’t have known love, the real, consuming, burning-like-the-sun-above kind of love, but she would be safe, and human, and Lana wouldn’t be waving at a werewolf out the window and chanting, “Rissa, Rissa.”
And more importantly than all of it, she wouldn’t have these memories of Grey to torture her.
Rachel waved from the porch swing and Morgan pushed the driver’s side door open. A paperback hung from her friend’s hand as she stood and waited by the stairs.
“I thought you’d be here earlier,” Rachel said in a conversational tone.
“Yeah, I got a rush order and had to design and print and then mail it before I came out.”
A knowing smile spread across Rachel’s pretty features. “Your bones are singing, aren’t they?”
She lifted Lana down from her car seat with a grunt. “Is it that obvious?” Marissa had disappeared into the woods and she scanned the yard for any other wolves.
“He’s not here.”
“That’s for the best,” she said, stifling the sting of dashed anticipation.
“He doesn’t come around anymore,” Rachel offered.
It wasn’t any of her business. Not at all, but any tidbit of information was too tempting to ignore. “Why not?”
Rachel shrugged. “He won’t talk to me or even Wade. He calls Dean from time to time but keeps his reasons close to him.” She inhaled and looked at the rafters of her beloved front porch. “Maybe this place just isn’t home to him anymore.”
Morgan had been wrong. Information about him didn’t help at all. Instead, it cut her more deeply. “I don’t want to know any more. Please, at least until I’m stronger, don’t bring him up.”
Rachel’s dark eyes were soft and sad, and she nodded her head in a way that said she understood. Dipping down, she caught Lana as the little girl topped the stairs. “I’ve got some fun stuff planned for you today.”
“Like what?” Lana asked excitedly.
“I just realized I bought way too much glitter at the hobby store to ever use myself. And none of the grumpy boys around here will help me, so I thought maybe you could use some of it for me.” Rachel gave a small wave and led Lana inside by the hand as she continued to chatter about artwork they would also make out of fruit and then eat afterward.
Jeez, Rachel was going to brave glitter around Lana? The woman was basically a saint. Hopefully, she had a good vacuum cleaner.
The yard was empty as she rounded the corner of the house and ambled for Grey’s old favorite changing place. He’d never showed it to her, but she had smelled him behind the brush on the edge of the sod for a couple of weeks until his scent had disappeared. It had been devastating the day she’d come and all traces of him had been gone. Still, she changed there because it gave her some sense of comfort that he’d been there. Sometimes, she pretended he was kneeling beside her when the pain was so unbearable she thought surely she’d die alone there, just beyond the shade of the forest canopy.
Modestly, she glanced around the yard again before removing her clothing. Sure, nudity was as commonplace as clothing for wolves, but she hadn’t eased into that part of her new life quite yet. She took comfort in the knowledge that Marissa and Rachel seemed to be more chaste than the others as well. On several occasions, Logan, Brent and Jason had strutted around the premises with their tender bits dangling freely in the breeze and cocky smiles on their faces, daring her to stare. The men looked like they all belonged on some sexy magazine cover, making this entire mess all the more intimidating. She swore they either did it on purpose to make her uncomfortable, or to desensitize her to chiseled, Adonis-like bodies completely. Stupid, sexy werewolves.
At least Grey wasn’t around, flaunting his tight abs and perfect arms and those little indentions that ran down his hips into the waistband of his sweats that she wanted to trace with her fingernail. Grey naked would be too much. The one small mercy was that they’d decided to wait on sex. At least he hadn’t claimed her completely before she’d run for the hills. Their bond was strong, b
ut if she’d slept with him, she probably wouldn’t have had the strength to leave when she needed to. She’d made that decision for sweet reasons, wanting to make their wedding night special, and now that missed opportunity for intimacy with him was what made this horrible separation survivable.
She was stalling.
“Come on, Morgan. You can do this,” she muttered as she lowered herself to all fours.
The first ripple of pain washed over her skin and it prickled like a thousand needles against her flesh. Grinding and crunching, she fought to ease the nausea that always accompanied the sounds of her body breaking. Falling against the dry grass, she screamed as pain ripped through her muscles. Popping sounded as her spine reshaped and tears ran the corners of her eyes, burning like lava against her sensitive, stretching skin. Minutes passed like hours as the pain pushed on and on. In the last moments of transition, the cursed white fur of the silver wolf covered her naked body, protecting it from the harsh and bitter cold.
The grass beneath her body was damp with blood from her Change taking so long, and she dragged herself upright. Shooting aches died down as she stretched her legs and splayed each paw.
Marissa sat on the edge of the woods, watching her. Her head was cocked to the side and her tongue was lolled out to the side in a wolfish grin. If Morgan had been human, she would’ve been mortified at someone else seeing her in such a vulnerable state. As it were, her wolf didn’t care so much about such trivial things. Shaking out the last of the tingles, she bounded after Marissa.
The girl was her favorite wolf to run with. She was submissive, with an easy, laidback personality. She didn’t play rough like the boys, and even if she and Marissa played at fighting, neither one of them ever drew blood. Playing with the boys was like playing with a wood chipper.
