by T. S. Joyce
HOLD STEADY
(BECOMING THE WOLF, BOOK 2)
By T. S. JOYCE
Other Books in this Series
Behind the Beginning (Book 1)
Protect Mine (Book 3)
It Begins with Her (Book 4)
Hold Steady
Copyright © 2014 by Tera Shanley/T. S. Joyce
Copyright © 2014, Tera Shanley/T. S. Joyce
First electronic publication: February 2015 as Black Wolf’s Revenge
Rights reverted back to Author February 10, 2019
T. S. Joyce
www.tsjoyce.com
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Published in the United States of America.
Contents
Other Books in this Series
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Up Next in this Series
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About the Author
Chapter One
Morgan Carter’s dark hair fell forward and she couldn’t quite seem to tear her gaze away from the solitaire Greyson Crawford had slid onto her finger. His hand itched to move the long tresses out of the way so he could see her smile. She moved her left hand slightly from side to side, and the artificial illumination of the chandelier above them pierced the stone and threw tiny rays of colored light.
She had been moving closer to him by inches since the moment she’d said yes to his proposal. Did she even realize she was doing it? She lifted light purple eyes to his face. Her wolf was so near the surface, the faint smell of animal wafted from her soft skin.
She’s ours, Wolf growled triumphantly inside of him.
He gripped the chair and stilled himself. All he wanted to do was kiss her until her knees gave out, but he needed to be a patient hunter. Wolf, the black-hearted animal that dwelled inside of him, scared Morgan sometimes. He scared everyone, but her wolf was especially new and volatile.
Wolf was right though. She was his, and only his now. The chair creaked as he leaned slightly forward and rested his forehead on hers with a sigh. If he could bottle this emotion, he would. How could he ever be happier than he was in this moment?
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered in wide-eyed bewilderment, “but we can’t afford this.”
Between the death of Morgan’s sister, the werewolf attack that had created him, the attempts on Morgan’s life and her captivity, there hadn’t been much time to discuss the trust fund his mother set up for him before she died. “Don’t worry, Morgan. I can afford it. We can afford it.”
“Okay,” she said slowly.
She frowned and opened her mouth to speak, but Rachel, the Dallas pack alpha’s mate, launched herself out of her seat at the dining room table and grabbed Morgan’s hand to examine the ring. “Oh my gosh, it’s stunning,” she whispered.
And then that woman shocked him to his bones. Rachel turned right to him, and hugged him. He clenched his teeth and swallowed a growl. Even if he respected Rachel, Wolf didn’t play well with others. He never would. Just be cool, he encouraged the monster.
“I’m so happy for you,” Rachel said, wiping away a tear that had trickled down her cheek.
The Dallas pack alpha, Dean, stood and clapped him on the back. “Jason,” he ordered. “Go get the good whiskey. We’re making a toast.”
Rachel rolled her eyes heavenward. “Honey, you’re supposed to make a toast with champagne.”
“Not a chance,” the alpha said through a grin. “Champagne taste like sugary butthole with bubbles in it. Hey Crawford,” he said to Grey. “You have your own pack now. How does it feel?”
His own pack. The words settled over him like a warm blanket. Inside his mind, Wolf smiled his approval. It was an evil smile, but whatever. That’s as good as it got with Wolf. Morgan and her niece and ward, Lana, were his to protect. “It couldn’t feel any better than this,” he said shaking his head in wonderment. The last few minutes had changed his life from a slow and grueling hell to something he could have hope in.
Jason, a short and muscular wolf who ranked in the middle of Dean’s pack, poured shot glasses of whiskey and passed them around to the pack, all gathered around the dining table in Dean’s home. Lana crawled into Morgan’s lap and at the opposite end of the table, the shy, young she-wolf, Marissa sat quietly, smiling to herself.
Dean stood at the helm of the table and held his tiny glass of Creek Water in the air. “To a new beginning for two deserving wolves. Grey, you’re lucky she said yes, you scary bastard.”
Morgan hadn’t looked away from him since he’d asked her to marry him, but with the toast, she dragged her gaze back to their friends and lifted her glass. She was so fucking beautiful. He’d never seen her smile like this—the bewildered, bone-deep happy kind.
“Holy shit,” the thickly built tank of a truck, Jason murmured as the room froze, staring at Morgan’s face.
Brent’s roll dropped out of his mouth.
“What?” Morgan asked, looking from shocked face to shocked face.
A low, feral warning rumbled from Grey’s chest. He didn’t like them upsetting her.
“Your eyes,” Brent said, clearing his throat and then continuing. “They are definitely purple.”
She lifted a slow hand to her cheek, her dark eyebrows drawing down. The sound of her heartbeat picked up, tripping to a frantic rhythm. “What do you mean?” She stood so fast the chair behind her screeched loudly against the wooden floor. The hollow sound of her footsteps echoed down the hall as she jogged for the bathroom.
“Son of a motherfuckin’ bagpipe. Grey. Shit! Grey! My face…”
Grey stood to check on her, but she returned fast, so he sat back down on the edge of his seat.
“Okay, so I have purple eyes.” She blasted her hands on her hips and nodded fast. Her eyes were round and shocked. “Everything is fine. It’s all fine. Right? Yes. I’ve seen pretty strange colors in your eyes too. It’s part of what happens when you turn into a werewolf, right?” The last word went an octave higher, and they all winced at the high pitch.
No one spoke.
Grey cleared his throat. “There are some things about your Change that were a surprise.” Her eyebrows arched up nearly to her hairline, so he held his hands out and softened his voice. “A good surprise. You are amazing. Your wolf is amazing. She’s just…you’re
just…”
“Special,” Marissa finished for him.
“I’m special. For a werewolf.”
“What’s a werewolf?” Lana asked loudly
“It’s a big doggy, honey.” Morgan plastered a too-bright smile on her face. “It’s okay. I have purple eyes and dark hair and I look like I belong in an anime cartoon. So okay? It’s not normal to have purple eyes if you are a werewolf? Because being a werewolf is so normal. So, I’m special. Which is code-word for a freak? I’m a freak among werewolves,” she chattered. “Queen of the freaks.” Yep, she was definitely panicking.
Morgan sat heavily in the chair beside him, and Grey squeezed her leg, the one Alexis hadn’t ripped into when she’d turned her. Her eyes were filling with emotion. “You aren’t a freak, Morgan. You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. God, she was so beautiful it hurt not to look at her.
“This is awesome,” Jason spoke up with growing enthusiasm. “She has purple eyes. She has purple freaking eyes.” He directed his excitement at Dean while pointing to Morgan with a fork. “Okay, I know it might be rude, but I have to ask. I just have to. And don’t look at me like that, Brent. Don’t even act like you don’t want to know too. What color are you? I mean, when you are a wolf, what color is your fur?”
“I don’t know.” Her eyes took on a faraway look and she pursed her lips. “White. At least my legs are. I didn’t look in a mirror or anything.”
Jason looked at Grey with a dopey smile. “All right, her legs are white. What color is she?”
Grey sighed and looked to Dean, who shrugged like they were in it now, better dig their way out. “White. She is white like snow.”
The burly enforcer cocked his head and frowned. “Yeah, her legs are white, but what color is the rest of her?”
Grey counted to three and prayed for the patience not to kill everyone who asked too many dumb questions today. “White.”
Weighty silence filled Dean’s dining room as the impossible news settled over them.
“Holy. Shit,” Logan said. “We have a Silver Wolf.” He raised his voice to be heard over the building volume of the others. “There is a motherfuckin’ Silver Wolf in our pack.”
“Language,” Dean warned, tossing a glance to Lana, who was eating a pile of mashed potatoes like she couldn’t care less if her guardian’s eyes were purple, square, or shooting glitter bullets. “She isn’t in our pack, Logan. She’ll be in Grey’s pack when the time comes, but our packs will remain close because she will need extra protection.” Dean raised his voice above the excited chatter of the pack. “Everyone, zip it! I know this is exciting, but we have to keep it to ourselves. No one can know what she is. That’s an order. No one is allowed to talk about Morgan or Lana outside of this pack. Ever. Understood?”
“Uh,” Morgan said quietly as she wrung her hands in her lap, “would someone mind telling me what is going on?”
Rachel set her fork onto her plate with a tiny clink. “You and Grey come on out to the front porch. I think it would be best if this comes from me.”
Morgan cast him a confused look, but all he could do was kiss her lightly on the forehead and follow the two women to the front door.
When they were out on the porch, Rachel and Morgan sat on the swing while Grey pulled his jacket on and leaned on the railing.
“What color are you?” Morgan asked as Rachel pulled a wool blanket from the back of the swing and tucked it over their laps.
“Mostly, I’m gray with lighter tips, legs, and mouth. I have darker gray areas around my ears and in different places in my coat. I look like a typical gray wolf. Nothing special, even though Dean tells me I’m pretty,” she said with a smile in her voice. “Marissa is stunning. She is cream colored on her lower half, but light brown on her head, and it looks like she has a light brown saddle on her back. She is light colored for a wolf, which is unusual, but still in the realm of normal colors.”
The metal of the swing’s chains ground together as the breeze pushed them gently forward. “And your eyes?” Morgan asked. “What color are they?”
Rachel blinked and opened light gray eyes. She blinked again and they were back to her normal soft brown color.
“How did you do that? How did you control it? I tried to make mine go away while I was in the bathroom and couldn’t do it.”
“It is a trick you learn over time. New wolves always have trouble with emotions, and eye color is a big indicator of mood when you are newly turned. When you have more control, you will be able to let your wolf out when you need her, and it will be enough. Grey is getting better about his eyes changing.”
He snorted. “You’re sweet, but that’s a fuckin’ lie.” Every time he looked in a mirror, Wolf’s eyes stared back at him--golden and unnatural. If anything, he was getting worse.
“Well, you are. Sometimes I even see blue in your eyes,” Rachel said reasonably. “Grey is different. His wolf is dominant, even over his human, and it gives him a unique set of obstacles to overcome. You will hopefully have an easier time than he does.”
The light shuffle of fabric sounded as Morgan pulled the blanket more securely over her legs. “How can you tell I will? What is the difference between us?”
“Well, for one, his eyes still shift constantly, back and forth, back and forth. It’s hard to get used to at first. The pack has made a game out of timing how long his eyes stay blue. He is up to a minute, but the second best is only twenty-five seconds that we’ve seen. Yours are staying green until you get worked up. Grey isn’t there yet, and who knows if he ever will be. We don’t know who his maker was either. He told us a little about him. The wolf who attacked Grey must have been rogue, definitely a man-eater. Grey described the size of him to us. It is normal for a werewolf to be larger than regular wolves, but not that much larger. His maker was a Beast, and Grey’s Wolf is also a Beast. They are shifters who are so powerful and dominant, they could be a danger to everyone if they don’t learn to control their animal sides. The wolf who attacked your sister lost control. Maybe he was a weak man, or maybe he was a killer to begin with. Grey, thankfully, has his kind human side to balance him out, but there will always be conflict with a wolf so powerful. You soothe the conflict. He says you are the only thing that works.”
Morgan offered Grey the ghost of a smile and twisted the ring on her finger around and around. “I remember his maker,” Morgan said softly. “I’ll never be able to forget him as long as I live. After Grey was bitten, he ran into the forest before I could even call after him. I grabbed Lana and locked us in the truck. I called the police and when they arrived, they found a man stabbed to death with Grey’s knife. They asked me questions, but I told them I didn’t know anything. You gave everything to save us and they tried to pin that man’s murder on you.”
As much as he tried not to think about that night, it had started everything. The entrance to hell and the light out, all in one. Closing his eyes, he tried to push away the memories of the pain. Before that night, he’d never really known what hurt was. Wolf had shredded him over and over in his attempt to escape his human form. Thoughts of Morgan were what he’d clung to as his mind and body had ripped apart.
“Alexis is terrible,” she said, bitterness tainting her voice. A soft growl rattled through her, and her cheeks turned bright red before she dropped her gaze. “Will I be terrible, too?”
“No,” Rachel told her. She shook her head hard. “You are too good on your insides to turn into Alexis. All she did was put a wolf inside of you. You will control her. Look at me.” When Morgan dragged her eyes to the alpha’s mate, she grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “You will control your wolf,” she repeated.
“Why is my eye color a big deal?”
“It makes you special--one of a kind, as a matter of fact. You heard Logan call you a Silver Wolf, but Silver Wolves haven’t existed for hundreds of years. From the moment you started to Change, Dean knew there was something different about you. White fur is common in the wild, but it doesn’t ex
ist in werewolves, and he knew from your eye color it wasn’t a fluke. He, Grey, and Wade spent hours researching old text, looking for any clues on your history, where you came from, and how to protect you. Even though the Silver Wolf Clan was annihilated by humans and vampires, at least one survived and she is your ancestor. Somehow, the genetics have been passed down through generations of humans to you. You are a Silver Wolf, and possibly a breeder.”
“A breeder?”
“Yes, female wolves are unable to bare children, but there is a distinct possibility that because you are a decedent of the only known breeding werewolves, that you will be able to.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” Her hopeful gaze found his under the halo of porch light. “I mean, it’s okay, right?”
He hesitated before he nodded. How could he tell her the thing that was so enticing would also bring her unimaginable danger? How could he dampen that hope in her eyes? That relief?
Rachel’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You would be the only breeder in our world. The impact you will have on our pack, on all of the packs, on our community and culture will be huge. You could go down in our history as the beginning of the new Silver Wolf Clan, and it is Grey’s job to protect you no matter the cost. Our pack has offered to keep you safe as well—”
Morgan tensed and shook her head. “Wait…” Her shoulders lifted with her quickening breath. “Just wait. You said job. It’s Grey’s job to protect me?”
He didn’t like the way that sounded. He needed to touch her. To hold her. She had been Changed against her will, survived a lethal werewolf attack, realized her entire life would be forever turned upside down, and now she had to deal with the fact that she was this one-of-a-kind breeder wolf. This wasn’t Morgan. She didn’t want to be different or special. She didn’t like attention. Her life was devoted to Lana, to him, and she’d been completely content with a simple existence. She seemed happiest when their life was quiet. Being special wasn’t some blessing to her. That much was clear from the horror etched into every facet of her face. She was just realizing how deep her curse really was.
