Brand of the Pack (7 page)

She padded down the hallway, past rustic oil paintings of wilderness landscapes that hung on the walls. A grin stretched her face at Grey’s frustrated groan that came from the bedroom behind her. The smell of barbecue wafted through the house, bringing pangs of hunger to her middle. She entered the great room to the noise of easy conversation and dinnerware clinking. Dean hefted a huge pan of brisket into the kitchen while Rachel and Brent talked animatedly to Mom as they set up a buffet style line of side dishes.

“Mom! I didn’t know you were here already,” she said with a hug.

Her green eyes, much like Morgan’s own, lit up over a beatific smile. The light from the rustic chandelier above illuminated a hundred hues of gray in her hair. “Oh yes. I got here a while ago and I’ve been getting to know your new friends. Delightful people, honey.”

Morgan bit her bottom lip. If only she knew she was talking to a bunch of werewolves, she’d crap herself. Mom was more of a cat person.

Grey walked with a soft foot, but she had been listening for him. “Mom, this is Grey. Grey…this is my mom, Hannah.”

Mom turned wide eyes to his chest, and they got wider when she looked up to the full height of her future son-in-law. “Good lord, but they made you a big one.”

He laughed, chin tilted back until the cords of muscle in his throat stretched. His smile was relaxed and genuine when he lowered his gaze back to Mom. “Got my height from my dad’s side, ma’am.”

“Oh, none of that ma’am crap. Call me Hannah, please.” She held out her hand daintily for him to shake in true southern belle fashion. He would realize soon enough Mom was a spitfire with a mouth to match.

True to form, Mom finagled her way into sitting right next to Grey on the front porch. She’d always been admittedly enamored with big men, and they talked easily about how Lana was settling in here. Mom didn’t even seem to mind the sunglasses he wore, though the evening light had waned. Strands of white lights lit up the coming night and tiki torches were posted at every corner, casting glowing shadows across everyone’s faces. The murmur of conversation battled the cicadas that sang their evening song.

Lana crawled into his lap, and he adjusted her onto his leg without losing a step in his conversation. Mom’s face lit up, and Morgan swelled with pride.

“I love that you have taken responsibility for your sister as well, Greyson,” she told him. Her words nearly hummed with approval as they spilled from her smiling lips.

Grey coughed and Morgan leaned forward. “Yes, Marissa is adjusting so well to the new house,” she clarified before he asked
what sister
.

Recovering, he ruffled Marissa’s hair. “She’s a pretty good kid most of the time.”

The kid he spoke of rolled her eyes and stabbed another slab of brisket into her pie hole. “Please. I’m the best little sister you could have ever hoped for.”

The change in Grey was immediate. He was smiling, laughing, and charming one moment, and the next, he looked dangerous with his focus trained on the road. Just that flick of his attention did something awful to her insides. Dread slammed into her as the others turned toward the driveway one by one. Then she heard it as well. A car engine. Morgan couldn’t look away from her mate’s unabridged focus. He was frozen like a sculpture of a battle ready warrior in some lovely garden.

As the conversation stalled, Mom frowned and looked from face to face.

Dean threw Grey a loaded look. Morgan’s heart pounded as Grey slid his hand across her thigh. Time to move.

“Hannah,” Rachel said. “Have you had a tour of the entire house yet?”

She looked baffled but took the bait well enough. “No. I’ve only seen the kitchen and living area.”

“I think I need to take Lana in anyway. The mosquitoes are getting bad,” Morgan said, swatting at an imaginary bug. “They’re eating me alive.”

Brent, the Dallas pack’s most submissive wolf, plucked Lana skillfully out of Grey’s lap and said, “Come on baby girl. Let’s go show grandma what you’ve been drawing.”

Grey nodded his thanks and set his gaze back on the road.

When most had gone back inside, Morgan clenched and unclenched her hands to calm her panic. “This was supposed to be a good night. I just wanted to relax with everyone.” How idiotic that she had started to think it would go off without a hitch.

“It’ll be okay. After tomorrow we won’t have to deal with these anymore.” He squeezed her hand as she stood.

“Come back to me in one piece,” she said, kissing him and squeezing his shoulder as she headed for the front door.

Unable to help herself, she turned before she went inside. She had to see the wolf he would fight.

The man who stepped from the driver’s side of the silver sedan wasn’t anything like Rodrigo. His manner of speech wasn’t formal or polite as the first challenger’s had been. He was huge. Where many wolves were built lean, this man had layers of muscle packed on. An enforcer. His head was shaved, and he wore a tight button-down shirt that accentuated his mass. If he had dressed for intimidation, it worked on her. The lines on his face suggested he never smiled, or if he did, it was only a grimace. Her gaze swung from her tall, lithe fiancé to the bulldog by the car. Three of his pack flanked him, all smaller than their alpha, but all scary in their own right. These men would visit her nightmares.

The challenger’s dark, bottomless eyes found her. “Silver Wolf—”

“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 with 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.