Savage Moon: Wolf Shifter Romance (Wild Lake Wolves Book 4) (12 page)

Chapter
Sixteen

We woke in a tangle of bedsheets in Pat’s first
floor bedroom. I barely remembered how we made it up from the barn. The night
was a blur of passion and starlight and I hadn’t wanted it to end. I rested my
head against Alec’s shoulder and laced my fingers through his as he kissed the
top of my head.

“I hadn’t planned it, you know,” he said.

It made me laugh. “Which part?”

“You. This. I figured I’d be a bachelor wolf my
whole life.”

I settled my head back against his chest. I hadn’t
meant to grow pensive, but his words struck me. “I hadn’t planned anything.
God. I never got the chance.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean at nineteen years old, most girls are
heading off to college. Planning their futures. Making their dreams come true.
I’ve just been trying to survive.”

Alec shifted, resting on his side. He smoothed a
lock of my hair away from my forehead and looked at me. “I wish I’d gotten to
you first. Maybe I spent too much time living the bachelor life. It didn’t
occur to me to look for anything else. And I liked it. Pack enforcer. It’s
never easy, but it’s simple.”

“I wish you’d gotten to me first too.” I bit my lip,
hesitating to tell him what Pat told me about my mother. That I was fated to a
wolf. If I’d known that years ago, it might have made things even worse when I
met Kane. Would I have gone against my instincts and let him mark me more than
once? The moment I thought it, I knew the answer was no. Now that I knew what
fated mates truly meant, I could never have mistaken the two.

 As I leaned up to kiss Alec, I knew in my heart it
didn’t matter how I got here. Whether my fate was decided for me before I was
born or not, right here, now, in this space, I felt like I was exactly where I
belonged.

“You’ve never wanted to be an Alpha?”

Alec shrugged. “I never thought about it. Honestly.
Bas is a good leader. A great one, actually. I want you to meet him. Hell, I
want you to meet
all
of the other packs. After everything Kane’s put you
through, it’s a wonder you ever came near me. Jesus, Olivia. You’re the bravest
woman I know. And you’re worried about what other girls are doing? My God, they
can’t hold a candle to you. You’re strong and fierce. Surviving what you have
and loving me anyway. You make me want . . .” His voice trailed off, and he
brought my hand to his lips. A shudder went through me as he kissed me.

“What? What do you want, my love?”

Alec smiled and leaned toward me. He put a gentle
kiss on each of my breasts, sending a shockwave through me and making my sex
throb for him all over again. We’d coupled so many times I’d lost count. And
yet, I knew I could rise to him again with just that single touch or a look in
his eye.

“You make me want to be worthy of you. And you make
me ashamed.”

“How?”

“I’ve been selfish my whole life. I’ve taken the
easiest path. That doesn’t make brave. It just makes me stubborn.”

It was my turn to smooth a lock of hair from his
eyes. My beautiful wolf. I traced the line the white hair at his forehead made
and smoothed it back over the crown of his head. I watched the gooseflesh rise
on his arm as I did it then leaned over to kiss him.

“What do you want,” he asked. “For you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You can do anything you want. Be anything you want.
As soon as we figure out a way to deal with Kane, I’m going to make sure you
have all of those chances. I swear to God. I swear to
you.
”

I could say what was in my heart. Alec. He filled
me. Blocked out the sun. Made me ache and hunger in ways I never knew possible.
But, I knew what he meant. Between caring for my father, then everything with
Kane, I’d stopped dreaming for myself a long time ago.

“I do want to go to school. And I want to travel.
See the world. But then I want to come back. Michigan is my heart.
Shifters
are my heart. I feel like Kane is just the beginning. What we have here in
Michigan, in Wild Lake, I know it’s not like that in other parts of the world.
It’s not peaceful everywhere. There are a lot more Kanes than I think either of
us know. Shifters who want to take over and ruin what you’ve built. So, I want
to do something that will benefit the packs and the shifters I love. Study
conservation, maybe. Work for the EPA or the forestry service. Maybe the DNR. I
think I’d like that a lot.”

“Then I’ll make it my purpose to help you get
there.”

Warmth flooded through me as Alec kissed me to seal
the deal. But, even as he said the words, something flared in my heart and
quickened my pulse. No sooner had our lips parted than I felt Alec’s body go
rigid.

Something was wrong. Something was coming.

The door flew open and Harold walked in. Alec pulled
the sheet up to cover me, even though Harold couldn’t see.

“What’s going on?” I asked, looking from Alec to
Harold then back again. “Is it Kane?”

“Not yet,” Alec said, hopping out of the bed and to
his feet with agile grace. “But the packs have arrived.”

My heart went into my throat. “Beer court?”

Alec smiled as he slid his jeans over his hips. I
heard the rumble of car engines and tucked the sheet around me as I slid out of
bed and went for the window. Four black SUVs came to a screeching halt in front
of the barn.

“Beer court,” Alec said as he kissed the top of my
head. “Get dressed. We could be in for a long day.”

Chapter
Seventeen

It’s one thing to stand in a room with one
full-blooded Alpha wolf, the call of the shift making his eyes blaze and his
muscles ripple. Standing in a room with three of them? My pheromones went into
overdrive. The air in Pat’s front room grew thick and my knees swayed. She put
a glass of ice water in my hand and shot me a comforting wink.

Alec paced in the middle of the room, his hands
tearing through his hair, making it stand up in peaks and cones. The three
Alphas stood in a semi-circle around him, listening to him plead his . . . or
rather, my . . . case.

I didn’t like how it was going. At all. If I heard
the phrase pack law one more time, I thought I might scream.

I took a sip of the cool water and it helped settle
my nerves considerably. Though, I had a feeling dumping the thing over my head
would have made the most efficient use of it. Alec talked mostly to Bas Lanier,
his Alpha. Tall, like all of them, with broad shoulders and ice blue eyes
almost like Alec’s. But, Bas had a ruddy complexion and streaks of red through
his hair. I’d seen his red wolf charge down the hill first, with the rest of Alec’s
pack—all ten of them—close behind. I felt them now, lining the woods holding
sentry with the other packs. It gave me an odd mixture of relief and new
anxiety. Kane was coming. They readied themselves for a battle.

Bas’s pack was joined by Derek’s. He stood at Bas’s
right leaning against the wall with his arms crossed in front of him. Derek
scared me at first. Handsome and rugged, he had fierce amber eyes and dark
brown hair. But, he had a cruel, jagged scar running through his right brow and
down the side of his cheek. The five members of his pack joined the remaining
nine from Bas’s, forming a circle of threat around the perimeter of Pat’s
property. Bas promised her no one would get through without them knowing it.

Pat’s son Luke stood in the far corner of the room
full of silent menace. The lone wolf of the bunch, Pat told me he’d suffered
mightily under a cruel Alpha like Kane once upon a time. Since then, he’d
shunned pack life but would take up arms with the rest of the packs whenever
they needed him. It made me shudder to think of what was to come.

Luke was the only one to ask me a question directly.
He pushed himself off the wall and squatted down in front of me as I sank into
Pat’s plush couch cushions. I flinched but didn’t pull away when Luke curled
his fingers around the back of my neck and touched the mark for himself.

“I’m sorry that happened to you. You know we don’t
condone it.”

I searched Luke’s shining green eyes. They were
Pat’s eyes, though they flashed fierce and all wolf. Luke had a haunted look
about him. As he smiled and took his hand away, something passed between us. A
shared trauma. I could never hope to understand whatever Luke went through, but
he’d been strong indeed to survive it. He didn’t say the words, but I knew he
meant to tell me that I could survive it too. And I had.

“Thank you. I know that. And thank you for coming.”

Luke nodded and stood up. Pat caught my attention.
She stood in the hallway just over Bas’s shoulder and motioned for me to come
join her. When I looked at Alec, he nodded too. Whatever happened next, it was
purely pack business. I shot him a weak smile and followed Pat back into the
kitchen.

“What do you think they’ll decide?” I asked her as I
took a seat on one of the kitchen stools. Pat leaned down to open the oven
door. She had fried chicken warming and a vat of waffle batter on the counter
ready to pour. She’d told me the wolves would come in hungry and she’d make
enough so they could have seconds and thirds if they wanted it.

“Oh, they’ll do the right thing. Not saying it’s
going to be pretty or easy, but it’ll be right.”

“What’s the right thing?” To me it seemed simple.
Kane was a cancer among the Wild Lake packs. They needed to take him out. But
Pat had hinted that’s not how it would likely work.

She didn’t answer. She just shot me a tight-lipped
smile and went back to stirring her batter. Pat opened her mouth to say
something then clamped it shut when the house shook. Her hanging pots swayed
and clanged together as something pounded against the wall. Not something,
someone. Growls and raised voices vibrated through the floor boards.

Pat shrugged and set her bowl down. “I was afraid of
that.”

“Of what?”

“Alec. He’s not going to like it.”

“Would you please give me a clue what to expect
here? Right now it seems like your son Luke is the only one out there who has a
full grasp of what Kane’s capable of.”

A shadow crossed over her face, and I regretted my
choice of words. But, she shot me another wink and put a hand on my forearm.
“You’re right. That’s why he’s here. But Luke’s not worried about Kane so much.
He’s worried about the members of his pack. He’s been where they are and worse.
He spent a decade under the control of his half-brother, Asher. A tyrant just
like Kane. I almost lost him because of it. But it’s also the reason why I
don’t want him anywhere near Kane. He’s put all that behind him and found a
life for himself. This dredges all that bad stuff back up for him.”

“I hate that I’m thinking it. But why can’t the rest
of the packs just kill Kane?”

Pat slid onto the stool next to me and handed me the
batter bowl and mixing spoon while she rubbed the swollen joints in her
fingers. I started stirring, instantly grateful for the task. I realized in the
seventy-odd years Pat had dealt with pack drama, cooking and baking must have
been a very effective coping mechanism.

“Well, like I told you, taking out an Alpha is one
prickly little problem. It comes with responsibility. You break the pack, you
buy it. Know what I mean? And Kane’s got those boys locked down. Luke says he
probably went full
Tyrannous Alpha
when you left so they wouldn’t break
ranks. So, whoever goes after Kane is probably going to have to go through them
first.”

I swallowed hard. “And they’ll fight to the death to
protect him. That’s what you’re saying. There might be no good way to take Kane
out without killing the pack with him.”

Pat nodded. “I know maybe it’s hard for you to see
it after what you’ve been through, but there are some good hearts in that
pack.”

“I know. Cole and Christian. Daniel too, I think.
They’ve been kind to me when they could.”

The Wild Lake packs’ dilemma crystallized in my mind
and turned my heart inside out. It was between Kane’s pack and me. The rest of
the packs could gang up and outnumber Kane’s pack, but they wouldn’t all
survive. Cole, Christian, and Daniel would surely die. Suddenly, I didn’t like
my odds. The lives of at least three Wild Lake wolves against just me.

“And even if somebody
does
manage to kill
Kane without taking out the whole pack, then they’ll need an Alpha. If it were
only one or two wolves, that would be one thing. But trying to assimilate five
wolves into an existing pack? That’s a nightmare.”

“God,” I set the bowl down and rested my forehead on
my arms. “It’s so much easier with bears.”

Pat let out a soft chuckle. “Maybe. Except I think
bears are even more stubborn than wolves are. They never compromise because
they rarely ever have to.”

“And Kane’s got leverage over my father. So if it
comes to a fight, he may have the bears protecting him along with the pack.
God. Pat, it’ll be a bloodbath.”

Pat squeezed her eyes shut and tried to force a
smile. “Well, if we’re lucky, maybe Caleb and the rest of them will stay out of
it for just a little while longer.”

More wall thumping and growls from the other room.
My pulse quickened as the loudest growl came from Alec.

Pat shrugged. “I think they might be coming to a
compromise.”

“What? How can you tell? They sound like they’re
about to rip each other’s throats out.”

“Oh, I expect that’s going to get worse before it
gets better.”

“Ugh. Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. Quick,
throw salt behind your shoulder or spit three times. We can’t handle worse,
Pat.”

The ground shook beneath our feet and the windows
rattled. I put a hand up to stop one of the copper pots from swinging right off
the hook. Pat’s eyes widened and she mouthed an obscenity I won’t repeat.

My pulse quickened, and it felt like my heart was
about to erupt from my chest. My mark flared to life. Somebody had shifted. A
howl rose loud and piercing. I covered my ears. Derek’s gray wolf tore through
the kitchen, knocking plates and papers off the counters as he crashed through
the back door. Someone went out the front. Then, Alec burst into the kitchen,
eyes blazing.

“Patsy!” Harold bellowed from upstairs then came
stumbling down the steps, holding two shotguns by the barrels. He tossed one to
Pat. She caught it neatly and turned to me.

“Too late,” she said. “I think worse just showed up
on my doorstep.”