Summit of the Wolf (13 page)

“He’s probably fighting right now.”

“We’ll be right back,” she told him, then wiped her puffy eyes on the sleeve of her hoodie and followed Rachel out the door.

She walked in on his fourth fight. Sarah and Marissa waved them over to the side where they had commandeered a group of chairs. By the time they were sitting comfortably, Grey had finished his opponent off. He jumped and shifted his weight from side to side, and then hit the air in a flurry of blurred motion to stay warm and loose. He was mesmerizing. His scars stood out against skin stretched taught against a firmly muscled torso, stomach, and arms. A beautiful death-bringer.

“He’s killing it,” Sarah whispered excitedly.

His nostrils flared, and he turned his head. His gaze collided with hers like two meteors. She waved and smiled weakly. He cocked his head to the side. Come closer. Slowly, she approached him. He smelled of adrenaline, and his skin was slick with sweat and blood. If the big grin on his face was any indication, Wolf was utterly in his element. His hand snaked gently around her waist, and he kissed her. The blood on his lips tasted dangerous, and the contrast of his unshaven face against hers was arousing.

“I had a reason for what I did,” he said into her ear. “Everything I do is for you, Morgan.”

The deep rumble of his voice against her earlobe sent a shiver through her. “We’ll talk about this later. I’m not going anywhere.”

He nodded and kissed her hands before she left to go find her seat again. It would hold until they could get back home.

The next fights were a blur. Marissa rushed to see who was fighting next and let Morgan know that a number of the wolves who had signed up had backed out after Grey’s first few fights. He was so graceful and fluid when he fought. He had a raw power and strength about him few others could match. A couple of his fights were closer than others, but he won them all. Summit crowned its new champion.

He didn’t stay to gloat or do a victory lap or anything like that. He was humble and quiet, and his eyes scanned the room for her. Morgan made her way through the crowd and met up with him just as someone handed him a towel to wipe the blood off his face and chest. He had flung his dark gray T-shirt carelessly over his shoulder, and he draped his arm around her as they searched for Marissa. No one had signed up for a girl’s strength challenge, so everyone filed toward the doors that led back to the cabins.

“I challenge Silver Wolf.”

How amazing what those four little words did to her and her wolf. The crowd stopped their escape and shuffled around in confusion. Alexis stood on a chair that leaned against a pillar in the very middle of the room. Her arms were crossed, and irritating smugness etched into the cocky curve of her lips and the high arch of her brows.

Morgan offered her a vacant smile and said, “No thanks,” as chipper as she could muster.

“Chicken.”

“Tastes delicious, but last time I checked, I was all wolf.”

The masses parted as Alexis jumped off her chair and closed the short distance between them. She slapped Morgan hard across her face. Morgan froze. She tasted the iron of her bloody lip. Oh, for shit’s sake, she hated it when people fought with rings on.

“Oh, Alexis. You stupid, stupid girl,” Marissa murmured.

A smug smile tugged at the edges of Grey’s lips, and he nodded. “Give them room,” he demanded quietly. He leaned against a table and crossed his arms.
Entertain me
, his stance suggested.

Morgan slid a hard gaze to Alexis. “Accepted.”

Alexis swung before she had even finished the word, but she was too quick and ducked. She stood, and using the force of her body’s forward motion, she gave a diagonal kick to Alexis’s shin that snapped it in half. Before the pain had even registered, Morgan punched her so hard in the face her head snapped back like a dashboard bobble-head. She instantly caught Alexis by the throat with her other hand and lifted her off her feet. She’d make her scream for all she had done. She walked Alexis to the pillar in the middle of the room and smacked her against it. Raking her cold gaze slowly up and down Alexis’s strained face, she smiled a bloody smile.

“Morgan?” Alexis whimpered.

“Morgan’s not here.” An unrecognizable voice growled out of Morgan’s lips, shocking even her that her wolf was so close to the surface. “I should kill you for all of the pain you have caused us.” She cocked her head to the side, weighing her options. “You tried to kill me. You told the others about me. You put my family and friends in danger, and then blamed Brandon’s death on me. And after every horrible thing you did, you swayed that meeting to try and ruin any life I managed to put together despite your efforts to ruin me.”

Morgan let go of her neck, and Alexis fell hard on her bad leg and landed with a thud on the floor. The sound of her pain-filled gasp tasted like hot cocoa for the soul. The instant Alexis’s body touched cement, Morgan sat on top of her. The cruel woman’s arms were pinned under Morgan’s legs lest she think about offering a pesky little face slap again.

“All because Grey likes my bunny more than yours?” Morgan lifted a fist slowly in the air so that Alexis could watch it.

“Little wolf,” Grey said almost inaudibly. Had he said it through the bond?

She moved her face so her ear was angled toward Grey.

“You can kill her, but it won’t fix anything.”

“He’s right,” Morgan said. She brought her fist down and Alexis flinched as she stopped it at the last second. Instead, she opened her hand and patted her cheek a couple of times as Alexis emitted a shuttering whimper. “Oh shut your dumpster hole, Alexis. Nobody likes a sore loser,” she whispered, grinning.

Alexis’s face went from fearful to furious. “You don’t even know what is coming for you,” she whispered harshly. “And when the time comes, I hope you remember who arranged your demise.”

The threat was so sincere that a wave of gooseflesh washed across the back of her neck. She stood and straightened her shirt as a bewildered referee declared her Summit’s new female champion. Marissa and Rachel started the clapping, and it slowly picked up steam as the shock wore off the crowd. Grey chuckled as if he couldn’t get a funny joke out of his head. As they filed slowly out of the mess hall, his golden eyes found her time and time again.

“What?” she asked.

“I’m just proud you’re my mate,” Grey said against her ear as he pulled her against his side.

Marissa and Rachel followed close behind as the crowd dissipated to their cabins.

Morgan inhaled a long, steadying breath as her wolf settled again. “I think I need a vacation from vacation,” she said to the unanimous agreement of the others.

Nail biting was never an attractive habit on anyone. That’s what Morgan’s mother, Hannah, had told her growing up. She didn’t care about that now. Her stomach fluttered. Nerves? She put a lead foot down on the gas and hoped Marissa wouldn’t hear her racing heartbeat from the passenger seat where she sat. Lana sat in the back seat of the truck, humming along to the radio, and thankfully oblivious to Morgan’s apprehension.

Her wolf urged her to speed up with the quiet need to be close to her mate. Although life had changed incredibly in the five months since Summit, her connection to Grey hadn’t faltered. Not on her end.

The packs had gone through some growing pains. Dean’s had expanded with the new addition of Levi to the ranks after his three-month trial period. He still had a lot to learn, as most men, werewolves or human, his age did, but he was reliable and proving to be a contributing member of the pack.

Grey had hired him part-time to help with their business, which was threatening to become overwhelming due to the sheer volume of orders for their recipe boxes. Levi and Marissa were both turning out to be worthy apprentices in the woodshop, though they still avoided each other when possible. Sarah had travelled from Michigan to visit as often as she was able to get off work and would be a permanent member soon as well. She and Brent were still going strong, and by months end, she would be transferring to a job in Dallas and going through the pack Initiation Ritual. She had become a fast friend and easy confidant, and she often stayed at the Crawford Cabin when she came to visit. Between Dean and Grey, they would now have the monopoly on the pack with the most females, which Logan still jokingly complained about.

In an utterly shocking announcement, Wade had admitted he was dating a human. He said it was easier navigating that territory after seeing Grey go through it, and he asked for his advice often. Brent and Grey were becoming closer, but at a cost. Brent spent a lot of time at their cabin, and it caused some unwarranted tension between the alphas of the two packs. Despite this strain, Grey had created a gap in the fence between their properties, and full moon hunts were now something the growing packs could do over both pieces of land. Wade’s too, if they felt inclined to hunt farther out.

When they had arrived back at the cabin after Summit, there had been a package waiting for Morgan. It was a belated wedding gift from her mate. Grey had seen how comfortable she was wielding the set of silver blades in the pack war and had ordered a set just like them. He had them engraved to read,
Silver Wolf, may my body provide the protection you need that you may never have cause to use these.
It was written in script down the curve of the large blade, and the pack emblem was etched into the hilt of both in the set. They were perfect. A good man knew the way to his woman’s heart, and he had fortunately caught on early that the way to hers was through gifting weapons.

Frantically, they had been trying for a baby, but months with no results had them panicked and dreading the future. Grey never talked about it. Quite the opposite. He hunched into himself as if he could protect her from his worry. It wasn’t fair to put such a time constraint on something that should happen naturally. Their couplings had become desperate, and lately they hadn’t talked about the need for a child at all because, surely, if they admitted their fears, they would drown in them. Wolf pushed heavily for control, but whether it was from Grey escaping his perceived failures, or from Wolf seeing the necessity to prepare for formal challenges again, she couldn’t be certain. Helplessly watching her mate struggle was a slow journey into hellfire.

Morgan pulled the truck down the long drive to Dean’s house. “Did you do your homework?” she asked Marissa. “You know that is the first thing Rachel is going to ask.”

“I finished everything but a book report, and I’ll have to do that one when I get home.” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Are you feeling alright?”

Morgan calmed her fidgety leg that was pumping in rhythm to the pop song on the radio. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Rein it in. Too shrill. “Why?”

“Because you’ve been acting like a weirdo for the past week.” She leaned deeper into the passenger seat and muttered, “You are making everyone jumpy.”

“I’m just stressed. I’m fine though,” she assured her. She put the truck in park, but a crashing noise sounded from the house. “Are you freaking kidding me? Again?”

She pulled Lana from her car seat and hurried up the front porch. Dean and Grey had been going at it lately. Brent had been over to Grey’s cabin often and was doing a lot of running on his property. Dean’s wolf was doing a damned fine job of convincing Dean that Brent would switch packs eventually, and if he switched, he would take Sarah with him. His wolf was having a hard time with all the loss lately, and it had become terribly obvious that it was taxing on Dean. First with Alexis, and then Marissa and Brandon, he wasn’t handling the thought of losing two more wolves very well. Something sounding very glasslike crashed inside the house, and she threw open the front door.

“That was my grandmother’s vase!” Rachel sounded pissed.

Both Dean and Grey were holding each other’s shirts and yelling. Grey wouldn’t normally give into pointless fighting, but he wasn’t the one running the show anymore. With each failed attempt to conceive, he became more irritated. With everything. Now, he snapped at anything that dared to breathe around him. She understood. How could she not? Through their mated bond, she could feel his constant worry that he’d lose her forever. She could feel his continual struggle not to let Wolf consume him completely.

Rachel threw up her arms in exasperation and took Lana from her arms. “I can’t get them to stop. They won’t listen to me!”

Brent sat at the breakfast bar watching their scuffle with an amused look on his face.

“That is enough. This is getting ridiculous!” Morgan yelled over the shouting.

She advanced on Brent and smacked him in the back of the head before she rounded on Grey and Dean. They were directly in front of him, providing a free show. She was surprised Brent hadn’t busted out the extra-butter popcorn yet. She stuck her fingers in her mouth and gave an ear-splitting whistle. The room of werewolves hunched and held their ears in pain. Such an unkind trick to play on a house full of people with exceptional hearing, but desperate times… Grey and Dean’s eerie, wolf-bright eyes found her.

“Have you even asked Brent what his plans are? Even once?” So she was yelling. She was also past caring.

The locked alpha’s looked to Brent, who gave them a little wave. “And you,” she pointed an accusing finger at Brent. “You should have never let it escalate to this.”

Dean frowned. “What is she talking about? What are your plans?”

Brent sighed dramatically. “Grey is my friend, but it doesn’t mean I would ever want to take orders from him. Ever. Plus, I’m in no hurry to get another brand. As Morgan would say, ‘It hurts like a mother trucker.’ Sorry Dean. You are stuck with me.”

Fury radiated off Dean’s skin, and he smelled more animal than human. “You couldn’t tell me that before? Or at any time during the fifty arguments Grey and I have had?”

Grey cut in. “I tried to tell you that! You worry over nothing.”

“Oh, don’t defend Brent. He could have stopped this at any time.”

“So could you, if you just asked him.”

They were yelling at each other again.