Alexis slammed the door. If only it would drown out the sound of the men fighting downstairs. What was Jonathan’s problem anyway? All the Denver alpha had to do was order them to leave her alone. Sure, it would be a temporary fix, but she’d take anything at this point. Things had been better in Dean’s pack. It wasn’t that Jonathan couldn’t lead his wolves with a firmer hand. He just wouldn’t.
She sat on the bed of her new, still-unfamiliar room and puffed air out of her cheeks. She leaned over and pulled a picture of the Dallas pack out of the bottom drawer of her bedside table. It had been taken not long after Grey had been found. Even in the picture, he looked hungry and dangerous. He glared at the camera as if his golden eyes alone would devour it. A delectable shiver zinged up her spine. He was an animal.
In the picture, Brandon, Logan, Jason, and Brent all laughed with their arms draped comfortably around each other’s shoulders. Touch was natural for wolves. Dean leaned against the front porch railing of his house with his arm around Rachel’s waist. Marissa stood further off with her arms crossed and a slight frown across her face. Pathetic child. Wade stood solemnly by Dean, and Grey hovered over the others in the back. The ghost that followed the pack. Never a true member, but the beast that dwelled inside him needed more than puny humans could provide. She had been kicked out of Dean’s pack just as Grey had given her the challenge she had been searching for.
She didn’t care for love’s sappy sentiments, but if ever she had come close, it was with Grey. He was the most dominant creature walking the planet, and a beautiful specimen of a man. And Wolf. Anyone with eyes in their head could see he was the best of them. Ruthless, cunning, violent, remorseless, and then at times, tender and protective around females. Not ever with her of course, but she didn’t mind. She liked him rough. She liked him the way he was meant to be. Demon Wolf.
That’s where Morgan got it wrong. She brought out his weak side, which left him exposed. Her worst decision had been the day she Turned Morgan into a silver wolf instead of killing her. So what if she could bear him a pup? That would only leave him more mouths to feed and more weak little mewling things to protect. More little Morgans.
She flipped the picture back into the nightstand and slammed the door closed. What did he see in her anyway? She was obviously too sweet to be a good werewolf.
Alexis leaned over her dresser and admired her fare hair and crystal blue eyes. It had been a slap in the face the day he picked a woman exactly the opposite of her. Morgan was short and slight with dark hair and green eyes, when they weren’t a raging light purple. Alexis slumped onto the bed and crossed her arms. She looked like some fairy come to life out of a children’s book. Morgan wasn’t dangerous. Not like her.
Grey would figure it out eventually. He would tire of protecting that useless she-wolf and move on. And when he did, Alexis would be there. He would be ready for a strong mate by then.
Her head jerked as her ears picked up the command in Jonathan’s voice. Her hearing was impeccable and could pick up every word. Good. He’d finally grown some balls and told his pack to pipe down. She had already picked a mate. She just had to wait for him to come around. The rest of the men in her new pack could fight to the death for all she cared. They wouldn’t get a single tug on the pants from her.
She narrowed her eyes at the door. Jonathan’s heavy footsteps thudded up the stairs. Her wolf perked up. If it was up to her animal, Jonathan would be her mate. Alexis had more control than that, though.
He opened the door without knocking and slammed it closed behind him. “Why do you feel you have to tease them like that?”
“I’m not teasing them. They will just have to get used to how I am. I’m not changing just because your dopey wolves can’t control themselves.”
“You do tease. Dean said you did it to one of his pack, too.”
“Who, Brandon? That poor sap couldn’t handle me if he tried. Doesn’t mean I didn’t like him looking, though.”
Jonathan wasn’t as tall as Grey, but he was built. He had a straight Grecian nose that said he hadn’t been in enough fights to suit her taste. Or perhaps he’d protected his face. His sandy brown hair was short on the sides but longer on top, hanging attractively in front of his forest-green eyes. At the moment, they were a sparking light gray. His anger brought a warm sensation to the deepest parts of her. He flared his nostrils, and she smiled.
He could smell her arousal if he wanted. She didn’t mind.
“You are doing it again,” he said gruffly. He sat on the end of her bed and turned away from her.
“Yeah, I don’t think you get it. I really don’t care.”
“Look, maybe you don’t understand. My boys haven’t had a female in their pack before. It’s hard enough on them getting their bearings with the new pecking order. They don’t need you screwing with their heads, okay?”
“Still not changing.”
He growled in frustration. “Dammit, Alexis. I’m trying to have a civil conversation with you. There has to be some give and take if this is going to work. Compromise. Everything can’t go your way all of the time.”
“You’re not hearing me,” she said menacingly. “It can go my way, and it will. I was queen in Dean’s pack, and I’ll be queen here, too. Accept it, Jonny boy.”
“You want to be queen? Choose a mate! Allow the bond and stop torturing everyone.”
“I’m not choosing any of your pathetic wolves. There are bigger fish in the ocean.”
“Demon Wolf? Is that who you’re talking about? Cause from what I hear, he didn’t want you back. Or maybe that’s the draw.”
Jonathan’s anger filled the room until she would surely drown. He strode deliberately over to her and pulled her off the bed by the back of her neck until she stood, inches away from his glorious face. In a dangerously low voice, he said, “You want to be queen? Choose me.”
And then he kissed her. It wasn’t tender or apologetic. It was violent like a twister. She bit his lip on principle but wanted more. He drew back, bleeding. A wicked smile hovered just over his lips. “I won’t wait forever.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Yes, you will.”
As he turned to leave, he hesitated. “Dean sent word to the masses. Greyson is claiming Morgan by the end of the week.”
Dread paralyzed her. “Wait! What do you mean?”
Jonathan sighed. “He’s marrying her, allowing the bond, initiating her into his pack as second and claiming her as his mate. The whole nine yards. Your Demon Wolf is off the table.” He shut the door behind him and left her to her torment.
He was claiming her and allowing the bond? Alexis wouldn’t have a chance if that happened. She wouldn’t get her prize, and it would be the first she had been denied in her entire life. The taste was too bitter to swallow.
That stupid skank didn’t know who she was dealing with. She had connections. Dark and dangerous connections from a past even Dean didn’t know about. She had carefully hidden so much from the Dallas pack about the creatures she used to run with. She could easily have Morgan snuffed out of existence. Alexis sat up straighter as her mind raced.
One call and her little problem would be fixed.
One little call and her failure to kill the tramp in the first place would be remedied. She couldn’t do anything from Denver, but a favor from an old acquaintance could change that. She’d created Silver Wolf, and she sure as hell could destroy her.
Oh, she’d figured out what Morgan was fast enough. A white-furred werewolf? She just hadn’t known how to use the information to her advantage—until now.
Someone stood to lose even more than she did with Morgan’s existence. All she had to do was use that to her advantage. It was dangerous dealing with the Dragon again, but if this worked, Morgan’s life would be just a sad smudge of ink in the werewolf history books.
She yanked her cell phone off its charger and stabbed in the number before she could change her mind.
* * * *
“Greyson,” a voice hissed. Not much scared Wolf, but the fine hairs on his arms stood upright at the evil in that voice.
He looked around but there wasn’t enough light to make out where he was, much less who he was speaking to. “Who’s there?”
“The who doesn’t matter. It’s the what you should be concerned with.”
A blinding spotlight shone down on Grey, and he lifted his forearm to shield his eyes. The floor was covered in ancient stone, uneven and crumbling with age. Red stained arches surrounded him in an unending chain but he couldn’t see into the shadows outside the circle of light.
“Okay. What are you then?” His fingers tingled with the urge to Change. He was vulnerable in his paper-thin human skin.
A chuckle, long and deep, trilled around him. It came closer, bouncing around the room as if it came from hundreds of bile-soaked rasps. “You werewolves and your formalities. Fine. You may call me the Dragon. I’ve sought you out as a warning. Claim the silver wolf and you and your newborn family will be slaughtered.”
“Doesn’t sound like a warning. Sounds like a threat.”
“Don’t step on my courtesy, dog. Use it. Run away from Silver Wolf and you will live. Claim her and I will take my time with you.”
Something even darker than the shadows stood on the edge of the light. Grey squinted but couldn’t make out the face.
“Why do you care?”
A long hiss sounded. “Because she and her kind are a threat to my people.”
Grey’s eyes sagged, and his limbs became too heavy to move. He fought to keep his eyes on the veiled figure. As he fell backward, a shadow lurched from the dark, its gleaming white fangs intent on his throat.
Grey sat up in bed, gasping for breath. A dream. It was just a dream. His body ached and sweat soaked his clammy skin. When he looked down at his hands, they were already mid Change. He yelled as the final wave of pain took him.
“Grey!” Dean said as he pounded on the door. “You okay, man? Crap. Don’t attack me!” He opened the door slowly as Grey hunched defensively on his bed. He pulled his lips over his teeth and focused on Dean’s tripping pulse. His eyes were wide and the stink of worry and confusion filled the room.
“Look, boss. We don’t have time for this. We have a meeting with the silversmith and we are already going to be late. This guy doesn’t wait around, and it’s not like we can find another one on short notice. I’m going to shut the door and give you some space to Change. We have to go, though. Grey? Think about Morgan.” The door clicked closed.
Morgan. She would be running wedding errands. For their wedding. He sighed and let go of the bloodlust. Killing his friend wouldn’t fix the dream. He lay on the bed and let the pain wash over him again.
Dean sat on the sprawling leather couch downstairs watching highlights from last night’s basketball game. He looked up as Grey hit the creaky stair. “What the hell man? You said to be over here early and then you wouldn’t let me in. And then when I break in, you’re Changed in your bedroom?”
Grey’s voice was raspy, like he hadn’t used it in a while. Changing back-to-back had taken it out of him. “You broke in?”
“Oh, yeah. You need a new door frame,” Dean said, waving at the front of the house nonchalantly. Property damage was a part of life with a pack of werewolves.
Grey grunted. “You ready? I’ll tell you about it on the way.”
He told the alpha about the dream as they pulled out of the gravel driveway. It wouldn’t help to keep it bottled in.
“The Dragon? Man, that’s just weird. You need to lay off the chili cheese fries before bedtime is what you need to do. What did you eat last night so I know what to stay away from?”
“Deer.”
“Cooked?”
“No, I Changed. Dammit, Dean, why the twenty questions?”
“Because this kind of pressure is a lot! You are being challenged and you don’t even officially have a pack under you. And I know you. Your wolf runs the show and I want to know if you’re okay. Not Wolf. I’m sure he is loving this. But you.”
“I have to Change every day right now. I feel on edge all of the time.”
An old El Camino picked its way slowly up the gravel road toward them. Three witnesses sat comfortably in the back. He narrowed his eyes at the window and cursed softly.
“What?” Dean asked. He followed the direction of his gaze. “Again?”
“I’ve fought a challenger at least once every day this week. Sometimes more.” Grey pulled the truck to a stop. “Can you call the silversmith and ask him to hold on. We’re going to be a little later than we thought.”
Dean pulled out his phone and punched in the number while Grey hopped out of the cab.
A lanky man with tattoos stretching down one arm slid out of the El Camino. “My name is—”
“Yeah, I don’t care,” he growled. “Those your witnesses?”
The werewolf nodded and removed his shirt.
He waited impatiently as the other wolf Changed, and as soon as he was finished, he pushed his own. Good thing he was quick, because the other alpha fought dirty. He jumped him as soon as he started his Change. He wasn’t fast enough, though, and Grey yanked his front leg out from under him and wrapped his jaws around the back scruff of his neck. A bark of surrender echoed through the woods.
Dean clapped slowly from the open window. “Good show,” he said with a sarcastic arch to his eyebrow. “You thought you would fight Demon Wolf when you don’t even have enough dominance to hold a pack? Good decision.”
The wolf limped off with his tail between his leg and Grey pulled his shirt back over his head. He climbed in the truck and pulled the first aid kit from the back seat. Two butterfly bandages across a cut on his neck and he was good to go. Dean watched him in silence.
“What?”
“How many times?”
Grey sighed tiredly. “That’s the fifth.”
“Five times we didn’t know about? Why weren’t you calling for witnesses?”
“I have. Wade has been coming out during the day while the girls are out getting wedding stuff done.”
“Why Wade?” Dean sounded a little stung.
“Because you have to tell Rachel everything. You do! I don’t blame you. It’s part of the bond and all, but she’ll tell Morgan. And right now, I don’t think it’s good for her to be living in fear all of the time.”
“Hm.” He nodded. “Fair enough. Even if I tried not to tell Rachel, she could feel me withholding something. She’d pry it out of me. Morgan can handle this, you know.”
Grey pulled around the car full of somber wolves. “Look, it’s not like I enjoy keeping challenges from her, but when she comes home, she is glowing from all of the wedding planning, and every time I open my mouth to tell her, she just looks so happy. I haven’t seen her so happy since she was Turned. I can’t bring myself to take it away from her. Montana was rough on her. She was scared afterward. I couldn’t even hug her some days, and now she is back to her old self. I can’t just throw more dominant challengers in her face every thirty minutes. I don’t want her living scared that someone will take her away again.”
Dean chuckled. “That she-wolf is going to eat you alive when she finds out. You’ve always trusted her to handle her own battles, or at least handle them with you. That’s why you two have worked. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
“I’ll tell her when the time is right. Here, take a look at this and tell me what you think.”
He handed Dean a folded piece of paper. On it was the pack emblem he had chosen to brand onto Morgan and Marissa’s arm to bind them to him. He and Morgan had researched into the wee hours of the night to find the emblem used in the Silver Wolf Clan. Morgan had been so tired, she had almost missed the page in one of the oldest werewolf lore books. The brand was a circle with flowing lines inside, weaving in delicate arches but never ending. Continuation and rebirth. The brand of a pack of werewolves with the unique ability to reproduce.
All had been white with blue or purple eyes, and all wiped out for their growing numbers. The only time in history when humans and vampires had unknowingly teamed up for the same cause. Grey had poured over sketches to try to find the perfect one for his pack. It was fitting they would use the Silver Wolf Clan emblem because Morgan was the rebirth of the clan, long thought extinct. The Old Ones had removed the circle from pack brands shortly after the annihilation of the breeders, and this would be the first time in hundreds of years that the circle would be reintroduced to an emblem.
Dean studied it and nodded his head slowly. “It’s perfect, man.”
“So why do we have to cut them with a ceremonial knife? Why don’t you guys just get silver brands made up?”
“It’s tradition. This is the way it’s been done for centuries. Plus, you can get a thinner line with the silver knife. It looks better, and you can adjust the size for females. Smaller arms, smaller brands.”
“This guy who makes them, does he know what we are?”
“I’m sure he suspects something, but his family has been making the knives for generations. He knows better than to ask a lot of questions. It’ll cost you a pretty penny but his work is the best. You’ll use this knife on every new pack member you initiate for the rest of your life. So don’t lose it.”