“Kendrick tells me that a wolf-shifter can only be impregnated by her mate.” Claudius rolled his eyes. “This seemed to be true with your sister. Didn’t the human doctors tell her she was infertile? Now two babies in three years. But I think that is the stuff of fairy tales. I can smell how fertile you are. Marcus, get the girl with child.”
Claudius stepped backwards to the other and crossed his arms across his chest, amusement on his face.
Summer shook, not with terror but with fury. “You’re a sick pervert.” He raised one eyebrow. “I am many things.”
Marcus shuffled forward and Summer knew she was left with no choice but to shift. The other wolves would devour her, but at least she would die without being raped. She closed her eyes to call the shift.
A roar filled the room and Summer’s eyes flew open. A large grey and black wolf crashed into Marcus’ body. The force of the impact slammed both the wolf and Marcus into the wall behind them. Marcus screamed, but only for a moment, as the wolf tore his throat to pieces.
Finished, the wolf turned around. The remaining fourteen feral wolves growled at him and moved into offensive stances, ready to attack. Ten wolves tore through the living room door and pounced on the crazed grey wolves. Claudius shouted something, but Summer couldn’t make it out over all the noise. He ran towards the open doorway, five wolves retreating with him.
Summer’s eyes widened. No way would she let the man responsible for her parents’ murder out of the room. She leapt up and threw herself onto Claudius. He swung around, her head connected with his portly elbow, and she fell to the floor. Stars formed in her eyes but she didn’t stop her assault. On the floor, she grabbed his leg and held on tight.
Shift?
If she shifted now, she would lose her hold on Claudius. No. She just needed to hold on, to keep him from leaving.
One of Claudius’ five attack wolves jumped on top of her, biting her arm hard. She screamed in pain as the wolf tried to pull the skin off of her body. She let go of Claudius, who took that opportunity to kick her in the head.
Amidst terrifying growls, the black and grey wolf suddenly circled close to her. He latched onto the neck of her attacker and dropped to the floor, gravity take them both to the ground. She grabbed her arm and it throbbed under fingers. Blood oozed from the wound letting Summer know how close the deranged wolf had been to achieving its goal. For one moment the black and grey wolf lifted its eyes to meet her gaze. She swallowed at the intensity she saw in them. Anger and hatred were there, that was for sure, but they weren’t directed at her. The emotion she saw momentarily visible in the wolf’s eyes was longing. She wanted to cry from the sheer intensity of it but then the wolf dropped his gaze to destroy the wolf that bit her. Fur and blood flew everywhere, coating the already damaged furniture.
Cullen. Her savior was Cullen.
Mate.
Cullen. She looked up to meet his stare. His wolf eyes solid, strong brown—different from his human blue ones. She was safe. Her mind whirled back to three years before when she’d heard his voice downstairs from her bedroom. He’d argued with her mother, she hadn’t been able to make out his words, and then he’d gone. She’d heard nothing from him since.
Now he had returned.
Summer had a moment to register that Claudius escaped the room before nausea took over and she vomited all over herself. Her head spun, her pulse pounded in her ears. She
couldn’t seem to stop the nausea.
She leaned over to wretch again. Strong arms pulled her hair back from her head and rubbed her back.
Cullen. Her wolf sighed. Shift now?
Summer shook her head; she was too sick to shift.
“It’s okay, Summer, I’ve got you. This is almost over.” Cullen’s voice sounded strained. She realized this was the first time he’d ever spoken to her personally. She looked around the room. The remainder of the wolves had either fled or were being destroyed by the pack wolves who had arrived with Cullen.
She vomited again, officially destroying her mother’s favorite Persian rug. It wasn’t okay. Nothing would ever be okay again.
Around her, the growls of wolves filled the room like a B-movie soundtrack and once again the scent of death filled her nose. Another wave of nausea hit her.
“Come on, let’s go.” Cullen picked her up like she was a baby and strode from the room. She saw her mother’s yellow walls covered in the death smell she knew should be impossible to see and yet she recognized it crawling all over the paint like worms. Her stomach was empty, but it churned violently. Dumbbells collided in her head over and over.
This time she blacked out from the pain.
2
Cullen held Summer’s unconscious figure tightly in his arms as he waited for the others to return to Westervelt’s private plane. It was his first time on the plane so it had taken him ten minutes of just searching through the damn thing to figure out how to dim the cabin lights. If she woke up to the glare of the standard fluorescents, it could worsen the concussion he was sure she’d received from the kick Claudius delivered to her head. Fury rose in his stomach at the memory. If he’d reacted just two seconds faster, the man would never have made contact with her. He closed his eyes for a moment to calm down. Revenge would come, even if it was served cold.
He held her head in his lap as her body lay across two seats, stoking her blonde hair while trying to ignore how foul she smelled. What did it say about him that he was still obsessed with her while she lay covered in blood, vomit, wolf-drool, and other disgusting substances he refused to let his nose examine too closely?
She moaned, and Cullen’s stomach rolled. Where the hell was the rest of team? If he’d been with them, the job would already be done. But he hadn’t wanted Summer to wake up to the sight of the pack removing her parents’ dead bodies, so he’d opted to bring her back to the plane instead.
Patience was not one of his virtues. He had used it up giving Summer space. He’d lived three hundred years in a blink of the eye, but the last three felt like an eternity.
The door to the cabin opened and his pack-mates entered. Azriel, who’d gotten his pilot’s license to fly the deathtrap they travelled in, entered first. He saluted with a grin on his face, and Cullen had to suppress the growl that wanted to explode from his chest. He would never understand how the Royal Six acted so perpetually jovial. Didn’t they understand that their way of life and perhaps their very existence was at risk?
Only Tristan, their Alpha—a strange fact for Cullen since he remembered when Tristan’s father had won his Alpha challenge—behaved as if he understood the severity of the times they lived in.
Summer moaned again, bringing Cullen’s attention to her. Her features, so dainty and perfectly carved, appeared strained. She furrowed her brow and Cullen ran his finger over the skin to smooth it out. She relaxed under his touch. Surprise coursed through him. He admitted to himself he didn’t have a clue how to handle—let alone woo—his young mate. He’d promised her mother he would leave her alone for five years so she could have time to grow up from the young twenty she had been when they had first glimpsed each other and felt the mating bond. That was three years ago. Did he have to keep his word now that her mother was gone?
“I brought the extra clothes you wanted for her. Everything but her…ah…female undergarments.”
Cullen looked up. Gabriel Kane stood in front of him. He reached out and took the bag Gabriel offered him. He opened it and looked inside. Two pairs of shorts, two tee- shirts, white socks, and a pair of sneakers. Cullen exhaled loudly.
“Prince Gabriel, did you select these clothes for my mate yourself?”
Gabriel nodded. “Yes, that’s why I didn’t bring any underwear, I didn’t think you would want me handling your mate’s…intimate attire.”
Cullen forcibly held back his temper. The man was a royal, and Gabriel had done him a favor, but why on earth did he have to put up with this level of incompetence? “Then perhaps you can explain to me, your h
ighness, why you picked out clothing that would be appropriate for say, oh, a weekend playing tennis in the summer when it is twenty-two degrees outside in the middle of winter?”
Gabriel looked down at the bag and then back at Cullen, his eyes huge. Damn, he’d gone too far again. He watched the prince, who looked exactly his age but was lifetimes younger, as he took a deep breath. When he held Cullen’s gaze, it wasn’t anger Cullen saw in them, but hurt. He wasn’t sure how to handle that emotion.
“I’m sorry, Cullen, I’d be happy to go back to the Morrison house and get clothes that would be more appropriate for your mate.” Gabriel held his voice steady. Cullen was impressed with the effort.
“There’s no need for that, I’m sure her sister will provide clothes she can wear when we return home.”
Gabriel nodded, relief evident on his face, but quickly replaced by a look of confusion. “Why? Why did Father order the Morrisons dead?”
Cullen shut his eyes and leaned his head against the back of the leather seat. Everyone wanted him to have answers, solutions to defeating their former Alpha, when he had long since ceased to have any. “It was always a matter of time, I suppose. Once our Alpha’s mate brought her father to IPAG, Victoria and Scott Morrison became part of the game. They were in play.”
He could remember that day vividly. They’d gone in search of a cure for Tristan’s, their current Alpha, psychosis. It had been the same delusions that caused nearly two thirds of their pack to kill their own mates thirty years earlier. This had led to mass suicides. Cullen closed his eyes at the image of his friends—dead, grief still evident in their eyes—strewn over the horizon of Westervelt. Although it had worked, the plan had been hastily put together and they were now looking at the long term results.
“We gave them far too many years without challenge. Thirty years to sit down in Mexico and plan and plot. Ashlee’s plan had better work better this time.”
Cullen nodded. He had very little confidence in the contorted plan their Alpha’s wife had come up with. It required a lot of building construction, a lot of time, and a lot of money. Building supplies and money they had in abundance. Time had just run out. But at least she’d planned.
“We’ll leave you alone with your mate. This door,” Gabriel crossed and pulled a sliding door out of a compartment Cullen hadn’t noticed, “slides shut.” Gabriel demonstrated how the door opened and closed several times as if once hadn’t been enough.
He could have argued with Gabriel’s logic. There was no need for privacy between them, but the truth was he could use a little distance between himself and the others. Too much time in the company of his pack made him feel overwhelmed with responsibilities. There was still so much to do, training-wise, to get them ready and now he had his mate to consider.
Gabriel turned to leave again, but Cullen stopped him. “You fought well today, Gabriel. You and the others. You were always an exceptional warrior. If your father did anything well, it was training you. And now you’ve done very well passing your knowledge to the others.”
Gabriel nodded, the light back in his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. “Why did he pick me? He made me the warrior, gave me the training, even more so than he did with Tristan who was always the strongest. What did he see in me?” The other shifter’s eyes had started to change to their wolf state.
Cullen sighed. So much for being impressed with Gabriel’s self-control. Visions of Gabriel and his brothers flashed into his mind. Bright young boys who made as much trouble as any pups ever had for the pack. Gabriel’s eyes, ten years old, stared up at him in the darkness of the memories he refused to give room for.
Why do I have to leave, Uncle Cullen? Why would father throw me out? Tears. So many tears, and begging Kendrick to let the boys be young.
He shook his head and steeled his eyes. “I am not your father, Gabriel, nor am I omniscient. I cannot presume to know why or how he made his decisions.”
Gabriel jerked like he’d been struck and turned on his heel, closing the door behind him.
“You certainly know how to clear a room.” Summer’s voice startled Cullen and he almost leapt out of his seat.
She tried to sit up but grabbed her head instead. Cullen eased her head back down onto his lap and stroked her hair again.
“How are you feeling, Summer?” Even saying her name brought waves of pleasure to his body.
“Well, my parents have been butchered. No, I’m sorry, correct that, gutted like fish. The disgusting pig kicked me in the head, and then I threw up all over myself before I passed out. I’d have to say, I’ve been better.”
Mate. Fix our mate.
Cullen blinked twice. He couldn’t remember the last time his wolf had given him a direct order of any kind. Three centuries of sharing a body with someone, even if that other entity was a wolf, and you figured out what the other entity wanted, and did it, without being told.
What?
You heard me, fix her.
I don’t know how to do that. Only females are capable of the medical magics. Then make her more comfortable.
How do I do that?
Cullen’s wolf sighed in frustration. Ask her if she needs anything.
“Is there anything I can get you? Would you like me to dim the lights, or maybe some water?”
Summer moved her head slightly and she winced. “No, I think I just want to lay here and not move.” She raised her eyes to look at him, and Cullen thought he saw color rise on her cheeks. “Unless you’d like me off your lap.” She started to sit up.
“No.” He pushed her head down gently. Not only did Cullen not want Summer to move for her own comfort, he really liked her where she was.
She settled against him. “Are we on an airplane?” “Yes.”
“And? Let’s try to have a conversation, okay?”
Cullen’s chest tightened when she smiled up at him. “Tristan bought the plane for the pack’s use about a year ago. We’re getting ready to take off from somewhere called Teteboro airport.”
Summer nodded and groaned. “Okay, I’m going to have to lay off the movements now. Will there be a doctor up there in Maine—I assume we’re going to Maine—who can look at my head?”
“Ashlee will treat you.”
“Ashlee?” Cullen winced at Summer’s shout. “She’s a healer.”
“Oh, I forgot. She’s some sort of supreme baby-making, mystical person who becomes a wolf and leads the pack.”
“Regardless, she is your Alpha’s mate.” He wasn’t really sure how to respond to that. He was afraid he was about to step into some waters he would not be able to carefully tread out of. “I’m sure when you practice, you’ll have your own set of magical powers— we all do. Your mother was quite capable, and although Ashlee had a big power boost from Tristan’s aunts, you are sure to have your own unique abilities. Give it time.”
Cullen watched in horror as Summer’s eyes filled with tears. One slipped down her cheek before she blinked the others away.
“What makes you think I want any? I do just fine with my plain old human abilities. Someone once told me when they heard me sing it was like listening to the angels. Not that I’ll ever be doing that again. I think it’s safe to say all the song has left my soul.” Her voice shook, and then she closed her eyes in an apparent end to the conversation.
There had to be a way to reason himself out of his current situation with Summer. “Then don’t become a wolf. You can stay here and attempt to piece your life together by yourself.”
A silent sob shook Summer’s body. She moaned and grabbed her forehead with her right hand. She squeezed her left hand into a fist and tucked it under her chest.
His heart sank. “I seem to be saying all the wrong things to you right now.”
Cullen stared down at Summer’s picturesque face. This was the only conversation they had ever had together so of course he would screw it up. Her blonde hair was somehow more glorious than her mother’s was at the same age. This strange
fact had to be because of the way it seemed to glow. When he had first seen her, in the daytime, it
had looked like the sunlight itself had painted her blonde hair with its very hand until she radiated the rays. Given he had been about to sacrifice his life in Tristan’s Alpha challenge, it was amazing he’d managed coherent thought at all. Now in the faint light of evening, Summer’s hair held an aura of silver. It sparkled like the finest cut diamond.
All of this enhanced her blue eyes, aquamarine in truth, a shade of which he had never seen before. Her nose, small and perfectly upturned, sat between two high cheekbones, with a splash of freckles danced over its skin.
Summer sniffed. “Isn’t there something you’d like to say to me, Cullen?” Oh no, what was it he was supposed to say?
Say sorry.
There went his wolf again, but maybe the canine had the right idea.
“I’m sorry I’ve upset you or in some way said something inadvertent to make you upset on this day, of all days, when you’ve just lost your parents.” The words of sympathy and apology clogged his throat and came out as if rusty with disuse.
Cullen usually spoke as little as possible. He found silence to be prudent given he tended to be offensive and rough. Keeping quiet made fewer people upset. He had hoped that with Summer, he might have some sort of connection which prevented him from being so provocative. Obviously, that wasn’t the case.
Would he have to spend the rest of his life being quiet? If it would keep Summer from being upset, he would do that. The thought shocked him as much as his stilted apology.
“Thank you, Cullen, but that’s not what I was talking about.” Summer groaned. “I want to sit up, help me.”
Cullen did as she asked, being particularly careful with her head. She kept her eyes closed during the ordeal. Once she was upright, he leaned her head back against the seat. He immediately missed the warmth of her body against his.
Recognizing the irony, the man of silence couldn’t stand that very event between them. He finally spoke. “Then what would you like me to tell you?” Cullen refused to play feminine mind games with her. Being mated with a woman didn’t necessarily mean that mate came with unlimited patience.