Silver Wolf Clan (7 page)

His muscles quivered under her hand but it likely had nothing to do with the cool rain. He opened his eyes slowly and the brilliance of the golden color pooled there was almost too dazzling to look directly at. Like staring at the sun. No one would mistake those for human eyes.

If she’d had any doubt before about the brand of monster he’d become, those liquid amber eyes put them to rest. He pulled his hood back and the chin-length dark blond hair from her memory fell forward into his face. She moved a strand to the side. He’d lost weight in the past year. He hadn’t had an ounce to lose in the first place, but it looked as if he’d struggled to stay healthy. His eyebrows, just a shade darker than his hair, were furrowed but he let her drink him in. He was playing fair. For all she knew, he’d been watching her the entire year. It was her turn now.

His nose was straight and his jaw line masculine. From the brief moments she’d known him out in those woods, she’d seen how intoxicating he was. He’d been a fearless warrior bent on that murdering wolf’s destruction, no matter the cost. Here, in the dirty alley under the relentless clouds, with those glorious feral eyes and a snarl in his chest, Greyson Crawford was utterly consuming.

Softly, she said, “You’re beautiful.”

His shaky whisper tore at her. “I’m a monster.”

“You aren’t. I thought…I hoped that this is what happened. I was afraid you died. When the police searched the woods, do you know what they found?” she asked. “They found a man’s body. He died of knife wounds. Your knife wounds. I know what I saw. He was a wolf, but he turned into a man to die. He bit you, and I thought you died trying to protect us. Like Marianna did.”

She pulled away, and he released her. Gooseflesh rippled across her skin at the absence of his touch, and she frowned. She’d have to get ahold of herself. She barely knew the man and already his effect on her was alarming.

His hands hung open at his sides, as if he didn’t know what to do with them now they were empty. “How’s your kid? Is she okay?”

She gave him a ghost of a smile. “Lana was Marianna’s daughter. My niece. She’s fine, thanks to you.” She crossed her arms over the soaking white shirt and looked around for anything to block the rain. “Do you have a place around here we could dry off?”

Without a word, he took her hand and pulled her down the sidewalk the direction from which he’d come. Her hand was so small nestled in his, and though bold and out of line, she intertwined her fingers with his to better feel the warmth of his skin against hers. He didn’t pull away or look at her oddly so she pursed her lips against a victorious smile. She’d never felt so connected to anyone she’d ever met, and her heart had latched onto a haunter of children’s nightmares. What did that say about her?

Rain poured relentlessly and their shoes made splashing sounds as they ran. Greyson had long, easy strides and supernatural grace, so her clumsy jog seemed like a peg legged hobble next to his. She stifled a smirk at how mismatched they must look to observers. He was tall and belonged on the cover of some exotic magazine, while she was like a tiny, sopping kitten wearing the wrong lingerie. Maybe she should bolt now, while he still found her alluring.

A dilapidated apartment building that looked to only have two stories and a handful of rooms loomed before them. He held open the door and waited as she shook the excess water from her shoes and clothes and stepped inside. A row of metal mailboxes lined the wall under cracked plaster stairs, and one of the fluorescent lights above them pulsed like it needed replacing. He turned while climbing the stairs in front of her with a worried look. “I don’t have visitors very often, so my place might be a little messy.”

What he considered messy, to her looked spring cleaned. She was no slob, but since Lana had come to live with her, keeping the house tidy was definitely a full time job. His apartment had one main room with a Murphy bed that folded into the wall. A cozy kitchen with a lopsided table, propped to steadiness with a worn paperback book perched under one of the legs, took up the back wall. The space was clean, organized, and simple, but maybe his life required that.

He released his hold on her hand, and staggering disappointment washed over her. She really had to get a grip or she’d send send him running for the hills. Or mountains? Wherever wolves ran away to.

“Here.” A dry pair of comfortable looking clothes lay in his hands. “I can throw yours in the dryer if you want me to.” He pointed her to the bathroom and she thanked him.

The mirror shared the horror of what she looked like, and her heart sank into the puddle forming on the linoleum floor. Her dark hair was plastered to her face like it needed a hug and the black bra screamed happily she was one notch shy of scandalous. At least she hadn’t worn makeup that morning, so no runny mascara, but on the other hand—she hadn’t worn makeup that morning.

Should she let him dry the bra and flop freely around for a while under his shirt, or risk the sopping thing making booby-shaped water stains against his borrowed garment? This was about to get embarrassing.

The door stuck on her way out, and she had to rough it up a little, throw her shoulder against it. It made a sticky-paint sound at her escape. Grey stood before her, half naked and fully delectable-looking. She froze.

He made no move to hurry and cover himself. Dry jeans hung loosely around his waist and the hard muscles of his defined chest delved into the flat planes of his abdomen. The skin covering his arms looked smooth and taut over the defined musculature. She clacked her mouth closed with an audible click, and he graced her with a devilish, crooked smile that nearly melted her into a rain puddle to match the one she’d thoughtfully left on his bathroom floor. Was this what it felt like to spontaneously ovulate?

As he slid a forest green cotton shirt over his head and pulled it down, he covered thin red scars crisscrossing his torso. Perhaps his lover’s marks. The thought of another’s nails on his skin made her stomach queasy. She was being unreasonable. She didn’t have any claim on him so why did the thought of him with another affect her so? “Where did you get your scars?” Her mouth had a mind of its own but the fire in his eyes said he liked it.

“I have a pack, sort of, and we all play rough when we run. The scars will go away. I only got them yesterday, so they’re still fresh.”

Okay, that didn’t answer her question as thoroughly as she’d hoped.

“You look upset,” he said. “What’s wrong? I can stop talking about this stuff. I know it’s a lot to take in, and I’m sorry.”

“No, stop apologizing. I was wondering…well, it’s kind of personal and embarrassing and you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but are there women in your pack? Can girls be werewolves, or just men?” Heat scorched up her neck, landed in her cheeks. He couldn’t seem to take his dancing eyes from what was likely an epic blush. The curse of the pasty skinned.

“There’re three females in our pack. Women can be werewolves, but they’re rare. Three in the Dallas pack is a big deal. Rachel is the mate of the alpha, one is a thirteen-year-old girl named Marissa, and the other is named Alexis.”

“And this Alexis, is she pretty? Does she like you? Did she make those marks on your back?” Oh good grief, she could teach a class in awkward.

“Yes, yes, and no. I don’t let her touch me because I can’t stand her. All of my scars are from roughhousing with the other males of the pack. Alexis makes advances, but my mind has been preoccupied with another girl since I’ve been Turned.”

His directness only made him more attractive, if that were even possible. He took the dripping clothes from her and tossed them into the dryer with his own. She wrapped her arms around herself, and he offered a warm blanket and started two mugs of hot chocolate in the small microwave that took up most of his counter space.

Oceans of questions stretched between them, but she was at a complete loss as to where to start. Should she try and get to know the Grey before he’d become a werewolf, or the Grey after? And out of the trillion questions she had bouncing around, which did she decide to pluck from the muck and go with?

“You hungry?” he asked, pulled out a chair at the small two-person dining table for her and then rummaged through the fridge.

Whoever had been cooking for him knew their way around a kitchen. He’d reheated piles of lasagna, vegetables and garlic bread onto oversized plates. It would take three days to eat that much. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to mind finishing off what she couldn’t, though where the man put that food, she hadn’t a guess.

Throughout lunch, his eyes changed color like a mood ring she’d worn in third grade. They stayed mainly gold but every once in a while, turned the deep ocean blue she remembered from the night she first met him. She became enamored with catching the moment his eyes shifted to that human color, which he didn’t seem to mind. He apparently didn’t see the need to try and excuse his realities away.

“Why do your eyes go to blue, and gold, and back so much?” she asked.

He threw a napkin he’d been using over his empty plate and leaned back in the chair until it squeaked against the abuse. “For whatever reason, I don’t have control over my wolf like most werewolves do. Wolf is a separate personality in there, always pushing for attention, action, chaos, fighting…sex. The gold is him, the blue is me. We should be more as one. Normal werewolves only switch eye color when they’re Changing, or really upset. It’s rare to see a wolf color on a man’s face. I’m a freak, but I won’t ever hurt you. Other people who try to hurt you? I can’t guarantee their safety though,” he said with an apologetic smile.

Oh, she believed him. Not a fiber in her being doubted he would’ve killed her attacker last week. What did it say about her, that she couldn’t really find anything wrong with that?

An alarm clock on the floor by his bed beeped that it was eleven o’clock. Was that the time already? “Lana’s with my mom and I need to go pick her up. I don’t want them worrying about me.”

“Lana lives with you?”

“Yeah, I’m her guardian now. Her dad signed his rights over right after she was born and Marianna put it in her will that I would take care of her baby if anything ever happened. I don’t mind, actually. I love her, and Marianna should be the one here taking care of her, so—” She shrugged away burning tears. “I owe them both.”

His gaze was steady and sincere. “Lana is lucky to have you. Morgan, I know we have things to talk about, and we both have questions. I think we should go to dinner. Would you like to go to dinner with me? We could talk more, and it would give me an excuse to see you before next Tuesday.”

“I knew you were watching me! I felt it but could never find you. How long?”

His smile was unapologetic. “I just found you a few weeks ago. Dinner tomorrow night?”

“Yes, but how about I cook for you? My place around seven? That way I don’t have to find a babysitter for Lana and she can meet the man who saved our lives. Get ready. She loves dogs.”

A chuckle came from him, a rich warm sound. That he could laugh at himself seemed to surprise him as much as her. He jotted down her number and address on the back of a scrap of paper then pulled her clothes from the dryer. As his finger brushed her outstretched palm, he inhaled sharply. She smiled shyly and pulled the clothes away. Her palm tingled where he’d touched it, and a huge urge for honesty willed her into action. If he knew how much a stroke of his skin affected her, he’d bolt for sure. He really didn’t need to learn of her devoted level of obsession with him on their first kind-of date. “I really should get going.”

“I’ll pull my truck around front and give you a ride to yours.”

Dressed and warm again, she ran for the large charcoal gray truck parked out front. Rain battered the windshield and created tiny water explosions against the glass. Water ran in a miniature river down the uneven sidewalk, and she laughed as she splashed through it in newly dry clothes. Of course. His answering smile was mesmerizing.

Leaning over, he pushed the passenger door open when she was close. Remnants of a self-deprecating smile pulled the corners of her lips. Humor swam in his golden gaze. Tiny drops of water clung to the ends of dark tendrils of hair in front of her face, and for a moment, she thought he would tuck them behind her ear. Instead, he dropped his eyes. Disappointment caused her to reach for the safety of his hand. Like a coward, she didn’t look at his face to see if her touch made him uncomfortable. He didn’t flinch away. Good enough.

Scared of how badly she wanted to kiss his lips, she slid from the truck, waved and gave him a smile instead.

Sliding into the cab of her truck, loneliness surrounded her and coolness settled over her skin. As she pulled away, he stayed there, watching her through the window with an unfathomable expression. Long after she’d left, her palm stayed warm from him holding it. No matter what happened next, her life had just improved tenfold, and she hoped against hope he felt the same.

Grey was a nervous wreck. After a morning run didn’t help, he drove to Dean’s house. He’d lain awake the night before, thinking of ways to make himself less dangerous for the first date with Morgan, and a Change would likely do him good. The kiss-and-strangle move with Alexis was something he couldn’t quite shake. Wolf couldn’t be allowed to do the same to Morgan.

Just another reminder he wasn’t in control, and had to be, around her and Lana.

The thought of meeting Lana excited and terrified him in turn. Kids had always reserved a special soft spot in his heart, and he was good with them when he was human, but how would Wolf feel about another man’s offspring? Maybe if he catered to Wolf the first part of the day, the beast within might let him have a good night. So a run and a hunt it was—two out of three of a werewolf’s favorite things.

As he pulled up to Dean’s house, two wolves snarled and fought in the side yard. Dean watched from the porch, arms crossed over his chest, disapproval on his face like it had been etched in stone. One dark gray wolf, and one gold. Why were Logan and Jason fighting? They weren’t play-fighting as the wolves often did, but it wasn’t all out war yet, either. Definitely headed toward serious, though.