Summer's Wolf Read online

  Summer frowned. Why would he have thought something like that? Most of the plane trip was a blur to Summer. She remembered bits and pieces but she didn’t think she’d given Cullen any reason to assume she didn’t want him around.

  Truthfully, it was Ashlee she would have preferred to be without.

  “What were you even doing there?” So now the inevitable big-sister questions were going to start. “I thought you still weren’t speaking to them.”

  “Mom called and said she wanted to try to begin what she called the healing process.”

  Ashlee snorted. “Sounds like something Mom would say.”

  Summer clenched her fists at Ashlee’s remark. Why did she always have to act like the expert on everything?

  “So, I suppose this was inevitable.”

  Ashlee’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What do you mean?”

  “You brought this on them when you dragged Dad to Mexico and made Tristan’s father aware of all of us.” She hurled the words at her sister with deliberate cruelty.

  As for Ashlee, Summer thought she looked like she’d gone two shades paler.

  “You blame me for this?” A sob escaped Ashlee’s voice and tears spilled onto her cheeks.

  Summer pushed the covers away and stood up. She turned from Ashlee. If her mother were still alive, she would have yelled at Summer for saying such things. She would have been right. But Summer figured she was past the point of being careful of Ashlee’s feelings.

  She nodded, turning back to face Ashlee. “I do, I blame you. Tristan too. In fact, I hold everyone who agreed to your crazy plan to steal that witch from Mexico accountable. Mom and Dad would still be alive, still living life, if you hadn’t come up here and destroyed our lives.”

  Ashlee’s eyes flared at Summer. “This has nothing to do with Mom and Dad, or their terrible deaths. No, this is about you still feeling resentful about your wolf and because you believe your wolf is the reason your precious singing career didn’t work out.”

  Summer’s temper surged, and she knew all reason and good sense were gone. She was going to tell Ashlee what was on her mind now. “Because it was so goddamn easy for you. Oh, look, I’ve met a wolf in a zoo cage that happens to be able to shift into a human so I’m going to follow him up to some island off the coast of Maine! Oh and gee, after we have sex for the first time, he’s going to succumb to some sort of curse that will require me to completely disregard the personal safety of both my parents and my sister and ultimately get my parents killed.”

  “Don’t forget the best part, Summer.” Ashlee’s voice held a hard edge and her eyes turned wolf. “I also made my baby sister acknowledge a part of herself she’d rather forget ever existed. My baby sister who always wanted to be so ‘normal,’ so ‘typical,’ because she was so happy living life with her head six feet under the sand.”

  “What was wrong with normal, Ash? At least with normal, everyone lives, people don’t get gutted, wolves don’t eat at their flesh, destroy their bodies.”

  Ashlee’s eyes turned back to her human shade, and she crossed her arms over chest as she started to shake. Summer turned away from Ashlee.

  “Don’t turn around. If you have something to say, please do so.” Summer snorted at Ashlee’s formal tone. She must have picked the phraseology up from Tristan. Fine, if she wanted her to talk, she would give her an earful.

  She opened her mouth to tell Ashlee what it had smelled like, how their Dad had gripped their mother’s fur, his head turned towards her as if she was the last thing he had seen in this world, the blood on the walls, the furniture, the way Claudius had smiled— but she never completed her sentence. Guilt gnawed at her stomach.

  Why was she hurting Ashlee?

  She looked at her sister. Ashlee had changed so much in three years it was hard to recognize her. Oh, she still had the same strawberry blonde hair, her eyes still shone green. Even after two children, she still had a figure to die for—flat stomach and no fat. But, everything else about Ashlee was different. Her outlook on life, her response to crises—it was like being with a stranger.

  Summer cleared her throat. “I have to get out of here.”

  “Where will you go?” Ashlee’s voice sounded hysterical. “I’m your sister. We just lost our parents. We’re family. We need to be together.”

  “Family?” In spite of herself, Summer heard the bitter tone in her own voice. “Is that why I wasn’t invited to your wedding? Why you didn’t come down, not once, to introduce your children to me?”

  Ashlee’s cheeks flushed. “I wanted to come but Tristan didn’t think it was safe for me or the children to leave here.”

  Summer nodded, flooded by guilt again. “He’s right. Claudius has threatened that your children will be the first to die if Tristan doesn’t turn the pack over to Kendrick. Our parents were an example of how he could get to anyone, be anywhere. None of us are safe.”

  Ashlee made a little shriek in her throat and gripped the headboard next to her. “He knows about the kids?”

  “Evidently.”

  “I didn’t invite you to the wedding because you weren’t speaking with Mom and Dad and I thought it would be awkward. We only had the wedding for Dad’s sake. It was literally only Mom and Dad and the pack here.” Ashlee delivered her answer and plopped down on the bed.

  “Well, I wouldn’t want anything to be awkward for you, the good daughter.” Summer turned on her heel. She didn’t even have any shoes.

  Her heart rate sped up and sweat broke out on her arms. She needed to get out of Ashlee’s guestroom, out of their entire apartment.

  “Summer, are you okay?”

  At the sound of Tristan’s voice, Summer spun around. He stood in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest.

  Alpha.

  Yes, Summer knew he was her alpha, the supreme leader of their pack.

  Show him respect.

  “Hello Tristan,” Summer concentrated on keeping her voice calm. “My Alpha. It’s lovely to see you again.”

  “It’s good to see you too.” Tristan crossed into the room. “I can smell your fear. What are you afraid of?” Tall and dark, he dwarfed her sister and made Summer look like a child next to him. His eyes were permanently in their wolf state, a side effect since he’d taken over the Alpha position.

  Don’t lie either. He’ll smell it.

  “You, Ashlee, Claudius, me…I don’t know, you name it, I’m afraid of it right now.” Summer stammered. “I have to go. I can’t stay here.”

  “You don’t have anywhere to go. Stay here.” Ashlee had risen off the bed and crossed to her. She placed a hand on Summer’s arm.

  Summer shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  She couldn’t stand it any longer. She was surrounded by Ashlee’s scent here. Ashlee and Tristan and the babies. She’d been shut out of all their lives because she hadn’t wanted to be a wolf-shifter. Hadn’t been ready to throw herself into a river full of madness with no life preserver. There was no way she could open those doors now.

  “I have to go.”

  Summer turned and ran out of the room toward what she hoped was the front door of Tristan and Ashlee’s suite of rooms. Her bare feet hit the wooden floor in front of her. She had no idea where she was going.

  “Where will you be?” Ashlee’s voice called after her into the hall.

  “Maybe I’ll swim back to the mainland. We’re wolves right? We like the water.”

  4

  A tap on his door stilled his fingers from the guitar strings. Cullen frowned. People never visited him. He stood from his seat on the floor, placed his guitar gently on the couch, and crossed the room to the entrance. He sniffed the air. The aroma of peaches and baby oil assailed his nose. Summer. As the delicious odor made the hair on his arms stand up, he tried not to groan.

  She didn’t speak, just looked up at him. Dark smudges stained the skin beneath her eyes, her teeth chattered. He pulled her into the cabin, as he made note of the fact that she was bar
efoot and wore only the shorts and tee-shirt Gabriel had inappropriately packed for her.

  “What are you doing out here? You don’t have a coat or shoes.” He shut the door behind her and loosened his grip on her arm.

  Her teeth rattled and she crossed her arms over her chest. “I couldn’t stay with Ashlee. I’ll leave in the morning, find somewhere else to live off of this rock you call an island, but do you think I could sleep on your floor tonight?”

  His mind whirled. He found it almost impossible to concentrate on what she said when she stood in front of him so obviously freezing. Goosebumps covered her skin and her nipples were hard and visible through her thin tee-shirt. He forced his gaze from the tantalizing view and made himself focus on the fact she was cold. He crossed to the couch and picked up a wool blanket. He wrapped her up in it, nearly coming out of his skin when his fingers brushed the flesh of her arm.

  She stared up in his eyes and he shivered, but not from the cold. Having her there, in his cabin, made him feel mashed up inside. Her scent permeated the room, filling his head until he couldn’t breathe properly. He had the strangest urge to pick her up and rub her against the curtains, the bed, and the rug, so he could find her scent whenever he wanted to.

  “So, is it okay, or not?” She continued to stare at him. He realized she’d asked him a

  question and he hadn’t answered it. She’d come to his home, through the freezing cold, wearing almost nothing, completely barefoot. Why did Ashlee let her leave this way?

  “No, it’s not okay.”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh, then I’ll go.” She tried to turn but his arms held her steady, wrapped in the blanket.

  “What are you talking about? Go where?” When another shiver wracked her slight body, electricity traveled up his arms.

  “I asked you if I could stay tonight and you just said no.”

  “I’m sorry, Summer.” It felt like a prayer, the way her name passed over his lips. “I seem to be having a conversation all by myself, in my own mind, and you can’t hear it. Of course you can stay. Here,” Cullen picked her up in his arms. He felt very gallant, not a sensation he was used to. It actually made him grin for a moment before he stopped himself. Summer didn’t need to see him beaming like an idiot. He placed her down on the couch and tucked the blanket in around her.

  “I’m going to get you some warmer clothes. It’s drafty in here.” He walked into the bedroom and noticed his unmade bed. After he made her something to eat, he would clean up in here. She could spend the night in his room. As he pulled a sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants out of his drawers he heard her call after him. “It feels warm in here to me.”

  “It’s not.” Although he was hot as hell, had been ever since she’d arrived.

  Cullen returned to the living room and sat on the edge of couch by her feet, handing her the clothes. “When you’ve warmed up a little, put these on.”

  “Thanks,” she said, taking the clothes.

  He wanted to lean over and kiss the spot between her neck and her shoulder until she shivered not from the cold, but from the heat his mouth created in her body.

  “It’s plenty warm in here. I’m just chilled. You have your shirt off for goodness sake. How cold could it be?”

  He looked down at his bare chest. She was right. Did human girls find it rude for men to be shirtless in front of them in this day and age? It was so hard for him to remember sometimes.

  “I’ll go dress myself, sorry.” He rose off the couch. “I didn’t say you had to put on clothes.”

  Was it his imagination or had her voice dropped an octave? It had taken on a husky tone, like she might sound when she first woke up in the morning. His groin throbbed hard. Our mate.

  Yes, she was their mate. But that didn’t mean he would give into his primal urges and take her right there on the couch, without so much as a by-your-leave.

  He had to change the subject before he behaved like a teenager and gave into the need to kiss her. “What was Ashlee thinking letting you run out there dressed like that?”

  “I didn’t actually give Ashlee and Tristan a choice. I kind of just left.” Emotions played across Summer’s face and he wished he could read her mind.

  “And Ashlee is not my keeper. I’m a year older than she was when she met Tristan, brought him home, mated him, rescued him from the spell, and started to lead the pack with him. She was my age when she had Braden.”

  Cullen stared. He wasn’t even sure what to say to that. Did she think he thought her too young to make her own decisions?

  “Do you like soup? I keep chicken noodle here.” He turned towards the kitchen. “Why do you do that?”

  He kept his back turned to her. After three hundred years, he could sometimes catch himself before he said the wrong thing. If he didn’t face her, she wouldn’t be able to see him struggle to find the right words.

  “Why do I do what?” Had he kept his voice even? He wasn’t sure.

  “You change the subject at your convenience. I just said something to you that warrants an answer and you totally ignored me.”

  He whirled around. “I seem to have the same problem with you that I have with the rest of the world, which is an inability to say the right thing. Maybe I should rephrase that and say I have a unique attribute that allows me to find the one thing to say that is sure to piss off everyone around me. So, I opt to say nothing or to say innocuous things. Somehow, it still ends up being wrong. If I change the subject it is to spare your feelings, a gift I give no one else.”

  Summer flung the blanket off and crossed to him. He opened his mouth to rebuke her stubbornness. She silenced him when she pushed her body against his and pressed her mouth gently to his lips.

  For a moment, Cullen felt like time stopped. Her kiss was a feather’s touch. Nothing existed on the planet except Summer’s soft skin, sensual lips, and strong, steady heartbeat.

  He wanted desperately to deepen the kiss, to plunge his tongue into her mouth over and over again. To show her with his mouth what he wanted to do to other places on her body. But, he couldn’t allow himself the pleasure. If he let himself that small amount, the flood gates that held his self-control at bay would slam open. Cullen would be lost to the intensity with Summer as collateral damage. He would have to mate her, and he knew Summer had no idea what that entailed. Maybe the physical act she could understand but she hadn’t spent enough time with the pack to see that mating was so much more than marriage. It was eternal. There was no way out. Not even death separated mates as one partner almost always followed the other immediately to death.

  He couldn’t be responsible for inflicting himself on her for the rest of her life and beyond—not if he wasn’t exactly what she wanted. He wasn’t some young pup, just recently shifted with no baggage for his mate to digest. He had too many years—most of them filled with unspeakable acts he’d rather not remember he’d done—behind him.

  When she pulled back from their kiss, he reluctantly let her.

  Kiss her again.

  Wow, his wolf had certainly rediscovered its ability to boss him around. But he wouldn’t relent this time. No, he knew he was right. She had to know him better, had to go into their mating with both eyes open. If he gave into his passion for her tonight, while she was vulnerable, she might let him off the hook, but he would never forgive himself.

  Unlike his young pack mates, he knew better than to think that every mated pair lived in perfect harmony. Their souls belonged to each other, they might even share love. But it was still possible for one half of the pair to destroy the life of the other. He need not look any further than Mary Jo and Kendrick Kane, the parents of their Alpha.

  Mary Jo had hidden the unmated females from the pack to save their lives from the evil schemes Kendrick had plotted out for them. In retaliation, Kendrick, a man Cullen would have sworn was his friend, killed his wife and didn’t follow her to the grave. If that was possible, Cullen couldn’t count on anything—including the surety of happily ever aft
er with his destined bride.

  If they didn’t mate, she would not have to follow him to the grave or share his burdens. He wasn’t sure how it worked; she might even take other lovers. But, it was better to not let himself follow that line of thought because then he might lose control of his temper and kill whoever he imagined her having sex with.

  “Hello, still here.” Summer cleared her throat. “I don’t want you to hold back your thoughts from me. You must always tell me the truth and I will do the same for you.”

  He nodded. At least that was one way to guarantee she got to know him. “Okay.”

  Her hands fell to her sides and he missed their warmth on his bare arms. “I’m not hungry. I don’t want any soup.”

  Soup? The talk of food seemed a lifetime ago.

  She continued to talk. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want you to kill Claudius.” She didn’t?

  “I want to kill him myself. I want you to teach me how.”

  Cullen closed his eyes. The last thing he wanted to do in the universe was teach Summer Morrison how to become a killer. She hadn’t been born to do that. Her hands were clean, unscarred—like her soul.

  He shook his head. “Out of the question. I can almost guarantee Tristan will order me to kill Claudius tomorrow. But if he doesn’t, I will take care of him myself. You will have nothing to do with it.”

  Her eyes flared and he swore he saw flames dance inside of their aquamarine depths. “You don’t get to decide that. If I want to kill Claudius, I will do it. You can either help me or not.”

  She stormed away from him to the window. Her back was strained, her stance wide. He wanted to go over and wrap his arms around her waist, tuck her body against his and make love to her until the horrors of the day left her and she no longer desired death or vengeance.

  But he hadn’t earned that right yet.

  He stepped an inch closer to her. If anyone understood boundaries, it was Cullen. “You think you could do that? Snuff out a man’s life, evil though he certainly is, and watch as he took his last breaths?”