Summer’s Wolf

Chapter Three

Summer became aware of a loud buzzing noise. Then the vibrations under her chair jangled her head. Her next solid realization—that she was on an airplane and couldn’t remember taking off, or where she was going—made her stomach turn. Then all the events rushed back, nearly knocking her back into black oblivion.

Her beloved parents were dead. She would never see them again. Never be able to tell them she was sorry or convince them they were wrong about her. Surprisingly, the tears did not start. All the grief-ridden information revolved around a sense of nothingness, a void.

She opened one eye to test her level of nausea. When she didn’t vomit, she risked the other eye. She blinked twice and held her breath for a moment. This didn’t look like any plane she’d ever been on. She couldn’t help but think that Air Force One must look similar. Leather couches, two recliners, and a swivel chair were arranged in a horseshoe around a low oak coffee table.

Cullen sat across from her, his feet on the couch, face turned to the window. His body lounged across three seats. Despite his relaxed position, tension radiated from him. His back was ramrod straight, prepared, as if he would attack at the slightest provocation.

His eyebrows pressed downwards, his jaw clenched, and she wondered what it was that had him so transfixed he hadn’t noticed she’d awoken. Summer suspected whatever he contemplated made him unhappy. Even if her potential concussion didn’t knock her off her feet, Cullen Murphy certainly could and she was glad for the moment to regain her equilibrium.

Next to Cullen, other men seemed small. Inconsequential. He took up space. His shoulders were broad and firm, his back steady and strong as if he could carry the weight of the world on his frame and not stagger from it. She stifled a sigh of appreciation.

His brown hair was military shaved. It had been longer the last time she’d seen him, with a slight curl. She couldn’t decide if she was disappointed with the new look. Dark, thick stubble coated his jaw where it met up with long, but trimmed sideburns.

But it was his blue eyes that were the most stunning part of Cullen’s face. She could see them reflected back at her in the glass in the window he gazed outwards from. Sunken low into his face, Cullen’s eyes pierced her very soul with their intensity. The sunlight captured them to their full advantage, and she felt like she could drown in their blue depths, live there, if it weren’t so dangerous to do so.

The first time she’d heard of Cullen had been in a discussion between Ashlee and their interim-Alpha, Michael. He had casually informed her older sister that Cullen was busy slaughtering the evil witch they needed to eliminate to save Ashlee’s mate Tristan. Nobody seemed the slightest bit surprised that it was Cullen who had killed the witch.

But when Summer had met him in person, her heart stopped. He was the most striking man she’d ever seen, and he was going to challenge Tristan in the Alpha fight, a battle Cullen was sure to lose because he wasn’t of the royal line. He’d been willing to sacrifice himself, die for the sake of his pack. And that plan had worked. Tristan had stopped balking at becoming their Alpha and Michael, who was strong in many ways but wrong for the job, had been replaced. She had thought she might spontaneously combust just watching the exchange, as her emotions had warred between the need to run and hide from his intensity and her extreme sexual desire to possess him, body and soul. Something had come awake deep inside that day.

Sure he’d noticed her too, her mother had started using words like ‘mate’ and ‘destiny’ but Cullen had never come to claim her, evidently less moved by their brief glimpses of each other than she was. Except one night when Summer had heard him downstairs arguing with her mother.

Want my mate. Her wolf practically growled the order to Summer. But the truth was, she had no idea how to go about ‘mating’ with Cullen Murphy. Didn’t know if she wanted to and the second it had been suggested, all she’d been able to see was that being with him would be the end of her own dreams. Not that she’d been particularly successful at achieving them when left to her own devices—she was obviously not starring in a Broadway show right now.

She almost groaned out loud when she felt one of her strange episodes starting. Would there never be a time when she wouldn’t have to endure the strange visions she’d always had but which had gotten so much worse since her wolf had been thrust upon her? Her eyes felt hazy, not a sensation she needed given her current precarious head trauma. She hoped she wouldn’t lose consciousness again.

She was immediately somewhere else. She looked around the room—it was dawn in someone’s bedroom. Cullen lay on top of the bed, shirtless with just thin cotton pajama pants covering his bottom half.

“I don’t know how you talked Tristan into giving us a vacation but I’m so glad that you did.”

In her vision state, Summer whirled around to see who he talked to.

“I have my ways.” Dear god, it was her own voice. This had never happened to her before. Her heart beat fast in her chest. What would happen if she saw herself? She never got the chance to find out as she was whisked back to the present and found herself sitting on the airplane again.

There was no way she was ever going on a vacation with Cullen. Her head injury must be somehow making her think she was having visions when she was, in fact, hallucinating. She swallowed. She could accept that explanation. Sort of.

Summer licked her dry lips. She needed to say something eventually so she went for the mundane. “How long ’til we land?”

His head whirled around, his blue eyes changed to dark brown wolf ones. Summer gasped and Cullen blinked several times. His eyes cleared back to their beautiful blue.

She looked down at her hands.

“What’s the matter?”

“Sorry, you just startled me. I guess I’ll have to get used to people going wolf all the time now.” Summer’s voice shook and she felt foolish. Unlike her, the others seemed to be comfortable with showing off their furry side.

“No, I’m afraid I was lost in thought and you took me by surprise. When that happens, I tend to go wolf but most of the pack can control themselves.” Color rose slightly in his cheeks before it vanished. Summer wondered if she’d imagined the whole thing. “That’s why I try to always be on alert.”

“You can’t possibly go through life on alert twenty-four hours a day.”

“As you saw, sometimes I am caught unawares.” He rose and Summer had to tip her head back to look at him as he moved towards her. “You’ve been asleep about half an hour. We will land in fifteen minutes. Then we’ll be in the car about ten minutes before we board the boat for Westervelt.”

“Are you still using that dingy old boat?” Her stomach pitched in anticipation of the boat ride.

Cullen shook his head. “We have a fleet now. One that goes back and forth to Westervelt and one that will bring the guests to the hotel/spa thing when it opens.”

Summer could picture the boats in her mind. Her mother had been working on several projects with Ashlee. This must have been one of them. The boats would be top of the line, decked out in the most modern conveniences. “So, no more Captain Joe and his weird looks and leering eyes?”

“Captain Joe was the one who betrayed Tristan and Rex to IPAG. We caught him giving information to Kendrick. He has been … neutralized.”

She didn’t have to guess what that meant. “How did you kill him?”

His eyes bored into hers for a moment and she saw some hidden emotion in their depths she couldn’t decipher. She turned her head to the side to look at him, which sent a jabbing pain into her temples. Cullen was at her side before she had even realized she’d flinched. It was almost nice.

He brushed her hair from her forehead. She shivered from the perceived tenderness. “Is there anything I can get you?” His voice sounded distant. He stared past her, almost through her.

“A new head?”

He raised one of his dark eyebrows. “No, I think the one you have will have to stay put. If you shift, it might help, it activates some of our healing abilities.”

“I’m not shifting.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Not ever again if I can help it.”

“Then I am wasting my time and yours.”

At the hard edge in his tone, she flinched. “Maybe so.”

You will shift when you are ready. I am here.

She rolled her eyes at her wolf. It was the same refrain the creature had been saying to her since they’d been forcibly introduced three years earlier.

Cullen cleared his throat. “Have you not done it since Tristan’s Alpha ceremony?” His voice sounded incredulous, and embarrassment overwhelmed her.

“No.”

“Then you don’t know it’s not always like that? The first shift is terrible. It’s a wonder anyone wants to do it again.”

Terrible? What an understatement. She’d refused every overture her mother made towards learning her wolf.

“That also answers the question that has been driving me crazy as to why you didn’t shift to protect yourself from Claudius.”

Her head whirled as she stared in his eyes. She’d thought they were blue, but now she could see green and grey too. Her pulse quickened, and she licked her lips. His gaze followed the movement of her tongue on her mouth before he reclaimed her eye contact. The blatant appreciation made her feel … powerful.

“How did you find me, Cullen? How did you know to come there, you and the others?”

He looked down for a second. When he glanced up, she had to suppress the urge to reach out and stroke his cheek. The need to touch him overwhelming.

Touch him. He will like it. Trust me.

No way. Her wolf had too much faith in him. He’d made it clear when he’d never come for her in the past three years how little he wanted her for his mate. She wouldn’t humiliate herself by acting like they actually meant anything to each other.

“Tristan felt it when your parents died. They were pack, when their souls left us, he knew. But we didn’t know if it had been violent, or if it was just that something had happened. A heart attack or a stroke for your father and then your mother followed. I didn’t think that was likely. Victoria, your mom, she would have called Ashlee first, would have sent you to us. I was sure of that. She’d promised me. So, we came as soon as possible.”

Cullen’s voice sounded like music to Summer. “Because we’re mates, you would know if I had died, right?”

“We are mates. That’s right. I hoped I would know. We haven’t performed the ceremony so I was unsure if my absolute knowledge of your death would still apply.”

That didn’t make any sense to her. He’d never come to find her, never showed the least bit of interest in knowing her. She’d obsessed about him for over a year before finally deciding she’d imagined the connection between them. And now, he claimed they had such a deep, spiritual connection he’d know if she were to die?

His eyes roamed her face. He opened his mouth as if to say something but the plane suddenly jerked in a bump of turbulence. Cullen squeezed his eyes shut and she laughed. His eyes popped open to stare at her.

“Are you laughing at me?”

She nodded. “I am.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re this big, tough guy who kills people at the drop of a hat but you’re scared of flying.”

He shook his head. “I’m not scared of flying. Its crashing that bothers me, and it’s only made worse by the fact that Prince Azriel is piloting this particular plane.”

“Sounds like an excuse to me.” She knew she shouldn’t be feeling so jovial. Her parents had not been dead twenty-four hours—but there was something about being with him that made her feel like her world hadn’t just fallen into a million small pieces.

The plane bumped again and Summer felt the pressure in her ears that indicated they had started their descent. She guessed there wouldn’t be any flight attendants walking around to tell them to fasten their seatbelts.

“Cullen, I think he’s descending, you might want to sit down and buckle your seatbelt.”

He looked around and then nodded. Although it felt like it took twice as long as it should have, Summer finally got her seatbelt attached. Cullen, having easily snapped his into place, watched her with a wary look in his eyes.

Finally, he cleared his throat. “Did you travel a lot as a child?”

Visions of her parents on vacations sprung to her mind, followed immediately by the way she’d last seen her parents, dead on the floor. Tears sprung to her eyes, which made her head pound. She grasped her head again. Oh god, she didn’t want the pain to continue. Neither the one in her head, nor the one in her heart.

How was she supposed to get through the day, a minute, knowing what had happened to them? She knew the answer to that. Revenge. Cullen would help her with that.

Want my mate.

Summer’s wolf startled her out of her miserable reverie. She looked up, Cullen eyes were far away, withdrawn as if he’d gone away again. Summer narrowed her eyes. She had no idea why she knew he did this when he was upset. His face was stoic, his eyes calm, but she knew he was deeply hurt.

She cleared her throat, needing to hear his voice again. To bring back the calm his deep baritone encased inside of her. “I know you didn’t mean to bring up my family and cause me pain.”

He nodded and a little light dawned in his eyes.

Her smile wobbled as she tried to ignore the desire that spread through her insides. She didn’t want to know the strange look that must have appeared on her face. He’d already made it clear with his three-year-vanishing-act how little it pleased him to be mated to her, and now he was going to think she made strange faces on a regular basis. Obligation had brought him to New Jersey to rescue her. She should be grateful but she wasn’t.

“I wish Tristan’s Alpha instincts could have brought you guys there to rescue my parents before they were killed.”

At the thought, she closed her eyes. They would be touching down any minute. Her head pounded hard and she couldn’t get comfortable. Cullen reached out to touch the side of her cheek, she tried to open her eyes to look at him but her head swirled and she fell asleep instead.

“Summer, can you hear me?” Familiar, bossy. She knew that voice. Ashlee, her older sister, talked to her in a low voice. Something warm wiped across her forehead. She opened one eye at Ashlee and groaned.

“You’re okay, now. Your headache should be gone and I cleaned you up so you’re no longer disgusting.”

Ashlee was right. Her head felt all right. The twelve piece band that had played inside of it earlier had gone away and now she just had blissful silence. Summer opened the other eye and tried to take in the room. Lights cast a soft glow on the dark beige walls that surrounded the bed she laid in. Two windows showed the deep velvet of the nighttime sky.

“How long have I been here?”

Lines of fatigue drew her sister’s usually fresh face down, not surprising considering the circumstances. Summer sat up slowly, glad the pain didn’t make a reappearance.

“About five hours. Cullen brought you to us as soon as you arrived on the island. He said you were unconscious since right before the plane landed.”

Ashlee crossed to a small wooden dresser and picked up a pitcher of liquid. She poured some into a cup and walked back to Summer. Glad to relieve her thirst, Summer took the cup and downed the water inside. The liquid cooled her scratchy throat. Looking around the room, Summer realized she must be in the Alpha’s suite of rooms at the Institute, Westervelt’s communal headquarters and living space.

“Where is, uh, Cullen?”

Ashlee sat on the bed next to Summer and rubbed her leg. “He left after I assured him you would be okay. He thought you might want some privacy. Tristan told him he’d be more than welcome to stay but he thought you might prefer if he were not here.”

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.”