Rebecca Royce: Summer’s Wolf

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.”