amenities. The counters were made of granite threaded with browns and golds, and the island was a giant block of natural wood. Six chairs sat the edge where Marissa and Brent sat with Lana, frozen in place, listening.
“What was that?” Mom asked. “Out on the front porch. What happened? Everyone was having a good time, and then they stopped talking all of the sudden, and all at the exact same time. Did someone say something wrong?”
Morgan tried to laugh, but she sounded like a lunatic. Her voice wrenched up an octave. “Oh no, there isn’t anything wrong. Everything’s fine.”
What are you doing? Brent mouthed.
She’d been kicked out of high school theater for a reason.
Rachel presented the wedding cake. “I’m having trouble deciding how to finish decorating it. I was thinking of using the flowers she has in her bouquet around the edges, or I could do frosted pearl buttons all over, or leave it plain white with frosted edges. What do you think, Hannah?”
Score one for Rachel. She really was much better at distraction and stalling. Mom and Rachel chatted back and forth about the cake until they’d managed, as a little mixed-species team, to make it perfect.
When they were finished debating, they all migrated to the game room, which was conveniently located on the opposite side of the house from the challenge that had begun outside. Marissa and Brent challenged Mom and Rachel to a game of doubles on the pool table but Morgan hung back, listening and waiting.
At the sound of the first feral snarls, she ran upstairs, feigning a bathroom break. She crept to a darkened window and crouched low by the sill to watch. This fight looked nothing like the first one against Rodrigo. Where Grey and Rodrigo had seemed graceful in their conflict, the raging scene below was brutal and breathtaking. The big man was still a smaller wolf than Grey, but he was thick, probably outweighing Grey by ten pounds. His coloring was like Wade’s, dark brown, with lighter brown points.
One of the wolves had already drawn blood. Dark flecks stained the grass beneath them. Her heart pounded as she tried desperately to decipher whose it was. Little crimson droplets flung away from them every time they made a quick movement. The eyelash moon was a selfish creature, stealing much of the light and leaving little for the spectacle below. Even with her extensive night vision, she couldn’t make out where Grey ended and the other wolf began. This fight was jerky and so fast, they seemed to blur into one another until one would break away to circle the other before they attacked again. The fight lasted a hundred years.
Grey was visibly limping but unrelenting in his attack. She twitched her fingers to rid herself of the tingling that had started to spread through her body. So immersed was she in watching the fight in the yard below, she had no time to worry about the wolf inside of her howling to be let out. The men observing the fight were perfectly still and silent as Grey finally stood over the other wolf, jaw working over his neck. This was the first time the other wolf was still long enough for Morgan to assess his wounds. One of his ears had been completely ripped off, his front right leg was bent at an odd angle, and a wound on his neck was bleeding profusely. Grey waited for him to yield for only a second. When the other wolf only looked defiantly into his furious eyes, without hesitation, Wolf ripped his throat out and sat back to watch him bleed to death.
Grey focused a dead glare on the shocked witnesses the challenger had brought. They held their distance. Smart wolves. Long minutes dragged as the dead wolf Turned back into a man, and the witnesses dragged his body to the trunk of their car. Grey’s head swiveled slowly as he watched them leave. She stood, giving action to her need to touch him and assure herself he was safe. Grey collapsed, and the strands of white lights, so romantic half an hour before, illuminated his dark, wet, matted fur.
“Grey!” The Change came before she could stop it. All she could do was focus on not making pained noises that Mom would hear from downstairs. The last thing she needed was for her to walk in on her like that. How would she even explain it? Hey Mom, sorry you saw me while I looked