Free Shifters of Silver Peak: Mate For A Month by Georgette St. Clair

were both watching Marcus now, with frowns on their faces.
    “Sorry about that,” she said placatingly to Damien. “My darling husband was raised by wolves.” She almost giggled at the sound of it. My husband.
    Damien laughed at that. “Weren’t we all? Well, not you, so much.” He looked at her with curiosity. “How are you two getting along?’
    She gave a graceful shrug. “Well, you know, opposites attract.”
    “I’ll say.” Damien glanced after Marcus. “He’s just…not the most social of shifters that I’ve encountered. He’s a very hard worker, I’ll give him that. He just doesn’t like to talk much.”
    She shrugged again. “Well, that’s also kind of a pack thing, isn’t it? No talking about your pasts and so on.”
    He nodded. “True enough.” A dark look crossed his face. “Why I joined, in fact.”
    She felt a twinge of sympathy. She knew that the pack attracted members who didn’t fit in anywhere else. There was so much pain here. So much loss. Whatever privileged life he’d led, it was over now. He was living with this pack, probably under a fake name, hiding from his past.
    Damien, like all the other pack members except for Samuel, carried that hint of danger with him. Despite that, there was also a cultured undertone to his voice that spoke of the same kind of background that Eileen had – a background of prep schools and Ivy League college. Casper was nothing like that – his accent and his mannerisms revealed him to be pure redneck country shifter. Odd that the two were such good friends.
    She realized that Marcus was watching her now, with a frown on his face. Why? The notion that he might be jealous briefly flickered through her mind, then she quickly dismissed it. For him to be jealous, he’d have to care about her first.
    Whatever his problem, he looked miserable. She’d started to walk towards him when she heard the loud sounds of an argument breaking out between two shifters who were standing over by the ice chest.
    “You forgot my birthday? My actual birthday?” she heard a female shifter named Lily wail.
    “I thought it was next week! I’ll get you a present tomorrow, I swear,” Samuel protested, looking dismayed. Eileen glanced over at them. Samuel was right – he was different from the other pack members. They were decent enough, but they were a rougher crew, more hardened, even battle-scarred; he seemed too gentle and quiet to be one of them.
    “It’s not even the present!” Lily was in tears, and Samuel almost looked as if he were about to cry too. “It’s that you didn’t care enough to remember!”
    Marcus walked over, opened up the paper bag and pulled out a hand-carved wooden flower.
    “My fault,” he said to her. “Samuel asked me to make this for you. It was supposed to be a surprise. Took me a little longer than I planned.”
    Eileen walked up just as he handed it to Lily, who squealed with delight and threw her arms around Samuel. “Oh, honey! That is so sweet!” she cried out. “It’s a flower, just like my name! And Marcus, this is gorgeous! I had no idea you were so talented!”
    Samuel looked over the top of her head and mouthed “Thank you” at Marcus.
    Marcus shrugged, crumpled up the paper bag and tossed it into the bonfire.
    Eileen looked at his face. He was pale, and beads of sweat were forming on his forehead.
    “I’m getting a little bit of a headache,” she said to him quickly. “Can we head back now?”
    He nodded, and she made her excuses to Chelsea and Erika and Roman, and they headed back to the cabin.
    “Why did you really have that flower?” Eileen asked.
    He cleared his throat, looking embarrassed.
    “I made that for you. For an apology. I keep making you mad for some reason,” he said. “You said you liked my carving. I was just waiting for the right time to give it to you. When we were alone.”
    “Oh. My goodness.” She blinked hard as a sudden rush of emotion welled up in her. She imagined Marcus,