Free Silver Wolf Clan by Tera Shanley

headed toward serious, though.
    Grey jumped the porch steps two at a time. “What’s the problem?” he asked the stone-still alpha.
    “It’s about Marissa,” Dean said in a thick voice. “Thankfully, she’s in school and Rachel is in town so they don’t have to see this. It’s getting worse, Grey. Wolves are never Turned this young, and Marissa still has a long time before she needs to start worrying about choosing a mate. The boys don’t see it that way, though. They don’t want her now. She’s still so young, but they think she should go ahead and choose, and her mate should be one of them.”
    “What about sending her to another pack?”
    “It would be more of the same, worse probably, because she wouldn’t have Alexis to act as a buffer. She would likely be one of two females, if not the only one, in another pack. And Rachel sees her as a daughter. Hell, I do too. She doesn’t have biological parents. Both are dead, and we looked for close family but she hasn’t got any. She’s our only shot at raising a kid. I couldn’t send her away, knowing we couldn’t see her anymore. I keep laying down orders for them, but trouble’s coming.”
    Grey leaned against the porch railing and watched the escalating fight. “I don’t know what to tell you, man. Let me know if there’s anything I can do, though.”
    “Will do. You out for a run?” Dean asked, dragging his attention away from the scuffle.
    “Yep. I’ve got a date tonight. She’s special. I met her before all of…this,” he said, waving his arm. “She is the one I was asking you and Rachel about.”
    “Bring her flowers, then, and don’t screw it up. Are you going to bring her by to meet everyone?” Dean asked.
    “No. I don’t want her involved with this part of my life. The relationship, it’s still new. And please don’t say anything to anyone. The last thing I need is for Alexis to get wind of this and cause trouble.”
    “You got it.” Dean grinned. “But you know sooner or later she’s going to have to know about this part of you if she is special like you say.”
    “Later is fine with me,” Grey said as he pulled his shirt over his head.
    He shed the rest of his clothes and tossed them in the back of the truck, then headed for his favorite Changing place. Logan and Jason had finished fighting, and he skirted Jason, who lay in the sun, tongue lolled out to the side and panting. Logan was nowhere to be seen. He could guess who’d won that round.
    He lay behind a trio of mulberry bushes, and waited as the familiar tingling rippled over his flesh. Why was it taking so long? When he wanted, he could Change in a moment. Most of the wolves in Dean’s pack gave him grief for his quick transformations. Theirs took minutes, sometimes longer. He was lucky, they said, but it didn’t help him, lying in the shadow of the brush with his skin slowly changing and pulsing into something other. Agony, a deep and lonely pain, filled the deepest and darkest crevices in his head. Morgan’s hand in his—just the thought of her skin against his slowed the transition to an agonizing crawl. Pitch black fur appeared in waves over his flesh, disappeared, and returned.
    What was he doing, exposing them to this life? Marissa had a hard enough time with it. How could he bring that little baby, Lana, into pack life? She and Morgan were weak and human, unable to defend themselves from the monsters that dwelled here. They were the same monsters that had killed Marianna, and he shouldn’t expose them to that. What kind of selfish creature would ask them to be okay with any of it? A groan escaped him in the seconds before he slipped into his new form.
    Things were easier as a wolf. Human needs got pushed to the back burner. As Wolf, running and finding food became more important than the constant mental jargon he faced in human form. No thinking, just hunt and run. Now that, he could do.
    With the rejuvenating run finished, he waved good-bye to Dean and