Free Sliver of Silver (Blushing Death) by Suzanne M. Sabol

beneath my skin. I hummed with the heat of his power as the moonlight glimmered across his shaved head.
    Jackson stood a few feet behind Dean, stiff and gloomy. He glanced over the crowd with a smug smirk on his face. His eyes finally rested on me.
    His gaze was cold and angry and he leaned forward, speaking low and guttural in Dean’s ear so that only Dean would hear. The growl in his voice made the words indiscernible to my ears and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Dean raised his hand, halting Jackson’s speech. Dean managed to shut him down with an authority I envied. I usually had to pull a weapon to get my message across.
    Jackson stepped back in obvious annoyance, grinding his teeth and sneering. He focused his gaze on me, fire in his hate-filled gaze and a snarl on his lips.
    Dean’s usually dark, olive-green eyes were a fierce crystal clear Caribbean blue. My body tingled in low, dark places as the eyes of his wolf bore into me, touching me in a way that merely a glance shouldn’t be able to touch.
    Ours.  
    He waved me over, motioning for me to stand beside him. Perfect! I stepped from the crowd, tentative and apprehensive. I felt everyone in the crowd turn and evaluate me like a piece of meat as a stress-filled silence fell over them. I stepped up beside Dean but remained far enough away that I could still see Jackson hiding behind Dean’s broad back.
    “I need to talk to you,” I whispered.
    Dean glanced down at me with stern, commanding eyes. He cocked his head, an expression that was positively canine and focused on me for a long moment. His eyes trailed fire up and down my body with each passing second before he even acknowledged my existence with a nod. I guess that meant talk.
    “I went to the victim’s house today,” I said. “She . . . uhm . . . she,” I stammered. Why was this so damned hard?
    “She looked like you,” Dean growled. Those crystal clear Caribbean blue eyes blazed with ferocity as he met my gaze. The only indication he gave that he was uneasy were the muscles playing along his jaw, flexing and tightening as his face turned to hard granite.
    “Well, yeah,” I said, a little annoyed. “Even Derek noticed,” I snipped. Once I spoke those words out loud, a weight lifted from my shoulders.
    He nodded and dropped his folded arms to a relaxed military stance, with feet shoulder-length apart and his hands clasped behind his back. The muscles over his chest flexed and tightened.
    “Thought so,” he said, nodding. “Strays.” A rumble of growls moved through the crowd in reaction to that single word snarled with contempt.
    “As in stray DOG?” I asked.
    He nodded.
    Like I said, Dean was the silent type. “They don’t belong to a Pack. Right?”
    Dean nodded again.  
    “Gaoh!” Jackson snapped from behind Dean’s broad back in a gruff, angry tone. “How can we trust her?” The glare he shot me was all challenge, violence. “She only comes here when it’s convenient to her. She doesn’t care about the Pack,” he barked with a slight smile cresting his thin lips.
    The tone of the crowd changed to rambunctious agreement as shouts of “He’s right ,” and “ That’s true” rippled through the crowd.
    Lifting my chin, I caught Dean’s warning glare. Only the anger shining in his eyes reflected the emotion tightening his jaw. His face remained a façade of expressionless authority and power.
    “She is responsible for our previous Beta’s death, no matter how substandard he was,” Jackson cooed, a devious smile curling into a sneer.
    A twinge of pain twisted my gut as my blood-soaked hands flashed through my mind. Rage filled me. How dare that skeezy bastard talk about Danny? He didn’t have the right and if it was the last thing I did, Jackson would pay for that remark. I narrowed my gaze on him and let him see the monster behind my eyes.
    I clenched my jaw and flexed my fingers repetitively as I stared deep into Jackson’s empty dark eyes. Before