AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Lucas slammed his fist onto the table and yelled, “A friend wouldn’t do that!”
Damon remained seated, and silence descended over the room for five breaths. “And that, Lucas, is the wound you have failed to heal. How can you ever believe in the value of a Crew if you don’t forgive him?”
The door across the cavernous room creaked open, and the woman who sauntered through it made Lucas’s racing heart lurch.
Lucia lifted her chin higher into the air and looked down her nose at him. He’d seen her in that awful dream last night. She’d pulled a rifle trigger on him. She’d been the reason Jenna was in that damn cage in his dream.
“I was protecting her from you,” said Lucia.
Before his questions could part from his lips, Kru came in through the door, then Cadence, Clara, and…
“Jenna,” he murmured in surprise.
She wore her hair down today in loose waves. Her full lips were slightly parted in confusion, and her pretty silver eyes swirled with shock as she locked her gaze on his. A pair of skintight leggings clung to her curves, and she wore a simple, fitted maroon shirt with a flannel tied at her waist. She was a light surrounded by shadows. He’d never seen her look so beautiful.
Behind where she’d halted, a giant entered the room, and the scent of Gunner’s dominant grizzly struck his senses just as he laid eyes on the shifter that had haunted him.
Lucas’s fists clenched at his sides as Gunner leaned against the wall, unblinking bi-colored eyes trained on him.
He didn’t understand. “Why are they here?” he gritted out to Damon as Clara came to stand behind her seated mate.
“This is the first meeting of the Warlanders,” Damon said.
Jenna frowned over at Lucia. “Her too?” she asked.
Lucia’s face stayed passive, as if she hadn’t heard Jenna.
“Lucia has requested to come back to the mountains, and her father feels like this would be the best situation for her,” Damon explained.
“Even if I was okay with moving back here, which I’m not, and even if I was okay with the combination of fuck-ups in this Crew, which they all are except for Jenna, and I was okay with giving up my livelihood to come back and fade out in these mountains,” Lucas said. “What in the actual hell do you think I’m going to do in a Crew with that one?” He lifted a finger and pointed directly at Gunner. “It’s a fuck-no on all counts.”
“Great,” Lucia said. “Can I go now?”
“No,” Damon clipped out. “All of you sit down.”
It was Kru who moved first. “I’ll take a seat. I want to see this shit-show firsthand.”
Cadence snorted and followed him toward the table. Jenna hung back and scooted farther from Gunner, who was still staring like a psychopath. She got a few feet away from Lucia and tried to smile at her, then ducked her gaze and with her head down, she scuttled toward the table.
If Lucas wasn’t so fucking pissed-off right now, he would’ve thought it was cute. “I’m out. Damon, let me know when you have a job for me.”
“This is the job.”
“I’m not being the head of some Crew just because you order me to!”
“Then Gunner will be!” Damon snapped.
Well, that drew him up.
Kru raised his hand. “Can we vote? I don’t want to be one of the monster’s minions, if you know what I mean. No offense, Gunner, but you aren’t exactly firing on all pistons.”
Gunner curled his lips back over too-sharp canines as an answer.
“Plus, communication skills are lacking,” Kru added. “And I’m also pretty sure Alphas aren’t supposed to eat their Crew-mates, and he definitely tried to eat me the other day in the woods.”
“That one shot me in the face in a dream,” Lucas said, pointing to Lucia.
“Bet you deserved it,” she said through a smirk.
