Page 11 of Deception

Those no-good bear shifters did it, right?he’d all but spat.

Which made it pretty damn clear where Mett stood in terms of the purity issue.

He looked just like his father. He spoke in hateful tirades just like his father. He cursed any shifter who crossed species lines, just like his father. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Mett seemed to think she’d been a volunteer on Emmett Whyte’s murderous campaigns instead of a reluctant accessory to his crimes. Mett had even slung an arm over her shoulders, breathed tobacco in her ear, and tried to comfort her.

I know you did your best to help him.

She’d just about retched. She’d done her best to get away, but she couldn’t exactly say that.

Mett made her sick. Her own past made her sick.

She’d tried wiggling away from him, but his hold only grew tighter.

Listen, I was thinking, Summ,he’d said next.

She hated when people shortened her name.

You and me…

As he went on, she went still as a stone.

We’d be perfect together. We can carry on my dad’s work. Make sure shifters keep their species pure.He’d grinned madly at that point.And just think. I bet we’d make some beautiful, pure-blooded pups together.His hand had slid from her back to her ribs, closing in on the side of her breast.

She had slapped his hand and stepped away as his grin turned to a glare.

Shit. She’d managed to cover up quickly, thank goodness.

Um, sorry,she’d said, remembering her mission.I guess I’m still, um…

She fumbled for words for a second. Disgusted? Sickened? Appalled by what his father had done?

Still mourning?Mett had filled in, calming again. The man was as Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde as his father had been.Yeah. I miss him, too. But think about it, Summ. Think of everything I could do for you.

Oh, she’d thought about it, all right. And the prospect turned her stomach every time.

A fly buzzed past while Mett and Gretchen waited for her answer.

“I guess I’m still getting settled in,” she mumbled, hoping it came off as meek instead of disgusted.

“Well, don’t you worry your pretty little head about things.” Mett grinned. “I got it all figured out.”

His words echoed in her mind, and she tasted bile.Don’t worry your pretty little head…

For so many years, she’d done just that. Back in her home pack in Minnesota, she’d worked in a diner and done some babysitting on the side. Pack politics didn’t interest her, so she’d never really paid attention to those goings-on.

She couldn’t remember when she’d heard the first grumbled tirades against shifters who crossed species lines. It sounded reasonable enough to her. Wolves should stick with wolves, panthers should stick with panthers, and so on. Live and let live, she figured.

God, how naïve she’d been.

It had all seemed so distant, so unrelated to her. But then Victor Whyte started preaching about purity of blood lines and the imminent decline of wolf shifters. From that point on, everything changed. A slow, gradual change she didn’t see coming until it was too late. Hardly anyone raised a voice to question Whyte’s rhetoric, and those who did — well, they were quickly put in their place. Eventually, Victor headed west on what he called a crusade, and most people just exhaled. Then Emmett Whyte started making noises, too, and her stepfather, Clark, had nodded with every hate-filled sentiment.

She trembled, remembering the night Clark had shaken her out of bed to follow Emmett and the others.

“Shh! Keep quiet!” Clark had hissed.

She went without protest, because she’d been brought up to follow her leaders and keep her mouth shut.

Both those things became harder and harder to do as time went on. At first, Emmett, Clark, and the others left her behind in whatever place they picked as a base while they went out “preaching,” as they called it. Later, they started using her to feel out their targets. At the time, she’d thought all she was doing was placing a few calls or asking questions around a neighborhood. Harmless little things, part of the preparation for the “negotiations” Emmett and the others had been tasked to carry out.

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