Rogue Wolf

by Terry Bolryder

  Rogue Wolf

  Texas Dragons Book 5

  Terry Bolryder

  Copyright © 2021 by Terry Bolryder

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover art by Yocla Book Cover Designs

  Created with Vellum

  For Ryan, my brother, whose ashes rest in Texas.

  I can’t wait to visit you when the apple trees bloom again.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Sample of Onyx Dragon

  Also by Terry Bolryder

  1

  The scent of aged wood and dried beer stains wafted around Reno like mayflies as he sat alone in the corner of Earl’s bar, staring at the laptop in front of him and trying to put together the events of the past few weeks.

  Across the bar, the aforementioned Earl polished glasses quietly, his stout hands moving in lazy circles as he kept glancing at the clock across the wall. Probably waiting for closing time.

  At the height of summer and on a weeknight, most people had better things to do than lurk in an empty bar in a tiny town miles from anything that could be considered a proper city. But that was one of the reasons Reno had come out here to Texas to live at Dragonclaw Ranch in the first place.

  He was a rogue. A fugitive of his past his entire adult life. And if he had any luck, his presence would remain unnoticed by the powers that were looking for him.

  Reno tapped his fingers on the heavy wooden table in front of him, sitting at a ninety-degree angle so he could watch the front door out of the corner of his eye but not so anyone who came in would see a six-foot-three alpha wolf shifter glaring at them when they entered. After all, he kept a low profile wherever he went, acting the part of a quiet mechanic-slash-wrangler who worked on a ranch so people would underestimate him or ignore him completely.

  As long as he wasn’t found, everything was fine.

  Well, not fine, Reno thought as a pair of forest-green eyes flashed in his mind, and with it, a painful memory lanced his heart like a spear with the loss of what could have been. What should have been if not for the evil, megalomaniac wolves that had been looking for him for the better part of a decade now.

  It was almost funny to think that the secret of shifters existing amongst humans had almost been completely blown to smithereens less than a month ago when Reno’s friend, Dallas, had turned into a gigantic tiger right on Main Street of Parson’s Creek.

  Of course, it had been in order to fight off a clan of cougar assassins that were threatening his mate, Mel, so Reno didn’t blame the tiger at all. Meanwhile, he and the others from Dragonclaw Ranch had barely foiled a plan to capture a basilisk and unleash it on a human city.

  That would have been a disaster of epic proportions.

  Since that day, Gunnar the basilisk shifter had taken to living at Dragonclaw with relative ease. And a week later, Gunnar had even taken Harrison and the others out to the desert to meet the other basilisk that had nearly been captured. He was a tall, utterly stoic man that reminded Reno of Beck the mountain dragon but even more quiet in disposition.

  He’d even adopted a name for himself, Diesel, due to his interest in engines in general. Reno’s hands had been full the past two weeks trying to keep the curious basilisk from taking apart every tractor, truck, ATV, or contraption with wheels that Reno had made it his job to keep maintained.

  Only a few months ago, basilisks had just been huge, menacing dinosaur-like monsters that rose from the ground and had to be fought off by the dragons at Dragonclaw Ranch. Now they were huge, quiet men constantly muttering about “mates” and appearing and disappearing as they seemingly pleased.

  All their talk of mates made Reno’s head spin. The memories were too many to keep away at times.

  He sipped another double shot of whiskey, the smooth liquid burning his throat for a minute, calming his racing thoughts. It was times like these he was glad he had found quiet little places to think to himself, like Earl’s. After all, Reno’s house back at Dragonclaw was right next to Dallas’s. And until the happy couple finished construction on their ranch home apart from the main spread, the couple’s ability to never sleep at night had a tendency to keep Reno up.

  That and the horrible knowledge that Reno’s family was up to no good again was haunting his every waking moment.

  He’d learned about it from the double dragons the day Dallas and the others had defeated the Blackheart Assassins. It was only a tip, but interrogations by Troy, the black dragon, had confirmed the suspicions.

  Reno’s family had been the ones that had hired the evil cougars to use a basilisk as a weapon of mass destruction.

  And Reno knew of a few good reasons.

  They were the last great house that comprised the Tribunal, the ruling wolf body that oversaw all wolf shifter affairs and policed wolf packs the world over. His family was obsessed with power and dominion and espoused the belief that wolves were superior to humans in every way. He just never thought they’d go to such horrible lengths.

  Maybe he should start calling the people who’d raised him and turned him into the thing he was now his “ex-family.” Was that possible?

  A jolt of electricity twinged his veins, zipping across his fingertips, and he set his hand down on the wood table, which made the sensation go away. Phew, stay calm, Reno, he thought. Much more stress and he’d have to call it quits for the night.

  And he wasn’t ready for that yet. There was something odd in the air tonight. A wisp of something unknown that teased his senses.

  Maybe it was just all the memories brought up by the fact that he might never escape the past.

  But part of him didn’t want to. After all, the most precious person in his whole world was still there, inextricably connected to his heart even as time and heartbreak had tried to wear away at the connection.

  Then the scent hit him like a bucket of water splashed over his face.

  He turned in his chair, looking toward the door, the sound of the chair’s feet creaking on the aged bar floor drawing Earl’s attention momentarily. But he ignored Earl, instead breathing in deeply the scent of mountain breeze and aspens and wildflowers that were not the kind you found in Texas.

  And beyond it, a specific scent that was more like a fingerprint than a particular smell. Silvery lupine and fresh spring water.

  It couldn’t be.

  No fucking way.

  He heard footsteps approaching the front door as the smell got closer, and Reno instinctively threw on his sunglasses, a habit gained from years of trying to avoid detection from people who might recognize him.

  Only now, as he calmly watched from his corner of the bar, this could be the only person in the world he didn’t want to have to hide from.

  The door opened, and she was there, walking into the bar like a vision from some fever-riddled brain.

&
nbsp; Reno opened and closed his eyes. But his nose told him what his eyes refused to believe.

  Dani was here, in Texas.

  His mate. The woman he’d loved. His best friend and the only person in the world Reno cared about more than himself was walking into Earl’s at a quarter past midnight.

  The wolf inside him surged, howling louder than Reno had ever heard, demanding he walk right up to her and make his presence known.

  She’s not our mate, Reno reminded himself, even though his heart had told him so years and years ago after what felt like a lifetime apart. In fact, he should run. If she saw him here, then she’d be in immediate danger. After all, Reno hadn’t run from his past to save himself.

  He’d done it to save Dani.

  Instead of doing either of the two things on his mind right now, Reno tried to stay calm and just watched as the adult version of the young woman he’d once known appraised the bar, oblivious to the fact that her childhood friend was the only other customer in the bar right now.

  Would she even remember him?

  He positioned his laptop in front of him and pulled his brown Stetson a little lower, just in case.

  She was even more beautiful than the pictures in his mind. She had raven hair, long and silky, which was pulled into a low ponytail. Her green eyes, the color of pine needles in summer, were almond-shaped and intelligent as she glanced over the bar, and Reno could see the gloss of her contact lenses, making him wonder if she still wore glasses at home or not.

  She was the same height, just a half inch over five-five, though she liked to tell people she was five-six back in the day, and the gray T-shirt and blue jeans she wore hugged her womanly curves that were even more jaw-droppingly sexy now than they had been when they were both eighteen.

  She wore only a bit of eyeliner with pink lip-gloss that made her lips look a little poutier, and the image of him raking his teeth over her lower lip crossed his mind, unbidden and sensual.

  Would she still taste as delicious as their first, and last, kiss had been all those years ago?

  Dani didn’t seem to bother as she ordered two beers and paid for them, and Earl handed them to her, eyeing her with suspicion as he did every person he didn’t recognize. It made Reno want to go over and shake the bulky bartender, but before he could obsess, Dani already had what she’d asked for and was making her way to a table a few over from where Reno sat.

  He failed to suppress a smile when he saw she still carried around the same indestructible navy-blue Jansport backpack today that she’d used in high school, and Reno watched curiously as she unloaded a laptop and a camera bag from inside its void-like depths, setting them on the table as she sat down with a huff.

  Reno tapped his laptop trackpad, waking it up so he didn’t look like a drunk staring at a black screen, though his eyes were still completely on the woman sitting apart from him.

  Had she found him here in Texas? That didn’t seem to fit. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be booting up her laptop and looking like she was here to work, not reconnect with an old flame.

  So she still did photography. The thought warmed him as Reno still remembered the summer they’d spent together holed up in the tiny bathroom of her mother’s house, the windows covered so they could use it as a place for developing all the 35mm photos she’d taken with the drugstore camera she’d gotten for her birthday.

  “You new in town or sumthin’, lady?” Earl asked gruffly from across the bar, interrupting Dani’s methodical unpacking.

  Reno listened with rapt attention.

  “Sort of. I just moved into my own place, but I’ve been here in Texas for almost six months now.” Her utter lack of any drawl contrasted with Earl’s heavy born-and-bred accent.

  It reminded Reno of home and all the mixed emotions that came with that.

  Earl just grunted, drying off glasses a little more intensely. “Sorry, but this isn’t an Internet cafe. No laptops and crap in my bar,” he said, and Reno got the distinct impression Earl was one of those people who liked to power trip for stupid reasons when they felt they could get away with it.

  For the second time in a half-minute, Reno wanted to knock some sense into Earl, but that was a surefire way of revealing himself.

  Dani glanced over at Reno, making his nerves stand on end momentarily, then looked at Earl with confusion. “What? He has a laptop,” she said, pointing in Reno’s direction. “I didn’t see a sign saying ‘no laptops allowed’ when I walked in.”

  “That’s just Reno. He’s a regular,” Earl said, unbothered by his own hypocrisy, “and just because there isn’t a sign doesn’t mean you can just use my bar as your home office.”

  Dani bristled at that, green eyes getting warmer that certain way when she was frustrated or at the edge of angry, and she stood up, looking ready to leave.

  “Just shove it, Earl, and stop bothering your own damn customers,” Reno called out, the words escaping his lips unbidden.

  Logistically, he was better off if she left. Then there was zero chance of her figuring out he was here. But letting the woman of his dreams be bothered by a stupid bar owner with a stick up his ass the size of a redwood tree was not on Reno’s list of allowable things right now.

  Earl bristled but shut his mouth. The dominant glare Reno sent the older man over the rim of his sunglasses seemed to help as well, as Earl went to another corner behind the bar and started to do something rather than continue harassing Dani.

  Dani remained standing, eyes softening toward Reno as if even a single person standing up for her in some inane way was unusual.

  Dammit, he wanted to go over there and kiss her senseless. To do, to say, any of the millions of things he’d fantasized about doing to her over the years of absence hanging between them.

  Instead, he made sure he was as hunched and hidden behind his laptop as possible.

  “I can handle things myself, mister…”

  “Just Reno.” Reno tried to sound more Texan than he usually did in the hopes it would throw her off.

  “Reno. But thank you for that. I appreciate it.” She slowly sat back in her chair, and Reno smiled inwardly at how familiar the whole setup had been.

  Classic Dani.

  For a moment, Reno just watched, noting the subtle lines on her face, the way the years had turned her—had turned them both—into someone different yet still the same. Warier of the world and more beautiful than she’d ever been in her entire life.

  “So, uh, sunglasses indoors? Is that a thing around here?” Dani had a tentative smile at the corner of her mouth as she suddenly addressed him from across the bar.

  “Uh, just prescription sunglasses. They help with the screen glare.” Reno lied, pointing at his laptop, trying to not sound as nervous as he felt. In the background, Earl huffed annoyedly but didn’t interrupt them.

  “Oh, don’t they have normal glasses you can wear for that? Ones that are just barely tinted?”

  “These are… uh… extra special.”

  “Stop talking across the bar like two kids at lunch,” Earl finally said gruffly.

  “I like my spot right here. Besides, unless we’re annoying the other customers…” Dani stretched her arms out and looked around, pointing out the fact that it was just the three of them right now.

  Earl turned away, muttering something about, “…annoying me,” but he kept his trap shut.

  Reno could remember more than a few times that Dani’s sharp wit had gotten the two of them out of, and into, more than a little trouble.

  But the longer he stayed here, the more likely he could be spotted. The more likely the worst he’d always feared could come to fruition right before his very eyes, undoing all of their sacrifices, both willing and unwilling.

  How could he tear himself away from seeing the woman of his dreams again, in the flesh?

  “Do I know you from somewhere?” Dani asked, her head cocked slightly to the side.

  “No. At least I don’t think so,” Reno said, lowering his voice as he
spoke.

  She hummed, thinking for a moment. “Did you ever live in Colorado? Or near Granite Falls?”

  “Nope. Just a Texas wrangler.” At that, Reno pretended to be very focused on his laptop, hating that it was rude but knowing that with each glance, each word shared, he was taking risks he had no business taking.

  “Oh. Sorry to bother you, then,” Dani finished, then went back to doing whatever she’d been doing when she’d first arrived.

  But the second her attention was away from him, Reno’s was back on her.

  He wanted to go over to her table. Sit next to his best friend. Catch up with the love of his life. Talk about a million unanswered, unfinished things that had been cut off suddenly when he’d had to leave their hometown.

  He knew he should be leaving, running at full speed, but Reno couldn’t help watching her a minute longer. In his head, he justified himself because it was surveillance.

  In his heart, which echoed the snarling of his wolf deep inside, he never wanted to leave her side again.

  The woman that should have been his mate was here, in Texas.

  And if she knew that the odd person across the bar was actually the man she’d once declared her love for, it could get them both killed.

  Or worse.

  2

  What’s up with that guy? Dani wondered for the fifth time in the last two minutes as she finished uploading her photos from that afternoon onto her laptop.

  On the one hand, he’d stood up to Earl for her, which was a surprisingly rare occurrence in spite of all the claims of men out here being “gentlemen” and “having manners.”