And he had his mate, the damn sexiest and sweetest woman he'd ever known, to thank for this incredible journey. She'd believed in him even after he'd let her down. Even after he'd let down his fellow Guardians, his alpha, and his pack, Rielle had not once let the stars in her eyes dim when she looked at him.
Though it did kind of kill him that his older brother, Rafe, had been right when he'd told Caleb that a good woman really did make the man. Not because Rielle wasn't worthy of that, hell, no. Ree was way more worthy than he was, of pretty much everything. No, it drove him nuts more because Rafe was always right, damn him and his wise older brother ways. Rielle and her spicy sweet scent, her pretty dark brown hair and cinnamon eyes, her luscious little curves, her smarts, her genuine goodness—ah, all of it just slayed him. He was the luckiest wolf on the planet. No question.
“Thanks, man,” Bran said for the tenth or so time in the last ten seconds, pumping his hand and doing another fist bump. He was grinning so hard Caleb almost thought his eager face might split open. “I never would have gotten here without you. Best fight trainer in the shifter universe, right here!” he yelled out to the crowd, grabbing Caleb's hand and yanking it high into the air.
The crowd, high on adrenaline and alcohol and the usual blood-thirst of shifters at these events, roared back. Sure, this might a hole-in-the-wall little place, with a dinky ring, lousy seating, and so poorly insulated the winter air sliced right through now and then in frigid gusts. Even so, Caleb thought with something lamely like affection, he'd always remember it as the place he'd really made his mark.
So he wasn't a Guardian anymore. Fine. He'd come to terms with that. Mostly. His wolf muttered something low, but grudgingly regarded that as truth. And he'd set his sights on a new goal, prompted in no small part by the encouragement and business advice of his very successful horse trainer brother, Tate. “If you want to go big, Caleb,” Tate had said to him with utter seriousness back when one of the pack shifters first mentioned he'd pay to have Caleb train him for fights, “you have to be a professional all the way. Never take away the glory from your fighters, because they're your calling card. But make sure everyone knows you're the one who trained them. And make sure you ask Rielle first if she's cool with you doing this,” he'd added, laughter suddenly dancing in his brown eyes. “I'm learning that women don't like their mates to be away from them too often.”
Speaking of mates—okay, thinking about her, which he did pretty much every second of the day since she was so damn kissable and all that—Caleb looked around again, eager as always for another glimpse of his sweet, sexy Ree.
And just about came unglued, his wolf charging in a snarling fury right to the front of his mind, when he saw rogue wolf Luke Rawlins standing at her elbow, watching him with that usual arrogant expression on his face as he touched Caleb's mate with his damn filthy paws.
* * *
“Oh, no,” Rielle managed to murmur the second she realized Caleb saw Luke. Her mate's face went thunderously dark. The kind of expression that usually scared his opponents so badly they tended to lose half the fight right then. Her wolf whined in agitation, circling Rielle's mind in nervous steps.
Caleb leapt back out of the ring and steamrolled his way right through the throngs toward them. Rielle heard Lily sigh with just a touch of exasperation and felt Kieran stand more rigidly, although neither one moved an inch to prevent the black storm racing pell-mell in their direction.
Luke didn't move either. There was exactly zero love lost between him and Caleb, although they'd never actually come to blows as far as Rielle knew. Luke was a former rogue wolf, who'd really just been trying to escape his extremely unstable home pack under circumstances that were still mysterious. He was now under the explicit protection of the Black Mesa Wolf Pack, under the direct orders of its Alpha. In fact, he'd shown such undeniable leadership qualities after he'd dropped the life of a rogue that he'd been tapped by Alpha to lead an adjunct pack.
Luke Rawlins, the former rogue wolf and avowed enemy of Caleb, would be alpha of his own pack, so appointed by the alpha of the Black Mesa Pack. And Caleb, who would never be an alpha wolf himself, had been stripped of his own pack role by the very same alpha—his own father.
Rielle and every single other wolf in the pack knew it rankled Caleb like a weeping sore. She'd managed to keep the two of them apart as much as possible ever since she and Caleb had been mated. Darn it, she'd had no idea Luke was into these fights. Caleb had never once mentioned seeing him at one.
Her wolf whined in even greater nervousness as Caleb barreled down on them. Almost holding her breath, Rielle tried very hard to send soothing thoughts to Caleb through their Pack bonds.
“You will remove your paws from my mate,” Caleb said the second he neared them, his barely checked anger reaching the tense little group before he did. He didn't even have to raise his voice above the noise of the oblivious crowd. His light blue eyes glowed with the strength of his wolf behind them, which also pulsed out of his already naturally deep voice and sent it throbbing into their heads. He looked, Rielle thought from some slightly awed place far away, like an enraged, ridiculously sexy Viking about to go all berserker. “Now,” he snapped, when Luke didn't release his light grip on Rielle's upper arm.
Hmm. Apparently the Pack bonds were not going to work very well at this moment. Rielle thought about reaching out her actual hand to him, but Lily's almost imperceptible nudge against her side stopped her.
With the tiniest of bows, really just inclining his dark head, Luke easily pulled his hand away from her. He'd barely been touching her. Rielle knew in an instant he'd done it on purpose to provoke Caleb.
Really. Men. To herself, she shook her head, while her wolf gave a small huff of agreement before resuming her watchful glow out of Rielle's eyes.
A pure wolf growl slipped from Caleb's throat. The random shifters immediately beside them heard it and stepped away with exaggerated, slightly drunken exclamations of “Ooh, better watch out! Don't piss off Caleb, yo!”
She felt Lily and Kieran both tense even more in the charged silence between the two wolves facing off.
“What makes you think you can ever touch my mate, rogue?” Caleb's snarled words were almost hard to distinguish. Rielle knew how much more control he had over his wolf now than mere months ago. But as usual, any perceived threat to her made that control slip a little. Nothing like an overprotective mate to keep the instinctual wolf at the forefront rather than the more rational human.
“Because,” Luke said in that deliberate drawl he sometimes used, “I wanted to see your reaction.”
If steam could come out of Caleb's ears, it would. Rielle swallowed against a suddenly parched throat. She could feel Lily's tensed muscles on one side of her, Kieran's coiled strength on the other. They were prepared, if it became absolutely necessary, to stop her mate from doing something stupid.
Again.
The winter wind outside sent in another chilly blast through the flimsy doors of the club. Rielle shivered in sheer reflex to the situation rather than the cold. Shifters could handle cold temperatures much better than humans, even when in their own human shapes. But the icy blast made the situation seem more fraught with sudden danger. Please, Caleb, relax, she begged silently, imploring him with her eyes.
Caleb's eyes were granite, his expression murderous. Even the half-drunk shifters nearby sensed the change in temperament and abruptly shut their yapping mouths, watching the scene with wide eyes.
Rielle opened her mouth to say something, anything, to lighten the situation. Before she could, though, the one sound she never expected fell from Caleb's mouth.
Laughter.
A genuine laugh, though surprise and no mere suspicion still tinged it as well. Rielle sensed confusion from the Guardians flanking her. Her own wolf sat in fascinated bewilderment as well. Had Caleb's earlier fight landed him a blow to the head that was showing up just now?
“Fine,” her mate said in a suddenly easy voice, th
ough his entire body remained as tense as everyone else's in their small tableau. “You got me, Rawlins. You wanted to see how I'd react? Here you go.” He shook his head, eyes never leaving Luke. “Thank you for removing your hands from my mate. Now.” His voice was still light, but Rielle knew how hard he was working to force it to be that way. “My question for you is, why the hell did you want to know something like that?”
Rielle knew her mate well enough to hear the very slight edge beneath his words. Lily probably sensed it as well, but neither she nor Rielle would let on that they knew Caleb was forcing out the calm in his tone. If anything, Rielle's heart swelled with pride even more. Caleb had come so far with his trigger temper and tendency to react rather than respond. Please let him hold it together now, she pleaded to some unknown wolf shifter deity.
Luke's face remained impassive, although Rielle was close enough to him to pick up on his elevated heart rate. Good, she thought. He was wary, too. Although Rielle knew perfectly well she was soft-hearted and she understood Luke was seriously damaged from living in his horrific home pack's atmosphere his whole life, so she should and actually did have compassion for him, she was still going to be on Caleb's side no matter what.
But she really hoped his side was thinking more rationally at the moment.
Arching one elegant eyebrow in a movement that reminded Rielle he'd been raised in a more courtly, if seriously screwed up, manner than most modern wolves, Luke gave an answer Rielle was certain none of them had expected.
“Because, Caleb,” he said, the slight haughtiness he often assumed abruptly dropping from his entire body, “I know how damn well you've done with your new business. And I have need of your services.”
Complete silence held them in a little bubble, surrounded by the raucous yells of the crowd as winners of each division started to mingle now that the entire fight sequence was over. Rielle's wolf was also dead quiet, straining to understand what was going on.
After a long, dark pause, Caleb said, “What services?”
Smooth and cultured, Luke said, “Your training services. I would like to hire you to train me, Caleb. As a fighter.”
Chapter 3
Air puffed out of Caleb's mouth in little white blasts as he ran. The snow beneath his loping stride churned up and spat out from under his paws, earning the occasional harrumph from the wolf running behind him. Cocking an ear back to make sure she wasn't really mad about it, he also took in as long of a sniffing inhale as he could while running.
Nah, Rielle wasn't mad he was kicking up snow in her face. She smelled like the cold, fresh outdoors, all sweet pine-y and exuberantly sweaty. Not that wolves sweated. And women were supposed to glow or something like that. They never sweated. No, his mate just smelled—happy. Happy to be outside, happy to be running, happy to be with him.
Happy to be her wolf.
Caleb let his tongue loll out for a second in pure joy at the thought. Once, Rielle had denied her own wolf so much she'd been in danger of losing that side of herself forever. Now, she seemed pretty damn excited every time she shifted into four paws. Running through the desert canyons southwest of the pack's den, where the snow was less deep than in the mountains rising immediately behind their little house on the den property, she seemed as thrilled to be a wolf as he was.
At least she could defend herself better when in her wolf shape. His human muttered, That's for damn sure. It was a good thing, Caleb mused as he pulled up to a stop when a deep slice in the earth yawned open before them. He couldn't be around his mate to protect her all the time, even though that was part of his duty. Knowing she could at least fight back in wolf form if anything happened calmed him. A little.
Rielle stood beside him, panting slightly as they gazed out over the crinkled, rumpled earth, carved into canyons and mesas and buttes and covered in a white blanket of cold. Last night's storm had draped even more snow over the desert, much to the pleasure of those who worried about water all the time. Another storm was due in tomorrow. Caleb shrugged. He didn't care about water. What interested him was that running in snow was a better workout. It helped keep him fit and strong. Ready to fight.
Ready to train fighters, his human reminded, although a slightly wistful tone echoed in Caleb's head with those words.
Yes. He trained other fighters, now. And he was very good at it. Good enough that the one-time rogue, Rawlins, had come crawling to him, begging to be trained by the master.
Rielle reached out and thwapped him with a little paw.
“Hey!” His voice didn't speak the way it did in human form, but of course his mate could understand everything he said while a wolf. “What was that for?”
His sweet, kind little mate sat and began to wash her paw with delicate focus. Glancing at him sideways before returning her attention to her paw, she said, “Because I can read your mind. You were thinking about how mighty you are, getting Luke to come to you for training.”
Caleb stared at Ree, ignoring the glare of the early sunlight bouncing off the freshly fallen snow. No way, his human said, though doubt crept in. She can't read my mind.
Could she?
His dark little mate huffed out a laugh and suddenly bounced back to nip at his tail, nimbly darting away when he instinctively reacted by whirling on her, playful growl on his lips.
“Gotcha!” she said, laughter bubbling from her voice. “I have you snowed, big wolf. Get it? Snowed?” She batted some cold whiteness at him, spattering it across his chest.
If Caleb could roll his eyes in wolf shape, he would. “You've been hanging out with me too long, mate,” he said, rubbing affectionately against her, careful not to tip her over with his much larger size. “You're starting to sound like me. I don't think that's a good thing.”
Ree's tongue lolled out as she grinned. “I've picked up a few tricks from you, yes. You are a good teacher, Caleb,” she added in a suddenly more serious tone. “You worked hard for this. You've earned every bit of your recognition, love.”
As usual, Caleb felt suddenly bashful in the face of his mate's praise. Sitting down again, he stared out over the sprawl of the canyons before them and leaned into her. She leaned back, and they stayed that way in companionable silence for long minutes as they contemplated the view. It was spectacular, for sure. Empty land stretched out for miles in every direction. Most of it was free territory—unclaimed by any wolf pack and unbound by pack restrictions.
But soon it wouldn't be that way anymore. His human hmphed as he looked out of Caleb's eyes, calculating. Way to go, Rawlins, he thought in Caleb's mind. Pretty sweet deal to land for your very own pack. The immense desert sprawl was wide open and mostly empty, giving wolves plenty of room to roam and hunt away from human eyes. A small but valuable portion of this free territory was part of the new pack lands Luke was being handed to govern as a new pack alpha.
Rielle murmured, “He'll have a lot to handle out here. This is a lot of space to manage. Especially for someone coming in with as little backing as he has.” Her dark tail curled around her front paws.
Unable to help himself, Caleb barked in disbelief, the noise sending out another white blast of air from his mouth into the cold morning light. “He's got plenty of backing. From my own father.” He bit off the last words, afraid they sounded pathetically whiny.
Pathetically sad.
Ree slid her face against his, nuzzling him for an understanding moment. Thankfully, she didn't respond to his comment directly. Instead, she said, “He's having a hard time getting anyone to want to be part of his new pack. They're all afraid he'll be crazy like his sire. Or that he'll turn them all into rogues or something equally silly.”
Caleb didn't answer except for a single tail lash.
Unperturbed, Rielle continued, “He needs your help. Do you think it was easy for him to ask? You, of all people, have the skills and credentials. He's an alpha, yes, but it sounds like his old pack fought pretty dirty. He wants to learn all the solid skills from you so he can really prove he's
worthy of his new role.”
“It's probably some rogue trick.” Caleb knew he could safely express such thoughts around Rielle. She wouldn't scold him for it. “Besides, I didn't turn him down flat. If there's one thing I've finally learned, it's to never say never.”
Even if that went against his deepest instincts. Rawlins hadn't appeared surprised when Caleb had said he'd think about it. Actually, his poker face never changed. At least that was something Caleb could match him for, look for look.
Rielle settled deeper into the snow beside him, gaze firmly on the landscape spread out beyond them in all its barren yet strikingly beautiful mass. Taking a deep breath of the chilled air, she simply said, “There's only way to find out why he really wants to hire you.”
Caleb heaved a big sigh. Rielle pressed her sleek little head into his side.
“New you, my love,” was all she said. “New you.”
Right. Even so, Caleb was going to be on his guard for any tricks from Rawlins. He hadn't worked this hard getting to a place of better reputation just to let some former rogue break him down again.
And just maybe, his human thought very quietly from the most hidden part of him, being the bigger wolf and helping Rawlins would somehow help him get reinstated as a Guardian for the Black Mesa Wolf Pack.
Maybe.
* * *
“To your left. Now!” Caleb leapt to the side as Rawlins came at him again across the mat. Caleb had seen the man fight before, although it was in his wolf shape. With a grudgingness born of the newfound adult side of himself, which sometimes irritated him to no end, he had to acknowledge the other man was quick on his feet and watchful of every single move Caleb made.
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