Dragging the bear skin and blankets over her, he tucked her in and touched a finger to her cheekbone. “Thank you.”
A vulnerable shadow chased across her expression. “You’re coming back, aren’t you?”
“Soon.” Tonight, yes. Tomorrow? They would deal with that after the sunrise. But her expression remained troubled. Crouching, he brought his face level with hers. “The body in the woods. It must be dealt with.” He’d left the other wolf after he’d torn out his throat. The invader shouldn’t have been on pack land to begin with—Drew had exiled him. Another of Magnum’s cronies.
Attacking Saja had merely sealed his fate all the sooner. He’d allowed his little human a head start; it had seemed fair at the time. But no sooner had he released the Wolf to chase his mate than he’d caught the scent of the invader. It had chilled him to the marrow.
“I’m sorry you had to kill him,” she said, her sorrow deep and genuine.
“I’m not.” He stroked the hair away from her face. “I protect what is mine. You. The pack. Our land. He did not belong here.” You do. But he kept the last part to himself for now.
He had to make sure.
“Rest,” he told her, then smiled. “I want to play when I return.”
“Play? Oh. Oh!” Her cheeks went red, and her desire filled the air. It was almost enough to tempt him to forgo burying the body, but they would all be better off with the bodies in the ground.
“Stay inside.” Another reminder for his stubborn mate.
“I promise,” she said. He scented no lie on her. Leaving proved more uncomfortable than he’d expected—but then, he’d never had a mate, so what did he know?
It took time to retrieve the wolf’s body, carry it off pack land, and bury it deep beneath the snow and the frozen earth. With that one taken care of, he ran a circuit by the cabin to check before covering the distance to where he’d left Garrick. The snow had kept the body from predators, but he’d returned to human state, which made for an unwieldy disposal. He buried him where he lay; it was far enough off pack land. Fortunately, the earth wasn’t so hard frozen yet.
With Garrick dealt with, Ryker paced out of the woods and across the field to where Saja’s car sat—the snow having been dusted off it—Gee waited for him on the hood. He’d scented the Bear earlier.
“You could have helped,” he said by way of greeting.
Gee shrugged. “I didn’t kill him. You break it, you bury it.”
“Is it fixed?” Because why else would Gee be sitting on Saja’s car?
“No. Drew mentioned it was here. I cleaned it off, so the road crew can tow it to town. We’ll have it fixed in a couple of days.” Gee gave him a sidelong look. “Or I can scrap it.”
He didn’t scent the ethylene glycol anymore. No fluid leaked from the vehicle. Either it was frozen, or Gee had fixed it. Considering the snow had melted from around the tires and warmth came from the engine, he bet on the latter. Not commenting, Ryker folded his arms, waiting.
He didn’t have to wait long. Gee rubbed a finger against the side of his nose. “You’ve mated a human?”
“Yes.” Pride for his mate filled him; she was bright and cheerful, quick and intelligent. Then remembering her temper, he smiled; she had teeth, too.
“Does Drew know?”
Ryker shrugged.
“He does now.” His Alpha’s arrival from downwind was too coincidental. They’d planned it. Ryker accepted the knowledge of the ambush. The location was as good as any. They’d repaired her car, which meant the chances were strong if his mate kept silent on the matter, they’d let her go no matter what happened to him.
His Wolf paced restlessly.
Pivoting, Ryker kept both Gee and Drew in his line of sight. Gee, as always, was a wildcard. He wouldn’t interfere—directly. But his presence suggested support. For who? Only the old Bear knew.
Drew mirrored Ryker’s posture, arms folded. “I don’t know whether to congratulate you or kill you.”
Refusing to make excuses or apologize, Ryker met his Alpha’s gaze without remorse. “She’s mine.”
“I can scent her all over you, which means you claimed her.” Drew sighed. “Fuck, Ryker…you broke the law.”
“Youthful rebellion,” Gee suggested. “He was overdue.”
Both wolves ignored him.
“I did.” Ryker nodded.
Drew threw his hands up. “Really? That’s what you’re giving me? I call you out on breaking the law, and you say you did it. That’s it?”
“Would you prefer a lie?” Ryker asked mildly.
“No, I’d prefer we didn’t have to deal with humans knowing.” The Alpha shook his head. “She’s really you’re mate?”
“Yes.”
“She can’t leave. She can’t tell others about us.”
“No,” he agreed.
“If she does….” Drew didn’t have to finish the sentence.
“She won’t.” He hadn’t known her that long, but he knew her. He’d sensed a great deal about her when the mating bond had branded her in his soul.
After a lengthy silence, Drew let out another sigh. “Fine. She’s your responsibility.”
“Agreed.”
“I mean it, Ryker. If she betrays us, it’s you who is betraying us. She’s your mate, you’re bringing her to us, you’re vouching for her, you’re responsible.” The cool power of the Alpha filled those words. The compassionate heart had a backbone of steel. He met Ryker’s gaze, Wolf to Wolf.
“Accepted.” Ryker dropped his gaze first, acquiescing to his Alpha.
“So, Los Lobos gets its first human,” Gee said into the long silence. “When’s the party?”
“Party?” Fortunately, Drew echoed the same sentiment, and they faced the Bear together.
Gee rubbed his hands together and chuckled. “You have a new Alpha, lost wolves are beginning to come home, and now we have a pet human. You need to have a party and introduce her to everyone at once.”
Ryker grimaced. “She’s not a pet.”
“But he has a point.” Drew made a sour face. “I’m going to blame this one on you, too, Ryker.”
The enforcer nodded. “Fair enough.”
He would take all the blame, as long as he kept Saja.
Chapter Six
They were forced to wait on the party with the full moon so close and another heavy, wet snow rolling in. Ryker took advantage of the weather to school her on the pack for at least an hour each day, and the rest of the time she spent in his bed or on the floor in front of the fire. It didn’t seem to matter how often she dressed, he had no trouble stripping her out of her clothes.
Perched on the edge of her chair, she laced the heavy snow boots he’d brought her from one of his handful of hunting trips. A venison stew warmed in the pot, and Ryker told her he planned to expand the cabin in the spring. He even promised to replace the generator so she could have power on a regular basis.
They were still debating a satellite or landline for the Internet. Well, she debated it, he only said no.
Twice he’d changed for her, just so she could see his Wolf. As thickly muscled in his animal form as he was in his human, he made a spectacular sight. She particularly loved the deep autumn in his coat. Since his hair was black, she asked why his coat wasn’t.
His answer? A shrug.
The night before, Drew and his mate Betty had come to the cabin. They’d seemed nice enough, but more than once she’d felt the weight of Drew’s stare on her. She’d avoided meeting his gaze because she didn’t want to offer some kind of inadvertent challenge. She curbed what she said, so she didn’t offend. It chafed, but only a little. She understood the rules and rituals were different. But given enough time, she would adapt.
“So, no one is going to miss you, Saja?” The abrupt shift in conversation to include her instead of talking around her warranted a glance up.
Perched on the arm of Ryker’s chair, Saja shrugged, but before she could say anything else, Betty began to laugh and drew everyon
e’s attention to her. At Drew’s upraised eyebrows, his mate laughed harder. “I’m sorry, but she’s mastered the Ryker shrug. They’re all going to love her.”
Saja flicked a mystified look at her mate—that still took some getting used to—and he shrugged, but beneath his taciturn expression she caught a trace of amusement. One benefit, she’d quickly learned, was that he may appear inscrutable, but she could see past it to the moods beneath.
“As for missing me, my family is pretty used to me falling off the grid to do research.”
“You’re not doing research here,” Drew told her grimly, and she bristled at the order.
Ryker put a hand on her knee, but she met the Alpha’s hard look with one of her own. “Doing research and publishing research are two different things. If half of what Ryker has been teaching me is true, you need someone like me.”
The man met her gaze with unruffled calm, but Ryker adjusted his position next to her, and she felt more than saw him move so that he was at the edge of his chair. All of his attention was on Drew.
“How so?” the Alpha asked in a mild voice.
“Because I’m trained to study how people interact, their social rituals, and to hear what they aren’t saying and see what they aren’t showing. Not how they’re supposed to act, but how they are. I’m also human, and I can go out into the human world where you can’t. I know how to behave there, and Ryker said a lot of the pack left, they scattered. I can help you find them.” On the last sentence, Ryker’s hand flexed on her leg, and she glanced at him in time to see his frown. “I said I could, not that I was going to leave.”
She understood the protective alpha-male behavior, that didn’t mean she planned to indulge it forever.
“Trust takes time,” Drew said at long last, and he favored her with a ghost of a smile. The enigmatic response had been the last word on the subject. Conversation had turned to the rebuilding plans and the need for repairs in Los Lobos.
This evening would be her first look at the town. The pack’s first real look at her. A herd of wild horses stampeded through her system. Her jerky movements reflected her nerves. Twice Ryker paused in what he was doing to kiss her forehead or rub her cheek. Both times her anxiety settled.
When it was time to go, Ryker zipped her coat then pulled her hood up over her ears. It was a different heavy coat, one he’d brought to her, along with the snow boots and a heavier pair of gloves—this only after she admitted the coat she’d tried to loan him was the only real snow jacket she owned.
Odd, she hadn’t seen it since their first day. Only when Ryker deemed her ready for the snow did they go—and he wore exactly what he had that first day, a T-shirt and jeans. Not that he didn’t look fine in it, but still. She looked like a waddling penguin, and he was a Native American deity strolling along as if the world couldn’t quite touch him.
He paused so swiftly, she ran into him, and Ryker bent his head to capture her gaze. “Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“You’re beautiful.” He grazed her lower lip with her teeth, his sensuality rolling over her. When her face warmed under his steady gaze, she finally smiled. He nodded approvingly, and they set off again.
“How do you always know what to say?”
“Your scent changes,” he told her.
Another thing to get used to—if her scent changed when she worried about something, did his keen sense of smell mean he could tell when…? She eyed his back suspiciously. If it were true, then it would definitely explain why all she had to do was fantasize about getting naked with him….
“Not now,” he reminded her with a significant look. “My insatiable mate.” Amusement curved his generous mouth and softened his expression. “Mine.”
Yeah, it would all take some getting used to, but oh so worth the trouble. Town was a hike, and the longer it took to get there, the more she realized how isolated Ryker had been. At the edge of the dilapidated town, Saja’s disquiet grew. The place looked like hell, even expecting it didn’t do justice to the visible damage—and the darker miasma beneath the surface. A deep sense of neglect had allowed it to tumble this far.
Anger burst in her chest—the same neglect had left Ryker alone in the woods. Riding the fresh wave of ferocity, she planted herself at Ryker’s side as they approached the bonfire set up next to an old barn. Music played from somewhere, while food and drink flowed.
It wasn’t long before a scarred Wolf named Tasha and another girl named Amelia swept her off away from Ryker. Amelia was the daughter of the town’s only bar owner. She was definitely not a wolf. Saja had no idea how she knew other than it came from the same place telling her she could trust Tasha. Despite the damage to her face, her warmth was a real thing. The female Wolf seemed to genuinely care about getting to know Saja. One by one, more women surrounded her and introduced themselves, and soon she couldn’t see Ryker for the thick of bodies surrounding her—but she could feel him, his presence warming her from inside out.
Epilogue
The pack’s fascination with Saja included genuine welcome. Amusingly, her nervousness had transformed to anger the moment they’d entered Los Lobos. Her grim expression had gone a long way to calming the nervous wolves. The younger wolves had quickly abandoned their natural reticence to crowd around her. If not for Betty and Tasha keeping close watch, the number of bodies separating him from his mate might have been a cause for concern.
“You know,” Drew said, almost too casually, “it occurs to me I don’t really need to punish your infraction after all.”
“All right.” Another surge of laughter rolled through the crowd around Saja. He could hear her telling a story about some South American tribe.
“They like her.” His Alpha grinned.
The pack’s welcome for his mate was important. “Yes.”
“No, Ryker, they really like her. Women like company. Now they know she’s out there in your cabin, they’ll all make a point of coming to see her and making sure she feels welcome.”
Visitors. Ryker had never had very many. That would definitely take some getting used to. A younger male, not much more than seventeen, skidded to a halt in front of them. Darryl was the eldest of the three teens Ryker had castigated for being spotted roaming in their Wolf form. Uncertain, the kid cast a sideways look at them and then down.
“Yes?” Drew encouraged him since the kid obviously had a question to ask.
“So, does this mean if we met a human girl we like, that it’s okay to date her?”
Ryker didn’t laugh, but he didn’t have to look at Drew to sense the Alpha’s frown. “Ask your mother.”
The response was the right one because Darryl’s hopeful look crashed. He left as quickly as he’d approached.
“That could be a problem,” Drew said softly.
Saja’s laughter burst out from the crowd. Ryker shrugged. “We’ll deal with it.”
“No.” Drew smiled again. “Any Wolf-human dating issues are now yours.” He clapped a hand on Ryker’s shoulder.
There were worse punishments.
The crowd parted a fraction, and he saw his mate grinning at him. When he smiled in return, another wave of wonder rolled through the crowd, but Ryker ignored them all. The only one who mattered burned brightly next to his heart.
He would deal with every other change as it came.
~A Note from Heather~
Dear Reader,
When Rebecca Royce and I first discussed the Black Hills Wolves, the background, the pack, and the various members, I knew Ryker was my guy. Stoic and steadfast, he suffered in ways no one could understand. He doesn’t whine or complain or even make excuses. He’s a man who gets the job done and expects nothing for himself.
Yet, the same facets of Ryker that intrigued me made him a tough character to write because he says so much with very little and getting him to open up? Well, I could shift into a wolf myself easier than that task! So with that in mind, welcome to the Black Hills and I hope you enjoy Ryker’s story.
/>
I did!
Heather
Want more Black Hills Wolves?
Watch for…
Black Hills Desperado by D.L. Jackson
Chapter One
“A bank that’s never been robbed. There’s a first time for everything.”
State-of-the-art security. Armed rent-a-cops stationed on either side of the double doors. A busy street making a speedy getaway difficult. A lot of excellent reasons for Xio Davis get back in her Beemer and get out of Dodge.
None good enough to deter her from a challenge.
The two men who’d ridden with her climbed out. The bigger of the pair, Juan, rolled his shoulders before reaching into the cab for a ski mask and weapon, then passing it off to Miguel. “Catch.” He grabbed another and tossed it over the roof to her.
She caught it, slammed a full magazine home, and tucked it under her duster. With a wink, she retrieved her Day of the Dead mask from a recent celebration. “Okay, boys. Let’s break their lucky streak.”
Diego gave her the freedom to do whatever she wanted these days, as long as she kept his bed warm, and whenever she left his hacienda, she remembered to take her escorts with her. Maybe it was his way of keeping his eye on her—or on his money. Whatever the reason, she didn’t like it, so Xio kept the boys too busy to stick their noses in her personal business. Too busy to get close to the truth.
He didn’t smack her around or pass her among his friends and associates. And his men had long ago learned to respect her personal space. After one of his new hires had groped her, the man had lost a couple fingers and ended up in a body cast. Diego didn’t have to say a word or do anything to intervene. She’d policed her own problems.
Her boyfriend had grown busy with cartel business and that suited her fine. Never present, all the better. They didn’t love each other, but had an understanding. He provided for her, protected her when she needed it. She scratched his itch and spent his money.
What a Wolf Wants (Black Hills Wolves Book 2) Page 6
