He shook his head. “I don’t need to cuff you.” His eyes darted toward Wes. “Any woman who could melt that cold bastard’s heart must be made of pure sugar…”
Or stronger stuff than most, but she held her tongue.
“Besides, I could break you in two.”
Naomi sized him up in a glance. Considering his role as a guard, she was betting he was a beta, and he wasn’t nearly half the size of the alpha wolf she’d taken down in the mess hall. But again, she didn’t say as much. She really did intend to talk to Maverick and nothing more—if giving the packmaster the knocking down to size he deserved could be called a “talk.”
The guard led her out of the cellar and onto the route to the main compound of Wolf Pack Run and toward Maverick’s office. By now, she knew the way. When they reached Maverick’s office, the guard knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Maverick called.
When they stepped inside, the packmaster rose to his feet. The guard started to explain, but Maverick waved him away. “Leave us.”
The guard scurried from the room, shutting the door behind him with a sharp click.
It was Naomi who spoke first. “You need to make an exception.”
“Perhaps you don’t understand that in our pack—”
“No, you don’t understand.”
Maverick raised a single eyebrow, as if her daring to interrupt him was something he didn’t experience often. Boy, was he in for a wake-up call. She was just getting started. For the past year, she’d spent the better part of her time among a group of good ol’ boys, and she was decidedly not old or a man, nor was she—at least by their standards—good enough. She knew firsthand what it was like to be ignored by powerful men, and she’d be damned if she was about to get the same from Maverick. Werewolf packmaster or not.
Not when Wes’s life was on the line.
Now that she had Maverick’s full attention, she continued. “Wes put his life on the line to save me.” Maverick opened his mouth again, but she raised a hand to silence him. “Heck, I’ve lost track of how many times!”
That seemed to shut him up.
“If he hadn’t defied your order, I would have died at the hands of the Wild Eight. Considering I swore fealty to the Grey Wolf Pack, you could consider his actions a part of protecting the Grey Wolves’ better interests. Then he risked his life at the Midnight Coyote Saloon, fighting the Wild Eight again, just so he could find out what they and the vampires are up to. If it hadn’t been for the Execution Underground arriving too early, he would have been dead.”
Maverick’s eyes widened, but she ignored his reaction, continuing on.
“As if that wasn’t enough, he risked his freedom again to gather still more information to protect the Grey Wolves. Not only have the Wild Eight partnered with the vampires, but they also have half-turned vampires on their side that are bigger, faster, stronger even than Wes. To prove it all to you, he fought one of those vampires and brought you its head in a damn duffel bag, even though he knew you would kill him upon his return for his disobedience…all because he’s grateful to you and the Grey Wolves, because he thinks you made him a better man. But what you don’t realize is that he was already a good man when you took him in. Why else would he leave everything in his life and throw himself into the hands of his enemy, all with the hope that you could end the cycle of violence he’d been born into?”
At this point, Maverick’s mouth hung open, as if the packmaster was completely flabbergasted. Naomi stepped forward, her finger jabbing in the air as she drove the point home.
“So if you’re even half the man that he thinks you are, you’ll realize that his disobedience means nothing. Everything he is, everything he’s done has been for the Grey Wolves, for you. And if you don’t see that, you’re not even a smidgen of the packmaster he would be.”
Maverick’s lips curled into an uncertain smile. “A smidgen?”
She blushed but ignored the comment. “Obedience isn’t everything. Truly great men aren’t made for it, not when someone’s life is on the line. Not when disobedience is the right thing to do.”
Maverick watched her with guarded eyes. “Be that as it may, it doesn’t change who he is.” He turned away from her as if he was done with their conversation.
But she wasn’t through. “And what exactly would that be?”
Maverick twisted back toward her, only enough for her to see his face. Annoyance tightened his features. “He’s a murderer,” he hissed. “What do you think landed him here in the first place? The man killed his own father. He couldn’t control his rage…”
Naomi’s frustration flamed. He made it sound so black and white, but as far as she was concerned, it wasn’t. Sure, Wes wasn’t innocent, but he wasn’t the big bad wolf either. He was no monster. He existed in an area of grey. His past and his actions weren’t good, nor were they evil. Intention mattered, damn it. Why couldn’t Maverick see that?
“And you haven’t killed before?” she accused.
Maverick stilled. His whole body stiffened as if she’d thrown one of her knives straight into his back.
Slowly, he turned back toward her. His wolf eyes blazed with fiery rage. “This isn’t about me.”
Naomi shook her head. “But it is. With all due respect, Packmaster, this is about you as much as it is about him.”
“I never killed my father or an innocent woman,” Maverick growled.
“You would have killed Nolan Calhoun if you had the chance. From the sound of it, he was as awful as they come. A horrible tyrant and abuser who’d taken a young, impressionable child who’d lost his mother and molded him into the monster you think he is. Nolan deserved to die.” She said this with absolute conviction. “And as for the woman, you could hardly call her innocent, and Wes didn’t kill her. His packmembers did. But it wasn’t enough just to kill her. They set it up so he’d be the one to discover her body. He was betrayed by his father, his brethren, the woman he’d loved. Every single person dear to him.”
Something flickered in Maverick’s eyes. A deep emotion he fought not to reveal. She would have said it was a hint of confusion if she didn’t know better. At that moment, realization gripped her, and her breath caught.
“Did you know he didn’t kill her?” The question fell from her lips before she could stop herself.
Maverick turned away from her again, but she grabbed his wrist as he did so, forcing him to turn back toward her. She saw it then in his eyes, ignorance and confusion.
He hadn’t known. He had no idea.
When he didn’t answer, she questioned him again. “Do you know he didn’t kill her? That he was framed? Did you know that’s why he killed his father?”
Maverick tore his wrist away from hers. His silence said enough.
Naomi’s jaw dropped open. “You never bothered to ask him what his motivations were or if he actually did it?”
“His motivations are of little consequence to me.”
Naomi wasn’t buying that for a second. She knew enough about the opposite sex to know that men like Wes and Maverick, warriors forged hard as steel, rarely communicated thoroughly.
“Horseshit,” she swore. “Motivation, intent, it means something. In the human world, that’s the difference between a manslaughter conviction and cold-blooded first-degree murder.”
“This isn’t your world,” Maverick was quick to remind her.
She attempted a different approach. “You aren’t the least bit curious?” She had him then. She’d seen the hint of curiosity in his eyes.
He didn’t deny it. Instead, he busied himself with a stack of papers on his desk, as if he couldn’t care less.
“She was a hunter, you know. For the Execution Underground.”
Maverick shook his head. “The Execution Underground has never allowed female hunters.”
“Maybe not officiall
y, but her husband, Quinn Harper, was official enough.”
At the name, Maverick’s head flew up from his papers, his eyes wide. She had his attention again.
“She went undercover with the intention of capturing Wes, tricked him into caring for her under false pretenses. I heard as much from Quinn himself.”
“If he cared for her, all the more reason he would—”
“They framed him. Nolan, Donnie, and the Wild Eight. They told him it was his enemy lying in that room, and instead, it was her.”
Maverick swore.
“You would have killed Nolan, too, if he’d framed you that way.”
Maverick was shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe what she was telling him.
He gave a deep grumble of acknowledgment that somehow spoke volumes.
“I’m not saying Wes is innocent.” She shook her head. “Far from it. But he admires you more than you know, more than he would ever let on, and though he doesn’t show it in the conventional way, he’s loyal to you, almost to a fault. He may not be perfect, but he deserves your consideration. At least give him that much.” She turned to leave, to head back to Wes.
As her hand touched the door handle, Maverick called after her, “Naomi.”
She glanced back toward him.
“The half-turned vampires. You say he has proof?”
She fought the smile tugging at her lips. At the very least, she’d piqued Maverick’s interest. Even if he still sentenced Wes to death, at least that death wouldn’t be in vain. Wes would still have protected the Grey Wolves as he’d intended.
“Check the duffel bag the guards took from him when we arrived. You’ll find one of the half-turned’s heads in there. The Wild Eight is planning to attack the Grey Wolves…and soon. The vampires are their secret weapon.”
With that, she twisted the door handle and walked out of Maverick’s office, leaving the hardened packmaster speechless.
Chapter 17
Their blood would flow in rivers down the mountainside. Loyalty to the pack be damned. Wes paced the length of his cell for what must have been the hundredth time in only a few minutes. When he’d awakened, he expected to find Naomi lying in his arms. Instead, she was nowhere to be seen, and all the guards were equally absent.
If they hurt her, he would murder every single one of them.
Slowly.
Just as he was preparing to launch an all-out assault on the cell lock in an attempt to break it, footsteps echoed from the darkened hall.
“Where is she?”
The guard, a young wolf named Kieran, approached.
Kieran lowered his voice to a whisper. “She’s safe. Unharmed. That’s all I can say for now.”
His words came to an abrupt halt as Colt and several other guards entered the hallway. As high commander of the Grey Wolf armies, Colt stood in front, the other guards falling behind him in deference. Colt crossed his arms over the large expanse of his chest. He was shaking his head. “I warned you not to defy Maverick.” Colt played his part, as if he hadn’t played a key role in Wes’s return himself.
“You did.” Wes nodded. “That doesn’t mean you were right.”
Colt crossed over to the cell. One of the nearby guards passed him the keys. “Do I need to cuff you?”
“That would be wise.” Considering they meant to lead Wes to his death, Colt was a fool to think he’d go without a struggle.
Colt shook his head again, as if he was somehow both pleased and disappointed. “You’re the most stubborn wolf I’ve ever met.”
Wes smirked. “And you’re the most arrogant.”
Colt jammed the key into the lock. “For what it’s worth, I’ll miss that hideous scowl of yours.”
Wes lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Naomi calls it a smirk.”
The sound of Colt’s keys jingling in the lock echoed throughout the cellar. “It’s a shame she has such poor vision.”
Wes snorted a laugh. “You’d be a lucky man to find the same in a woman someday. God willing, she’d put up with your ego after Maverick names you second.”
“Or maybe I’ll just strike up your girl, seeing as how she’s a packmember now.” Colt smiled. From anyone else, it would’ve been a taunt. But Wes grasped what Colt was saying: Naomi was safe, even in Wes’s absence. And for that, he owed the commander his thanks.
He breathed a sigh of relief. There was sorrow, yes, for what he’d leave behind, but he took solace in knowing that Naomi was safe.
Colt gave the key one last turn, and the lock clicked open. A dark look sparked in the wolf’s steely-grey eyes, but Wes wasn’t certain what it meant. “Goodbye, Wes.”
Wes stepped out of the cell, extending his wrists for Colt to cuff. “Goodbye, Colt.”
Colt cleared his throat and turned toward the waiting guards. “Get him out of here!” he ordered. The other guards wrestled Wes from the cellar. He fought them every step of the way. He might have surrendered himself. His own life mattered little, but he would fight to the death on Naomi’s behalf.
The guards escorted him out into the cold night air and into the woods. The smell of the pine trees filled his nostrils, calming and soothing. When they finally reached the clearing, he stilled. This was the same clearing where Maverick had spared Wes several years earlier, where tonight, he would condemn him.
The warm light of torches flooded the large clearing and cast a burning glow. Colt took his place next to Maverick as the guards led Wes up to them, tossing him to his knees. His jeans ground into the cold dirt as he knelt before the packmaster, who held ultimate power and sway within the pack. In the distance, the rustle of branches and leaves indicated the Grey Wolf packmembers hidden within the brush, welcome to watch the proceedings without intervening. For something of this magnitude, the whole pack would be in attendance.
Maverick raised a hand to silence the movement of the packmembers among the trees. When nothing but the whistle of the wind answered back, the proceedings began.
Maverick raised his voice, projecting to all in attendance. “Wes Calhoun, fellow Grey Wolf and former packmaster of the Wild Eight, you have been charged with failure to obey your pack leaders, insolence, and exposing our pack to human eyes. You are a wild, disobedient wolf with little respect for authority and the leadership of this pack. Through your disregard and betrayal, you have endangered your own life as well as the lives of every other wolf here. On the charges set forth, do you claim innocence?”
The gazes on Wes’s shoulders intensified, weighing him down as if he were the only wolf, the only man in the world. He met Maverick’s stare. Some deep emotion reflected in the light of the packmaster’s eyes, almost as if he was urging Wes to defend himself. Wes laughed, deep and throaty.
No, he would never make it that easy on Maverick. The packmaster had made his choice. He hadn’t given Wes a chance, had never taken Wes’s motivations into consideration. When they examined the half-turned vampire head in the duffel bag they had confiscated from him, they would find out the truth, the warning he’d brought with him. He’d made his peace. He and Maverick had both made their beds. Now it was time for them to lie in them.
The Grey Wolves wouldn’t believe the truth anyway.
“No.” He said the word every packmember wanted to hear, reinforcing what they all thought of him, what they expected of the nefarious Wes Calhoun, former packmaster of the Wild Eight, their former enemy, and a known murderer of werewolves and men alike. The word he deserved. The deep sound of his voice fell flat among the mountain pines, dying nearly as soon as it had left his throat.
“Such a charge warrants death as our laws call for.” A grim expression darkened Maverick’s face.
A burst of murmurs sounded from around the clearing. Though Wes had never doubted the outcome, somehow, the finality of it hit him. Even faced with his own mortality head-on, he didn’t mourn his death
. No, this was a worthy death, a death on behalf of the pack he had grown to love even as they condemned him for his disloyalty. The pack that had changed him, made him into a better man. He was still a monster, but at least now he could die knowing he hadn’t succumbed to his fate without a fight.
His only regret was the thought that he would never get to kiss Naomi goodbye, never get to tell her how he felt about her.
Because he loved her…
He realized it then from the deep and burning ache in his chest. Though their time together had been brief, he needed her like he needed air, and his feelings for her only grew deeper with each passing day. She was brave, strong, resilient, passionate, and fierce. Everything he could ever want and more.
And soon, when the Grey Wolves defeated the Wild Eight, she would no longer need him, need his protection, and she would return to her life in the human world, the life and legacy she wanted on the ranch.
Not to a life with him.
That made his death just as well. The thought of being forced to live without her cut deeper than any wound. As if to prove him correct, Malcolm’s executioner blade pressed against the skin of Wes’s throat, drawing him to his feet.
He stared into Maverick’s eyes, holding his gaze with unflinching resolve. If he was going to die at the orders of the man who was once his enemy, he would look him in the eye as the deed was done.
“Wes Calhoun,” Malcolm growled. “Any last words?”
Something flickered in Maverick’s gaze.
“I promised you my loyalty, not my obedience. I’ve kept that promise.”
With Wes’s final words, Malcolm drew back his blade, prepared to slice.
“Wait!” The shout rang out through the clearing.
But not from anyone whom Wes would have expected to dissent.
No, the yell that had pierced the night, that had stopped his execution, came from the man who had condemned him. Suddenly, Maverick stood in front of Wes, tearing the blade from Malcolm’s hand.
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