Cowboy Wolf Trouble

by Kait Ballenger

  Maverick cast a troubled glance at Wes. Given time, he’d been hoping for the opportunity to whip votes in the Grey Wolves’ favor. A call for a vote so soon negated that possibility. Pact law dictated that the majority vote applied to all shifter packs as long as they chose to continue their participation within the Pact, and doing otherwise was tantamount to declaring war against them all. Which meant that it was all or nothing. A no vote from the Seven Range Shifter Pact would leave the Grey Wolves to face the Wild Eight and the vampires alone.

  The air in the room thickened with tension. With no other choice, Maverick sat forward. “With such a grave situation before us, let us begin.” His words set the tone for the votes. Turning toward the Grizzlies, Maverick stared them down with obvious expectation.

  But Wayne, old bear that he was, crossed his arms over his chest in stubborn dissent. “The grizzlies vote nay.”

  Butch cringed beside him in obvious disagreement with his leader.

  “Nay for the Black Bears,” Amos said, echoing the bear consensus. No surprise there.

  Maverick faced Clementine and Josephine across the table. The warrior women exchanged a quick look of agreement before saying in unison, “Yea.”

  Logan nodded. “It’s a yea for the Coyotes. We stand with the Grey Wolves as always.”

  Which left only the Mountain Lions.

  Clay shook his head. “Nay for the Mountain Lions.”

  Which left the vote an even three to three, meaning the deciding vote, the tiebreaker, fell to the Grey Wolves. A satisfied grin spread across Wes’s face as he locked eyes with the Mountain Lion leader. He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t care for the bastard one bit, little as he’d said throughout the whole meeting.

  “The Grey Wolves vote yea with all due haste,” Maverick said. “We’ll begin battle preparation immediately once all your generals arrive.”

  With the meeting temporarily adjourned while the other packs sent for their commanders and warriors from their respective territories, Maverick stood and Wes followed. As they approached the door of the conference room, Clay reached for Maverick’s shoulder with Maverick’s back turned. Wes stepped in his path, blocking the mountain lion’s outreached hand with a menacing growl. Maverick was more than capable of holding his own, but Wes was eager to put the mountain lion in his place. Instinct told him he would soon have the opportunity.

  “You’re making a mistake, Maverick.” Clay spoke around him as if Wes wasn’t even there, but from the way he inched backward, he was well aware of the threat Wes posed.

  Maverick turned toward Clay. “The Pact has made its choice, Clay. We all play by the same rules.” With that, they turned and left the conference room, leaving the pissed-off mountain lion prowling away in their wake.

  Blaze waited for them in the hall outside the conference room, a tablet clutched in his hands. “There’s something you need to see,” he said to Maverick.

  When Wes continued walking, Blaze cleared his throat. “Both of you.”

  Ushering them into the security office, Blaze closed the door behind them and clicked the lock into place. Wes’s brows drew together as he and Maverick stepped closer to the massive wall of Blaze’s many monitor screens.

  Blaze bent over the desk, forgoing his desk chair. His fingers tapped across the keyboard in a flurry of code. “As soon as I saw this, I knew you’d need to see it immediately.” Though his words should have been directed at Maverick, Blaze shot a grave glance at Wes. “I’ve been trying to hack into the Execution Underground’s files to see what they have on the Wild Eight and the upcoming attack, and as I was going through the files, I stumbled upon this.” Blaze jabbed his finger onto the enter key.

  The image that consumed the screen caused Wes’s breath to stop short. Wes shook his head. No, it couldn’t be true. It couldn’t.

  On the screen, an image of Naomi on her ranchland, smiling and shaking hands with Donnie, stared back at him. All sound, all thoughts ceased. Wes stepped forward, his nose mere inches from the screen. He stared at the image of his reflection transposed over the photo, the twitch of his eye, the pained curl of his upper lip. A part of him wanted to reach out and touch it, as if running his hand over the screen—realizing it was nothing more than colorful pixels, nothing tangible, nothing he could hold—would somehow make the dark hole growing inside his chest easier to handle. But it didn’t. He was paralyzed as the burning sting of betrayal tickled his throat. He’d thought she was different. That he was different because of her. Worthy of love and acceptance, of being more than an instrument of violence. That his love was more to her than a weapon of war meant to be used against him.

  But it had all been a bold-faced lie.

  Not again…

  Wes tore from the room, ignoring Maverick and Blaze who shouted after him in favor of the ringing that filled his ears and of the way Naomi’s photogenic smile seared into his retinas.

  * * *

  She was in for it now. Naomi stood at the edge of the forest surrounding Wolf Pack Run, hand posed on an aging pine as she watched Wes close the gap between them. She’d been watching the pack’s calculated preparations for war. Their warriors had already headed off into the woods, weapons in hand, and from what she’d observed, the women and children, cherished as they were among the pack, intended to remain at Wolf Pack Run, the center and most guarded part of their inner territory, far from where the front lines were sure to be at the edges of their lands and surrounded by a guard of warriors. She’d searched for Sierra in the fray but had seen no sign of the warrior she-wolf. For the better part of the afternoon, Naomi had been watching a steady stream of women, some mothers with their children, heading into what appeared to be an underground bunker.

  The sight had pulled at her heartstrings until Wes had caught her attention.

  He prowled across the open terrain toward her, his lithe body all predatory rage and languid movement. When she hadn’t listened and stayed in his apartment during his meeting with the Seven Range Shifter clans as she’d promised, she had expected him to be annoyed, maybe even peeved, for the sake of her safety. But not this.

  This was overkill. She knew that even from a distance.

  The anger flying off him was barely contained, a mixture of territorial challenge, protective instinct, and some other alpha male behavior she couldn’t quite place her finger on. Sure, he was still concerned another wolf might attack her as Malcolm had. Never mind that she’d put Malcolm in his place and she’d do the same to any other. What exactly had Wes expected? It had been hours since he’d told her he would be back, and he didn’t even have cable, let alone any books to read.

  He drew closer. The space between them grew ever smaller. It was as if he was going to barrel over her. His pace never slowed.

  She took a cautious step back. “Wes…” she warned.

  Before she uttered another syllable, her back pushed against the trunk of the tree as she stumbled over the tree roots. Wes was on top of her, his hands on either side of her head with his lips not claiming her but kissing her with such ferocity, it was as if he waged war against her mouth, against her. His tongue demanded entry, and the deep flavor of whiskey on him disarmed her. She melted into him in total surrender, wanting, needing. She stuck out her lower lip, anticipating the gentle tug of teeth, but he bit down hard but without hurting her, enough to cause her to moan. Heat flooded her core in response. This kiss was a fierce clash of wills, a battle that she could never win.

  When he released her, she gasped for air and struggled to regain her footing among the tree’s gnarled roots. She reached out a hand, expecting him to grab her and draw her into his arms, but he didn’t.

  “I can taste it on you.” He turned away.

  Something was wrong. She wiped his kiss from her lips in a way she’d never felt she had to before. It was as if his lips had burned into her, branding her—and with a kiss, no less
. She marveled at the power of it, at the dark passion that had been there, that made her want more.

  Leaning against the large adjacent pine, his arms crossed over the massive expanse of his chest, he stared at her without speaking. He didn’t yell or scream, but she could see the anger in the lines of his body, the tightness of his jaw, the white knuckles of his clenched fists. His body language seethed of rage…and hurt, a painful, sad hurt.

  “Wes…” she whispered again. When he didn’t respond, she reached out to touch him, to calm the tempest storming inside him. “Are you okay?”

  He yanked away from her as if she’d scalded him.

  Suddenly, she was against the tree again. His hand plunged between her legs, down the front of her jeans. He cupped the heat of her in his hand, his thumb locating the sweet bead between her legs within seconds. She cried out, pushing closer toward him, the pressure of his callused thumb both wondrous and jarring, like the first touch after an orgasm. Immediately, she slickened for him, and from the dark satisfied smirk on his lips, he felt it.

  “Did you do the same for him? For Donnie?”

  For Donnie? The Wild Eight packmaster? The question stunned her into silence. For a moment, she stood immobile, his fingers buried deep inside her with the promise of more to come. Her body longed for what he offered. Not making love but fucking, pure and raw. It would be as glorious as it was hideous, and she would come hard and fast. She wanted him unrestrained, with every bit of the strength in his touch unleashed. Nothing held back.

  But not like this.

  She shoved him square in the shoulders, but all of her strength didn’t even nudge him. Her attack didn’t faze him. Still, he loomed over her, dark and menacing. The coiled viper. Of his own volition, he released her from the cage his arms had created around her, stepping away from her.

  Yes, something was wrong. Horribly wrong. There had been a shift in the electricity between them. The change in his touch left her heart feeling like she’d been cut open and empty, yet she had no idea what had caused this. This was not Wes, the man and werewolf she loved, a man with deep darkness in his past, a man who was good even if he didn’t recognize it beneath his flaws. No, this version of him lived hand in hand with that darkness, as if the past had come back and devoured him and he intended to use it to maim, to punish. Somehow, that hurt her more than any wound at the hands of the Wild Eight ever could.

  Once he stood a safe distance away, far enough that he couldn’t persuade her with that angry heat in his touch, she launched her counterattack. “What the hell are you talking about?” She gestured back and forth between them.

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy it.”

  The fact that she had enjoyed it in all its dark glory enraged her even more. It had killed her to stop. Angry sex with Wes would be like a wild ride she could never dream of controlling, but she could lose herself in the submission of it, in the command of his hands. But she would never admit as much.

  “I spent most of my life inside that clubhouse,” he continued. “You think I don’t know exactly what he’s done to you there, how he’s handled you?”

  Donnie again? Rage filled her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. We’ve been through this. I’ve never had anything to do with the Wild Eight. Not before you. I—”

  “Don’t lie to me,” he roared. “Not anymore.”

  Bile rose in her throat. She knew then that she’d lost him, as swiftly as if Malcolm had stood behind him again with his executioner’s blade.

  Wes stepped closer to her, his words dripping with venom. “I know everything,” he hissed.

  She shook her head. “Wes, I can explain.”

  He turned his back on her, stepping back toward Wolf Pack Run. She grabbed his wrist, but he tore away from her.

  “Wes, you don’t understand,” she pleaded. “I didn’t know. He pretended to be an investor for the ranch. By the time I learned who he was, if I had told you, you would have—”

  He whipped toward her. “You lied.”

  The accusation hung in the air between them, sharp as a blade, and she stood defenseless against it. Because it was true. She had lied. To protect herself, and then, when she’d learned the truth, to protect him. She’d cupped the small spark between them in her hands, sheltering it from the cold autumn winds of circumstance that threatened to extinguish it. What she hadn’t realized, what she knew now, was that she had done nothing but ensure its destruction from the start.

  The glare in his eyes was tinged with what she thought might be hate, even though only hours earlier, she’d thought she’d seen love there. She wanted to fight him, to tell him they still had a chance. But through the pain she’d caused, he couldn’t see her. She could see in his eyes that he’d been drawn back there again, to three years earlier when another woman he’d loved had betrayed him.

  The only difference was that Naomi had never meant to hurt him. Not like she had.

  “Please don’t hate me,” she pleaded. “I’m not her.” She reached toward him again. This time, he allowed her to touch him, to trace her fingers over the muscles of his chest. “I never meant to—”

  “But you did.” The pain in those three words pierced her heart.

  She had three words of her own, the only three in her arsenal. “I love you.” She said it before she realized it had slipped from her lips. It was the truth. Perhaps the first real, full truth she’d shared with him since they met, now that everything between them was out in the open, exposed and raw to the cold, cruel mountain air.

  And it was the only weapon she had left in this battle between them.

  Even in the volatile mess of the moment, she ached with hope that her words reached him, prayed that they would break through the walls he had erected to keep her out, that he would say the same back.

  His hand clutched hers, stopping her touch in its tracks. “Leave.”

  Naomi’s heart stopped. She struggled to form words. “Wes, I—”

  “Leave,” he repeated.

  “I love you,” she said again. Tears clouded her vision. A damn shame, because she had a feeling this was the last time she’d ever see his rugged, handsome face. She fought to memorize the color of his eyes, the way grey starbursts surrounded his pupils, interlaced with the icy blue that was fringed with long, blond lashes. The sharp lines of his cheekbones, the bristled texture of his beard, the jagged curve of his nose, the plump slash of his lips. She would have given anything to see that damn smirk, to see anything but the pain etched in his features.

  He dropped her hand, tossing it to the side as if it meant nothing to him, as if she meant nothing to him. “Save your love for someone worthy.”

  You’re worthy. She wanted to scream it, but she knew that if she said as much right now, he’d never believe her. To him, it would be another lie on her lips.

  “I’m not capable of love.”

  The words pierced through her heart. So he didn’t feel the same.

  Turning away from her, he shifted and tore into the woods. And then he was gone, torn from her life as quickly as he’d charged into it.

  “Wes!” she shouted after him, but her cry fell on deaf ears.

  She struggled to breathe. It felt as if her heart had been gutted from her chest. Clutching at her throat, she turned her gaze toward Wolf Pack Run. Someone, someone had to believe her. To help her get through to Wes. To make him realize she’d never meant to hurt him.

  In the distance, three guards headed straight toward her. Their intentions were clear. If Wes thought she was Wild Eight, they likely did, too.

  No. No. Any remaining chance to win him back crashed and burned as the guards advanced toward her. Wes didn’t believe her. Maverick didn’t believe her. No one would.

  With no other choice left, she heeded Wes’s words. She mounted Star, kicking the horse into full speed until she tore into the trees
and headed down the mountainside in the direction of her ranch, her home.

  Several days ago, she’d wanted nothing more than to make this very trip, to leave Wolf Pack Run, to return to her normal life and never come back. But now that the decision had been made for her, she wanted nothing more than to stay here in this place, in the arms of the man, the werewolf she loved. Because he was more than worthy of her love. She could see that.

  She wished he could see the same.

  Chapter 19

  Wes ran through the forest, his legs propelling him forward with increasing speed. His pulse pounded in his ears, a steady thrum highlighting the singular thought that echoed through his head: it was too good to be true. He had known that from the start, of course. But somehow along the way, he’d forgotten that reality. Naomi had brought him to life, resurrected a part of him he’d thought long dead. Only to bury him six feet under once again. With three beautiful, terrible, destructive words, she’d ruined him for all others before and after her.

  There would never be anyone but her…

  And her betrayal…

  So he ran.

  Even when all four legs burned with the ache of the distance, Wes allowed the depth of his pain to act as fuel. The heat of his muscles tearing seared through his legs with every leap and bound, yet he didn’t stop until he reached the edge of the mountainside, until the crevice in the landscape unfolded beneath him, leaving nowhere left to turn except to fall into its depths. The earth opened herself to him, offering to swallow his misery. He threw back his head and let loose a long, pained howl.

  He stood at the edge of the cliffside, staring down into the abyss. Miles below, a river ran through the craggy rock. The orange and blue hues of the early evening sky reflected back on its surface. In the distance, an eagle perched in its nest, prepared to take flight. The mighty bird swooped down into the chasm with a harsh screech, flying away and leaving its nest, everything, behind in its wake. True freedom.