by J. K Harper
Rielle started to respond, but then her breath caught in her throat as it always did when Caleb turned to look for her. Her wolf practically purred. Despite the roaring crowd and the fact they were surrounded by potential clients who needed to see him as a big, bad wolf shifter, her big, blond, badass shifter mate blew her a kiss anyway, also giving her that silly little salute they'd started to do with one another. After she returned the kiss, she managed to answer Lily, “He does okay. He's got many skills,” she added in prim tones, which set Kieran off again while Lily pretended to cover her ears in horror.
The upscale clothing store Rielle managed in Durango was her pride and joy—well, after her pride and joy of being her pack's historian, that is—and getting her burly mate to sometimes help her install new lights or tall shelving units was a feat she'd never thought she'd achieve. But she had to admit Caleb was putty in her hands.
Then again, she was putty in his, so it all worked out in the end. She really never would have had any interest in coming to this sweat-stinky, bloody, testosterone-laden fight club just on the outskirts of Black Mesa territory if it wasn't for the fact that her mate had forged his own path to become not only the best fighter in his division, but also a very successful trainer of other fighters. Today's win by the young wolf he'd been bringing along for months now, along with Caleb's win in his own division earlier in the night, meant that both would be going to the regional finals just after the new year rolled over. And that was a big deal to her mate, so it was a big deal to Rielle, too. Even though, she thought with wrinkled nose, it did smell a bit like wet, mangy, street-savvy dogs in here. Not that she'd ever mention that to Caleb. She was actually very glad Lily and Kieran were here with her. This scene was definitely more than she'd want to handle on her own.
But seeing the triumphant look in Caleb's blue-eyed gaze right now meant more to her than most of the shifters here could ever imagine. After Caleb's humiliating stripping of his role as a Pack Guardian over the summer, her mate had floundered to understand his life's meaning and purpose.
“If I can't fight the bad guys, Ree, who am I?” he'd asked her one night, very late, in that hurt, somewhat lost little boy voice no one else ever was allowed to hear. Showing her the vulnerable side he so skillfully hid from others by still playing the blustering, somewhat goofy tough guy who never backed down from a fight.
Except when he wasn't allowed to fight anymore. Not for his pack, at least. His life's purpose of protecting his pack from the increasing threat of rogue wolves had been cut off at the knees when he'd made an incredibly poor decision and paid dearly for it. The Black Mesa Pack Alpha was perhaps the most fair man Rielle had ever known—but he was also unrelenting in his justice. Even when that justice had to come for his own son. He'd removed Caleb as a Pack Guardian, and Rielle thought the world might come crashing down on Caleb after that.
But it wasn't the end of the world for her mate. He was stronger than he knew, and he was proving right now that he could make another life for himself.
Although she and Caleb had briefly joined his brother Rafe's new pack way up in Montana by the Canadian border, it had been a move that turned out to be briefer than expected. Rafe was an excellent alpha, as expected by all. He was strong enough to keep the hotheaded Caleb in line. Yet although Caleb's legendary fighting skills had been what prompted Rafe and the Black Mesa Pack Alpha to send Caleb north, two things ended up making it a decision that was soon reconsidered.
One, Caleb simply wasn't ready to resume Guardian duties, despite his belief that he was ready. He was still angry and tempestuous enough to be a bit of a handful for Rafe to control, even with Rielle's calming influence on her mate. When it turned out that the wolves from local ally packs in Montana who had also joined Rafe's new pack proved to be more than strong, loyal, and submissive enough to round out the Red Pine Pack, Rafe had concluded that battling Caleb on a daily basis over very small matters simply wasn't worth the effort, nor necessary. Caleb still needed to be under the firm control of the Black Mesa Alpha, his own father, while he figured out his path in life.
And two, much more unexpectedly, both Caleb and Rielle had missed Black Mesa and the Durango area more than they'd expected. It had half killed Rielle to leave her store, not to mention her duties as historian for the Black Mesa Pack. Yet more than, they both realized they missed the part-mountain, part-desert canyon landscape of the Black Mesa Pack's sprawling territory. Montana was beautiful—but it wasn't home. Returning was slightly bittersweet, since it seemed to underline yet another failure on Caleb's part, but it really did turn out for the best.
Looking now at the enormous grin on Caleb's face as he welcomed more whooping congratulations from the increasingly excited crowd, Rielle was suddenly so overwhelmed that he'd managed to find his path that her eyes misted over. Caleb might have been down, but he wasn't out.
Hell, yeah, indeed.
Rielle was so busy admiring her mate's moment of glory she about jumped out of her skin when someone else suddenly lightly grasped her arm to get her attention. A low voice, smooth and just the slightest bit aloof, said into her ear, “Looks like your mate is riding high, Rielle. I wonder if perhaps he might have a moment to spare for me.”
Shocked, Rielle whirled around to look right into the carefully blank face of Luke Rawlins—former rogue wolf and still Caleb's most sworn enemy.
2
“Hell, yeah!” Caleb shouted again, completely pumped. He'd known Bran could do it. He'd been training the cub for three months now, working him hard. And it all paid off today, right now. Bran had won the cub division, while Caleb had won his own light heavyweight division about an hour earlier. After a rocky start in life, this was exactly the kind of direction Bran needed. Caleb, too, he had to admit to himself.
Their wins meant they were both going to the regionals. Where even more shifters would see that not only could Caleb Bardou walk his fighting talk, he could train it into others, too. Caleb's Cage Killers was going big-time, baby.
His wolf yelped with excitement, barely restrained from bursting out. Actually, Caleb had gotten a lot better at controlling his wolf these past several months. It was like having his deadliest weapon even more refined.
Pretty cool, really. His wolf growled something vaguely disdainful at the thought of being leashed in any way—Am not a dog, the disgusted thought drifted through Caleb's mind—but stayed firmly in Caleb's mind. It was a heck of a lot different than half a year ago, when he'd struggled daily to control his temper and his wolf from bursting out to just go kind of wild and stupid everywhere. Now, he had a better handle on things.
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 make him a little nuts 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. He was even a two-time Guardian loser. Fine. He'd come to terms with that. Mostly.
Not loser. Winnah, his wolf muttered low, making Caleb snort at himself. Yet even his wolf grudgingly accepted the truth that he was no longer a Guardian. So 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 still rankled Caleb like a weeping sore., despite his otherwise successful efforts to focus his energies and volatile temperment on his training business. 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 the air and abruptly shut their yapping mouths, watching the scene with suddenly 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?
Caleb took a deep breath. “Fine,” he said in a suddenly easy voice, though 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 truly 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 somewhat 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.”
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, or something. He snorted. No, his mate just smelled—happy. Happy to be outside, happy to be running, happy to be with him.
Happy to be her wolf.