Cowboy in Wolf's Clothing

by Kait Ballenger

  “It’s not like you to challenge me like this. Is this about protecting our pack or protecting your ego?”

  Colt stiffened.

  “We both know that any man who endured that kind of torture would want to seek revenge, but as packmaster, I can’t allow your personal vendetta to supersede the needs of the Pact. I understand you think you need this, but—”

  Colt finally spun to face Maverick. “This isn’t about me, damn it!” he yelled.

  It was about them, all of them. All the lives that had been lost in that battle and every battle before. All the lives that would be lost if he didn’t fix this.

  The room seemed to freeze. Maverick stared at him, the air between them fraught with tension as neither dared to move. Colt had never raised his voice to Maverick, even when they were kids, yet here he was, yelling like he wasn’t in perfect control of himself and his emotions, as if he didn’t strive to be of loyal service to this wolf who was also his friend. Though he wasn’t certain about anything anymore, was he? He hadn’t been certain since he’d nearly died on the vampires’ godforsaken silver table, knowing he’d failed his men. Yet as he’d lain bleeding, all he’d been able to think about to keep himself going had been a beautiful, naked she-wolf with an untamable head of dark curls.

  A woman he could never have, who he’d never see again.

  “Colt, you can’t possibly think you’re to blame for this.”

  It was an absurd statement, because Colt didn’t think that. He lived it. “Why can’t I?”

  Maverick gaped at him. “How could you have prevented this?”

  When Colt didn’t respond, Maverick stepped around his desk. “Haven’t I always been the first to tell you when you’ve screwed up, when you’ve failed me?” He placed a large hand on Colt’s shoulder. “This isn’t one of those times.” He dropped his hand to his side. “Regardless, the Pact’s decision is final, and you’ll have to live with it, as we all will.”

  Maverick tugged open a desk drawer and reached inside to remove a different file. “I promised the coyotes I’d return to the conference room for a private discussion. You know the way out.”

  He stepped past Colt, file in hand, before he paused in the doorway. “And, Colt, if you pursue this against my orders, there will be repercussions.”

  Maverick walked down the hall toward the conference room. It was several seconds before Colt even thought to move, and he didn’t do so until the sound of another familiar voice came from behind him.

  “You don’t always have to listen to him, you know.”

  Colt turned to find the icy blue-green eyes of the Grey Wolf second-in-command staring at him. Wes leaned in the office doorway, his face shadowed as he removed the pale Stetson from his head, revealing a mess of untamable blond hair.

  A wild, near-feral wolf, Wes Calhoun, former packmaster of the Wild Eight and legitimate son of the nefarious Nolan Calhoun, one of the deadliest wolves in history, was now loyal to the Grey Wolves. Wes even looked like a younger version of Nolan.

  Like father, like son, Colt thought.

  Having surrendered himself to the pack several years earlier, Wes had been spared by Maverick, the Grey Wolf packmaster and a wolf he’d once called his sworn enemy. But even now, several years later, Wes was still as much of a troublemaker as his former title suggested.

  Though they were cut from the same cloth and fierce but often oppositional friends, Colt and Wes were as different as night and day. Colt was known for being a man of discipline and loyalty, for following every order to the letter, while Wes was well known for defying pack laws and conventions at every turn. It was a luxury Colt envied but never allowed himself.

  The repeated incidents of Wes’s rebellion had decreased only now that he’d found another distraction: his fiancé, a human rancher named Naomi Evans.

  Colt sat down again, propping the edge of his boots on Maverick’s desk. “That’s easy for you to say. No one expects you to follow orders. If they do, they’re fools.”

  Wes’s mouth pulled into a smirk. “You’re likely right on that count. But you don’t fool me, Commander.” He gave Colt a knowing look. “You paint a nice picture, Mr. Perfect Grey Wolf Soldier, but we both know you don’t always play by the rules.”

  From anyone else, Colt would have stiffened in fear that his secret, the truth of his birth, had been discovered. He wasn’t the perfect Grey Wolf soldier in more ways than Wes would ever know. But Colt knew exactly what Wes referred to.

  Several months earlier, Colt had played a key role in his friend’s appointment to second-in-command. Though they hadn’t spoke of it since, it had been a secretive, strategic move on his part that undermined Maverick’s direct orders.

  Everyone had expected the position of second-in-command to be his. Colt was driven, determined, and his ambition for rising in the pack ranks until he’d become high commander was well documented. Being the next highest-ranking member of the Grey Wolf warriors, he was the natural choice for second-in-command, and he’d played right into the pack’s expectations. What they still didn’t realize, save for Wes, was that Colt hadn’t wanted the position all along.

  Being second-in-command would have meant that in the event of Maverick’s death, Colt would have been named packmaster. If he felt like he lived as an imposter every day as the Grey Wolf commander, he would never escape the feeling if he led the pack. Not to mention, it would have opened his past history to political scrutiny in a way he couldn’t allow. At least with Wes, everyone knew he wasn’t born a Grey Wolf. Of course, there had been other motivations for Colt as well.

  Reasons Colt would rather take to the grave than admit to anyone, even Wes…

  “Only when it suits my purposes.” Colt lowered his boots and stood, prepared to leave the conversation there.

  “And this doesn’t?” Wes asked.

  He had a point.

  “There’s no one who wants to know more what those bloodsuckers are up to than I do, but if Maverick and the Seven Range Pact forbid it, then my hands are tied.”

  It was a bold-faced lie, and Wes likely knew it. Regardless of whether his actions were officially approved by Maverick and the Pact, Colt’s loyalty was first and foremost to the Grey Wolves, even above their packmaster, and he wouldn’t rest until he knew exactly what the vampires were planning. All Maverick’s orders meant was that now Colt had to find a way to gather the information he needed without Maverick knowing he was doing so, at least not until he had ample evidence. It would be a dangerous move, risking his station and pack censure, but he’d risked it before for far less.

  Wes narrowed his eyes as if he saw straight through Colt. “You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”

  “Believe what you want.” Colt turned to leave, but Wes’s next words stopped him in his tracks.

  “The wedding is tomorrow,” Wes said.

  Colt knew this, of course. He was Wes’s best man, but the way he said it gave Colt pause. “You getting cold feet?”

  “Fuck no,” Wes muttered. “I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. I know I still owe you, but—”

  Colt placed his Stetson on his head. “You don’t owe me anything, Wes.” If anything, it was the other way around.

  “Regardless, I need a favor.” Wes’s eyes darkened. “Naomi deserves a perfect honeymoon, and…”

  Colt didn’t like where this was going. Wes wasn’t one to beat around the bush. “And?”

  Wes shook his head. “And I need you to watch Black Jack.”

  Even as Wes uttered the words, Colt was shaking his head. It was a helluva favor, more than was fair to ask any sane person. The mustang’s reputation throughout the pack was almost as nefarious as that of his rider. The horse might well be the single most ornery beast Colt had ever had the displeasure to encounter. Black Jack put poor pretentious Silver to shame.

  “
I’m already serving as your best man,” he offered.

  Wes didn’t seem to hear him. “If he bites another one of the stable hands, they might stage a walkout if I don’t house him in a separate stable. I wouldn’t ask if I hadn’t exhausted all other options. You know as well as I do that no one wants to care for that bastard while I’m away, and Naomi doesn’t want him along on the honeymoon.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Colt muttered.

  “I’m asking you this as a friend, as a—”

  Colt raised a hand, cutting Wes short. He knew what Wes was about to say.

  As a brother…

  But Colt couldn’t stand to hear the words.

  They were truer than Wes would ever know.

  Colt released a long sigh and peered at Wes from beneath his Stetson. Sometimes Wes looked so much like Nolan Calhoun that it hurt, and then there were times like this when Wes was so much of a friend to Colt that he could almost forget that Wes and Nolan were cut from the same cloth.

  “Fine. I’ll watch your horse.”

  Wes clapped Colt on the shoulder. “I can’t say you won’t regret this, because you likely will.” He chuckled darkly.

  Didn’t Colt know it. He turned to leave again, feeling the call of returning to the ranch work, where the darkness of his thoughts and past were easily chased away. But he paused, glancing over his shoulder at his friend, his brother. “You really love her, don’t you?” he asked.

  Wes held his gaze, not a bit of shame in his eyes. “You know I do.”

  Colt nodded. He couldn’t help but think of Belle, of the violent circumstances of their parting. He knew they never could have been together, but he still wondered what could have been if the circumstances had been different.

  Maybe his birth father had been wrong. Wes had lived a more violent life than most, but he’d still found love, which meant maybe it wasn’t something in Colt’s blood that made him undeserving of the emotion.

  Maybe it was only Colt…

  * * *

  “Put your foot on the gas pedal, Belle. That’s all you have to do.”

  Belle muttered the words to herself while she idled at the side of the road in her old beater pickup truck. Silence from the empty cab answered, and the warmth of her breath swirled around her face as she exhaled. She glanced down at her cold knuckles turning white against her tightened grip on the steering wheel. The air in the cab chilled her despite her heavy Carhartt. With the dampness of the melting snow in the air as spring arrived and the old truck’s heater broken yet again, it was colder than any born-and-bred Florida girl should ever have to endure. Springtime in Montana was never kind as far as she was concerned.

  And neither were those butterflies buzzing in her stomach.

  Her grip tightened further. It was now or never. She needed to know that he was alive, and she needed to tell him. She pulled out the burner phone she’d purchased and lit up the screen. The calendar date stared back at her. She blinked, still in disbelief, wondering if the numbers might come into better focus in front of her eyes, telling her that she wasn’t seeing what she thought she was. But still the numbers remained.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, she’d been aware of the day’s date, of course, but in the melee, she had lost track. Now, as she stared down at the date on the phone’s calendar, reality sank in. Her period was nearly a month late. Post-clearance of her name, she’d been preparing to return to her old life when reality had struck her. She’d been late before. But never this late.

  And after sleeping with a certain virile Grey Wolf commander. She groaned. What had she been thinking?

  Unconsciously, her hand drifted to her stomach as if she could somehow sense the potential life there, but all she felt was the soft tissue of her abdomen. Despite her fear of the future, a part of her was hopeful. She’d always wanted a family, and while this might not be how she’d intended, she would have that family all the same, if it really were the case.

  She’d need to find another werewolf physician for an examination to confirm all was well, but…

  She removed her foot from the brake pedal and pressed down on the gas. The old truck clunked over the rocky bumps of the open dirt road. The turnoff she’d taken from the main stretch of highway reached for miles without so much as a soul or a building in sight, yet somehow, even this far from the Grey Wolf ranch, she still felt as if she were being watched—which chances were likely, she was.

  She rode like this for what felt like a good twenty minutes before she finally reached the small hut of an outpost station. She was still miles from the main compound at Wolf Pack Run, but the two wolves stationed at the outpost met her with wary eyes nonetheless. One of them stepped out as she pulled up beside them. His hand rested firmly on a gun at his belt, probably loaded with silver bullets.

  She rolled down her driver’s side window. “Hi, my name’s Elizabeth—” She planned to give an alias.

  “Pack affiliation?” he asked, cutting her off midsentence.

  She gaped at him, struggling to find a response. “Uh…like I was saying, my name is Elizabeth Beautane, and I…”

  “Pack affiliation?” he asked again. A hint of impatience filled his tone.

  She hadn’t expected to get hit with the hard questions before she even passed through the gates. She clutched the steering wheel for support. “I don’t have one,” she answered. “Not currently.” To her credit, her voice didn’t hold so much as a hint of the dread swirling in her gut.

  As she’d anticipated, at her admission, the guard’s eyes narrowed with that familiar sense of distrust she’d been treated to her whole life. Everywhere she went, whenever discussions of pack affiliation rose—which they inevitably did, and quickly—it was always the same. Otherwise friendly conversations immediately turned sour, akin to if she’d announced she were best friends with Charles Manson or the little sister of the Unabomber or some other awful pariah, rather than a young female wolf who’d simply been born without a pack. All the more reason they needed someone like the Rogue advocating for her kind.

  But to these wolves, she was a pariah. A Rogue, just like her mother before her, and wouldn’t that always be the case? She’d learned that much about other wolves. As natural pack creatures, they were fiercely loyal to those within their pack. To those outside it, they were downright clannish, unaccepting of all outsiders. She’d never met a pack wolf who’d been truly relaxed in her presence.

  Well, all but one.

  The voice of the Grey Wolf guard immediately snapped her back to the moment. “The packmaster doesn’t take meetings with Rogues. If you’d like to speak to someone about joining the pack, you can speak to our enrollment chair and request a meeting with Mav—”

  “I don’t give two flying craps about joining your pack,” she challenged. “And I don’t need to speak to Maverick. I’m here for Colt.” Wasn’t that always the assumption? That a Rogue wolf must naturally be either evil or in desperate want of a pack? As if she needed to be a part of a group who currently looked down on her as less-than due to the circumstances of her birth.

  “I can’t allow you in without a meeting. Your options are—”

  “You don’t understand. I need to meet with Colt. Immediately.” That familiar sense of panic crept in. A part of her might have been excited, hopeful even, at the thought of having a child to call her own, but how was she going to break the news to him? They’d sworn only one night together. It would likely be one of the most difficult things she’d ever done.

  The guard stepped back, his hand clearly placed on his gun. “Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the vehicle.”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m here to meet with your commander, and I’m not going anywhere until I do. I’m no criminal. Why don’t you ask him if he’d be willing to see me?” Colt might have his rules, and she didn’t expect much in the way of a relatio
nship, but something told her that if she was expecting, he’d do right by her and their child.

  The guard reached for her door handle. In that moment, Belle didn’t think. She simply reacted. So naturally, she did the only thing a defiant, desperate woman with her foot on the gas pedal could do.

  She floored it.

  The old truck raced forward. Her pulse beat like a jackhammer as the truck careened down the dirt roadway in a flurry of dust and debris. The sound of shouting from the outpost rang through the open window, and for a brief moment, despite her fear and adrenaline, she smiled in satisfaction. Let them try to catch her on wheels when the most they had to work with were four paws or a horse.

  But such pleasure disappeared the instant a league of cowboys riding on ATVs burst forth from the nearby trees, brandishing handguns and a variety of other weaponry. They surrounded her vehicle within moments, blocking the road.

  It took Belle all of two seconds to realize she’d made a terrible mistake.

  She slammed on the brakes, and the truck screeched to a stop. Unless she wanted to add vehicular manslaughter to her rapidly growing list of offenses against the Grey Wolves, she had no other choice. Before she could raise her hands in surrender, someone ripped the driver’s side door of her truck wide open and wrenched her from the cab. They shoved her onto the hard mountain ground, causing her to eat dirt as sure as if she were a toddler making mud pies. One wrenched her arms behind her back. A small click of a lock, followed by searing pain across her skin, signaled the silver handcuffs at her wrists.

  At least she was familiar with them at this point.

  She spat out the mouthful of dirt as the guards pulled her to her feet again. “Let me go,” she shrieked. She flailed beneath the guards’ grasp as they began to haul her toward one of the ATVs. “I want to meet with Colt,” she yelled.

  “Don’t they all?” one of the guards snickered. “Another one who can’t stay away. Commander Casanova strikes again.”

  Commander Casanova? Ugh. Really?

  They probably thought she was some crazy ex desperate for his attentions. Belle snarled. Let them think what they wanted. She wasn’t here for some ridiculous booty call.