Cowboy in Wolf's Clothing

by Kait Ballenger

  “Belle!” he shouted.

  Racing toward the trees, Colt shifted midrun, bounding toward the source of the noise. His pulse thrummed into overdrive. He needed to reach her, protect her. He followed the sound and her scent a short way into the woods. Running faster than he ever had in his life, he burst through the pines and found Belle surrounded by Dean and the other wolves assigned to the evening’s patrol. They’d clearly arrived only moments before he had. She was lying at the base of a massive oak, her whole body shaking as she curled among the gnarled roots of the tree.

  Colt shifted back into human form, immediately rushing to her side. “What the hell happened?” he ground out.

  Tears streamed down Belle’s face, and she was shaking from head to toe.

  Dean shifted into human form, throwing his hands into the air. “We found her like this. You know as much as we do.”

  Gripping Belle’s shoulders, Colt forced her to look at him. Her face was red and blotchy from crying, and her eyes were so wide and scared that it took everything in him not to howl in anger.

  “What happened?” he demanded.

  “S-someone grabbed m-me from behind.”

  Colt turned back toward his men. “Search the woods,” he ordered. When they didn’t move, he snarled. “Now.”

  The men scattered, fanning out in search as Colt drew Belle into his arms. She was trembling harder than if she’d been dunked in ice water.

  “They…they covered my mouth,” she continued, “and then I bit them, so they uncovered it, and I screamed. I…I thought I was going to die, but then they heard you yell and they…disappeared.”

  “Who was it, Belle? Vampire? Werewolf?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I know it sounds crazy, but even though only one set of hands grabbed me…I smelled…both.” She collapsed against him, sobbing.

  He drew her in to him, cradling her against his chest as if he could shield her from the cruelty of the world. Whoever had attacked her, he would bleed them.

  “What did they say, sweetheart?”

  “They said”—Belle inhaled a shaky breath—“‘You’re no Grey Wolf, you Wild Eight bitch.’”

  * * *

  Colt paced across his apartment again. It was likely the hundredth time he’d done so in the past fifteen minutes. Much more, and he’d wear a hole in the floor. Belle huddled on the sofa, an old quilt Sonya had once made for him wrapped around her shoulders and a mug of Earl Grey sweetened with honey in her hands. The mug, a previous Christmas gag gift from Sierra, read At Least I’m Good Looking… He may not have spent more than his first five years with his birth mother, but he knew from when she’d come home from meeting with Nolan that there was little that wasn’t made better by the soothing qualities of a blanket and a steaming beverage in hand.

  Colt had instructed his men to search every inch of the Grey Wolf lands. Luckily, the music had drowned out the ruckus and they were able to use the guards on hand, so the incident hadn’t interrupted the wedding, and thankfully Belle wasn’t injured, just shaken up.

  His men had covered the immediate area where Belle had been attacked, yet the search proved fruitless. Whoever had attacked her was skilled enough to ghost a mission when plans derailed, and they’d done so without a trace. Nevertheless, Colt wouldn’t allow the Grey Wolf soldiers to rest until they exhausted every possibility.

  “You’re certain you can’t recall anything else? Any indicator of who could have done this?” Belle’s shaking had subsided, and they needed to get to the bottom of this.

  “I told you already. It was all a blur. It happened so fast. I smelled both vampire and werewolf, but there was one set of hands on me. That’s all I know.”

  He’d been hoping she’d recollect the details once the initial shock waned, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Not that he blamed her. Eyewitness accounts were notoriously unreliable, let alone in a dark forest and when attacked from behind. But what irked him was what the bastard had said to her.

  You’re no Grey Wolf, you Wild Eight bitch.

  Colt snarled at the thought. That single phrase left him with more than a passing suspicion about why she might have been targeted. But he couldn’t articulate that truth to her. Not without revealing his own darkness.

  “This reeks of Lucas and his men. It would be just like them to target someone they thought they could overpower easily.”

  He’d anticipated a counterstrike after his escape. Perhaps they’d seen Belle as she’d escaped from the cabin and recognized her? The pattern among Lucas’s choices wasn’t lost on him. First him, the only Wild Eight fully hidden among the Grey Wolves, and now Belle, another Wild Eight hidden among the Grey Wolf pack—and they’d chosen to attack her on the night of a known Wild Eight leader’s wedding, no less. They were threatening to expose him for who and what he was, but how did they know? He wagered the exposure was all for revenge, but the question remained: Why did they need Wild Eight blood specifically for their sick experiment in the first place?

  “Do you have any other enemies, Belle?” Sure, this reeked of Lucas, but if Colt was going to protect her—and he was—he needed to cover all bases.

  “You mean besides the Grey Wolves?” Belle stared into the depths of her tea mug. The dark liquid inside nearly sloshed over the edges, but the way she examined it, she might as well have been reading the dregs of the tea leaves.

  “This wasn’t a Grey Wolf.” He trusted the pack more than that. They might be wary of outsiders, but no Grey Wolf would have done this, especially since they all thought she was a Grey Wolf—save for Wes, who had a stable alibi at the time and wouldn’t have lifted a hand against a woman.

  Belle shook her head slightly, barely acknowledging him. She was hiding something. He’d known when they first met that she’d been on the run, though the fact that she didn’t trust him enough to tell him the truth stung. She’d been right earlier when she’d said there was something between them. He couldn’t bring himself to consider what it was, but even a known rake like him couldn’t deny it.

  Everything about her had been different from the start. Every touch, every grin, every intimate moment heightened. In a way that meant something, made it matter.

  Made her matter, as if some invisible force had pushed them together from the start.

  He shoved the thought aside. No. It didn’t matter, because they couldn’t be together. That was the basic truth of it. Glancing toward her, he watched her sip from the steaming mug. Maybe she feared repercussions from her attacker if she told the truth. Maybe reassuring her of her safety was the best recourse.

  “First thing come sunrise, we’ll go to the Missoula ranch with a small group of my best warriors. Austin and Malcolm are still there, holding down the fort. They’ll help, and keep your identity quiet, if I ask them to.”

  At this, her attention snapped toward him.

  “If whoever attacked you decides to try again, we’ll be there to protect you, and being away from Wolf Pack Run where the other civilian packmembers could become casualties in any potential blowback is another consideration. The Missoula ranch is the best option. Plus, since the massacre, they’ve only had a skeleton crew working their ranch. With calving starting any day now, they’ll need a few extra hands.”

  “Why help me, Colt?”

  He didn’t know why, but the look she gave him made him feel as if they were strangers all over again. “It gives me the excuse I need to run a recon mission on the vamps. I can’t do that right here under Maverick’s nose when he’s given direct orders against it. Once I have the information I need, he and the Seven Range Pact will have no choice but to launch a counterattack.”

  It was true. He’d been formulating the idea since Maverick first told him the news of the Pact’s decision, long before Belle had been attacked or even arrived at Wolf Pack Run. It was a thinly veiled excuse.

 
And she knew it.

  “Bullshit,” Belle muttered before she drew another sip from the tea mug. She set it down on his coffee table with a little more force than necessary. The surface of the liquid threatened to spill. “You may not like it, Colt, but at this point, I can see through the mask you wear, and I call bullshit.”

  Colt’s shoulders tensed. She’d been cutting through his armor from the start, but he didn’t contradict her.

  She pegged him with an expectant stare. “What’s the real reason? Why are you being so kind to me?” Belle’s eyes narrowed as she watched him, as if he were from some alien planet, a creature she’d never seen before. He knew firsthand that for a Rogue female like her who’d fallen into the hands of the Wild Eight, kindness wasn’t plentiful, but this seemed different.

  “First you saved my life in that clearing and nearly got yourself killed in the process,” she said, “and then you set me free, and now you’re offering to help me again. Why?”

  “Because it’s the right thing to do…” It was the only explanation he had to offer. He wasn’t sure he knew why himself. The image of his mother came to mind. He would have given anything for someone to have helped her escape the clutches of the Wild Eight.

  “And you always do that? The right thing?” Her tone dripped with accusation, but he had no clue what she was getting at. Clearly, she was pissed, hurt even.

  “If this is about what I said before, I’ll say it again, Belle. I’m sorry. I’ll say it till I’m blue in the face. I know that doesn’t negate the pain I caused, but—”

  “It’s not that.” Belle was shaking her head. She reached for her mug again, taking refuge in it. She took a long sip. “I’m just pointing out you’re not the perfect altruistic hero you paint yourself to be.”

  Had those words come from anyone else, he could have believed them, but from Belle, he almost laughed. She’d seen more of the real him than perhaps anyone ever had. “That I paint myself to be, huh?” He threw the question back at her. “I’ve never claimed to be a hero, Belle. I’ve been saying that from the start. You, on the other hand, are one to talk.”

  She glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You act as if everything you do is saintly, self-righteous. Saving the lives of the Wild Eight? That was the right thing to do, too?”

  “If you’re trying to make me feel bad about what I’ve done, Commander, save your breath. As I told you already, the Wild Eight may have been monsters, but I don’t regret any of the lives I saved, not for a second. I swore an oath. As a physician, it’s my duty to value life, not to pass judgment and determine who’s worthy of my care.”

  “And they were worthy of your care, the Wild Eight?”

  “No more or less worthy than you are.”

  He froze. “You’d liken me to those murderous scum?” So she did see him for what he truly was. A monster born of blood and violence.

  She laughed. “Coming from the man who has been lying to me from the start? I know the truth, Colt.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Belle?” Whatever it was, clearly, tonight’s events had brought it to the surface.

  She didn’t answer, but he wasn’t letting this go.

  “What were you running from when you left the party, Belle? Why were you out in the middle of the woods?”

  “Because I was trying to run away,” she answered. “I was planning to leave Wolf Pack Run.”

  He’d told her before why that was a poor decision. It would draw suspicion, but she knew that, which meant apparently something had negated that consideration. He drew closer. “Why? Because of what Wes said? He’s all bark, no bite, Belle. Not anymore. And I know him. I promise he—”

  “This isn’t about Wes!” she yelled. She was shaking again.

  But he couldn’t understand it. He was offering to help her, to protect her, yet she was treating him as if he’d wronged her from the start.

  Now that she was talking, she couldn’t seem to stop. “It’s about the fact that you haven’t been truthful with me from the moment we met.” Her eyes were full of hurt and anger as she lashed out. “I should have known there was a reason a Grey Wolf commander would be so kind to a Rogue like me. It couldn’t have been out of the kindness of your heart, could it? But I was stupid enough to believe it, just like I was stupid enough to believe all the promises of the Wild Eight!”

  She was standing now, shaking from head to toe.

  He raised both hands in the sign of surrender. “Belle, I have no idea what you’re talking about, unless you tell—”

  “I know the truth, Colt!” she yelled.

  Colt froze.

  No. She couldn’t possibly know. There was no way. She…

  Her chest heaved in and out from her labored breaths, as if it took everything in her to speak aloud. “I realized it when I saw you and Wes standing next to each other. It’s why you’ve made every choice you have from the start.”

  Colt’s pulse raced, thrumming in his temple until he nearly heard it echoing in his own ears. “And why’s that?” He needed to hear her say it. It’d been well over twenty years since the words had been spoke aloud. He and James had agreed never to discuss it.

  “From the moment you met me, you haven’t been truthful.” She shook her head. “You’re not a Grey Wolf, Colt Cavanaugh. You’re as Wild Eight as they come.”

  * * *

  “Who told you?” Colt snarled.

  Anger radiated off him, feral and palpable. The tension between them was so thick, Belle could have cut it with the knife at his belt.

  “Who told you?” he growled again.

  “So you’re not denying it?” Her worst fear was confirmed. A complicated swirl of emotions hit her. Anger, hurt, fear, pain. How could he have been lying to her this whole time?

  “I may not have been forthcoming from the start, Belle, but I’m no liar.” The vein in Colt’s temple ticked a strained beat. He looked ready to tear into something, to maim, to kill.

  She didn’t know how she hadn’t seen it before. The violence in him he barely contained, the rage of an alpha male. It was so Wild Eight; he reeked of it.

  “No one living knows about this. Not Maverick. Not Sierra. Not even Wes, and the man’s my brother.”

  Belle harbored more than a passing suspicion he was wrong on that last point, considering it was Wes whose word choice had tipped her off, but that was family business she had no intention of springing on him, not when he already looked as if his anger was strong enough to rip the world in two, the ground beneath them crumbling all the way to the earth’s core beneath only his bare hands.

  “No one needed to tell me. I put the pieces together myself.” Her hand fell to her belly. She tried not to think about what that meant for their potential child. “That’s why you were willing to help me from the start. Must be a hard life as a double agent, lying to all the people who love you. My guess is you were using me to pay some sick debt to your birth pack. Was that it?”

  As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. She was being ridiculous, yet she couldn’t stop the emotion. She was doing exactly what he’d done to her, attempting to push him away when things got too real, instead of facing the fact she’d broken every promise she’d made never to get involved with the Wild Eight again.

  Even now that she knew the truth, she couldn’t lie to herself. She cared about Colt, Wild Eight or not, and after what she’d been through with Wyatt, that fact terrified her.

  Colt’s jaw clenched and his upper lip curled in rage, but to his credit, he didn’t so much as raise his voice at her. His tone was cool, calm…distant. “I’ll say it again, Belle. If you think so little of me, then you don’t know me at all. I may be one of those monsters, but I’ve been loyal to the Grey Wolves since before I knew the full meaning of the word.”

  He exhaled a long br
eath. Whatever he was about to say, it pained him.

  Deeply.

  “How could I ever be loyal to the Wild Eight? I may have been sired by Nolan fucking Calhoun himself, but any loyalty I had to him flew out the window the night he murdered my mother.”

  Belle’s heart stopped. A lump crawled into her throat as she realized the implications of what she’d done, of how deeply she’d hurt him.

  A watery quality glassed over Colt’s steely gray eyes, but he didn’t dare shed a tear. Life had hardened him so much that she saw he couldn’t even allow himself that simple refuge.

  “I was only five years old when I watched him murder her,” he whispered. His breathing was ragged, scattered, and at the sight of his raw pain, tears poured down her cheeks. His pain was so clear, it tore straight through her. He’d been hurt by them, too, far worse than she had ever been.

  Oh Lord, what have I done?

  She wanted to go to him, but she knew better. If she reached for him now, he would only push her further away, and rightfully so.

  “James Cavanaugh, then high commander of the Grey Wolves and the man I now call my father, found me that night, sobbing over my mother’s corpse.” He spoke the words as if in a trance. Though he was looking right at her, he was somewhere else. Lost in a distant nightmare that she had forced to the surface.

  “That night, the Grey Wolves were trying to target Nolan when he went to visit his mistress, that being my mother. Nolan was officially married to Wes’s mother at the time but keeping my mom on the side. It’s my understanding that Wes’s mom died shortly thereafter too, though whether at Nolan’s hands or not, I’ve never asked.”

  Belle swallowed the lump in her throat. “Is that why he killed her? Because the Grey Wolves were coming?”

  Colt didn’t answer. She could see he was still too lost in the hell he’d lived through.

  “James and his wife, Sonya, took me in,” he confessed. “James told everyone I was his son from an affair he’d had with a Grey Wolf woman before he and Sonya were married. Everyone believed him. They had Sierra shortly thereafter.”