Also by Kait Ballenger
Seven Range Shifters
Cowboy Wolf Trouble
Cowboy in Wolf’s Clothing
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Books. Change. Lives.
Copyright © 2020 by Kait Ballenger
Cover and internal design © 2020 by Sourcebooks
Cover art by Kris Keller
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
sourcebooks.com
Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
About the Author
Excerpt from You Had Me at Wolf
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Back Cover
Chapter 1
The ranch was crawling with Grey Wolves.
The Rogue lingered on the outskirts of the forest, watching the activity in the distance as he leaned against the trunk of a mountain pine. He surveyed the vast ranchlands before him as he tipped his Stetson lower, adding an extra layer of shadow to his face. The old cowboy hat was only a precaution. He knew none of the pack wolves would recognize him. Aside from his scars, it was one of the key advantages to having the identity of a ghost, and a good thing too…
…since he didn’t trust anyone else to deliver the target.
He shot a glance over his shoulder toward Bee. The brown mustang gave an angry flick of his tail, the black hair smacking against the pine where he was tied. Bee wasn’t mighty pleased with this arrangement.
That made two of them.
“Behave,” Rogue warned the horse. “It won’t be long.”
He strode onto the ranch, ignoring Bee’s frustrated huffs. It was easy enough to blend in among the Grey Wolf cowboys. With the Seven Range Shifter clans all meeting at Wolf Pack Run today, there was a plethora of unfamiliar shifters on the ranch. None of the guards so much as raised their heads at him. Not that a rogue werewolf would be their top safety priority. Their focus would be protecting the Pact from vampires—a heightened level of security that would be forgotten once the Pact members left the ranch this evening.
That would be their mistake.
It only took him a handful of minutes to locate his target. An entrance to the kitchens connected to the private conference room where the Pact members were meeting. Rogue was patient, slowly making his way inside, slipping among the shadows. Once near the room, he watched a server enter, allowing him a quick glance inside.
Immediately, he spotted her. He couldn’t have missed her if he’d tried. Not with the way his heart was pounding.
Standing in the conference room next to her beast of a brother, talking with animated movements as she pointed toward a massive chart behind her, she was breathtaking. Everything he remembered and more.
He shook his head. The pain in his chest was all the reminder he needed. She wasn’t his, and she never would be. She’d stopped being a possibility for him long ago.
He watched her, patiently lingering in the shadows of the kitchen as he formulated a plan. She wouldn’t recognize him, though his heart knew her better than the back of his own hand. He would have known those gorgeous green eyes anywhere. The ache in his chest grew.
It’s better this way, he told himself.
He’d repeat those words until he was convinced they were true.
He didn’t care what it took, or how it hurt him. Her life and the lives of so many others depended on his sacrifice. It didn’t matter that she didn’t recognize him or that he died a little more inside whenever he looked at her. He would keep his promise to her, to his family. No matter the personal consequences.
And come hell or high water, Rogue would survive losing Maeve Grey again…
* * *
“Mae, Alexander is headed this way again.” Maverick’s voice held more than a hint of disapproval. He’d hated her “little backup plan” from the start. Her brother loved her, and as such, he’d always been fiercely protective of her, but packmaster or not, this was her choice to make, and she’d do whatever it took to save her pack.
Maeve finished scribbling on her napkin as she ignored her brother’s protests. The quick sketch had been a necessary release of tension. The image of a running horse was more cartoonish than her normal work, but it’d been enough to ease her anxiety for now. It was better than ripping her hair out. She’d been trapped at the Seven Range Pact’s annual reception listening to Maverick negotiate for nearly two hours now, yet still none of the other packmasters had made a firm commitment, and with every passing second, the vampires drew closer to destroying everything she cared for.
And all while she was forced to wear a pair of heels. Her cowgirl boots would have been infinitely more comfortable, but beauty knew no pain when it came to saving her pack, so she’d make do. She’d feared the other packmasters would be wary despite Maverick’s best laid proposals, and she wasn’t about to waste a perfectly good cocktail dress.
Every summer, the seven shifter clans that ruled over Big Sky Country and formed the Seven Range Pact met at an annual reception held at Wolf Pack Run, a formal soiree complete with suits, ties, and dress Stetsons. This year’s occasion was the largest and most extravagant yet. Though typically the annual reception was only held during peacetime and was only attended by the varying shifters of the Seven Range Pact, this year, despite the heightened security concerns, Maverick had made an exception and sent invitations welcoming their usual guests along with several additional Canadian shifter clans. Extenuating circumstances, as he called them.
Mae shook her head. She
’d worried this plan wouldn’t pan out, but Maverick had been insistent, and while she might have formulated her own backup plans, she trusted implicitly that he’d do whatever it took to steer the pack on the correct course. He always had.
In a normal year, the official purpose of the reception was to build camaraderie among the various packs despite their differences in species. As one of the last living members of the Grey family, one of three founding families of the Grey Wolf Pack, Mae had a personal obligation to represent the pack with grace and poise—and no one was more aware of that obligation than she was. But it was the unspoken reason for this year’s soiree that had made her concoct her backup plan.
Mae couldn’t allow her lifeblood to be the downfall of her pack.
“Mae,” Maverick grumbled again. This time, with even more urgency. “Don’t offer yourself up like a lamb for slaughter.”
“It’s my choice.” She shot her older brother an annoyed glare. “It’s my blood they used.”
She was tired of Maverick’s protesting. On more than one occasion, he’d urged her to marry a pure-blooded alpha wolf, for tradition and all that, but to hear her brother tell it, he only wanted the best for her, and there was no way in hell he’d offer her up like this. She rolled her eyes. She failed to see how her plan was much different. At least seducing Alexander to save her pack was her decision.
Mae set down her pen, forcing a smile as her eyes traveled across the table and landed on the alpha wolf headed toward them. Alexander Caron was a massive, muscled wall of a Canadian packmaster from a few hours north of Wolf Pack Run, and the man who could save them all, according to her brother.
A month earlier, the Grey Wolves had discovered the vampires’ plans to develop an injectable serum that would allow them to feed from shifters, and the purer the blood, the better. Feeding from humans was mere sustenance, but feeding from shifters would increase a vampire’s power tenfold. The development would soon change the outcome of the war between the shifters and the vampires unless Mae’s kind found a way to combat it. All their enemy had needed to complete their plan was a blood sample from a pure-blooded Grey Wolf…and they’d taken that sample from Mae.
It was only a matter of time before the serum was in wide use, and then her kind would no longer stand a chance against the bloodsuckers.
Alexander had an army full of alpha warriors that would give the Grey Wolves a fighting chance against the vampires, with or without the serum.
If only she could convince him of that…
Alexander joined them at their table and extended a hand toward her. “Care to dance again?” he prompted, casting her a smile. His teeth were beautifully white and his beard perfectly trimmed. He was the ideal image of a handsome cowboy.
Most she-wolves would find the powerful alpha wolf handsome, assuming a woman was into the whole clean-cut male thing, but Mae couldn’t have been less attracted to this wolf if she tried. She supposed if she had to put her finger on it, it was because she preferred her men a little more on the rough and rugged side, much like the Grey Wolf cowboys—not that any of them ever gave her so much as a second glance, considering her brother was their packmaster. But even that reasoning failed to fully explain her lack of interest.
Still, she’d intended to charm Alexander for the sake of the pack, because they needed this alliance, and thus far, all her brother’s efforts had been in vain. Not to mention, her role could pay off twofold. Pack expectation dictated she marry an alpha wolf of pure bloodline if she ever planned to settle down, and considering she didn’t want any of the alphas at Wolf Pack Run, Alexander was one of her few remaining options. The pack elders hadn’t started to nag her yet, but it wouldn’t be long, and the way she saw it, maybe if she faked an attraction to Alexander, eventually she would come to care for him.
Maverick had suggested that if she planned to seduce a packmaster in the name of making alliances, he might as well pull out the hot iron, burn a brand on her ass, and send her off to market like all the other cattle on the ranch.
Mae hadn’t been amused with that comparison, but as she’d reminded him, she wasn’t amused by the prospect of an arranged marriage or the notion of trading herself for some alliance either. For the sake of her pack and their collective safety, she’d do anything. But that didn’t mean this whole little charade didn’t offend every feminist bone in her body.
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
“Mae.” Maverick cleared his throat again.
Ignoring Maverick, she smiled at Alexander. “Of course,” she said. “I’d be happy to dance with you.”
This would be the fourth time since the start of the reception. He still hadn’t offered the support of his pack to them, but apparently, dancing more than once an hour was necessary.
Maverick cast her a frustrated look from the corner of his eye as he signaled for one of the waitstaff to bring another glass of whiskey. Maverick might disapprove, but she could practically hear their father’s voice in her head, so similar to Maverick’s now that it was eerie.
It’s a small sacrifice, Mae.
She’d been raised a Grey, which meant sacrificing herself for the greater good of the pack was expected, even if she’d begun resenting the obligation years ago. Maverick knew that struggle as well as she did. She loved her packmates and would do anything for them, but that didn’t mean she always had to be pleased about what that required of her.
Mae set down her pen and accepted Alexander’s hand. He guided her out onto the dance floor just as a slow country ballad began to pump through the speakers. The lights strung over the tented outdoor dance floor lit up the summer night with a soft romantic feel as a warm breeze wrapped around them. Gently, the alpha wolf pulled Mae into his arms, slowly swaying her around the floor. She forced herself to smile up at him.
“You have a lovely smile,” Alexander said as she finished laughing at one of his jokes.
Mae tried not to let that smile fade. “Thank you,” she replied. The compliment was genuine and sweet, but it didn’t stir so much as an iota of her interest.
She fought back a heavy sigh. What was wrong with her? She wanted love, marriage, a family, and there was nothing wrong with Alexander—or any of the other alpha wolves the pack elders had suggested over the years. They just weren’t…
They just weren’t for her…
Because they’re not him, her inner self whispered.
The thought made her chest ache. She could think of only one person who’d ever captured her heart, and she hadn’t seen him in over twenty years.
“What’s on your mind, darlin’?” Alexander asked. He must have sensed her thoughts were elsewhere rather than on the dance floor with him where they should have been, had she not been pining for a dead man.
Now was as good a time as ever. Each passing minute gave the vampires more time to put the serum into wide use. She needed to get this show on the road—fast.
“Alexander, dancing with you all evening has been lovely, but why don’t we head back to my—”
The alpha wolf shook his head, the brim of his Stetson lowering slightly as he stopped Mae short. “Save your breath, darlin’. I’m not interested.”
Mae nearly tripped over one of his cowboy boots. Stupid high heels. “E-excuse me?” she sputtered. She couldn’t have heard him correctly.
Alexander chuckled. “I’ve known the game, darlin’.”
Mae’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “And yet you’ve gone along with it anyway?”
Alexander nodded. “I have.” He spun her outward before pulling her back and catching her in his arms again. The move was so smooth and belied a gentility that would have made a more receptive woman swoon.
“Because even though you’re attracted to me, you think I’m better than that?” she asked.
Man, did he have to go and be so sweet and make her feel like even more o
f a tool?
“You are better than that, but you’re wrong on one part.” Alexander let out another bemused chuckle. “No offense, darlin’, but I’m not attracted to you.”
It was all Mae could do not to stop dancing right then and there. “You’re not?”
He shook his head as he lowered his voice. A playful grin crossed his lips. “I’m more of a Brokeback Mountain kind of cowboy, if you catch my drift.”
Mae’s eyes widened. “Oh. I wouldn’t have thought…” She struggled to find the words.
“Not every gay man has a feminine side,” Alexander said. “It’s no secret, but I don’t make a habit of advertising my sex life to my fellow packmasters.”
“Of course.” Mae nodded. Maybe that explained the lack of attraction on her end. Perhaps she’d sensed she would have been barking up the wrong tree? Though if she was honest with herself, she knew deep down the problem wasn’t Alexander—it was her. She glanced up at the massive alpha wolf. “So why keep asking me to dance? Why bring your pack here?”
Alexander shrugged. “I like to dance, and you’re as good a partner as any. Not to mention, I have a profound respect for your brother. He’s one of the fiercest and fairest packmasters I’ve ever known, and I like to examine my options. This serum thing leaves me with some questions for my own pack and some questions for you.”
“Alexander, we’re desperate, and if you don’t get on board in time, your pack will be too. Last month when the vampires took me captive, their intent was clear. The serum they’ve created allows—”
“I know. My question isn’t about what the serum can do or cause.”
Mae raised a brow. “What exactly is your question then?”
“I’ve been listening to your story all night, and I’m still unclear about one part,” Alexander said.
Mae swayed along with him, allowing him to lead. “I’d be happy to clarify,” she said.
That she could do. Even if her backup plan had failed miserably.
Alexander stared down at her, his dark-brown eyes searing into hers as if he were trying to see through her. “How exactly did you escape the vampires’ cells?”
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