Wicked Cowboy Wolf

by Kait Ballenger

  Murtagh addressed Rogue while assessing what appeared to be some kind of carved Sunday roast atop a silver platter. “Do ye have something against champagne?” he asked, as if they were having a polite conversation about the merits of various drink.

  Rogue drew closer, forcing the Scottish cowboy to meet his gaze as they came nearly nose to nose. Rogue’s voice was a low, grumbling growl. “You know very well I have nothing against champagne.” He couldn’t believe he was having this fucking conversation. “She’s not staying here. She’s going back to Wolf Pack Run with her fellow Grey Wolves as soon as we have the antidote.”

  Murtagh glanced up from the roast. A dark twinkle filled his hawklike eyes, and the edge of his lips twisted into a smug grin. “Easy there, brother,” Murtagh warned. “Why not let her have a little fun while she’s here? There’s no harm to it.”

  Rogue growled again. Had Murtagh been any other wolf, Rogue would have gutted him years ago. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? Murtagh wasn’t just any other rogue wolf in his charge. It had been Murtagh who’d found him beaten within an inch of his life after the night he’d been cast out and become a rogue; Murtagh who’d nursed him to health, who’d seen him through the years of blood, sweat, and broken limbs at the Midnight Coyote during the dark times before he’d become the Rogue, back when he’d been nothing more than a powerless, packless wolf with nothing to his name. And it had been Murtagh who’d stood loyally by his side no matter what Rogue asked of him, no matter the cost, ever since. He was the only wolf Rogue dared to trust, to call a friend, a brother, and for that alone, Rogue owed Murtagh his life.

  And the damn Scot would never allow him to forget it.

  “The whole ranch is dining together tonight. I even invited the gardener and the maids.” Murtagh smiled a crooked grin. “We have a guest, after all,” he said, as if this explained everything.

  “She’s not a guest,” Rogue shot back.

  “Nae, but she isn’t a prisoner either,” Murtagh replied.

  The Scot was insufferable. Rogue glared at him. “You know very well that treating her as anything but a prisoner will do more harm than good.”

  “I told you he would say that,” Boone mumbled from across the table. The young ranch hand shoveled a mountain of food onto his plate, enough meat to satisfy a whole pack of wolves for days—or a growing young shifter as it were.

  Murtagh cast Boone a look, which said clearly Shut yer mouth before I wallop ye around the ears, lad.

  Boone fell silent before he quickly lowered his eyes and crammed a large bite of food into his mouth. He knew better than to challenge the Highland cowboy.

  Murtagh was tasked with dealing with the young rogue wolves under Rogue’s command, the street urchins drawn in from the underworld of shifter society, outcasts of their world who had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. Rogue gave them a bed to sleep in, food in their bellies, and a roof over their heads. He provided them with a purpose, a cause to fight for, something to believe in, and Murtagh gave them the skills with which to wage their war. While Murtagh might have been quick to give Rogue lip himself, he only did so because over the years, he’d earned the right, but when it came to the wolves in Rogue’s charge, the Scot ran a tight order.

  Turning his attention back toward Rogue, Murtagh crossed his arms over his chest. The sleeves of tattoos covering his skin writhed as the muscles moved. “If not a guest, what exactly would ye call her then?” He quirked a brow. “A rutabaga?”

  “Speaking of which, the roasted rutabaga is delicious by the way,” Sterling added as he scooped another bite from his plate.

  One of their oldest and longest acting soldiers and ranch hands, Sterling was nearly as seasoned as Rogue and Murtagh. Rogue still remembered the day they’d come across Sterling outside a bar down in Amarillo. The packless, dark-skinned cowboy had been managing to survive in the human world by working as a mule for drug traffickers across the southern Texas border. It had been a situation born of exploitation and necessity, and it hadn’t taken more than a single conversation to convince Sterling to give up that life and join their cause. The rogue wolf had been all too eager to leave, to find a home and a purpose.

  It wasn’t easy for a rogue wolf to make a normal life among humans without the resources of a pack. Considering the wolves’ nocturnal inclinations and need to shift and hunt regularly, holding a nine-to-five job proved difficult enough, let alone the risk they ran of being killed by human hunters. The Execution Underground hunted rogue wolves as if it were sport. The threat made living a normal life among humans damn near impossible. Pack wolves—the Grey Wolves specifically—had deals with the organization, protections in place that kept them safe from the murderous human bastards, but rogues had no such luxury. That forced them to live on the fringes, to exist in the rotten, dirty underworld of life, even among humans.

  But they wouldn’t for much longer. Not if Rogue had anything to say about it.

  He scowled at Sterling’s enthusiasm for Murtagh’s shenanigans as he turned back toward the Scot. “This coming from the man who suggested bringing her here by any means necessary.”

  “That was before,” Murtagh answered.

  “Before what?”

  “I think ye ken what I mean.” Murtagh leaned in near Rogue’s ear, lowering his voice so only the two of them could hear. “The fact the lass upstairs is the reason ye were cast from the Grey Wolf Pack.”

  Rogue stiffened. Murtagh was the keeper of many of Rogue’s secrets. He alone knew Rogue’s real name and that Rogue had been a Grey Wolf. Murtagh knew the motivations of Rogue’s drive for revenge, but how the sole heir of one of the pack’s three founding families had managed to be cast from the pack, the finer details of his life before he’d been a rogue wolf, and his history with Mae weren’t among them. Rogue had kept those details to himself.

  Murtagh eased back, one brow quirked as he challenged Rogue to contradict him.

  “Out.” Rogue held Murtagh’s gaze, refusing to look away. “Everyone out,” he ordered.

  “What?” Sterling asked through a mouthful of roasted rutabaga.

  “I said everyone out,” Rogue repeated with quiet authority.

  Sterling grumbled. “I’ve already begun to eat. Since when do we get the boot when we’re—”

  “If ye had better manners, ye’d have waited fer our guest,” Murtagh said, emphasizing the word enough that Rogue snarled.

  “It won’t kill ye to wait,” the Scot continued. “Ye heard the man.”

  Rogue’s men knew better than to press him. Murtagh alone was brave enough to risk it. Boone, Sterling, and the others pushed back from their seats. The scrape of the chairs against the marble created a screeching chorus. There were several mumbles of hungry impatience about the food potentially getting cold as they exited, but the dining room doors quickly shut behind them, leaving Murtagh and Rogue alone.

  Rogue broke eye contact, facing away from Murtagh and taking a sudden interest in the various dishes laid out across the table. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  It was Murtagh’s turn to growl. “Doona lie, ye daft ninny. Not to me.” The Scottish cowboy stepped toward him, circling around the table until Rogue was forced to look at him. “Ye told me she was the target because she was the packmaster’s sister,” Murtagh accused.

  Rogue nodded. “And she is.”

  “Ye lied, Jared,” Murtagh hissed.

  “I didn’t. Not about that.” Rogue grabbed a highball glass of what appeared to be moonshine that Boone had been drinking and lifted it to his lips. “And you know better than to call me by that name. That boy died years ago…”

  “Like hell he did, or that lass wouldn’t be upstairs now.”

  Rogue turned away from him again.

  Murtagh growled. “Years ago, back when we were makin’ our way through Durango, ye got drunk as a skunk one night
and got to mutterin’ all about the days before ye were a rogue wolf. Finally admitted to more than just bein’ a Grey Wolf who’d been unfairly cast out. Sumthin’ about a female and founding families, and bein’ cast from the pack fer the love of her. Gorgeous green eyes on the lass, ye said.”

  So that was how Murtagh had realized. It was impossible not to notice Mae’s large, emerald eyes. Not if a wolf took more than a passing glance at her…

  Unfortunately, she and her beastly brother shared the stunning trait.

  Murtagh was shaking his head. “Ye never did hold yer drink well.”

  Rogue scowled.

  “She’s the packmaster’s sister, the key to the antidote, but that’s not the only reason ye abducted her, ye mangled fud.” Murtagh stepped closer. “Ye dinna think I would ken who she was the moment I set eyes on ’er?” He leaned in, resting his massive weight on the tabletop. He glanced toward the door, lowering his voice as if he feared someone might be listening on the other side. “She’s the reason yer no’ a Grey Wolf any longer, and she’s the lass ye’ve been pining over all these fool years.”

  Rogue scoffed. “I pine over no one.”

  Murtagh banged his fist on the table. “Yer bum’s out the window, ye bampot. Save it fer someone who believes ye.”

  Rogue sipped the liquor as he attempted to ignore Murtagh. The astringent taste of the moonshine coated his tongue, but he should have known better than to think the Highlander would relent.

  Slowly, Murtagh pushed to standing. “Fine,” he said, his temper cooling considerably. “Then I suppose ye doona care if I take to the lass then, do ye?”

  Rogue stiffened.

  “’Tis been a while since I’ve bedded a woman, and she’s a pretty little thing,” Murtagh continued. “Fine eyes, the emerald color of the Highland hills. A handsome face and a ripe, round pair o’—”

  The glass Rogue was holding shattered from the strength of his grip. “Another word and you’ll find one of these shards in your jugular.”

  Murtagh smiled in satisfaction. “’Tis true then?”

  There was no point in trying to deny it any longer. “Yes, it’s true,” Rogue admitted. “But I fail to see why that matters.”

  Murtagh was shaking his head. “So this is yer plan then, is it? Kidnap the woman ye lost everything for and then betray her? Christ, Jared. Ye might as well take yerself out ta the stables and do yerself in.” Murtagh swore under his breath in Gaelic. “What happens when she realizes who ye are? Then what becomes of ye?”

  “She won’t.” Rogue met his gaze. “Not until the time’s right.”

  Not until it would already be too late. Then the deed would be done. He’d have his revenge, the better life the rogue wolves in his charge had worked for, and more importantly, he’d have kept a twenty-year-old promise.

  “Are ye so certain of that?” Murtagh asked.

  “She knew me as a young Grey Wolf pup. Not a deformed rogue of a wolf.” Rogue gestured to the scarred side of his face. “If she was going to recognize me, it would have happened by now.”

  “And if yer wrong? If she does ken who ye are, ye canna tell me ye’d still want ta go through with it.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” Rogue faced the dining room’s picture window, which looked out over the ranchlands, the sprawling mountains in the distance. “She’s nothing to me now.”

  He felt the lie singe through him the moment he uttered the words. Maeve Grey would never be nothing to him. But she had to be, needed to be, and thus, he willed it to be so.

  “Ye canna expect me to believe that.” Murtagh saw right through him. He always did. “So that’s yer plan then, is it? To betray her to seek yer revenge?”

  “She’ll have her pack’s protection. That’s all she wants. On that, I’ll have kept my word. It’s about more than revenge, and you know it.” Rogue gestured to the door. “Their lives are at stake. Our lives are at stake.” He lowered his voice as he met Murtagh’s gaze. “And someone must pay for Cassidy’s death.”

  A grim tension tightened Murtagh’s features. “I know that, brother. Better than anyone else, but is it worth it?”

  Silence passed between them, but Rogue couldn’t bring himself to consider it. He couldn’t. Not after everything he’d worked for.

  “And your plan is so much better?” he accused. “What exactly did you have in store, now that you know who she is to me? Ask me to woo her over a feast fit for a king? Was that it? When the time comes, it will only make the sting of betrayal more painful.” He knew Murtagh all too well, and as lethal and cunning as the ol’ Scot could be, deep down, he was also a hopeless Highland romantic.

  “It’s better than yer plan, that’s fer certain.” Murtagh plucked an olive off one of the dishes and examined it before popping it into his mouth. “At least then, there’d be a chance she’d forgive ye when it’s all said and done,” he said between bites.

  “She’ll never forgive me. Not after this.”

  “How can ye be so certain?”

  The question stopped Rogue short.

  “Because I know Maeve.” He paused to consider. “Perhaps even better than I know myself. She wouldn’t willingly help betray her brother, her pack. Not even with the guarantee of their safety. When she learns the truth, she’ll hate me for it.”

  Even if she knew what her brother had done…

  “So that’s it then?” Murtagh brushed off his hands on the sides of his work jeans. “What becomes of ye after the fact?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Do ye really think ye can stand losin’ her again?”

  Rogue wasn’t sure he knew the answer.

  “Ye forget that I know ye better than most, Jared,” Murtagh said, stressing his true name. For the past twenty years, only Murtagh had dared call him that. “Ye barely survived the first time.”

  “That’s my concern and mine alone.”

  The silence that lay between them was deafening.

  “Right then.” Murtagh strode toward the door, likely to retrieve the other ranch hands again. “But doona say I dinna warn ye when yer but a shell of the man ye once were. I picked up the pieces the first time, but I willna be doin’ it again.” He paused as he reached the exit, waving a hand toward the wealthy display of food. “’Tis a waste to let it go cold.”

  “I should feed it all to the pigs to spite you.” Rogue flicked a glance over the array of plates. Many of his men and staff had known true hunger, even starvation before he’d taken them in off the streets. He’d never deprive them of a hot meal in their bellies. “Let the men eat it.”

  Murtagh grinned. “Does that mean ye’ll consider my suggestion? If she fancied ye, it would make dealin’ with her while she’s here a wee bit more pleasant, that’s for certain. She was right livid when she realized ye’d locked her in.”

  Rogue shook his head. “I said you could eat the food, not that I’d consider your ridiculous idea. It would only hurt her more, and I’ll flay the balls off you the next time you mention it.”

  “Well, if you won’t put such a feast to good use”—a mischievous glint filled Murtagh’s brown eyes—“and ye doona intend to charm her, what if I—”

  Rogue knew Murtagh had no true interest in Mae. The Scot preferred his women—one woman, to be specific—with a few more curves and a head of hair so fiery it brightened even the grayest of the Highland fog.

  His friend was only trying to get a rise out of him, but still, Rogue’s eyes flashed to his wolf’s. “I dare you.”

  “I hear Scots are mighty popular with American lassies these days.” Murtagh waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “You doona think I could woo her away from ye?”

  “She’s not mine to begin with.” Rogue shook his head, even as a grin crossed his lips. “But if that were the case, I’d like to see you try.”

  “Many a lass
can appreciate a grand gesture.” Murtagh nodded to the feast. “Ye take note of that,” he joked. “In case ye change yer mind.”

  “What a helpful tip.” Rogue’s voice dripped with sarcasm. He headed toward the dining room doors, passing Murtagh to reach the exit first. As he gripped the door handle, he paused, looking back at his friend over his shoulder. “And Murtagh?”

  “Aye.” Murtagh met his gaze.

  “Does it help if it’s a romantic gesture the lady in question would actually appreciate?”

  Murtagh quirked a brow in confusion. “Aye, it does.”

  Rogue nodded. “I thought so.” He turned to leave before he paused. “Oh, and one more thing.”

  Murtagh looked toward him again.

  Rogue cast a glance at the meat-laden table. “For your information, Maeve Grey is a vegetarian”—his eyes fell to the expensive imported ham—“and the pig she brought with her is a pet.” Rogue strode from the room, a satisfied grin on his lips as the sound of Murtagh’s muttered curses followed after him.

  It was roughly an hour later that Rogue found himself standing outside the guest suite, staring at the doorframe. As he stood there, his fist hovering over the lacquered wood as he prepared to knock, he hesitated.

  Perhaps Murtagh was right. Perhaps he would gather more flies with honey than vinegar. It would make the whole ordeal smoother.

  But would it bring her too close?

  She’s not for you, and she never will be.

  Distance was best for both of them. She would never forgive him for using her against her brother, yet something in his chest—where the cavernous black hole resided in place of his heart—told him that maybe it was worth the risk. But where would he even begin?

  He banged on the door.

  When she didn’t answer, he called out, “Mae.”

  No answer.

  He knocked again—harder. “If you don’t open the door, I have a key,” he said.

  A moment later when there was still no response, he keyed open the door.

  And that was when he saw the bedsheets, tied into knots that formed a rope, dangling out the open window…