“That’s right.” Rogue traced the dull edge of the blade over the other wolf’s throat. “And whose kindness allows you to live?”
“Yours. Your kindness.” Tears streamed down Clint’s face now. His features scrunched as he let out an ugly cry. Mae almost felt sorry for him.
“And do you know the rules?” Rogue asked. His voice was so cold and calculated, it wrapped a chill around her despite the humid summer air.
Clint struggled to form a sentence. “A-anyone who l-l-lays a hand on a child or a woman…is…is.…”
“…is no servant of mine,” Rogue finished. “You exist solely because I allow it.”
“Please have mercy,” Clint pleaded.
Rogue lifted the knife, prepared to drag the sharp end across this coward’s throat. “I’m not feeling very forgiving.”
Rogue drew back the blade, prepared to strike.
“Wait!” Mae clutched his arm, stopping him short. If she’d thought he’d been made of stone before, her touch turned him into immovable steel. He hardened like titanium beneath her hands. Slowly, he turned, looking toward her for the first time since he’d arrived. The cold fury in his eyes shook her, urging her to release him, but she knew it wasn’t meant for her. She refused to let him go.
“Don’t kill him,” she murmured.
Something dark flared in Rogue’s eyes. Clearly, he begged to differ. One look told her he could and would kill the other wolf. “I’ve killed worthier opponents for less.”
“He’s not worth it,” Mae said.
Rogue lifted a brow. “Are you asking me to spare him?”
“As much as I’d like him to pay…” Mae glanced to the blubbering coward clutched in Rogue’s threatening hands. “Yes, I’m asking you to spare him.”
“Please. Please,” Clint pleaded.
Rogue fixed his gaze on her attacker again. “That means you owe your life to the woman you assaulted.” Slowly, Rogue lowered the blade before he shoved Clint to the ground again. Dry dirt and gravel clouded where the bastard fell. Rogue pointed toward Mae. “I want to hear you grovel at her feet.”
Within seconds, Clint was sprawled across Mae’s leather boots. “Thank you. Thank you.” He clutched at her shoes as if they were made of gold.
Mae wrinkled her nose in disgust. She wished with all her might that she were cruel enough to laugh at him the way he had at her, that she could take pleasure at his expense, but she couldn’t.
“That’s enough,” Rogue growled.
Immediately, Clint released her.
Rogue stepped forward. The silver of the blade in his hand glinted. “Do you remember the rules, Clint? How does a rogue wolf like you stay in my good graces?”
Clint was nodding. “No women. No kids. Those are your rules, sir.”
“That’s right.” Rogue stood next to Clint, towering over him as he pocketed the rogue wolf’s blade. He cracked his knuckles once again with a menacing crunch. The sound sent a visible shiver running through the other wolf. “And if I ever see you lay a hand on a woman again, next time, your queen won’t be here to save you,” Rogue growled. “I don’t want to see you near the Midnight Coyote ever again.” Rogue stared down at her attacker, his face full of pure contempt. “Now run, coward.”
Clint scrambled from the ground, clutching his broken ribs as he hobbled away into the darkness. Rogue stared after him, watching as his silhouette faded into blackness. Mae watched his chest heave in and out, holding in the rage he’d been prepared to unleash. He looked every bit as lethal as he had when he’d stood, bloodied stake in hand, over the vampires. Adrenaline coursed through Mae’s veins. But she was safe. Alive.
Once again, thanks to him.
“Thank you,” Mae whispered. When he didn’t respond, she stepped toward him. “Would you really have killed him?”
He looked toward her, his golden wolf eyes masked in a mixture of fury and confusion, but he didn’t say a word.
She nodded toward the darkness. “Clint,” she clarified.
He watched her, steeled eyes searing into her. “In a heartbeat,” he answered.
Just when she’d started to think she understood him, he threw her for a loop. He was wild, unpredictable, feral. “Why?” she breathed. “Why kill for me?” A vampire was one thing. They were the mortal enemies of the wolves’ species. They’d killed the brother of one of his beloved friends, and a bear was inconsequential, but another rogue wolf, one of his own kind…
There was significance in that.
Your queen…
His words echoed in her head. She didn’t know what he’d meant by that, but it stirred something deep inside her, something that made her feel strong, invincible.
He stepped toward her, his gait the prowling, lithe movement of a predator. Then he gripped her hand in his. His hand was firm yet gentle, nothing like the hardened warrior she’d felt against her palm moments earlier.
“Come,” he growled.
Her hand was in his, pulsing electricity through her at his touch as he led her through the darkness of the alley, out into the open and abandoned streets of the small western town. The dim, orange-tinted glow of the streetlights cast small pools of light in the dry mountain dirt. As they reached the middle of the abandoned road, he released her, rounding on her with such a fierce intensity it was staggering.
“When I saw him standing over you, that dark desire in his eyes and his lips lingering so close to yours as if he were about to kiss you…” Rogue stepped toward her as he brushed back a piece of her hair. He drew closer. Their bodies were so close together now, she felt the rise and fall of his breath. “…I couldn’t bear it,” he said. Slowly, he lifted a hand, brushing his knuckles, the instrument that had wounded so many, against her cheek.
She shivered.
“Why should he kiss you when I can’t?” he growled.
When I kiss you and it means something, you’ll know it, he’d said.
Mae’s breath caught. “I didn’t know you wanted to.”
Something dark flared in his eyes. “Don’t be foolish, Mae. That’s like saying the sun doesn’t set in the west.” His hand trailed lower, curving along the bare skin of her neck. “I should have killed him for ever getting this close to you.”
She had no doubt he would have, had she not been there to stop him.
His golden wolf eyes traced her every move. The rise and fall of her chest grew more ragged. This close to him, she could barely breathe.
The tension between them pressed in on her until she struggled to speak. “You could kiss me, you know,” she said. “Make me forget.” She drew in a small breath as his knuckles reached her clavicle. “It’s only when you’re this close that I feel like this. I feel dangerous.” She eased closer, so close she could smell the scent of whiskey on him. “And I like it.”
A wicked grin crossed his lips. Slowly, he reached around the nape of her neck, gripping her there. “And what would you do if you were a dangerous rogue, Mae?”
Even in the darkness surrounding them, she knew he saw the blush that colored her cheeks. “I wouldn’t ask for a kiss. I’d steal it.”
“Wise words,” Rogue muttered. He pulled her in toward him, rough and close. “Go on then.” His voice was a dark, rumbling purr. “Claim your prize,” he challenged.
And she did. Before Mae could stop herself, she pressed her lips against his and lost herself. She wasn’t Maeve Grey, younger sister to the Grey Wolf packmaster. A woman who was bound by the rules and restrictive conventions of her pack. A woman who did not kiss mysterious men because she was undesirable to all her packmates, because no one dared touch the packmaster’s sister. Instead, she was Mae. Just Mae. In all her full glory, claiming a kiss from a wild, dangerous cowboy.
Not because she’d been told to, but because she wanted to.
Her lips crashed against his, and im
mediately her hands gripped his belt. As if he weren’t the reason her world had turned sideways to begin with. He drew her in closer, anchoring her to him in the wild heat of the moment. His tongue parted her lips, exploring and claiming her mouth with raw, unbridled passion. His teeth nipped at the swollen sensitive skin, causing a small moan to escape her mouth. He devoured that moan, teasing and licking and claiming until all Mae could feel, see, touch was him. When he finally released her, Mae was gasping for air—for him, for another breath of him pressed against her just-kissed lips.
Slowly, he eased away from her, facing outward toward the abandoned night. The crack of his knuckles pierced the night, and even the sound of the summer cicadas stilled. He released a long, echoing howl before he called out into the darkness. “Whoever lays a hand on her answers to me,” he snarled into the darkness. “She’s mine.”
Mae stilled as dozens upon dozens of golden wolf eyes appeared in the shadows. On the rooftops, in buildings, all staring down at them. She hadn’t even realized they were there. They blended into the darkness, an army of rogue wolves, lingering in the shadows, waiting for their king’s beck and call. A chorus of howls filled the night, echoing against the buildings and calling up to the moon above. Goose bumps prickled over her skin.
Rogue snapped his fingers, and at the end of the street, one of his wolves emerged from the darkness. Rogue plucked the still-dangling truck keys from Mae’s hand and passed them toward the rogue wolf who joined his side. The wolf nodded.
Rogue turned his wicked gaze toward her again, his Stetson dipping low over his brow. The weight of his power washed over her. With one declaration, he’d given her the keys to his dark kingdom.
Your queen, he’d said.
The lingering feeling of his kiss, the prickled scratch of the stubble hair on his chin still haunted her, a ghost of the desire she felt.
His words were a deep, hungry purr as he spoke to her. “Go back to the ranch now, Princess. No harm will come to you tonight. You’ve never been safer than you are right now.”
She didn’t doubt it for a second. He stepped aside as his rogue wolf beckoned her forward. She eased past him, feeling the weight of hundreds of eyes on her, but it was his gaze that pierced through her, stripping her bare as the weight of it followed her all the way to the truck. As they rode back to the ranch, she watched the dark mountain landscape out the window as night faded into early-morning twilight. Mae didn’t breathe evenly again until she was back on the ranch inside the mansion. As she pressed the door shut, a sharp breath fell from her lips and a tremble shook her.
Rogue had been right. She’d never felt safer or more powerful in her life.
Chapter 16
Two days. For two days Rogue had avoided being alone with her. Yet as he descended the mansion staircase, heading out to load the square bales into the hayloft, she cornered him.
“Hold on a second,” Mae called after him.
Rogue froze. Between his days on the ranch and his evenings searching for a new lead, it’d been easy to avoid her. He’d used Murtagh to update her on their progress, but he’d given the ranch hands an evening off. It was only the two of them inside the house, so he couldn’t pretend he didn’t hear her.
She stood at the top of the staircase in that godforsaken nightgown, the one that reminded him of her moans as she’d pleasured herself.
She was gorgeous—breathtaking, really—and Rogue wasn’t the kind of sentimental yeehaw who used words like breathtaking. But even from the bottom of the stairs, the electricity between them struck him harder than a bolt of lightning. She was everything he’d imagined in his boyhood and more—heart-shaped face, warm smile, the spattering of freckles across her cheeks. She was strong, graceful, and so damn delectable.
His wolf wanted to devour every inch of her.
But he couldn’t.
“What?” he grumbled, hoping his tone would put her off.
From the eager way she descended the stairs toward him, it didn’t seem to. “Can you take me out to the pigpen to pick up Tucker?”
Rogue nearly growled. Of course, this was about the damn pig. According to Murtagh, she’d taken to leaving him out in the pen for short stints because she’d decided socializing with the other hogs was good for him.
Rogue shook his head. “No. I’m headed out to the barn to put the square bales in the loft. There’s only enough light left for that.”
“The pigpen is on your way,” she protested. “It won’t take more than a minute.”
He flicked his gaze over the thin nightclothes she wore. “You’re wearing a nightgown.” It was a ridiculous excuse, but he was desperate enough to use it.
Outside the Midnight Coyote, when she’d leaned in toward him, he’d wanted to kiss every freckle across her body—to lick and tease and suck any inch of bare skin he could find. If knowing how she tasted had been torture, then her kissing him—grabbing him and stealing a kiss beneath the stars and streetlights as if he were the prize—well, it had flayed him open.
And he couldn’t take it. Not for another fucking second. Not if he expected to keep his damn sanity intact. He was the villain in all this, and when all was said and done, she’d hate him for it. Of that, he was certain.
But if she kept looking at him like that, like she was remembering exactly how it’d felt to be in his arms, he wouldn’t be able to control himself.
Which meant he needed to stay far away from her.
She was holding the sketchbook and pencils he left her in her room, and she drew them to her chest. “I’ll get Tucker and sit in the truck with him while you finish with the hay. I don’t mind waiting. You won’t even know I’m there.”
He doubted that. He was acutely aware of her. Even when he’d been out working in the pastures, his mind had wandered to her as if he were a lovesick puppy rather than the hardened criminal he really was.
She made him forget himself…
“Fine,” he relented. He didn’t see any way to escape her without wasting the remaining daylight.
The last rays of the sunset peeked over the mountains as Rogue pulled the truck out into the pasture. The skyline cast a pale-blue shadow over the landscape, leaving the ranch cloaked in quiet stillness.
“Murtagh said you’re still looking for alternative leads to Walker Solomon,” Mae said.
Rogue white-knuckled the steering wheel. Aside from the kiss they’d shared, the last thing he wanted to discuss with her was the current status of the antidote search—and definitely not his sordid past with the likes of Walker Solomon. With each passing day, their alternatives thinned, but Rogue wasn’t prepared to admit defeat. Not yet. Not when everything he had ever worked for depended on it.
He grumbled in response as he steered the truck toward the pigpen. She must have gathered he wasn’t in the conversing mood, because she didn’t press further. When they reached the pen, he shifted into park. Immediately, he slid out of the truck. He slammed the door shut as Mae exited the vehicle and tossed her the keys.
She caught them with two hands, eyes wide with surprise as he mumbled, “You can take the truck back.” He’d walk to the stables and ride Bee out to one of the older utility trucks parked farther out on the property. Anything to keep her away from him in this moment. But when he glanced toward the pigpen, all thoughts of escaping her came to a halt. One small nursery pig in the corner caught his eye.
“Shit,” he swore.
The nursery pig used one hoof to pivot around in circles. A few others wandered around aimlessly, and another kept bumping into the side of the pen. Rogue hopped over the fence, heading straight to the water lines. The pigs’ water supply was fed through a nipple attached to the water lines through the pump, ensuring water was readily available at all hours. The hydration of pigs was key to their health and thus a major part of the ranch’s profit margin.
Rogue checked several of the li
nes. No water. He swore again.
If the water pump had broken, the pigs had been without water in the hot summer sun all day. The feeder pigs, finishing pigs, and nursing sows were likely still fine, considering it hadn’t been long, but from the look of the small nursery pigs, salt poisoning was already setting in. Pigs needed two and a half times more water than feed, and without it, even their normal food contained too high a salt concentration. Rogue checked several other lines. It wasn’t likely they were all clogged, which meant the pump was broken.
It’d be midafternoon tomorrow before he’d be able to get the necessary parts to fix it.
“What’s wrong?” Mae asked. She’d entered the pen through the gate and was cradling Tucker in her arms. He’d only been in the pen a few hours and was likely still well hydrated, but the last time O’Brien had been out to check the pen and slop the hogs had been earlier that morning.
“The pump’s broken,” Rogue replied. “And from the looks of the little ones, they’ve been without water too long.”
Mae’s eyes grew wide. She’d recognized what that meant.
Though salt poisoning was a common problem, the mortality rate for pigs was high.
“Where’s the nearest working pump?” she asked.
“In the stables.” Several miles out.
Mae set Tucker down. “And do you have a trough and some buckets?”
He nodded. “Yeah, in the shed around back. Take Tucker, and I’ll drop you back off at the house while I take care of this.”
He’d need to trek back and forth gathering water for the pigs for well over an hour. Their rehydration needed to be gradual and controlled. The only thing worse for the pigs’ immediate health than dealing with salt poisoning was reintroducing water too quickly and in an unlimited supply, which only increased the mortality rate.
“If you think I’ll sit by while Tucker’s piggy brethren suffer, you don’t know me at all.”
Piggy brethren? He shook his head. The woman was the worst kind of bleeding heart.
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