Wicked Cowboy Wolf

by Kait Ballenger

  He and his men had managed to hold off the bloodsuckers long enough to give Mae, Murtagh, and the ranch’s smallest shifters a head start. They’d been so outnumbered they hadn’t managed to kill all the vamps, but they’d taken out their fair share before they made their escapes. Each wolf had taken a different escape route—a tactic meant to confuse their enemies. The bloodsuckers likely wouldn’t catch up with them before daylight.

  Still, now that they’d been sold out and the vampires knew Rogue had her, that would limit the rogues’ movements. To complicate matters further, the knowledge would spread and her packmates wouldn’t be far behind. With the additional challenge of their sole lead being Walker Solomon, they were up shit creek without a paddle. Even Rogue wasn’t certain he could work himself out of this. They’d need to reevaluate if they expected to move forward with the plan.

  His horse picked up speed, alerting him that they were drawing close. The Arabian wasn’t as fast as Bee, but he was less ornery, adequate. They cut through a dense band of trees, revealing the campsite located just outside a hidden cove of volcanic hot springs. A small fire flickered, burning down to embers. The children lay sleeping in their camping sacks as Mae, Murtagh, his men, and Daisy gathered around the fire, having all abandoned the mansion during the raid. Most of the other ranch hands had made it out and scattered in various directions. They’d likely lie low for the few hours till morning. They knew what to do.

  The crew that sat around the fire was eating some game that Murtagh had likely caught. From the sound of it, Mae was in the middle of delivering the final punch line of a joke. The ranch hands burst into another round of roaring laughter, grinning like a bunch of fools. Boone even had the nerve to clap her heartily on the back.

  Of course, they were taken with her. Everyone was…

  Rogue cleared his throat. At his approach, the group glanced up, relief etched across their faces. Save for Mae, who was staring down at…

  Rogue glared at the sleeping pig in her arms. Of course, the little bacon monster had made it out unharmed. No wonder Bee was lying in the dirt on the other side of the camp, away from the rest of the group, looking as if he’d eaten a sour apple. Bee let out a pissed-off whinny, whether at the sight of Rogue riding another steed or the presence of Tucker the demon pig, Rogue wasn’t certain.

  “Ye made it out in one piece then,” Murtagh said as Rogue dismounted.

  “Barely,” he grumbled.

  They’d need to reassess their plans to find the vanished bloodsucker and retrieve the antidote, prepare a different course of action. They were running out of options faster than he’d anticipated.

  “The bloodsuckers are desperate. We may have been outnumbered, but that raid was poorly planned,” Boone said. He sank his teeth into a bite of whatever game he was eating.

  From the scent, Rogue guessed rabbit. He and the other men nodded in agreement.

  “It may have been poorly planned, but it was still terrifying,” Daisy added. “No one was as unexpected as Mae though. I heard she took a vamp out by the throat.” Her face beamed with pride for her fellow she-wolf’s accomplishments.

  Sterling nodded in agreement. “She was damn brave.”

  “Could’ve gotten herself hurt a lot worse than she did,” Boone added, a hint of concern in his voice.

  Rogue hadn’t forgotten. The sight of her bleeding for the sake of guarding him would keep him awake for days. He glanced toward Mae. She was still staring down at the piglet in her arms. From the looks of it, there was a bandage on her shoulder. She hadn’t bothered to look at him since he’d arrived.

  “I see the hog made it out alive,” he said.

  Yuri grumbled. “Bit me several times on the way here, but I got him out.”

  Rogue had given Yuri express instructions to save the ridiculous little beast.

  Mae huffed. “We’ve been through this already. He’s a teacup pig, not a hog.”

  Rogue eyed the beast in her arms. The piglet looked as if he’d grown to twice his size overnight. “Has he gotten bigger?” he asked.

  Mae finally looked at him, her eyes narrowed. “Don’t you start. He’s a teacup pig.” She stressed the word teacup.

  Rogue wasn’t in the mood, not after several rounds with the bloodsuckers. “I hate to break it to you, Princess, but there’s no such thing as a teacup pig. He will not stay small and adorable. That’s what conniving breeders call potbelly piglets to convince bleeding hearts to buy them as pets.”

  Mae glared at him. Her lips puckered as if she were angry, but he saw the hurt on her face as clear as day. In an instant, he felt like that small, mean little boy again, mud covering her purple dress as she’d nearly burst into tears.

  “You’re insufferable.” She shoved off the rock she was sitting on, still clutching the pig in her arms as she stomped off toward the caves.

  The silence left in her wake was deafening.

  Murtagh was shaking his head as he crossed his arms over his large chest. “Go after the lass. She was worried about ye, ye daft ninny!” He glared up at Rogue. “Thought ye might ’ave been dead. It was all we could do to keep the woman from burstin’ into tears, ye ken?”

  Rogue didn’t need to hear any more. For once, Murtagh was right. He’d been cruel and she hadn’t deserved it. He swept past his fellow rogues and followed Mae. He found her a short walk away from the campsite, perched near the pools of the volcanic hot springs. The rising heat and humidity from the water hit his face. The waning half-moon cast a dim glow over the watery depths. Mae sat on the edge of a rock near the spring’s edge, the ever-growing Tucker still cradled in her arms. Rogue lingered there, watching her.

  She was the first to speak. “You were right.”

  He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Look,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “Teacup pig or not, I suppose…Tucker”—he practically had to choke out the name—“is used to a certain…standard of care.” He couldn’t believe he was about to say this. “So I suppose I’ll have to get used to him, but unless you want Murtagh to put him on a roasting spit, don’t bring him into—”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about,” she said.

  Rogue raised a brow. If not the damn pig, he wasn’t sure what they were discussing. Crossing the rock, he sat down beside her. That was when he noticed the tears streaming down her face. He stilled.

  “You were right,” she repeated. “What you said in the hayloft about how my pack uses rogues. You were right.” Her voice broke. Tears poured down her cheeks, leaving thin lines that in the reflection of the spring’s pools appeared to glisten in the moonlight. “I’ve lived in an ivory tower my whole life, let my packmates and my brother use rogue wolves as scapegoats, as stepping-stones whenever we needed, and never once did I think of how we’d used them…how I’d used people, wolves like you.” She sniffled.

  The sound tore at whatever shriveled mess he had left for a heart.

  “A few days ago, the others told me about what happened to Murtagh’s brother,” she confessed. “I can’t stand the thought of him not getting justice.”

  After his father died, Rogue had had no one. But when Murtagh and Cassidy had found him half-dead and beaten in the snow, his face freshly scarred from where the Grey Wolf packmaster had maimed him, they’d nursed him back to life. Murtagh had been almost eighteen, a man in all the ways that counted, yet still a child himself and already caring for his younger brother. Still, he had taken Rogue in as if he were one of them. Murtagh and Cassidy’s had been the only kindness he’d known as a rogue wolf.

  “I won’t let Cassidy’s death go unavenged,” he said quietly.

  Which was one of many reasons why he was determined to find the antidote—to protect Mae, to avenge Cassidy for both himself and Murtagh, to give the rogues the rights they deserved, to make the vampires be the ones to bleed—even if that meant betraying the only Grey Wol
f he’d ever cared for. Even though her pack would be protected, she wouldn’t thank him in the end, but everything he did was—at least in part—for her.

  “What if you weren’t around?” she asked.

  “Murtagh can more than fend for himself. He’s—”

  “It’s not just Murtagh. It’s all of them.” Mae was shaking her head. “Boone told me he was barred from joining a pack because of petty theft charges from his early teens, living on the streets and stealing food—food of all things, even though he would have starved otherwise—and Daisy was disqualified when she applied for Grey Wolf membership because she attacked a man at her job in self-defense when he tried to assault her. They didn’t do anything I wouldn’t have done myself, yet they’ll never have a pack because of it. How is that fair?” She searched his face for reassurance.

  But he had none to give her.

  “You’re right,” he said. “It’s not fair.”

  Life wasn’t fair. All those years ago, that’d been the first lesson he’d learned. Life as a rogue wolf was harsh, cruel. There was no forgiveness, no second chances for their kind. There was only survival. It had twisted him into the monster he was. To survive, he’d needed to be crueler, darker, more bloodthirsty than any other. He’d clawed his way out of the pits of hell with nothing more than his bare hands, and now that he was at the top, if he had to break the laws of the pack that cast him out, the pack that had stolen his birthright from him, then so fucking be it.

  “That’s why you do what you do, isn’t it?” she asked.

  He raised a brow.

  “The theft, the extortion, the backroom deals my brother goes on about. That’s why you do it, isn’t it? To champion the vulnerable.”

  “You make it sound more virtuous than it is.”

  “Do I?” She swiped some of her tears away. “And here I am, whining about my pack obligations while I’m trying to protect them. No wonder you think I’m a princess.”

  “You may be a princess, but you’re more tolerable than most Grey Wolves.”

  “More tolerable?” Mae let out a harsh laugh. “First you say I’m not unattractive. Now we’ve moved to tolerable. Aren’t you a romantic?”

  “Do you want me to be romantic?” He asked the question before he could stop himself.

  She shook her head at him before she glanced away. He could have sworn he saw a blush darken her cheeks, but with the evening shadows, he wasn’t certain.

  “I think they like you a bit more than ‘tolerable.’” He nodded in the direction of the campsite.

  “And what about you?” she asked.

  He smirked. “You mean do I like stubborn, spitfire she-wolves who complain at every turn and think livestock belongs inside the house?” he teased.

  “You’re one to talk about complaining,” she grumbled.

  He couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped his lips at that. “Yes, Mae. I do like you, even with that damn pig in your arms,” he admitted.

  Too much for his own good.

  She smiled slightly. “Good,” she said. “I can almost forgive you for abducting me then.” She joked. “Almost.”

  They fell silent. The sounds of the rogue wolves nearby drifted out to them. Rogue was surprised they weren’t hiding in the trees eavesdropping. They were meddlers, the whole lot of them, and they loved nothing more than to see him get his just deserts every now and then.

  Mae glanced over her shoulder, listening to the sounds of the group that drifted to them. Her smile softened and an air of sadness visibly weighed down her shoulders.

  “It isn’t too late to change things, you know.” He wasn’t certain why he was reassuring her. It would only make things worse in the end. “You’re helping the rogue wolves now, more than most.”

  “By finding the antidote?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he answered. If she knew the extent to which she would be helping rogue wolves like him, she might not be so keen on the idea. The thought soured Rogue’s stomach. He didn’t want to use her like this, a means to an end, but he had no other choice.

  Not unless he wanted to sacrifice everything he’d worked for…

  A moment of silence passed between them. They lingered there, on the edge of the hot spring pools, allowing the quiet sounds of the forest to stretch between them. The hoot of an occasional owl. The rustling of leaves. The rushing movement of the hot spring water.

  Mae cleared her throat. “That’s not the only reason I was upset, you know,” she said, glancing in his direction.

  There was a spark in her eyes. A watery quality to the pale green of her irises. Some emotion he’d never seen from her before. Not the nostalgia of someone who held fond memories, or even a sadness that longed for the past.

  This was grief. Plain and raw.

  And it ruined him.

  “I lost a friend once. Years ago, and tonight, I was scared I was about to lose another.”

  “Mae,” he breathed. “Please don’t say that.” He was pleading with her as much as a wolf like him could. He couldn’t bear to hear her call him her friend, not with the guilt of his true intentions lingering just beneath the surface of their every interaction. Twenty years ago, she’d been his only friend. She’d always be his friend, but now…

  Now he dreaded hearing the word cross her lips.

  He couldn’t be a true friend to her. Not in the way he wanted to be.

  “Why? Why can’t you admit that we’re friends?”

  “Please, Mae.” He turned away from her. “Don’t ask this of me. Not this. Not now.”

  Not twenty years too late…

  He watched her reflection in the pool of the hot spring.

  “We are friends,” she said to his back, “and I’m not ashamed of you, Rogue. I care about you. I want you. And even if I’m nothing more, we are friends. We’ve been vulnerable with each other. Shared secrets. We’ve—” She reached out to touch his shoulder.

  He couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Enough.” He spoke the word with quiet force. He rounded on her, gathering her into his arms with all the strength of his longing for her. “Will you spare me a single shred of mercy, woman?” he pleaded.

  Placing one hand on her lower back as the other gripped the base of her short hair, he drew her flush to him. He had her pinned against the volcanic rock wall surrounding the hot spring within seconds. The length of his erection pressed against her, grinding into her center as he kissed her as if he loved her, as if she meant something to him.

  Because she always had.

  As he pulled away from her, his mouth still lingering near hers, he felt the warmth of her tears spilling down her cheeks. Joy. Relief.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” he whispered against her lips. “Don’t you realize I’ve wanted you from the start?” He brushed his fingers over her cheek. “I’ve offered you everything you’ve asked of me. What else is there left to give?”

  “You,” she whispered.

  Rogue had faced death hundreds of times. But that single word was the only dagger that had ever truly pierced him.

  “I want you. Not the Rogue. Not the dark, devilish persona, but the man who lies beneath, whoever the hell he happens to be.” She gently cupped his cheek. “I want all of you. Heart and soul, because I…I think I’m falling in love with you,” she confessed.

  Rogue struggled to breathe around the emotion that blocked his airway.

  No. She couldn’t. He’d longed so many times over the years for her to say those very words to him, but not here. Not now.

  Not now that they no longer stood a chance.

  He smiled through the pain before he laid a gentle kiss on her forehead. “Don’t you see?” The pain in his voice was palpable. Capturing her chin in his hand, he forced her to meet his gaze, his touch as tender and gentle as a monster of a man like him could manage. “You’r
e already my past, my present, my future. There’s nothing else left for me to give.”

  At those words, a torrent of desire washed over them, making them both lose themselves. Before he could even comprehend the weight of his actions, they were both naked and he was making love to her as reverently as he’d always dreamed of doing.

  As he filled her core with the thick length of him, she cried out. He caught that cry with his lips as he kissed her—thoroughly and completely—without holding any of himself back. He poured himself into the moment, refusing to feel the regret that he knew would plague him come sunrise, because for right now, it didn’t matter that she still didn’t recognize him, that she had no clue who he was. He couldn’t bring himself to care. He wanted this woman, loved this woman—plain and simple—and if there was one thing becoming the Rogue had taught him, it was that when he wanted something, nothing else mattered.

  He would claw himself from the pits of hell all the way to the pearly gates of St. Peter himself, if only she were the prize that waited there.

  He made love to her all night, using the walls, the floor, and inside and out of the hot water pools, their bodies steaming with the heat as they made the caves their own adult playground. As the sun rose over the horizon and lit the mouth of the cave, Mae lay in his arms, her eyes heavy with sleep as she ran a hand over the corded muscles of his arms and pectorals. As her eyelids began to flicker closed, she traced the intricate tattoos there with her fingers. His naked body cradled hers. He felt full, sated and satisfied in a way he hadn’t known he could as he held her against him.

  Rogue lay there for a long time, counting the spattering of freckles across her cheeks.

  But just before she drifted into slumber, she cupped the scarred side of his face in her hand, and as she did, Rogue felt himself die a little, because he knew he’d never feel more alive than he did in that moment.

  Chapter 19

  When Mae woke and emerged from the cave the following afternoon, Rogue was nowhere to be found. It was nearly nightfall by the time he returned to the campsite. The sun hung low in the sky, quickly disappearing beneath the mountain pines. The smell of burning wood and smoked meat filled the campsite. Fortunately for Mae, she and Daisy had spent the afternoon foraging, and they’d found a few raspberry and blackberry bushes not far from the camp. Murtagh had also given her a handful of granola and protein bars from the ones he kept in his pack for the children.