Rogue had never been more proud.
“There’s an antidote to the vampire’s serum. We have the scientist who can create the formula to make it available to all wolves.” She gestured to him and his men, as if she were one of them, instead of a pack wolf. “I made a deal with Rogue to save our pack. I knew time was running out before the vampires waged a full attack, and Alexander kept dragging his feet on the alliance. But you and I both know that even with Alexander’s help, the Grey Wolves would have been slaughtered. I couldn’t sit by and watch everyone we love, and so many other shifters, die. It was just a matter of time, and I—”
Maverick held up a hand as if he’d heard enough. “You trusted this criminal?”
Mae’s eyes darted toward Rogue, and the confidence he saw there cut so deep his chest ached.
Confidence he was about to betray.
“Yes, I did,” she said without hesitation, and as if that didn’t make the faces of the Grey Wolf alpha warriors appear stunned enough, she added, “And I’d do it again in an instant.”
The rage in Maverick’s eyes as he looked toward Rogue lived up to every bit of the hatred Rogue had witnessed in the eyes of Maverick’s father’s that night so many years before. Thomas had sported the same look the night he’d chosen to beat Jared, maim him to the point of scarring and deforming his face permanently, then leave him for dead in the cold Montana snow. All this after he murdered Jared’s father.
It hadn’t been personal. In fact, the sick bastard had thanked Jared for saving Mae and for killing his disgusting pedophilic brother, but that single action had given him the excuse he’d needed to ensure that the Grey Wolf throne didn’t pass to the Black family as the other pack wolves had voted. If there were no longer any heirs to the Black family, the title of packmaster remained with the Greys. In a single night, Thomas had committed murder to ensure the ascension of his only son, Maverick, to take his place.
Before Thomas had left Jared bloodied on the mountainside, he’d summoned Maverick. The young Grey Wolf had been ordered by his father to see the deed through, to kill Jared. As far as Maverick had known, Jared was his uncle’s murderer. It should have been his very first kill in a long line of lives the Grey Wolf packmaster had taken since.
But Maverick had shown Jared mercy. Or what the young wolf had thought was mercy.
To this day, Rogue still wasn’t certain why. Perhaps he’d known that someday he’d have to confess the sin to Mae.
As Jared had lain there bleeding, dying in the snow, he’d pleaded with Maverick, tried to tell Maverick the truth about his father, but the young wolf had refused to listen, calling him a liar. They’d even gotten in a tussle about that very detail, the result of which had left Maverick with a single scar over his eye and had only made Jared bleed even quicker.
Rogue had known the truth about Maverick Grey since that night. The Grey Wolf packmaster might be a valiant warrior, but underneath it, there was darkness in him, a streak for vengeance that was all too familiar each time Rogue looked in the mirror.
Maverick hadn’t killed Jared, but the fate the misguided boy had sentenced Jared to had been far worse.
A long life knowing the woman he loved would never be his.
Rogue could still hear the echoing sound of Maverick’s teenage voice damning him.
She’s not for you, and she never will be, Maverick had hissed at him.
Maverick started to prowl toward Mae, his concern and frustration with her evident with each step he took.
“Maverick,” Colt warned.
The Grey Wolf high commander reached for him, but Wes Calhoun, who stood directly to Maverick’s side, interceded.
“Let him go, brother,” Wes growled. The former Wild Eight packmaster lowered his voice, but with Rogue’s wolf senses attuned, he still heard him. “Mae’s more than capable of handling him.”
At least he and Calhoun were in agreement.
Maverick stalked toward her, meeting her on the border as they stood nose to nose. “You made a deal on behalf of the pack without my permission?”
Mae stared down her brother without an ounce of fear in her eyes. Older brother or not, a lesser wolf would have crumbled beneath the fury of Maverick Grey, but she didn’t. Mae was no fighter when it came to battle, but she wielded power in a different way. She could be told what to do by no one. Not even the most powerful packmaster in the world.
Not even a rebellious Rogue.
She was her own woman. She always had been. She’d simply needed a reminder of that.
“I don’t need your permission.”
Maverick snarled. His eyes flashing to his wolf’s. “I’m your packmaster. Your brother—”
Mae wasn’t having one second of it. “You may be the packmaster of the Grey Wolves, but you’re no master of mine.” Her eyes transitioned to her wolf’s. The golden hue blazed. “Need I remind you, brother, that the only reason you’re packmaster and I’m not is because you happened to have the fortune of being born male,” she hissed.
“You tell ’em, Mae.” Daisy let out an encouraging whoop of girl power.
“Not now, Daisy,” Rogue said, despite his grin. He remained cool, calm, collected.
The ice to Maverick’s fire.
Mae continued with her righteous tirade. “Our pack laws are outdated, and you know it. I may not be a warrior, but the same blood runs through my veins as yours. As far as I’m concerned, you have no more right to make decisions for this pack than I do.”
“Is that this bastard putting ideas in your head or—?”
“They’re my ideas,” she shot back. “If you’d paid attention, you’d know I’ve felt that way for a long time. I’m tired of you thinking you can control me, just like Dad did.”
“Mae, I’ve only tried to protect you. If you had told me, I—”
“You wouldn’t have listened,” she said. “Not without me doing something drastic.”
“She’s likely right. You’re a horrible listener,” Wes mumbled.
“Can it, Calhoun,” Maverick snarled.
Rogue liked this Wes Calhoun character more with each passing second.
“And you picked this as your drastic measure?” Maverick gestured around them. He was shaking his head. “You have no idea what you’ve done, Mae.”
“He’s not what you think,” she defended him. “He’s loyal and kind and—”
“Your brother’s right, Mae,” Rogue said. He couldn’t take another second of her defending him, not with what he had to do.
Mae turned toward him. “What are you talking about?”
In a single look, he tried to convey everything he needed to tell her. Everything he knew he wouldn’t get the chance to say.
I did this for you. I wish you could understand, but I know you won’t. It’s okay if you hate me, but I had to…
Maverick took the liberty of answering for him. “It’s not that he’s not what you think, Mae. But he’s not who you think, that’s for certain.” Maverick faced him, a snarl curling over his upper lip. “You always did know how to make an entrance.”
Mae’s brow furrowed in confusion. “You two have met before?” She looked confused but not hurt or angry. She still didn’t realize. Her mind wouldn’t let her. She was too convinced of his death, of her father’s and brother’s honesty to believe it. But deep down, she had to have had the inclination, even if it’d been tucked away in her subconscious.
Rogue liked to think that was why she’d been drawn to him from the start.
“No, we’ve never met before,” Maverick answered, beating him to the punch. “At least, not as adults. Not for the past twenty years.”
“Twenty years?” Mae glanced between them.
And there it was. Finally, out there in the open.
The realization played out on Mae’s face within a matter of seconds, and
it killed Jared.
What was left of that boy anyway…
Denial. Confusion. Incredulity. Then as the realization settled in, a brief flash of joy, happiness, relief. It was all there. But it flickered away just as quickly, replaced instead by the one emotion Rogue knew he couldn’t take.
Her disappointment.
In him. In what he’d done.
Mae was shaking her head as tears poured down her cheeks in streams. “No. No,” she whispered. Slowly, she walked toward Rogue, looking at him as if she’d never seen him before, as if he were a ghost risen from the dead.
Rogue didn’t move. He couldn’t.
When she reached him, she lifted a hand and traced it over the scarred side of his cheek. She’d felt it before, but the scars held a new meaning for her now. Proof of everything that’d happened. Everything that’d been hidden from her.
If Rogue had thought the pain in her eyes on the night she’d killed Buck would haunt him for an eternity, it was nothing compared to the pain and sorrow in her features now.
He wanted to hold her, to comfort her, to touch her. But his hands remained frozen at his sides.
“Jared,” she whispered.
He didn’t nod in answer. He knew he didn’t have to.
She turned away from him, rounding on Maverick with a silent fury the likes of which he’d never seen from her before. “You knew,” she whispered at him.
As her eyes raked over her brother, her nose wrinkled in disgust. She looked at him as if he were nothing more than the dirt beneath her boot.
“I didn’t at first,” Maverick said. “I knew he wasn’t dead, but I didn’t know he was the Rogue until—”
“You knew!” Mae shrieked. Her chin trembled. “And you lied to me!” She cast a glance in Rogue’s direction. “You both did.”
“Mae, I can explain,” Maverick said. “I did it to protect you. I—”
Mae lifted a hand to silence him. “No,” she said. “Save it.” She was shaking her head. “I can’t do this. I can’t do this. Not now. Maybe not ever.”
She started to walk away. Not in Rogue’s direction or Maverick’s but following the boundary line further up the mountain. Rogue wanted to let her go. He really did.
But he couldn’t.
“We’re not through here, Princess,” he said. “Not yet.”
His voice sounded disembodied to his own ears. It was the voice of the Rogue, the cold, calculating villain he’d become, not Jared, the future Grey Wolf cowboy who’d given his whole life for the love of a girl, a teenage girl who would only have broken his heart.
Even though for all intents and purposes, his birth identity was dead, Rogue had always felt deep down that he wasn’t the Rogue. He was still that same boy in love with a girl who’d meant everything for him.
But now, as he turned toward Mae, he wasn’t certain he could tell himself and the Rogue apart.
* * *
Mae twisted toward him. Rogue. Jared. Whoever he was to her.
Past. Present.
But not future as he’d said. Not now.
He was watching her. Everyone was. Him, his men, her brother, the entire Grey Wolf Pack. They were waiting to see what her reaction would be, to see what she was made of, if she would crumble like the princess they all thought she was. She’d never liked the nickname he’d given her, but now her feelings for it bordered on hatred—and those feelings grew more intense with each second.
She was no princess, and she’d show them that.
“What do you mean, we’re not through?” she asked. She didn’t bother to swipe her tears away, but she wouldn’t allow any more to fall. Not in front of everyone. Not for him.
“There’s still the matter of our deal.”
She stepped several paces back toward them all. “What could you possibly ask of me?”
“I told you I would collect my payment when it was due.” Rogue stepped forward and drew his dagger from a holster nestled on the belt of his chaps. He hadn’t unsheathed it in the time she’d known him as the Rogue. If he had, she would have recognized him immediately.
Because it was the same blade she’d killed her uncle with.
He stepped forward. She almost expected him to throw the blade at Maverick, but instead, he staked it in the ground just across the Grey Wolf border line, no more than a few paces away from Maverick’s feet. As he rose from his task, he pegged her with a hard stare.
In that moment, even though she now knew who she was, she didn’t recognize him, and it wasn’t the scarring on his face that caused the confusion. It was the cold, piercing look in his eye. The look of a man who wanted revenge.
Oh, Jared.
“I’m only asking you to help me reclaim what was supposed to be mine.” He faced Maverick. “I challenge your bid as packmaster.”
A collective round of gasps and murmurs sounded through the forest, coming from the Grey Wolf packmembers who’d gathered behind the elite warriors.
“Can he do that?” The inane question had, of course, come from none other than Blaze, who at the moment was sporting a strange T-shirt that said “I’m nacho daddy,” of all things.
“I can and I will,” Rogue answered.
He was right. Mae knew it. Pack law dictated that any male heir of the founding families could challenge the current packmaster to battle for the right to rule the pack. All he needed was a fellow Grey Wolf packmember to sponsor his bid.
And he’d already secured himself one to do it.
Mae’s stomach twisted.
Rogue addressed his next words to Maverick. “I’m the sole heir to the Black family, one of the three founding families of the Grey Wolf Pack. I have just as much right to be packmaster as you do, and when I am, the Grey Wolves will no longer live on the bloodied backs of the rogue wolves.”
Murtagh and the other rogues let out a victorious roar. Mae didn’t blame them. Regardless of her opinion of Rogue—she couldn’t bring herself to call him Jared now, not with what he was doing—she understood their argument, and had it not been her brother they were trying to defeat, she might have even supported their plight.
“I need a sponsor,” Rogue said. His gaze turned toward her. Cerulean eyes and cheekbones so sharp they could cut.
He was still handsome, but now that thought only made her heart hurt.
That was where she came in. She stalked toward him. As she drew close to Rogue, several of the Grey Wolf warriors made to grab her.
“Mae,” Maverick warned.
“I won’t hurt her,” Rogue assured them.
Mae stood in front of him. “You already have.” It took everything in her not to fall into his arms, to ask him why he would do this to her, to her pack, to herself. But deep down, she didn’t need to ask. She knew.
He wanted revenge.
More than he wanted her…
“Our deal was open-ended,” he reminded her.
“I’m aware.” Mae wasn’t aware that she’d chosen to slap him until her hand had already connected with the side of his face.
Rogue didn’t bother to move or defend himself. “I deserved that.”
“You did.” She nodded. “But you also deserve this.” She gripped him by the collar and pulled him in to her, kissing him senseless. She poured everything she felt for him into that kiss, urging him to feel it all with her. The elation that he was still alive. Her gratitude for what he’d done for her. The hurt over how he’d lied to her. And the pain and sorrow she felt that he’d destroyed any chance she had to be with him.
Several whoops of approval at the public display sounded from some of the rogue wolves, while a few of the Grey Wolves snarled.
When she released him, she could see in his eyes that he’d felt every emotion she’d gifted him with. “Thank you,” she whispered, low enough that only he could hear her. “For savi
ng me from Buck.” He ran her hand over the puckered scars of his cheek. “I just wish doing so hadn’t destroyed the boy I loved so thoroughly.”
She stepped back from him then.
“My packmembers will be safe and receive the antidote regardless of the outcome?” she asked.
He nodded.
She glanced between him and Maverick. “Unlike the two of you, I keep my promises and I never lie.” She faced Rogue again. “I owe you a debt for the antidote, and I intend to keep it.” She bent and pulled the dagger from the ground as was custom. She extended the blade toward him. “But that’s the last bit of kindness from me you’ll ever get.”
“I wouldn’t dream of asking for anything else.” There was a sadness in his eyes, but she didn’t allow herself to trust it was real. She was still too desperate for him to be who she wanted him to be. Her Jared or the secretly kindhearted Rogue. Maybe both? She wasn’t certain anymore.
“I warned you I was no hero.”
“You were,” she said. “You were once, for me, but not now. You failed to tell me that you weren’t just a villain. You’re worse.” She struggled to hold back her tears. “You’re a monster,” she whispered. “What a shame I was too in love with you to see it.”
“You wouldn’t have gone through with it if I hadn’t lied to you. Not to save them,” he gestured to the rogue wolves behind him. “Not even to save your pack.”
She nodded. “You’re right. I wouldn’t betray my brother. Not willingly anyway. But if it saves the Grey Wolves’ lives, I’ll do anything. Not that you’ve given me a choice.” It was this or have their whole journey result in nothing. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I sponsor his bid as packmaster.”
There were no gasps and murmurs. The forest surrounding them seemed to respond to the tension between them, growing so silent that she could hear the flow of the nearby river.
The river where she’d found him all those years ago, where she’d forced him to be her friend despite how he’d been mean to her to mask his pain.
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