Hunting Wolf: Black Mesa Wolves #3

by Harper, J. K.

  Caleb didn't turn around from the window. After a beat, though, he nodded. Grudgingly. As usual, Rafe the alpha-to-be knew just how to address a situation. It was a hell of a lot more than Caleb knew how to address, so he would go with it. Besides, his wolf was pretty eager about the whole thing.

  He sucked in a quick breath and, eyeing his phone like it was dynamite, reached for it. Hopefully, the thing wouldn't burst into flames when Rielle would most likely glare at it from her end the moment he asked the question.

  Thankfully, it didn't.

  Chapter 3

  “Once in a Blue Moon?”

  Rielle looked at the sign above the bar with clear hesitation written into every slim line of her body. Caleb let his eyes slide down that body again for second. He'd have to be blind or dead if he didn't.

  When he'd shown up at Rielle's door earlier, he'd just barely rescued himself from a jaw fracture caused by his chin hitting the ground when she'd stepped outside. A short, flirty pink dress showed off all her sweet curves and enticing swells. With that cinnamon-brown hair flowing down around her shoulders and her dark eyes looking up at him a little shyly, Caleb had actually found himself groping for words. He'd literally not been able to speak for a minute as he took in how pretty Rielle looked in that damn tiny dress.

  “Yeah,” he said now. “It's supposed to be the new hot place in Durango. And it'll have the kind of drinks you like.”

  Rielle whipped her gaze to him. A little line appeared in her brow. Not shy anymore.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Truthfully, she was kind of cute when she was irritated at him. Which was fine, since she always seemed to be irritated at him. He still wasn't sure exactly how he did it, but somehow he managed to push every button that little wolf had. Like right now.

  “Well, I don't know. Girly drinks? Froufy drinks? What do you like, anyway?”

  Her russet-brown eyes pinned him with that laser look of hers. She made him kind of spooked with that intense look. It was as if she could see inside him. Even his wolf nervously paced in his mind with tail at half mast.

  “Um, let's go in.” Caleb pushed open the glass door and hastily stepped inside. The scent of humans on the prowl, of drinks made with coconut rum, of new tables and chairs and paint, assaulted his nose for a half second before he firmly tuned it out. Not before, of course, he instinctively scouted for unwelcome scents, like rogues or any wolves not from their Pack, but nothing triggered his inner alarm system.

  All he had to worry about now was the kind of pissy, if really cute, she-wolf with him.

  He scanned the dim interior for a table. He wasn't dumb enough to look for a seat at the bar. Rielle had sounded surprised when he asked her out—okay, she'd been downright shocked. He'd had to make sure she was still on the phone after the words slowly came out of his mouth. But she'd agreed, if a little hesitantly. He'd told her all the reasons Rafe had mentioned, without telling her it was Rafe's idea. She could hardly argue with the logic of it all. In fact, she'd even sounded a tiny bit interested. Probably not in him, of course. Just about going out somewhere other than her house.

  So here they were. It was an actual sort-of date, and he had to find them an actual table to sit at. Barstools were for hanging out. Or so Lily had told him in no uncertain tones when he'd lowered his pride enough to ask his sister about the right behavior for this date thing.

  “Rielle Amoux? You asked her on a date? And she didn't brush you off?” Lily had been extremely skeptical when he'd tracked her down the other day. She was running laps around the den property, in her human form, and she'd stopped to catch her breath and stare her brother in the eye when he asked her how to treat Rielle on a first date. Not that there would be a second date, necessarily.

  “Harsh,” was all he'd said back to that comment. Lily had a soft spot for him, she always had. She was the oldest and he was the youngest, and even though he'd already been taller and stronger than she by the time he was twelve, she always kept a close eye on him.

  “I just mean she's kind of bookish. And you, my dear little brother, are not.” Her affectionate elbow jab had made him laugh and eased a bit of the awkwardness he'd felt about bringing it up anyway. Caleb always knew what to do with a girl, but this was—Ree. A Packmate. Somehow that made it different. And it wasn't a real date, not really. Right?

  After hearing Rafe's reasoning behind his suggestion for Caleb to behave more like a gentleman around Rielle, Lily had convinced him to treat the situation like a real date. “I don't really know Rielle,” she'd said, sounding a bit surprised at that. “Hmm. Anyway, Rafe's onto something, as usual. Besides, she's our Pack historian. I bet she'll have some good stories for you once you manage to show her you're not a complete barbarian.”

  “Stories about what?” he'd asked doubtfully. Lily had just smiled before launching into an assessment of how he should dress, behave, and treat his date.

  His date. How in the hell had running the girl over turned into this full-fledged—thing?

  As he scanned the room in hopeless search for a table, a waitress bustling by rescued him. “There are a few seats on the patio out back. Go grab one and I'll be right with you guys.”

  Whooshing out a relieved sigh, he led the way to a free table on the hidden patio behind the restaurant. He even remembered to pull out a chair for Ree. Of course, he couldn't help but notice her legs as she sat down. They looked sleek and crazy sexy with those high heels she wore. Man, what it might be like to feel those legs wrapped around him...

  His wolf gave an approving rumble deep inside. Ree cocked her head and looked closely at him, sensing something. Caleb desperately searched for a topic, any topic, to steer his gutter mind away from picturing her naked body. Naked on his bed.

  “Uh,” he began, sounding like a complete idiot. What the hell. He knew how to talk to girls. He did it all the time. Of course, he didn't usually take them out on an actual, scheduled date. It was more like, see hot girl in a bar, chat girl up, buy girl a drink, take girl home, enjoy time with girl, set girl loose. Repeat with new girl a few weeks or so later. They never minded, and there were always more of them around. None of them had ever caught his interest enough for a repeat time. Rielle, though, was definitely different. And so damn sexy in that little dress, with her hair all loose and soft around her shoulders.

  Her pretty eyes narrowed a bit at him. Then her face turned a cute shade of pink. She dropped her gaze to the table. He realized he was starting to broadcast his baser instincts, as all wolves tended to do when their senses began to overwhelm their thinking brain.

  Damn. Redirect, redirect. Inside, his wolf grinned a big wolfish grin, tongue lolling. Damn it.

  She unknowingly saved him by opening her mouth first. Too bad he stared at her lush pink lips for a moment too long as she spoke, but that couldn't be helped. How the hell had he never before noticed that she was so pretty?

  “Caleb, I've been wondering about something since we ran into each other that night.”

  He had to hand it to her. She was sweet to not bring up again the fact that he'd almost knocked her over. Forcefully, he made himself drag his gaze up to her eyes. She'd been idly playing with a napkin, though, so she hadn't noticed his very caveman appreciation of her mouth. Yet.

  “What's that?”

  She finally looked up at him and let a half smile light up her face. A soft brown strand of hair wisped over her cheek, ending at her lips. He swallowed.

  “You're so dead set against the rogues,” she said. “I've been wondering why. I mean, I know why in general, of course. But why are you specifically wanting to hunt them down? It's almost as if you have a vendetta.”

  Her expression seemed genuinely curious and open. She really wanted to know. Even so, he felt slightly stunned she didn't get how bad the rogue problem was.

  “Ree,” he began, but the waitress finally made her way over to them. They spent a minute ordering a ridiculously girly drink for Rielle, complete with some s
illy name and apparently also tiny, colorful umbrellas stuck in it, and thank god a Jack and ginger ale for him.

  “Look,” he said after their waitress zipped away. “They're rogues. Rogues!” He warmed to the subject and heard his own voice rising with the intensity of his viewpoint. “They have no pack affiliations. They have no honor, no decent sense of justice.”

  “Well, they're still like us. They're still shifters,” she said in a quiet tone. She probably didn't have to lower her voice given the surrounding noise, but Pack-trained reflex dictated her responses. Caleb could still hear her perfectly well, of course.

  “They are not like us. Some of them may want to make their own packs, but they want to do it in ways that aren't protocol. They want to steal our females, Ree.” He leaned forward over the table for some emphasis. Even though he knew his brows were lowered in a frown and his wolf looked out of his eyes, she didn't shrink back. He felt both puzzled and intrigued that she wasn't intimidated by him. Everyone else usually was when he got worked up about something.

  “What if it had been you, instead of Rafe and Sara, in that attack? You're not a Guardian. You might be Pack, but you don't have Guardian training. The rogues would have grabbed you and forced you to mate with one of them, Ree.”

  The thought of another wolf, any wolf, but especially a rogue, touching her sent such a powerful wave of possessive anger bolting up his spine he had to stop himself from literally growling. For a long moment, Caleb gripped the metal edges of the patio table and held hard, forcing the pressure against his hands to calm the storm brewing inside. Getting angry was always easy for him. Toning it down was not.

  Rielle just sat quietly across from him. Her entire presence radiated soothing calm. Even so, it didn't stop him from seeing the smooth line of her cheek or the faint beat of her pulse in her neck, inviting him to nibble at it.

  Dammit. Rielle was gorgeous and super enticing. Maybe this date thing wasn't that good of an idea. Controlling himself around her was not as easy as it should be.

  “Go on,” she said. Her soft voice held a strange note of command in it as well. Not an order like he might get from his Alpha, but a command born of real interest in what he was saying. Caleb realized with an internal jolt that usually, no one was particularly interested in his thoughts about anything. They mostly just wanted him to shut himself down.

  “They don't understand pack life,” he said. “Being in a pack means being part of something, and being able to live with rules because you know it's for the good of everyone in it. Rogues don't want that.” He paused to take a long, fortifying swallow of his drink. Rielle's lips on the cutesy straw in hers distracted him for a long, near-choking moment. He managed to wrench his gaze back up again. This time, though, she'd noticed. A very faint blush of color touched her cheeks again. Damn, damn, damn. She was too darn pretty. He kind of wanted to lick her. Everywhere.

  ~

  So focused was she on the big wolf across the table from her, Rielle almost forgot where they were. The noise around them had faded as his voice deepened from his passion about the subject. She was slightly alarmed at the depth of his antipathy toward the rogues. Even more, though, she was taken with his deep blue eyes, the slight crinkles in his forehead as he glowered, the formidable strength and sheer—maleness—in him. Every nerve ending she had seemed to be buzzing in his presence.

  She could feel her wolf's interest and appreciation rising in her, threatening to overwhelm her good reason. The inner twitchiness she'd been feeling lately, the need to somehow let loose, kept her discreetly tapping a foot on the floor to banish some of the energy.

  Her head still spun at the wildly fast parade of events that had led to this very moment. How on earth had she ended up at some place called Once in a Blue Moon on a date with Caleb Bardou? Of course, it wasn't a real date. He'd been pretty clear on the phone that this was just an apology for the other night. It seemed Alpha wanted to keep closer tabs on Rielle, judging by the subtext she'd picked up from Caleb's halting request to meet him for drinks. Even so, she had to admit it felt pretty good to be out on the town with an appealing guy.

  Okay, a really hot guy. Because he was, with that tousled dark blond hair and those eyes looking at her with an interest she knew came from the subject he was discussing, but which still felt flattering. Caleb might be rough and tumble, but he was also downright sexy. Her body told her that clearly enough. She'd just caught him looking at her lips, too. For some reason, that made color flood her cheeks. Before she could think more about what that might mean, she hurriedly jumped into the conversation. Thankfully, it was truly interesting to her historian-oriented mind.

  “Actually, rogue wolves do want pack life,” she said. “They just want it on their own terms, even if that means going about it in ways that aren't acceptable to traditional packs.” She caught a faint whiff of edgy, dangerous wolf, prowling and interested, as she spoke. She stiffened for a millisecond before she realized it was Caleb. She'd provoked him again with her words, talking about rogues, and—

  Oh. Oh. Her dormant wolf sat up in her mind, startling her even more its sudden, strong presence. Caleb was broadcasting interest. As in, male wolf interest. In her.

  For a long, weightless second, Rielle locked eyes with Caleb's smoky blue ones. A spark in his intense gaze leapt over to her. The sounds around them dropped into a roaring silence, and a light shiver skittered up and down her spine. She felt her breath shorten, becoming a little faster.

  The look on Caleb's face was nakedly appreciative, curious, and suddenly so engulfing she didn't know what else to do but open her mouth and say something, anything, to escape the pressure she felt from her rousing wolf, her fizzy-feeling body, and Caleb's relentless look.

  “I'd like another one. Drink? I seem to have finished mine.” She tapped the straw against the empty glass in front of her, now filled only with ices cubes on top of the dregs of faintly pinkish liquid. She wasn't sure how it had gone down so fast—hadn't it just been set in front of her moments ago?

  Now he still stared at her, but his eyebrows lifted at her words, and the intense connection between them broke.

  “Sure,” he said, and flagged down the waitress.

  “You're wrong, you know,” she said in a conversational tone. Keep it casual. Change direction away from the sudden connection between them. Because that was crazy. “About the rogues, I mean.”

  “I am not wrong about the rogues.” His voice shot out, although its heat wasn't directed at her. His sensitive male pride had been wounded. That seemed to happen a lot with males. Especially the markedly insensitive ones.

  “Oh, but you are,” she said. “I know a lot about rogues, too.” She tapped a finger against her own chest. “Pack historian, remember?”

  “Hmm,” was all he said. His gaze had plummeted to her chest when she tapped at it, then quickly rose back to her face.

  The magnetic heat of his gaze zeroed in on her, making her stumble over her own thoughts for a second. Had Caleb Bardou just checked her out? The tightness in her throat rose up as it did when she was flustered. This definitely counted as a flustered moment. Thankfully, another pink froufy drink arrived. Rielle touched her fingers to the cold surface of the glass, willing to cooling refreshment to draw up into her very warm body. Something about this whole situation made her feel a little tingly. Wisely, she waited before just downing the whole thing in one ridiculous gulp. Even though shifters took a longer time than humans to get drunk, since Rielle already felt a bit tipsy for some reason, she'd better be smart. She put the straw into her mouth and slowly swallowed down some cold liquid ease, praying she wouldn't just squeak or something when her mouth finally worked again.

  Oddly enough, Caleb's eyes widened when she began sucking on the straw. He looked away hastily. A silence held them for a long moment until her throat eased up enough she thought she could safely get out words again.

  She focused on what seemed to be the safer topic than questioning the possibility Caleb
was getting as flustered by her presence as she was by his. “Look,” she said, forcing herself to fall into the teaching cadence she always adopted when discussing any pack history. “Rogues don't like rules, per se. They don't want to be restricted or constricted by any fully-fledged pack. Any wolf that has rogue tendencies is not cut out for traditional pack life. They're just too independent, in a way.”

  “Too independent to want real leadership. To understand that our way of life is the only way of life for us.” Caleb's tone snapped out again, but his voice still managed to wrap itself around Rielle's senses. Why did he have to sound so darned male? How come she'd never really paid attention to him before?

  He is all male wolf, her own wolf thought strongly into her head, jolting Rielle with its clarity and intensity. Her wolf had said so little for months.

  Because I haven't let her, she thought guiltily. Suddenly even more unsettled, she hurried on. “Independent, yes. But pack life doesn't have to be the only way of life for us.”

  “What the—Rielle.” Now his tone was definitely perturbed. “That's crazy talk. Maybe you read too much history.” His gaze caught hers in challenge.

  That managed to cool her right back down. Right back down into righteous indignation, that is. Straightening in her seat and unfolding her fingers from around the deliciously cold glass, Rielle cocked her head at that big bully of a wolf sitting across from her.

  “You did not just say I read too much.” She let outrage lace her every word. “Did you?”

  Caleb shifted in his seat and leaned back from her a little, although his still regarded her with that funny challenge in his expression. “Um...”

  “Because if you did, that's the same thing as saying I should just shut my pretty mouth and listen to you, instead.” Her dander was good and up now. Who'd thought this was a good idea? Why had she said yes? Caleb Bardou was nothing but an uncultured oaf, a guy who just wanted to be strong and old-fashioned, who wanted—