by Sarra Cannon
He ran a finger over the soft skin of her neck. “Never seen a wolf do that before.”
She shrugged and cast her eyes down. “You know that corny line. If you love something, set it free.”
But there was more to her hunt than that corny line, and he knew it. “You didn’t kill it.”
“That pronghorn didn’t need killing. She needed…” She trailed off, studying him as if to gauge how much to say. “She needed to listen.”
“And that’s what you do? You tell them where to go?” The image of the green valley had been so clear, he could smell the fresh grass, taste the clean breeze. “Where they’ll be safe?”
Rae shook her head and took a long time measuring her words before speaking. “I don’t say anything. The Earth Spirits do. I just make sure she listens.”
He nodded, knowing then the scene was real. “So she’ll know where to go. Where she’ll be safe. Where she’ll find a mate…” He trailed off there, glad her eyes avoided his while he fought down the squeezing feeling in his lungs.
His arms tightened around her body. He didn’t need a whisper in the night. He knew where to find his mate.
Right here, his coyote nodded, humming in satisfaction.
Rae cleared her throat. “A good hunt,” she mumbled.
A very good hunt, his wolf rumbled inside.
“Interesting kind of hunt,” he added, trying to keep his voice steady.
Rae pursed her lips. “There’s killing, too, when there needs to be. The old, the weak, the sick. Everything has its time. I do it right, though,” she continued, sounding fiercer now. “Quick, and with honor. Not like those damn trappers, the bear-baiters, the humans who get it wrong. They take the strongest bucks, the brightest females.”
It all fit perfectly with the stories his grandmother used to tell. But Rae was no coyote. “You’re not Diné,” he said.
Diné? her eyes asked.
“Navajo.”
She shook her head. “My family came from Europe. They couldn’t stop humans from decimating the herds there, so they came to the New World. They did their best to keep the herds strong, but others came, too. Too many, too fast.”
He knew that story all too well. “Are you the only one?”
Her pulse slowed to a sad thump-thump. “My grandmother was the only huntress in the Four Corners region in her time. It skipped a generation with my mom. And me… I’m the only one I know who’s…different.”
Zack pulled her closer, wishing he could say what he felt: that he knew how it felt to be different, to be alone. But Rae was special, one of a kind. And he was just a mutt.
Try selling that, his coyote cried, suddenly morose.
Chapter 18
To Rae, a night never felt so good, and dawn never came so swiftly. She lay snuggled alongside Zack, alternatively snoozing and watching the stars until orange and pink hues invaded the sky.
A new day. What revelations would this one bring?
She rolled to face Zack, matching each part of her body to his, and took his lips in a last kiss. The last, at least, for that night. Then she stood, stretched, and offered him a hand.
He didn’t move for a moment, and she wondered what was going through his mind. He’d gone from passionate and hopeful to downright quiet as the first rays of sunlight tiptoed over the earth.
“Hey,” she called, giving him an encouraging smile. “Time to get up, Sleeping Beauty.”
He cracked one eyelid open. “That would be you.”
The crazy thing was, he wasn’t joking. His fingers closed around hers like he never wanted to let go.
She squeezed and pulled him up. Lying on the ground, they’d come out eye to eye, but standing, he towered over her. There was so much of him, so much to him. The man was more than a tracker.
This man could be our mate, her wolf nodded.
She took a deep breath and looked over the hills. It was a long way back to the cabin.
“On foot or…on foot?” she asked.
He flashed the small smile she was hoping for, understanding her meaning right away. To shift into wolf form to cover the miles back or walk on bare human feet.
“Four feet would be quicker.” He said it quietly, like he was testing her.
“Right, then.” She nodded. “Let’s go on two feet.”
The smile stretched. “Right, then, two feet.”
They picked their way through the scrub, cutting over the hill she’d used as a shortcut the night before, then winding up the valley where she’d first found her prey. It all seemed so different in daytime and as a human, but one thing was the same: the thrill she got from Zack being there at her side.
Imagine hunting like this all the time. With him.
It was all too easy to imagine. All too tempting.
But can we trust him?
Purrr-fectly, her wolf replied, thumping her tail.
Which only brought her to the next question: How much could she trust herself?
The question hung in every thorn of the prickly pears they picked their way around, every edged pebble underfoot. But with Zack’s hand tight around hers and his quiet presence at her side, finding a definitive answer didn’t feel quite so urgent any more.
They reached the cabin and paused just inside the threshold. Evidence of their lovemaking lay bare to her eyes in the tangled sheets and hung in the heady musk that still clung to the air. It would be easy, too easy, to slip right back to where they’d left off.
His hand tightened around hers. “We need to get back,” he whispered after a few heartbeats ticked by.
She wanted to stay and pretend that last night could be every night for the rest of her days. But pretending wouldn’t get her anywhere, so she scooped up her clothes and dressed as Zack pulled on his jeans then straightened the bed. She tugged on her shirt then slung her bow and quiver over her shoulders, wishing it wasn’t already time to go.
When Zack stepped out the door and pushed the motorcycle off the porch, there was a metallic ting as the keys fell out of his pocket. Rae picked them up and she stepped into the intense morning light, squinting. The night was gone; if she wanted her future, she had to go out and get it.
He put out his hand like a catcher’s mitt, and she hesitated. Once again, there’d be a man in the driver’s seat of her life. She jingled the keys, turning the thought over like a tarnished penny.
“You have a license, miss?” Zack called.
His tone was joking, but his eyes said, Give me the keys. And there it was again—her inner doubt. A bossy alpha was the last thing she needed.
She stiffened slightly. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
He studied her then added a lifted eyebrow. Give me the keys, please.
She fingered the jagged ridge of the key until her wolf nudged her thoughts. This man, we can trust.
She tossed the key chain to him, putting everything into a look that said, Do not betray my trust.
Zack tossed her the helmet by way of a promise.
“What about you?” There was only one helmet.
He rapped his fingers on his skull, smiling. “Hard head.” Then he started the bike with an easy kick and motioned her onto the back.
One more deep breath, and she slid into place. The minute she got in position, chest to his back, legs against his, arms circling his waist, the worries fled. This felt good. Safe. Right.
Home, her wolf murmured. Home.
With a twist of his wrist, Zack revved and took off, and promise shimmered on the horizon. Maybe it wasn’t the end of a beautiful night but the start of a beautiful day. Who knew?
Rae leaned into Zack and let herself revel in every turn, every gear as he went faster and faster. What a car window was to a dog, she decided, a motorcycle must be to a shifter. Her worries blew away with the wind as she gave herself over to the joy of it. Judging by the swell of Zack’s lungs under her tight grip, he felt the same. His shoulders went wide and sang of the joy of an open road, of a humming engine, of a
woman’s arms—his woman’s arms—around his waist.
She smiled into his shoulder blades and let her fingers strum the line of his ribs. When he revved past the spot that Jed had cornered her in, she turned her head away. She’d deal with the broken-down car later. And as for Jed, Zack had scared him off, right? She wasn’t going to let anything ruin this day. And she was damn well going to stretch it out for as long as she possibly could. Why rush back to the ranch?
But the phone vibrated in his pocket when they hit the highway and turned south. Several times, in fact, in what seemed like a series of urgent messages. He pulled over at a roadside diner, took it out, and scowled.
“Shit.”
Maybe hiding out at the cabin forever hadn’t been such a crazy idea after all.
What? She wanted to yell the question. What did the message say?
He glared at the display, glanced at her, then back at the phone. His fingers tightened around it so hard she thought the housing would crack.
“Zack?”
A cloud passed over his face before he punched the phone off for good. Let them wait, those green eyes said, screaming defiance.
What was going on?
He stomped into the diner, pulling her with him. “Breakfast.” It wasn’t so much an invitation as a declaration, the taking of a stand. Never had she seen the alpha in him come that close to the surface.
But he’s holding the power back, her wolf said. Holding it back, just for us. She imagined her wolf leaning in to whisper in her ear. This man would be good to us.
She squeezed her lips together but didn’t protest.
They sat down and lingered over every bite of pancake, every sip of coffee, and if it was mechanical at first, the tension gripping his shoulders gradually unwound. Like the storm that had come and gone last night, his mood moved on, and blue skies followed.
Literally. She got back on the bike and tipped her chin to the sky, soaking in the sun. Zack drove under the speed limit, apparently no more eager than she to get back to the ranch. They’d barely gone twenty miles down the road before he pulled over at a scenic overlook where they went straight from taking in the view to taking in each other’s lips for another happy minute, or an hour. With this man, it was easy to lose track of time.
“This is beautiful,” she murmured at last.
“This is nothing,” he said, and his secret smile hinted that he knew a better spot.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long into the last stretch of road before he swung the bike off the highway at an unmarked juncture. They bumped off-road for half a mile before dismounting and walking to a field of boulders in the shade of a bluff. He pointed to swirls and lines etched into the rock.
“Petroglyphs,” she murmured, tracing the air a millimeter above the rock. “Navajo—I mean, Diné?”
He shrugged. “Nobody knows. But there’s a feel to this place.”
She closed her eyes and squeezed away her senses until she felt it—a vibration in the air, like an ancient chant. The whisper of the past. His past?
She opened her eyes on Zack. Coyote, Diné, white man, wolf. The man had a little of everything in him. And she loved it all.
She stepped closer and hugged him, reaching for his lips to taste what she’d seen. They kissed until their arms started to wander and their tongues reached deeper, when Zack broke off with a start.
“Not here,” he whispered, moving away with her hand firmly in his.
Maybe two people heating up in a special place like that was taboo. She didn’t ask; she just followed him silently downslope. A few minutes later, he pulled her into a sycamore grove.
“Here,” he whispered, and picked up where he’d left off.
His hands explored her body, firing every nerve into action, until they’d both stripped and made slow, sweet love as only two destined mates could. By the time the sun was low and they made their way back to the bike, Rae was sure.
Mate. Mine.
She waited a moment for some inner voice of protest, but none came. Those words sounded just right.
Those words are right, her wolf decided.
She could have laughed at herself. There she was, hanging on much tighter than necessary as Zack motored down the highway. The tables had turned, because she wanted to possess him. To keep him, to care for him, to share good and bad and everything in between. And if he wanted to possess her the same way, well, that was a good thing. Especially if he shared the same feeling settling over her now: the one that had her swearing she’d do anything for him. Anything.
She closed her eyes and let the wind brush her face. Maybe she didn’t have to sell her soul for a man. Maybe she could free it.
She wanted to make Zack pull over then and there and tell him exactly that, but they’d made so many stops already and whittled the day away… It really was time to get back to the ranch. The minute they got there, though, she’d follow him to his lonely cabin and make sure it was lonely no more.
She smiled into his back, because a day had never been as perfect as this one.
She only snapped out of her thoughts when they rumbled over the cattle grid beneath the ranch gate. Zack’s entire body stiffened, and her head popped up to take in the scene. Two words sounded in her mind, and the voice that spoke them was his.
Oh, shit.
Chapter 19
Zack drove straight into a maelstrom more intense than the lightning storm of the previous night. It was in the air, in the guarded faces that greeted them, in the strange sense of anticipation that pulled his shoulders into a cramp.
He rolled the motorcycle to a stop, wondering what was going on.
Ty pushed away from where he’d been leaning against the council house, studying the sky, maybe for some sign from the gods or some miraculous means of escape. Either would have explained that weary look on his face. When Ty brought his chin down, Zack saw those dark eyes flash between him and Rae.
Whenever Ty was worked up, his eyes packed the power of a punch. And while he was certainly worked up—the set of Ty’s jaw gave it away, along with his telltale scratching of an ear—tonight seemed different. Those eyes mimicked the steady swing of a clock pendulum, solemnly winding up to the hour.
Bong.
The pendulum swung left, and Zack felt that gaze bore into him.
Bong.
It flicked to Rae.
Another silent tick went by, then another heavy bong. Ty’s gaze went back to Zack, harboring some secret. Some betrayal.
When the brooding eyes went back to Rae and narrowed, Zack knew his time was up.
Make sure none of the guys dick around with her. The words of the pack’s future leader echoed in Zack’s mind.
Bong.
Ty’s nostrils flared, and Zack knew he knew. For all that the whipping wind had scoured them on the ride back, the scent of sex remained.
Part of Zack wanted to fold up and slink away, while another part wanted to stand tall and beat his chest. Frozen between the two, he waited for Ty’s eyes to ignite, sizzle, and spit. He waited for the pendulum to morph into the sweep of an angry tail on a very ferocious wolf.
But the light in Ty’s eyes only flared briefly then fizzled away. They only sparked again when old Tyrone came stomping up, his eyes overflowing with the rage so strangely absent from his son’s face.
When the old alpha’s eyes jumped to Zack, he had to fight the instinct to stumble backward. Then the eyes shifted to Rae and went suddenly neutral. Calculating.
Zack looked at the way the old alpha studied Rae, and suddenly, it all clicked.
Rae. A Mistress of the Hunt. A legend reborn.
A legend said to bring prosperity to the lands she tended.
He felt his pulse throb unevenly through his veins. Somehow, the old man had found out Rae’s secret—or he’d known it all along.
Rae hadn’t come to the ranch as casual help. She’d come to be studied. Verified. Because a pack that claimed a huntress among its ranks would boom and prosper. She
’d bring prestige to the pack—and to the family she mated into.
The old alpha’s eyes flicked to Ty, and Zack’s heart sank to his boots.
She’d been brought to be mated to the alpha’s son. Ty.
“Where the hell have you been?” Old Tyrone snapped. His head jerked toward the door of the council house. “Inside, now!”
Everything in Zack screamed for him to bundle Rae onto his motorcycle and get the hell away. Rev the engine higher than he’d ever done and race far, far away. But his feet were already shuffling to the council house, pulled by Tyrone’s fury and sheer force of habit. His whole life, he’d obeyed the alpha, and habit was a hard thing to break, even with his soul howling inside. It was his duty to serve the pack.
To hell with duty! his coyote cried.
He felt Rae grip his hand as she moved toward the council house, even though she looked like she wanted to run. Her eyes grabbed his, begging him to keep her secret.
Warn her! Tell her! Save her!his coyote screamed. Tell her the secret is already out!
His wolf, though, had his head down. Duty came above everything else. Everything.
Then they were over the threshold, and the council house door slammed firmly shut behind them.
Tyrone stalked to the front of the room then spun on his heel. Ty took the spot on his father’s right, looking empty and defeated. On the left stood Cody and Tina, the alpha’s younger offspring, their lips tightly sealed, clearly wanting no part of what was about to transpire. Beside them stood three of the pack elders, cronies of the alpha.
Zack knew he had to speak up first, to grab the momentum from the old man. He’d never asked the pack for anything, as if he’d been saving up all his wishes for now. For Rae.
He opened his mouth to start, but the old man butted in first.
“You don’t leave pack territory without permission.” He pointed an accusing finger at Rae.
Her lower lip trembled, but she threw her shoulders back and went on the defense when any sane person would have withered and crawled away. But that was Rae: brave, ballsy, insistent.
“I didn’t leave the territory! I was just exploring.”