But life had grown dull. Triggered by a botched bank robbery in El Paso, a restlessness had begun to swell inside her. Why, after all these years, she didn’t know, but it was there, a constant reminder she’d shackled her true nature in her quest to be free.
Her wolf constantly paced in her consciousness. Xio found herself unable to settle, shift, or run in the wilds as her inner beast demanded. Not because she physically couldn’t but because outside forces conspired against her. That was what happened when you lived with humans.
Wolf—dog—it didn’t matter. All made great sausage for hungry families in the villages surrounding the Sanchez ranch, and it was a risk she hadn’t taken in the ten years’ time since she’d almost ended up in a taco on some family’s dinner table.
She didn’t want to be in Mexico, and she didn’t want to be with Diego anymore, but she really didn’t have a choice or anywhere else to go. Hence, the reason she’d crossed the border for this small amusement. Perhaps she could get some of the pent-up energy out. Open a valve and vent.
Speaking of which….
Xio pulled the mask over her eyes and strode through the front doors of the bank. Her two team members flanked her.
No one seemed to notice them yet. Not very observant for a bank that claimed to have a robbery-free record. Deciding to wake them all up, she yanked an AKS-762 assault rifle—with a custom stock and barrel that catered to her size—from under her canvas duster and fired several rounds into the ceiling. Chunks of plaster rained down on the patrons in the lobby. Multiple people screamed and several of the customers hit the floor before she needed to provide them with instruction. Conversely, not everyone appeared to be a rocket scientist. Not a problem. She had great communication skills and hearing protection in her ears.
Xio fired a second time, bringing down more of the ceiling. She pointed at the floor. “On your bellies, ladies and gentlemen.” As though doing the “wave” at a sporting event, they dropped.
She strolled to the front of bank, kicked over one of the posts holding a velvet rope, and stepped over it. She’d never been patient enough to wait in line and wasn’t about to run their little maze now.
Xio removed her earplugs and tuned in with her wolf hearing, listening for anyone who might want to be a hero. Not a peep—some crying, but that was par for the course.
Not a daredevil in the bunch.
She eyed the staff on the floor. The one thing all bankers feared was a robber who jumped the teller line, and she was about to become their worst nightmare. They’d taken classes, trained for robberies, all bank staff did—and what did their security specialists warn them about? Her—joining them behind the counter, up close and personal, with a loaded weapon.
“Palms on the floor and your ankles crossed. I haven’t got all day.”
She stopped at one of the windows and without the use of her hands, jumped up on the marble countertop. At five feet two, the feat should have been impossible for a human female of her stature, but she wasn’t completely human—and impossible wasn’t in her vocabulary. In fact, that was why she’d come here, chosen this robbery-proof bank. It was a matter of honor, and a little about her ego. The branch had never been successfully robbed, and she’d decided to change that.
It was Wednesday, the day after their big shipment came in, and the third of the month, when a large majority of seniors got their Social Security checks. Prime for the picking. The setup couldn’t be any sweeter.
She cocked her head and listened for sirens in the distance. Five minutes out, if her hearing served correct. “Here’s how we are going to do this. When I tap you on the shoulder, you get up and fill the backpack with cash. No bait bills. I can tell what they are, so don’t fuck with me.” She hopped off the counter and behind the teller line, nudging the first person there with the flash suppressor on the end of her weapon. “Move.”
With tears in her eyes, the teller staggered to her feet, blubbering something about children at home. Over the last ten years, Xio had heard every story imaginable, and the young woman’s tale did little to change what she planned to do. No, she’d never killed anyone, nor did she intend to start today, but they didn’t know that.
“Save the speech and stuff the bag.” She shoved the backpack into the blonde’s hands. “Now.”
The young woman pulled the drawer open and grabbed handfuls of cash, leaving the bait bill in the till as instructed. Xio didn’t need to see the special ultraviolet ink on it to know what it was. Her wolf could smell that it had been handled a multitude of times by the same person. Once the teller finished, Xio shoved her back to the floor and nudged the next. “Your turn.”
All followed instruction, until she reached the last person, a man. Something about him raised her hackles. She should have listened to the warning, but there were still two minutes left and she’d yet to empty the commercial drawer, where they kept the big money. Greed won over instinct, and Xio toed him with her combat boot. “Up, big boy.”
And wasn’t that understatement of the year? As he stood, she realized he had to be at least six feet four, dwarfing her tiny frame. He didn’t look like your typical banker, at least not any she’d dealt with in the past, and he sure as hell didn’t smell like a banker.
Wolf. Shit.
He looked her in the eyes, holding her gaze for a few seconds, making her trigger-finger itch. She wore a mask from a recent Day of the Dead celebration and had salted her words with a Spanish accent, so unless he could pick out her eyes in a lineup, he wouldn’t be able to identify her.
Regardless, she found his action brazen, considering she’d already fired several rounds, though not enough he’d think her magazine empty. None of the others so much as looked at her. This one had the balls to take a mental snapshot that would help a sketch artist. The last thing she needed. There was also one other thing missing. Fear.
The feeling prodding her before roared to life. Cop. Ah, that’s the reason his scent had seemed so familiar. Double shit. Not only was he a cop, but they’d crossed paths before. This was the man, or should she say wolf, who had been on her trail for months, since her gang had slipped up in El Paso. Lord knew she’d tried to ditch him.
Once a wolf got a scent of his prey, he didn’t back down. Things had just gone from bad to worse. She wasn’t sure what pack he was from. More than likely the El Paso Cazador in Southern Texas. Wolves didn’t tend to stray too far from their territories, not higher-ranking pack members, anyway. Something told her he was up there in the group, a Beta, if not an Alpha. The stench of authority clung to him.
Wolf or not, one thing was for certain. He wasn’t here to administer pack law. Suddenly nervous—something that never happened to her—Xio stepped back to put space between them.
She’d walked them into a trap, and if what she saw in the man’s eyes was correct, a carefully orchestrated one. Her only advantage was that she still had a loaded assault rifle. “We need to leave. Now,” she called out to her crew, who were supposed to be watching the customers in the lobby.
No sound. No confirmation they’d heard her. Not good. She couldn’t smell them, but that didn’t mean anything. They could be near an air-conditioning vent or fresh-air exchange. Wouldn’t be the first time it’d happened. She chanced a glance back to see what they were doing, and saw no sign of them. Shit! They’d either bailed, left her to take the fall, or they’d already been apprehended while she’d been preoccupied with cleaning out the teller stations.
As she turned to address the cop, her weapon was wrenched away and the butt caught her in the jaw. Xio dropped like a bag of rocks. Her wolf wasn’t helping her out of this one. That was what she got for letting her ego get involved.
“Good morning, Miss Davis. Let me introduce myself. I’m Special Agent Marcus Cazador of the FBI. Didn’t anyone ever tell you banks are most often robbed within the first few minutes of opening? We figured you’d be here, after the invitation we’d extended. Safest bank in Texas. I can see you liked the billboard a
t the port of entry. You and I have a lot to talk about, but business first.”
He’d used her real name, one she hadn’t heard in ten years. It sounded strange coming from his mouth, but also right, as though he’d been born to say it. Not good. This man was dangerous in so many ways. “Bite me.”
“You have no idea how much I’d like to.” A knee pressed down into the center of her back, and he yanked her arms behind her and slapped cuffs around her wrists. He rolled her to her back, sat her up, and tugged the mask from her face. “At last we meet.” And then he spoke the words she’d hoped never to hear. “You have the right to remain silent.”
Ten years earlier
Xio stomped down the road, pissed for more reasons than she could count. Since she’d dropped out of school, Magnum, the pack’s Alpha, had been on her case about everything. Get her GED. Find a mate. Be a good little wolfie. Screw him. She didn’t blame his son for running away. The cocksucker would drive anyone to it. Who put him in charge of her life, anyway?
Well, she was running away, too. Drew wasn’t the only one with smarts enough to get out.
“Want a ride, China Doll?” The voice, with a heavy Spanish accent, came from her left. A cherry-red motorcycle pulled up alongside her and stopped. Of course, she’d heard him coming from miles away and hadn’t needed her wolf hearing for that. It was why she’d decided to hit the highway after she’d ditched her companion, the man Magnum had assigned to keep an eye on her. She had great knot-tying skills, and it would be a while before he caught up to her. By then, she’d be long gone—courtesy of her new amigo.
What the man on the bike called her amounted to a racial slur and insult, but Xio let it pass because she needed his help. Even though she was only one-quarter Asian, her long, dark hair and almond-shaped eyes dominated her features, to the point she’d been mistaken more than once for full-blooded Chinese. She could understand his assumption. Whatever. He could call her Lucy, for all she cared, but only once. The man was her ticket out of Los Lobos—and on a Night Rod.
Xio turned to him to let him know she wouldn’t let it pass a second time. “Some people would consider that rude.”
“Would they? How about you? Do you consider it rude?”
“Not this time. Let’s leave it at that, but don’t do it again.” She glanced down at a Bowie knife she kept sheathed on the side of her boot. The boots had been a gift from her twin brother, Xan, sent to her via mail from somewhere unknown, after he’d joined the CIA. Custom-made to hold a sticker, something she handled quite well, they were her most cherished possession. As long as she had them, all would be well.
His gaze traveled down and stopped on the bone handle, inlaid with a jade dragon. A huge grin spread on his face. “Something tells me you can be more than a handful if you want to be.”
“Test me and find out, cowboy.” Not that she needed a blade. She and her brother had been taught to fight since they could walk—the one thing Magnum had done right. Aikido, karate, judo, all the fine defensive arts, and a few of the killing ones, too.
She could be lethal without the blade, but it got her point across a lot quicker, so she always carried it. Besides, with her petite frame and delicate features, it kept the predators from mistaking her for prey.
And he was right about being a handful. Restraint had never been one of her strengths. Her wolf was wild and had a bit of a temper. Some said she was Alpha material—if she could learn a little self-control. Yeah, like that was going to happen. Besides, to be an Alpha, you kind of had to hook up with one, and she had no inclination to seek out another pack or find a mate.
No man would ever control her. They could try to tell her until they were blue in the face that she would stand beside them, but she’d yet to see an Alpha that let his mate do that on equal terms. Magnum certainly hadn’t. That was why she was getting out of Los Lobos, before Magnum got any ideas and used her to make a political play with another pack, enslaving her to some wolf. Xio lifted a brow. “So, you’re going my way?”
“Just point me in the direction, beautiful.”
The rider looked to be about ten years her senior, but not hard on the eyes, attractive in that bad-boy way that made her heart pound and her stomach flutter. Full-sleeve tats covered his arms, and eyes the color of ink stared at her in pure lust. It didn’t take a genius to know what he wanted. And if it got her out of this state, away from the Alpha pack, she’d let him have it. She wasn’t exactly a virgin anymore, anyway.
Screw pack law. Screw living in this godforsaken place in the middle of nowhere. Xio gathered her long hair, twisted it into a knot at the nape of her neck, and grabbed the motorcycle helmet the stranger offered, placing it on her head.
She was tired of being told whom she could date, where she could go, what she could do, and being watched by the other wolves as though she needed a babysitter. She was nineteen, a free spirit, and didn’t need them up her ass and in her business anymore. She’d live independently from here on out. Yes, she’d lost her parents as a child, but so had her brother, and they’d let him go off and live his life.
Just because the pack had taken it upon themselves to raise Xander and her, bouncing them from house to house, whatever place was convenient, didn’t mean they owned her. Even so, the Hills had never been home. Now with Xan gone, they felt like a prison.
“Where to, sweetheart?”
“Anywhere but here.” She’d leave wearing nothing but her cutoff shorts, black combat boots, and the thin T-shirt she’d stormed out of the lodge wearing, and that would be more than enough. The stranger didn’t look like the kind that would be opposed to a little shoplifting if she needed to stock up on supplies. If what he’d ridden up on reflected what he had in the bank, she could do worse. She couldn’t risk tapping into her bank accounts and triggering an enforcer pursuit. Her money didn’t matter anyway. It looked like she might’ve just found herself a bad-ass sugar daddy.
She normally wouldn’t go anywhere with a stranger. But Magnum had caught her smoking a joint behind the lodge, in a rather intimate post-coital moment with an enforcer’s son. And after the Alpha had told her to stay away from him. Something about him not being good enough for her.
The term off-limits had worked like bait, and she hadn’t been able to leave him alone. To be honest, Magnum had been right. The enforcer’s son wasn’t good enough for her, and her wolf had found the sex ho-hum. What a way to lose her cherry, and that should have been regret enough, but Magnum had made living with her mistake worse.
Since her mother had been human, not wolf, and the hybrid genetics tossed the possibility of an unexpected pregnancy into the equation, he’d ordered her to piss on one of those pregnancy tests every week for the last month. Fucker.
To punish her further, he’d clamped down on her freedom, and made it his mission to find her a mate—someone worthy of her family’s genetics.
Fat chance that would happen now. He’d have to find her first. She smiled at the man on the bike, who cocked a brow. Magnum was going to explode when he discovered she’d escaped and the thought turned her smile into a grin. She swung her leg over the seat and settled behind him, closing her eyes. Inhaling deeply. The stranger—her new best friend—smelled like trouble. Whatever. Couldn’t be worse than what she planned to leave behind. Adios, Los Lobos.
“What’s your name, handsome?”
“Diego Sanchez. What’s yours?”
“Lena Ming. You ever been to prison?” No sense in giving him her real name. For all she knew, he lied about his as well.
“I pity the man who ever tries to put me there.”
A shiver ran through her. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her breasts to his back. It didn’t take wolf senses to tell this man was dangerous, and that suited her just fine. Actually, it excited her a little. “I think we are going to get along great,” she leaned in and whispered in his ear before the bike pulled back onto the highway. “Take me away, cowboy.”
From that momen
t on, she never looked back.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Epilogue
~A Note from Heather~
What a Wolf Wants (Black Hills Wolves Book 2) Page 7