by Elsa Jade
A gleam of gold made her breath catch as the sinister shape stalked out from the trees. It did not leave the blackness behind though.
The wolf was as dark as a moonless night, from its heavy ruff to the tip of its plume-like tail, except for the fiery gold of its eyes shining as its lean head swung side to side. It was terrifying. It was…exhilarating.
Dare let out an almost soundless sigh, and for a dreadful second, Maddie thought the creature had heard her. It paused, muzzle lifted.
The wind feathered her hair back, prickling through the sweat between her breasts jammed almost but not quite flat against the rocks, and Maddie let out her own rabbit-silent breath when she realized their scent was being carried away from the wolf.
Not just that, but the wolf was on a different scent. It dropped its nose to the ground—not ground she and Dare had covered—and glided forward.
The wolf stood completely out of the juniper, exposed on the clearing of earth below them. The shadow streaming behind it made it look even more baleful. And beautiful.
She was suddenly, fiercely proud to call this austere land home if it was also home to a creature like this.
From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimmer down in the boulder field at the base of the spires. Dare didn’t even turn her head, but Maddie had fumbled around for enough tools in enough crappily lit garages to recognize blued steel when she saw it.
The gloom between the boulders was too deep to see into except a bit from this high angle, and the wind was blowing the scent back into the rocks, so the wolf would have no chance.
She was on her feet and had jumped down the first giant stair step before she realized she’d even moved. One word burst from her lips. “Run!”
So sure that just her sound and motion would frighten the wild animal, Maddie stumbled when it whirled toward her with a snarl that exposed all its many glistening teeth.
She went to her knees, painfully aware in that moment that if she could jump down the steps, it could just as easily jump up.
The deafening blast of another gunshot and almost instantaneous whine of a ricochet near her ear flattened her to the stone. The sharp tingle of rock dust in her nostrils made her sneeze. She was getting far too familiar with these petroglyphs.
Unfortunately her stair step wasn’t quite big enough to shelter all her body. She scrunched back to the next stair, but she had a bird’s eye view of the wolf leaping toward the bottom step.
At the same moment, the shooter emerged from the boulder field, a huge gun in each hand. He was head to toe in black except for a narrow slot in the face mask exposing the eyes. Almost like the wolf. He moved with the same menacing grace, leveling one gun at the wolf, the second at her, as he raced forward.
Maddie wasn’t sure which one was going to kill her first. Above her, Darling screamed a warning.
Maddie wasn’t quite sure what the warning was because instead of focusing on the wolf beneath her or the assassin across from her, her gaze went to the juniper shadows. From where a second wolf silently raced, this one as white as the first was black though every bit as imposing.
And behind that wolf was a man.
Kane.
He was naked, so no wonder all her attention was drawn there. In some trick of the slanting moonlight, the black ink on his body seemed to glow silver, and when he raised his arms toward her, his shadow flowed away from him, larger than life, larger than the petroglyph man on the far side of the spires.
His gaze caught hers, and for a timeless instant, they were alone, and his eyes beseeched her not to leave him again. He threw back his head, his dark hair rippling back, and opened his mouth. She thought he was about to cry out her name.
Instead he howled.
And then he changed.
Chapter Nine
‡
Maddie’s perceptive seer eyes would finally see him.
The thought was more petrifying than the hunter who thought to hunt him. Kane threw himself into the change, letting the wolf burst through his skin as it had been longing to do. It joined him in a lethal rush across the clearing, every bone, every breath concentrated on one aim, as unswerving as a bullet: be with her.
How dare she put herself in danger like this, and her friend too? He would spank her, he would yell at her, he would… He would kiss her and never stop.
Then he would bite her, the wolf informed him.
Two bullets raced to meet him, fired almost simultaneously and with stunning accuracy considering his unnatural speed. Whichever way he dodged, one or the other should have pierced him through—he knew they’d be hollow point for maximum damage—but the wolf twisted impossibly and only one grazed his ribs before caroming off his hipbone.
Made him mad as hell. Though not as mad as Maddie made him.
The wolf’s crazed fury that any should threaten her drove him in a recklessly unfaltering trajectory toward the human hunter.
The hunter fired again, this time at Rafe and Bas, forcing them to turn aside their own attacks. With a lithe swiftness almost as keen as a werewolf’s, the hunter brought both revolvers’ bores back on target with Kane.
Clearly the brave and stupid fellow—he didn’t even have the 9mms most hunters carried for their accuracy and stopping power, just the peculiar, bulky revolvers—knew exactly where gravest danger lay.
And Kane and his wolf would see the hunter lying in that grave.
From three lengths away, he leaped, teeth bared.
To his shock, the hunter fumbled his guns. The barrels drooped limply to the ground, exposing the open cylinders, each with nine chambers. Half were empty from the earlier shots, but half were full.
With every sense stoked to a killing intensity, Kane heard the double click of the firing pins and smelled the ignition of powder, multiplied, as every remaining round in the weapons flashed.
For a split second, he was impressed at the ingenuity of the unfamiliar design. It was a suicide maneuver. With the chambers acting as the barrel, each round lost power and distance. But if it was the hunter’s last move, he would very likely take his killer with him.
The wolf wanted to kill. So did Kane. To destroy the threat to the pack. But more than that, they wanted to be with Maddie.
In mid-flight, they changed—half human, half wolf—to shift the arc of their fall.
But though the hunter’s aim was not true, the cloud of bullets was widespread enough to catch everything in its path. Including one alpha werewolf.
From too far and yet not far enough, he heard Maddie cry his name.
That would have to be enough, to hear her voice as his last sound.
Then the fragrance of firewheel flowers hit him.
A split second before he was hit by her strong, curvy body.
*
What sort of monster was he?
All rippling muscle furred in a brindle of silver and gold, familiar dark eyes burning with scarlet fury.
He was her monster.
Maddie hurled the wrench at the shooter just as she flung herself from the third stair step. The fall would break her, but she knew his strength, knew he could survive. Whatever he was, he would live.
She slammed into him and held tight.
Lush hair—both coarse and soft at the same time—met her outstretched fingertips, along with bare skin, blistering hot. Icy pain shattered through her lower legs even as they rolled through the air.
Their flight lasted only an instant before they hit the ground, hard, stone grinding, dust billowing.
No, she hadn’t hit the ground. She’d landed on Kane, his arms locked around her and holding her away from the worst of their impact. They rolled twice, three times, before he somehow pushed to his feet, dragging her with him and swinging her behind him.
Still shielding her, just as he always had. Wonder blossomed through her, an all-encompassing warmth that was also probably part blood, part road rash, but mostly Kane. She staggered at the truth she’d seen in his gaze: he’d kill and die for h
er.
He’d reveal his secrets to her, the secrets of Mesa Diablo.
It wasn’t just the bullet holes piercing her calves that made her weak in the knees. She clung to his shoulders, the petroglyph tattoos under her palms shimmering with the strange silver light, even stronger now as the moon rose high over their tableau.
Up on the stair steps where she’d left Darling, the black wolf seemed to ripple and he straightened into Rafael. Dare stared at him, her jaw unhinged and her eyes bugging. Maddie thought irreverently that if her friend looked down, she’d be even more shocked.
The white wolf had the ninja shooter pinned to the ground, snarling in his face. The empty guns—she’d never seen such weapons; they looked like something from an old-time western movie hopped up on steroids—were flung to the side.
“Watch it, Bas,” Rafe called from the step above. “That hunter bastard will have more weapons on him.”
The white wolf shifted into Bastian, still crouched over the shooter. The same black petroglyph tattoos adorned him, even more shocking on his paler skin.
He started to frisk the man, then froze. “What the fuck?”
He reached up to rip away the face covering, revealing short spiked black hair and a vicious scowl.
On the delicate Asian features of a lovely woman.
Bas leaned back on his haunches. “Huh. Didn’t see that coming.”
“And you never will,” she hissed.
He pulled her roughly to her feet. “Oh, I bet I can get you to tell me all your secrets, little hunter.”
She clamped her lips shut, but her eyes, an unusually light hazel, widened. Bas hauled her into the juniper forest in the direction of the Villalobos house.
“Fuck,” Kane muttered. “She’s a seer.”
“Hunter, seer,” Maddie whispered back. “What does it mean?”
“Trouble,” he said flatly. He put his hand over his shoulder where she still held onto him then turned slowly to face her. “You’re one too, you know. A seer.”
“I don’t know.” Confusion, the release of adrenaline, and the stinging in her legs made her waver until his strong hand gripped her elbow. “I don’t know about any of this.”
Rafe jumped down the stair step then slowly turned back to where Darling hesitated. After a hesitation of his own, he held his arms up. She slid into his embrace, her gaze never leaving his face.
Maddie was having some trouble figuring out where to put her eyes too. So much male nakedness… Or wolfy furriness… Or…
“So,” she said as Rafe guided Dare along the path Bas had taken his prisoner. “The one part I kind of figured out for myself… Werewolves?”
“There’s more to the story.”
“No way. Really?”
He framed her chin with his thumb and forefinger, levering her gaze up to his. “These weren’t just my secrets, Maddie. People could be hurt by this getting out. People—mostly my people—have been killed when humans like that hunter discover our pack, our very existence.”
Her eyes prickled. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I saved your life, remember?”
He crushed her to his chest, tucking her head under his chin. “I’ll never, ever forget. As much as I’d like to. You jumped between a stalking werewolf and a merciless hunter. You are my Mad.” He let out a shuddering breath. “Before you came back, I was on the verge of losing my way to the wolf because I couldn’t see what mattered anymore. You saved my life and my spirit. Now to save yours, I should tell you to run. Just like you told Rafe.”
“I don’t think I can,” she admitted. “My legs…”
He knelt at her feet, running his hands over the curves of her calves. When she winced, he cursed and shot upright to swing her into his arms, a flexed bicep behind her shoulders and a muscled forearm crooked under her knees.
Nestled into the cradle of his unwavering hold as he strode after his cousins, she spread her hand above his heart, feeling the steadfast thud under her palm. The tattoo shone silver as her tears spilled over. “All my life, I’ve looked for a place to belong. And all this time, you’ve had a pack.” She tilted her face up to glare at him. “No wonder I wanted you.”
He kissed away the salty dampness. “You wanted my naked body.”
“Seems like I got that,” she said. “And I’m not leaving again.”
The wicked glint in his dark eyes dimmed a little. “If I was a better man, I’d make you leave.”
“Oh, you wanna try?”
“I think it’s lucky for me I’m not a man. Or not just one. The wolf and I can’t let you go.”
In the light of the waxing moon, he lowered his head, so slowly she held her breath with waiting and wanting. His mouth centered perfectly over hers, his tongue tracing the seam of her lips until she opened to him. He took the old air right out of her body and filled her with the wild heat of his own, with the passion that flared to life between them.
Under her bottom, his cock thrust up, and when he finally listed his head, his dark eyes bright with desire, she let out a laugh. “So I take it that petroglyph out on the spires is a selfie?”
“Oh, hot dong? An ancient relative.” He grinned down at her, a wolfish grin. “But yeah, I guess there’s some similarities. Rock-hard evidence, even.”
She squirmed in his hold as they walked onward. “Who told you I called him that?”
“Bas overheard you back in high school. He has…issues with humans that he won’t forget. Or forgive. But he laughed so hard I think he almost hurt himself. You tame the savage beasts, Maddie, all of them.”
She traced one fingertip over the rough outline of the feral creature above his heart, and he let out a soft sigh before his next breath swelled into her touch. “Kane Villalobos. The wolf. It was—you were beautiful. Will you…will you show me again someday?”
“Just ask,” he said, “and I will show you everything. I am bared to you, Maddie—body, wolf, heart. You are my true mate, the missing notes of my soul’s song. Claim me and make me yours.”
He paused again in front of a gorgeous log palace. The moon had crossed the sky far enough that the first rays were shining down on the front door. A petroglyph burned in the keystone as if lit from within.
But again her eyes shifted to him as the most wondrous of the strange delights she’d discovered. “Are you going to carry me across the threshold?”
“This is your last chance,” he warned. “On the other side is a changed life.”
“That’s what I’ve always wanted,” she said. “That, and you.”
They stepped into the shadows while the moon kept watch, and the next howl to shiver the stars was pure joy.
The End
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Wolves of Angels Rest #2: Joker
Wolves of Angels Rest #3: Rogue
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Elle Thorne
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Chapter One
‡
Rafe had thought he’d be past it by now. There was no reason that he should feel like someone had shoved his heart into a meat grinder. No damned reason at all.
His tiger snarled.
The thought of her shouldn’t rip him apart this way. The sight of her shouldn’t throw him into a vortex composed of totally fucked up, a dose of screw this shit, and a whole lot of damn it all to hell.
The idea of the woman he wanted being with another man should be something he’d stopped torturing himself over.
The fact that the man was his half-brother Vittorio—whom everyone called Vax—didn’t help. Nor did it help that Rafe and Vax had a fucked-up relationship.
What made it worse?
She was pregnant. Belly swollen with Vax’s child, face flushed from
the heat… or maybe it was from love.
Rafael Tiero—Rafe to his friends and family—pushed that thought aside.
No. None of that should be happening. And yet it was.
His tiger snarled again.
Rafe frowned. His dark blue eyes lit up with a shade of gold in their depths.
I know. She’s forbidden. That forbidden fruit thing, I get that. So why do I want her?
Was it that he wanted what Vax had? Sometimes Rafe wondered about that himself. It was something their father Gio had always fostered: an unhealthy sibling rivalry.
And yet, Rafe had agreed to be the one to pick up Vax and Callie at the airport.
Rafe had been having a fine day, until then.
Or so he’d thought.
Then he saw Callie.
Bam.
Day fucked. Fucked straight to hell.
Rafe had sucked it up when he saw Vax and his pregnant mate. He’d put on his big boy pants and had the stiff upper lip and all that shit they’d tried to teach him in the dozen or more boarding schools his father had sent him to while he was growing up.
After they got off the plane, Vax had given him a shoulder hug. Callie had given him a hug too, which was awkward, what with the baby-belly pushing out like that.
With a smile he hoped wasn’t too tight-lipped, Rafe drove his brother and his beautiful, curvy woman to the Tiero Villa.
The whole drive there, of course, Callie oohed and aahed about the beauty of Rome. This was the first time his brother’s American mate had visited Italy. Vax smiled at her enthusiasm and turned to Rafe for conversation.
“Is Sophie at home?” he asked Rafe.
“She arrived last week.” Rafe kept his voice level, his pulse under tight rein so that Vax wouldn’t notice his reaction to Callie. “I picked her up at the airport, brought her home, we had lunch, then right off, she called a cab.”
“Let me guess,” Vax said. “She did all that before Gio came home.”
“Exactly,” Rafe responded. “I told her Gio wanted to see her. She said, ‘Tell Papa I’ll see him in a couple of weeks.’”