by J. K Harper
“Yeah,” she said back, sounding a bit breathless as her eyes caught on his darkening ones. “It's easy once you show me how.”
They stood like two statues for a moment, staring at one another, pulses speeding up. Claire's wolf turned in contented circles in her mind, supremely pleased about the entire situation. Finally, Tate said, “Okay then. I'll show you how to tie her up, too. Gotta make a good hand out of you, I suppose.”
“I thought my hands were already pretty good,” she responded without thinking. The second the words left her mouth, she felt a hot flush race throughout her body, even though she knew her skin wouldn't show it. But Tate would be able to tell. He would easily be able to scent the sudden shooting up of her arousal.
By the look on his face, he very definitely sensed it.
***
Tate wavered for an indecisive moment, wondering whether he should just drop everything to crush his sexy mate to his chest, where she belonged, and finally kiss the hell out of her again. She was definitely giving him signals. The entire ride, he hadn't been able to banish images of her sprawled naked on the bed beneath him, over him, kissing and touching and trembling, covered in a gorgeously sweaty film of uncontrolled lust. He'd fought damn hard to keep himself in check, though his wolf worked equally hard to urge him into giving in to his desires again. She'd loved it, that was clear.
Then he sighed to himself. Despite the haze of lust that surrounded them both, he wasn't about to just take her like some uncouth barbarian out here on the desert floor.
Well, not unless she made the first move.
“This way,” he said, reluctantly turning away from her to lead them toward the small group of juniper trees and tie up the horses. Aware of her every step behind him, he tried to walk as if he didn't have the burning desire to grab the woman again and do completely wicked things to her body.
After tying up the horses, they headed up to the ridge Tate felt certain would give them a spectacular view of the canyons sprawling below. Once they arrived, both of them sighed together in pleasure. His prediction had been very correct.
“I love it here so much,” Claire murmured, her gaze fixed on the vast tumble of land and colors spread out before them. “It's the most amazing place in the world.”
Tate grinned as he said, “You been all over the world, huh?”
Her mouth quirking into a smile, Claire nudged him with her shoulder in a mock attempt to push him sideways. He pretended to be knocked almost to the ground, which elicited exactly what he'd hoped: that sweet laugh ringing out as her face and body relaxed and opened to him.
Mate, his wolf thought, pushing hard.
This time, Tate couldn't stop himself. He stepped forward to Claire in one stride and tipped her chin up to his. The laughter fled her, replaced by the urgency he knew simmered just beneath the surface. Bringing his mouth down to hers, he first lightly then with increasing need explored her lush lips, curved his hand around her head so his fingers tangled with the hair at the nape of her delicate neck, pushed her entire body against his with his other arm. Claire moaned into his mouth, her lips and tongue seeking him just as greedily. His cock almost immediately went rock-hard where it nestled against her hips. Urgent images of the single wild night they had spent together exploded in his mind, which almost immediately went from thinking to pure sensation.
Claire wrapped her arms around him, running a hand over his back and rear, experimentally squeezing his ass and huffing out a light chuckle at his gasp. Her breasts pressed against his chest, just begging for him to fondle them and stir the nipples into little peaks again. Her scent and taste, that wild citrus topped with snow and the promise of rich honey, filled him to the point of becoming senseless, driven by his pure need.
Claire pulled back long enough to say in a ragged whisper, “I want you,” before assaulting his mouth again. Tate could only groan in response as he took a quick look around them, searching for any place he could gently lay her down and ravish her apparently very willing body.
So much for taking it slow and not behaving like a barbarian.
“Here,” she said, stepping back and starting to fumble with her clothes. Even in the full sunshine, he could see Claire's wolf glowing through her eyes as she was swept up in the same crazy, wild lust.
“I don't want you to get uncomfortable on the ground,” he began to say, although he knew he was so far gone it was going to happen anyway.
Then his head suddenly snapped up, along with Claire's. As one, they turned into the bare breath of wind, which carried the very unwelcome scent that had the hallmarks of what Tate's pack had been expecting to return for months now. His wolf immediately growled, leaping to the forefront of his mind, the sound filled with worry. Claire actually growled out loud, her wolf clearly ready to leap out as well.
“Rogues. Several.” Tate swore, low and angry from both his thwarted desire and sudden fear. He was alone out here with Claire. She might be a fiercely independent, self-sufficient wolf, but he had no illusions about her training. Hers was nonexistent compared with his extensive Guardian background, slightly reluctant at it as he might be. He would have no chance of protecting her if he was faced with three or more rogues. Their mingled scents, rising on the air currents to his sensitive nose, told him there were almost certainly several in their group. Somewhere out in these canyons, where they'd probably been hiding out.
As soon as he spoke, Claire turned to him with utter shock on her face, her growl dying in her throat. “What did you say?” Her entire body had stiffened into tenseness. He sensed she might teeter on the edge of shifting right there.
Hurrying to ease her, Tate said, “It's okay, darlin'. We're getting out of here. They won't find us. We're downwind. Besides, they're probably deep in the canyons. Too far away to reach us for now.” Turning, her grabbed her hand and began hauling her back to the horses.
But Claire resisted, planting her booted feet firmly on the light reddish-orange earth, shaking her head. “No, wait. Did you just say, rogues? As in, rogue wolves? What are you talking about?”
Tate looked at her. Nothing in her stance screamed defiance. Completely bewilderment was more like it. He stopped, too, looking hard at her despite the rest of his senses still on the lookout for the bearers of the acrid, definite rogue scents. He sighed and closed his eyes for a brief moment. When he opened them, he took both her hands in his. They were cold, which spoke to her mental state much more than the actual weather, which felt temperate thanks to their shifter genes.
“Claire,” he began slowly, though he was still poised to flee with her at any second. “Claire, this is why I worry about you living as a wild wolf. You don't have the training or understanding like a pack-raised wolf would.”
Rogues didn't phase her, but his words now sure as hell did. Absolute fire suddenly jumped into her eyes, which narrowed at him. Pulling her hands from his, she said in a low, fierce voice, “Oh, really? Then how have I managed to survive without the protection of your mighty pack all these years?”
Well, damn. He had no time to backpedal and try to soothe her newly ruffled feathers, though. His wolf snorted at the thought of Claire with feathers, even as he still pushed at Tate's mind, urging him to go. Even if they were at a distance, the breeze could shift and take their scents to the rogues instead. He had to get himself and Claire out of here.
“This isn't about that, Claire. It's about why you don't recognize those scents as belonging to rogues. That just means it's dangerous for you.”
She stared at him again, multiple emotions tracking across her face in a nanosecond. To his relief, the one that finally landed was framed more by fear and her original shock. Very slowly, she shook her head, staring at him with wide, troubled green eyes.
“Tate,” she said, the word dragging from her mouth. “Tate, those aren't rogues.” Her expression was stark. She opened, shut, then finally opened her mouth again. “That's the scent of my—my ex-boyfriend, and some of his packmates.”
Tate thought his heart was about to stop in his chest.
“That's why I'm so upset.” Her eyes stood out in her face, which seemed paler. “He said he wanted me back, even though I said no way. He said he would be out here again, but I didn't think he was serious. The ex, no good,” she ended on a whisper, which made no sense at all but clearly was starting to freak her out.
Pure dread flooded over Tate, washing through his body in cold, wracking chills. His wolf stood, tautly quivering in his mind with ruffed-out fur, ready to howl along with Tate in pure shock. In a strangled voice, he said, “What the hell are you talking about?”
Claire bit her lip, the gorgeously full one he'd just been kissing moments ago, with no other thoughts in the world except her. “Unless—unless I've been an utter fool.” Her voice was the strangled one now. “He smelled like a pack. He told me what pack he's from. I know his name, his family's name. Tate, he's pack.” She paused, eyes searching his now in the beginnings of a panic. “Isn't he?”
Roaring seemed to fill Tate's ears, and he felt dizzy for a split second. Checking the breeze again, he took another long inhale. Rogues, definitely rogues, at least as far as he'd always been trained. Rogues had a scent that was unaffiliated with any pack. It was subtle, but any wolf should know the difference between pack and rogue.
Except a wild wolf like Claire, who might be easily tricked because of her lack of knowledge about her own kind.
And there were indeed rogues out there right now who were straddling the line between pack and rogue, as part of some unsettling, still cloudy design to gain control over much larger territory than they now held. Tate's entire body alternated between freezing shock and burning fear.
Not taking his gaze from hers, gently rubbing her cold hands in his, he asked the question he suddenly didn't want an answer to. “What's his name? And what pack is he from?”
Unsteadily, Claire answered. “His name is Bashar Rawlins. He's Canadian. He said he's from the Upper North Woods Pack,” she whispered slowly, watching him with growing alarm as Tate felt the color leave his face.
All he could do was stare at her as their worlds suddenly crashed together in a horrifying way he never could have predicted.
Chapter Eight
Stalking around the Alpha's office in such a fury he seemed to trail a black cloud, Caleb was making Tate's head spin from his frantic pacing and circles.
“We can't go now,” he said for about the tenth time in as many minutes, rage punching through his voice. Tate hadn't see his brother this riled in his several months under his mate Rielle's calming influence. “We'd be leaving the Pack vulnerable to an attack!”
“Well, we have to go, so buck up!” snapped Sara, Rafe's mate. She was just as upset about it as Caleb, though. Tate could tell every wolf in the room was agitated. His father sat silent at his desk, face unreadable as always as he observed the reactions of the Pack's best fighters and protectors responding to the unwelcome but inevitable news about the rogues being back.
As the ceaseless arguments went on, Tate leaned back on the windowsill, looking outside with unseeing eyes at the trees scattered around the den property, the deciduous ones dropping their leaves from the afternoon's kicked-up wind. Drumming his fingers on his crossed arms, he felt an unusual frown creasing his forehead and drawing down his mouth. Not only was agitation high in the room and tight in his own chest, he was still aching from kissing Claire again, then not being able to follow up on the delicious possibilities of that.
He ached far more from the fact he'd been unable to bring her back here to the den, where she'd be safe.
“Absolutely not,” she'd said in a firm voice when he'd announced his intentions to do just that. “I'm not pack, and I don't want to be. Your alpha wouldn't allow it, anyway. Pack protections don't extend to wild wolves.”
“You're my mate!” Tate had said. They'd stood in front of her house for nearly an hour while he tried to convince her. “My pack will accept you because of that. Pack protections extend to you for that reason, regardless of any other status you hold.”
Clear green eyes clouded and smoky from her resistance, Claire had shaken her head. “No. I won't let him in.” Tate knew she meant her ex, Bashar. His blood still curdled at the thought of how that sly, calculating bastard must have strung Claire along. “He can't hurt me.”
“Claire, he's a rogue from a sick pack!” Tate's fear for her had snaked through him, cold and shaky. “He can hurt you if he wants.”
“Then why hasn't he already?” She'd stalked back and forth along her porch, her boots stamping out a loud protest, her sexy figure calling to his baser needs. “If he really is a rogue, why didn't he drag me off to his rogue cave or wherever the hell he lives? Why has he been so polite since the breakup?”
He'd never felt fear like this before, nor anger. Fear for his newly-discovered mate, and anger at the rogues. Also impatience for Claire's seeming inability to recognize the danger she was in. “I don't know. We're not really sure what they're planning. But Bashar is a rogue wolf, darlin'. That, I'm damn well sure of.” His uncharacteristic swearing was said in a tone much calmer than he felt. His wolf had tried to claw out of him, desperate to protect his mate from her own stubbornness.
She'd given him another troubled look. “Explain to me again how his brother is part of your pack. I still don't understand that.” Suspicion wasn't quite in her tone, but the promise of it certainly was.
Huffing out an anxious breath, trying to calm his wolf's red-eyed fury, Tate had closed his eyes and actively sought the patience that usually came so naturally to him. After a moment gathering himself, he opened his eyes and tried to explain it her as well as himself. “Luke Rawlins was a rogue wolf who'd left his pack because it was sick, unhealthy. He wanted a different life. Being a rogue is not the right way to go about that, but he didn't think he had a choice.”
Claire had watched him, unmoving except for her breathing. Which did, he had to admit even in his frustrated state, make her enticing chest rise and fall very nicely.
“He didn't realize his brother also left after he did, but that was a more complicated situation. Seems like Bashar did become a rogue, but he actually maintained his ties to his pack, although we're not quite sure how that's possible, technically speaking.” Rogues broke pack bonds, thus lessening their connection to as well as scent of their native pack. “However, we are sure there's some sort of insurrection that's going to be happening. Luke has fully broken his ties with that pack, and is trusted enough by our alpha to begin his own pack nearby. He....” Tate hesitated. He wasn't a particular fan of Luke's, but neither was he an enemy. “He's fully broken ties with his brother as well. I get the feeling they never were very close anyway.
“Bashar and Licas,” Claire murmured, shaking her head. “You don't hear those kinds of names much anymore.” Those were old-fashioned wolf names. Little wonder the area's newest alpha-to-be went by Luke instead.
“It means the Upper North Woods Pack is held back by its refusal to move into the modern world,” Tate pointed out, certain he'd found a toehold to get her to realize the sort of danger she was in.
“It seems to me your pack is similar,” Claire promptly responded, folding her arms and hiding her beautiful bosom, to Tate's regret. “Take me back to protect me? Women live alone just fine, thank you very much.”
Tate groaned, torn by his need to stay and indeed protect his mate, and his mandate to return to the den for a meeting. After they went around for another twenty minutes, Claire had finally said the one thing he couldn't contest. “Tate. I fully, one hundred accept the fact you're my mate. I don't understand how it's possible, but here it is.” Her eyes had softened for a moment, and he saw a lick of that strong desire in them as she watched him. “Can you please also accept the fact that I'm a wild wolf? Please.” He was already beginning to recognize the small tilt to her chin when she was firm in her stance. “I don't know how to do this. I can tell you, though,” and her eyes narrowed a
little bit again, “that trying to drag me off to your pack cave won't work any more than him trying to drag me off to his.”
Tate certainly hoped if presented with a choice, Claire would far prefer going to his “pack cave” over any kind of rogue situation. His wolf howled in agreement, tail snapping at the ground. But what she'd said made sense. He had no idea how to handle this situation either. Despite barely knowing the woman, she was his mate, and part of him felt like he'd known her for a lifetime already. On the other hand, he knew trying to force his hand in the situation wouldn't go over well at all.
Eventually, he'd left. Only after making sure her doors were bolted—even the back one she said she never locked—her windows shut tight, and that she had a means of protecting herself if the rogues did come to her door.
“Like what?” she'd asked, sounding a little exasperated. “A gun? Fat lot of good that would do.”
Guns didn't hurt shifters, silver bullets or no. That was another silly myth the human world had invented for their own entertainment.
“Tate,” she'd said. “If he wanted to really hurt me, he could have long ago. He just wants another chance with me. That's not going to happen,” she'd said in a low tone, looking at Tate with her wolf's presence clearly visible in her eyes. “I'm only for you. Just not in your den,” she added quickly, lifting her chin in the tilt that signaled her own brand of defiance.
He'd finally left, growling to himself all the way back to his pack and trying his damnedest to believe her.
Now, in the Alpha's office, the pack leader's quiet voice finally carried over the din. “Enough. Rafe, Sara, Caleb, you all leave tomorrow with the others.” Five other Black Mesa pack members had elected to join the new pack as well. “That's final. Go make sure you have everything ready.” He waved them off, ignoring Caleb's thunderous expression. Rafe firmly took hold of Caleb's shoulder and steered him out of the room. “Tate, a word if you please,” Alpha added.