Fierce Cowboy Wolf

by Kait Ballenger

  “The adhesive from last year’s gave me a rash.” Malcolm scowled.

  Dean leaned in and whispered to her, the ends of several of his dreads brushing her shoulder. “And there’s never anything to show for it.”

  Blaze frowned. “This year will be different.”

  “He says that every year,” Dean mumbled to her.

  “Blaze’s technology in MAC-V-Alpha saved our lives. More than once,” Sierra said, coming to his defense. There was more to Blaze than met the eye, more than his kitschy flamingo shirts. Though the other warriors were clearly just joking with their friend to get a rise out of him.

  Blaze fiddled with the equipment, using a pair of pliers he’d pulled from his back pocket to connect each chip to a thin wire. “Humans have managed to get rudimentary versions of thoughts and dreams projected onto a screen. It’s the same technology, only more advanced.”

  “Or so he says,” Dean added.

  “New technologies take trial and error.” Blaze shot Dean an annoyed glare. “And we’re in a cave. It echoes. I can hear you.”

  “I’m aware.” Dean cast Blaze a charming grin.

  “Can it with the bickering.” Malcolm, the Grey Wolf executioner, snarled. “You idiots are already giving me a headache.”

  Sierra’s brow furrowed while she watched Blaze make his rounds, using rounded yellow pads that he appeared to be hooking up to the microchips before fastening the first one to poor Austin’s forehead. The Texan stood patiently, likely the only amiable subject Blaze would find for his experiment all evening.

  Sierra watched with genuine interest. “If you want to record it, why not use a video camera?”

  Blaze laughed. “I don’t really care to watch what we all look like writhing on the ground in an unconscious state, if you catch my drift. I care to capture what’s up here.” He tapped his forehead.

  Now she was well and truly confused. “Beg your pardon?”

  “The memory transfer.”

  Her brow drew low. “Memory transfer?”

  At her confusion, Wes shook his head as if he were disappointed before his gaze darted to Colt. “Damn, brother, you really are tight lipped, aren’t you?”

  Maverick shot a glance in Colt’s direction. “You never told her?” The graveled question was spoken with more than a hint of disapproval.

  “You’ve expressly ordered us not to,” Colt said in way of defense.

  Sierra rolled her eyes. He may have once been a ladies’ man, but when it came to serving the pack, her brother was such a golden boy. At least when it suited him.

  Maverick growled. “I’ve ordered all of you to do lots of things you never listen to. Wes in particular.”

  Wes frowned. “Hey, now, I wasn’t even a part of this, but you roped me into it.”

  Ace fiddled with the edge of his Stetson. “That’s because you’re always the one roping everyone else into it.”

  “Into refusing to be obedient zombies who follow every order?” Sierra asked.

  Wes grinned. “See, she gets it.” He punched Colt in the arm playfully. “I always knew I wanted a sister more than a brother.”

  Sierra smiled as she shook her head. Was this what being an elite warrior would be like? Verbal sparring with this motley crew of alpha males for the rest of her career? She’d didn’t mind it as much as she should. Hadn’t she always played this role with them? Only now she was finally being recognized as their equal rather than as Colt’s little sister. She still loved them all as her brothers.

  Save for one.

  Her thoughts turned to Maverick’s words in the stables, to the things they’d done. No one had ever touched her like that before, made her feel like that.

  There’s nothing brotherly about how I feel about you.

  Heat filled her face, and she made a show of scraping some dirt off one of her boots to hide the sudden blush burning her cheeks. Pushing the thoughts aside, she cleared her throat. “In any case, someone needs to fill me in.”

  “The reason we come down here every year is because since the founding of our pack, we’ve found a way to communicate with our ancestral roots,” Colt elaborated.

  Her breath caught. “So it’s true then? The magic?”

  More than a few rumors had been passed among her packmates about what happened down here every year.

  Colt shook his head. “Not exactly. It’s a form of genetic memory that seems to exist only in the absence of a sensory experience. It’s been incorporated into the pack’s genetic genome over the course of our existence.”

  “And as packmaster, that big lothario over there is the conduit to accessing it, of course.” Blaze nodded toward Maverick, who snarled in response to Blaze’s descriptor.

  Wes shrugged. “Maverick goes into this weird, wolfy voodoo trance, and we can all see inside his head.”

  Sierra’s jaw dropped. “What?”

  Colt gestured to her expression. “That’s exactly why I hadn’t told her.”

  Maverick frowned. “The guidance gained from this is what has given the pack such longevity. It helps us survive.” From the grim look on his face, she recognized how important that survival was to him. The weight of the pack’s existence rested on his shoulders.

  She inhaled a sharp breath. She wasn’t unmoved by everything that continued sacrifice cost him. At least in that way, she understood him, perhaps better than most. That same drive to protect everyone they both cared for had driven her to this moment.

  “How does it work?” she asked.

  Blaze shrugged as he twisted the pliers to connect a wire for use on his next victim, this time Malcolm, who was glaring at the adhesive in Blaze’s hand as if it were the devil itself. “Well, we’re never certain what exactly will pop up inside that thick skull of his. Usually, we have to put up with a few random bits of Mav’s memory before we get to any pertinent information about whatever existential crisis we’re facing, and typically we have to decipher or interpret it, but how do you think we all came to a consensus about allowing that asshole into the pack?” Blaze nodded toward Wes.

  Wes rolled his eyes before he cast Maverick a wry smirk. “And to think I always thought you just had a soft spot for me.”

  Maverick grumbled a dismissive response under his breath that Sierra didn’t fully hear. Something about luck and duty and disappointment that he hadn’t been able to take Wes out before he’d become one of them.

  Sierra fought to hide her grin. She wasn’t certain she believed any of that for a second. Despite the packmaster’s insistence otherwise, she had a feeling that Wes’s statement wasn’t entirely off the mark.

  “Based on that year’s genetic memory,” Blaze continued, “we all agreed that one of our enemies was going to fall and their leader would ask to join us, and when they did, Maverick should let them because that would strengthen the pack. The information gathered from this has always proved relevant, though some years better than others.” Blaze now stood beside Maverick, positioning the chip he was attaching to Maverick’s temple. With each additional repositioning of the adhesive, Maverick bared his canines further.

  She smiled. Always more wolf than man.

  “So this year, that pertinent information would be…?”

  “Who wants me dead.” Mav’s gaze shot to hers and locked there.

  The grim warning in his voice shot a chill down her spine, but it was more than that. He held her gaze. It was the first time he’d truly looked at her since they’d been alone in the stable together, and though nothing in his expression indicated any intimacy between them, it was as if his wolf was barely contained within his skin. She could feel his presence as her alpha and the heat that simmered beneath the gold eyes of his wolf, and more importantly, she had a feeling the other warriors, her brother included, could see it too.

  She forced herself to tear her gaze away, clearing her
throat. Had she been in wolf form, her tail might have wagged, and she may have panted with anticipation.

  Down, girl, she scolded herself.

  “Why don’t we use this all the time then?” Her voice cracked slightly at the end of the question.

  Thankfully, her brother came to her verbal rescue once again. “It only works on this one moon every year. We know the change in lunar cycle and tides has always had a profound impact on all wildlife, the pack in particular, but if Maverick goes into an unconscious state while he’s wolf during this period, it seems to unlock something primal in our genetic makeup.”

  Austin gestured to his medical kit, indicating he was prepared. “Not to mention, it’s probably a good idea to have all the pack on standby should our enemies attack while all of our elite warriors are otherwise incapacitated.”

  Sierra breathed out a long breath. “That’s the reason for the secrecy. Because if any of our enemies ever found out what happened down here…”

  “It’d be a prime opportunity to attack while our strongest men were down,” her brother finished.

  In the brief silence that followed, several of the warriors cast their eyes toward the rock above them, as if to question the safety of their pack above. With an unknown insurgent on their land, each passing minute risked a greater threat to the pack.

  “Men and women,” Sierra added, drawing their attention back to the task at hand.

  “And women,” Colt amended.

  Blaze was nearly finished attaching the last of his devices to Jasper and Ace. Now that she understood the process, Sierra recognized why the packmaster and elite warriors indulged him each year. In the event the technology worked, being able to access even that brief experience of the pack’s genetic memory would prove invaluable. Otherwise, their own conscious memories of the experience would be their only guide.

  Jasper leaned against the cave wall, relaxing as Blaze moved on to Ace. “It’s doubtful Mav ’ere would want to do it more than once a year anyway, considering it puts ’im through the wringer.”

  Her brows shot up. “It hurts him?” She didn’t like the idea of that.

  “Not the memory sharing,” Jasper answered.

  Wes shrugged. “The nearly killing him part.”

  Her eyes went wide again. “What?” Tonight was full of more twists than she cared for.

  Maverick snarled. “You could stop talking about me as if I’m not in the room.”

  Austin shook his head. “It doesn’t nearly kill him. It just puts his body in a state of distress. When he shifts into his wolf, it must be out of survival necessity, or it won’t work.”

  Sierra wrinkled her nose in distaste. “That’s archaic.”

  Blaze finished fastening the chip to Ace’s head and then made his way toward her. Apparently, she was his next victim.

  Jasper shot her a skeptical glare. “We do what works.” There was more meaning in that statement than she cared to decipher.

  Ace shoved his hands into the pockets of his worn work jeans. “And this time, it could save his life.”

  “Is it safe to be doing this when we know someone’s on the ranch hunting you?” This time, she addressed the question directly to Maverick.

  “It goes quickly, warrior.”

  She knew it was an attempt to reassure her, but she didn’t feel reassured in the slightest.

  “Though it’s never been done with a female present before.” Blaze’s offhand comment caused her to stiffen as he attached the adhesive to her temple.

  Of course. The Elder Council’s resistance to her appointment suddenly made sense. They’d feared if a female warrior was present that perhaps the ceremony wouldn’t work. Not that those old, curmudgeonly bastards making decisions that blocked pack progress out of pure fear made their choices any better.

  Colt glanced at his watch. “We do this now or we miss the opportunity.”

  Sierra hadn’t intended to question the tradition in her first moments as an elite warrior, but her instinctive unease with the situation wouldn’t be silenced. “Couldn’t we get information from the insurgent?”

  “Not as trustworthy as this,” her brother answered.

  The looks on all the other warriors’ faces were grim, and she understood instantly.

  There was no other way.

  Maverick turned toward Austin. The Grey Wolf medic already had his medical kit in hand. Austin removed a small vial from inside, and she recognized the substance inside instantly.

  Liquid silver.

  It was poison to their kind. As Austin passed the vial to Maverick, who promptly uncorked it, she stepped forward, filled with the instinct to protect him.

  Her brother caught hold of her hand and gave it a quick squeeze. Apparently, she wasn’t the only person in the room who didn’t feel right about the idea of their packmaster in pain.

  Maverick tossed back the contents of the vial, swallowing the liquid silver without so much as a second thought. Sierra’s breath caught. She wasn’t certain even her brother or Wes would ever do anything so brave without hesitation. But that was what Maverick did, wasn’t it? Put his life on the line with ease.

  All in the name of protecting those he loved.

  “She has a point.” Wes cleared his throat. “Maybe next year it won’t be necessary?”

  Colt shot him a disapproving look, never one to question tradition.

  Wes gestured toward her. “What? It’s been less than a week since he threw himself on a blade for your sister.”

  Maverick met Wes’s eyes. His irises glowed with the gold of his wolf reacting to the silver in his system. “Going to miss me if something goes wrong?”

  Wes frowned. Sierra half expected some rebellious or sarcastic retort, but instead the Grey Wolf second-in-command resisted. “Yes. You’ve made me into the man I am today. Your leadership makes us all better, and I don’t say it enough, but I’m grateful.”

  A round of affirmations followed as the other elite warriors expressed their agreement, though Sierra remained silent, her fear for Maverick caught in her throat.

  “It’s true,” Dean echoed. “It’s never felt right to me.”

  Maverick waded his way into the shallow depths of the river springs, the icy water drenching the hems of his jeans. “I’m no more important than the rest of you. No more integral or needed to this pack.”

  A lump formed inside Sierra’s throat. His words didn’t ring true. Not at all. He was important. Even before he’d become packmaster.

  To her, he always had been.

  Maverick reached down into the water, scooping a handful of graveled dirt into his hand. He smeared the earth across his face and chest as if it were war paint.

  As his second, Wes stepped forward to join him.

  “At least you don’t have to get his blood all over you like Bo used to.” Blaze shrugged.

  Malcolm’s gaze darkened at the mention of Maverick’s fallen second-in-command. Sierra had little doubt that there had been more to Malcolm and Bo’s relationship than mere friendship. Malcolm had never quite been the same since then.

  “Poor bastard,” Jasper said, referencing the fallen soldier.

  Wes nodded at Austin, who’d clearly been responsible for discovering they could use liquid silver to force Maverick into the right state instead of drawing blood. “Thanks for that.”

  Maverick knelt in the water, leaning backward. Sierra’s heart pounded in her chest as Wes placed a hand on Maverick’s shoulder. The two men exchanged glances.

  She wanted to be stoic. To blend in with the other warriors and not look weak, pretend as if watching him place himself in mortal peril on their behalf didn’t faze her, like she was as hardened and callous as the men were, but she couldn’t.

  “I’ve always hated this part,” Maverick growled. To her surprise, the packmaster cast a reluctant glanc
e toward her, the molten gold of his wolf eyes scorching through her.

  “I know.” Wes flicked a glance toward her, too, then back to Maverick. As Wes’s eyes met the packmaster’s again, he nodded, a sense of understanding in his face.

  Fuck looking weak. Let them think what they wanted of her. She was female. She could be as strong as the rest of them and care for the man they called their leader.

  She stepped forward again, but her brother caught her by the wrist again, harder this time. She tore her hand away from him, overpowering his strength. But the momentary pause was long enough. She couldn’t watch this. She couldn’t. Her heart lurched.

  “See you in hell, Packmaster.” Wes shoved Maverick backward, submerging him in the water’s depths.

  Chapter 12

  Both Maverick and the pack still weren’t sure what did the trick. Whether it was the mix of water and earth, the close brush with death, or the suggestive psychology of over a hundred years’ tradition, they weren’t certain. But every year, in Wolf Den Caverns, something happened…and for the briefest of moments, the veil between the land of the living and the land of the dead stretched thin and the elite warriors of the pack reached a collective consciousness.

  Maverick opened his eyes. Beneath the surface of the water, he could scarcely decipher the blurred details of Wes’s face. He lingered there for a moment, the air seeping from his lungs until there was none left, and then, against his will, he thrashed, his wolf fighting for survival until he was forced to shift into his true form. There was always violence when brushing elbows with death. There was nothing peaceful about it. Even the memories and visions came as quick flashes at first, faster and more painful than the slash of a dagger. All of it somehow separate but still a part of him, until finally one lingered.

  James had been right. The expectation on their faces changed everything. Maverick stood inside the entryway of the packmaster’s apartment, feeling as out of place and awkward as the newly placed furniture. The air smelled of fresh paint and peeled plastic wrap, the combination of which was quickly giving his wolf a headache. He’d forgotten exactly how this memory had felt in the moment until now…