This part of the forest was…familiar and the deep voice that thrummed through her even more comforting.
“Sneaking around with your father’s spare sword again, I see.”
She turned to find Maverick standing behind her, but instead of the packmaster she now knew, he was younger by years, the same Maverick she visited often in her memories—before everything had changed between them. There was a playful grin on his face, a far easier, more relaxed expression than she’d seen from him in years. Lord, how she’d missed that smile, that intense look in his eyes that could melt her heart and set a fire burning in her belly all with one crook of his white-toothed grin.
And the sound of her name on his lips…
“Sierra.” He tipped his Stetson in greeting like the true cowboy he was. He’d always worn one, since he’d been a boy. He’d been so eager to be like the men on the ranch, like his father and hers. But as he was now, in this memory, he was already a man in all the ways that mattered. But a younger one. She remembered this moment, now that it was playing out before her. Though weren’t the memories supposed to be his? Not hers? Somehow, she couldn’t think straight about that. Every time she did, her conscious felt clouded, muddied.
All she knew was she was here now, when he’d been young and moving up the pack’s warrior ranks with incredible ease, as if they all didn’t already know that someday he would be their leader, their king.
She glanced down at the sword in her hand. Sure enough, it wasn’t her own but the spare sword her father kept hidden in the back of his weapons closet. He’d never noticed it missing on the occasions she’d thought to steal it away, since he favored his claymore. She glanced down at her hand, noticing that the scar on her left thumb she’d once received from wielding this weapon was nowhere to be seen.
“Sneaking is what you do when you’re doing something wrong,” she said. “I’m not doing anything wrong.”
The words surprised her. Although they came from her own mouth, she hadn’t cued her brain to speak. But that was what she’d said then, in this distant, long-forgotten memory, and it was what she still felt now, wasn’t it?
With a grin, Maverick sauntered toward her, all long limbs and lean muscle. In her mind, she brought a hand to her mouth to choke down tears at the sight of him, but in the memory, her hand didn’t so much as move. Everything about him—the way he walked, the way he smiled, the set of his shoulders—was familiar yet so…different. He’d filled out his long limbs in the years since, the muscled width of his shoulders spreading wider to make him a formidable brute of a man. She’d never considered him baby-faced when they were younger, though he seemed to be now with age clouding her vision. Older Maverick was so much harsher, so much crueler and lethal looking that…
It made her chest ache.
She’d never realized how much the years had worn on him.
Inside, she choked down a sob.
Though not everything had changed, had it? When he’d found her in the forest like this, she’d feared he’d tell her father, that he’d scold her for not listening to the rules. She thought so many things of him then…
That you wouldn’t support me.
That you would be like them.
That you think I’m unworthy.
All because I was born a girl, she thought.
All her doubts and fears simmered to the surface.
They were both the thoughts of her younger self and herself now. He may not have championed her candidacy, but the memory was a reminder that in this moment she was living again, he hadn’t told her father. In fact, he’d taken her by the hand, and instead of removing the weapon from it, he’d taught her how to use it. He’d inspired her, recognized her in a way no one else ever had…in what felt like a lifetime ago. Even if he only did so now because of their deal.
Inside, she felt a lump form in her throat. If only she could have warned her younger self then.
He’ll never truly be yours. Not really.
But there was some of that young man still left in him somewhere, she was certain. This packmaster who’d become the leader of misfits, rebels, outlaws. It was only up to her to help him reclaim it.
She opened her mouth to say as much, expecting the memory to play out, but as she blinked, he was gone, the memory dissipating as if it’d never been there to begin with. But it had been there. Once. Long ago. She still remembered his heart, real and beating against her as he’d helped her wield the sword in her hands, and seeing him standing there moments ago had been so real it hadn’t felt like a memory. It’d been…visceral.
Then she saw them.
She stopped in her tracks.
In the light, in the shadow of the moon, the silhouette of a woman walked toward her, forging a path through the underbrush. Intrinsically, Sierra knew she came of her own authority without the permission of any man or wolf who was her king. She came to her as she opened her dark mouth and all the lamentations of her sisters came forth. Each cry a call to all their feminine ancestors who came before. Their message increasingly clear.
We were.
We are.
The lifeblood.
Their chorus filled her ears, echoing and ringing until the cries transitioned into a sharp, haunting howl.
The howl of her alpha.
Sierra woke with a jolt, abruptly shifting into human form, her arms and legs kicking and flailing as if she were still her wolf, fighting to right herself from where she lay supine.
“Easy, easy.” The voice was her brother’s, but the arms holding her, cradling her, were most definitely not his, though the other elite warriors were gathered around them.
“Sierra.”
The deep thrum of Maverick’s voice instantly stilled her, his presence as her alpha both calming her and arousing her instantly. Her eyes shot to his. In the dim glow of the cave lights, the concern in the gold of his wolf eyes, the deep lines of worry on his face stole her breath away. The puckered scar above his left brow drew low as he searched her face.
In an instant, he knew.
She could see it in the way the muscles in his throat strained, how the edge of his nose flared. She’d seen everything from his memory and more, and she knew he could tell as much from the look in her eyes.
Rose had never been his choice.
And still, that didn’t change anything. She knew that without a doubt.
The pain of that reality seared through her, reminding her of the loss of everything that could have been. Everything that should have been.
But there wasn’t time for that now.
“Sierra,” he said again. This time less of a prayer and more of a plea.
Have mercy on me, his plea seemed to say.
For never telling her. For stopping anything that could have been between them before there was ever so much as a chance for them.
Love is a price I can’t afford. His previous words echoed back to her.
That was clearer to her now than it had ever been, and any feelings he might have felt for her back then had been long since buried beneath the weight of a crown he’d never wanted to begin with. But she couldn’t address that now.
She moved to push to standing, but he drew her closer, refusing to let her go not out of force but in gentle protection of her.
Gentleness that, considering all that had passed between them, she couldn’t handle right now. She growled. “Let me go.”
It was her brother who came to her assistance. Surprisingly, he didn’t seem to care that Maverick was holding her. “Sierra, you stayed under longer than the rest of us. We don’t know why or what that means. But—”
“There’s no time for that now,” she snapped.
Pushing away from them both, she rose to her feet. Her legs quivered with the sudden, abrupt change in balance from wolf form to human, and Blaze tried to grab her, to steady her,
but she quickly found her footing and waved them all back.
Maverick and the other elite warriors stood around her, their faces all etched with concern and, if she looked deeper, more than a hint of admiration as she bent down and picked up her blade from where it had fallen onto the cave floor.
She clutched her knife in her hand. “I know how to find the insurgent.”
Chapter 14
The moment Sierra left the cave, she went to work. She waited among the other female warriors, her friends and sisters flanking her in their support. The ceremony was nearly halfway over, and the pack buzzed with nervous energy, waiting, anticipating the hunt that lay ahead, though she hunted a different kind of prey. It’d been her brother who had given the orders, but she’d orchestrated the plans. The packmaster hadn’t so much as questioned her. Maverick had simply nodded his complete support and approval of her, welcoming her input in a way she hadn’t anticipated.
As the male elite warriors guarded Maverick’s back, it would be the female warriors’ duty to protect the packmembers, while she searched for him…
She lingered in the crowd, slowly moving among her packmates as she searched for the scent, the one that had come to her in what had felt like a dream. There were so many faces on the mountainside. Most of the Grey Wolf pack remained out west, the major subpacks all located within Montana and the surrounding states, but there were smaller subpacks, micro versions of what they had here at Wolf Pack Run, as far east as New York.
Inhaling a sharp breath, she scented the air. She knew the insurgent was male both from the memory of the scent and experience. Not to mention, she’d learned well over the years that an unrestrained male’s anger resulted in violence while a woman’s resulted in justice. She and her fellow female warriors understood that intrinsically, because even lethal women rarely threw the first punch. Theirs was a game of patience, courage, defense. Every kill was righteous. Every swipe of their blade warranted by a feminine power to love and protect their own by any means or method necessary. They were survivors, because that was what women did. They survived.
Even in the face of a world that threatened to destroy them.
Briefly, she turned her gaze toward the ceremony. She had to blend in, to look as if she were paying attention as she slowly navigated the crowd. She couldn’t risk alerting the insurgent to her presence. Each movement she made was paramount.
She pretended to watch the ceremony with rapt eyes. But with each passing moment, the anxiety in her chest built, reminding her far too much of a night so much like this one ten years prior, a night in which she’d expected Maverick’s acknowledgment at the very least, if not his love, his friendship, but instead, he’d chosen another.
She fought back a cringe as the memory gripped her.
That night, as all the other packmembers had stepped back, she’d stepped forward, not only wanting his acknowledgment but expecting it. Slowly, he’d approached, but he’d not nuzzled against her, marking her as a mate as she’d anticipated. Instead, he’d snarled at her. He’d urged her back to her rightful place, shaming her, before it’d been Rose he’d marked instead.
She fought to keep her focus as the weight of the memory hit her. Even with the fresh knowledge that the choice hadn’t been his burning in her mind, she could still feel the sting of his rejection, of her own embarrassment.
Because he’d had a choice, hadn’t he? And he’d made it.
It hadn’t been Rose he’d chosen over her.
It’d been tradition, expectation, his role.
Dakota must have sensed her growing unease, because her friend chose that moment to reach over and grip Sierra’s hand, giving it a tight, reassuring squeeze.
“It’s almost over now,” her friend reassured. “You’ll find him.”
They’d made it through the longest historical subsection, the past, which detailed the lengthy history of the pack via a series of oral stories presented by some of the pack’s eldest members. The evolution of their species dated back to the Pleistocene period at the time wolf and canine held a common ancestor. According to the pack’s historians, somehow in the evolutionary tumult, man and beast had become one. For their species, one question would always remain…
Were they more wolf or man?
Once she faced the insurgent, she had no doubt which side of her own nature would win.
“Spread out and search wide,” Sierra whispered to Dakota. With the ceremony ending and the insurgent’s window of opportunity narrowing, the risk of attack grew with each passing moment. If not her, then she intended for one of her warriors, her sister in arms, to find the insurgent, and when they did, they’d show the whole pack exactly what a female of their kind could do.
Dakota nodded, silently disappearing into the array of bodies as she signaled to the others to do the same. Slowly, they fanned out across the crowded mountainside, prowling through the crowd. Sierra chose the path west, heading through the sea of other shifters in the direction that led to the edge of their lands in the mountains.
Had she been trying to sneak an outsider onto Wolf Pack Run, this would have been the direction she’d choose. The boundaries of their land stretched onward for miles into the borders of Yellowstone. The public nature of those lands restricted access to the pack’s territory by simply how deep into the park a tourist or ranger would have to venture to gain access to the packlands from that direction. It wasn’t impossible, just unlikely.
Unless someone knew to specifically search for the ranch.
She feared the insurgent would.
A familiar protective instinct flared inside her. She would gladly lay down her life for her pack, her family, if it came to that. Her internal drive to protect them, to care for them in the only way she knew how was born of the deep love, the sense of belonging and home she felt every time her feet connected with this small patch of earth they called Wolf Pack Run.
Ears pricked to the slightest hint of movement, she waded through the packmates.
Maverick’s deep voice rose and carried over the mountainside.
“Brent Remington and Silas Buck.”
Sierra froze, temporarily turning her attention back toward the ceremony. Brent approached from the far side of the crowd, blending in with ease. He’d assimilated quickly among them, adopting their ways as if he held little loyalty to his former life. Sierra watched him with suspicious attention. Assimilated or not, something about him still set her instincts on alert.
But it was Silas who concerned her more.
A large hand brushed her shoulder, gently easing her to the side. Silas’s proximity and scent clouded her senses. Unable to stop herself, she bared her teeth as she faced him but stopped short of letting out a feral growl. She couldn’t draw attention to herself right now, even though she didn’t approve of either man, wolf shifters or not, joining the pack.
Silas nodded to her, a spark of distaste in his eyes. “If you’ll excuse me, warrior.”
On his lips, the words sounded like a threat, a promise to repay how she’d bested him.
Her gaze raked over him, assessing the risk he posed. The former Wild Eight rivaled the male elite warriors in size and strength, which only heightened her suspicion. Both he and Brent had once been warriors for the now-dissolved enemy wolf pack, though vicious street thugs seemed a more appropriate description to her.
When she’d brought them to justice, Brent had been easy, considering she’d knocked him unconscious. Even once he’d awakened at Wolf Pack Run, he’d been oddly accepting of his new situation, angry yet resigned to it, but Silas had been a different story. He’d fought her every step of the way. The alpha male was nearly as feral as any she’d ever met, and now she was supposed to call him packmate?
She swallowed a feral growl, stepping aside so he could move past her.
Could it be him? Someone had helped the insurgent pass the guards, someone wi
th knowledge of the pack’s security but no loyalty to it. Silas moved past her, he and Brent coming to stand before Maverick as they swore their oaths to the pack.
As they did, Silas dared a glance in her direction. The spark in his eyes underlined his fury with her. But she couldn’t call him out now. Not until she was certain.
Without turning, she stepped back, ready to resume her search, but a wrinkled hand clutched her arm, causing her to turn toward who held her elbow.
She schooled her features, forcing herself not to frown. Rex Johnson, the retired Grey Wolf warrior who now spearheaded the council. He’d been one of the most ardently opposed to her appointment. Anderson, another Elder Council member, stood beside him.
“Rex,” she said in curt greeting. “Anderson.” Rex’s aged hand on her elbow made her feel more than a bit uncomfortable.
“We’re so pleased to see you finally fulfilling your duty to the pack,” Rex said.
Her duty being mating with Maverick, not fulfilling her position as warrior. The double meaning of those words didn’t escape her. From the threatening look in Rex’s baggy eyes, he wasn’t too pleased she and Maverick had found a way around them.
“Yes, very pleased,” Anderson echoed, seemingly unaware of the disapproval in Rex’s words. From Anderson, she could maybe believe it was the truth.
“Thank you.” She gave a stiff nod.
Rex’s grip on her arm tightened. “Just remember to stay humble, warrior.”
The thinly veiled threat in those words was evident. One wrong move and Rex would use any excuse to demote her again.
“I’ll do that.” Tearing her elbow away from him, Sierra mumbled a vague excuse before navigating through the crowd away from them. Let him try to take her position away from her. She and Maverick would cover their tracks, be more than convincing in their marriage.
And she had more urgent enemies to fight.
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