Cowboy Wolf Trouble

by Kait Ballenger

  Austin busied himself, still examining the stitches. “Five days,” Austin said. “You were in and out of consciousness a couple times from the blood loss, but only for a few seconds. That vampire nearly ripped yer throat out. If Maverick hadn’t been right there, you’d be six feet under alongside Donnie.”

  Wes shook his head. “I can think of far better ways to spend eternity…” He watched Austin as he examined him. If just checking the stitches was taking this long, they had to be plentiful. They would leave yet another nasty scar.

  But if he was this bad off, then how would a human…

  “She’s fine,” Austin answered at the sight of the panic on Wes’s face. “A little roughed up from the Wild Eight, but nothin’ serious. Maverick protected her from the vampires, got ’er back to Wolf Pack Run just fine, and he saved your sorry ass, too.”

  Wes sat up. He realized then he was lying on the bed in his apartment bedroom. He glanced out the bedroom door toward his living room and kitchen with sudden interest. His vision tilted, and the pounding throb returned to his head, but he didn’t care. “Is she here?”

  Austin nudged him back down onto the bed with a little less patience and slightly more force than before. “No. If you keep sittin’ up like that, you’ll tear a stitch. Not to mention you had a concussion, so quick changes in elevation are gonna make you dizzy. You need to rest.”

  Wes laid back and pegged Austin with a stern glare. “Where is she?”

  Austin sighed. “Maverick sent her home. With the Wild Eight gone, she’s safe now.”

  “We defeated them?”

  “Just barely, and when the vampires saw it was a losing battle, they fled. There’s plenty of them to contend with, and we both know they’ll be back. The last few standin’ Wild Eight surrendered. Maverick’s holding ’em in the cells until he decides what to do with them. I reckon he’s waiting on your assessment.”

  Wes raised a brow. “My assessment?”

  “To know if they’ll assimilate to being a Grey Wolf or not. Change their ways, and become one of the good guys.”

  “Ah.” One of the good guys? He nearly laughed. He still wasn’t sure that was the case, though he hadn’t killed Donnie. Though it’d been for Naomi’s sake, not his own. In any case, he intended to be one of the good guys from now on, or at least he was going to try. He’d meant what he said to Naomi. The past was the past, and he held little power to change it. What he could change was the future. That may not atone for his sins, but it was a start.

  Wes lifted his arms, stretching until he placed his hands behind his head.

  “The stitches,” Austin hissed.

  Wes ignored Austin’s protests and relaxed into the weight of his bed. He had always been a terrible patient. At least Austin always said so. He chalked it up to having little concern for his own fate, and maybe a little to his pride. He supposed that had changed now, too. When the vampire had sunk its fangs into his neck, the only thought that had crossed his mind was that he couldn’t die. Not because he cared so much for himself, but because death entailed never seeing Naomi again. Never seeing her smile, never hearing her stubborn but gentle voice, never kissing her sweet lips. And never burying his face in…

  “Maverick sent her away,” Austin said, breaking Wes from his thoughts.

  Wes eyes narrowed. “What?”

  Austin shrugged. “You know the rules. No humans allowed at Wolf Pack Run, friends of the pack or not, and definitely no human-wolf relations.” Austin raised his eyebrows. They both knew that line had clearly already been crossed, and Maverick had to as well. Yet still, the packmaster had…

  Wes tried to sit up again, but Austin shoved him down with a heavy hand to his chest.

  “Uh-uh. ’Less you want me to pluck all those stitches out without any anesthesia, you’ll rest. You can tear Maverick a new one when you’re well again.”

  This time, when Wes’s head relaxed back into the pillow, he didn’t protest. Staring up at Austin, he asked the one question he feared most, the question that had pulled him from his unconscious sleep. “What if she doesn’t forgive me?” He’d been a downright ass to her. Rough and brutal as he’d accused her of wrongs she’d never committed and swore he couldn’t love her.

  The way she’d cried as Donnie held her in the clearing, not because of the knife at her throat but because she thought he didn’t love her. He would die a thousand deaths—at the hands of a vampire, Donnie, or otherwise—before he ever saw that kind of hurt on her face again. As if the thought was too much for him, a fresh wave of drowsiness crept over him. He blinked several long, drawn-out times, fighting to stay awake.

  Austin released a long sigh. “I don’t have the answer to that. But if she does forgive you, it’ll keep while you heal. Now sleep…”

  And again, for one of a handful of times in his life, Wes did as he was told. Lest his reputation be ruined, obedience was becoming a nasty habit he’d need to shake.

  Chapter 23

  Several days later, Wes burst through the door to Maverick’s office. He plowed inside, not bothering to shut the door behind him. Fully healed, save for the new scar on his neck, and up and moving for the first time in over a week, he had energy to spare and a bone to pick with his packmaster, his so-called friend. He supposed it was an apt title. The man had saved and spared his life as many times as he’d threatened it when Wes had once called him enemy. At the moment, however, he preferred the latter term.

  “I’m leaving the Grey Wolf Pack.”

  Maverick glanced up from scribbling a letter of some sort to one of the other wolf packmasters in the west. Transportation wasn’t the only modern convenience about which the Grey Wolf packmaster proved to be a bit paranoid.

  Maverick set down the gleaming ballpoint and assessed Wes with a hard stare. Realizing Wes was serious, Maverick’s mouth opened in a small gape. “This is how you repay me for saving your life? No one ever dared call you predictable, Wes Calhoun.” Maverick turned back to his papers.

  Wes crossed the small space and slammed both hands on the desk. “Why did you send her away?” he snarled. He needed to hear it straight from Maverick’s mouth. The thought pained him, but if he was forced to choose between the pack he’d grown to love and the woman he chose to love, it would be her, every damn time. It was a choice he didn’t want to have to make.

  Maverick lowered his pen again and released an exasperated sigh. “I should have known this was about the woman. It’s always the woman, with every friggin’ one of you. You know as well as any Grey Wolf that human interactions, human relationships”—he stressed the word—“are strictly forbidden.”

  “And when have I ever listened to any of your damn rules?”

  Maverick scowled. “I’ve asked myself the same question on more than one occasion, particularly when I was saving your life a week ago. You said yourself that she wasn’t for you, that you didn’t deserve her.”

  “That doesn’t mean I don’t want her,” Wes snapped.

  He wanted her, Naomi Evans, human as she might be, even if he would never deserve her. And when had Wes Calhoun, former packmaster of the Wild Eight and now second-in-command of the Grey Wolves, ever yielded to anyone on something he wanted? Never in his damn life. “If you’re going to take that stance, then I’m leaving.”

  Maverick stood. “Leaving the pack, or leaving to defy me?”

  “Both,” Wes growled.

  He reached for the door, but Maverick beat him to it, blocking his exit. Wes snarled.

  “She really means that much to you?” Maverick asked, unfazed by Wes’s warning growls. He’d been on the receiving end of such threats plenty of times before.

  “She’s my mate.” Wes spoke the word out loud, finally giving voice to everything he’d felt since the moment their blood had touched when she’d sworn fealty. Hell, before that even, from the moment he’d stumbled into her wolf tra
p and first laid eyes on her. He’d been drawn to her like to a beacon. Even if Maverick hadn’t asked him to protect her, he would still have been unable to let her go. They were two halves to a whole. The rancher and the wolf.

  Again, Maverick gaped at him. The alarmed look was startling, considering Maverick wasn’t the most expressive of men. The hardened warrior was usually all ice and grim seriousness, not flabbergasted surprise. The most emotive Wes typically saw him was when he observed the subtle twitch of Maverick’s eyebrow, just before the packmaster laid his rage into him.

  “Y-your mate?” Maverick stammered. “You can’t be serious.”

  Wes scratched at the base of his skull. “Austin helped me do a little digging through the Grey Wolf texts. Turns out a destined mate doesn’t need to be a full-blooded wolf to fit the bill, not even half-blooded. If what Blaze found in Naomi’s history is right, apparently having a great-great-grandparent who was a shifter will do under the right circumstances.”

  Maverick swore.

  “You can see why I can’t remain a Grey Wolf. No matter how grateful I may be…” Wes’s voice trailed off, leaving the rest left unsaid.

  For saving my life, for making me a better man.

  Maverick had better enjoy the glory, because it was the only damn time Wes planned on saying it or coming close, as it were.

  The packmaster moved out of the doorway and toward his desk again, refusing to meet Wes’s gaze. Apparently, Maverick was as uncomfortable with the warm and fuzzy atmosphere between them as Wes was.

  Maverick blew out a long sigh. “That can’t happen.”

  “Last I checked, you don’t have a choice in the matter of who I bed, and—”

  A growl of his own tore from Maverick’s throat. “I meant leaving the pack. I can’t allow you to leave the Grey Wolf Pack.”

  He couldn’t be serious. Prior to the events of the past week, Maverick had made it clear in every encounter between him and Wes that he’d regretted sparing Wes his life and allowing him a second chance. “Who do you think you are, ordering me to stay?” Wes snarled.

  “Your packmaster, that’s who,” Maverick snarled back. “And I won’t allow you to leave. For one thing, I’ve already lost several elite warriors in the past week. I can’t afford one more.”

  Wes paused in confusion. “Several? I thought we only lost Travis from the…”

  Maverick shook his head. “No, we lost Marshall, too.”

  Wes hung his head in a moment of silent respect as Maverick did the same.

  “And now with Colt gone—”

  Wes stopped Maverick short. “Colt? Where did he—?”

  “He tore out of here just after the battle was over. He stayed long enough to make sure his men were tended to, fulfilled his duties, and then he was gone. He didn’t take getting passed over for second well.”

  “Where did he go?”

  Maverick shrugged. “Likely somewhere off in the West for a few days, maybe back to his mother’s pack. But if I know Colt, he’ll be back, once his ego heals. Until then, I’m short three elite warriors, and I won’t lose another second, too. I need—” The packmaster stopped short.

  Wes eyed Maverick skeptically. “What are you saying?”

  Maverick scowled. “Don’t make me say it.”

  Now Wes was definitely going to make him say it. “I don’t follow. You’ll have to spell it out for me.” A smirk spread across Wes’s lips.

  Maverick’s scowl deepened. “You can have your human woman, but I need you, damn it. I need you here. Are you happy?”

  Wes found himself too caught up in the possibility that had just opened up before him to revel in making Maverick confess he needed him. He could have her and still remain a Grey Wolf.

  If only she would have him…

  Maverick crossed his massive arms over his chest. “Are you listening?”

  Wes jolted from his thoughts, back into the room. He’d been thinking about what he was supposed to say to her. He’d been thinking about seeing her for days, but the thought of exactly what he was going to say, exactly how he was going to make things right, hadn’t occurred to him until now.

  Maverick shook his head. “You’re not going to hear a word I say until you’ve gotten this out of your system. Go.” He waved a hand in dismissal before he reached into his desk drawer. “But take this with you.” He dropped a hefty bag on top of his desk.

  Wes reached toward it. The bag weighed at least thirty pounds. “What’s this?”

  Maverick nodded for him to look inside.

  Wes opened the bag. Inside was a massive pile of bank-rolled cash.

  Maverick cleared his throat. “The remaining assets of the Wild Eight. Seeing as you’re the only Calhoun left in existence, I figured it was only right it go to you.”

  Wes had something a bit better in mind. He mumbled his thanks, then turned to go. When he reached the door, Maverick stopped him.

  “Wes.”

  Wes paused without turning back toward the packmaster.

  “What I asked you before about blade or gun…”

  “Yeah?”

  “For the record,” Maverick said, “if the roles were reversed, I’d use my broadsword.”

  Wes smiled. “You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  With that, he left Maverick’s office, tore out of Wolf Pack Run, and mounted Black Jack, settling in for a long ride. He’d weather any length of travel if it meant seeing her again. Over the past several days, he’d ached for her with a constant need. His friend, his lover, his mate. With any luck, he’d reach Naomi’s ranch before nightfall.

  * * *

  Deep orange painted the Montana sky the color of sweet tangerines as Naomi rode back toward her house that evening. She’d been out working the ranchland since before dawn, hoping that the never-ending tasks of ranch life would distract her. It’d been nearly a week since she’d left Wolf Pack Run, and though Wes had been stable and projected to heal within a few days’ time, he’d yet to show up at her doorstep.

  She’d sat at his bedside for several days. But with each day that passed, it became more and more clear that her presence was unwelcome there. Nevertheless, she persisted. It had taken the Grey Wolf packmaster actually ordering her to leave to break her away from Wes’s bedside. Even as a pack affiliate, since she no longer needed the Grey Wolves’ protection, the Grey Wolf packmaster refused to bend on his rules about allowing humans to stay at Wolf Pack Run. Human relations were forbidden among the Grey Wolves, and even though Wes was second-in-command now, Maverick had made it clear that Wes was no exception.

  Naomi leaned into Star as she barreled toward her home in the distance. Star was the only truly good thing that’d come out of this whole ordeal, and if the Grey Wolves wanted the horse back, they’d have to pry her from Naomi’s cold, dead hands. She felt a kindred spirit with the animal, perhaps because the equine understood her in a way only one other animal did.

  Once again, Wes’s handsome face came to mind.

  She’d tried to tell herself it was just as well, that even with everything that had come between them, a human and a werewolf simply weren’t capable of finding happiness together. They lived in separate worlds, no matter how much she longed to join the adventure and excitement of his. Now, if she managed to get her heart to believe that, maybe she stood a fighting chance of forgetting Wes one day and moving on with her life. All it took was one thought of his hands blazing trails of fiery heat over her skin, lighting her up from the inside out, for her to realize she didn’t stand a damn chance.

  He’d healed wounds in her she hadn’t realized were still open. Helped her find herself, though she hadn’t realized she’d been lost. But now he was gone…

  She’d been right all along to be wary of loving again so soon after the loss of her father. Now, pain from both losses weighed on her shoulders, keeping her a
wake at night with tears in her eyes far more than she cared to admit.

  As Star drew closer to the house, she spotted something large and dark moving just behind her porch. Pulling the small pistol from her belt, she slowed Star to a halt.

  With silent precision, she dismounted, sneaking up to the side of her house until she reached a corner. Quiet and listening. The old rocking chair on the back porch groaned with the weight of its unannounced occupant. She readied her pistol.

  Throwing herself around the corner, she held her gun at the ready, only to find that the blue eyes staring back at her from beneath the rim of a Stetson didn’t seem the least bit fazed by the weapon.

  “You going to make pulling a gun on me a regular part of foreplay?” Wes smirked.

  She holstered the weapon as Wes stood.

  He watched her as she crossed the porch toward him and came to stand inches away from him. A scar from where the vampire had attacked him marred his neck. Lifting her hand, she ran her fingers across the tender skin. It made him look even darker, even more dangerous. She doubted he would ever look anything but.

  She opened her mouth, prepared to say as much, but a fire lit within the depths of those icy-blue eyes at the feel of her touch.

  Oh dear…

  Wes yanked her into his arms. His lips crashed against hers, and his tongue explored her own. Damn, he tasted fine. Better than any wine she’d ever drunk. As she melted into him, she became aware of a difference in him from the last time his mouth had been on hers. His last kiss had been demanding, wild, unrestricted. This kiss was more reserved, a gentle caress of her lips. An apology kiss, an I-need-you and will-you-forgive-me kiss, or so she hoped.

  Before he could kiss all sense out of her, she pulled away, reached up, and swiftly slapped him. Her open palm connected with the side of his face. Stunned, Wes raised a hand to his cheek, eyes wide. Though she knew the small sting of the slap was nothing compared to the sort of pain this werewolf could endure, the action appeared at least to have caught him by surprise.

  Though he didn’t release her from his arms, he mumbled, “I probably deserved that.”