by Anna Lowe
They both watched for a second, and when Soren turned back, Simon saw him in a new light.
Maybe Soren wasn’t so much mad as sad. Still in mourning, as he always would be, for his lost mate.
Simon sucked in a long, dry breath and started again, in a whisper this time.
“Look, if it were Sarah…”
Soren’s head snapped up, his eyes fierce.
Simon plowed on. “If it were Sarah, wouldn’t you risk anything to get her back?”
The fire in Soren’s eyes burned brighter, then slowly died out. He dipped his chin so far, it nearly touched his chest. “I’d die for her.” Then he winced and closed his eyes. He didn’t say the rest, but it was written all over his face. But I didn’t. I failed.
A painfully quiet minute passed in which Simon relived the soul-sucking despair of the past six months. Yeah, he knew exactly how Soren felt. And it hurt almost as much to be the lucky one. The one with a second chance.
“Look,” Simon said, as softly as he could. “I know you’d do anything for her. I’d do anything to help you get her. But…”
Soren stared at the table. They both knew the but was an obstacle that no amount of wishing, dreaming, or fighting would overcome. Soren shook his head and downed the last of his coffee with an expression so blank, it hurt Simon more than the angry version did. Soren was hiding the pain. Denying it, just as he had these past dreary months.
“No,” Soren said in a raspy voice. When he looked up again, the bear had drifted out of his eyes, replaced by a weary resignation. “I guess I don’t have a problem with that.”
Simon exhaled slowly, but his brother wasn’t done.
Soren leaned closer and finished his thought. “But the Twin Moon wolves might.”
Simon threw his head back. Christ, what would it take to win his mate?
“Why would they?” Simon didn’t know everyone on Twin Moon Ranch, but he knew there were a couple of non-wolves mixed in. A handful of humans, a wild boar…
“Think about it. They’ve got their own to protect. They don’t want Blue Bloods sniffing around here any more than we do. And really, what do the wolves of Twin Moon Ranch owe us?”
Simon groped for words. Soren was right. The wolves didn’t really owe them anything. They didn’t owe Jess and Janna, either. They had been willing to help out, but how much longer would they be willing to help if the newcomers drew rogues into their corner of the world?
Not long, Soren’s sharp gaze said. Not long.
“Maybe Tina could…” Simon started.
Soren cut him off with a sharp shake of the head. “Are you really going to ask her to go that far out on a limb for us?”
Tina was kind and generous and principled to the core. She’d help smooth things over with the wolf pack if they asked. But she was also mated to a man who’d been human before she turned him wolf. Tina was building an addition on her house that could only mean the two of them were hoping for kids.
Now Simon was the one shaking his head. No, he couldn’t ask any more of Tina. Couldn’t put her at risk, too.
“Us being bears, Jess being a wolf…” Soren went on. “The Blue Bloods would come looking…”
Soren didn’t have to spell it out.
Simon pulled a sugar packet closer and ripped it to shreds, just to have something to destroy. His bear had already been picturing the apartment over the saloon as home. As the start of a new den, maybe even a real clan someday. He and Jess could take a room at the far end of the house, and Soren and Janna could…
He caught himself there. Did he really expect Soren and Janna to be daily witnesses to his newfound bliss? Well, Janna, maybe. She wouldn’t mind, and a woman like her was bound to find a mate of her own someday. But Soren…
He glanced at his brother. Damn.
He could play the surly uncle, his bear suggested.
Damn bear had everything figured out, did he? Although cubs just might soften Soren up…
Simon pushed the thought out of his mind and tried pulling some kind of plan together.
The bell over the diner door jingled merrily, but the man stomping in under it looked more like a thundercloud than the sunshine outside. Simon cursed under his breath. What he needed — fast — was a plan that would convince the Twin Moon alpha that he and Soren could maintain peace among wolves. Good wolves and bad wolves.
He had to work hard to remember the good wolves part, watching Ty Hawthorne stomp up. A very unhappy alpha on a mission to bruise, maim, and possibly kill, judging by the smoldering look on his face. A dark cloud of disapproval traveled ahead of him, practically flattening everything in sight.
He smacked a newspaper on the table, and the people three booths over jumped. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Simon blinked. “Um…”
Soren turned the paper to read it and swore under his breath.
What? Simon shot the question into his brother’s mind. What?
Soren’s arm blocked the newspaper, but when he turned it, Simon saw the photo on the lower right.
“Shit.”
Lost girl saved from inferno! the headline blazed. Five thousand acres burn. Local heroine…
Shit, shit, shit. Even the wave of pride that hit him didn’t stop his gut from churning. There was Jess, front and center, in a paper all of northern Arizona read.
It was one of those prize-winning photographs that managed to capture all of the energy, the drama, the relief of last night. Jess stood on one side, smudged with soot, leaning over the little girl and her teary mother with a bolstering smile. The kind of newspaper article he’d frame and hang in the saloon, if it weren’t for one thing.
“If anyone sees this and recognizes her…” Ty trailed off.
Soren’s phone lay on the table, and it peeped with an incoming text, but no one paid it any mind. Not at a time like this.
Simon snatched the paper up and started skim-reading. There was no mention of Jessica’s name, nor his. But the photo had captured Jess perfectly. It was only a question of time before she was recognized. He could see it now. Some asshole from Mike’s Hardware would see the paper, recognize Jess, and call out the press.
His heart beat faster. And with the rogues after Jess…
“Shit.”
“Shit is right,” Ty barked, barely under his breath. “Where is she now?”
He wasn’t that stupid. Kyle, the wolf-cop, was parked innocuously across from the saloon, keeping an eye on things while the bears were away.
“Kyle’s there.”
Ty gritted his teeth, still not satisfied. He thumped a fist on the newspaper. “What the hell were you thinking?”
The couple in the neighboring booth tossed a couple of bills on their table and fled.
“I was thinking, get the kid out of the fire,” Simon blurted. “Get my mate out of the fire.”
Ty froze, and Soren winced.
“Your mate?” the wolf growled, low and menacing.
It was all he could do not to growl back. Jess wasn’t Ty Hawthorne’s to growl over. She was his! She was his bear’s! She was…
He let his eyes slide shut. She was her own damn person, and if he couldn’t manage more than caveman tactics, she’d never accept him as her mate.
Soren’s phone peeped again, and Simon barely held back from flattening it with his fist.
“My mate,” he declared, looking up into the alpha’s dark eyes.
The wolf’s glare pulsed with power, with demand. But way in the back, something else flickered gently, like a single candle in the eye of the storm. Understanding, maybe. Ty Hawthorne had a mate of his own. He would respect the mating bond, right?
The glare went on and on, and just when Simon thought he’d died of suffocation, the wolf let up.
Understanding glowed yellow under the black. Understanding and respect. Not that the alpha would let them off easy.
“The last thing we need is to draw the Blue Bloods’ attention here,” Ty said, still loomin
g over the table.
“We hunted them once,” Soren said, butting in to relieve him. “We can do it again.”
But that was the thing, and all three of them knew it. Simon and Soren had already hunted the murderers down. Each and every one involved in the Black River massacre. But where one fell, two more sprung up, united by a sick ideology of hate.
Ty shook his head, and Simon waited for the alpha to blurt out a reply. One that said something like, Get the hell out of our territory. Good-bye and good luck.
Where would he and Jess go? What would they do?
“No,” Ty said. “We need to think this over.”
We? Simon’s ears perked up.
“Rally our allies…” the wolf went on. “Gather intel…”
Simon studied the alpha. Was Ty saying what his bear hoped for?
“We’re working on it,” Ty said. “Believe me, we’re working on it. But we need time.”
“And in the meantime…” Simon held his breath.
Ty kept up the glare, but the force of it was focused elsewhere now. On the real enemy — the Blue Blood rogues. “In the meantime, we need to bring those two she-wolves to the ranch. To protect them.”
Simon just about jumped to his feet to protest, but Soren’s phone beeped again. All three of them turned their anger to the device.
“Get it,” Ty barked.
Simon looked out the diner windows, clenching his fists. He should be the one protecting Jess, not the wolves.
“Damn,” Soren cursed, looking at the text. “Kyle’s been called to an accident. He’s had to leave the saloon.”
Simon would have whipped around to check the message with his own eyes, but a red pickup driving past grabbed his attention. A big Ford with tinted windows and Oklahoma plates.
“We need to get back there soon,” Soren said.
Simon gripped the edge of the table, still intent on the road outside. Why did that pickup alarm his bear so?
A second truck drove past, almost a carbon copy of the first, and he tracked it with his eyes. The diner door opened with a departing customer, and the scent of the street wafted in. Tarmac, heating under the sun. A streak of oil, spilled on the road. And a distant hint of a warm-blooded creature with ice in its soul.
Simon jumped out of the booth. “Rogues! We need to get there right now!”
“Rogues,” Ty hissed, nearly in the same breath.
The three of them sprinted for the door, ignoring the waitress’ squeak of protest.
“My truck!” Soren shouted. “Get in my truck!”
Ty’s vehicle was too far, so all three of them piled in. Soren revved the engine to life and peeled onto the street, leaving tire marks and the scent of burning rubber.
A horn blared. Ty pointed at the red vehicles, speeding through an intersection ahead.
“Go! Go!” Simon yelled.
Ty punched the keys of his phone, muttering Kyle’s name.
The light turned yellow, and Soren stomped on the gas.
The light turned red. Soren swore and leaned over the steering wheel, racing on.
Something roared from the right. Screamed, like a meteor hurtling through space. Simon turned just in time to see the grill of a massive eighteen-wheeler barrel down on the side window.
“Shit!”
The next thing he knew, Soren’s truck was skidding sideways. Metal groaned. Fiberglass crunched. His bones cried out. Then everything went black, and his world turned off like a light.
Chapter Fifteen
Jess hummed while she cleaned the bar counter. She and Janna had everything ready to go for the evening rush, which probably wouldn’t be much of a rush, given the fact that the rodeo was still running on the outskirts of town. That was where all the action was that evening, which suited her just fine. She was still processing it all. A night of near-terror that had turned into peace. The feeling of two joined souls instead of a single, lonely one.
She’d slept the soundest, deepest sleep she had in years and awoken to Simon stroking her face with wonder in his eyes. Are you really here? Are you really mine?
She wanted to ask him the same thing.
Still wanted to ask him, but he’d gone off with Soren. Never mind. It gave her a chance to replay the morning and cherish every detail once more. Like when she kissed him in the wee hours of morning, then grimaced.
“That bad, huh?” he had asked.
“No!” she’d said a little too loudly for dawn on a Sunday, and then again, more quietly. “No. It’s just this…this…” She held up a finger blackened with soot.
“Grime,” he filled in, kissing it right off her skin.
The kissing part, she liked. But the grime threatened to bring her old nightmares back. So they’d slowly rolled out of bed and headed toward the bathroom for a shower.
She had padded out of her room a step ahead of Simon, then whispered back to him. “Coming?”
She turned to glance back and froze at the sight of Simon rubbing up against the doorjamb to her room. Rubbing good and hard, marking his turf. The way he’d nuzzled her in bed, marking her as his, too.
And the crazy thing was, she didn’t even mind. Didn’t mind the tight squeeze into the claw-foot bathtub, either, even if it wasn’t designed to shower two.
“I’ll do you, you do me,” he had half whispered, half growled.
And yeah, he did her all right. Did her good and well once they’d dried off and headed out — to his room, this time. He couldn’t get her to the bed fast enough for either of their tastes, but when he had…
She’d hummed in satisfaction afterward and snuggled against him, just like before. Feeling so clean. So fresh. So blissfully worn out that the next time she’d opened her eyes, it was light. Bright daylight, shining into Simon’s room. A room just as sparsely furnished as Soren’s, except for one thing. There was a photo pinned to the wall above the bed. A wallet-size photo worn around the edges. It showed a lush green background and two familiar faces that made her catch her breath.
A photo of the two of them they’d snapped one perfect Montana afternoon at the edge of a carnival that had come through the county. Simon stood behind her, half a head taller and nearly twice as wide, ducking his chin to rest on her shoulder. She was wearing his flannel shirt and sporting her old hairstyle. Both of them so young and in love and clueless about what would come next.
“You kept this picture…” She traced the edge, barely breathing.
He nodded slowly. “Took it with me when I went back East.”
Her eyes had filled with warm tears, looking at her past. “Janna and I lost everything the night the Blue Bloods came. Everything. Every person, every thing. Our families. Our home. Albums, keepsakes…” She fingered the photo gingerly and gulped the tears back.
He didn’t say anything. Just pulled her into his arms and held her tight, telling her she hadn’t quite lost everything. She still had him. Her faithful bear, who’d never stopped loving her, after all.
Just as she’d never stopped loving him. She’d tried and tried to hate him, but it never really worked. For good reason.
Destiny.
She’d lain quietly pondering that for the next few minutes. Was still pondering now, hours later. Being with Simon felt so right. More right than the past three years without him, that was for sure.
“A hell of a night,” he had whispered with a wry grin.
She’d just nodded. A hell of a night.
But life went on. The clock kept ticking, right up to opening time, and right up to the time when Soren had hauled Simon away on some errand, promising they’d be right back.
Which meant it was just her and Janna, getting the saloon ready for opening time. Jess wiped glasses behind the bar while Janna prepped the silverware, grumbling the whole time. Her sister had been uncharacteristically grumpy ever since she’d tumbled out of bed at noon.
“You okay?” she tried.
“Fine,” Janna barked back.
Hungover, mayb
e? Jess didn’t ask. All she knew was that her sister smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and stale sweat, even after a shower. Bar smells, in other words, which was typical for Janna on a Saturday night. The grumpy mood wasn’t, though, and neither was the scent layered over the rest. The faint scent of cowboy. Leather, oak, a touch of horse, and a tiny trace of sweat. The nice kind of sweat, with a whole lot of man in it.
The next time Janna walked by, Jess took a second surreptitious sniff, and her eyebrows promptly shot up. It wasn’t wolf-cowboy scent. It was pure human. Cole-scent, to be precise. Had Janna been dancing with the broken cowboy last night? His scent was clear enough to hint that they’d been slow dancing, and close. What else had she done with Cole last night?
But Janna wouldn’t say a word, and Jess didn’t pry.
The saloon doors opened with one creak, then another, and booted feet clomped into the saloon. Jess didn’t turn or glance in the bar mirror. She need one more second of daydreaming about Simon and fate and maybe even forever, and then she’d be back on the job.
“Be right there,” Janna said, forcing a perky voice. She turned from the corner table to the newcomers. “What can I get y—”
Jess spun around at the alarm in her sister’s voice.
“You,” the man nearest the bar said simply. “We want you.”
Jess stared at him. A middle-aged man clad in blinding white-on-white with a face that gave nothing away. Two younger, burlier men flanked him, and another filed in behind, letting the doors swing in weighty silence.
Jess didn’t need to have ever laid eyes on the men to know who they were. Didn’t need her nose to finally register the stale rogue smell. These were wolves. Rogues. Blue Bloods, as the blue rings tattooed on their fingers proclaimed.
Purity! Purity! The eerie chant rose up from her memories.
“Now, we figured a couple of young and impressionable she-wolves might make the mistake of associating with the wrong species…” the man in white started, speaking casually. Like a minister warming up to the body of a sermon that would build to fire and brimstone before too long.
Whyte. Victor Whyte. The leader of the purist rogues.
Jess looked around wildly for some weapon or means of escape.