by Anna Lowe
Something like, Doing good, son?
As if the old man had ever taken the time to give him words like that.
Good job on the last tracking assignment.
That would be like a foreign language, though. The only praise he’d ever gotten came from soothing female voices like Aunt Jean’s, or his mother’s, a long time ago.
But this was old Tyrone, and his grip was a threat. A warning.
My son will be alpha of this pack someday. That’s what the gesture said. You, boy, are nothing. You never will be. Dare to think otherwise and I will snap your dirty neck.
As a kid, it had been terrifying.
As an adult, it should have been laughable. Zack had done a lot of growing since then, topping out a good two inches over the alpha. He could take on the grizzled old man if he wanted. But why would he want to? He would never do anything that might threaten the stability of his pack.
He shrugged out of the hold. What was the old man warning him off now? The woman? He could have snorted. All he wanted was to finish the day’s work so he could get out in the open and find whatever it was that was tickling him inside. That scent—everything in him screamed to track it down until he knew it, understood it, rubbed himself in it. To possess even a tiny part of it.
His coyote sniffed the air, considering. That scent is nice. New.
Mine, the wolf snarled.
Zack stood quietly, willing Tyrone away.
The old man rolled his knuckles until they cracked, waiting for Zack to submit. Except submissive wasn’t in Zack’s blood, and they both knew it.
He wished the old alpha would just get it. Was he a born alpha? Yes. Did he have to challenge pack leadership to prove it? No. All he wanted was his own space, and out on the periphery was fine with him. He’d never do anything to the detriment of the pack. Never. Why couldn’t the old man get that?
Back off, old man, Zack’s wolf snarled inside, though he held perfectly still.
It was Ty who broke the impasse by clearing his throat—turning the old man’s ire on him.
“You talk to her yet?” the old alpha growled at his son.
Zack nearly answered. Not yet. Because it felt like he ought to have talked to the woman, or he already had. Like he somehow knew her, or they’d met before.
But the question wasn’t directed at him. It was aimed at Ty, who let a second tick by before answering.
“Not yet.” His voice was so low, it could have been a rumble from behind the hills.
“When then?”
What the hell was that all about?
“When I decide,” Ty growled back.
“There’s nothing to decide. Just do it,” the old man ordered.
Zack had to wonder what was worse: having an absent bastard of a father, like his own, or an all-too-present bastard of a father, like Ty’s. The old man was always there, looking over his son’s shoulder. Over everyone else’s, too.
Old Tyrone aimed another glare of warning at Zack—who stared back—before releasing a regal grunt and moving away.
Another minute ticked by before either Zack or Ty released a breath. Ty scratched at his ear and drilled his heel into the ground, suddenly weary.
“The new girl, Rae…” he started.
Zack glanced at the retreating figure as the letters roller-coastered through his mind. Rae. A name for the face already imprinted on his memory. Something rumbled low in his gut before she turned a corner and disappeared, taking the breeze of promise with her.
Two of the younger ranch hands strode purposefully after her, only to suddenly divert under Tyrone’s withering glare.
“Make sure none of the guys mess around with her,” Ty finished, his voice grim.
Zack barely arrested the sharp swivel of his head. What did Ty care for the newcomer?
He hazarded a covert sniff of his friend. A second sniff confirmed the first: there wasn’t a trace of lust on the alpha-in-waiting. Ty hadn’t shown sincere interest in any woman for years—at least, no interest in anything more than a quick romp and roll. The local girls threw themselves at him like a herd of lovesick broodmares but rarely lucked out, unless Ty’s wolf decided to sample the offerings. His human side was more restrained and had been for years. Ever since the time he’d come home from a trip and gone half out of his mind, searching for a mate that didn’t exist.
And there it was: proof that the desert was full of tricks. If Ty—unmovable, unassailable Ty—could be thrown into a tailspin over a mystery scent, then Zack should be on guard, too.
He willed his nostrils to stop testing the air as he covertly regarded his friend. If it wasn’t lust, why did Ty care about the woman? The only emotion he could pick up in Ty was a platonic kind of protectiveness, the kind he showed around any man who had the nerve to prowl too close to his sisters. Maybe Rae was a distant cousin or something. Maybe that’s why old Tyrone pushed Zack away.
“We need a new post-hole digger,” Ty grumbled as the tool snapped with a rusty crunch. “Damn thing’s broken.”
“How broken?” Zack used a familiar old line from their childhood to ease some of the tension.
Ty didn’t smile, but his head bobbed. “Broken enough.”
Part of Zack wanted to go back to those more innocent days, while another part knew it was no good. Nothing would change the way things were now.
“Got it.” He nodded back and set off for the tool shed, crossing the open space in a couple of long strides.
Even before he turned the corner to the shed, his ears picked up the sound of jangling bells, low moos, and sharp whistles. The cattle were being herded to the stock pens.
He cleared the turn and saw a hundred head coming his way. In a minute, they’d be at the narrow neck between the barn and a long row of sheds. He let out an impatient breath and moved aside. There was no way through until the cattle funneled out.
They swept toward him, lowing and huffing, kicking up a cloud of dust that threatened to consume a figure in front of him. It was the new girl—woman, he corrected himself; despite her tomboy look, everything about her screamed hot-blooded woman—moving out of their path. Step by step, she backed up to the line of sheds. Another step, and she was right in front of Zack, still blind to his presence. One more, and his hands went up in warning just as she pressed into him, her back to his front.
Warm, was all his mind registered at first.
Tight, his fingers added, feeling the muscles wrapped around her middle like a corset.
Sweet, his body hummed, picking up her scent.
Mine, his wolf growled, starting to pace inside the mental cage Zack had constructed around that side of his being.
Because the scent that had him on tenterhooks all morning wasn’t washing in from the open desert. It was coming from her. It was her.
Something in her called to him—to a deep, primal part that didn’t know the meaning of no.
“Gotcha,” he half-whispered, half-growled.
His ears filled with the ringing of more than just the cowbells. It was an internal alarm triggered as she squeezed even closer, her tight rear setting off fireworks in his groin. The fine line of her back curved into his chest in a custom fit, and his thoughts shattered into a hundred chopped-up syllables.
Mine! Mate! the wolf growled.
The human part wasn’t much better. Holy. Shit.
The coyote, he just laughed.
They stood plastered together while his heart sounded with the solemn stroke of a grandfather clock, somewhere far, far down the imaginary hallway of his mind. Low, resounding strokes separated by pregnant pauses.
Bong. He sucked in a long, shallow breath, trying to clear his mind. Bong. Was it nearly midnight, the party about to end? Bong. Jesus, how could it be? The very woman Ty asked him to protect was the first to ever to penetrate this deep into his soul.
Bong.
Trouble, sure trouble, on the way.
Chapter Three
Rae had been so engrossed in thought tha
t she’d come face to face with a couple of thousand pounds of beef on the hoof. Here she’d been thinking about which people to watch out for on the ranch when it seemed livestock was the greater threat.
She started backing away from the oncoming herd, trying to settle her mind. Maybe she was being too wary, trying to judge her new pack. Everyone seemed welcoming enough, and if some of the men were a bit too welcoming, well, that was to be expected in a den of wolves.
Still, she wasn’t ready to let her guard down and accept that she’d lucked out with a good pack. Not just yet. For all that she’d had a good start at Twin Moon, there was a weird vibe in the way some people treated her. Not everyone, but a select few. Like the old alpha, who watched her come and go like a man judging a panel of job applicants. A ranch hand like her shouldn’t merit the attention of the alpha. Meanwhile, his older son avoided her like the plague, and though the younger son, Cody, had come on strong in their first meeting, he’d done an about-face and backed right off since then.
Either she was imagining things, or something was going on. Something she couldn’t make head or tail of.
Then again, maybe she was too used to searching for ulterior motives. The people here seemed honest and sincere. That or they were doing a damn good job of tricking her into a false sense of security.
She’d been tricked before. In life, in love. And she damn sure wasn’t going to fall victim again. So she kept her guard up, just in case.
Except she hadn’t kept enough of it up to avoid walking straight into the cattle. To make matters worse, now she’d gone and backed into a mountain of living, breathing flesh.
Man-flesh.
Melted into him was more like it, because the minute they made contact, her bones went molten, her muscles turning to mush instead of jumping away when she realized that she’d parked herself right on top of a stranger.
On top of, her wolf breathed, a little giddy. Not a bad idea…
Apparently his wolf was on the same wavelength because she could feel an unmistakable hardening against her lower back as he hummed into her ear.
“Gotcha.”
Two choppy syllables that promised more than just a snug fit in his arms.
Her inner wolf all but purred. Got me, for sure.
She batted at the beast, ordering it to behave.
Don’t be such a prude, the wolf complained.
Don’t be such a hussy, she hissed back.
His hand slid along her spine, sending uneven shots of heat to her core. For all that she wanted to stick an elbow in the ribs of the stranger who dared press up against her like that, she found herself pressing back. Inhaling. Enjoying, almost.
If he’d said one more word or leaned half an inch closer, she might have shoved him away. But his stunned silence told her his reaction was just as involuntary as hers. So she stood still, basking in his presence.
Damn cattle. She tried off-loading the blame.
The herd lumbered on, jostling and complaining, oblivious of their crime.
He wants us like we want him, her wolf hummed, smug.
Rae shook head firmly even as her soul heated under his touch. Jed wanted us, too. Remember him? Remember how close we nearly came to—
Her wolf snarled, cutting her off. Jed was a mistake.
A mistake we won’t repeat.
The beast howled. A wolf needs a mate!
Rae stiffened. Mate? Where the hell did that come from?
He’s ours. Don’t you know the scent of your destined mate?
She could barely tell if the thumping in her chest came from her heart or his. Destiny plays tricks, all the time. We make mistakes.
This is no mistake! The howl turned to a scream as the pressure against her ribs increased. Her wolf was trying to get out.
She pushed the beast back into her inner cage. The man behind her, though, was impossible to ignore.
He was big, that much was clear. Half a head taller than her, judging by the angle of his minty breath on her ear. Broad, like his shadow. Blissfully warm and somehow soft for all the slabs of muscle plastered over his frame. Layer upon layer of it that slid and groaned over each another like so many tectonic plates.
The herd lumbered closer, and a panicked corner of her mind was thinking of climbing the fence to get away from it all: the dust, the cattle, the man. Between the space of one breath and the next, though, the man whipped out from behind her and took up guard in front, forming a solid wall between her and the livestock. And just like that, Rae found herself in a little bubble of calm, listening to her heart thump.
Whistles and alarms went off in her mind, but her wolf just purred in pleasure, canting her hips forward. Damn perfect ass…
She couldn’t resist going up on tiptoe and nosing closer to his neck to inhale a deep breath of his musk. He was fresh, smooth, and edgy all at the same time, like a man who washed in a mountain stream and slept naked with the covers off. The wolf musk was there along with something foreign—something earthy, scruffy, and wild. Her errant fingers ran up his back and brushed the curly bottom edge of his hair that barely cleared the collar of his cotton work shirt. His hair was thick and wavy and satchel brown, though the sun-drenched tips were dun-colored, like…like…coyote?
Rae’s nostrils flared as her nose continued its inspection. Apparently, the he-wolf had a splash of coyote in him. That was unusual. The human part of him was just as hard to decipher. The lemony smell of honesty was in there, mixed in with the chili-laced scent of regret. He turned slowly with a look that dared a thousand head of cattle to break past the barrier he made.
She looked up at green-brown eyes filled with the residue of a stormy past. Hurt and loneliness were in there, overwritten with a fierce sense of pride and honor. Hope, too—a faint glimmer of it, like the first star at twilight.
“You okay?” he whispered.
She took in the parentheses around his mouth, the chunks of muscle on his arms. His left arm boxed in her waist, while his right arm reached up past her shoulder to grip the fence behind her. She could have ducked out any time, yet she remained rooted to the spot, listening to her own uneven breath.
“Perfect,” she murmured.
Vaguely, she registered that the cattle were gone, and it was just him and her, standing impossibly close. Her lips moved a little more, though she failed to produce any sound.
The man watched, waiting, with his head tilted as if a rare songbird were singing and he needed to catch every fleeting note. She could smell his arousal, feel the cool of the first layer of morning sweat breaking from his body. A tip of her chin and their lips would line up—
A dog barked at the heels of one last cow, jolting her back to rational thought and a less brazen pose. Another minute and she’d have her ankle wound around his calf. Who was this man? And how could he have such an effect on her?
Her wolf heaved a dreamy sigh. Mate.
Then it was his turn to blink and snap to, breaking whatever spell had been cast over the two of them. His forehead folded into a hundred anxious creases as he sidestepped away, murmuring incoherently. Was he apologizing? Aghast at her brazenness? Turned on?
Maybe all three. Rae couldn’t tell. Only that he was gone the next instant, and she was alone.
Chapter Four
Zack decided to blame his oversensitivity to the new woman on the full moon. He could feel it rising—once the buzzing in his ears settled down, that is. Yeah, he’d blame that on the moon, along with the tightness in his jeans and the sweat breaking out on his brow. The man who could run a full day and night through the desert was winded by a lightweight. A woman.
Damn, but she’d brought something out in him.
He hastily corrected himself. It was the full moon. It had to be. Because why else was he trying to hang on to the feel of her in his arms? Why else would the scent of her make it hard to walk a straight line, even after hours had gone by?
“Coming out tonight, Zack, honey?” a sugar-sweet voice called, full of thinl
y veiled promise.
Hell, no. Zack barely bit back the comment as he turned to face Audrey.
Dear God, what was the woman wearing today? Some kind of pink frou-frou thing that barely covered her nipples, let alone the rest of her breasts. Which, he supposed, was the point. The self-styled playgirl of the ranch had her role down to the hilt, from the highlighted tips of her overbleached hair to the ruby-red lips that shaped words like, Here. Now. Me.
He backed away. Yeah, he’d played around with Audrey a couple of times—or had gotten played by her. Hell, every man on the ranch had, but whatever the appeal had once been, it just wasn’t there any more. Besides, he was tired of being second or third choice.
“Lemme guess,” he offered, resuming his swinging stride as Audrey hurried alongside. “Ty’s busy tonight. Cody, too.”
Everyone on the ranch knew how the singles scene worked. Audrey, like most of the local women, always tried Ty first. If that didn’t work, well then, she’d work her way down the pack hierarchy until she found a man who’d play along for the night. That was the way it worked. The women would try Cody next, and if they somehow struck out with him—hard to do, given Cody’s willingness to please—then they would head for third choice.
Third choice came in two flavors. If the girls were after fresh meat with a strong dose of dark and tragic, they went to Kyle, the new guy on the ranch. If they wanted to prove how rebellious they could be, they came to Zack. He was the closest thing to the wrong side of the tracks the ranch had to offer, and the women found their way to him regularly.
Audrey’s martyred sigh told him that she’d already exhausted options one and two.
“Cody is off with some other girl,” she scowled.
Yeah, Zack figured as much.
“And Ty’s off hunting for his phantom again,” she grumbled. “The mate that doesn’t exist.”
Everyone knew that story: how Ty had fallen hard for an ephemeral scent that had come then simply disappeared. He’d hunted weeks for his destined mate, only to come back darker and emptier than before.
Audrey tugged Zack’s elbow and pulled him around, bringing him face-to-face with her impossibly lush lips. “You know what they say about alphas.”