Desert Fate (The Wolves of Twin Moon Ranch Book 3) (12 page)

Great, now she was having conversations with the beast. If that wasn’t proof of her insanity, nothing was.

Her human side stomped in defiance.
I barely know him! How can it be love?

The wolf growled.
We know him. He’s ours.

You disgust me!

The wolf snarled back.
Nothing in me didn’t exist in you before. I’m part of you.

She could have hissed.
I’ve never jumped a man like that before!

The wolf snickered.
You would have if you met him. Not that boy you remember, but this man. This one!

Stef didn’t have an answer to that truth; she just got stuck there, staring at a hedgehog cactus with thorns that lined up in neat, overlapping rows. Just like her life: a hopeless maze of thorns.

The wolf countered with another rush of memories.

Friend. Lover. Mate. Hadn’t he been gentle, even reverent?

She closed her eyes and remembered his thumb, sliding across her lower lip. His eyes had taken on the look of a man regarding a secret treasure, fraught with danger and reward. His arms wrapped around her like a promise to hold on forever.

Hadn’t that felt good?
the wolf demanded.

It did feel good. More than good. He’d given her exactly what she needed, exactly as she’d dreamed it. But that was the thing: how could something that perfect be real?

It was real. You wanted him. He wanted you. It’s destiny.

She hugged herself tightly, pushing the wolf away.
I don’t want him!

Oh yes? Then why are you imagining it’s his arms hugging you right now?

She jerked her arms clear of her ribs and half-jumped to her feet. Her mind raced for a reply, but her thoughts were all jumbled and her arms kept coming back to her sides, trying to squeeze away the empty ache of an emotion she didn’t dare name.

Maybe last night had nothing to do with base urges and everything to do with the man. Maybe her wolf wasn’t lying. She’d felt so right being with him…

Because it is right,
the wolf grumbled.
We need him.

She stiffened at the thought. She didn’t need to be held, or comforted, or protected. She didn’t need this man or any other. She needed…what?

She collapsed into the flimsy shelter of her own body and sucked in a long, stuttering breath. Lost, she was so lost. With nowhere to go. No one to turn to.

You have him.

She feigned deaf ears. The wolf was trying to sell her a drug she didn’t want or need, but she wouldn’t give in. She had to fight it, along with the attraction to him. Because somewhere inside, she was still herself, and she couldn’t let that be pried out of her.

She spun around. The highway wasn’t too far. She could hike out, catch a ride. Escape.

Running from yourself or from the man?

She could head south to Mexico. Wasn’t that where people on the run went? She could cross the border, change her identity, and then she’d…she’d…

You’ll do what?

If Kyle didn’t come after her, Ron would. Ron and his pack of wolves. She could feel that in her bones. Ron’s bite had forged some kind of connection that lurked in her body like a disease. Being with Kyle had kept it at bay, but sooner or later, Ron would come for her.

She shivered. Whatever danger lurked around Twin Moon Ranch, whatever weakness she had for Kyle, it was nothing like the danger posed by Ron and his North Ridge pack. Running wasn’t the solution.

So stay,
the wolf nodded.
Stay.

She looked south, into the depths of the desert, then north, toward the highway, and finally east, where the peak of Kyle’s roof barely showed above a rise. The pull of it was like the glow of a fire in the darkness of night. The glow of home.

Her cynical snort broke the morning silence. Running wasn’t the answer, but staying had its dangers, too. Even if she could trust Kyle, she couldn’t trust herself.

She’d go back, but she wouldn’t cave in. She’d keep her pride, her honor. She wouldn’t crumble. No matter how much she wanted to, she wouldn’t crumble.

Not even for him.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Kyle sat on the top step of the porch, eyes fixed on the hill while his gut jumped up and down. He rubbed his eyes so hard, he saw spots. And in those spots, little highlights of an unforgettable night.

He could scent her out there, just as he could smell her regret. If only he could talk to her and explain. But he couldn’t even explain what happened to himself, so what good would it be trying to tell her?

Okay, he probably—no, he definitely shouldn’t have succumbed to his wolf’s desire. But resisting her was like telling his lungs not to breathe or his heart not to beat. And telling himself it was wrong felt like a lie. He’d never felt that good in his life. Had never felt that full of…something warm and sweet and unfamiliar, like his veins had filled with honey and his mind floated on a pleasantly warm buzz. Because they’d had peace, real peace in those early morning hours.

His head snapped up at a movement in the distance. Stef was coming out of the hills. She came striding along like an Amazon, so tough and bristling, he could almost hear her armor clink. He pulled in a slow breath and let it out again, counting the seconds until she came thumping up the stairs as if she was planning to sweep right past him and fly into the house.

Well, he wasn’t letting her fly anywhere, not yet. Not like this.

He parked himself on the top step, right in her path.

Stomp, stomp, stop.
She came to a thudding halt, one step below.

“Stef,” he started, not really sure what he’d say next.

She glared.

Yeah, she was upset. He got the message. But it was a stubborn, forced kind of glare. The kind that said she was trying to convince herself as much as him.

“Look,” they both said at exactly the same time.

For a minute, she glared on, but then the anger seeped away and all he saw before she dropped her eyes was pain. Pain and emptiness. He would have bartered anything for the right word or gesture to make things right, but the desert wasn’t exactly throwing ideas at him, not the way it had been wildly suggesting last night.

“Stef,” he tried again, trying to make it softer this time. A plea, not an accusation. “What’s wrong?”

She tilted her head up slowly, and it was awkward, standing on the steps like that. But she seemed okay with awkward, so he didn’t move. Her jaw was clenching, and a vein on her neck pulsed.

“Everything’s wrong,” she mumbled. Her hands fluttered in the air as she searched for words.

“Last night wasn’t wrong.” He meant for it to come out soft, but it was more of a declaration. The second part, though, came out in a whisper. “Us, I mean. You didn’t want it?”

His ears strained for her answer.

“I wanted it too much,” she whispered.

He could barely hear her voice after her chin dropped and her shoulders rounded like a turtle halfway into its shell. God, he wished he could see something other than the top of her head. He put a finger under her chin and tipped it up so he could see the warm brown of her eyes, sparking gold and green. Scared and defiant at the same time. Shining with tears she refused to release.

“I barely know you,” she said.

“You know me,” he growled.

“We were kids then…”

“What’s so different now?”

She looked away and let a finger wander to the scar on her neck. “A lot of things.”

He shook his head and looked at her long and hard until she was forced to look back.

“So okay, we grew up.”

She snorted. “Sure did.”

“But what’s so different?” No one had ever understood him as well as her; no one ever would.

She opened her mouth with a retort, but then closed it again, along with her glistening eyes. Slowly, she leaned forward until her forehead was on his chest and let his arms slide around her shoulders to pull her close. And even though it hurt to see her so upset, something in him sang.

She wanted it too much. She wanted him.

“I’m just so…so mixed-up,” she sniffed into the fabric of his shirt.

He snorted. “If I’d been half as together as you the morning after my first change…”

Part of him wanted to sit her in his kitchen and feed her cookies and warm milk; the other part wanted to take her to his bedroom and have her again and again. It was just like last night, when his the wolf had chanted for him to bite her—on their first night! The beast was no better than Ron, getting carried away on the intense scent of a Changeling. Damn wolf was getting greedy.

Damn wolf knows his mate when he scents her,
came the rumbling reply.

He pulled her up to the top step and hugged her long and close, scrunching his eyes tightly like that might keep reality away. If only it could be him and her and nothing else.

“Some things don’t change, Stef.”

“Yeah?” She sniffed, but there was a tiny thread of hope in it. “Like what?”

“Like what really counts.”
Like you and me and someday,
he wanted to add, but couldn’t quite get that part out. “Like us.”

His voice wavered, and his wolf barked inside.
Get yourself together, man!

How many times had he said just that during the days that followed his first shift, five years ago? He’d woken up shivering on the floor of his old apartment, covered in dried blood and vaguely aware that not all of it was his own. The kitchen looked like a sledgehammer had gone to work on it—that or a wild animal, crazed and caged. Wallpaper hung in great shreds, fluttering in the breeze stealing in from a shattered window. He’d stalked back there after his wolf had tired of its first rampage. Was it a deer he had torn apart in the madness of that first shift, or a man?

He’d made for the open road after that, leaving his job and his home and the couple of acquaintances he sometimes called friends, and tried drinking the wolf out of his system for a time. Nearly had the animal drowned in alcohol when Tina found him slumped in a back alley and leaned over him with a quiet tsk, tsk
. What are we going to do with you, wolf?

He had no such question now, though. He knew exactly what he wanted to do with this she-wolf. Like keep her safe. Keep her close. Make her his.

Another minute spent wrapped around her and he might just give in to that urge. But she was shoving away from him again, and the regret was back.

“Look,” she said in a shaky voice. “I don’t even know what I want.” She tried a little smile. “Except maybe a shower.”

He could read the subtext in the way she hugged her arms to herself.
I need time, space.

Their eyes met, and he felt the longing as clearly as the confusion raging inside her. Then her jaw clicked, and she hurried past. A second later, the screen door banged shut.

He sat down on the top step. Hard.

His wolf was pacing inside.
Maybe she doesn’t know about destined mates. Maybe we should tell her. Maybe—

Maybe she doesn’t feel it, too,
he snapped right back.

A minute later, he heard the shower running. He pressed his palms to the hollows of his eyes, and he told himself he should be grateful that she’d come back at all. And if his lower ribs were aching, well, he’d just call that regret.

She hid in the shower for a long time. The sound of trickling water reached out to him through the walls, and every strand of muscle in his body strained as his wolf contemplated bursting in and stopping her from erasing his scent.

If only he could sit her down and explain to her.

So explain!
his wolf cried.

Right, how would that go?
Stef, there’s a lot of good about the shifter life.

Yeah, that would go over well. She’d been dragged kicking and screaming into this world. A little like him.

It’s true,
he’d try to explain.
There’s a lot that’s good. Really good.
But he’d never been that talented with words, and how could he explain? The feeling of being one with the natural world. The old-fashioned honesty of the Twin Moon Ranch folk. The sense of community.

She could relate to all of that, right? She’d probably thrive on it. There were a number of young women she could relate to, too, given the chance: Rae, Lana, Heather—especially Heather, who’d been turned too, albeit of her own free will.

Which was the crux of the problem. Stef hadn’t come seeking any of this. She certainly hadn’t come seeking a reunion or an unbridled night of sex. And even if he hadn’t pushed her too far by stepping over that line, he knew he was hardly a shining star of integration. He lived out on the fringes, as he’d always done.

Your own damn choice,
his wolf grumbled.
We belong in the pack. Really in the pack.

In truth, he wasn’t sure where he belonged. Not human, not wolf. Somewhere in between. Always somewhere in between. As an officer of the law, that went without saying. As a kid, it had been the same. He was an outsider and always had been. Becoming half wolf hadn’t changed a thing.

She can change things.

He shook his head. A man like him would always be alone. It was the way it was.

He picked himself off the step and forced himself to brew a cup of coffee. Decaf. God knows his system didn’t need any more stimulation, not on a morning like this. Then he walked around the back of the house to the woodpile, itching for something to bend, break, or shatter. But even when he had the ax in his hand and the first piece of wood balanced on a stump, ready to split, the words echoed in his mind.

Alone. Always alone.

He glared at the wood, weighed the ax in his hands before swinging his shoulders up, then hammered down with everything he had.

Bang!

The wood split almost to its base. A twist of the ax finished the rest, and the halves fell to the ground. Again and again, he raised the ax; again and again, he pounded it down. The next time he took stock, he was standing in a pile of wood chips with sweat pouring down his brow. Did he feel better?