Desert Fate (The Wolves of Twin Moon Ranch Book 3) (2 page)

“No! Get off me! Stop!” She clawed at him wildly, trying to break away. She wouldn’t let Ron get close! Wouldn’t let him bite her again!

He pushed her back into the ground, hands firm yet careful. Confident. Controlled.

“It’s okay. Listen, it’s okay.”

The voice was low and gritty, and that’s when she realized that this wasn’t Ron. This man stood much, much higher up the food chain. He was stronger. Smarter. Faster. A predator, not a scavenger like Ron. She could tell by the firm line of his mouth, the clear honesty of his eyes. The brightest pair of eyes she’d ever seen: summer blue shot with strands of gold, like the sun streaming through a cloud on the leading edge of a rainstorm. She found herself going warm all over, lost in the allure of that light.

If this was death—hell, she’d greet it like an old friend.

CHAPTER TWO

The minute Kyle saw the wild flecks of color in the woman’s eyes, he knew. The question was, what the hell was he going to do with a Changeling like her?

He’d been sitting on his porch, wondering how he was going fill an entire week off work, when he spotted a pair of hawks circling the mesa. They weren’t circling high in the usual way, but dipping and swooping as if coming in for a closer look.

A closer look at what?

So he’d driven out, then hiked into the hills to see for himself, and found a woman. One who’d sprung off the ground like a corpse come alive and sprinted like a deer for the horizon. It had taken everything he had to catch her.

Why did he chase her? Because the law enforcement officer in him never really went off duty. Because anyone who fled must be guilty of something.

Because something deep inside him said,
Catch that woman. Catch her now.

When he finally caught up and flipped her around to face the light, he’d expected a drugged-out glare, a string of obscenities.

He hadn’t been expecting
this
.

Tousled hair, wild eyes. Honey-brown eyes lit with irregular bolts of gold, green, and gray. A sure sign, he knew, of trouble. For her, for him, for his whole pack. Where had this she-wolf come from? And Jesus, where had she learned to fight? It was all he could do to keep her pinned.

He sniffed, searching for the telltale odor of a human recently turned, already thinking ahead to questioning—until her scent set off a rushing sensation. A trickle of heat joined another and another until they formed a torrent and his whole system was engulfed by her scent. The sunlight dimmed and everything became the warmth pulling him in. The next thing he knew, he was right up against her neck, all but licking her skin. Inhaling her. His nose traced a long, lingering line along her neck and up to her ear. Her scent was foreign, yet familiar. Dangerous yet enticing, like a new kind of spice.

Want. More. Closer,
his wolf demanded.
Now.

She tipped her head back, drawing him in, and Kyle followed. Everything tuned out until all that remained was the tingle of her body beneath his. Her fingers went from clawing to threading through his, and the whole world seemed to hum and throb. His hip brushed her thigh and a growl built inside him. A hunger. It felt like his heart was trying to get closer to her by climbing straight over his lungs. He slid along her body and let their jaws scrape, their breath cross and—

With a snap, he jerked away, breath ragged. He blinked, trying to pull his senses out of their wild spin. Whoa. What the hell was he doing?

Touching. Tasting. Liking,
his wolf growled.

His canines fought to extend past his gums with the instinct to claim, but he clamped his jaws together to lock them away.

“Look, I…”

He tried to catch his breath, to blurt out an apology—anything!—but the words all stuck in his throat. What the hell was wrong with him? He’d worked dozens of assault cases, put countless sick bastards away—and yet there he was, pinning a woman down. He’d explored her like a man in a brothel, not an officer of the law. No wonder she had that wild look in her eye.

The woman heaved a sharp breath, and the soft welcome of her body went steel-hard as she, too, snapped to some realization and shoved an angry palm against his chest. The kaleidoscope eyes that had drawn him in went from dazed to outraged.

“Get off me!”

He dragged himself back and held up both hands. “Sorry! I mean…”

She leaped to her feet and immediately swayed, her shoulder-length hair echoing the movement. When he put out an arm to steady her, the tingling started again. What was it with this woman? He’d never encountered a Changeling before—well, except himself, but that was all a dim memory now. Maybe Changelings created their own high-voltage force fields. What did he know?

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she snapped, batting his arm away.

Right.
He slipped closer as she swayed and ended up clutching his arm for balance. He tried to keep his grip tight enough to steady her but loose enough not to be a threat. “Why did you run?”

“Why did you?” she shot back and promptly closed her eyes on what looked like a wave of nausea.

Better not to go there. Not now. “Can you make it to my car? I’ve got water there.”

She looked tattered and worn, like her khaki shorts and the scratched legs that extended out of them. The very long, slender legs. Her purple T-shirt was so covered in dust and burrs, it took him a minute to make out the logo. There was a silhouette of a mountain ridge with the words
Boulder Marathon
fit in among the peaks.

No wonder the woman could run.

“Just leave me alone,” she said, though her fingers were gripping him tight.

“You need help.”

“I need to be left alone.”

A memory kicked toward the surface from the depths of his memory. He’d said exactly those words when he first came to Twin Moon Ranch. Lucky no one had heeded him.

“Believe me, you need help.”

“No one can help me.”

He took in her matted hair, the dark lines under her eyes, and wondered how long she’d been on the run. He took a deep breath, reminding himself not to get too involved. He had to do a lot of that in his job. Usually, he could tune out, step back. But this time, his wolf was stirring, his nostrils flaring to catch more of that alluring scent.

He leaned in with a whisper. “I know what you are.”

He saw her eyes go wide and her body stiffen, though she tried to strike a nonchalant pose. She was proud, that was clear. Reluctant to show weakness. He knew the type; saw it in the mirror a couple of times a day. Or at least, the few times he bothered looking.

“And what am I?”

He looked at the colors swirling in her eyes, the inner wolf begging for release.

“You’re the same as me.”

Or what he’d once been; close enough. He’d made it through the Changeling stage and out the other side, becoming a true shifter, capable of changing from his human body to wolf and back.

He could see her weighing believing against fleeing and wished he could explain. Every human carried a second side deep inside, and hers had been awakened. If only he could just say it.
Changeling.

But words would never convince her, so he held his tongue, afraid to spook her off. More afraid than he ought to be. Why did it matter so much?

It matters,
his wolf growled.

Slowly, carefully, she reached a hand toward him. The woman had guts, that was for sure. He held his breath when she touched a single finger to his jaw, and the rush came again. Whatever strange energy she carried had jumped over to him and was spinning crazy laps around his body.

She tilted his chin up, examining his neck. A second later, she pulled away with an angry cluck.

“I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing.”

“We’re the same,” he insisted. It’s just that his neck wasn’t where he carried his scars.

The woman watched, wary, as he worked down the top buttons of his shirt and pulled one side toward his shoulder, exposing the four parallel scars. Claw marks, puckered and red even after all these years.

“A bite’s not the only way to turn someone,” he explained, keeping his voice steady even as memories roiled inside.

She stared, first at the scars, then at his face.

“Wolf?” she whispered.

He nodded, letting out a puff of relief. At least she hadn’t turned tail and run again.

“There’s someone we need to see. Someone who can help,” he said, tilting his head in the direction of his truck.

“How can anyone help?” The hopelessness in her tone made him ache.

He ran a hand through his hair; the sweat was already making it go stiff. What the hell should he tell her?

“I don’t know. But I know they can.” Somehow. He nodded toward the truck, wondering if she would follow.

But the woman had gone stock-still, gaping at him. What had he said? Kyle tensed, ready to grab her if she tried to flee again.

She didn’t run, though. In fact, she took a step closer, eyes swirling like a witch’s brew.

“It’s you,” she murmured, lifting a hand as if to touch his face.

He blinked, wondering if maybe she was on drugs, after all.

She nodded, a look of wonder replacing the raw distrust on her face. “It is you. Kyle. Kyle Williams.”

He rocked back on his heels, unsure what to make of this stranger who knew his name. Then something in his memory gave a sleepy lurch, and just like that, the woman wasn’t a stranger anymore. The freckles, the tousled hair, those eyes… Take away the glimmering flecks, and the hickory color was one in a million. A melody kicked off in his mind, and there she was, his brown-eyed girl.

“Stef,” he managed. “Stefanie Alt.” He gaped a minute longer, trying to process it all. “What are you doing here?”

Her eyes asked him the same thing.

CHAPTER THREE

Stefanie sucked in a long breath. She’d always had to do that around Kyle: take a deep breath and feign normality. Something about the hulk of him did that to her, even when he was fourteen and nowhere near the man he was now.

Because Kyle Williams, erstwhile neighbor and troubled kid on the block, had filled out quite nicely since those days when they were both army brats living side by side in family housing. Quite nicely, indeed, judging by the layers of steel she’d been pushing against a moment ago. But the underlying parts she’d always had X-ray vision for were unchanged. Where others saw leather-tough, Stef saw battered and bruised. Where others saw a time bomb, ready to explode, she saw raw nerves. Where others heard only silence, she heard a soul begging for help.

She remembered it all too well: the shouts, the cries, the drunken threats of Kyle’s stepfather. The helplessness they’d both felt. The army had a way of hiding its own dirty laundry, and nobody ever got serious about trying to help.

She looked up and down the six-foot frame, comparing it to the lanky kid of her memory. He had been a grade ahead of her in school—should have been two, but he’d repeated a year somewhere along the line—and yet every time they passed in the hallway or made eye contact in the cafeteria, she felt like she had a friend. His hair was short and spiky as always, as if it was part of his defenses. The narrow mouth, the impossibly blue eyes.

“Kyle…” There was no mistaking him, for all that time had added creases to his face. The guarded expression was the same, too. The man, like the boy, held his cards close to his chest.

“Stef…”

He remembered, too. Maybe even more than her name, given the way those eyes were flashing with memories. What was he thinking, seeing her reduced to such a mess?

A yucca swayed in the wind, triggering something inside her to scream caution. Just because they’d once been friends didn’t mean he was the same old Kyle. He’d chased her down, after all, and thrown her to the dirt. Could he be trusted?

Yes.

The word resounded deep inside her lungs and spread through her body like a blue flame.

Yes.

She could trust Kyle the way she’d trusted him back then, the day he’d found her crying on her very first day of school. Her fifth school, and it was only seventh grade. You’d think that a girl with that much experience picking up and starting over would have gotten over the ripped-open feel of it all, but no. Once the see-how-tough-I-am energy she’d been channeling all day wore off, tears had taken over and her mind chanted one wish: that home could be a place to move to for more than twelve months. A place to stay. Forever.

“Stef,” he breathed, blue eyes searching as they’d done that very first time.

She had already gone from outrage to shock and warm recognition; now she skipped ahead to shy. To Kyle, she was probably still just the awkward girl from next door. The two of them had only had that one year in Fort Benning in common, and she was the forgettable type with plain brown hair and brown eyes. The kind who never quite fit in.

A little like Kyle. Except he was anything but forgettable.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. The words fast-forwarded her into the present. There they were, the two of them, standing in the desert. Here. Now. Close.

Close enough to see the pulse in his neck. Close enough to inhale his warm scent.

Close enough to kiss.

She forced herself to snap back to the question. What was she doing in Arizona? Her adrenaline high collapsed on top of itself, leaving her sagging.

“I wish I knew.”

Kyle’s eyes went liquid, twin icebergs melting into puddles of achingly bright blue. He reached for her arm. “How about a drink?”

She hesitated, still reeling from it all: his sudden appearance, running away, getting tackled. And most of all, what had happened next. The way he came down over her was way too…intimate. For a few seconds, everything had vanished—the desert, the fear, the pain—and it was only him. She’d clung to his arms like a shipwrecked sailor to a piece of flotsam, praying for salvation.

The crazy thing was, he’d been the same. One minute he’d been sniffing her, like…like he
wanted
her, and the next, he was pulling back with shock written all over his face. And the worst part was, she’d wanted him, too. Wanted to hold him, feel him,
have
him. If he’d held her a second longer, she’d have thrown a leg around him like a dog in heat. Jesus, what had come over her?