Wolf's Return (Black Hills Wolves Book 1) Read online

  Leaving her had been the only way to protect her.

  Hell, he’d be lucky if any of the pack members spoke to him, forget supporting him in a bid for power.

  “Have you forgotten what it is to be a wolf?” Gee shook his head. “You don’t ask for power. You take it. Ten years ago, you couldn’t. Have you changed?”

  “Who says I want to take the pack?” He didn’t like how his heart pounded so hard or the ache forming in his chest.

  Gee raised an eyebrow. “Why would you have come back if you didn’t? You don’t fight like a man looking for forgiveness.”

  Damn it. He turned on his heel and stormed off toward the town. The two meddlers could stew in their own manipulations for a while. He’d come home because he wanted to watch his father die and spit on his corpse. No other reason. And fuck them for thinking it was anything else.

  If he also happened to get a glance at B, that would satisfy him for years. He’d get to imagine her at night as she currently looked.

  But taking over the pack? What were they thinking? Gee wasn’t even pack, just this were-Bear who for some reason never left Los Lobos. Ryker could take it over himself. The pack would do whatever he wanted out of fear.

  Him? He was in no condition to lead.

  Drew rounded a corner, and Los Lobos appeared in front of him like a brick wall slamming into his heart. The town was as much a part of the wolf pack as the people who made it up. And if his eyes were to be believed, the town had all but fallen apart.

  With the exception of Gee’s bar, every building in the place had taken a turn for the worse in the last ten years. Hell, some of them were going to need to be torn down. He stepped forward.

  Paint peeled off the walls, boards indicated the majority of the places were closed, and an awning swung back and forth over what had been at one time a restaurant called Dottie’s. He growled, and it quickly turned into a howl of mourning. The emotions racing through him threatened to bring him to his knees. There were too many to count, too many to manage. How had this happened? How had his father let this happen?

  Where was everyone?

  Her scent hit him before he turned around to look at her. His whole body went numb before every nerve ending he possessed flew to life at the same time. For thirty seconds, he stood there and burned just by being in the sheer vicinity of her. Appearing to his left like the universe had conjured her from his secret desires stood B. He breathed her in. His mate. The other half of his soul he hadn’t seen in ten years but whose memory had kept him sane on nights when the darkness had seemed too much to bare.

  Her red hair had grown. It fell halfway down her back in waves of curls he knew she hated but he’d always adored. Her eyes, narrowed at him as she stared back in his direction, were usually beacons of blue, calling him out when he’d been foolish, laughing with him when something happened they both found amusing. Pools of heat when she was lost in passion.

  The cleft in her chin remained the same. He smiled as he saw it. The little mark had been his favorite part of her body—outside of her breasts, which he didn’t dare tell her unless he wanted to get his eye blackened.

  She was the toughest woman he’d ever known.

  “Hi, B.” He almost choked on his words. “Long time no see.”

  “Don’t call me B. You don’t get to use that name anymore. You….You….You….”

  She must not have come up with what she wanted to say because she launched herself into the air without finishing. Shifting midway, she took him to the ground in her full-on black wolf form.

  Betty tore at his clothes, shredding his shirt in mere seconds. “Okay.” He called out to her, hoping she’d hear him through the rage he could smell coming off her body.

  Drew raised his hands to cover his face. If she wanted to kill him, he supposed she would be entitled to do so. But she stopped and pulled off, darting to the side before she put herself back in her human form.

  “I don’t know what you thought coming back here would accomplish.” Her voice hitched, and it nearly killed him. “You should go back wherever you’ve been. Los Lobos and the wolf pack don’t need you, Drew. I don’t need you. Go, run away again. We can all pretend you never came back at all.”

  Her words tore at his insides, but he ignored the pain. She’d launched an attack right at him, and the flare in her eyes hadn’t changed. Oh, yes. B was totally pissed at him and would remain that way for a good long while.

  “B.” He held up his hands to stop her from interrupting. “I’m sorry, Betty. Elizabeth. Whatever you want. Ms. Holden. We have a lot to talk about. You deserve answers, and I wish I could adequately give you the ones you want. You don’t have to tell me anything. But if you would, could you at least let me know what happened here. Why did this place fall apart?”

  She laughed, a cold sound he’d never heard her make before. He tried to ignore the way it made his stomach clench. There were lots of things about her he didn’t know. He’d known what would happen when he’d chosen to go. He had to live with the consequences.

  “Everyone is gone, Drew. Anyone who could keep this place together has left, driven out by Magnum’s antics and destruction. Your father, his cronies who never cared in the least about keeping anything nice or cherished, remained. Gee has done his best. Ryker would protect everyone, but he stays in his place in the woods to keep your father from ordering him to do horrible things. His blood oath as pack Enforcer collared him. And then the elderly and the sick. I’ve been trying. But I can’t possibly do it. I can’t paint buildings and wipe brows at the same time.” She threw her hands in the air. “That’s what happens when the people who should be here aren’t here.”

  He stood up. Enough. “Where is my father, B?”

  Drew had done what he promised. He’d left, stayed away. His father hadn’t lived up to his end of the bargain. For the first time in years, Drew believed he was just the werewolf to bring him to justice.

  “What difference does it make? You’ve never been able to do anything about him.”

  His woman didn’t believe in him anymore. He couldn’t blame her. But maybe he could do something to help. “Where is he?”

  Chapter Two

  Betty Holden couldn’t believe this was happening. When she’d scented him—his warm, woodsy smell—she’d really wondered if she finally crossed over into the land of insanity from where she would never return. Truth was, she wouldn’t even complain. It would be such an utter relief from her day-to-day struggles she’d taken the permanent trip to la-la land to get away from here.

  But here he was. Drew Tao. Her mate. Who had left her. Who had taken her heart, stomped on it, and left it to wither and die. Screw his stupid, ridiculously perfect face, his dark eyes, his sculpted eyebrows that just looked perfect naturally, and the horse he road in on.

  Another growl sounded in her throat. She’d already attacked him and, unfortunately, had realized one minute in she would never really be able to kill him. Fighting proved fruitless.

  So, damn it. She had to get him out of her town, out of her life, before she did something stupid like begging him to explain why he’d done what he did, or worse, asking him to please take her with him.

  Drew had never remained as still as he did right then. The version of him from her memory—the one who had proven to be a complete lie—had always been in constant motion. The last ten years must have taught him how to remain in one place. Too bad he couldn’t have learned how a decade ago and not abandoned her. Betty gritted her teeth.

  She. Would. Not. Cry.

  “You want to see your father? Fine, follow me. The quicker I get you there, the faster you can be on your way to whatever hole you crawled out of.”

  She’d never been so keenly aware of anyone walking behind her as she was then. Every step he took garnered her full attention. The crunch of the leaves beneath his feet, the way his body altered the flow of the wind. What would have happened if she hadn’t gone to see Gee right then? Would she have missed Drew all together? Damn it, why did she care? He’d abandoned her, thus ending their mating, something virtually impossible to do. Why hadn’t she been enough?

  His gate had changed, and she would have to be deaf to not hear the way he limped a little bit on his left leg. She bit down on her lip. How and when had that happened?

  She turned around, and he nearly collided into her. Too close. She didn’t want to be so surrounded by his aroma. Even though she knew it showed what a coward she became around him, she retreated a few inches. With a little more air between them, she could breathe.

  “What happened to your leg?” The question escaped before she could stop it. Maybe it would turn out he got it run over while he robbed little old ladies of their retirement savings. Then she could hate him some more.

  “It was a parting shot from my father. Literally. He had one of his men, Cam, I think, shoot me in the leg.”

  “He shot you?” Her voice squeaked, and a bird flying above their heads squawked. Magnum was a real son of a bitch. She shouldn’t be surprised he’d do such a thing, and yet, shooting his own son fell into a nearly unbelievable category. “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he’s a psychopath. Throwing me out of the pack wasn’t enough to satisfy him. He needed to see me do it limping and covered in blood. I would have died of blood loss if Gee hadn’t patched me up. I owe the Bear my life so many times over I’m not even sure I can ever pay him back.” He snorted. “Of course, then, I wished he would let me die.”

  How had she not known this? She bit down on her fingernail and let herself have a good chew on it. The years of taking care of feminine niceties were well behind her. Life was cold, hard, and too dirty for pretty nails. Still, she tried not to chomp down on her hands on a regular basis. When she’d bee
n a child, her mother would have slapped her hand if she saw her gnawing away.

  But the habit helped her think when her mind wanted to spin away from where it needed to stay. Drew hadn’t left by choice, or at least so he said. Magnum had told her differently, but since the man was a liar, she’d questioned him half to death about it. Finally, she decided it not likely he’d lie about what happened with his own son. None of this changed the fact Drew had run off and not taken her with him or even bothered to let her know he was leaving. Asshole.

  Of course, maybe he hadn’t been able to since he’d been shot.

  Damn it. She didn’t want to rationalize his absence. No, he hadn’t earned that from her. Bad guys could always come up with a reason for why they did the things they did. Maybe they even had good intentions. Drew should have been Alpha. He should have taken care of their pack. And if he couldn’t, he should have, at least, been her mate, as he’d promised to be under the full moon.

  The second thing she realized was Drew had actually answered her question in a dense manner. Much more effusive than she remembered. Maybe he just had a lot to say. But he used to be a man of very few words.

  She turned around. “I’m sorry you got shot.” It seemed a much better idea to keep moving. A much, much better idea. “And I hope you’re taking good enough care of it. Even an old wound can use tending.”

  “I always said you should be a healer, B.”

  She swung around to point her finger in his face. “I don’t know how many times I can say it, so this will be the last time. I don’t want you to call me B. I have a name, use it.”

  “By the moon, Betty, I have always called you B. I can’t stop now.”

  With her finger still pointed in his face, she snarled. Perhaps she’d been hasty in her thought she couldn’t hurt him. “Then don’t talk to me at all. Don’t use my name. You don’t get to call me B. That was something a wolf I used to know referred to me as. But he doesn’t exist anymore. The nickname died with him.”

  That seemed to shut him up. He opened and closed his mouth. Her point made, she nodded. Good. And she would simply ignore the pit of pain forming in her stomach. She shoved her hands in her pockets so he wouldn’t see, and if, spirits forbid, she actually needed to cry, then she’d shift into her wolf form until the need fled.

  Ten years ago, she’d cried enough tears of Drew to last a lifetime. Not again. Never again.

  “Why did he ban you?” It was like a disease. Why couldn’t she keep her mouth shut? Probably because she’d once known him completely. And he had brought her to levels of pleasure she’d not known existed.

  He never got a chance to answer because they arrived at the “barn.” The unofficial meeting place for the Black Hills Wolves had become a red barn that had been used to store hay when she was growing up. Drew’s awful father waited inside. He was always there, surrounded by his cronies, slowly but surely destroying the pack, the one thing he had sworn to care for. But, then again, he’d not taken care of his own child, so why anyone would suppose he could give a shit about anything else was beyond her understanding.

  Drew cleared his throat, and her insides melted. He made that sound at night, when he slept. She’d forgotten. The one noise, a little one really, almost floored her. Betty stopped moving and gripped the side of the barn.

  “B, you okay?” So much for him listening to her earlier rant. He’d always done whatever he wanted anyway. Why should she be surprised he persisted in using her nickname? ?

  It was too late to stop the memories flooding through her mind. The years they’d been together. Back when the Black Hills had been filled with the sounds of their wolf pack—appearing human to the outside world yet so much more—they’d met and fallen in love. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say they’d realized they were in love, they were mated. Right before her eighteenth birthday. They’d had to wait three months before they’d reached majority and mated.

  Their first night together, she had finally understood what it meant to be mated. Before then, she’d always thought it was akin to being married. Sure, her sister and she had watched their parents gush over each other for years. They were truly in love. But the first time Drew had touched her sexually, she’d actually gotten it.

  Not just the heat between them and what it had meant—at least to her—but what it meant to know with a single touch what another person thought, to have both sides of herself, her human and her wolf, connect with another soul completely that she’d never be alone again.

  And then he’d left, taking all the heat, the pleasure, the rightness of life with him.

  She never would have thought herself a violent person, but the need to punish him, to inflict some kind of pain on his person, overwhelmed her.

  She shoved him up against the barn, pressing her body to his in order to hold him still. “I wish you had died. I wish you hadn’t come back, you son of a bitch.”

  Drew sucked in his breath. “I know I have no right to say this, but life without you was akin to death.”

  “Oh, poor Drew, he ran off, left his mate, and then had a hard time.” She snarled. Her temper had never been easy, and she didn’t feel like pulling it back in. Let him feel the full magnitude of her wrath.

  She kissed him, hard on the mouth. Fuck. She hadn’t seen herself doing that. What was the matter with her she now couldn’t stop? His lips were soft and so hauntingly familiar she wasn’t sure she hadn’t dreamed this whole thing up. His heart beat on her hand, and she squeezed his shirt to stop herself from rubbing his chest. She had to get control, and the heat building in her core wasn’t helping.

  Drew moaned, pulling her close.

  No, this couldn’t happen. Sex with Drew would be wrong for so many reasons. So, why did he have to feel so right? Why did his heat make her feel warm for the first time in ten years? Why did he still have the ability to make her feel so complete?

  She bit down on his lip, and he yelped, pulling away. Good. Let him bleed. Betty forced herself away from him. Air and space seemed to be key. She’d never survive this otherwise.

  “You bit me.” Drew rubbed a smear of blood off his too-perfect lips. “I don’t remember you liking it rough, B.”

  “I don’t like you at all.” She turned from him and pointed at the barn door. “Your father spends all his time in there. It’s become his personal lair.”

  “The barn?” He stepped toward the door. His limp even more pronounced. Had she hurt him when she’d shoved him against the wall? How fragile had Drew become? Her heart turned over. “What happened to the house?”

  “It’s coming down on the hinges. The pipes burst. Big mess. Maybe five years ago.” Watching his house decay over time had seemed appropriate, the worse it got the further away Drew felt.

  “That’s a shame. I’ll have to fix it back up.” He nodded like he’d come to a conclusion.

  She snorted. “For what? Your father to live in? You’re a banned wolf; they’ll kill you on sight.”

  “They can certainly try, but that isn’t what’s going to happen.” He headed toward the door, and she grabbed his arm to stop him. The muscles beneath her hand were strong, tight. Drew hadn’t let himself go in the time he’d been gone. If anything, he felt bulkier. She tried to ignore the excitement the image started in her stomach. She wasn’t going to see him naked. Ever. So it didn’t matter.

  “What do you plan to do in there?”

  Drew shook his head. “What do you care, B? You want me dead, remember?”

  She dropped her hand off him, and he sauntered toward the door and walked inside. She counted to ten before she followed. Drew had always been able to get her worked up, and she’d certainly given him a good look at her nasty side, which he deserved to see.