10
BOYD
“Here comes trouble,”Levi, one of the ranch hands, muttered at the sound of hooves trotting up our drive. A bunch of us were sitting on the corral fence watching Sam, another of the ranch hands—and fellow pack member—tame the new stallion he’d bought.
It was always tricky at first. Horses that weren’t foaled on the ranch had to get used to the shifter scent. Even the tamest of horses acted wild when we first brought them in. They didn’t want to submit to humans that smelled like wolves.
I thought of Audrey, of how skittish she’d been the day before, how quickly she’d bolted after I’d tried to tame her.With my tongue.I shifted on the top rail, my dick getting hard without any room for it to fit.
I looked down the drive at the man riding toward us, squinting slightly into the bright sun. The day was hot, the sky blue. At least for now. Later in the afternoons, clouds usually built up over the mountains bringing storms.
Under the brim of his hat, I saw an unfamiliar face. I pegged him at late thirties. He rode stiffly, his spine straight, his hold on the reins too taut. He sure as fuck didn’t know how to ride a horse.
“Who is that?” I murmured in case he was a shifter and had hearing as good as ours.
“Jett Markle,” Rob replied, his voice as flat as usual. “He bought Didi’s Double D ranch awhile back. The spread on the other side of Old Man Shefield’s place.”
I hadn’t been back much in the decade since I’d graduated and bolted like a wild mustang, but I remembered Didi and why her place was called the Double D. I’d heard from Rob the place had sold but hadn’t given it more thought. Until now.
“He’s an asshole,” Rob added, tipping his chin down but kept his gaze on the visitor. Markle was a human on pack land. Rob might appear calm, but I sensed the tightly coiled tension in him.
I took his comment with a grain of salt because shifters didn’t think much of most humans. Rob, especially. He’d liked Old Man Shefield, our next door neighbor, but that was only because we’d known him since we were kids. We’d swam in his swimming hole. He’d been a good neighbor to our parents and offered a lot of support to Rob after they died. Even at eighteen, Rob hadn’t accepted much help, but the guy had offered it nonetheless.
Markle trotted up and sat on his horse instead of dismounting. He didn’t loosen his hold on the reins, despite the fact that they were no longer moving. “Howdy.”
Rob sniffed, and I knew he was taking in the man on the wind. I picked up heavy cologne, soap and the tang of his sweat. Looking at him, I knew he wasn’t from around these parts. While his clothes looked casual, they were expensive and too clean. No way he’d saddled the animal nor would he brush him down when he returned to his stable. Nah, he wouldn’t want to muss his manicure. What fucker buffed his nails?
Levi and I waited for Rob, as our alpha, to respond first. Rob waited a beat, then another, like Markle wasn’t worth his time. “How’s it going?” Rob asked in the bored tone that implied he didn’t give a shit how Markle answered.
“Not good. I think there’s a wolf or wolves in these parts.” He glanced behind us at the open land, as if he were looking now for the animals. “I saw prints on my land, and I’m missing one of my herd.”
Rob bristled and the ripple of irritation ran through all of us. We were a pack, and pack animals were completely in tune with their alpha. Rob was blasting annoyance, and we’d all felt it.
Of course, Markle hadn’t because he was just a human. Frail and inferior. And, clearly, an asshole.
I thought of a different human, much smaller and curvier. Sweeter andnotan asshole.Audrey,my wolf whispered, missing her. I was going to do as Rob commanded and stick to her like fucking glue, but I knew she’d need some time. I’d got her off real good and needed to be patient for the chance to do it again.
I still didn’t understand how it could be that my wolf had picked a human for us to mate, but the message was undeniable. Audrey Ames was mine.
“You found a carcass?” Rob demanded, stirring me from my thoughts. For once, I was thankful for his gruffness because it did a damned good job of killing the hard-on the thoughts of Audrey had brought about.
“No, but I’m missing one head.”
“Probably wandered off.”
Levi and I nodded our agreement.
No fucking way a wolf killed one of his cattle. There weren’t any lesser wolves—what we called the plain wolves, the non-shifting variety—in the area because our pack had marked its territory. Sure, there were plain wolves in Montana, especially now since the rangers had released some in Yellowstone National Park, but not on Wolf Ranch. Not anywhere near Cooper Valley.
Shifter wolves were the dominants in the species. Lesser wolves would never hunt on our grounds. And a shifter would never kill a cow. We liked to eat beef, but on a roll with some cheese and ketchup like everyone else. Most of the pack were ranchers like us, and they knew better than to cause trouble with the locals that way. They might go out hunting, but they’d be killing deer or rabbits, not cattle.
The asshole was lying.
“It did not wander off,” Markle snapped and his horse sidestepped in fear. He tugged on the reins which yanked at the bit in the animal’s mouth. I had to stop the growl in my throat. None of us liked to see a horse mistreated, even through ignorance.
“I’ve never seen a wolf in these parts,” Levi drawled, his outright lie bonding the rest of us to him. It was always us against them as far as pack policy with humans, and right now, we were very much against Markle. I couldn’t see the city slicker out there on the range counting head every day. Unless he had three cows, I doubted he’d be able to tell one was gone.
“Yeah, me neither,” Johnny said, the youngest of our pack, as he strode over from the stable. With him were two other guys, Clint and Joe. They must’ve heard the approach, heard some of the conversation, or at least their alpha’s anger, from wherever they’d been working.