Black Hills Desperado (Black Hills Wolves Book 3) (3 page)

“I handed my resignation to my division chief today. I go wherever you go.”

Shit
.

A Hummer pulled up in front of them, apparently to take them to some safe house so they could switch vehicles and start out for her new home. “I didn’t ask you to come along.”

Liar
, her wolf whined, like a small child stomping its foot.

Shut up.

Who asked for your opinion?

Someone needs to say something.

Not you.

Yes, me.
Xio blinked when she realized what she was doing.
Arguing with myself? Gah!

You know, they have medication for that.

“Shut up!” She reached up and scrubbed her face, as though the act would remove the insanity that had started to settle in. The man was already making her crazy. Having him as a constant companion would ensure she’d need a room with rubber walls.

Oh, kinky.

Stop. Just stop. I’m not going there.

Marcus was staring at her. “Shut up?”

“I wasn’t talking to you.” She sighed, realizing how nuts she sounded. “Look, I don’t want you to come with me.”

“You don’t have a choice.” He stared back, daring her to try to stop him. Seconds later, he nodded toward the Hummer. “Let’s go.”

“What about your pack? What does your Alpha have to say?”

“My brother. He’s abreast of the situation and understands.”

“I’ll bet.” Could Marcus sense the same thing she had? Was that why he’d decided to follow her home? “Why?”

“That’s my business. Get in.” He reached around her for the door.

What is that smell?
Xio grabbed Marcus’s arm and stopped him from touching the vehicle. She sniffed, inhaling deeply. How could she forget? It was the same smell that had come off the fertilizer bomb when Diego had made a run on his competitors, blowing up their processing centers. The FBI wasn’t the only one with men everywhere. And it was things like this that made her want to get as far from Agent Cazador as she could.

“Bomb!” she yelled. The driver threw the door open and jumped out, bolting for cover. Everyone in the vicinity scattered. She spun and sprinted as fast as she could, with Marcus on her heels, hoping they could get far enough away before the triggerman detonated it.

They weren’t fast enough.

Boom
!

Her shoulder hit first, taking some of the impact, but not all. Her head kissed the pavement next and thudded against the concrete. Bright bursts of light filled her vision. A loud ringing echoed in her ears, and the world began to spin. Xio rolled to her back and groaned, reaching up to wipe a trickle of blood from her nose.
Lovely. Just lovely
. The only way she could heal would be to shift, and that wasn’t happening in a densely populated area.

“Xio.” Marcus crawled over to her and grasped both sides of her face to stare down at her. Soot covered his jaw and concern creased his forehead. “Don’t close your eyes. Stay awake.”

She’d only caught half of what he’d said. His mouth moved, but it was as though nothing came out.
And damn if the man doesn’t have sexy lips.

For once, we agree
.

“Xio.”

He held her, forcing her to focus on his face, continuing to talk, but little of what he said made sense.

“Baby, stay awake.”

“Okay.” Her lids dropped shut and he leaned in, until she could feel his breath wash across her face. “Stay awake,” he growled.

Her eyes snapped open; the grogginess faded with his close proximity.
Wonder what he’d look like naked?
Reality hit, snapping her out of her goo-goo trance. “I told you he’d try to kill me. At least one of us was paying attention or we’d both be dead.” She blinked to settle the spinning.

“I assure you, I’ll never be caught off guard again. I was distracted, and I almost got you killed.”

Distracted by what? Does he know?
“A smart man would get as far away from me as he could.” She gave him a soft smile, but he didn’t return it.

“I…you. I’m…n—going….”

Super-senses came with a hefty cost. Her hearing cut in and out, and it could be days before it was back to normal if she couldn’t shift. She’d failed to catch the rest of what he’d said, but she got the gist. He knew and thought they’d mate. She hated to tell him that wasn’t going to happen. They were no good for each other. She wasn’t playing this game of cops and robbers—at least not with him.

Everything seemed to move, and focusing on trying to read what he said didn’t help. She squeezed her lids shut again, certain she’d heave otherwise.

He did the most unexpected thing. A wet, coarse tongue traveled up the bridge of her nose, stopping in the middle of her forehead.

Startled, Xio opened her eyes.
What the hell?
“You licked me.”

“I said, stay awake.” He grinned down at her, and continued talking at her, with only an occasional letter coming out clearly, as if he was playing some demented game of hangman.

I’d like to buy a vowel, please.

Ha-ha
.

The least of her worries. As for the bomb? Diego wouldn’t chance a second attack in broad daylight. This had been a message. She got it, loud and clear.
You can run, but you cannot hide
.

She put her hand up to stop Marcus. “I can’t hear you.” A doctor would need to look at that since she couldn’t take care of it in the usual manner. No way could she shift where she had policemen outside her room and hospital staff monitoring her every move. More delays, more chances for Diego to catch up with her. This was not good.

He frowned. Emergency crews arrived, rushing here and there, pushing bystanders back, checking injuries. The two of them hadn’t been spotted, or at least that’s why she assumed no one had yet come over by the Dumpster.

“I need to kiss you.”

And she heard that. The bitch inside her howled and practically did backflips.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Who’s thinking?” He leaned closer, until their lips nearly touched. “You’re….”

All activity blurred together and the world ceased to exist as he captured her mouth, speaking in a language that didn’t need words. A completely inappropriate place for it, but damn. In that moment, Xio forgot to tell him he wasn’t going with her.

***

Two days in the hospital and finally she was on the road home, with hearing in one ear and a favorable prognosis she’d recover it in the other. Of course, she would—when she embraced her wolf. But that would have to wait a little longer. The best place would be the wilds. Shifting in populated areas never went well, and hotel rooms—if someone heard her howl, or her wolf went berserk trying to break free, especially with how long it had been...the secret could get out. Not a risk she’d take.

Xio stared out the window as buildings whizzed by. Up ahead, a large chain bookstore stood out against the storefronts in the small Midwestern town. She perked up. Exactly what she needed to get her mind off everything.

At the last town, where they’d stopped for lunch, a Chinese woman sitting in the booth next to her had struck up a conversation—in Mandarin. She’d never been so embarrassed as when she’d had to say she couldn’t speak Chinese.

The woman harrumphed, gave her a crusty look, and put her shoulder to her, like she was some kind of traitor. There was no sense in explaining. The woman didn’t want to hear anything from her unless it was Xio’s ancestral tongue.

She’d lost her parents as an infant, never had the chance to learn to speak Chinese, and even if she had wanted to, the pack didn’t know how to speak it. She realized then there was so much she didn’t know about herself, or the place from where she’d come. Sure, she knew about the wolf, but what about her history, her roots?

The only thing Chinese the pack recognized about her and her brother was that as pups, they’d snuggled together and looked like
yin
and
yang
. She had a thick, black coat in her wolf form, and her brother had white. It had been a running joke with the pack for years, and rarely had she been called Xio, instead of Yin.
Some Chinese heritage
.

She would change that. This was a new beginning. Starting today, she planned to learn new things, reach out and take control of her life, and number one on her list was learning Chinese. “Stop. At the bookstore.”

Marcus pulled to the curb. “We really don’t have time for this. The Alpha of the Black Hills pack is expecting us at eleven tomorrow morning and I wanted to at least get to Nebraska tonight, rent a room, and sit down to talk about our meeting before we go to see him. He wants to know if you’re ready to follow the rules.”

“Magnum can wait. I need to buy something.” That something being one of those learn-to-speak-a-foreign-language-in-a-few-weeks programs. Where they were going, they didn’t have bookstores and she wanted to be able to start right away, once she’d settled into her new home. Buying anything online would create a trail she couldn’t afford. Cash was her new best friend.

“Need I remind you? You don’t have any money.” He lifted a brow. “And don’t you know Magnum isn’t the Alpha anymore?”

“Um, yeah. No money.”
Not exactly
, but she wasn’t ready to elaborate on her financial situation.

Why not?

Don’t you say anything to him about that.

Or what? You’ll exorcise me? Good luck with that,
her she-wolf snickered.
Aren’t you going to ask him about the new Alpha? Hello…wolfie, you home?

Xio screwed up her face. Right. Her alter ego had a point. “Excuse me? Did you say Magnum isn’t the Alpha?

“I did.”

“Hmm. I guess things change.” She picked up a strand of her hair and examined the ends. Her nervousness about going home catapulted. Who was he and would he give her a chance? Would he like her, or despise the burden she was, as his predecessor had?

Perhaps going home wouldn’t be so bad now. A new Alpha. A fresh start. She had already begun to change with each mile that passed. Starting with learning Chinese. How much had they said the program cost on television? Small change, considering what she was used to spending. She turned to him and smiled. “Can I please have four hundred dollars?”

Marcus choked. “That’s an expensive book.”

“It’s not a book. Please. I need this to make a new start.”

He reached over and grabbed his wallet out of the glove box and thumbed through several bills before extracting and handing them over. “Here.”

She eyed him skeptically. “You aren’t going to ask what it’s for?”

“If you wanted me to know, you’d have told me. It must be important, so go on. Go get it. I’ll wait for you in the Mustang.”

She eyed the bills in his hand. That was some trust. How did he know she wouldn’t take off now that she had money in her pocket? Maybe because he knew as well as she did, there was more to the attraction than mating pheromones. There was a pull, something neither could resist, and she could run, but eventually, she’d turn and head back to him, unable to resist. Well, that and she could get herself killed if she didn’t stick to the plan, which was to go home and hide.

“I know what you’re thinking, and you can pay me back when you get a job. Go on, and stay out of trouble in there. I won’t be able to bail you out again. Not a government man anymore.”

Yeah, because of me
. She had no intention of getting into trouble and ending up dead, and she could tell him she didn’t need to get a job. She had more money—in her brother’s name—than she knew what to do with.

Diego had never known about her using the money he’d given her for expenses to buy businesses throughout the West. He’d assumed her money came from her robberies. He’d thought she’d had expensive taste in hair stylists and clothing—much more than she really had. She’d cut corners and invested his money wisely, turning small amounts into substantial ones. Over the years, her companies had become a brand name. Snow’s Convenience Stores weren’t just in the Black Hills—they were all over the West.

In addition to the stores, she’d made several foreign investments and quadrupled her profits every time. Xio had kept all of it a secret by using an alias, knowing that if she ever needed to leave Diego, she would have to have funds to support her.

The bank jobs? Well, the first robbery she’d done on a dare, and to impress Diego. Later, she’d hit them for a more noble cause, or at least she’d convinced herself it was, choosing only the banks in Mexico that cheated the small folk.

And the one in El Paso that got her into trouble and put Marcus on her tail.

She’d gone after El Paso only because Diego had wanted her to, and when he wanted something, he got it. A smart person never said no once he’d asked for a favor. That was a good way to end up dead, and she liked breathing a little too much.

The money from the robberies? She’d given that to the impoverished people living in the tiny villages that dotted the Mexican landscape. It made her feel like a good girl, even though she knew she wasn’t. A part of her had craved the life she could have had if fate had dealt her a different hand. So she pretended to be more than she was, and the locals elevated her onto a pedestal, singing praises to her name. Their admiration became an addiction as strong as any narcotic. Over time, her reasons became less noble and more a way to chase the dragon that rewarded her with what she craved most.

Love.

After the disaster in El Paso, it had been a mistake to cross the border and hit an American bank again. But the carrot the FBI had dangled before her proved to be too irresistible, and she’d been bored—in need of a fix.

The Feds thought they’d recovered the cash from the bank robberies at Diego’s estate and she hadn’t denied it, letting them assume that was where her ill-gotten gains had gone. They’d gotten back one hundred times what she’d taken, and as far as she was concerned they were square.
Paid in full
—with Diego’s money from his own vaults. He didn’t trust banks.