Kieran flipped his high beams on and off at an oncoming car whose own brights were still on. “The only ones that could ever be anywhere near that we didn't know or couldn't find out about would be rogues. And she can't be a rogue.”
Only male wolves were rogues. They took unwilling female wolves to mate and start new, desperate packs.
“No, of course not a rogue.” Lily turned her head toward her brother in the back seat. “Tate. How much do you know about wild wolves?”
***
Melle sat patiently at the old ruin, waiting for her daughter. Claire wiggled and danced and pranced as she ran up to and around her, touching noses and rubbing her head along the face of the wolf who had birthed and raised her.
“I've missed you.” Wolves didn't speak like humans did, but their own method of speaking, mostly with body language, made them very clear to one another.
“I knew that. I felt you needing me from far away.”
Ever since Melle had left, she and Claire had shared what was close to a psychic bond. Claire didn't begin to understand it, but she accepted it without question. When she was particularly sad, or lonely, or simply deeply missing the one and only wolf who'd been a constant in her life, her thoughts somehow alerted Melle, who always came. It might not be for weeks or even a few months, but she always returned to the canyons when her daughter needed her.
“Play?” Claire asked. Before Melle could answer, Claire darted away, leaping behind a low wall made by long-dead human hands.
With the wolfish equivalent of a laugh, Melle gave chase. They raced down hills, behind small pinyon trees, beneath the cliff walls with the old designs and markings on them made by the people who once called this place their home. The moonlight chased them as well, slowly arcing its way westward.
After a long time of enjoying racing around, Claire finally stopped, settling atop a small hillside that gave them a view of the canyons and valleys stretching out around them. Melle sat beside her, nose tipped into the air, sniffing.
“They're not here any longer. Good.” Despite these words, Melle still surveyed the wide spaces around them for any hint of danger.
“I haven't scented them for a long time now.” Claire wrinkled her nose, baring her teeth a little. Strange wolves had wandered her canyons for some time earlier this year. She'd discovered from the alpha of the local pack that they'd been rogue wolves who might have unpleasant intentions for her if they ever found her. “They never bothered me, anyway. You told me to always cover my scent. I still do.”
“Rogues are smart because they are desperate,” Melle reminded her. “Never forget that.”
“Never.” Claire lightly shoulder-bumped the other wolf. “You taught me well.”
Melle settled into the earth, laying her head on her paws as she kept half her watchful attention on the landscape around them. The rest of her focus was on her daughter.
“So. Tell me why I came all the way here to you.”
Taking a deep breath, Claire told her about her progress on her book and her most recent reading. Then, still quivering with the intensity of it, she told her about meeting Tate. Not all the details, of course. Wolf or not, she wasn't going to share that much with her mother. But Melle would figure it out anyway.
“I've never felt that way before,” Claire concluded. “He's somehow part of me? But I don't understand.” Even just thinking about him brought a shiver of anticipation to her fur, rippling down along her spine. “I want to be with him. I almost want to go to his pack and find him and talk to him more.”
She paused, but Melle patiently waited.
“But my human wants him to find me instead. To prove something.” Aggravated, she whined. Her human laughed deep inside her, though a note of wariness was shot through the sound.
“Your human is too bound by thoughts,” Melle said. “Thoughts can trap us.”
Claire heaved another sigh and flopped down onto her stomach. Small pebbles and sand crunched beneath her weight as she wallowed her belly into the ground. Mimicking the wolf beside her, she lay her head on her paws and watched the vast, silent desert around them.
“But you need your human side. You aren't like me,” Melle said gently.
Claire hadn't seen Melle shift into human since she was very young. In fact, the other wolf no longer could. Any shifter near her would think she was a natural-born wolf. All traces of her shifterness were gone, as far as Claire could tell, except the fact she knew perfectly well she'd been a shifter, and could communicate with Claire as easily as ever.
It was a choice she'd never wanted Claire to follow, but one she'd said was right for her. She'd never said why exactly, but Claire knew it had something to do with the native pack they'd fled when Claire was extremely young.
“Listen to your head, but act by your instincts.” Something knowing and pleased touched Melle's voice.
Claire's tail lashed the ground in some confusion. “Why do I want to be around him so much? It's as if I can feel him tugging at me. Even from here.”
Her mother tilted back her head and sent a single, soft howl echoing through the air. Claire sensed every living creature within a mile of them hold its breath and stay motionless. After the echo of the howl ended, Melle tipped her nose into Claire's side and tenderly nudged her. Then she sat back on her haunches and rocked Claire's world with her next utterance.
“Because he is your mate. You have found your mate, and nothing will be the same until you accept him as yours.”
Claire bolted upright, scattering small twigs and inadvertently sending one of the pebbles bouncing and skittering across the slickrock nearby. On all fours, she swung her head toward Melle in shock. “But I can't. That's impossible. I'm a wild wolf!” She felt slightly frantic as she said that. Her human paced in her mind, just as agitated. “I can't have a mate.”
Melle let out a half-whine that sounded a bit apologetic. “Yes, you can. Wild wolves can and do have mates. I never did only because I never met mine.”
No sadness tinged her words. Merely acceptance. Claire had always known her father not only wasn't her mother's mate, he wasn't particularly kind to her. It had been a relationship of convenience and expedience, one forced by her pack's alpha. The only good thing that had come of it, Melle often said, was Claire.
It had also been the reason why Melle had finally fled her native pack, eventually finding her way here in the red rock desert. A place as far from the natural home an arctic wolf could find. They would never think to search for her here. She'd raised Claire alone, teaching her how to be self-sufficient, self-reliant, and highly distrustful of anything and everything pack related.
“But he's pack!” Claire began to pace on the sand and rocks, matching the restlessness of her human. “I thought—I mean, I knew he was pack, but he was just so—so
interesting.
Fascinating.” She bit back a growl. “How can a wolf who is pack be my mate? How can I be his?”
Melle sighed. “Wild wolves have mated with pack wolves before. One of them must make a compromise.”
“To be pack?” Claire half-howled, feeling strangely torn. She barely knew Tate, but the draw she felt toward him was undeniable. “Never. I won't compromise for that. To see him again, to enjoy his company, to be around him—yes. That much, yes. That's what I thought might happen.” What she'd hoped would happen, despite her deeply instinctive wariness that had told her to make him find her, to not just roll over and show him her belly merely because he was the most stunning wolf she'd ever seen before.
He sure is. Dammit,
her human muttered.
Very gently, Melle reached over and nuzzled Claire again. “Enough for now. Worry isn't good. But another run is.”
With that, she gracefully leapt up and bounded off into the desert, darting around the small, rugged trees and jumping over the healthy sagebrush clumped here and there. Claire sighed but joined her. Two wolves, running through the empty canyons under the moonlight. As she ran, she shook off thoughts of a very intriguing male wolf with chocolatey-hazel eyes. Her
mate.
Her human harrumphed at her as she stretched her legs and ran.
As the sky began to lighten far to the east, Claire and Melle gradually ambled their way back to Claire's small home at the farthest southern reach of the sprawling canyons. Before they got to the point where they would exit the shelter of the wilder spots, though, Melle's steps slowed, then stopped entirely. With a small sigh, Claire stopped as well.
Melle never came any closer to human places anymore. Then again, she never became human anymore, either.
“Will I see you again later today?”
A small shake of Melle's head deflated Claire's spirits somewhat.
“If you need me, I'll know.” Melle turned and began to silently pad back into the canyons as the sky brightened more. But then she stopped and swung her head over her shoulder, pinning her daughter with an inscrutable look.
“The wolf who is your mate, Claire, will never leave your heart. And you will never leave his. Think about that before you make a choice.”
With that, she flipped her tail and loped away, her coat blending into the grayish play of shadows and light that held forth just before the sun actually rose.
Claire sat and watched after Melle long after the other wolf had disappeared. When the sun lifted above the canyon rim, its merely faint promise of warmth indicated fall was indeed reaching into the desert lands. Inhaling hard to pull the soothing, familiar scent of sand and sage deep into her lungs, Claire finally turned and trotted the ten or so minutes back to her house.
She was so deep in thought about Melle's words, feeling stupidly comfortable so close to home and therefore not as alert as she usually was, she didn't notice him lounging on her porch until she was mere strides away from her own front door. His voice startled her so badly she shied a few feet into the air and sideways, landing with her back fur ridged and her teeth bared in shock.
“A white wolf.” Tate's rich baritone was filled with surprise and deep admiration, and the same hunger she'd seen in his eyes on that one amazing night they'd spend together. “I knew you were unusual, Claire. But I sure didn't expect to ever find a wild arctic wolf living by herself in these canyon lands.”
Tate couldn't take his eyes off her, despite his instincts telling him to soften his body language and lower his gaze. Claire was an arctic wolf. He'd never met one before, although of course he'd seen pictures and knew they existed. Most arctic wolves stayed in their native territories of Alaska, very northern Canada, Russia. He'd even heard there was a pack in Greenland, though they were the only shifter pack there. Intermingling happened, of course, since a wolf was a wolf was a wolf regardless of color, but it was fairly rare.
Finding an arctic wolf living in the desert was like finding wild elephants foraging in Maine.
She still stood with a snarl on her face, though it clearly was from surprise and not actual aggression toward him. On the contrary, he immediately felt the same pull toward her as he had during the too brief evening they'd spent together in Denver. Yes, she still was more than interested in him. She was still
his.
Just the recognition of that truth sent shivers bolting along his spine.
Standing there, regarding him closely, she seemed to make a quick decision. With a shake of her beautiful head, she abruptly stalked around to the side of her house and disappeared in the back.
Tate remained where he was, about ten different thoughts firing in his brain simultaneously. When Lily had brought up the subject of wild wolves, he'd first dismissed it. By the time they'd reached the den, however, she'd given him enough ammunition to consider the idea a little more seriously. Wild wolves existed. But they were just as rare as lone wolves, if not more so, and they very much kept to themselves. They neither liked nor wanted to be affiliated with packs. Wild wolves were required to live in the free territories. Aside from not interfering in any local pack business, they could come and go as they chose, living life completely on their own terms.
In his mind, his wolf's tail twitched at that thought. For a brief moment, he imagined running free through the mountains and canyons, unrestrained by some of the slightly more chafing pack rules.
I belong to my own pack,
Claire had said. That was clear to him now. He'd never met a wilder wolf, one so easy in her own skin, so attuned to her needs, so self-assured about her place in this world.
Then again, life as a wild wolf wasn't necessarily easy. There was no protection, no camaraderie, no relationships with pack members who would support them in any situation. For a female wild wolf, such a life could be especially dangerous. Especially if any rogues decided to sever ties with their own packs and create new ones—by force if they had to. Just the thought of any rogues sniffing around Claire raised Tate's hackles. His wolf growled, low and menacing.
Kieran said Alpha would know for sure if Claire lived nearby as a wild wolf. But Tate was reluctant to bring his father into it just yet. He wasn't quite ready for the rest of the family to be aware of his new fascination. Especially not his Alpha—and especially not if Claire did indeed turn out to be a wild wolf. Who had ever heard of a pack wolf mating with a wild wolf?
Mate,
his wolf insisted.
My mate.
There was no question about it. Especially not after the unforgettable night they'd spent together.
Swearing Lily and Kieran to secrecy for the time being, Tate had set off for the canyons southwest of Cortez despite the sleepless night patrolling. Just the thought of finding the bewitching green-eyed woman who'd been front and center in his thoughts for the past weeks and getting to the bottom of the mystery of her existence was enough to give him a good boost of energy.
When he'd arrived in Cortez earlier this morning, instead of stopping in town again to fruitlessly search for her scent, he headed straight for the most likely areas a wild wolf might live: the far outskirts of town, outside the Black Mesa boundaries. He realized a wild wolf might well try to cover her tracks as much as possible, using scent disguises and simply not interacting much with the local human population. He didn't exactly go around knocking on people's doors to ask if they knew about a beautiful blonde writer living alone nearby, but he carefully prowled dark, sleeping neighborhoods in wolf form, seeking the tiniest whiff of Claire's scent.