Tate's human narrowed his eyes while also snarling swear words in his head. Channing Bardou was hardly shying away. He stood firm and steady beside Tate. Bashar's words, however, were meant to nastily spit doubt and more fear into the minds of the younger wolves.
Totally understand now why Caleb hates them so much,
his human muttered.
Agreed.
Tate flicked his glance at Claire again. Her eyes were on him as well, though she kept snapping them back at the wolves near her. Smart. He could see her every wild instinct at play here, keeping her safe and alive. Taking a breath, he glanced once at his alpha, who merely looked back at him with a calm expression.
Right. His mate, his shots to call. His pack was simply here for backup. Looking back at the rogues—rogues, sick pack wolves, whatever the hell the bastards were—he coolly assessed their stances, just like he did when he trained the most wild of horses. Their postures told him two things. One, they all deferred to Bashar. Two, they wouldn't harm Claire or her mother.
In a heartbeat, he made up his mind.
“Take them,” he said. His father growled his approval behind the order. Immediately, the Black Mesa Pack members spread out in what was almost a choreographed dance. Four groups of four or five wolves each broke off and headed directly for each rogue, surrounding and taking them to the ground in a matter of moments.
Tate knew he should be bothered by their feeble attempts at resistance, but for the moment he couldn't handle more thinking about more politics or murky reasons driving their bizarre actions. His entire attention had shifted to Claire.
He leapt over the mucky ground in bounding strides to her where she stood by the darker wolf who had to be her mother. Inhaling as deeply as he could when he approached, he could sense absolutely nothing about her that indicated she was anything more than a natural-born wolf, one with no shifter abilities at all. Only the facts that there were no natural wolves living in the area, and that obviously near-human intelligence lay behind her eyes, clued him or anyone else in that she was more than she seemed.
Ignoring the sounds of the others subduing the rogues, Tate looked at Claire. Her wolf was as beautiful as her human, and as spirited. In every line he saw restlessness, caution, and wariness. But she stayed still as he gently reached forward and touched her nose with his. Whining a bit, he rubbed his head against hers, then did a thorough check to make certain she was uninjured.
“I'm fine,” she finally said, lifting her lip in the tiniest snarl to tell him to stop fussing. “They wouldn't hurt us anyway. Not yet, that is,” she added, casting another dark look at her ex.
Tate shook his head. “Let's talk about it all later. Right now, I just want to get you back to the den. And you—if you want,” he added very deferentially to her mother. Lowering his gaze and head a bit, he tried to appear as unassuming as possible. The older female wolf looked back at him, unafraid but also not quite as wary as Claire. Then again, he had absolutely no hold over this wolf. Her decisions were utterly up to her.
“No,” the other wolf said. Glancing at the sprawl of canyons stretching out behind them, she said, “I made this my home, and it stays that way. I am a wild wolf by choice.” She nuzzled Claire once, then looked at Tate. “I could have taken Claire and myself to the Denver pack originally. We would have been welcomed. But I was done with packs. And I always will be.”
Softly, Melle added, “Claire's choices, however, are her own to make.” She backed a few steps from Tate, then looked at her daughter with a calm patience.
Tate shook his head, futilely, to scatter the ceaseless rain slicing across his vision. He looked at Claire. After a long, searching moment between them in which everything else faded away, she took a step away from him, then another. Tate felt his heart slide out from beneath his ribs and hit the ground somewhere near his paws.
“You are my mate,” she whispered, so softly he could barely hear her over the slam of the rain and the still-present rumbles of thunder as the storm slowly moved overhead and away from them. “But I am still a wild wolf, and I still don't know how to make this work. Give me time, Tate. If you're taking them,” she jerked her head in a contemptuous movement toward the subdued rogues, “then I truly am safe. For the moment, at least. Besides, Melle and I had it covered.” She gently bumped her mother's hip.
Leaning toward him, Claire rubbed her muzzle along his. “Let me think before I figure out how to upend my entire life for one wolf.”
With that, she turned and bounded out into the desert, although she managed to kick mud into Bashar's face as she raced past him lying on the ground, firmly held down by Black Mesa Wolves while simultaneously grinning and glaring at them all. After another moment of looking hard at Tate, Claire's mother turned and slipped away as well, disappearing into the storm behind Claire.
“Don't!” Tate said, half ready to go after her. But suddenly Lily was beside him, placing herself in front of him and blocking his path.
“Let her go,” she said, looking at her brother. “You can't stop her.”
Tate flashed on a memory of Lily doing the exact same thing years ago, when she simply needed to escape her world and find her balance again. Although it was so hard he trembled from the effort, he managed to stand motionless, ignoring the jeering laughter from the scum his packmates held down, ignoring the smack of the cold rain, ignoring everything except the sight of his mate leaving again.
Lily was right. He couldn't stop Claire, and he wouldn't. She was still a wild wolf, bound to no pack. Mate or not, she was utterly free to make her own decisions.
Even though it felt like his heart had just punched out of his body and wouldn't come back anytime soon.
***
Claire sat silently on the high flanks of the mountain, staring down at the desert far below. A light skiff of snow feathered over her pelt. The crisp tang of pine trees, the sharpness of the air at this high elevation, the sense of being far above all the small things below—this was her natural environment. An arctic wolf belonged in the snow. In the mountains. And a wild wolf belonged on her own.
Right?
Nestling deeper into her little spot between two large boulders, the sprawling branches of a pine tree sheltering her from the winds that drove the little flurries of soft, cold white into the lengthening evening, Claire pondered her own thoughts. Staring down at her own paws, she looked at them as curiously as if she'd never seen them before. Wolf's paws. Part of her. Nothing like her human hands, which were also part of her.
Wrinkling her nose, she shook her head, scattering tiny drops of cold snow off her, making room for more to land. Paws, hands, four legs, two legs. Fur-covered pelt. Smooth, hairless skin. She was of both worlds, and this was how she usually saw herself: as one being that blended two creatures.
But alone,
her human whispered.
Alone.
Claire huffed out a sign and put her head down on her paws. Gazing over the darkly shadowed canyons and mesas far below, she felt an inescapable sense of longing.
Tate. She missed him. He should be here with her, pressed into her side, sharing his warmth with her as they nestled together, gazing down at the world below. But she was indeed alone. Tate wasn't with her, and that had been her own choice. Even Melle was gone, for now.
“I know you will be safe,” Melle had told her weeks ago, after they'd bounded away from the rogue wolves, Bashar's madness, and Tate's gut-wrenched expression. “You will be much more alert from now on. But they are gone for now.” Claire knew she meant the rogues. “And he will not let anything harm you again. Ever.”
No, Tate wouldn't let anything harm her. If she could accept his protection. His—pack.
Melle had bumped her with a shoulder. “You will know what to do.” She'd eyed her daughter for a long moment, then gave a single, satisfied nod. “When you are ready.”
Ducking her head and looking at Melle sideways, Claire had said, “How do you know I'll ever be ready? He won't leave his pack, and I would never ask him to. He also won't ask me to give up being a wild wolf. Not even for him.”
She felt cold just contemplating either thought.
Letting her mouth hang open in a smile, moonlight glinting off her teeth, Melle had simply responded, “You will figure out a way. Because he is your mate and you love him. Anyone could see that.”
Anyone could see that.
The words had brooded themselves around Claire's mind ever since then. She'd hunted, roamed, and tried to outrun her own thoughts in the mountains for these weeks. Keeping her wolf shape, she tried to simply be in the moment, which was always easiest in this form. But Tate had never left her thoughts. Not once. Was he her mate? Absolutely. Did she love him?
Wind flipped through the pine branches, sending snow into her face as she sat there, seeing only Tate's face.
Of course I love him. Of course.
Her human's voice was low, but so certain it was like her own heartbeat, steady and sure and true.
After another hour or so, she finally set out for home. She hadn't been there since the rogues had taken her. Carefully, padding on her large paws in the snow-wrapped silence, she slipped through the dark back down the mountain. It was time, she decided, for a proper shower.
And maybe, just maybe, she was ready to start to reach out to him. Her mate.
She could always retreat to the mountain or the canyons again if she needed to.
Yes. Whenever I want,
her human whispered.
But I'm alone. And I miss him.
Feeling her heart gently tug her along, Claire moved with quicker and quicker steps back home.
***
For over a month, Tate threw himself into his ramped up Guardian duties and his horse training as winter slowly bore down on them. Nothing else existed, although he regularly checked on Claire after the first few weeks. Before that, she was simply gone. He knew she was most likely still in wolf form, god knew where out in the canyons. The only thing that helped his composure was that she had indeed fared just fine this far into her life without him, and she could manage a little more.
Later, when she finally, finally picked up the phone one day and called him herself, he was already heading to his truck to drive out there before she'd uttered more than hello.
“Not yet,” she'd said as soon as she heard his diesel engine roar to life. Her voice had sounded rusty with disuse, and he knew he'd been right that she'd spent the far too many days out of contact with him as her wolf. “Please. But you can call me whenever you need, okay?”
He would take what he could get. She let him call her, she talked to him, she texted him. She even lightly teased him sometimes on the phone. But every time he pushed just a little, asking if he could make her dinner, asking if she wanted to see a movie in town, asking if she wanted to go horseback riding again, Claire did the equivalent of turning her back on him, looking out toward some freedom he apparently couldn't match. Each time, he tried to remember his own theories on allowing space and forced himself to back off.
Not pushing her was the hardest thing he'd ever done. His packmates tiptoed around him, with the exception of Lily, of course. She actually chattered on so much around him he finally implored Kieran to do something to hush her up. Kieran, of course, laughed and shook his head, saying, “No way, man. That's a little too dangerous for me. She's just worried about you,” he added, looking away as soon as he said it and seeming ready to flee himself. Male bonding over almost as soon as it started, Kieran then said, “Well, I gotta get in more training time on the mat later today. You in?”
Tate had never before taken great pleasure in sparring with his fellow Guardians. But as it turned out, it was an excellent antidote to help soothe the raging emotions inside.
He avoided going to the cells in the basement, where the rogues were being held. He couldn't deal with them unless he was sure his newfound aggressions wouldn't encourage him to tear into them in a way that would make matters worse. His wolf strongly disagreed with that, countering that they needed a good beating or twenty, but Tate managed to hold firm.
At least each time he talked to Claire, he sensed the mood lightening, becoming more and more teasing, more and more relaxed. As long as he didn't bring up the pack too often, and she didn't bring up her need for total freedom too often.
Finally,
finally,
things changed for the better one weekend afternoon. Tate had just stepped out of the den shower after a light patrol on the property, during which he'd been training two of the younger pack members who were hoping to one day become full-fledged Guardians. Despite first feeling uncertain whether new responsibilities like that would cut into his still beloved horse training time, as it turned out, he was a natural trainer of shifters as well as equines.
His wolf shook his head at Tate's silliness and turned his back in some disgust at his apparent lack of knowledge about that obvious truth. When the phone buzzed with a text from Claire, though, his wolf leaped so hard into the front of his mind he staggered.
Come over?
He could sense the shift in her tone even through her text.
Please? I'm sorry it took me so long.
He was formulating just the right reply, one that was eager without being pushy, when his phone buzzed again.
I have to admit it. I miss you like crazy.
He was pretty sure he broke every speed limit on the nearly two-hour-long drive. Claire, his beautiful, wild mate, met him at her front door, which looked different.
“I bought a security system for the house,” she said, smiling a little nervously. He'd almost forgotten how incredibly beautiful she was. His wolf strained, desperate to stride through the doorway and swing her up into his arms. “Even a new, reinforced door. Since this is my home, and I'm not leaving it.” She leveled a look at him, but the smile was still there. “Not just yet, that is.”