Chapter 1 – Ruthless
Chapter One
RAND
I seriously couldn’t get my clothes off fast enough. The full moon was driving me fucking nuts this moon cycle. The last couple days, it felt like the monthly pack run would never arrive.
As we raced to strip off our clothes in the mudroom of the pack cabin, I tore my jeans getting them off my legs.
“Easy there, champ,” Boyd said to me with a lazy grin. Fucking easy for him to say—he no longer has the raging urge to mate since he found his female last summer.
Not that the sharp intensity I felt to run was about the urge to mate. I didn’t even crave the usual full moon joy-fuck with any of the unmated females. What I needed was to run, run hard. Push myself because I was desperate for something I didn’t even know.
I kicked off my second pant leg with a frustrated growl.
“Moon got under your skin?” he asked. The rodeo champ was too easy going for his own good.
“I guess,” I muttered, running a hand over the back of my neck.
Karen, the she-wolf who’d been trying to hook up with me for the last couple moons, tried to make eye contact, but I dodged the glances. I had zero interest in pursuing sex with her tonight. Or ever. My wolf snarled at the thought of touching her, and it wasn’t because she’d already tried to hook up with every other unmated male in the pack. It was normal for unmated wolves to screw around during the full moon, usually without any weird expectations, but Karen was clingy. And right now, I couldn’t wait to shake her.
That was the fucking confusing part. Usually the aggression with the full moon—the need to run and hunt—was equal to the need to fuck. And while the randiness was there—hell, my boner was swinging in the wind as I jogged outside—none of the usual choices sparked any interest from me.
No, this primal feeling that something had crawled under my skin had me running in human form before I’d even shifted, the ground hard beneath my bare feet.
“Race you to the other side,” my brother Clint said, goading me by smacking my bare ass as he dashed by. The fucker.
His mate, Becky, was human, so she didn’t shift; however, she was always amused by his antics on a run. And well satisfied when he returned. I’d put money on her expecting their second pup anytime by the way they got it on.
With a snarl, I dropped to all fours, pine needles skidding out below my giant paws as I shifted and took off at a sprint. The night air was cool, not a cloud in the sky. Perfect. I chased my older brother, nipping at his flanks like we were still teenagers, but when we finally reached the ridge, I dropped back. Stopped. Something pulled me in the opposite direction from him and the others.
I longed to go down the mountain. Toward the Sheffield ranch next door.
Where humans lived.
Where it was forbidden to run.
Boyd ran by, his wolf loping with an easy grace. He enjoyed these runs alone before heading back to satisfy his human mate, Audrey. He chased me for a moment, nipping at my heels to get me moving, but I snarled, showing my teeth, and he ran on without me.
What was down there?
It didn’t matter, I couldn’t investigate. Not in wolf form, and I’d been dying to let my wolf out all week.
I started to follow the pack, but every step I took made my agitation grow. I needed to go the other way.
Fuck it.
I turned back and trotted to the ridge again. Put my nose in the air to sniff. There was something on the wind. Nothing detectible, nothing I could describe to another wolf, but I would swear there was a scent calling to me.
I cocked my head, listening to the yip and howl of the younger wolves in the pack learning how to hunt. Rob, the alpha, would kick my ass for breaking a pack rule. We didn’t run in human territory. Ever. It was beyond dangerous for the pack.
No one could know there were wolves in this area. There’d been issues in the past, and none of us wanted more.
But I tore down the mountainside anyway, my paws scrambling through the loose gravel on the steep slope. I ran hard and fast, following my instinct, hardly noticing which direction I was going.
Not until I ran straight past the Wolf property line, where my alpha’s family lived and ranched. I found myself on human property, on Old Man Sheffield’s land where I used to work as a teenager. Even though it had been over a decade since I’d last worked here, I knew this terrain inside and out, and it felt as much like home as Wolf Ranch.
Every kick of my paws drove me into a deeper frenzy. A scent became clearer. Intoxicating. Maddening. What the fuck was out there that was driving me insane?
I reached the outcropping that overlooked the waterfall into a hot spring pool in the middle of the river and skidded to a stop.
Holy fuck.
There, in the pool below, was a female.
My female. In that instant, I knew she was mine. Her scent wasn’t strong, but it was there on the slight breeze.
Her bare skin glowed pale in the moonlight as she cut through the water, swimming in a circle around the secret spot. Every wolf in the area knew about that place. Some of us were lucky enough to use it in human form on summer days because we’d been friends with Old Man Sheffield.
I froze, staring in fascination at the long, slender slope of her bare back, the pale globes of her ass flexing with her kicks. Her hair was long and dark—although it was hard to tell what color it was with just the moonlight, but I remembered it as bright red—and thick, fanning out in all directions around her shoulders, floating on the water’s surface.
She dove down and disappeared under the waterfall, and I nearly launched myself over the edge into the pool so as not to lose sight of her.
Just like the scent, I instantly recognized her.
Natalie.
The name filtered through my hormone-addled brain.
My mate was Natalie—the new owner of the Sheffield ranch. A human. The great-niece of Old Man Sheffield, who’d owned the property for sixty years and left it to her when he’d died a few years ago. I remembered her as a kid when she’d come a few summers to stay. Hell, the last time I’d seen her, she’d been… maybe ten. But she wasn’t a girl any longer. Fuck no, every inch of her was all lush woman.
I dropped to my haunches in the stream and whined, my wolf going insane because she’d disappeared.
A moment later, she resurfaced.
I heard her breathy inhale and wondered if that was how she’d sound when my cock filled her for the first time. I nearly howled and gave myself away. My quarry had been cornered. My prey, found. I’d be ruthless in making her mine.
Even though I’d suppressed the sound, her head jerked up, and I found myself staring straight into her dark eyes. The waterfall was only fifteen feet or so, but she saw me nonetheless.
Surprise registered on her face. Her lips formed a perfect “O,” and she abruptly stood up, letting water rivulets run down her—aw, fuck—perfect breasts. They were full and high, tipped with furled nipples. I wanted to lick off every fucking drop of water.
I scrambled up to my paws to stare at her. I couldn’t look away.
“Hey, wolf,” she said softly.
Her melodic voice shocked me out of my trance. She didn’t scream. She didn’t even move. She wasn’t afraid. She was talking to me. Almost like she knew I was a shifter. That I’d understand her.
Fuck. I just let my wolf be seen by a human. One who lived next door to my alpha. Even though she was mine—I felt it, smelled it, sensed it—I was in deep shit. For two fucking reasons. One, Rob was going to kick my ass. Two, I had to leave her here. I couldn’t shift and go down to her. Toss her over my shoulder and carry her from the water like I wanted. Lay her on the soft summer grass and fuck her hard and long until she screamed my name. Until she had my seed deep in her and my mark on her neck. Then she’d know what I was. Who I was. The secret would be out.
Whirling, I took off at a run, back up the mountain, away from the scent that had been driving me wild. I would never be eased now. Not while I knew what the need inside me was. Not until I made her mine.
I’d figure out this fucking mess. Until then, I fled. Away from my mate.