Wolf Ranch Complete Boxed Set

Chapter 8

8

BOYD

Fuck. I couldn’t have screwed things up any worse.

No, that wasn’t true. I kept Audrey from getting a look at my wound, and I made her come. That had to mean something.

Why, then, did I feel this nagging heaviness about the way things went down? Why was my wolf moping, nudging me to go after her?

I had no idea how long I stood there, but it was enough time for Rob to stalk up from the corral without me noticing.

“You gonna tell me what all this is about?” he rumbled. I was in trouble if I could let a two-hundred plus pound shifter sneak up on me.

I glared at the dust that had kicked up behind Audrey’s car at the end of our long dirt drive.

“Boyd?” he prompted. “What the f**k happened?”

I pulled my gloves out of my pocket and put them on, turning to stalk back to the barn. My d**k was hurting, my balls ached to be emptied. I’d take care of it later in the shower, but I had to bleed off the excess energy somehow. Shifting and going for a run would work, but there were chores to be done. Unsaid ranch rules were chores first, run after.

“I asked you a question.” Rob infused alpha command into his voice as he caught my shoulder, and I went still, my body responding instinctively to the pack leader. I didn’t look at him, though. I couldn’t.

He wasn’t just my alpha. He wasn’t just my brother. He’d played the role of my father… hell, both parents, after they’d been killed when I was twelve. It had been my fault he’d been thrust into the role of alpha and parent in the blink of an eye. Mom and Dad had headed into Cooper Valley for me. While Rob and Colton had already started to shift by the time they were my age, they’d called me defective. Two and four years older, they left me behind when they went off and roamed the property. I’d been jealous, hurt and didn’t think myself much of a shifter.

You’re not a shifter if you can’t shift, they’d taunted.

Instead of embracing the pack life, I’d pretended I was completely human. I’d wanted to go to the county fair and meet my school friends. Friends who couldn’t shift, like me. I’d spent the day there, with the plan that my parents would pick me up at ten by the entrance. I’d dared my friend to have a third corndog and go on the Tilt-A-Whirl without hurling. There’d been five dollars in it, and I’d only realized what time it was when thunder clapped overhead. I’d left Bobby Sweetin to puke his guts out minus the five dollars.

I’d been seventeen minutes late.

Seventeen minutes where we could have been through the canyon before the rock slide, before our car had been knocked off the road and partially crushed. I’d survived without a scratch. My parents? The state patrol said they’d been killed in an instant.

They might not have suffered, but I did. Every f*****g day. If I hadn’t been such a little s**t and kept them waiting, Rob wouldn’t have been forced to skip college to take care of the pack and two little brothers.

It had been my fault, and I knew it. I was the family f**k-up. Turned out, I wasn’t defective because I couldn’t shift—I’d survived the accident because I’d shifted and been able to get out of the mangled truck in my new wolf form. Four paws had gotten me up the wet bank. I was defective because I’d destroyed the Wolf pack with one stupid middle-school prank.

I’d been wild and reckless after that and hadn’t stopped. I might not be an alpha of a pack, but I was king of the rodeo. I was invincible, literally. I had nothing to fear on the back of a bull. I might get hurt, but not for long.

Except this time, I had a lot to worry about. I might have recovered fast, but I’d been distracted, just like at the county fair. This time, it was by Abe’s hand on Audrey’s shoulder. That bit of jealousy could destroy the pack all over again. Audrey suspected. While I had no problem getting her off for the rest of her life to distract her, I didn’t think that was going to work. She wasn’t a ditzy buckle bunny out for a good time. Audrey Ames was all brains… and had one sweet, addictive p***y.

“Talk. Now.” More alpha command.

I sighed, prepared myself for his anger and disappointment and glanced at him over my shoulder. “I got gored at the last rodeo, and she was the arena doc.” I didn’t elaborate on why I got gored in the first place, only highlighting how stupid I’d been. He wouldn’t approve of mating a human. He wouldn't believe I had the urge to mark her as mine.

His eyebrows went up, but he didn’t show much emotion. He never did. I knew never to play poker with the fucker. “Seriously, Boyd? How did that happen?”

I didn’t answer because I’d already decided I wasn’t telling him that Audrey was mine. Not yet, anyway. Not until I’d explored it further.

I wasn’t that stupid.

I wanted more with her. Not that what we just did in the barn didn’t count as a whole f*****g lot.

“Let me guess—you were more focused on getting some p***y than you were on staying on your bull?” The sound of disgust in Rob’s voice raised my hackles, but it was the fact that he was right that really burned me.

It also made me want to punch him in the f*****g throat. Because Audrey was not some p***y. She was so much more. I wanted to tell him off for disrespecting her like that, but I couldn’t.

I turned to face him head on, a snarl on my lip. “I’m taking care of the problem, so you can f**k off.”

And that was how I ended up with my hat flying off and me landing ass first in the dirt with my nose bleeding. His fist came up out of nowhere. I might have killer reflexes to keep my ass on the back of a bull, but Rob had alpha reflexes and a whole fuckton of command to go with it.

No one challenged an alpha wolf. Especially not when there was family history. It was definitely broken, and my nose hurt like a b***h. I sniffed, wiped the dripping blood with the back of my hand and picked up Audrey’s scent. My fingers were covered with it from fingering her. My wolf snapped and snarled, not caring I’d been laid out, but that Rob was getting in the way of me being with Audrey. Still, I couldn’t explain because all he’d do was shut me down not with his fist this time, but an alpha command to stay the f**k away from her.

I stayed down and showed my throat to signify my surrender to his pack position.

Rob folded his arms over his chest and glared down at me. “The fact that you’re being an asshole tells me we have a real problem here. I’m going to fill in the blanks, so correct me if I’m wrong. You got hurt at an event, and she treated you, discovered you healed f*****g fast and was curious. Something like that?”

I gave him one quick nod.

“How much does that doctor know and what are you going to do about it?”

I rolled to my side and stood, brushed the dirt off my ass, ignoring the blood as I set the break. Pack justice was often physical because there was no real harm. My nose would heal within the hour. My perpetually wounded pride and neverending guilt? I was still waiting for that to fix.

“She rode with me in the ambulance to the hospital—”

“Ambulance? What the f**k did you do to yourself?”

I didn’t answer that, just finished my explanation. “—then she saw me walk out not long after. I have it under control.”

One of his dark brows winged up in a look that screamed yeah right. “How exactly? By getting into her pants and getting her off? Don’t think I can’t smell her scent all over you. Did your magic d**k solve this colossal f**k-up?”

Yeah, that stung. He’d hit the bullseye with his words and made my plan sound like the dumbest idea ever. I shrugged. “Kept her from examining me, and she’s off the ranch.” It sounded lame even to my own ears.

Rob looked down the drive where she’d disappeared. His next order took me by surprise. “That doctor is too smart to fall for your shenanigans. You might have needed to hide out here for a few days to miraculously heal, but you’re not leaving town until we know this situation has been contained. You need to stay on her.”

“What?” I asked.

He pursed his lips and set his hands on his hips. “Make yourself her new best friend until she’s convinced you’re the most ordinary human male in the county.”

I preferred she believe I was extraordinary in a few areas, but I didn’t bother arguing that point with Rob. Instead of him ordering me to never see her again like I’d expected, he told me to do the exact f*****g opposite.

He wanted me to be her best friend. Well, that wasn’t f*****g happening. Best friends didn’t finger f**k or get eaten out. But see her again and maybe again and again? My wolf practically howled, and I was getting hard at the thought of tasting her. And more.

But how could I be with her and not claim her completely? I couldn’t just f**k her and forget her as Rob was insinuating. Sure, that was my MO since I lost my virginity in Mary Sanchez’s basement in twelfth grade. Maybe this idea was bad. Really bad. I wanted her for my mate. For forever. Rob wanted it temporary and until any possible thought of the existence of shifters was forgotten.

He wouldn’t want me to claim her. Hell, no. If he had any idea of my need to mate her, he’d punch me in the face again and set one of the ranch hands on her to watch her for a while.

No f*****g way.

So I’d do what he said and try to figure out how to make her mine and somehow keep the fact I was a shifter a total secret at the same time.

I nodded and stuck my hat back on my head. “Done.”

My wolf was happy as f**k. I’d finish my chores, get cleaned up and head into town. Track down Audrey and become her best friend—who would soon be f*****g her until her headboard broke. I couldn’t have asked for a more appealing assignment and potentially the biggest mistake of my life.

I was a risktaker, and this was one f*****g huge risk. This wasn’t riding an angry bull. This was making my wolf happy.

There was no f*****g way I was going to walk away when this task was over. I wasn’t going back to the rodeo and riding bulls. Not unless my sweet doctor came with me.

I wasn’t going anywhere without Audrey.

She was mine and mine alone.

I just had to make sure she got on board with that plan, too.