Ruthless E-Book

Rose Renee

• Herausgeber: Vanessa Vale
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

PACK RULE #6: KEEP HUMANS AWAY FROM PACK LAND.
My alpha told me to get rid of her.
Make nice and find out if she’ll sell her property.
Keep her from bringing more humans close to our land.
But before I even met her, I caught her scent.
The moon’s full, and I had to follow it. I couldn’t stop myself.
I ran straight into human territory, onto her property.
Found her bathing naked in the moonlight and showed her my wolf.
Now all bets are off.
My alpha may want her gone, but I need her to stay.
In fact, I’ll do anything to make sure she never, ever leaves.
 

Leseprobe

Wolf Ranch: Ruthless

Wolf Ranch - Book 6

Renee Rose

Vanessa Vale

Wolf Ranch: Ruthless

Copyright © 2020 by Bridger Media and Wilrose Dream Ventures LLC

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author's imagination and used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from both authors, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover design: Bridger Media

Cover graphic: Deposit Photos: tolstnev; aarrttuurr

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Epilogue

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1

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.

2

NATALIE

It was real. The wolf was real. Holy shit, everything I remembered from when I was a girl had actually happened.

I hadn’t been sure. I’d been ten years old, visiting my great uncle—the only adult who ever really cared for me—and I’d seen something as if out of a movie. Something impossible.

I’d been upstairs in my bedroom looking out the window when I heard a shout. The ranch hand, Rand, had gotten pinned under my great uncle’s tractor, the wheels losing traction in the mud before it had tipped and rolled on top of him. I’d screamed from the window, opening it and calling to my uncle to help. Before my uncle got close, I saw a wolf scrambling out from the overturned tractor instead of a human. A wolf. I caught a glimpse of blue eyes, the thick gray fur. I’d never forget it as long as I lived.

It had startled at Uncle Adam’s approach, took off running on three legs, favoring an injured one for a few hundred feet and then running like normal. Like nothing had happened. As if he’d never been crushed.

I’d raced downstairs and out of the house to meet Uncle Adam by the tipped tractor.

“Rand was under there,” I’d sworn, pointing to where he’d been, my finger trembling. “I saw him go under.”

But there was no one there now.

“Uncle Adam,” I’d said, my voice shaky. “I saw…” I’d drawn a breath, swallowed hard. “I saw… a wolf came out the other side.”

Rand had turned into a wolf. Like magic. Or… something.

Uncle Adam had gone very still. Then he dropped a hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye. “There are strange things that happen in this valley, Natalie,” he’d said, instead of telling me I was lying or making up tales. “Come inside. I’ll tell you a story.”

He’d sat me down with a glass of lemonade and told me the wildest story I’d ever heard.

A story I never forgot, but one that was hard to believe.

All these years, I still hadn’t been sure if it was all made up. If my mind had played tricks on me. On what Uncle Adam had told me. What I saw. As if he’d embellished onto what I’d told him, to make it some kind of fairy tale. Something fun for a kid whose parents dumped her on a Montana ranch for summers because they couldn’t afford daycare. Like an adult telling a child about the Tooth Fairy or Santa, so there was some wonder in life.

Now, almost fifteen years later, I knew the truth. Actually, I’d known all along, but this proved it. Uncle Adam hadn’t lied or embellished or told tales.

Werewolves did exist.

A gray wolf specifically. The one I’d seen before. The one who’d popped out from beneath the overturned tractor. I knew who’d been at the top of the waterfall.

He’d seen me naked.

Even with only the full moon brightening the night, I knew. The silver fur. While I couldn’t see them, I imagined the blue eyes.

Rand.

I climbed out of the swimming hole, trying to calm the trembling in my limbs.

I wasn’t scared. It wasn’t like I thought the wolf would hurt me. Nor the guy the wolf would shift into. I didn’t know why I shook. Why I trembled with newfound interest in the ranch hand from all those years ago. Maybe it was just the realization that the supernatural was real. Paranormal happened—and to someone I’d known for such a long time.

Right here in Cooper Valley. Right on my property. Uncle Adam had told me the truth. Trusted me with it.

I grabbed my short terry cloth robe that doubled as a towel and wrapped it around my dripping shoulders.

My nipples felt abraded by the soft fabric, and my pussy ached. I was aroused. Strangely eager. Maybe it was the wild excitement of seeing a wolf shifter up close.

Or maybe because it had been Rand? He’d been sixteen that summer. Big for his age. Handsome, even to a girl of ten who hadn’t known what handsome was.

In wolf form, he’d been beautiful. Enormous. Broad shoulders and a thick coat of glossy fur. Intense. Tonight, his focus had been on me. Only me.

I slipped on my sandals and followed the path back toward the house, a small smile playing on my lips.

Werewolves were real. Rand was still around. Hell, he was on my land now.

Somehow, it made my decision to move to Cooper Valley feel less crazy. There was a reason I was pulled back here. A reason beyond the fact that I’d graduated with a largely useless master’s degree in music, didn’t have a cent to my name and had nowhere else to go. I’d wondered why Uncle Adam had given the ranch to me when I hadn’t seen him in fifteen years. Maybe now, I knew the reason. Maybe now I was the only one with the secret, the one human who could be a good neighbor and protect it.

3

NATALIE

“Hot water would be good, but first fix the leak on the roof.” I sat at the kitchen table making a list of all the things that needed to be done on the house. And talking to myself. The backdoor was open to the warm day. I’d forgotten how beautiful summers in Montana were. How peaceful. I was getting used to the lack of city noise. No cars driving by. No other tenants in my crappy apartment building yelling at each other or the sound of someone’s TV. No ambulances or dogs barking.

Nothing but the wind and an occasional bird, which had me having conversations out loud. Scratching out the line PAINT HOUSE, I moved it further down the to-do list. That could wait although I felt bad for anyone driving by who had to look at the place. The clapboard siding was faded and peeling, and every time I came down the dirt driveway, I felt even more weary.

I was thankful to Uncle Adam for leaving me this place. Hell, I’d be homeless otherwise because rent in L.A. was too expensive for someone without a good job. But the house was a project with a capital P. There was so much work to be done. More than the seventy-three dollars in my bank account could pay for. I hoped the tip money I got from working at Cody’s Saloon the night before would be enough to pay the electrician coming over.

“I could do a haunted house in the fall. I wouldn’t have to do a thing,” I muttered. The idea actually had some punch to it. Hell, I was game for any way to make some cash, but if the electrical issues weren’t fixed, I might be owning a pile of ash and rubble.

I put my arms up in the air, leaned back and stretched. Dropping them down, I ran a hand over my hair, tugged the tie from my wrist and put my hair up in a ponytail. Going to the coffeemaker, I grabbed the pot, stuck it under the faucet to fill it, then dumped the water into the back of the ancient machine. After adding grounds to the filter, I pressed the button to start the machine.

“Fuck!” I shouted, jumping back, then sticking my finger in my mouth, as if that was going to help.

The machine had not only shocked me, but made a weird sizzling sound. Reaching across the counter, I grabbed the cord and tugged the plug from the outlet, afraid it was going to catch fire… the start of the house burning down. For the past few nights, the lights had been blinking upstairs, and now I got electric shock therapy from the coffee machine.

Leaning against the aged formica, I noticed the hum of the fridge had cut off.

“Great,” I muttered, going to the light switch, flipping it on and off to confirm the power was out, at least in this part of the house.

The coffeemaker had blown a fuse and zapped the hell out of me. It was probably fried and that meant no coffee.

Hearing tires crunch in the drive, I cut through the house to the front door. The contractor’s scheduled arrival couldn’t have been better planned if I’d tried. If he had a venti Americano with skim and a shot of espresso, I’d make babies with the guy.

I squinted against the bright sunshine as he hopped from the pickup truck. On the truck’s door a cool house logo and R&N Construction in a bold font below. “You must be Natalie. Heard lots about you for a long time.”

“Not sure if that’s a good thing or not,” I replied, setting my hands on my hips.

As he came up the porch steps, he said, “We were all wondering when you’d show up. I’m Nash. We talked on the phone.”

“Right,” I replied, shaking his hand. “Glad you could make it.”

“Heard you’re the new bartender at Cody’s. The owner’s a friend of mine, so I appreciate his referral.”

I’d answered an ad at the bar in town, and thankfully, having been a broke grad student working full-time at a bar for the past few years had paid off because Cody had hired me on the spot. Now I could pay the light bill. If I could keep the electric working.

“He’s a nice guy,” I shared. “I’m thankful he hired me and gave me your number to help. As you can see, I’ve got a few things to fix.” I looked up, indicating the entire house.

He offered an easy laugh. “A few things.”

“Your timing couldn’t be better because I just blew a fuse.”

“It’ll be easy for us to fix things since we live on this side of the mountain. We’re neighbors.”

I arched a brow. “Oh?”

He tipped his head away from the house. “Live in the hills above Wolf Ranch.”

Oh. I looked him over again, this time wondering if he was one of them, a shifter. He didn’t look any different than any other big guy. He was maybe a few years older than me with sandy blond hair that curled from beneath a baseball cap with the same construction logo on it. I pegged him at six feet and close to two hundred pounds.

Good looking, not that I was interested in a shifter. I wasn’t although my mind went to the silver wolf I’d seen at the swimming hole the night before. The one who I’d seen long ago. The one who’d worked on uncle’s ranch.

Rand. The one I knew wasn’t this guy.

I cleared my throat. “There are tons of issues with this old place,” I said, getting my thoughts away from Rand Tucker. “My list is long. Too long for my budget to do all at once.”

“No problem. I assume electrical is at the top?” He followed me down the hall.

“Yeah. The lights have been blinking, and as I said, I just blew a fuse turning on the coffeemaker.”

He stuck his head into the kitchen. “Wow, my grandparents had a fridge like that.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, leaned against the doorframe. “Well, it’s not running right now.”

He frowned then nodded. “Where’s the fuse box?”

I tipped my chin toward the hallway. “Basement.”

He stepped back and let me lead the way.

I opened the door and flipped the switch. That light worked. Going down the rickety stairs into the creepy basement, Nash followed. There were small windows that let some natural light in but not too much, which was probably good because I didn’t want to see how many spiders were in the dark corners. If I saw one, I probably wouldn’t be coming down here ever again.

On the far wall, there was a bigger window I remembered Uncle Adam telling me had been opened for coal delivery back in the day. He’d had to shovel it into the furnace to keep the house warm in the winter. Beneath it, the dirt floor had bits of crushed coal ground in. That had been decades ago when it had been last used, replaced with an oil burning furnace.

The air was cooler, a dank scent filled the air. There wasn’t much on this level beyond an old washer and dryer and a few lines strung between the first floor’s cross beams for hanging things to dry.

“Here it is.” I went over to the old box on the wall.

“Wow, vintage fuses. Haven’t seen many screw-in ones lately.”

I turned and pointed at my uncle’s handwriting next to each one stating what they went to in the house.

Heavy steps came down the stairwell right before a deep voice said, “Careful, darlin’. Touch that and your hair might curl.”

Nash and I turned, Nash’s shoulder brushing mine.

I touched my hair, red as a rooster and already crazy curly. It always looked like I’d been electrocuted. I didn’t need that to actually happen to have that effect.

“I told you to wait for me,” he growled at Nash, who immediately stepped away from me.

“Rand’s right,” Nash replied. “Gotta turn off the main first.”

I heard Nash but wasn’t paying him any attention. I felt like I’d gotten a jolt of electricity just looking at the guy who’d come down the stairs.

Rand. The wolf from last night. I knew it was him. Felt it in my bones. My heart leapt and my pussy wept.

I hadn’t seen him since I was ten, but I knew who he was. He’d been sixteen then, so he obviously looked older now. The time had treated him well. Really well. He was… wow. Better. Bigger.

Holy shit. I’d been right back then, and I’d been right the night before at the swimming hole. Rand was a shifter.

He stared at me with those blue eyes that I knew had met mine from the top of the waterfall. In the dim light of the basement, they seemed to glow, just as they had before. His hair wasn’t silver, far from it. Beneath his cowboy hat, it was almost black. His jaw clenched, and his nostrils flared.

“Red, it’s been a long time.” He came over to me, extended a hand and pushed Nash further away.

Red. I’d forgotten all about that nickname he’d given me all those years ago when my hair had usually been in a long braid down my back. He leaned close, and I had to tip my chin back to look up at him. His nostrils flared as he drew a deep breath. Almost like he was breathing me in.

God, he probably was. I’d bet he had a keener sense of smell than a normal human. Wolf senses.

“Sure has,” I replied although my mouth was dry.

“You’ve grown up.” His gaze drifted over me from my cheap gas station flip flops to my wild hair… and everywhere in between. He reached out, tucked a curl behind my ear.

I gulped, and my skin prickled at the action.

Holy shit.

“So… have you.” I didn’t remember him to ever be a gangly teenager. The opposite. He’d been tall, thickly muscled and, to a ten-year-old, cute. The first vague flutterings of a girlhood crush had been awakened by him. Now, he was even taller, even broader. His muscles had muscles. My female interest wasn’t a vague flutter any longer.

Hell, no. It was instant attraction. Heat. A longing I’d never known before.

Nash stood off to the side watching as if he were at a tennis match. “You two know each other?”

Rand dropped his hand but almost reluctantly. “I used to work for Old Man Sheffield. Back in high school. Natalie was here summers when she was little.”

Nash snapped his fingers. “That’s right.”