Cowboy Wolf Christmas, page 1
ALSO BY KAIT BALLENGER
Seven Range Shifters
Cowboy Wolf Trouble
Cowboy in Wolf’s Clothing
Wicked Cowboy Wolf
Fierce Cowboy Wolf
Wild Cowboy Wolf
Cowboy Wolf Outlaw
The Rogue Brotherhood
Rogue Wolf Hunter
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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
Note from the Author
Series Note
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Also by Kait Ballenger
Copyright © 2022 by Kait Ballenger
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 the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
For Mara
for helping me see myself in these pages
We want readers to be well-informed.
If you would like to know if this book has any elements of concern for you, please check the author’s website for details:
www.kaitballenger.com
1
Was it too much to ask for a bit of peace? Silas Buck snarled as he prowled through the snow, clutching his leather Stetson against the harsh, whistling winds. The blue-ridged Montana mountains loomed in the distance, their frozen peaks barely visible against the blinding snow which now coated the ranchlands, until nothing but a stretch of endless white remained. There were only three days left until Christmas.
Fuck, he hated it. Snow. Christmas. The whole damn season.
He dreaded it like a millstone. Every goddamn year.
Breath swirling about his face, Silas trudged toward the center of Wolf Pack Run. Whatever the hell the packmaster was apt to blame him for now, he’d sooner get it over with before he retreated back to his cabin—alone. It was bad enough that over the past several days, the whole of the pack hadn’t been able to stop casting wary glances in his direction. But then they’d had to go and summon him, and to the Grey Wolf packmaster’s office no less.
Like a rabid dog on a leash.
Silas growled, sifting his way through the snow. This time of year, all decked out for the holidays, the dusted cabins and glittering birch halls of Wolf Pack Run, the Grey Wolves’ ranch, looked like a scene from a fucking Hallmark card. Romantic. Cozy. Charming. A promise of warm hearths and even warmer company mixed with holiday cheer.
But never for him.
Outside the main compound, several females huddled near the cabin entry. At the sight of him, their group erupted in a hiss of whispers before they eased inward, shrinking closer to one another. To protect themselves. From him. Their former enemy turned packmate. A walking nightmare in cowboy boots.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
“What are you looking at?” he snarled, letting his frustration loose.
Abruptly, the females scattered, letting out several little eeps as they retreated in different directions. At least one or two had the courtesy to mutter some vague excuse, before shifting into their wolf forms and disappearing into the ranch’s ether. A feat made easier by the endless flurry of snowfall.
Silas grumbled. Good fucking riddance.
“Do you have to antagonize them like that?” The voice was tinged with amusement.
Silas turned to find Wes Calhoun, his former packmaster turned Grey Wolf second-in-command, leaning against the great hall’s doorway. Against the backdrop of ice and snow, the smirk which pulled the other wolf’s lips coupled with the pale hue of his blond hair made him look every bit the villain he’d once been.
Silas scowled, unable to hide his annoyance. It didn’t matter. The Grey Wolves didn’t trust him as far as they could throw him. It’d been over a month since Silas had sworn fealty to their pack, longer since he’d been brought here against his will, forced to assimilate, but still, they didn’t consider him one of their own.
He was their boogeyman. The Krampus to their Santa.
Why change course now?
“Once a Wild Eight, always a Wild Eight,” Silas grumbled. “Except for you.”
Wes frowned, before he nodded to where the females had gone. “They’ll come around.”
“Not for me.” Silas’ scowl deepened. “You came willingly.”
Wes shrugged. “Circumstances change, brother. Sometimes you have to change with them.”
“Do you tell yourself that or do you really believe it?” Silas shot back, his words a thinly veiled growl. He pegged his former packmaster with a hardened stare. Moving to step around the other wolf, he tried to make his way into the hall, but Wes placed a rough hand on his shoulder.
“Is that what you wanted? To stay with the Wild Eight?” Wes’ words stopped him short, wrapping around him like a dark promise of what’d once been.
Silas snarled, teeth bared. Fuck if he knew what he wanted. Then or now.
His future felt as cloudy as the endless gray stretch of Montana sky.
Still, he felt himself hesitate.
“It was better than here,” he answered finally. “Anything’s better than here.”
“You don’t really mean that.” Wes squeezed his shoulder. “Give it time.”
Silas shook his head, pulling from Wes’ hold. Time only deepened wounds. Never healed them. He was reminded of that harsh truth every Christmas. “Time is all I have, packmaster,” he hissed. “I’d think you of all wolves would understand that.”
Silas pushed past the other wolf, prowling into the warmth of the main hall as he headed toward his new leader’s office. The Grey Wolves would never trust him. Not in the way they trusted Wes. The ghosts of his past would always haunt him. Every Christmas.
And the Grey Wolves would never allow him to forget it.
When Silas entered the packmaster’s office, Maverick Grey sat at his behemoth of a desk, wearing a pair of glasses that should have belonged to a wolf twice his age. In spite of the hair tied at the nape of his neck and the black tattoos poking out from beneath his long-sleeved flannel, from the way the Grey Wolf packmaster poured over the ranch’s ledgers, he looked like Ebenezer Scrooge himself. Though Silas was no warm-hearted Bob Cratchit.
At his entrance, the packmaster glanced up, squinting at him slightly through the gleam of the gold lenses before he removed the half-moon spectacles. He cast them onto the desk beside his old, battered Stetson, before lifting a brow expectantly. In the glow of the firelight, the gesture highlighted the notched scar there, a holdover from an old knife wound by an enemy rogue wolf, or so Silas had been told.
Among their kind, too often legend held truth.
“I can see better in wolf form,” Maverick mumbled, his deep voice filling the room. He gestured to the now-folded glasses.
Silas fought not to roll his eyes. Of course he could. By his birth right Maverick-fucking-Grey had been gifted every bloody power a wolf could possess. Silas wasn’t bitter about it. Really.
“Sit.” Maverick nodded toward a high-backed chair, not hesitating to dole out commands, before he closed the ledger he’d been reading.
Silas dropped into one of the armchairs, taking in the space he’d occupied only a handful of times before as he waited for the packmaster to finally lay into him. Ever since he’d arrived at Wolf Pack Run he’d been blamed for everything from bad crops to dead animals to a particularly bad bout of fleas that’d been passed around several of the packmembers while in wolf form back near the end of summer. But whatever it was this time, he was prepared for it.
The interior of the office was cozy, warm. Full of dark wood shelves and large-bound tomes which detailed the Grey Wolves’ long history. Few who took it at face value would recognize it as the helm of their security room, the central command for all the pack’s tactical plans. But whoever was in charge of decorating at Wolf Pack Run had taken care to ensure that, lining the bookcases with boughs of holly and even going so far as to add a small, pine tree behind the packmaster’s desk. The fresh scent of it permeated the room, its crimson and gold ornaments glittering in the warm glow of the fireside.
Maverick leaned onto his desk, watching Silas with rapt attention. “I have a favor to ask.”
“A favor? Or an order?” Silas didn’t bother to hide his annoyance. No point in beating around the bush. “Or is there something else you plan to blame me for?”
The packmaster leaned back in his executive seat, examining Silas like he was some frustrating puzzle none of the pack had managed to solve. “Would you prefer an order, warrior?”
“Orders are all you give. Orders and blame,” Silas answered.
Maverick pawed a large hand through the scruff of his beard, before he let out a short huff. “I won’t sugarcoat it then.” He ran his tongue over the pointed
“Fuck no,” Silas snarled. He didn’t move from his chair. There were few things he wouldn’t do, but this was one of them.
“It’s an order, warrior.”
Silas froze, his hands gripping the chair arms, shoulders tight. The choice wasn’t his to make. For a moment, he stared at the rough patches on the palm of his hand, the tips of his fingers, more prevalent now from all the ranch work, before slowly clenching his hand into a fist. “No,” he said again. “No. I won’t do it. You know the ghosts that wait for me there, especially this time of year.”
“It’s not up for discussion.” Maverick’s eyes flashed to his wolf. “The vampires have been more active than ever. You know this season’s rules. No one leaves the ranch unless it’s in pairs, and I need someone to escort the pack mechanic up to the old subpack ranch. A part on one of the snowplows is broken and unless we want the entire compound iced over, you’ll go to Missoula to retrieve the part.”
Silas’ lip curled. “You’re doing this to torture me. Put me through my paces.”Maverick scowled in return. “If I wanted to torture you, I could without consequence. We both know that.” Maverick’s gaze met his and stayed there. “Should anything happen, no one will fight the vampires harder than you.”
Silas didn’t doubt it, and yet . . .
He didn’t know which was worse: the shock of fury he felt at the prospect of Maverick toying with him or the pity which now softened the packmaster’s features. Silas scowled again.
The pity. Definitely the pity.
“I understand it won’t be easy for you, but I won’t trust anyone else with it.”
Silas scoffed, starting to rise from his chair. “You don’t trust me either.”
“That’s the whole goddamn point,” Maverick growled, baring his teeth in return. “Sit down, warrior.” He nodded to the armchair again.
Silas felt himself hesitate, but reluctantly, he did, though fuck if he knew why.
Maybe to prove he wasn’t the enemy he’d once been.
Maverick watched him for a long beat, eyeing him like he couldn’t get a read on him. “If you expect to be a part of this pack, you’re going to learn that trust isn’t given. It’s earned.” Maverick met his gaze. “And this is your chance to earn mine.”
Silas shook his head again. “Wes once warned me you’d do this. Said you’d test me.”
“And what else did my second say?” Maverick frowned.
“That if I didn’t follow through, it’d be my life.”
For a moment, Maverick didn’t deign to answer, until finally he said, “I’m offering you a life, Silas. A different one than you have now. A better one. A chance for you to be a part of this pack.” Maverick cleared his throat. “Take it or leave it.”
Silas blew out a long breath before raking his hand over his beard. What was a few hours? A day spent haunted by his past? Would there even be a difference?
He already lived side by side with his ghosts. What was one day more?
“Fuck.” His jaw clenched. “When do we leave?”
“Tonight.” Maverick reached inside his desk drawer. “It shouldn’t take more than a few hours. The pack leaves for our yearly shift-and-run to Bozeman first thing in the morning. You’ll need to be back by then or the whole pack won’t be together on Christmas.”
Silas lifted a brow.
“It’s tradition,” Maverick said.
Tradition. Christmas. Of course. All his misery linked back to this godforsaken holiday.
“So that’s it then? Follow the pack’s mechanic to Missoula and play bodyguard?”
“And then you’ll have started to earn my trust, and the pack’s too.” Maverick tossed him the keys to one of the pack’s many trucks. “And Silas,” Maverick gave him a pointed look. “I expect you to take good care of her.”
Her?
Silas was about to ask which her Maverick meant, before the door to the packmaster’s office flew open, bringing with it a gust of cold wind, and from the way his wolf suddenly stirred to attention . . .
No. Fuck no. Absolutely not.
Anyone but her.
Immediately, a flash of fiery red hair caught his attention, and then as if a ray of sunshine and warmth had whipped through him, the scent of sugar cookies hit his nose like a force. Like someone had dangled a whole damn tray beneath his wolf muzzle until all that he smelled, all that he tasted was vanilla, sugar, and the smallest hint of peppermint.
Enough to make him salivate.
Silas pressed his lips into a hard line, feeling his jaw grind stone, even as his cock gave an eager jerk. Suddenly, the words “take good care of her” made more sense.
Because Cheyenne Morgan, Grey Wolf—and apparently the pack’s only mechanic—was not for him. She was one the pack’s most beloved females. To appearances, a tender-hearted she-wolf, adored by all and coveted by even more. Gorgeous. Sweet. Brilliantly smart. A beautifully scattered, head-in-the-clouds dreamer, if he were the kind of wolf who bought into that whole adorably naïve bit. Even now, as she strolled into the room, she didn’t seem to be paying attention to what was two feet in front of her, because why bother to look where she was going when the whole of the pack was always there to catch her?
It should have made him sick.
No one was that nice, that kind. Not unless they wanted something.
But what he thought didn’t matter.
Because the whole pack believed it.
And if the fact she was the pack’s smiling ray of red-headed sunshine wasn’t enough to keep him away, the unfortunate truth that she’d once saved his life would have been. No one did anyone any favors. Especially him. Not without a price.
And that didn’t sit well with him.
Because he wanted her, badly, and he hated it. Almost as much as he didn’t trust her.
And it was at that moment, thanks to her daydreaming, that she literally fell into his lap.
Or sat there, by accident, as it were.
Fuck.
2
From the moment Cheyenne entered Maverick’s office, she knew something was different. She was hyper-aware of that kind of thing. Light, sound, textures. Sensory details. The Christmas decorations, she’d expected, of course. They were there every year. Routine. Dependable. But what caught her attention was that her armchair had been moved further to the right, away from the fireplace, to where she could no longer see the empty cushion that waited there, and now, instead of the soft creak of old cushions as she flopped down, a harsh, grumbling growl rumbled against her ear.
A shiver shot down her spine.
Oh no.
Cheyenne’s eyes went wide.
She was sitting on someone.
Touching someone, and she hadn’t had time to prepare.
She cringed. This was bad. So so bad. Like when she was five and her mother had forced her to sit on Santa’s lap at that horrible human mall for a picture bad. As she turned, she didn’t need to see who she’d sat on to know exactly who she’d find there. Now that she was aware of him, she could tell by his smell, the feel, the sheer solid size of where he was pressed against her. She’d memorized all the details. Intimately.
Cheyenne’s breath caught as her eyes locked with Silas’. “You’re not Santa.”
Silas growled, teeth bared. “No.”
“You’re in my seat.” She looked toward him again, before quickly glancing away. Eye contact wasn’t her forte. It always felt like she was staring someone down, instead of being polite like the other packmembers would say.
And this someone was clearly not pleased with her.
She could tell that much.
“Your seat?” Silas lifted a brow. His hands clenched the edge of the old armchair, so hard his knuckles had turned white, but she couldn’t tell whether he was angry or . . . she didn’t know.
