Hunting Wolf: Black Mesa Wolves #3 Read Free

could get. But that comment about dresses cut deep. She let a short burst of not-very-nice laughter escape.
    “What?” His voice sounded a bit aggrieved, yet it had dropped an octave lower. Clearly his wolf paced just below the surface.
    Rielle's own small, dark wolf flashed through her mind, unhappy yet oddly intrigued, before Rielle dispelled it. The faintest edge of guilt made her voice whip out, sharp rather than sorry. “There's no such word as 'sensical.' It's 'nonsensical,'” she said. “Or maybe you meant 'sensible.'”
    One look at his face as soon as she loosed those tiny, mean barbs, and she wanted to crawl into the deepest, darkest, nastiest pit on earth, where she obviously belonged.
     
    ~
     
    Caleb knew every single thought in his brain ticked over his face in a nanosecond. He was a hell of a card player, but he'd never once been able to maintain a poker face around cute little Rielle Amoux. Something about her always made him feel sort of...exposed. It sure was a good thing he hardly ever saw her. She never came to the den. For a shifter, Ree didn't seem to want to hang out with her own kind all that much.
    Right now, that suited him fine. From her widened eyes and paling face, he was pretty sure she wanted to stuff her own words back into her mouth. Whatever. They were just words. The only thing that could really hurt were claws, jaws, and lethal paws. His private mantra boosted him back to a level where he thought he could speak without something in his voice betraying him. Growling in assent, his wolf lashed an irate tail.
    There was a note of confusion in there as well, though. Caleb thought he sensed searching. His wolf searching for Rielle's wolf? But she was right there. Ignoring his wolf's doubt, he plunged forward like he usually did. Keep it light, and slightly off point so as to confuse the enemy.
    Rielle is not enemy, his wolf thought. She is Pack.
    Caleb ignored that and shook himself. Smile, bluff, repeat. It always worked.
    “No hard feelings, Rielle, okay?” He worked hard to keep his voice bland. “I know your store is special to you.”
    Despite the upset still written all over her, she wrinkled her brow a little. Good. She was confused at his swift, tactical change of attitude.
    “I just meant that with the rogues showing up and attacking Black Mesa Wolves”—he could feel the thundercloud darken his face as he thought of his own brother, almost killed by the rogues now twiddling their useless thumbs in the holding cells in the den's basement—“we've got a lot to worry about. And if you're focused so much on your store, you might not be paying attention to rogues who want to drag you off for who knows what reasons. That's all I was trying to say.”
    She was kind of adorable when she was alarmed. It set off his protective instincts so strongly he had to shove his wolf down. Even so, he knew that wild edge lit up his eyes. Besides, that was wrong to think that way. Right? He didn't want her to be alarmed so he could feel protective about her. He didn't want her to be—anything.
    His wolf whined.
    Now he was confusing not only Rielle, but himself. Time to pull out the big guns and get this conversation back on track. Despite being a honed fighting machine, Caleb knew a thing or two about the ladies: When in doubt, grovel.
    “Or, you know.” He grinned his best grin at her, the one that usually made girls smile. “Thinking about your store all the time means you wouldn't be paying attention to big doofuses who run you over right in the middle of the sidewalk.”
    Bingo. A shadow of a smile tugged at the corners of her lips. It was small, but he'd take it.
    “I'm sorry,” she began. He cut her off with a casual wave of his hand. He noticed he was barely inches away from her. Was that really good spicy-sweet smell coming from her?
    Yes, pig, he thought at himself. It's her shampoo. Never notice a sweet-smelling girl before?
    Pig? His wolf gave a long-suffering growl.
    Caleb