Desert Wolf Read Online Free PDF Page A

had taken the largest hits. The wolf scowled at him, and Cassius smiled. Despite the ferocious glare, his scent didn’t grow aggressive. The other wolf wasn’t very good at hiding his scent markers.
    “Might have saved me more than one headache,” Quintero admitted with a grunt, then he sighed. “May I ask you a question?”
    “You may.” Didn’t mean he’d answer it. Leaning against the bike, he waited. The door to the mart opened, and Bianca returned. The steady tattoo of her boots on the concrete alerted him to her exact location. Garcia smiled and even Quintero’s expression lightened. Healers had that effect on even the sourest of dispositions.
    “Boys,” Bianca greeted them and handed a water bottle to Cassius, the cold a welcome sensation on his palm. “Are we behaving?”
    “Never,” Cassius answered before taking a long drink. Her hip brushing his, she settled in next to him against the bike. “Go on, Quintero. You had a question.”
    The other man exhaled. Unlike Garcia, Quintero was tall and a mixed-blood like Cassius. His swarthy skin could come from his Latino heritage or his Native American, while his bone structure was one hundred percent from his Slavic grandfather. “Bringing in an Omega to our pack, reaching out to Delta Crescent—others see it as a sign of weakness.”
    Finished with the water bottle, Cassius crushed it before tossing the trash into the receptacle. “Not a question.”
    “No, sir.” The sir seemed an afterthought, but since he, Jose and Cyril ran their first Reaping together, he could forgive him. In many ways, their relationship with him benefitted their families, so they had no reason to betray it.
    Yet.
    “Why are you bringing in an Omega?” Bold. Blunt. Straightforward. Good for him.
    Cassius allowed his lips to curl into a hint of a smile. “Because I want to.” Not the answer either man wanted to hear, yet the only one he planned to give them. “Phones on. Wait for my signal. Ten miles, not an inch closer, until I call you.”
    Straddling the bike, he handed Bianca her helmet. The healer tossed her trash into the can then slid the helmet over her head. The pair retreated, their unhappy grimaces reflecting their inner conflict. As long as they’d represented their families, one would think they would have learned to moderate their responses. Or maybe they didn’t feel the need to disguise their thoughts from him?
    Soon enough he’d know the truth for all of them, and then they could really get to work. Bianca settled behind him, then hooked two fingers through the belt loops on his jeans. The engine roared to life, and they were off. His phone buzzed in his pocket, a hint of a horn underscoring the vibration. The signal he’d given to the Hound.
    “Hold on,” he told Bianca. If the Omega was at the border, she was crossing into his territory, and he wanted to get to her welcome wagon before she did. Accelerating, he pushed his baby past the hundred mark as soon as they were on the highway.
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    “ S ovvan .” Faust’s curt tone followed by his grip on her thigh pulled her from sleep. Snapping her eyes open, she stared out at the darkness surrounding the vehicle. At some point, the sun had set and Faust pulled off the highway. “We’ve got company.”
    The plan called for meeting their escort outside of a town called Tucumcari, a set of GPS coordinates to a rest area off the main highway. Adrenaline flooded her drowsy system, and she rubbed her face as she got the seat upward. “Friend or foe?” She suspected the answer, otherwise Faust would have let her sleep and made them wait.
    “Not sure, but don’t like the look of how many there are.” He hadn’t dimmed his lights or come to a complete stop, instead he rolled forward at a slow pace. Ahead, she could see six—no, seven—men standing in a row, blocking the single lane where it looped toward the back of the rest area. No illumination came from the street lamps, so either they’d disabled