Wild Wolf: Black Mesa Wolves #4 by J.K. Harper Page B

“What if actually we don't know every wolf who lives near us?”
    Kieran flipped his high beams on and off at an oncoming car whose own brights were still on. “The only ones that could ever be anywhere near that we didn't know or couldn't find out about would be rogues. And she can't be a rogue.”
    Only male wolves were rogues. They took unwilling female wolves to mate and start new, desperate packs.
    “No, of course not a rogue.” Lily turned her head toward her brother in the back seat. “Tate. How much do you know about wild wolves?”
     
    ***
     
    Melle sat patiently at the old ruin, waiting for her daughter. Claire wiggled and danced and pranced as she ran up to and around her, touching noses and rubbing her head along the face of the wolf who had birthed and raised her.
    “I've missed you.” Wolves didn't speak like humans did, but their own method of speaking, mostly with body language, made them very clear to one another.
    “I knew that. I felt you needing me from far away.”
    Ever since Melle had left, she and Claire had shared what was close to a psychic bond. Claire didn't begin to understand it, but she accepted it without question. When she was particularly sad, or lonely, or simply deeply missing the one and only wolf who'd been a constant in her life, her thoughts somehow alerted Melle, who always came. It might not be for weeks or even a few months, but she always returned to the canyons when her daughter needed her.
    “Play?” Claire asked. Before Melle could answer, Claire darted away, leaping behind a low wall made by long-dead human hands.
    With the wolfish equivalent of a laugh, Melle gave chase. They raced down hills, behind small pinyon trees, beneath the cliff walls with the old designs and markings on them made by the people who once called this place their home. The moonlight chased them as well, slowly arcing its way westward.
    After a long time of enjoying racing around, Claire finally stopped, settling atop a small hillside that gave them a view of the canyons and valleys stretching out around them. Melle sat beside her, nose tipped into the air, sniffing.
    “They're not here any longer. Good.” Despite these words, Melle still surveyed the wide spaces around them for any hint of danger.
    “I haven't scented them for a long time now.” Claire wrinkled her nose, baring her teeth a little. Strange wolves had wandered her canyons for some time earlier this year. She'd discovered from the alpha of the local pack that they'd been rogue wolves who might have unpleasant intentions for her if they ever found her. “They never bothered me, anyway. You told me to always cover my scent. I still do.”
    “Rogues are smart because they are desperate,” Melle reminded her. “Never forget that.”
    “Never.” Claire lightly shoulder-bumped the other wolf. “You taught me well.”
    Melle settled into the earth, laying her head on her paws as she kept half her watchful attention on the landscape around them. The rest of her focus was on her daughter.
    “So. Tell me why I came all the way here to you.”
    Taking a deep breath, Claire told her about her progress on her book and her most recent reading. Then, still quivering with the intensity of it, she told her about meeting Tate. Not all the details, of course. Wolf or not, she wasn't going to share that much with her mother. But Melle would figure it out anyway.
    “I've never felt that way before,” Claire concluded. “He's somehow part of me? But I don't understand.” Even just thinking about him brought a shiver of anticipation to her fur, rippling down along her spine. “I want to be with him. I almost want to go to his pack and find him and talk to him more.”
    She paused, but Melle patiently waited.
    “But my human wants him to find me instead. To prove something.” Aggravated, she whined. Her human laughed deep inside her, though a note of wariness was shot through the sound.
    “Your human is too bound by thoughts,”