by Maddy Barone
Wobbling, like a stupid townsman who’d had too much whiskey, he turned to face the enemy.
There were two coming toward him with stealthy care. He thought there might be a third hanging back.
The men stopped three yards away. Cole’s snarl was weak. “Damn it,” said one, a quaver in his voice. “I thought he was supposed to be asleep by now.”
“He’s not a regular wolf,” the second man said coolly. “The tranq must not be strong enough.”
“Give him more!”
“And kill him? The President would be a bit miffed with us.”
Even through his blurred vision, Cole saw the first man pale.
“We gotta do something!”
“We wait. He’s about ready to go down now.”
He was. Cole backed up one wavering step at a time, focusing all his willpower on staying on his feet.
The cooler of the men narrowed his eyes at Cole. “Don’t move, Wolfy. Jack, shoot him in the leg.”
From further behind the two men, Cole saw the dull gleam of a rifle barrel. There was a third man. He dodged the bullet but the effort sent him nose first into the muddy grass. The sound of the shot was oddly muffled. Even so, Omaha was only two miles away. The shot would have been heard on the wall. Human ears might not have heard it, but his kinsmen would have. Someone would come to help. He just had to hold them off that long. He just had to get up and back away. Come on, he told himself. Get one leg under you. Come on. Do it. Do it!
But he couldn’t. His head was too heavy to hold up. With an inner scream of protest, he rolled onto his side and put his head down. Just for a second, he told himself. Just one second of rest and then he would get up.
But he didn’t. As if the noise were coming from a long, long tunnel, he heard the men approach.
“Got him!” said one.
“Jack, bring up the cage,” said another. “Let’s get him loaded up and get the hell out of here. The Prez will be damned happy to have something to trade for his daughter. Just hope the wolves will trade.”
“Why wouldn’t they? The girl can’t be as important to them as one of their own.”
Gina! And then Cole heard nothing.
****
“Ladies.”
The Limit’s housekeeper clapped her hands to get their attention. Gina stood between Rose and Carla in the private dining room adjacent to the kitchen.
“We must make an exact account of every food item we have in the house, right down to the last teaspoon of salt. As a restaurant, the city council is allowing us higher rations than private households, but we must know what we have. We don’t know how long the siege will last so we have to make our rations stretch as far as they will go. Does everyone have their notebook and pen? Very good, then, let’s get to work making lists of everything we have.”
Gina went into the pantry armed with her notebook and pen and began measuring the dry goods. Last night Cole had assured her the mayor had made plans for gathering food so that Omaha would be well supplied when President Todd came. She became more and more nervous as she measured and weighed the flour, sugar, and other dry goods. Would there be enough to last through a siege? She hadn’t gone hungry even once her life. Unless something changed, it looked like she would be hungry soon. So would everyone else in Omaha. If food supplies got low, who would be given priority? The soldiers would have to eat to be strong enough to fight. What about the patients in the hospital? Sick people needed healthy food to get better. A long time ago, she had heard that her stepfather had cut supplies off to hospitals. He thought sick people were a liability, and food was given to those whose work was critical to his empire. Feeling sick, she toiled on in the pantry until supper time.
Patia returned to the Limit just as the restaurant opened its doors to supper guests. There were few. The waitresses took orders and served food. Since only a couple of the tables were occupied, Carla, Patia, Rose, and Gina took one of the little tables. Two of the men from the Pack sat at a table close by. At a more distant table three men were obviously and loudly disgusted by the size of their supper portions.
“There was a time when a man could actually leave here full,” grumbled one.
“But it tastes good.” That voice seemed to make an effort to be positive. “And everyone will be eating a little less for a while. We should enjoy this while we can.”
The first man pushed his plate away with a curse. “I want to talk to the manager.”
The two men who’d escorted Patia home stood up. Their dark eyes fixed on the whiner. “You got something you want to complain about?”
He looked up at them and something in his face shifted. His forehead glowed with sudden sweat. “No. I guess I was just blowing off steam.” He nodded enthusiastically. “I guess we just better plan to eat small for a while.”
“That’s right.” His companion nodded. “We are all in this together.”
As Gina helped with dishes later, she thought about what Omaha could expect in the next few days or weeks. Hungry people were desperate, and desperate people do stupid things. She hoped this whole thing would be wrapped up soon.
She got ready for bed alone. Last night Cole had been with her. She loved making love with him. She loved the way he held her afterward just as much. Maybe he would’ve held anyone his wolf chose with the same tenderness, but she wanted that tenderness to be just for her. If she wasn’t his mate, would he still treat her the same way? She hoped so. The bed seemed cold and empty without him. Wasn’t that stupid? They’d only spent a few nights together, but already not having him there seemed wrong. She wanted all of this to be over so she could go to his home and start a new life there with him. In spite of her worry, she fell asleep thinking of that new life.
She woke in confusion. The sun was already gleaming weakly through the curtain when someone pounded on her door. Patia’s voice called, “Gina? Gina, come quick. Something awful has happened!”
Gina’s heart leaped into her throat and stayed there the entire time while she threw on her clothes and ran out of her room. The hall was dark. Patia grabbed her arm and rushed her down the stairs, through the kitchen where breakfast was being prepared, to the restaurant’s empty dining room. Dim light coming through the lacy curtains cast eerie shadows over a handful of people. Taye was there, face as hard and grim as stone. His arm was around his wife, and only when he glanced down at her did his face soften slightly. Carla’s cheeks gleamed with tears, but her lips were pressed firmly together. Rose leaned her back against the edge of a table, her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl on her face. Sky looked about as happy as Taye. He turned when she and Patia came in.
She forced her voice to be calm. “What happened? Are we under attack?”
“Not exactly.” Taye reached his free hand to touch her shoulder. “Cole has been captured.”
Cold swallowed her. “Captured?” she echoed. Her heart turned to lead. “By my stepfather?”
“His people,” Taye said gently.
The cold reached her heart, coating the lead with ice. “Is he alive?”
“Yeah.” Taye squeezed her shoulder. “It will be alright.”
She jerked her head from side to side. “No,” she whispered. “It won’t.”
Taye folded Gina in a fatherly embrace. “Yes, it will. We’ll get him back.”
For a moment she let herself believe it. But her mother’s husband would never release his prize. A wolf shifter was too unique to give up. Todd would perform tests on him to find out all he could about his shifting abilities before finally killing him to dissect him. If Cole was lucky, he would be dead before the dissection began. She stepped back from Taye and regarded him numbly.
“My stepfather will never let him go.”
Taye glanced over her at Sky. “Then we’ll take him back.”
Sky nodded and glanced at the window. “It’s time to go.”
“Go where?” Gina asked.
“To the wall,” her father-in-law replied. “They’re br
inging Cole out so we have proof he’s alive.”
Her heart sank. That meant her stepfather wanted something.
“Patia and Rose will stay here,” Taye said in a tone that made Gina realize where Cole got his bossy ways. “Carla and Gina are mother and mate. They will come.”
She went to get her coat and joined the rest of them in their cold walk to the wall around Omaha. They climbed steps to a ledge that ran along the inside of the wall near the top. The dozen men already there squeezed back to let them pass. They could look out over the top of the wall but their bodies remained safely protected.
The mayor was already there. He greeted them pleasantly, but she could see the strain in the lines around his mouth. He jerked his chin to indicate the area outside the wall. “They’re out there.”
Gina stood on tiptoes to look out. In the glare of the early morning sun she saw only an indistinct line of people standing quite a distance from the wall before Taye gently pulled her back.
“Don’t show yourself,” he cautioned.
He and Sky stepped in front of her, solidly blocking her from looking out.
Carla lopped her arm through Gina’s. “Did you see him?” she said.
“No,” she whispered. “I didn’t have enough time to get a good look.”
Her mother-in-law smiled. “No use whispering.” She nodded at her husband and Sky. “They can hear us no matter how quiet we are.”
Mayor McGrath drawled, “Is that a white flag? I believe it is. Should we accept their surrender?” His dark chuckle said he knew Kansas-Missouri wasn’t surrendering. “What the f—” He broke off with a quick glance over his shoulder at Gina and Carla. “I wonder what on earth they want.”
Taye spoke, and Gina thought his words were more for the women behind him than for the mayor. “There are a dozen men standing in a line just out of gunshot range. One of them is Cole. He doesn‘t look injured, but he is being held up by a man on either side of him. Either he is too weak to stand on his own or he is ill.”
Carla’s hand tightened on Gina’s arm, but she said nothing. Gina herself wanted to push her way to the wall and look for herself. She stiffened her spine and kept quiet.
Taye went on. “Two men are coming closer. They have a stick with a white cloth tied to the end.”
“Parley,” said McGrath. He raised his voice. “Let them come closer.”
After a moment, the mayor shouted again, more loudly. “That’s close enough, gentlemen. What can I do for you this fine spring day?”
“We come on behalf of His Excellency, President Gerald Todd of Kansas-Missouri.”
“Oh,” the mayor murmured as if to himself. “I was wondering who was running around out there.”
Gina blinked. Wasn’t he taking this seriously?
He raised his voice again. “And?”
“The president has one of your people in his custody. He offers a trade. Send out his daughter and he will release your man.”
Gina’s hands clenched. It was her worst nightmare. She’d been afraid of it from the minute Patia had woken her. Her breath went out of her, leaving her cold and light headed.
“And who would that be?” the mayor boomed. “Is that him, held up by two of your men? I can’t tell, since my eyes aren’t what they were. Let him come right up so we can get a good look.”
“I want to see,” Gina hissed.
The two broad backs in front of her tensed, and after a minute, they parted a few inches so she could peer between their shoulders.
“Can I get closer?” she asked.
Another pause, before Sky and Taye moved closer to the edge. She stuck to them like a burr, one hand on each of their shoulders. She took a deep breath and stood on tiptoes to look over the parapet. Three figures walked toward the wall. Well, two were walking. One was stumbling between the other two, held by his arms. He was naked except for a blue cloth tied around his hips. His head drooped, his black hair hanging over his eyes, but Gina recognized him.
“Cole,” she whispered.
She didn’t see any blood on him, but the way he weaved on his feet said he wasn’t well. What had Todd done to him? He lifted his head and squinted up at the wall. There were no bruises on his face, but even at a distance of twelve feet she could see that his face was slack, his eyes unfocused.
A signal must have been given, because the two men dragged Cole back.
“Alright,” shouted the Kansas-Missouri man. “You’ve seen him. Send Miss Todd out and we’ll release your man. Do we have a deal?”
“Yes,” Gina shouted.
But her voice cracked in the middle of it and turned to a croak. Taye didn’t glance over his shoulder as he said, “No,” quietly but very, very firmly.
Her hand clenched on his shoulder. “I have to. You don’t know what they’ll do to him.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
He and Sky stepped backward, forcing her to back up too. Carla grabbed her arm again. “Did you see him?”
“Yeah. He looks okay. Not hurt. Just sort of unfocused, like he’s been drugged.”
Carla’s eyebrows pinched together, digging the groove between them deeper. She glanced at her husband, but he was still facing away from them, looking out over the wall.
“Taye,” Gina said, but he held a hand up and tilted his head toward McGrath.
The mayor called, “We need some time to discuss this. Come back tomorrow.”
“No. You have one hour.”
The mayor turned away and went down the steps to the city. Sky followed him. Taye waved Carla and Gina to go next. Gina hurried down the stairs, preparing her arguments. Taye didn’t give her a chance to make them. As soon as they were on the ground, he put his hands on her shoulders and made her look at him.
“No, Gina. Do you think Colby would want to have his life at the cost of yours?”
She ignored Mayor McGrath, who had turned to them. “They won’t kill me,” she said.
“You are my daughter, my son’s mate, and a woman of my Pack. It is for me to keep you safe.”
“But―”
Taye remained gentle but firm. “No.” He looked over her shoulder at McGrath. “The answer is no. We will make no trade.”
The mayor was sober faced. “Are you sure? He’s your son.”
“Colby would rather die than have his mate returned to a man who doesn’t treat her with the respect and honor she deserves. I will protect her while he can’t.”
Gina opened her mouth to scream at him, but Carla caught her arm. Her face was twisted with grief. Gina drew a breath and changed tactics. “Please,” she begged Taye. “We can’t just leave Cole with them.”
He patted her shoulder. “This is war. Sometimes we have no choice. ”
“But…”
His face was like granite. “I don’t want my son to die, but I will not give you up.”
Sky escorted Carla and Gina back to the Limit and then left, probably to rejoin Taye and McGrath. A few of the men from the Pack remained at the house as guards but most were gone to carry out the duties assigned them. Gina sat in the dining room, counting the minutes and then the hours, waiting for Taye to come and tell her he’d changed his mind and had a plan to get Cole back.
Carla sat at the table with Gina, mending a pair of jeans. Tension showed in the way she yanked the thread through the fabric with increasing jerkiness. Patia repeatedly asked to be taken to the hospital, but Running Fox, the man left in charge at the house, refused to let her leave. Rose somehow managed to look both serene and concerned while knitting a sock. Gina was sure she herself looked like she was ready to punch something, which was exactly how she felt. With no handwork to keep herself busy, she drummed her fingers on the table.
Lunchtime came and went with still no word. Finally, Carla held her mending up, showing a pair of jeans with a knife sheath now neatly attached to the inside.
“For you,” she said, tossing them to Gina. “Let’s all go out to the patio and practice our knife
work. You too, Patia.”
It was good to be moving in the chilly air. Gina wasn’t nearly as smooth and confident with her blade as Rose, Carla, and Patia, but she knew she was better than the first time she had picked up a knife. Wouldn’t her stepfather be surprised by her increasing proficiency? Surprised? More like horrified. She bared her teeth in a smile at the thought.
Her body slowed as a new thought came to her. She knew how to set Cole free. All she needed to do was get out of Omaha and into her stepfather’s camp. Taye would never let her go, but maybe .... She turned to her mother-in-law and blurted out her plan.
“No.” Carla’s voice was as firm as her husband’s. She looked away from Gina and sheathed her knife. “I will not tell the gate guards to let you leave. Taye would never forgive me. Even if you managed to free Colby, he wouldn’t forgive me either. Taye will make a plan to rescue Colby.”
“But not in time!” Gina looked imploringly at Rose and Patia. They appeared sympathetic, but not encouraging. She turned back to her mother-in-law. “Carla, do you know what Todd will do to him? He’ll study him. Maybe stab him to see how quickly he will heal or cut off a finger or two to see if they grow back.”
Carla shuddered visibly. “I can’t,” she said, slightly less firmly.
“Please,” Gina begged. “Please, just go to one of those little gates Cole told me about and tell the wolf on guard to let me out. I can go to the camp and let Cole go before he gets experimented on.”
Carla pressed a fist to her mouth. “Even if you made it to camp, how could you set Colby free? There will be guards.”
“I know where they’ll keep Cole, and I know where the guards will be.” Gina tilted her knife so the weak March light gleamed along its edge. “I’m not very good with this yet, but I know where to stab a man now.” She looked at Rose. “You can drill me in it again. We have time since I can’t leave until dark.”
