by Penny Alley
Guilt washed over her, making the truth impossible to confess.
Eventually, the Alpha got tired of waiting. “A good Bride is ever obedient to her husband’s rule,” he finally said, and stood. “For as long as I have known you, little Neoma, you have practiced the traits of being a very good Bride. Perhaps the fault is mine. I did, after all, give you to this man, this traitor. Still, we are all adults, are we not? We must take responsibility for our actions. This lapse in judgment cannot go unaddressed.”
The smell of damp earth and rotting leaves laced every frightened gasp she managed. Dread quivered her, otherwise she couldn’t move. She wasn’t sure she would have even if someone were not standing on her neck.
“Whip her,” he at last decided, and walked away.
Neoma lost every ounce of breath she’d been hording, terrified disbelief combining in the wild ringing that filled her ears. She couldn’t hear anything else. Just the ringing, and then the chinks as multiple buckles unfastened and worn leather hissed out of pant loops. The boot left the back of her neck, and for one frozen second in time, Neoma had a choice: submit or try to run. Her shaky exhale shuddered the dead leaves, but Neoma didn’t move. Then they were on her, a brutal storm of snapping belts that rained down, striking everywhere at once—her shoulders and back, her cheek, scrambling legs, even the bottoms of her feet. They branded her in welts and fire until she screamed. Until her voice cracked and her blood ran, tickling everywhere it dripped, flung by each impact until it sprayed the leaf litter. She could not hold sill, despite her best intentions and all her resolve, but she could not run either. Scotty. He was her only thought, his name lighting up in her heart and mind with every crack of every belt. Scotty.
“Enough,” Deacon called.
The storm ceased, leaving Neoma writhing in the dirt, each breath a gasping whimper. Everything hurt. She throbbed, burning as though doused in fire, willing the agony away, but it refused to go.
The throb of each new welt pulling across her skin, she dragged her arms and legs in under her and tried to rise. Part way up, her stomach rebelled and she vomited in the dirt between her hands.
The ice blue of his eyes darkening with cool calculation, the Alpha Deacon studied her in silence. Motioning to the soldiers nearest her, he ordered, “Stand her up.”
Two sets of hands grabbed her arms. One still clutched his belt, stained red with her blood. The length of it knocked into the welts down her side as she was dragged to her feet. Pain flared so bright it was almost blinding, but still Neoma managed to get her legs under her. She shook, though nowhere near so badly as when the Alpha’s gaze slid to the wailing baby, held by loyal soldier Lyman, a volka with seven children of his own and the drawn blade of his hunting knife already in his hand.
Without expression, Lyman waited until Deacon gestured him forward. With gentle hands, he drew Scotty into the cradle of his arms and her buckling knees nearly went out from under her.
“No,” she begged, the rising swell of tears blurring them together.
“Shh, shh,” he soothed, his gaze never leaving her as he rocked and swayed and gradually walked the baby back to her. “Healthy lungs on this one. That must be your good genes contributing. Too bad the other half of him stems from a traitor.”
Her hands itched, but Neoma didn’t dare snatch. She waited, shaking with pain, anxiety crawling through her veins, until her Alpha deemed her punished enough. A knowing smile curling his handsome mouth, he offered the baby back to her. Neoma couldn’t help snatching then. Holding him quickly became agony, his minor weight almost more than she could cling to.
“Pay attention, Neoma,” he said, tapping a finger lightly upon the baby’s nose. On the other side of the crashed truck, Matson whined as, drawing a hunting knife of his own, Deacon started toward him. “I should hate to have to teach this lesson more than once.”
Ignoring the pain, Neoma’s arms tightened around her infant son and, from first cut to last, dared not look away. Not even during the worst of it when they peeled her husband out of his pelt.
For the rest of her life, she would remember how Deacon had watched her, the cold of his eyes never once leaving hers. She would remember the shame of simply standing there, helpless and shaking and bleeding, until those awful cries fell silent. She would remember the guilt and the horror, and the way her Alpha patted her cheek once it was over, his once more gentle hand coated in blood and fur.
“Forgive my severity,” he’d said with a smile, tiny laugh lines crinkling the corners of his eyes.
Those memories fed her nightmares damn near every night.
CHAPTER ONE
Five years later…
“No!” Neoma bolted upright on the old army cot that had been her bed for four days now. Her heart thundered in the back of her throat. Sweat that had nothing to do with the heat of the day or lack of airflow within the army surplus tent, beaded her brow. She gasped once, swallowing back the rest of her cries while the remnants of her dream faded and the sights and sounds of where she actually was filtered back into awareness.
It was broad daylight and the next to last day of the Bridal Hunt that had brought the Scullamy volka out of their city, over the mountains and all the way to Hollow Hills. It had been a stressful four days. She was exhausted, hungry and her nerves were frayed. They frayed even more when she glanced at the cot beside hers and found it empty.
“Scotty!” Neoma fell over her worn shoes in the haste to get out of bed. She hit the tent flap, throwing it out of the way and startling the two women sitting in lawn chairs just outside. Both were young, with young children beside them: one had a toddler gripping onto her fingers, taking practice steps; the other, a frilly-dressed infant not quite able to sit up by herself. As close as the women were to Neoma’s own age, it was unlikely either child was their first, but young as they were, the Alpha Deacon would have made certain there were no mothers younger than this here. He was always cautious about the image Scullamy presented when the alphas of other packs were near.
Caught staring, the women quickly looked away, as if the social taint that had covered Neoma these last five years might somehow spread to them.
Neoma looked away too. She reined in her panic, schooling her expression to show none of what she really felt. What they thought of her wasn’t important anyway. Scotty was all that mattered, and right now, finding him mattered most of all.
The happy squeal of playing children pulled her attention out of the campground section Scullamy had claimed on Hollow Hills’ North Ridge. Nine packs had answered the call for a Bridal Hunt. Scullamy sat apart from them, the way Scullamy always stayed apart. But although there were no fences or razor wire here, everywhere Neoma looked it was still a prison. Guards patrolled, either alone or in casual-seeming pairs, along an invisible perimeter. But nothing was casual here. One had to be constantly aware of who was watching, who was listening, and who might be carrying tales back to Deacon’s ever twitching ears.
She had to find Scotty, before someone with eyes, ears and a wagging tongue noticed she wasn’t close by.
Putting her shoes on at the door, she tugged her t-shirt down over baggy jeans and knotted her hair in a ponytail so no one would be able to see how unbrushed it was. Their first night here, she’d traded her mother’s pearl-backed hairbrush for two corndogs once the rations had all been distributed and she realized she and Scotty wouldn’t be getting any. Neoma didn’t know why she was being punished again so soon. Oh, she knew why she deserved it, but if Deacon knew, the consequences would have been much worse than starvation. So, perhaps being out of the compound reminded him of the last time she’d escaped his reach—that one and only time five years ago. Or maybe it was Scotty, that constant reminder of the volka who had betrayed him. Or perhaps the Alpha Deacon was simply be in a mood to see her suffer. He often liked to do that.
In the last year especially, starvation had become his favorite method for reminding her how low in the social order she had fallen. It was a
n insidious punishment, as subtle as it was constant and gnawing. Perfect for public places, for who outside the Scullamy pack would even notice she wasn’t eating? And how long was it going to last this time—the duration of the trip, a week…forever? She honestly didn’t know, but thin to the point of gauntness already, neither she nor her son could afford to miss many meals.
But, Deacon didn’t know yet. If she was successful, he wouldn’t find out what she’d done until it was far too late to stop it. That was a mighty big ‘if’ though. One that was progressively making it harder for her to sleep.
Wending her way through the tight cluster of tents, Neoma avoided as many people as she could. Tainted as she was, no one would stop her or talk to her anyway. At least, that was what she thought, right up until she passed the last circle of tents before she reached the edge of the perimeter and old Elda Cullington—half blind, mostly toothless, still better fed than Neoma—looked up from her camp cookstove and the percolator of coffee she was tending for the sentries and said, “Heading out?”
Not unlike a rabbit confronted by a fox, Neoma froze. Why was Elda talking to her? Why was she looking at her, her rheumy gray eyes piercing her just a little too directly? She had to work to keep her voice every bit as casual as Elda’s question had been. “Just looking for Scotty.”
“Out playing tag n’ tackle with the other pups.” Elda nodded in the direction of the distant laughing shrieks. She stirred the coffee. “The Alpha was looking for you. I told him you were sleeping. He gazed on you for a while, then left again.”
It was too hot a summer’s day for the kind of cold that crept into her. “What did he want?”
“What does he always want with you?” Tapping the spoon twice against the side of the tin percolator, Elda looked at her again and waited.
Neoma’s mind raced. Did he know? The cold inside her spread. Wouldn’t he have wakened her if he did? “Thank you,” she whispered, and walked away from Elda just as quickly as her increasingly unsteady legs would let her. She had to find Scotty. She had to find him now.
Eyes were on her when she crossed the perimeter. She felt them the moment she left the Scullamy camp in favor of the carnival-like atmosphere the volka of Hollow Hills had provided. Food vendors were spaced all over the field, selling everything from elephant ears to onion bloomers, and even bacon-wrapped possum on a stick. A lot of people had tried those. She’d been rescuing partial portions from the garbage cans for days, but it was broad daylight now and too dangerous to go digging through the trash. It wasn’t food she wanted now anyway. She folded her arms over her empty midriff and kept walking.
Brightly colored pennants circled the children’s section of the Ridge, where matron mamas from all the packs kept careful watch. Neoma didn’t trust any of them, but there was no denying no one approached that play area without being seen. Not even her, and that made her feel better. That meant no one—not even an alpha—would walk away with a pup that wasn’t theirs, not for any reason much less revenge.
Neoma circled the outer edge of the pennant-dotted ropes, searching among the volka children until she finally spotted the one she wanted. Just another tumbling body in the rowdy mosh of puppies running, wrestling, nipping and tugging at the faux fox tails that were their play toy of the minute, he barely twitched an ear when she called to him. “Scotty! Come on, time to go!”
“We’ve got him,” a nearby matron called back to her. “Go. Have fun. Enjoy yourself.”
Her closed expression did not match the friendliness of her tone. One didn’t have to look hard to see the insult—Scullamy bitch—lurking behind those shuttered eyes.
Her nerves were too frayed for this. The urge to cross under the ropes and fetch her son away was almost more than she combat. It would be seen if she did. It would be wondered at, too. She couldn’t afford for people to talk. She definitely couldn’t afford for him to wonder. And it wasn’t Scotty’s fault anyway. It had been a long bus ride over the mountains, culminating in four days of just sitting beside her. That was too much to expect of any five-year-old filled to the brim with too much energy and excitement, and too little understanding of the very real danger he lived in.
Hugging herself tighter, Neoma shivered, despite the midday heat beating down on her between shady spots in the canopy of so many giant evergreens. One more day. Then, with any luck, neither one of them would have to live this way any longer.
“Peaceful place, isn’t it?”
Neoma ceased to feel the sun’s heat. She felt the prickles moving up her back as, footsteps as soft as any predator, Deacon walked up to stand at the ropes beside her. He cast his cool gaze across the crowded fields, studying the children at play.
“Once upon a time, Scullamy used to be peaceful,” he said. “Of course, that was back before the chevolak stole our land and lumber rights, cut down our forest, built their Air Force base and their Walmart right on our doorstep.” The Alpha drew a heavy breath as he tilted his face to the sun, seeming to enjoy the softness of the noon breeze. He still looked like somebody’s grandfather. He still terrified the hell out of her. “Now, you cannot hike your leg without pissing on a human. Not so here. I like it here.”
Did he know? She gripped the pennant rope between her hands, fighting to control her shaking. Did he even suspect?
“You entered the Hunt,” Deacon said gently and reached up to twist a lock of hair from her ponytail around his finger.
All solidity went out of Neoma’s legs. She almost dropped to her knees, her heart in her throat and beating so hard she was certain he could hear it.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, forcing herself to summon air enough to speak the words. “It’s just I am so lonely.”
His eyes did not soften, despite the cloying sympathy of his tone. “Of course you are. A woman your age, raising a son alone—an ache for companionship is only natural. I wonder, though, why you made your mark upon the entry page instead of signing your name. One would think you might be trying to hide your participation.”
She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t breathe. She fought to keep her mask of calm. “I didn’t want to shame us.”
Rare surprise crossed his features. He tipped his head. “Explain.”
“I barely found the courage to enter.” She didn’t have to lie about that part.
“Ah,” he sighed. “And now having done so, you fear you may lack the courage to run.”
It was a poor excuse and a wonder he bothered to pretend he believed it. But, he did.
“You should have come to me. Asked my counsel.”
“The insecurities of one low woman hardly seem worth my Alpha’s time and attention,” she said, her heart racing. “Especially at a time like this.”
“The welfare of even the most insignificant of my pack is always worth my time and attention,” he lied. Turning to face her, he gave her no choice now but to look on him directly. His eyes did not warm, not even when he released her hair to cup her chin, briefly caressing the pad of his thumb down the curve of her cheek. “You, little Neoma, have never been among my insignificants. It is my failing, I suppose, that you do not know this.”
She swallowed hard, scrambling to find some way to answer that, but with a blink he abruptly turned away.
“Walk with me.”
It was not a request.
Legs wobbling, Neoma cast a last look back at Scotty only to spot Alaric on the far side of the children’s field. He was looking straight at her.
There were too many matron mamas from too many other packs for him to do anything and she knew it, but she felt the panic anyway. And still, when the Alpha walked away, she followed him. Away from the children’s section to the roped-off field where the bridal games were in aggressive play. The men had had their chance the day before. Today, it was the Brides’ turn and they were out in full pack force. Rough and tumble football was an easy means by which to display their strength, speed and ferocity, and no one was holding back. Even Joela, the Deacon’s daughte
r, was on the field. Her closest pack mates shielded her from the brunt of most tackles, helping her look her best. But then, Joela had always been beautiful—all long blonde hair, slender limbs, and high full breasts. To watch her, laughing and tossing her hair each time she brought a member of another pack to the ground, one would never suspect her of being anything but another prospective Bride, vying for the attentions of the alpha hosting this Hunt: none other than the Alpha of Hollow Hills itself. All Neoma could see, though, was Deacon. Every inch as ruthless as her father, Joela didn’t scare Neoma as much as he did.
“What are your thoughts on the Alpha Lauren?” Deacon asked unexpectedly.
Neoma glanced across the fairgrounds, past the games of ring toss, porta-potties and food vendors, back to where the Brides were competing and the crowd of prospective mates and their packs were thickest.
It was a good turnout for a Hunt. Males outnumbered the would-be Brides three-to-one, but it was the last day of the games. By morning those odds would grow even further apart with latecomers trickling in all through the night. The volka of Hollow Hills must be very proud to have so many other packs attending.
Among those gathered along the ropes, talking to two other males and watching the competing women from the corner of his eye, was the Alpha of Hollow Hills: Colton Lauren, dark hair, sun-bronzed skin, the honeyed-amber of his eyes missing nothing of the game taking place. Every inch of him was a male in his prime, practically poured into the tan Fish and Game uniform he wore. He seemed friendly enough, offering a word or a nod to just about everyone who stopped to speak with him. Each time his gaze found a Scullamy volka, however, the glimmer of open friendship in his eyes closed like the slamming of a physical door.
“He scares me,” she admitted. She didn’t have to lie about that either.
“That’s because he knows he will not hold his alphaship long enough to plant a pup in the belly of the bitch he Claims.” Deacon glanced across the field and, as if sensing his gaze, the Alpha Lauren turned to meet it. “Do you harbor hope that the bitch he Claims might be you?”
