by Penny Alley
Wayman lay as he was, hands still displayed, his posture submissive until Gabe backed out of reach. The wolf was still very much in his eyes when he cocked another crooked smile and quipped, “I take it that’s a no, then, on my offer?”
Now he was going to choke him.
Gabe took a step, but Colton clamped a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. “The Bride has been Claimed,” he told Wayman. “The result of the Hunt stands, and you will not interfere in that.”
“I never said I would,” Wayman assured, careful to keep Colton between Gabe and himself as he climbed to his feet, brushing his hands off on his jeans. “Although, should your man choose to release her…”
“I’m not releasing anything,” Gabe snapped. The idea of having to take Neoma home with him made him feel physically ill, but he wasn’t about to let these two near one another when he didn’t know what they’d been whispering about out by the tent or why Wayman had stayed behind. Not for a second did he believe it could be anything as ridiculous as pravica do sre. But then, what kind of espionage did a place like Hollow Hills warrant?
Theirs was a sleepy little town—population, just under four hundred with a volka majority and only a handful of humans, trustworthy souls whose families had lived for generations tucked away in these remote hills. Most if not all had volka in their heritage somewhere. Maybe that was what Deacon wanted to know: how many people might be swayed to support being conquered by a stronger alpha, and how many would have to be culled once he took over.
Wayman shrugged, both with his smile and his eyebrows. “Don’t worry. You won’t need to tell me twice.” He turned back to Colton. “So, what’s your offer?”
Colton tipped his head. “Offer?” he echoed slowly.
“Recruitment bonus,” Wayman specified, flashing his teeth in a quick grin. “Deacon was going to give me a house, a car and the woman. All wrapped up in a nice little sign-on package.” He shrugged, letting everyone know he considered that dream as dissipated as the exhaust from Deacon’s bus. “Just wondering what the alpha of a place like this is willing to pay an able-bodied guy to join the hierarchy.”
His mouth flat and hard, Colton nodded once. “All right, fine. If you want a house, I suggest you get ahold of Mama Margo. She owns most of the rental property out here, but I recommend you have cash when you approach her. She doesn’t take credit. If you don’t have cash, then I suggest you get a job. I understand the feed store and gas station might be hiring.”
Wayman dropped his head. Hands on his hips, he laughed softly under his breath. “Yeah, all right.”
Closing the distance between them, Colton loomed over him. “Let’s get one thing straight. I am not Deacon. I don’t buy loyalty. You will give it because you want to live here and I am in charge, or you hit the road. Do you understand?”
“Sure.” Wayman flashed another crooked grin, sending Gabe’s already heightened irritation soaring. “Wouldn’t mind wearing a uniform. I don’t suppose Fish and Game is hiring?”
“Sorry,” Colton cut him off before Gabe could do more than open his mouth. No trace of apology anywhere in his tone, he said, “My hiring quota has been filled for the year. But like I said, the feed store might be hiring. If you need to use the company computer to brush up your resume, I’m willing to allow it. Did you hitchhike in?”
“No.” Wayman thumbed back toward the trash-strewn clearing now abandoned by the Scullamy. “My bike’s at the camp.”
“Follow us back to the office, then. You can sleep on a cot in the basement until you get on your feet. There’s an extra cot at the office. You can use it until you get a few paychecks under your belt, and then I expect you to get your own place.”
Laughing again under his breath, Wayman shook his head, scuffed the ground with the heel of his shoe, and then nodded. “You’re the boss,” he said, once more cracking that smirk Gabe was fast coming to hate. It was good that he was watching though, because if he’d blinked he’d have missed the glance Wayman shot the Scullamy woman when he turned to leave. It lasted only a second before she ducked her head, dropping her gaze to the ground. Whole worlds of information could be exchanged in a single look. Gabe didn’t know what Wayman’s had told her, but he knew what he wanted his to convey.
Neoma kept her head down until after the Scruffer was gone. But, tucking a stray lock of blonde hair back behind her ear and folding her skinny arms around equally skinny knees, she raised her head. When their eyes met, Gabe gave her a long, hard look at what her interference in the Hunt had bought her.
She flinched and dropped her eyes again. Her arms tightened around her legs.
Good. She ought to be upset; he sure as hell was.
As if sensing his mother’s unease, the little blond-headed boy beside her stopped tossing pebbles. He looked to her first and then he looked at Gabe. For the first time since the Claiming, something other than anger tickled through his gut.
The boy was small, probably not more than four or five years at best, and thin. Not as scrawny as his mother, but definitely underfed. Not smiling, not blinking, he returned Gabe’s unwavering stare until that tickle moving through him began to feel a lot like guilt. Which was ridiculous. If anything, he was the victim in this, not the kid—well, maybe the kid too, but certainly not Neoma.
Uncomfortable with what was starting to feel like a challenge, Gabe averted his eyes and then stood there, arms folded across his chest while he stubbornly told himself he did not just cave to a kindergartner.
“What do you think?” Colton said, once Wayman was well across the field and out of earshot.
Hooking his thumbs in his back jeans pockets, Marcus shrugged. “Seems decent enough,” he said at the same time Gabe said, “Get rid of him.”
“You don’t trust him?” Colton asked.
“Not as far as I could throw him.” Gabe rolled his shoulders, trying to loosen the tension without looking at either Neoma or her unsettling boy.
“We all come out of the Scruff a little rough around the edges,” Marcus said.
“It’s not his edges I’m worried about.” Gabe risked a glance. The boy was still looking at him, only he’d moved. He was now sitting on his mother’s other side, putting himself between her and Gabe. One thin arm was wrapped around her shoulders. Gabe looked away again. Great. He really had just lost to the skinniest, scrawniest pup he’d ever met in his life. From Scullamy, no less. His irritation soared. Why he didn’t just give the kid his throat and be done with it, he didn’t know.
“If you hadn’t seen him talking with Deacon, would you consider him differently?” Colton asked.
Probably, but Gabe wasn’t about to admit that out loud. “He came at my back. Forgive me for not welcoming him in with open arms.”
“Coming at your back is part of the Hunt.”
As if Gabe needed reminding.
Casting him a sidelong glance, Colton breathed in and held it, cutting off the sigh before it could escape. “You’re sure about what you saw?”
“Him, her and Deacon, close enough to kiss.” He wouldn’t be forgetting—or forgiving—the sight of that any time soon.
“Deacon gave her to him,” Marcus reminded.
“Pravica do sre,” Colton muttered, rubbing his chin. “I didn’t know anyone still did that.”
The rasp of his hand passing over the morning’s whisper-growth made Gabe’s own chin itch. He hadn’t shaved this morning, either. He’d been far more preoccupied with making sure his place was prepared to receive his new Bride. Maya. Just thinking her name made the pain twist in his chest like a knife’s blade. He had flowers waiting for her on the coffee table. Daisies, her favorite. Chocolates chilled in the fridge, next to the steaks he’d planned to grill for dinner and the bottle of champagne he’d splurged on. What did Seth McQueen have? Three ramshackle trailers cobbled together in a yard full of broken-down cars and a stockpile of guns and ammunition the likes of which most rabid survivalists would orgasm over. Four brothers, one Bride—God, he
didn’t want to think about that either.
“Do you think he was telling the truth?”
Gabe saw the way Colton was looking at Neoma, and he didn’t like it. He knew that look. It was the same one he’d worn when Karly first arrived in Hollow Hills, her eye blackened and the man who’d given it to her mere days behind her. He snorted. “That one couldn’t tell the truth if you gave it to him on cue cards.”
His perspective less prejudiced, Marcus quietly disagreed. “I know he was.”
Colton glanced at him. “How?”
“Deacon approached me before you did.”
“You got the same house, car and woman offer, too?” It came out sounding far more scathing than Gabe intended it to, but Marcus took no offense.
“I did.” He glanced at Gabe. “Does that make me a Scullamy collaborator?”
Clenching his jaw, Gabe didn’t apologize.
Rubbing his chin again, Colton asked, “Gabe’s woman?”
Gabe bristled all over again. “She’s not my woman.”
“The negotiations didn’t get that far,” Marcus replied.
“May I ask why not?” Colton asked, a touch of curiosity bleeding into his tone.
Meeting his gaze evenly, Marcus said, “Because when I take a mate, it’s not going to be because some tyrannical asshole with delusions of supremacy assigns me one.” He glanced at Neoma, then away. “And maybe because I was a little surprised he didn’t recognize me.”
That got everyone’s attention.
“Recognize you?” Colton echoed. “From where?”
“I was born in Scullamy.” Unhooking his thumbs, Marcus slid his hands into his pockets. “I was eight when Deacon decided my mother would be better matched with someone other than my father. It used to be his favorite way of rewarding loyalty. A few weeks later, one of his lieutenants expressed an interest and Deacon took my sister too. She was sixteen. My father objected, and the next thing I knew we were running for our lives. We got out. I haven’t seen my mother or my sister since.” He turned, flashing Gabe a dry smile. “What do you think? For someone Scullamy-born, am I telling the truth?”
Anger, guilt and shame chewed in at him in equal parts. Gabe scrubbed his fingers back through his hair and then down his face. “Sorry,” he started to say, but Marcus waved it off.
“I don’t have a lot of memories of that place, but I do remember what you see on the surface is almost never what’s actually going on.” Marcus was quiet. “Actually,” he mused. “I do remember one other thing.”
“What?” Colton asked.
Gabe didn’t think he wanted to know. When Marcus flashed another humorless smile, he was sure of it.
“Pravica do sre might be his favorite way to reward, but that—” Marcus gestured across the parking lot, indicating both mother and child, and Gabe’s eyes reluctantly followed. “—that right there is his favorite way to punish. He likes to watch people starve.”
That he would even try to defend that woman hit Gabe as being so offensive, at first he was sure he’d misunderstood. But no, everyone was staring at Neoma and her boy. Colton especially, and that look on his face… She may as well have been a second Karly.
“You’re out of your minds,” he told them both. “You are out of your minds. Don’t you dare paint her out to be a victim. She stole everything from me! If she’s in trouble with Deacon, it’s because she was supposed to catch an alpha, not a grunt! Her mistake,” Gabe growled, “was picking me, because I promise when I figure out what’s really going on, I’m going to make her wish she’d never come here!”
Colton looked down, a tic of disapproval leaping along his jaw. He said nothing, preferring to keep his own counsel on the matter, but Marcus wasn’t about to let it go that quietly.
“Someday,” Marcus said, with a level stare, “I sincerely hope you come to regret what you just said.”
“I’d have to be wrong first,” Gabe spat back, refusing to let that stare make him feel guilty. “But I’m not wrong.” He looked at Neoma, that hot flush of anger burning up through his gut, wrapped around a hurt so profound and deep that he didn’t think he’d ever be free of it. “I’m not wrong at all.”
CHAPTER SIX
With Scotty on her lap, Neoma sat in the back of the white Fish and Game pickup, scrunched in between the bump of the wheel well and the cab of the truck, and the talkative chevolak sitting across from her. The hot metal sidewall burned into her shoulder blades, but it was either lean up against it or nothing at all, and as slick as the plastic truck bed lining was, it was already hard enough not to slide face-first into the human’s lap each time the truck took a turn. It was a long, winding road that led from the field where the Bride Hunt had been run back to town. There were a lot of turns.
“Nice weather,” Karly said, determined to ignore the growing tension and provoke conversation out of Neoma.
Equally as stubborn, Neoma did not reply. She stared the human down, not blinking or looking away, all the while feeling as if she were riding in the truck with a loose tiger. Given a choice, she’d almost have preferred it. Tigers were easy; one could tell at a look that tigers were dangerous. If they wanted to eat you, they just did it. They didn’t hide their intentions behind friendly-seeming smiles, harassing young mothers caught outside the walls by alternately offering food and threatening jail time in exchange for information. It hadn’t been tigers that descended on the Scullamy compound with guns and police SWAT teams, yelling cultish accusations over the walls, putting everyone in cuffs and breaking their things as they searched for weapons Deacon wasn’t inclined to let them find, and in the end, confiscating their children on the premise that he couldn’t just remove them from chevolak schools. She had only been in jail and Scotty out of her care for twenty-four hours, but those had been the worst hours of her life.
Never again.
“Yup,” Karly said, nodding as if she hadn’t truly expected Neoma to answer and as if the tension building in the back of the truck didn’t exist. She smoothed the hem of Colton’s shirt down her naked legs so the wind whipping over them wouldn’t kick it up. “The weather’s real nice today. Almost as sterling as all this pleasant conversation. So tell me, where are you from?”
Tightening her arms around Scotty’s waist, Neoma looked at her new Alpha’s chevolak Bride and didn’t say one word.
“Very interesting,” Karly said, as if she’d answered. “Me? I’m glad you asked. I’m from a place called Redemption—not as small as here, just the next state over. Do you know, I’ve never been more than ten miles from home my entire life. I thought I knew everything about small towns. Yeah. I was not prepared for Hollow Hills.”
She should have accepted Colton’s initial offer and rode up front. There was no talking whatsoever going on up there. Behind the wheel, Colton drove the truck, glancing back at them in the rearview mirror each time he slowed for another winding curve. To his right, Gabe stared out the passenger window, and Marcus was sandwiched between them. A few car-lengths behind them, Wayman brought up the rear, the low rumble of his motorcycle sending shivers dancing up her spine every time he pulled in close enough to smile at her over the tailgate. Like Karly, he was constantly smiling too. Neoma pulled Scotty closer. He didn’t like being pawed at, but she couldn’t help it, and for a change, he was so preoccupied with the wooded countryside that he didn’t complain.
“Look at all the trees,” he said, marveling at the heavy overgrowth of pines. They were an impressive sight, but it was the smell Neoma liked. Every breath she took was like Christmas in a department store. The trees she was used to—ornamental cherry and maples interspersed among blocks of corporate buildings and concrete parking lots—didn’t smell like this.
“It is pretty, isn’t it?” Karly piped in. “We didn’t have trees like this in Redemption, either. I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but the first night I was here they scared me half to death.”
“You’re scared of trees?” Scotty asked, somber and unsmiling
. He’d never looked so much like his grandfather as he did right then.
Seemingly not the response she’d been seeking, Karly’s own smile dimmed. “Well, um…it was what was in the trees that scared me.”
Scotty blinked at her, as expressionless as his tone. “You’re scared of squirrels?”
Her smile dying away, the human cleared her throat. “Owls, actually. Owls can be very scary if you’ve never heard them before.”
Scotty did not reply; neither did Neoma.
“Incredibly scary,” was the last thing Karly said. Blushing, she smoothed the hem of her shirt against her thighs again and turned away.
Craning his head, Scotty didn’t quite roll his eyes, but Neoma could tell he wanted to. It was mean to smile and even meaner to laugh. Rolling her lips and pressing them tight, she kept her face averted and the sound smothered until the threat of audible chuckles had passed.
She was right about one thing, though: Hollow Hills was pretty. Here, there were no walls, barbed wire or armed guards. When Neoma breathed in, all she smelled was the heat of the day and the strong scent of juniper and pine. Were Karly not there, she’d have yielded to the temptation to close her eyes and tip her face into the sporadic warmth of the sun each time the branches overhead thinned enough to allow the penetrating rays to touch her.
She’d never lived anywhere that had such an abundance of green and such an isolating lack of construct. Seven long miles snaked between the hills and trees, running down from the top of the Ridge into roughly three blocks’ worth of town. In all that distance, Neoma counted maybe twenty houses and three times that many mailboxes dotting the ends of dirt driveways, suggesting more lurked behind the shielding pines. Not being be able to see them felt strange.
Then they drove into Hollow Hills—little more than a smattering of rustic buildings situated along a two-block stretch of old highway, punctuated by a single four-way stop sign near a small school that boasted K-12 and a giant billboard that advertised the existence of an historic bed and breakfast down by the lake. They passed the entrance of a trailer and RV park and a dozen more houses, some built straight back into the sloping hillside, as if the mountain itself were a living beast devouring its way through what meager civilization Hollow Hills offered. There wasn’t a single shopping center, or strip mall, or apartment complex, and not one of those houses looked any newer than turn-of-the-century.
