by Penny Alley
Her heart pounded so hard it hurt, but she grabbed the knob in her sweaty palm, twisting twice before she worked up the nerve to crack the door again. She caught the chevolak setting both paper sacks on the welcome mat. “We don’t need your charity,” she growled through the door. This was the Alpha’s Bride, and that was the only reason why she didn’t charge out onto the porch with teeth fully bared.
Karly straightened slowly, compassion giving way to apology. “I’m not trying…I mean…I’m new in town too and—”
“We don’t need your pity, either.” Shame and fear gave way to anger. She yanked the door open far enough to shove the grocery bags off the welcome mat. She only meant to give them back, but she must have been too rough. The bottom split out of the first bag, spilling a slightly squashed loaf of bread out onto Karly’s foot and scattering the can. A few bounced down the steps, racing each other to the pine-needle lawn. “Leave us alone!”
She was back inside the safety of the house before Karly could do more than gape, her foot once again braced at the bottom of the door.
Karly backed away, hands held up for calm. “I’m really am just trying to help, Neoma. Maybe I can talk to Colton.”
That rippling shiver became dread-filled prickles all across her back. What was she going to tell the Alpha? Neoma hadn’t attacked Karly or threatened her. She hadn’t even growled, but that wouldn’t mean anything if the chevolak decided to lie. Neoma’s breath quickened. She had a pup to protect. She couldn’t afford to fall on the Alpha’s bad side.
“What happened at the store will not happen again,” Karly said, retreating down the porch steps. “I promise.”
The promise of a human…
Knowing exactly what that was worth, Neoma hide behind the door, watching until Karly was back in her car. Locking the door, she crept to the window and peered through the curtains until the chevolak drove away.
“She seems nice,” Scotty said, surreptitiously transferring all five green beans into his pocket.
Nerves twisting and tightening inside her, Neoma stood guard at the window until she was sure the human would not return. “Looks can be deceiving,” she told him. It was a bitter fact of life, but one well learned: not everyone could be trusted.
Humans least of all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“You can set up your bunks in here,” Gabe said, descending the cement steps. When he hit the switch on the wall, the long florescent lights hummed, flickered, and eventually blinked on, shining its stark unflattering glare over the cellblock. “A hundred years ago, this used to be the old jailhouse. Now, we mostly use it for storage.”
As the old files, metal cabinets and stacked evidence boxes (more than half of which were stuffed full of holiday decorations) throughout the basement no doubt showed. Both Marcus and Wayman followed him down a winding path of stored paperwork, past stacks of lost and found camping gear, and the first jail cell—home to Moosey Claus, a part moose, part bear, part-finished taxidermy which the last alpha had cobbled together from animals poached (mostly by his own family) and which the current alpha kept festively dressed all year round in a Santa hat and silver tinsel.
“Gruesome,” Marcus said as he walked past the door. The sheer size of Moosey Claus meant he had the only cell in the basement completely void of clutter.
“You should see what we do with him at Halloween,” Gabe replied. “The kids love it. They all know he’s down here, but with a little creative rigging, we still scare the pants off them every year.” Having reached the barricade of boxes that marked the end of the path, he stopped and gestured to the two remaining cages. “Pick a cell, any cell.”
When Marcus only eyed the taxidermy, Wayman slipped past him to claim the cage farthest from. The hinges creaked, opening partway before sticking.
“Homey,” he said, eyeing the sparse furnishings. Apart from the stacks of boxes, as high in places as the humming light fixtures, each cage was equipped with a single wire cot, a thin mattress rolled up at the foot and a blanket and pillow crowning the pile. Stainless steel sinks and seatless toilets gave the illusion of indoor plumbing, although neither had been hooked to the water and septic lines since the upgrade had been made some ten years prior.
“It may not look like much,” Gabe allowed, “but I slept down here for four months while rebuilding my house. The beds aren’t that bad. Functioning toilets are upstairs next to the showers in the locker room. Fridge and coffeemaker in the breakroom. Microwave, too. Grocery store stays open until ten every day except Sundays. Gas station closes at midnight, and the diner is open six days a week until two in the afternoon. If you want more than that, Grady is fifteen miles down the road.”
“Is that a real animal?” Marcus asked, thumbing to Moosey Claus. “Because I don’t think I want to sleep next to it for four days much less four months.”
“Big baby,” Wayman scoffed. “He only gets to eat for 28 days every 28 years. You won’t have to worry about him until 2015.”
“It is 2015.”
“Oh. Well. Sleep light.”
“Swap you cells,” Marcus challenged.
“Hell no.”
“Big baby,” Marcus snapped.
“What are you complaining about?” Wayman snapped back. “At least you’ve got a house.”
“It doesn’t have a roof!”
“So pitch a tent and stop your bitching! I’m the one who’s stuck here. If anyone has a right to complain, it’s me!”
“Seriously?” Gabe drawled, unimpressed. “You’re both getting free room and board, and you’re bitching about it?”
He was the one whose home had been invaded by two strangers. This was supposed to be the happiest day of his life, his first scheduled vacation in over a year because it had never once entered his mind that he wouldn’t be spending it with the Bride of his dreams. And look where he was now, at work, stuck in the basement showing newbies around the station because the thought of going home again made him physically ill. He didn’t want to think about what would happen at quitting time when he had no other choice. How was he supposed to live with a Scullamy in his house? And not just the woman, but her little boy too…heaven help him.
“I just think it’s a little shitty he gets a house and I don’t.” Venturing into his cell, Wayman pushed enough boxes aside to be able to reach the bed. He looked around. “This is one of the nicer cells I’ve been in, actually.”
Why didn’t that surprise him?
“If you don’t like the living arrangements, then talk to Mama Margo,” Gabe told him.
“Must be nice.” Wayman sat on the cot, giving it an experimental bounce. “Helps keep the unsavory folk out of town, huh?”
By that, he probably meant humans. Gabe followed him with his eyes. “Most of them.”
Smacking the pillow sent a cloud of dust into the air. Smirking, Wayman stood up again. “You don’t like me, do you?”
“I don’t know you,” Gabe said flatly.
From the middle cell where he was stacking evidence boxes into a barricade against the bars between himself and Moosey Claus, Marcus interjected, “I don’t like you. Does that count?”
“It was just a Bride Hunt.” Coming back to the door, Wayman propped a shoulder against the bars. “It wasn’t anything personal.”
Gabe glared. He took being attacked from the back extremely personally, but Wayman was right in one regard: It had happened in a Hunt. Had he not seen Wayman plotting with Deacon the night before…or had the outcome of the Hunt been different and Maya not stolen out from under him, would he still be harboring this kind of anger right now? Gabe wasn’t sure. A tiny voice inside suggested probably not, but the problem was, he had seen Wayman and Neoma together, deep in loyal negotiation with Deacon. And Maya had been taken from him, Claimed by Seth McQueen of all men. Seething resentment was all Gabe had left.
“How long are you going to hold it against me?” Still smirking, Wayman reached for the door, pulling it almost closed to make the bars
a barrier between them. He looked at them, and then at Gabe, his smile widening into a toothy grin. “I’ll bet you’re enjoying this. Come on, admit it. Deep down, some part of you thrills at the thought of me trapped inside your jail. Rotting in captivity and boredom until you decide I’ve suffered enough.” Half laughing, he leaned closer, resting his forehead against the bars. “Tell me honestly. I really want to know. How long will it take before you think I’ve suffered enough?”
Drawn against his will, every straining muscle up his back and across his tense shoulders feeling hard as knotty pine, Gabe stepped up to the door and him. He didn’t let himself get too close, stopping just out of Wayman’s reach and allowing the outcast volka to remain safely out of his. As much as he would have loved to kick the door shut, he didn’t do that either. “Be careful,” he said instead, letting the warning hang for almost a minute before indicating the bars between them. “About the door, I mean. It locks automatically and we haven’t been able to find the keys since we moved in.”
Seeing the cockiness fall out of Wayman’s smile felt almost like a victory. Not trusting himself to remain so close to him, Gabe retreated first.
“As soon as you’re settled in, we’ll get you entered in the payroll,” he told Marcus on his way back to the stairs.
Interpreting Gabe’s retreat as a victory of his own, Wayman called after him. “What about me? What should I do once I’ve settled in?”
“Get a damn job.” Gabe marched upstairs, pausing at the top to roll his shoulders and breathe out some of the stress before he hit the buzzer. A few seconds later, Colton cleared him from the main office and the security lock on the door flashed green. Propping the door open behind him, Gabe left the basement for the bright sunlight of the upper floor.
“It was the weirdest thing,” Karly said.
“I’ll have a talk with Jotham,” Colton said, returning to his desk with a sparse stack of papers.
“Who’s Jotham?” Karly asked, coming to sit on one corner of it with her arms folded across her chest.
“He owns the store.”
“Oh.” She huffed, blowing her bangs up off her forehead. “I just don’t understand it. It was the ugliest thing I’ve seen in a long time.”
“What was?” Gabe asked, venturing past them to check out the coffee pot. The contents were cold. A cautious sniff told him it was probably yesterday’s, but theirs was an office that ran via bachelors rules: He who used up the last (or complained) had to make the next pot. Taking half of what was left, Gabe put his cup in the microwave and reheated it. “What are we talking about?”
“Your—” Karly stopped herself, a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes and a stain of pink rising to her face. “—your wife, I guess.”
Colton flashed him a silent ‘please be patient with her’ look, but all Gabe felt was the pull of taut muscle tightening that much more between his shoulders. He breathed in once, holding it until he was sure he could be civil. “What about her?”
“They were mean to her.” Karly’s uncertainty vanished behind a wall of misplaced outrage. “I mean, Norma’s always been nice to me, and I’m the outsider. She flat out refused to sell to Neoma, and her little boy was right there watching the whole thing. I felt so bad for her.”
Taking his coffee out of the microwave, Gabe took a sip. Definitely yesterday’s coffee. He doctored his cup with enough cream to make the contents tolerable and went to his desk, positioned directly across from Colton’s by the window. “I guess she should have known better.”
Karly startled. “What does that mean? Better than what?”
Colton gave him another look, but Gabe wasn’t in any mood to be pushed. Not by either of them.
“Better than to come here.” Done with that conversation, he changed subjects. “What do you want me to do, Cole?”
“Employment packet. Let’s get Marcus in the system.”
Opening a lower desk drawer, Gabe dug through the files. Pulling out a large white envelope, he slapped it on his desk.
“Marcus gets a welcome packet, but Neoma doesn’t?” Karly challenged, locking her eyes on Gabe in a way that would have got her muzzle smacked if she’d been volka…and male. “Maybe we should make a list, so people like me will know who we’re supposed to be nice to and who we’re not?”
“Karly,” Colton sighed, but she wasn’t about to be mollified.
“Which side of that list do I fall on? Nobody wanted me when I first came to town either, but I can at least buy groceries!”
“It’s complicated,” Colton tried to tell her, gentle and calm.
“How?”
Where Colton had been gentle and calm, Gabe was much blunter. “You didn’t come from a pack that has been trying for the last twenty years to either displace us or wipe us out.”
“As if she’s old enough to have had any part in that,” Karly protested. “She’s a kid!”
“She’s a Scullamy,” Gabe snapped back. “You don’t know one damn thing about that woman.”
“The hell I don’t!”
Colton stood up, raising peacemaking hands. “Okay, that’s enough.”
Karly ignored him. “You’re wrong.”
“Karly,” Colton said, his tone as firm as the warning he shot Gabe.
Gabe ignored him too. “Am I now,” he growled.
“Yes,” she snapped. “I do know one thing about her. I know she’s scared. You weren’t there. You didn’t see her face like I did, but maybe you should have!”
“Enough, both of you.” Though softly spoken, this time Colton’s tone held enough alpha finality for even Karly to notice.
She frowned, her gaze snapping back to Gabe when he shoved his chair back and stood. Stalking across the room, he dropped Marcus’s welcome packet on Colton’s desk.
“Where are you going?” Colton sighed.
“To get drunk,” Gabe snapped, heading for the door. He only managed a few steps before he stopped and turned back to her. Karly was glaring at him, but she wasn’t his Bride and he felt no need at all to win her approval. “Scared, huh?”
Karly hiked her chin. “Yeah, she is. Very.”
“Good,” he told her. His voice was trembling. His hands were trembling more. “She ought to be.”
Karly gaped at him, appalled. She opened her mouth, but something made her rethink whatever retort burned at her lips. She pressed them flat together without a word. His mouth clamped every bit as tight as hers, Gabe pushed out the door.
“Taking the truck?” Colton called after him.
“No,” he shot back. He had to calm down. He was a man more prone to smiles than snits of anger. He didn’t like the way his hands kept alternating between shaking and clenching. He didn’t like the way every nerve in his body felt poised to go wolf. The urge to jump behind the wheel of the nearest vehicle and drive somewhere—anywhere—as far and as fast as it would take him pounded through his veins, but it wasn’t his smartest plan. Or his safest, not for him or anyone else on the road.
So he walked, across the parking lot and up the hill, indulging his need for action with a fast pace meant to work off as much heated energy as he could. But the incline between office and home wasn’t steep enough or long enough, and the hill made little dent in his temper. When he saw what waited on the porch—the groceries lying around the welcome mat; two empty paper bags torn in the yard—what leeway he’d gained vanished in a red hazy puff like the air expelling out of his lungs.
Snatching up both sacks, he stuffed the scattered bread, dry beans, rice, and what few cans he saw (including the two he fished out from under the stairs) back in them before storming the porch. His steps were hard and heavy when he crossed those old boards. Even to his ears, they sounded angry. They must have to Neoma, too. When he slapped open the door, both she and Scotty jumped up from the kitchen table. Neoma ducked in front of her son, blocking the boy from view before Gabe was over the threshold.
Mad as he was, that pissed him off even more. As if he’d ever de
liberately harm a child.
He trusted himself to get only as close to her as the very edge of the table. The cans in the torn grocery sacks made an unforgiving clunk when he dropped it on her abandoned plate, sending her fork clattering to the floor. The bitch had cooked up his steaks. Not that he was in any mood to eat them himself, but still the principle of it grated his already raw nerves.
Her hands fluttered behind her, shielding Scotty from him. She was scared, Karly had said, and Gabe could see it. It should have made him feel better. Mollified, maybe. But despite the harshness of his parting vow at the office, for some reason it didn’t.
“Keep your crap off my lawn.” It was the safest thing he could think of to say and even then, it took every bit of restraint he had to censure himself in front of the kid. He glared from her, to the remnants of their meal, and eventually found himself glaring at the skinny little boy peering solemnly back at him from behind his even skinnier mother. His hands were really shaking now, but so were hers. Tiny, trembling, bony hands. Bony everything, he noticed. Her clothes hung on her, amplifying the scrawniness of her shoulders and the narrowness of her face. He didn’t think he’d seen eyes so big, or so blue. This was intolerable. The longer he stood here, staring, the more malnourished she appeared.
Young too, and getting younger by the second. She could have been Scotty’s older sister rather than his mother. That made him uncomfortable for a whole different slew of reasons. This was the woman who had cost him everything. Youth and scrawniness aside, the last thing he wanted was to feel sorry for her.
…that right there is his favorite way to punish…
Shit.
His gaze fell to the table, seeing now not just that she had cooked his steaks but how Scotty had more on his plate than she did. And it wasn’t because they had already started eating, either. The low quantity of savory meat juice soaking into her green beans suggested she hadn’t started with one full steak, much less both.
