by Bec McMaster
"I overheard the overseer saying that there's a buyer coming tomorrow," Ellie broke in. "I couldn't get too close, but he seemed to think Tom and the girls would be going out with the buyer, so he's obviously someone with a generous amount of coin floating around."
"Confederacy," Mia murmured, that sick feeling twisting her insides. They had a timeline now.
"What else did you see?" McClain asked.
Mia sat the pair of girls down at the table as Jake explained the security details of the slave yards. She broke out some of the bread they had leftover from breakfast. Both girls fell on it, hurrying to fill in the gaps with what they knew.
McClain scratched his jaw, listening intently to the security details, and Mia knew that mind of his was quietly sorting information into plans.
She ached to touch his hand. But it was time to put her feelings aside and start concentrating. They were one step closer to their goal, but nowhere near success yet. "What's the plan for today?" she asked, the second the girls fell silent, both their eyelids fluttering with exhaustion.
"The girls can get some rest," McClain said, eyeing the pair of them. "Ellie, you and Mia right to keep an eye on them here?"
Mia looked at him sharply. She'd expected the pair of them to work together today.
"We need to know more," he continued, meeting Jake's eyes. "Today's all about information. If tomorrow's our deadline, then we need to get moving."
"On it," Jake said, snatching up his belt.
"You want me to stay?" Mia repeated, not quite understanding.
McClain's gaze caught hers, then skated away as if he were trying not to give the game away. She could see a faint mark on his neck where she'd bitten him. "Thought the girls might want to see some familiar faces."
Female faces. She nodded slowly. "Okay." She and Ellie could fuss over the pair of them, make them feel safe. "What time will you be back?"
McClain grabbed his gun. "Not sure, Mia. Just make sure you keep your gun on you. It should be safe in here, but you never know." He looked at her then, and the room and all the others fell away.
Until Jake cleared his throat.
"Do what you need to do," Mia said quickly. "Just watch your backs."
"Will do," McClain murmured, and headed for the door.
Ellie arched a brow in her direction. One person wasn't fooled. Heat rose in Mia's cheeks, and she pasted a smile on her face, then headed for the bed, shaking out the blanket there.
Jake tossed the empty money pouch on the table. "Two down," he said.
Mia picked up one of the thin pillows. "Four to go."
Jake nodded, looking harried. "And we're out of coin."
Sweat dripped down Adam's spine as he and Jake worked the town. Ostensibly they were interested in the coin to be had, and the beers to be drunk. They idled in one little shit-hole tavern that was little more than a tin shack, listening to reivers boast about fighting, coin, and women for over an hour, before moving on. Buying a couple of small items like bread and cheese in the markets. Working out the layout of the town, even as they tried not to arouse suspicion.
"Town works as a funnel," Jake noted, as they headed back through the slave markets so Adam got a look. "The canyon at the back protects it, and everything leads back to the main gates."
"One way in," he confirmed, "one way out."
"That's not a good sign."
Agreed. Adam caught a hint of unwashed bodies, and his blood boiled as they passed the slave markets. The reivers kept people in cages in there, Jake had told him.
"Who are we rescuing first?" Jake asked. "Thea and Sage, or Tom and Sonya?"
The muscle near his left eye ticked. "All of them," he said quietly.
"What?"
"I'm not leaving a single person in those cages," he replied, striding straight through a pair of reivers. They scattered around him and Jake, spitting over their shoulders at him, but when he shot them a look they fled. He knew he had murder all over his face. Right now, he just wanted to get Mia and her folk as far away from this shit hole as he could. "We take them all."
"Right." Jake chewed it over. "Could work in our favor. More hands to take up a gun."
"Got to get the guns first."
"Well, that guy with no teeth did say there was an armory near Vex's stronghold."
Adam forced his clenched hands to relax. He'd been quietly brewing ever since he hit this place, but the feeling twisting his chest was new. He couldn't quite work it out, but it had something to do with Mia, and he had a horrible suspicion the warg within him was involved.
He wanted to kill. No, he wanted to destroy this entire town. And get her out. Protect her, whispered the warg, which was new.
Adam stopped dead in the middle of the street.
What had that been?
He'd always been at odds with the monster inside him. It seemed for once they were on the same path. Protect Mia. That was the only common ground they shared, and it bothered him a little, because he didn't want that part of himself having anything to do with her. What had changed?
Smooth skin, her moans filling his ears as he worked his way inside her tight, wet pussy— Shit. He felt his face heat. Making love to Mia meant something to him, but had it also meant something to his darker half?
"You alright?" Jake frowned at him.
"Yeah," he said slowly, and started walking again. Later. He could think it all over later.
Coming into the main square—an enormous patch of dirt with an old fountain in the middle—they both hesitated. A man sat on the fountain, with four of his reivers standing in nonchalant poses around the square. As they entered, a pair of old men took off running, as if they didn't want to get involved.
Rykker came into focus, licking his cigarette paper, then carefully rolling it. A man knelt at his feet, a spiked iron collar around his throat and his hair matted in dreads. "Ah, my new friend. McClain, was it?" Rykker said.
Adam paused, his fingers itching toward the gun at his belt. "I wouldn't have called us friends."
Something about the man at Rykker's feet bothered him, and it wasn't just the collar. His nostrils flared, and the warg inside him growled.
Fuck. That wasn't a man. That was a warg, his knuckles broken and torn, and his own nostrils flaring as he drank in their scents. Adam knew the beast within him wasn't very close to the surface right now, but who knew if the other warg would smell it on him?
Rykker smiled as he lit the blunt. "Vex asked me to show you around. Said you was interested in opening up a new slave route. She thought I'd be the best person to help you out, since I know everything there is to know about Rust City... and slaves." He slowly stood up, one hand curled around the warg's chain. "Only, it seems as though you're already having a good look round."
Adam's senses screamed at him. It had to be a trap. He hadn't felt anyone following them, but with secrets available for the right price here, it stood to reason that others would have mentioned them passing. "We were trying to find a decent beer in this place, but that seems like chasing a myth after tasting all of this rat-piss."
"Decent beer is a myth," one of the reivers at Rykker's side laughed.
Rykker shot him a look, and the big fellow shut his mouth abruptly.
"And it looks like we've got a couple of hours to kill before tonight kicks off," Rykker said, pasting that oily smile on his mouth, "so I thought why not?"
"What's happening tonight?" Jake asked.
"Don't you know?" Rykker's smile held smug touches. He sucked back a lungful of smoke. "Thought you were Vex's favorite new pets."
"Sorry." Adam refused to back away as the other man stepped closer. "But I ain't nobody's pet."
Rage smoldered in Rykker's eyes. There was a second where Adam thought it was going to spill into violence. The other man barely held himself back. "Vex wants me to show you the warg cages."
An instant chill ran down his spine. "Why?"
"She said you had a good eye last night. Picked every winn
er for her, so she wants you to have a look at tonight's crop of dogs. The war games run for three nights, so this is night two." Rykker clapped a hand on his shoulder. "And the general might arrive tonight, he might not. But if he does, then Vex wants to impress him."
The general. That had to be the buyer that the auctioneers thought would be arriving soon. "Thought he wasn't due until tomorrow?"
"He radioed through. He wants his bedchambers set up, and one of the new girls sent over. He likes the war games. They're not allowed to do that shit in the Confederacy."
"Guess I can take a look," Adam said slowly. "Though my cousin here is due back at our rooms." He glanced at Jake, trying to get the message through. "Make sure Mia gets something to eat. She'll be pissed if I'm late. I promised her a warm shower, and a back rub."
"Sounds like she's got her hand on your chain," Rykker said nastily.
Adam ignored him. He was far too aware of the other warg watching every movement he made. It growled at him as he shifted, and Rykker looked down in surprise, then aimed a boot at the warg. "Shut up, War Dog."
"Why you got a warg on a leash?" Adam asked.
Rykker crushed his cigarette in the dirt. "Hunts for me. That way I can't get ambushed out on the trail, and nobody escapes when we hit a village."
"Dangerous act," Jake muttered.
Rykker rubbed the warg's head. "Bastard knows not to screw me over. Don't you, War Dog?"
The warg sat very still. Adam thought he could see burn marks down its back, and that made the bottled rage within him rise up until it nearly choked him. This was wrong too. Wargs were monsters, but you didn't torture them. A clean bullet through the skull to put one out of its misery was the kind of mercy he preferred to deliver.
"Let's do this." He couldn't exactly avoid it, unless he wanted Vex breathing down his neck, demanding to know why. Maybe it was one of her little games? She could be punishing Rykker, or trying to fuck with him, who knew?
The thought crossed his mind that maybe Vex hadn't requested this at all. The warg cages and the arena were the only place he hadn't really explored, but he knew not many people lingered there.
The perfect place for an ambush.
"Get the girls," Adam said out of the corner of his mouth, as Rykker walked away, presuming he'd follow. "I'll go see what he wants, but we might have to make some quick plans."
"We don't split up," Jake hissed back. "That's the rule."
Adam looked him in the eye. Urgency rode through his veins. "Just get Mia and the others. This is happening now. Because if this general arrives, then he might be entertaining your wife tonight."
Not to mention the enforcers that would no doubt be at his side.
Adam strode along the narrow hallway between the warg cages, the creatures snapping and snarling at the bars as they passed. Some of them were ragged men, others already changed into the beast form, as if they'd given up any semblance of staying human. Those were the kind who'd never change back. The moon might provoke a shift, but once a warg gave up, they'd stay there.
Two of Rykker's reivers followed Adam, with Rykker, War Dog, and the other man, who'd answered to Gnat, in front of him. He was deadly aware of the men behind him, every sense on high alert.
But so far, no sudden movements.
Only War Dog kept looking at him and curling his lip, but that might be more about the scent of him. Nothing more.
"Which ones are fighting tonight?" Adam asked.
"Through here," Rykker said, unbolting the next door and swinging it open to reveal a new row of cells. "Some are fresh, unblooded. Then there's our reluctant champion."
Adam stilled. He wasn't going through first.
Rykker bared his teeth in a smile. "What's wrong?"
"I trust you about as far as I can throw you." Rykker seemed just the sort to stab him in the back—or send him into a tunnel full of open warg cages and hungry wargs.
"Guess I'll just have to prove who's got the bigger balls," Rykker shot back, and entered ahead of him, dragging War Dog.
Adam gestured to Gnat. "Ugly first."
Gnat shook his head. "You sure know how to make friends."
"Like I said earlier: I wouldn't have called us friends."
Gnat strode ahead of him. The next section was crowded, and darker.
"Thought you might want to check out our champion first," Rykker called, kicking the bars on a cell. "Get up, you piece of shit."
"Make me, you cockstain."
That voice. Adam's head turned swiftly, his nostrils flaring.
Movement shifted in the cell. A man stepped forward out of the darkness, his face bisected by the shadows of the bars.
Adam had a feeling, even before he saw the man—his stomach free-falling, the bottom of it dropping through his toes—that fate had something horribly wrong in store for him.
And that was before Johnny Colton gripped the bars, melting out of the shadows. "McClain," he said in some surprise. "Long time, no see."
Twenty
"YOU TWO KNOW each other?" Rykker demanded.
"We've met," Adam replied roughly, tension radiating through him. "A long time ago."
Eden screamed as Johnny Colton dragged her toward the small hut. “Adam! Adam, help—”
“You leave her alone!” he’d roared, straining at the shackles tied to his ankle. The ring he was tied to moved a fraction of an inch, but it was driven deep into stone. Adam grabbed a fistful of the chain and yanked, but there was no shifting it. Thwarted, he looked helplessly at his sister. “If you fucking touch her, I’ll—”
Laughter echoed, rough-edged with pure sadism. Bartholomew Cane—the bastard who’d made him a warg—merely lit his cigarette, the flame flaring in the near dark as he cupped his hands around it. “Don’t have to touch her.” He shook the flame out, drawing in a sweet lungful of smoke as he sneered at Adam. “That’s the beauty of this.”
Adam hadn’t understood.
“Throw him in there with her,” Cane told Colton, who was struggling to shove Eden through the door. "I told you what I wanted, McClain. You refused. This is punishment."
Eden gripped the edges of the door like an octopus, kicking at Colton’s shins.
Adam stared in horror at Cane as he began to understand what the devil wanted with him.
“No, I don’t have to touch her,” Cane said with the faintest of smiles. “You get to do the honors yourself. Consider it your first meal, unless….”
Unless he did what Cane wanted, and delivered his friend, Luc Wade, up to the same curse he himself had been inflicted with.
"I warned you," Colton muttered as he slammed the door shut and came back for Adam. "Cane always finds a way to get what he wants...."
Adam blinked, and Colton’s face swam out of memory. All these months of hunting the bastard and here he was, right here. Adam’s fist curled. He’d never gotten to repay Cane for the misery of this curse—Luc beat him to it a year ago—but if he wanted a target, then Colton was right here. He could finally take his fury out, finally get some blood in return for the hand he’d been dealt.
All he had to do was kiss good-bye any chance of rescuing Mia’s sister….
That thought brought him up short. Adam hadn't realized he’d stepped forward until he was an inch from the bars. Colton didn’t move. Merely watched him with those black, emotionless eyes. Slowly he tipped his chin up, as if daring Adam to do it.
They stared at each other. Rage burned through him, like a wildfire through his veins. He was shaking. Jesus.
Rykker laughed. “Doesn’t look like you were old friends.” He kicked the cage, but Colton never flinched, and so Rykker resorted to spitting through the bars at him. “Fucking wargs. Caught him a month ago. Then he broke out three weeks ago, trying to get into the slave pens. Let's just say, he won't be trying that again.”
"Oh, we weren't ever friends," Colton muttered, his voice raw as if with disuse. "No, never that, were we, McClain?"
That froze the blood in A
dam’s veins. He met Colton’s gaze again. All it would take would be a single sentence from Colton’s lips and his cover was blown.
A faint smile curled up Colton’s mouth. Do it? asked the arch of his brow, as if the exact same thought was running through his mind.
Adam stared at Colton, swallowing hard. Everything depended on this moment. Everything.
“No,” Colton rasped, moving away toward the stone bench that served as a bed. “McClain was hunting me. Haven't seen you in a couple of months."
"Lost the scent," he snarled. And that was when he'd lost his motivation, ending up in Mia's bar.
Colton shrugged. "I don't think your heart was truly in it. If you'd wanted my head that badly, you could have caught me twice. I watched you ride by from a couple of gulches, you and that kid at your side."
"Oh, I wanted your head." He stopped himself from grabbing on to the bars of the cage just in time, and stood there quivering. One touch would reveal him, as surely as the sun rose in the east. "After what you did to my sister...."
"I didn't touch her." Colton slid a sidelong look at Rykker, and picked his words more carefully. "If I recall, once you did as Cane asked, I was the one who returned your sweet sister back to her home. If I'd wanted to hurt her, I had my chances. You were the one who tried to burn me alive. You and that bastard you rode with."
Luc. That was the last time they'd ever worked together, when he and Luc trapped Cane and Colton inside the hut, and flicked a match. Too late to save themselves perhaps. Then Luc vanished into the wilderness, and Adam headed out to find a spot to kill himself.
Colton's reticence made him catch hold of his temper. Colton could have given him up then. Only, he'd chosen not to. Why? Adam paced. "Can't say I regret that moment. And you survived.”
"Well, isn't this just fascinating," Rykker said, and Adam recalled they had an audience.
There were a thousand things he wanted to say to Colton, but now was not the time. He stabbed a finger toward the cell. "This bastard's dead. Tell Vex he's bad odds."
