Carrie’s face was buried in his side, but he could feel her smile against him. He kissed the top of her forehead, and silently thanked any deity who would listen for his perfect girl.
The Honey Pot
by
Becca Fanning
“Woo! Yeah! Go on, Robert! Snap his goddamn head off!”
“Holy hell...” muttered Elle, eyes springing wide, and her hand flying back from the door. This wasn't, by any means, the sort of welcome she'd been expected in coming here. And now, more than ever, her reservations about entering rose to a peak. Her heart caught in her throat, and sweat rolled down her face as she wrestled with two very opposing instincts. A pair of options, containing no positive outcomes either way. She cursed herself, her boss, the situation she was in.
She was a baker's apprentice, for crying out loud! How the hell was she supposed to deal with a situation such as this, without a word of warning or preparation? She didn't even have a clue what it was she was walking into. Much less what her options would be once she took the plunge, stumbled into the thick of it. Based on this single, violent line alone, what could she expect once she stepped through the door?
Her mentor and boss, Konrad, allegedly delivered to this location on an almost routine basis. Although, she'd never been along with him on the occasions that the deliveries took place. But if this was a den of violent criminals, of psychopaths, he would have given her some word of warning, wouldn't he? She'd thought, for the most part, that she could trust Konrad. Or at any rate, she'd at least had no notion that the man would have any desire to put his delicate young apprentice in danger.
“Maybe I'm at the wrong place...” she muttered to herself. But alas, as she took a step back and looked at the sign above the door, it was painted with a logo for The Honey Pot. That, she knew, was the precise name of the pub which Konrad had specified. There was, it seemed, no means of backing out of this on any legitimate basis, other than, of course her fear...
She swallowed hard, and began to sweat through her clothes, bristling... The tumbling, crashing, tearing sounds continued to emit from inside the facility. Roars of cheer and sympathy boomed out from a sea of enthusiastic, presumably drunk men. She'd heard them before she'd even come this close to the door- before she'd even made her way into the clearing for that matter.
They'd given her pause for consideration from the get-go. They'd gotten her to second guess what it was she'd gotten herself into. But the shout of jubilee, encouraging decapitation, well... That was, for her, about the last straw...
She took a deep breath, and prepared to turn around and depart, the bread basket still in her hand, when she thought of Konrad's reaction. He would scold and chasten her, perhaps even fire her for her insolence, her unwillingness to cooperate, to oblige his every wish. It felt as though she had no choice in the matter.
She couldn't, no matter how she may have disliked it, get fired from this job...
She needed to make this delivery, even if it killed her- which, from the sounds of the debacle behind the door, it might do.
She decided to test the waters first, and see what it was she was getting herself into. She took in another deep lungful of air, holding it this time, as though she feared making a sound. As though any of the rowdy, drunken men inside the bar would be able to hear her above the din of their own antics.
Then,as silently as she could manage, she slid open the door. She prayed she would go unnoticed, and peered through a crack toward the scene unfolding inside The Honey Pot's four walls.
“Oh... My... God...” It was all she could do to stop herself from screaming, and she put a hand over her mouth just to ensure that this temptation remained at bay. Still, though, she was so winded by the sight that she doubted whether she could have mustered up the ability for such a sound had she tried.
The men were, as she'd heard them, standing around, cheering. They seemed quite rowdy with intoxication. Under more predictable circumstances, it may have been the sight of men standing around a television set. Drunkards watching a boxing match unfold...
The principle, she realized with horror, was the same, she supposed, if far more brutal, more terrifying...
Two fully grown grizzly bears stood in a corner. Stood? No, that wasn't right. They weren't standing, frankly, but wrestling. Tumbling, clawing, biting at one another. Attempting, as per the request of one of the bar patrons, to “bite one another's goddamn heads off.”
Oh my God... Oh my God... Oh my God... The thoughts swirled around in her head, sending shivers across her body. She'd known that, in some barbaric parts of the world, bear bating was a murderous sport. But this- this was nothing she could have imagined, could have expected in any way. To have these two grown monsters, tearing at one another... Lunging forward with murderous intent... And without even having any restraints, no means of ensuring that they didn't set their sights on the crowd. Nothing to keep them from slashing open the men who stood around encouraging their destruction... Of course, it would have served them right, or at least a good mauling to set their heads back on straight- but that was beside the point.
At any rate, now, she thought she could trace the source of the pub's name sake...
She couldn't stand around here and watch this. Konrad be damned, she wasn't about to put herself in harm's way for a stupid delivery. To waltz straight into the lion's den without a single means of protection. Lion's den, it occurred to her, was a peculiar mismatch of expression in this case, but she didn't dwell on this notion for long.
She turned, ready to leave, ready to put this entire nightmarish scene behind her. More than ready to act as though she'd never set foot on The Honey Pot's front landing. Suddenly she was stopped, restrained. A hand, five fingers, had curled up around her thin arm, gripping her powerfully, and she froze, eyes wide, scared out of her every wit.
“Well, hello there, love... Spying on us, eh? Why don't you come on in for a drink?”
Her breath returned to her, and she could feel herself beginning to hyperventilate. But no matter how hard she tried to pull away, tried to tug herself free of the vice-like grip of the man inside, she couldn't manage to wriggle an inch. Or at least, not without his powerful fingers coming within a hair's breadth of snapping her wrists clean off.
The man yanked her inside, into what she assumed would be her final resting place. She screamed, fought, cried out in terror as she was escorted within feet of the two snarling grizzly bears, still clawing it out tooth and nail. She was spattered with blood and saliva, could feel their body heat and that of the men around her as the pub's bouncer persisted in pulling her on, on, on.
“No, please, stop! I'm not a spy! I'm not a spy! I swear to God, I'm just a delivery girl! That's all! A delivery girl, from... From... From...” Oh God, her mind was swarming, emptying- she couldn't even dredge up the name of her own damn workplace in the back of her mind.
The bouncer smiled at her forgetfulness, nodding. As though Elle, in her forgetfulness, had just proven his point for him, on no uncertain terms. “Mm-hmm... Mm-hmm... Very convincing, young lady... Why don't you and I head to the back, spend a little bit of alone time together. We'll see if we can't get you to remember things...”
Her heart was thumping in her head, her temples aching. In spite of herself, she turned her head back over her shoulder to peer at the brutality of the warring grizzlies. Ripping, shredding, attacking one another... Seeming as though at any moment the beautiful, horrible creatures may bring about one another's deaths. And it seemed preposterous that any fate short of this should lay in store for her in the back. That her alleged “spying” should be punished by anything less than death. The most brutal torture, she thought, was about the best she could hope for under present circumstances.
And the bouncer, his grip just kept tightening and tightening... And the eyes of the men surrounding her were leering at her, perhaps desiring Elle herself as much as her looming death. And the door toward which she was being paraded was getting closer.
/>
A voice called out, devoid of brutality. Not to mention, seeming far more human than the chants of any of the other animalistic men surrounding her, wishing for the death of the bears. “Aye, Roland! What the hell are you doing, dude? Where are you taking that poor girl?”
Roland froze, then turned to face the man, who was sitting at the bar. Elle did as well, and her eyes went wide at the sight of him. He was... He was stunning, she decided, at first glance, and in spite of the terrors facing her. She couldn't explain it, really... How the hell he seemed to rob her of all fear, and put her at ease in spite of the dire circumstances facing her. He had broad, powerful shoulders, mussed brown hair, and a rather sly grin on his face. He seemed as though he was in complete control of his situation, not to mention whatever situation he happened to stumble his way into. And on either side of him sat two similar looking gentlemen, silent for the time being, but invested in the situation as much as himself. One was blonde, one had jet-black hair, and the three of them, standing side by side with one another, seemed like a matched trio.
And then, she noticed something else about the men. And at catching sight of it, she whipped her head around the bar, looking from face to face to face. And she realized that all of them, every last patron in The Honey Pot, shared this same, defining characteristic.
Gold irises...
So then, that must mean- and those grizzlies, fighting in the middle of the pub- but...
God, could it be? She'd always heard rumors about their existence, but never known them to be real... Could it be true?
The sight of the man at the bar, coupled with the sudden realization of his shared features with all those around him, stole Elle's breath away. But she was snapped back into reality by the harsh tug of her captor on her arm. He yanked her in the direction of the bar. Forcing himself, against his sincerest desires, to acknowledge the protest of the cheeky bloke beckoning to him.
Roland, apparently, was the man's name. “Poor girl...” he spat at the handsome stud, as though the notion was absurd. “This is no poor girl, my naïve friend... I caught her, sticking her damn nose through the door of the pub, peering in at us, studying us...”
“Yes!” Elle burst, at last speaking up for herself. She was, perhaps, fueled now by the presence of the stud at the bar, hoping to make a good impression on him above all else. It was peculiar, the way a person's head can work sometimes... “I was peeking in the door, because I heard the hellish noise of these two animals trying to kill one another! And by the time I'd gotten a good eyeful and convinced myself I wanted to get the hell out of here, I was just turning around to leave you in peace. Or whatever you want to call this...” She waved a hand at the sight of the two grizzlies duking it out, and as if on cue, one of them sank their teeth into the other. “But then you came and grabbed me, pulling me into the thick of it...”
“Animals!” Roland roared, as though this, of all that she'd just gotten through saying, was the only thing he'd picked up on. Elle recalled her hypothesis about what it was these men were. She realized, startled, that calling them “animals” might not have been the best choice. Or at the very least, it wasn't helping her much as far as the prospect of staying alive was concerned...
Throughout this exchange, the stranger at the bar had not once taken his gold eyes off of Elle, seeming to take her in from her head to her toes. He didn't believe Roland's assertion that she was a spy, or was up to any sort of treachery in her presence at the pub. But he seemed intent on figuring out just what it was she was doing here, so out of place, so vulnerable in the presence of all these violent men. And that was when he caught sight of the basket in which she'd transported the bread here. It was swinging from her arm, ready fall at any moment as Roland man-handled her. And everything seemed to click into place in his head.
“Roland, you paranoid bastard... All you've just managed to do is scare the baker's girl shitless... This poor creature is no spy, you asshole. Look under her arm!”
Roland seemed not to want to believe that he'd been mistaken. He snarled, lifting up the flap of the breadbasket, inspecting the wares concealed therein. Even going so far as to reach in and place his dirty mitts all over a loaf, squeezing it, ensuring that it wasn't made out of plastic or something. He still remained adamant in his assertions that Elle was some saboteur of the most devious nature.
“Clearly she's deceiving us... These are just... Decoys! I mean, they're real, but...”
“Damn it, you dumbass...” He could tell, it seemed, that talking sense into this man was as vain an effort as any. He decided he might be better off to try and get the answers he was seeking straight from the horse's mouth, as it were. He turned to Elle. “Miss, if I'm not mistaken, you work for Konrad's Bakery in town, is this correct?”
“Yes! Thank you!” said Elle, nodding. “Yes I work for Konrad! He's very busy this week, and he sent me to make this delivery on his behalf.”
Elle smiled over at Roland, as though gloating to him that she'd at last proven herself. And Roland, despite himself, seemed to realize his mistake- though he was far from about to admit it, of course. He gripped her tighter than ever now, almost in a fashion that was reactionary. He had nothing on her, nothing whatsoever. And he knew it, but his stubbornness, his resolve to pin some manner of treachery on her, was evident in his disgusted face.
The man at the bar, could see this, and he gave Roland a chastising look. “Now, Roland, let her go... I'm not going to ask again... Take your hands off this innocent girl, and go back to your post like a good little teddy bear... Try keeping a lookout for something that might be of actual danger to us this time, like werewolves, hunters, vampires... And maybe, next time, you could let be the harmless looking young damsels armed with nothing but a basket full of bread.”
It was clear that Roland didn't want to let Elle go- he seemed to cling to her with an angry passion, in fact. But at last, it seemed as though he had no excuse for holding on any longer. His grip slackened, then slipped away, and Elle stumbled forward, longing to put some distance between the two of them. They glared at one another as Roland stepped back toward the door, pissed at her. And Elle, in turn, seemed a little bit contemptuous for all that she'd just been subjected to.
“That's a good boy,” said the man at the bar, once Roland was back out of earshot above the roar of the two grizzlies, still battling it out. And Roland, for the longest time, refused to take his eyes off of Elle.
“Aw, eff him,” said the man at the bar, waving his hand dismissively at the bouncer. “Come on, have a seat, love...”
Elle glared at the man for a moment. She was grateful, of course, for the helping hand out of that rather prickly predicament. But she still wasn't wholly sure she could trust him. In particular, in the event that he happened to be what it was she suspected him of being...
“I'm not a damsel, you know,” she said, dredging up what he'd said a moment before.
The man, for a moment, seemed to have forgotten what she was referring to. But then it dawned on him, and a smile stretched out across his lips in recollection. “Ah, I know... My apologies for that, miss... I didn't mean to offend or belittle... Roland, you see, he paints human beings with a broad brush. I just needed to appeal to the right sensibilities, in hopes of getting him to piss off. And it worked didn't it?” Elle didn't answer, still trying to get a read on this strange man- or half-man, rather.
“Marco, why don't you scoot down one, and clear a space for our guest, here? There, that's it... Come on, ma'am... Why don't you join us?” he patted the barstool. “Those beasties over there may bite, but we don't.”
“Oh- no,” said Elle shaking her head, but the temptation an inviting one. “No, I... I'm just here to make a delivery...”
“Oh, come now, love... After what you've been through? After that bastard ripped your little arm off? You have time for just one drink, don't you? Might ease you up a bit, relax you... I'd say that's something you could use, right about now?”
Elle's goo
d sense would have prevented her from accepting such an offer. But she starting to feel something for this man, in spite of herself. She couldn't say with any real certainty what she might be about to get herself into. But she managed to justify it to herself with the excuse that, yes, she was feeling shaken up after the events of the last few minutes... And one drink couldn't possibly do anything but help, now could it?
Bucking Bearback (BBW Shifter Cowboy Western Romance) (Bear Ranchers Book 5) Page 75
