"Colt's fed the livestock, checked the jerking meat, placed the pot of beans in the solar oven to cook, and is down harvesting the ripe vegetables. He still needs to lay all the food out to dehydrate. You should go help him with that chore. You know how big it is."
Uncles. I turned, crossing my arms across my chest. "You just want me to go down and get him to bite me. That won't work if he already has a mate."
Thomas threw his hand up in exasperation. "You can't know that. Did you ask him?"
"Why are you harassing me?" I should walk away. Why haven't I? Maybe because some little part of me really wants him to convince me that the big guy is waiting for a mate. Subconciouses are annoying. I suddenly realized Thomas eyed me warily.
Almost conspiratorially. I should run. Far and fast.
He shook his big index finger. "You know."
He pressed the fingertip to his lips for just a breath until his face lit up with something I probably don't want to hear.
He pointed at me. "You should do laundry and be certain to hang those black lace under things on the line--"
"Stop." Like I have no self-respect. Time to leave. I darted through the room's cool shadows for the front door.
"Hang them up right out front. On the outermost rope, Raven," he yelled after me.
I'll just check the blackberries. It's not like they'll torture me again today. I'm not drinking them! And the Parkers might have done something to the electric fence. Somebody needs to check these things while Colt is doing my work. I stepped into the warm sunshine outside the door and headed away from the house and the garden.
Far away. Very far from the little voice telling me Colt just might not be mated.
Go away little voice.
Maybe I should do laundry…Damn Thomas.
Oh well, we'll just see what's beyond the gate. And since there's a Shifter here, I'm not going to worry about crazy Normals. Nope. The Shifter can save me. Come running…Besides, only fools would return after the crap they tried yesterday. I curled my finger behind the log and pushed the hidden button.
The gate hummed to life, rolling sideways, revealing a sunlit rocky path leading up to our cattle guard.
All of my blackberry rows happily raised red berries skyward. And all the black berries begged for picking. I'll just wander up and down some rows to see what's going on in my patch.
"You shouldn't be out there alone," Colt said behind me.
His words had been almost carefully enunciated, or I'm hearing things. But what does it matter when a broad muscled chest glistens like gold in the sunshine? He's checking on me. He came running. Surely that means something.
"Tell me what you were going to do, Raven. I'll do it. I'd rather be the person to find the nest of Normals."
How he can handle intruders the best is what he must be thinking. Yes. It's obvious he could. No reason to bring up that tidbit. "I'm just checking the berry patch and making certain the hot wire is working. It'll only take a few minutes." But he'd be there. Right there. Protecting me. Right? And I kind of like it.
He thrust his angular chin toward the berries.
Allowing me permission.
And I'm not upset he's giving me permission. Strange. Probably because he is still right there. I'm losing my mind with Thomas' annoying suggestions. I'd shake all that chatter out of my memory if Colt wasn't standing here. Never mind. I just need to grab the electric fence's gray wire and jolt some sense back into me. What would Thomas do then? Laugh. Cry? Beat my corpse? That would serve him right wanting to send me back East. I crossed the few steps to the fence and knelt.
Almost in an act of supplication. Here stretched one long line between me and freedom given Thomas kept the electricity in the fence powered far too high for any type of large livestock to touch and walk away. Or Bounders wouldn't drop and probably tear down the wooden palisade.
Bounders. With all the bloodshed yesterday, it's pretty odd that no Bounders were attracted to the scent of blood. Why? Surely Colt noticed. I shot him a glance over my shoulder.
He stood there, arms crossed over his chest, his gaze hidden in the shade cast by his camouflage bush hat.
Surely, he's watching me. "No Bounders last night?" I tossed at him because I couldn't recall anything but sitting in the wine cellar.
He just shook his head.
That's crazy. "There was too much blood. Don't you think it's odd they weren't drawn to the blood? Not even one?" I would have probably been awake all night fearing an attack of a swarm of Bounders if I hadn't drank myself into a coma last night.
"Yes." He scanned the tree line with glowing eyes.
Like maybe he just realized I was right. Like he hadn't thought of it. Or he senses something. "Is everything okay?"
He reached up, grabbed the back of his hat in one palm, lifted and repositioned his hat, all the muscles in his upper arm bulging enough to make me realize I held my breath in awe.
He graced me with another steadfast gaze. "You should hurry."
So, he does sense something. I piddled a second to look busy then rose to join him. Each step back to him made my gut drop farther and farther. But I'm safe as long as he's here.
He grabbed me, shoved me behind his hulking mass, and stared back the direction he'd just been studying the forest.
Where in the hell are my pistols? "What is it?" I whispered.
"One woman. Dressed in black leather. Retreat behind the gate." He stepped one black heel of a combat boot backward.
Placing it flush next to the side of my brown boot. Well, I don't have a choice. "Is she armed?" I dodged into the gate.
"She doesn't look right."
Chapter 4
I fell against the rough edge of the fence's solid post, peering out from inside the homestead's surround at the woman while Colt slowly followed in my footsteps. That's a strange woman, alright. She darted in and out of the tree trunks like she used them to hide from something behind her. Not us. "She's not hiding from us."
"I know." The big golden mass of warm Shifter pressed against my knuckles until all I could do was fidget to catch a glimpse of the woman between his glinting flesh and the wooden log of the fence.
Pinned. He's pinned me here so I can't move.
"Please, Raven, step back so we can close the gate."
He was so calm, so respectful. Alright. But something about that woman, some kind of desperation in her erratic movements begged we help her. "We can't leave her out there."
That's when Colt turned his gorgeous face to study me. "It isn't safe, Raven." He flicked his gaze back to the newcomer. "Close the gate. I'll stay outside to speak with her."
He hadn't raised his voice or left me without an option. I could stand right here and argue or buckle. "Colt, be careful."
"Leave the worrying to me."
Close the gate. Just close the gate. But what about Colt. Closing the gate leaves him stranded out there.
"Raven." He stepped away from my skin.
"Alright. Just remember I have enough invalids around here to look after." I pushed the button and waited as the gate's hum slowly left me with nothing but a sliver of daylight to ascertain the events beyond my little homestead. Who is she? What is she doing here? I need a gun. They aren't here. All the firearms are inside the buildings. But I'm not leaving Colt out here alone, yet.
****
The wind whispered something casually as if Shifters could tap into some secret channel where nature spilled her guts. But I'd never been lucky enough to reach that place and find all the simple solutions to humanity's problems. I stared at the skulking stranger and waited for her to declare her intentions.
Whatever it is she wants, she better be smart enough to take care in how she risks the safety of the tinker's homestead. She must be thirty years old. Old enough to know how to trick her way into a compound. Yet, she's acting like she's hiding from something.
Any Shifter would allow her entry because she's female. Mate-able. But Wolf only cares about the cur
ves with resolve inside the gate.
The woman suddenly had no choice but to run across the open stretch of meadow through sunlight.
She made a beeline toward the cattle guard rails in the dirt road leading up to the gate.
Had the old tinker rigged that metal to carry the same charge as the fence?
"Tell her it's safe to walk across the cattle guard. I just turned off the heat that leads to it," Raven said through the fence.
Protect mine, Wolf growled.
Maybe I'm not ready to deal with this stranger. A brother's mate with a hot little set of lips and a wily Wolf are enough for one Guardian. What would two females corralled in this small space do to me?
"What do you think has scared her so much? Parkers?" Raven asked.
Most likely. But anything could make a single Normal behave the way the woman is. "Maybe. Please, Raven, let me do the talking."
The woman stopped dead still at the cattle guard and stared me down with a brown gaze holding nothing but command. "Shifter?"
What now? I can't allow her to risk Raven's safety. I owe Buck that much. I nodded, pulling my Wolf into my eyes and ears.
"Please, I request sanctuary." She stood there a moment.
Her heartbeat suddenly burst into a flutter of erratic movement. She flinched and turned left, scanning the woods.
She'll have to come clean to enter my little sanctuary. "Who are you running from?"
She froze, then turned back to me.
Some sort of question furrowing her brow. Fear. Her pulse throbs with fear so much that it's carving lines across her forehead. What haunts this one? "Tell me what you're running from, or I won't help you." Which goes against Shifter policy to assist anyone requesting sanctuary. Shoot me. But nobody gets to Raven.
The woman's dusty knee-high black leather boots shifted beneath her.
Only a fraction of an inch.
She thrust her chin high. "I'm running from the aliens."
Aliens don't hunt humans in The Wild. But she'd thrown her shoulders back into a straight line like those creasing her brow. As if attempting to underline the truth. She isn't playing chess. She's running for her life. Why? "Open the gate."
"Colt?" Raven whispered.
"It's alright." And if one thing is going to play out here, it'll be me doing my duty for humanity. I'll learn what has the aliens on the ground out here because extraterrestrials don't risk their lives on the ground.
And I'm going to save Buck's female.
I'm going to forget about a scorching hot kiss she engrained upon my memory.
And everything will work out. Vermin will probably send me to the Minnesota Territory to speak with Augustus about what I learn from this alien bait. So, there's no turning back. Especially after that spacecraft buzzed too Gods-be-damned close to home overhead last night.
The gate hummed a monotone sound while gaping enough to allow us to pass through it. I blocked Raven with my back. Just in case, forcing the strange woman to walk in without seeing my charge. She was about five foot five, straight dark hair that touched the bottom of her shoulder blades--stringy hair that hadn't had a comb pulled through it recently, form-fitting leather pants and long-sleeve shirt that revealed she couldn't be packing weapons.
She wasn't as resolved as Raven. No. It's more like she had a survival edge about her. Like she was high on adrenaline. The kind of edge we all had when facing death. Even more the reason I need to find out where the aliens are and why a woman is suddenly targeted out here in The Wild.
The gate kicked back into a hum once we'd cleared it. Raven's cooperative today. But she better continue to lie low and let me handle things. "Let's go up to the house." I thrust a chin toward the tinker's porch, past the quiet newcomer's brown gaze.
Brown. A natural color known to earthlings. Not the strange grays recently reported associated with humans packing tons of alien DNA. Maybe she's a Normal infiltrator working with the Parkers?
She turned and headed toward the front steps.
Raven fell in close at my heels by the sound of footsteps behind me. But I wasn't taking my eyes off this stranger. Still, I need to make her feel at ease. "What's your name?"
She shot me a glance over her shoulder. "Ebony."
Must be the hair color and black leather.
She turned her long pointed nose back toward the house.
Well, that's a good start. She seems open to questions. "How long have you been running, Ebony?"
"Since last night." She sighed, maintaining her quick pace. "There's a couple camps of Normals in the woods. I don't have any weapons. So, it took all I had to skirt them too."
"Damned roaches," Raven muttered.
Ebony took the creaking stairs without balking.
Funny. Wolf isn't bitching up a storm either. I followed Ebony to the swinging door that produced a sitting Thomas across the room where he leaned against the far wall on his bed.
"Well, hello," Thomas called. "Who have you brought home for supper, Raven?"
Ebony took three steps sideways and made room for our passage.
Raven plowed through the doorway. "This is Ebony." She hurried across the room to stand next to two rifles propped up against the fireplace.
The door swung shut and left us in the murky shadows closing in from all directions inside the building.
Thomas waved his hand. "Welcome. Welcome. Please sit down."
He acted as if he was running the show. And Raven didn't argue. Good girl. But I'm in charge since aliens are now in the mix. "Ebony."
She flicked her gaze my direction.
I nodded toward Thomas and the table. "Please have a seat."
The room grew deathly quiet.
She walked carefully to the bench along the far side of the table and descended.
I didn't give her the chance to change her mind. I moved to her right, opposite Raven and the rifles, and leaned against the hard wall, snaking my arms across my chest.
"Well, this is a fine welcome." Thomas scowled and eyed Ebony. "You'll have to forgive my niece and our friend. We had a little trouble here yesterday."
"Oh?" Ebony glanced at each of us.
Almost curiously. But something hinted she still operated in survival mode. "What kind of trouble?"
"Normals," I answered before anyone could add details.
"That explains the crazies in the woods," Ebony said. Her shoulders sagged like she suddenly deflated.
Or decided it was safe to relax.
"Raven," Thomas gasped, "get the water. Make some tea for our guest. She looks like she could use a cup." He snapped his gaze to Ebony's seated form. "Lemon or mint?"
Ebony blinked quickly. "Either is fine."
Her hands were clutched together like she held on for dear life. Squeezing. Hanging onto something.
"Where were you born?" Thomas asked, genuinely curious.
Just like a tinker.
"New Mexico Territory," Ebony answered Thomas without a hint of subterfuge.
"I've never been there," Thomas noted with a thoughtful nod. "I hear there's quite a few Normals surviving in what is thought to be one of the greatest places to hide from Bounders."
She nodded. "Yes. You don't have to worry about Bounders in the desert. Normals are the evil of choice there."
She was probably sold into slavery. But we don't have time to reminisce about that. "You said the aliens were chasing you."
She nodded, staring at her knees.
Hiding something, maybe. "You said they were chasing you since last night. Last night, a spacecraft flew over. I need to know what's happening. Are these people endangered?"
Her gaze snapped to mine. "I don't think so. I was released."
Holy fucking shit. "Nobody has ever been released once captured by aliens, Ebony. Once a member of The Damned, always a member." I could hear my teeth grating.
This isn't right.
She just stared at me where she sat.
Low. Submissively. Like she was beggi
ng me to protect her, or she doesn't know if she can tell me what she's hiding. "I need to know why you are special enough to be released."
She gulped so loudly that even the Normals had to have heard the pop. Then she sucked in one long breath.
Bad news. I don't think any of us want to know what she's holding inside.
"My mate released me. He's alien. And the shit's about to hit the fan in their world."
Chapter 5
I handed Ebony a steaming cup of mint tea. It's my favorite. She could use a little something special if what she says is true. And I had grabbed my fanciest gold-rimmed cup and saucer, one of three cup and plate sets that had matching mates, to use because the multi-colored floral pattern always made me think of the garden. Good things happen in the garden. Surely that might lighten the moment.
Ebony looked at the cup for a second then reached, taking the cup by the saucer. She just stared at it as she lowered it.
A bit too slowly for the action to go unnoticed. Maybe something far worse is wrong. Something as horrible as what played out in those horror books in Thomas' library. "Are you hungry?" Food might help her relax.
She wagged her head quickly and placed the saucer on her thigh.
"I can see you're a bit unsettled by the subject," Colt continued. "But I need to know a few things to make sense out of your story and to ensure we're all safe here."
Oh, why did he have to be mated? He's so calm and rational. The way Thomas used to be before his brain was blown off.
Ebony took a sip of tea but didn't answer until she'd placed the cup back on the saucer. "There are things I'll never talk about. But I'll try." She blinked.
Almost painfully like an eyelash itched her eye.
"I'll try to answer." Ebony's mask metamorphosed from introspective to serious then she turned to Colt. "Alright."
The shadows of thought flitting across his strong features had enough warning in them to make me think I'd be better off outside weeding the garden. Lost in peaceful bliss. But something monumental was about to happen because every hair on my body tingled in awareness.
Blackberry Wine Page 7
