by T. S. Joyce
Holt cut the engine and got out. Fargo was sitting on the front porch, staring at him with his ears back and his teeth bared. That smart dog didn’t come around Holt at night much. He knew he was a monster sometimes, and keeping his distance was why the pup was still alive.
He made his way around the old Lachlan house, past the stilts of the house and right to the edge of the water. The second he kicked off his boots and the waves hit his toes, the scales on his body became more pronounced. This part hurt. It was like dying every night, but he was used to it. One minute, and the pain would be over and the power of the animal would surge through him. And then bloodlust would begin.
Here it was. As he pitched forward to the soundtrack of his breaking bones, he was reminded of why he had to keep Bre at a distance.
It was for her own safety.
Chapter Six
The dog was barking.
Bre eased her eyes open and looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand. Four in the morning, and what the heck could have Fargo this riled up? His racket was constant.
With a little growl, Bre pushed out of bed and slipped on her flip-flops, made her way to the yard. His bark was echoing, over and over and over.
“Fargo?” she called.
He came running out from around the big house. The bottom half of his body was soaking wet, and she could see the whites of his eyes in the dim halo of porch light that drifted from the big house.
“What are you doing? Swimming?”
He barked three times fast and then ran back from where he had come at a full sprint. Oh, good, the dog was psychotic.
He was causing a ruckus, though, and what if he woke the neighbors? Did they have neighbors? She couldn’t remember seeing any other driveways on the way from town.
Just as she was about to go back inside, his barking got louder, and he bolted out of the shadows toward her again. He spun twice in front of her, then ran a few steps toward the big house and back.
Okay, something was going on. She wasn’t Ace Ventura or anything, but she could see clear as day the German Shephard wanted her to follow him.
She bolted inside and grabbed a kitchen knife from the drawer and a flashlight that was sitting on top of the counter. Fargo followed her right inside, barking over and over. “I know, I’m coming!” she exclaimed breathily. “Holt!” she yelled as she bolted across the yard. “Wake up, something’s wrong with Fargo!”
The lights didn’t come on, though, so he must’ve been a deep sleeper. Shit, she couldn’t go around to the water’s edge by herself. That’s where Fargo was trying to lead her. “Holt!” she yelled again.
No lights, no sound other than the barking. She detoured and took his steep porch stairs two at a time, threw open the screen door, and flipped on the living room light. “Holt! Wake up!”
Nothing.
With a string of colorful words, she ran to his bedroom and flipped on the light switch only to find an empty bed. It was still made and everything. What the hell?
Heart racing, she ran out of the front door and stumbled past the stilts of the house toward the water that lapped at a dock that was connected to the back of the house. Fargo was whining and licking something, and up the swamp, she could hear the soft murmur of people yelling. There were boat lights coming this way.
Flip-flops slipping and sliding in the mud, she went ankle deep into the swamp water, praying there was no alligator waiting to eat her up. “Fargo,” she muttered, drawing closer. “I trust you to protect me from the swamp wildlife and also from—”
The beam of her light landed on Holt’s face, and she yelped and jumped back, nearly fell but kept upright by bracing herself against a giant gnarled cypress root.
“Get back in the house,” Holt murmured. He didn’t have a stitch of clothing on, and he was covered in mud and something red. A lot of red.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, rushing to him.
Blood was gushing out of a wound in his chest, and he wasn’t moving much. “There’s a boat coming. I’ll call for help!”
She stood to scream, but his hand wrapped weakly around her ankle. “They’re comin’ to kill me.”
Horrified by his words, she stared at the boat lights coming closer, back to Holt, then to Fargo who was looking up at her with pleading eyes and a whine in his throat.
This wasn’t what she’d signed up for! She was here for a story! But when Holt tried to move and winced, something inside of her clicked. Fuck it, whatever he was into, she was gonna be in it now, too, apparently. She couldn’t just let him bleed out half submerged in a muddy swamp.
“Help me as much as you can,” she whispered, dragging him up by the arm.
He groaned but did as she asked. He leaned on her heavily, too heavily. Her legs buckled and her flip-flops got stuck in the mud and, fuck it, she just left them there. The boat was coming closer. She could hear words now, echoing through the swamp.
“Take the left in the fork, Severence!”
Shit, shit, shit!
Holt was grunting with every step, but he was moving, and Fargo had gone silent as he circled them.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, boy,” Holt murmured, but he was as pale as a sheet and stumbling bad.
By some miracle, they made it up the stairs and into the house. Bre flew into action and ran for the kitchen, grabbed a dish towel, and threw it at him. “Pressure,” she hissed, jamming a finger at what she was pretty sure was a bullet wound. “I’m calling the cops.”
“No cops, the sheriff in this town ain’t an ally. He’ll help dig my fucking grave.”
“Who can I call? Who can help? Because those assholes are tying off at the dock right now!”
“Hand me that shotgun off the rack there,” he ordered. “Don’t touch the trigger. It’s loaded.”
Carefully, she pulled the giant weapon off its pegs by the back door and watched in horror as he winced and cocked it. He pressed his back against the wall by the door. “Take Fargo and lock yourself in that back room—”
“I can’t leave you alone!”
“Bre! Stop arguing and do what I say.” His chest was heaving, and he was bleeding so bad. It was running down his chest, mixing with the mud that had smeared over his abs, dripping to the floor with a sickening sound. Drip, drip, drip.
She had to do something. Had to! They were coming up the back porch stairs; she could hear their clomping boots!
She’d never been so scared, never so terrified. Her heart had never beat this hard, and the blood had never roared so loudly in her ears.
She knew it was coming, but the banging on the back door startled her anyway. She jumped and froze for a moment. Just…stopped functioning. All except her mind, which was racing ninety miles a minute.
“Bre,” Holt murmured, “look at me.”
She dragged her gaze to his. Those eyes, those eyes, those fiery yellow eyes with the elongated pupil. She knew what he was. Why he’d been in that water, why he thrived in a swamp. It hit her like a lightning bolt.
“It’s okay,” he whispered.
It was okay that he got roughed up or worse by these swampers?
Another banging on the door. “Lachlan, we know you’re in there, and we fuckin’ know what you are. Shifter! We saw you swimming for this house. You have three seconds to open this fucking door or we’re kicking it down!”
Okay. Okay! Stay there, she mouthed.
Fargo looked scared and was circling between her and Holt.
What are you doing? he mouthed, pushing off the wall, but Bre had a plan. Kind of.
When she pulled off her shirt, his face went comically blank. There was no bra involved in her giant T-shirt and panties sleep ensemble. Cheeks on fire, she pulled the T-shirt semi-modestly against her chest to cover her tits and threw open the door. There was the double barrel of a shotgun pointed at her face.
“What the fuck are you doing on my property?” she asked. Bravado had gotten her out of some hairy-scary situations over her years of reportin
g.
The three men standing under the porch light looked utterly shocked. Since her legs were covered in swamp mud, she was leaning into the open door frame so they wouldn’t see that part of her body.
“We…uuuuuh. We’re lookin’ for Lachlan. Holt Lachlan.” The leader, a tall, gangly, smelly man with long greasy hair, backed up a few steps and looked at the house. “This ain’t your property.”
“It will be when Holt makes an honest woman of me. Again, what the fuck are you doing here? It’s four in the morning.”
A shorter man with a full Manchu mustache and no shirt opened and closed his mouth like a fish suckin’ oxygen. He frowned. “Where’s Holt?”
Bre clenched the shirt tighter to her tits to hide the shake in her hands. She arched an eyebrow. “Not that it’s any of your damn business, but he’s in the shower washing the smell of sex off him. Anymore inappropriate questions you wanna demand of me, on my own fuckin’ porch, on my own fuckin’ property, at four in the fuckin’ morning?” she yelled. “You’re ruining my buzz! You know what? Screw this, I’m calling the cops. You can deal with them. I’m sure Holt will be real excited to see you idiots on our porch when he gets out of the shower. Sic my fuckin’ dog on you,” she muttered as she turned like she was going to retrieve her phone.
The dog in question was sitting in front of Holt, watching some command he did with his hand. She couldn’t look at Holt or her nerve would falter.
“Ma’am. Ma’am!” Greasy-haired Prick called as she moved to shut the door.
“We’re leaving. Y’all have a good night.”
“Uh, I was having a fantastic night until I had to deal with this shit. Do me a favor and lose our address. You don’t have any rights up here. Next time I’ll just shoot you first and ask your corpses what the hell you want after. That’s your warning.” She glared for few seconds more and then slammed the door behind her.
She walked into the living room in case they could see her silhouette through the small window at the back door and waited until she could hear the sounds of their bootsteps fading down the stairs and toward the dock. She and Holt stared at each other as the motor of the boat roared to life, and they both stood there frozen until that began fading away, too.
Holt sagged and hit the floor, and Bre rushed to him, took away the completely soaked dish towel from the wound in his chest and pressed her sleep shirt to it. “What do I do? Can you get to my truck? Hospital?” she blurted out.
“No hospitals. I can heal it. I just need the bullet out. I’m gonna pass out.”
“No, no, no, not yet! Tell me what to do!”
“First-aid kit under the stairs. Clamps. Clean it. Pull…” His eyes were rolling back in his head.
When she slapped his cheek a little, he focused on her again. “…pull the bullet out, clean up the wound, don’t let anyone in here. Not for anything.”
“Okay. Okay. Just pull a bullet out. Like they do in the movies.”
“Bre?”
“Don’t say goodbye. Please don’t say—”
“You have the best tits I’ve ever seen.” His eyes rolled back in his head and his body went limp.
Bre frowned down at her mud-smeared, mostly naked body.
Well…okay then.
At least he’d learned how to give a compliment before he died.
Chapter Seven
Someone was singing. A girl. Mom? Pretty voice like Mom’s.
“Hushaby, don’t you cry, gooo to sleep, little babyyyyy…”
Holt smiled. He knew this song. Hadn’t heard it since he was a kid.
“When you wake, you will find, all the pretty little horseys…”
“Am I dead?” If Mom was singing, he must’ve been. Ghosts didn’t talk much.
“Nope, but not for lack of trying,” the pretty voice said softly, and then there was cold water trickling onto his burning skin.
He eased his eyes open. Not Mom. Bre. Wearing one of his shirts, she was on her knees on the mattress beside him, washing his skin with a wet rag.
“I know you got some kinda magic in you that helps you heal,” she murmured, eyes tracing where she dragged the cloth, “but your body sure does burn like the sun while you’re doing it.”
He grunted. It was as close to a chuckle as he could get right now. “How long was I out?” He tried to sit up, but pain blasted through his chest.
“Stop wiggling around, ya wild man,” Bre crooned, easing his shoulders back onto the pillow. “You’ll undo all of my hard work.”
His chest was wrapped in bandages, and his skin was clean of all the mud and blood.
“How long? I have a swamp tour today. A family booked it a month ago—”
“They came to the door earlier. I told them we would do an extra thirty minutes onto their tour and give them a discount if we could move it to tomorrow. Hope that’s okay. I didn’t even know we were supposed to do a tour today so I just kind of made some stuff up.”
Holt sighed in relief. “Fargo’s okay?”
“Yes. Fed him this morning. He’s lying in the corner. No one has come to the door other than the tour, who definitely talked to me while I was wearing your T-shirt and nothing else. I think I’m building up a good reputation around here.”
“Town floozy?”
“Yeah. I’m embracing it. The sexless town floozy.”
He snorted, but it hurt. “Well, you can hop on me if it’ll make you feel more authentic.”
“Yeah, how do you get morning wood when you are half dead?
“I’m magic, remember?” he deadpanned hoarsely.
She pointed. “That’s ridiculous.”
He lifted his head up just enough to make sure she was pointing at what he thought she was and, yep, there was his boner, standing up like a damn tent pole, holding up the sheets. He dropped his head back and closed his eyes against the glaring sunlight streaming through the window. “I can think of way better words to call it than ridiculous.”
“Gigantor.”
“Oh, my God, stop looking at it then.”
“It’s the size of a continent.”
“Breeeee,” he groaned.
“I made pancakes. They are cold now, but I can heat them up.”
Well, that got his attention. “Food would help the healing speed up. Lots of food.”
“I’m on it!” She bustled out of the room and returned a few minutes later with a stack of a dozen pancakes smothered with butter.
“When I was a kid, if I was sick, my mom always made pancakes for me. It’s my comfort food.”
He eased up, feeling shredded as he tried and failed to get comfortable with his back against the headboard. “My comfort food used to be shrimp and grits.”
“What is it now?”
He grinned. “Pancakes.”
“Who shot you, Holt?” she asked suddenly. She glanced over at the end table next to the bed where a piece of deformed metal sat. The bullet she’d dug out of him. She didn’t have a stitch of make-up on, her freckles were stark against her pale cheeks, her red hair was in wild waves down her shoulders. When she dragged her attention back to him, her blue eyes were full of worry. When was the last time anyone had worried for him?
He made himself very busy eating.
“Okay,” she murmured. “I’ll let you be.” She got up to leave, but he didn’t want her to go. He couldn’t explain it. Being alone had never bothered him, but he wanted her to just exist in the same place as him. She made him feel…better.
“You met them last night. Those three are poachers. There are lots of them in these parts. Game warden can’t keep up. My animal is big. Too big. He don’t look like the other gatahs in the swamp. Some of the people around here are onto me. They’re starting to put it all together. There’s been stories about my animal for years. Some eighteen foot alligator running the swamp, but no one can catch him. I’m too careful when it’s hunting season. I’ve been lucky to escape them so far. But poachers…now they’re a different breed. They don’t c
are about ethics, or hunting during the short season. They hunt me all year long. The trophy. That’s what my animal is. And now they’re starting to fuse rumors of my family, and of me, to my animal. Tonight, I ruined some of their traps, and they were waiting. They shot me before I could swim deep enough. Fuck.” He closed his eyes tight. “Bre, it’s better if you don’t know anything about anything.”
“Better for who?”
He shrugged.
“Better for who?” she asked louder. “Because last night I got pulled into something I wasn’t prepared for. And it could’ve ended really badly.” She swallowed hard and shoved him in the shoulder. It hurt so bad.
“I told you to go in the back room and not get involved!”
“You think that’s what I mean by it could’ve ended badly? I pulled chunks of metal from your chest, Holt! By myself. Scared to death the whole time you were gonna die on me, and it was really really close.”
“I don’t want you going out to the swamp at night anymore—”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?” he belted out, fury taking him. “You ain’t playing the game right.”
“Because it’s not a game to me! You see yourself as expendable. You were going to send me to that back room and whatever happened to you, who cares, right?”
“No one is gonna miss me—”
“Wrong! I would! I wouldn’t be okay sitting in a back room and losing you. Fuck! You! You aren’t playing the game right. It’s not me. It’s you.”
She was backing toward the door, and she looked terrified. “I don’t want to like you either. I can’t. I’m…I’m…”
“You’re what?”
She looked sick as she dashed her knuckles across her cheek. “I’m the monster.”
He didn’t understand. He couldn’t read the expression in her face at all. Was it panic? Or fear? Was she scared of him? He didn’t want that. Not anymore. Not after last night when she’d stood face-to-face with a shotgun and told a trio of poachers to get the fuck off her porch. Her porch. How damn good had it felt for her to claim this place as home?
