by C. R. Jane
People always feared the unknown though. It was much easier to blame something on someone they could see instead of acknowledging the fact that there was a monster prowling the woods around their town.
“You’re not going anywhere alone,” Wilder snarled, plastering me to his hard body. His touch felt almost desperate…like he was afraid I was just going to disappear.
Looking at all the townspeople currently glaring my way, it seemed like it just might be a good idea to disappear.
Daxon looked torn between wanting to be with me or fight Wilder, I couldn’t be sure…and being there for his people.
“We can drive in the van,” I said firmly, a wave of exhaustion hitting me. It had been an eventful twenty-four hours, and tonight, seeing Eve like that…I wasn’t going to get over it any time soon.
Daxon pushed the crying woman into another pack member’s arms and then grabbed my hand and pulled me away from Wilder until I was flush against his body. He stroked my cheek while he stared into my eyes. “Everything’s going to be all right, baby,” he whispered, his tone and touch at odds with the intense look in his eye.
I wished I could have believed him, but I’d learned early on that nothing was ever all right in my life. Even when everything seemed to be good, there was always something waiting just around the corner to ruin everything.
I just hadn’t imagined that the thing lurking around the corner was a terrifying shadow monster.
Daxon reluctantly let me go and then started barking orders. Wilder grabbed my hand and started to pull me the opposite direction down the path. As I walked away from the group, I saw that they were gathering Eve’s body and heading in the direction of where the party had been taking place. A few of the women were leading Eve’s mother’s trembling body behind the somber procession.
A sob tore at my throat, and I hurried away from the sight. Wilder took the keys from me when we reached the van. The back doors of it were still open from where I’d left them, thinking I’d be right back to grab more food. I tiredly watched as Wilder slammed them closed and then walked me to the passenger side of the van. I felt like a zombie, like I was just a stranger in someone else’s body that was just going through the movements. I got into the seat, and Wilder buckled my seatbelt before shutting the door and going around to the driver’s side. He got in and started the van and then wordlessly drove us back to the inn.
We pulled up to the back of the inn, Wilder obviously being familiar with how the catering worked at the place. Jim came out with a worried look on his face, his arms crossed in front of him as he watched us questioningly. I just sat there in the van, unmoving, staring blankly at some plaster that needed to be repaired near one of the large windows back there.
“Sweetheart,” Wilder said softly, and a little cry burst from my lips at how out of place the tender words seemed in the situation. Wilder sighed and then got out of the van. I watched as he said something to Jim and Jim’s face collapsed in sorrow. He must have told him about Eve.
I’d obviously not known Eve terribly well, but it would have been obvious to anyone that she was the kind of person the world would miss. She just had this light about her that you didn’t see in very many people.
My door suddenly opened, and I realized I’d gotten lost in my head again. I lamely protested when Wilder unbuckled my seatbelt and then scooped me up in his arms. He carried me through the back door next to a grieving Jim, who was now talking to Carrie, all the way up the stairs to my room.
“We need to do something about this,” Wilder muttered as he sat me down on the bed. He briefly disappeared from the room, and I heard the sound of water.
He was running me a freaking bath.
Things between me and him were complicated. And there was the matter of Daxon.
But did I let him lead me into the bathroom? Did I let him strip me down? Did I let him gently run a warm washcloth over my skin, touching me like he was worshiping me rather than washing me? Yep.
Just like the sweet way he’d spoken to me in the van earlier, the soft way he was touching me in the bathtub…it just did something to me. It broke something inside me. I was so starved for affection and care that it was like my body didn’t know what to do with it when it got it.
Wilder was kneeling down next to the tub and only looked mildly alarmed as I randomly burst into tears and buried my face in my hands. He didn’t say anything, and I needed it that way. I needed to sit in the silence with him and mourn that things really sucked.
After yet another breakdown, I got into bed, exhausted. Wilder turned to go, and I patted the space next to me. “Lie with me?” I asked hoarsely. My body was shutting down, something it tended to do under extreme stress, and today had certainly been one for the books.
Wilder looked relieved and carefully lay down next to me without taking any of his clothes off. I buried my face into his neck and breathed in his scent. His chest rumbled against me in a soft purr, and I soaked the comforting sound in.
“Goodnight, Rune,” he whispered in a gravelly, tired voice.
“Goodnight,” I whispered back.
I still had nightmares that night, but I somehow knew his presence was preventing them from being worse.
Wilder was gone when I opened my eyes the next morning.
2
Rune
My stomach heaved each time I thought of Eve in the woods. I didn’t want to remember her that way, but it was funny how my brain insisted on reminding me of all the things I didn’t want to see. Like her dead eyes staring up into the sky. When I glanced down at my hands, I pictured them covered in her blood and how much I would have done anything to save her if I had found her in time.
I moved into the bathroom and turned on the water in the sink and lathered my hands with the soap. I rubbed them into a white mass, then used my toothbrush to scrub under my nails again. I had to get rid of this horrible feeling like I couldn’t wash her death off me.
“You did nothing wrong,” I murmured under my breath and lifted my chin to catch my gaze in the mirror. I looked startled. It was the best way to describe the paleness of my cheeks, the red puffiness of my eyes from crying for the past half hour since waking up. I barely knew her, but we’d worked together at Moonstruck Diner enough times to make her loss hurt.
Lowering my head, not wanting to look at myself a second longer, I washed my hands, dried them on the towel, and staggered into the main room. There, I peered out the window to the grounds below. The river glistened beneath the sun, but it had no right looking so beautiful and calm after someone so young lost their life.
My throat squeezed, and I blinked away more tears.
Down by the woods, locals gathered, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they suddenly appeared in front of the inn with pitchforks and fire, demanding my death.
I might have laughed at my over exaggeration, but it was impossible to forget the hatred in Eve’s mother’s gaze when she’d accused me. Queasiness rose through me each time I remembered the rest of the bystander’s venomous stares at me.
I paced back and forth in my room, then collapsed on my bed. My heart beat frantically as I tried to think of anything else but Eve, which only ended up in my thoughts trailing to Daxon and Wilder. To their argument; and the fact that their hatred of each other seemed to be growing. Of course I was somehow being drawn to each because it seemed I liked to complicate my life.
Wilder had carried me back to my room yesterday, set me a bath, and then lay in bed next to me until I slept. No one had ever done that for me, and I wanted to make sure I never forgot. As much as he still remained a mystery and I had so much more to understand about him and this town, I appreciated him caring for me.
Now when it came to Daxon, I was torn and twisted. He’d been so kind to me since arriving in town, but recently, he’d changed, growing darker, more mysterious.
My breath shuddered out of me at how confused I felt about these men.
For the tenth time this morning, I wondered how
I could leave town without anyone seeing me.
Staring at the white ceiling, I found my thoughts drifted back to Eve, to her laughter, to her smile, then her dead body. My gut tightened.
This wasn’t the first time I’d seen death. I wished I could say it was, but Alistair had made sure it was a frequent sight. He’d destroyed anyone he perceived to be a threat, which happened to be a lot of people. None of those experiences had softened the edge of seeing death or having it paraded in front of me though.
My eyes shut, and images floated in front of me, memories I hated, but stopping them was close to impossible.
“Sit the fuck still,” Alistair barked in my face, all the while wrenching my arms behind me and around the chair’s back, where he’d shoved me to sit. “You’re shit at taking direction.”
My eyes pricked with tears, but I refused to show him fear. That only got him more excited, made him more cruel. I had no clue what I did this time to set him off, and it didn’t take much, I knew this, but my mind ran wild, trying to remember what it could be.
His face pushed into mine, and he smirked as he harshly tied my wrists up with the red ribbon I’d worn in my hair. “I told you before, Rune, about making yourself pretty for others. It comes with consequences. You don’t fucking flirt with anyone,” he spat. “You are mine, and I do what I like with you. I make those decisions for you, not you. If I want someone to fuck you, then I’ll make sure it happens under my watchful eye. You piss me off enough, and I’ll get the whole fucking pack to fuck you.” His hand struck toward me as fast as a viper. He grasped my throat and squeezed, and the pressure of his grip had me nodding in agreement. Right then, I’d agree to anything in order to be released. “So you, my little moon, seem to have forgotten your place today.” He mocked me with his pet name, thinking it was hilarious. It made me ill each time he called me that. If he’d accepted me as his mate, I would have been his luna…his literal moon.
Now I was nothing but this.
I sucked in the shallow breaths he allowed, frozen in my seat, too terrified to make a single sound.
“Rune. Rune. Rune. What you did today was so damn stupid. You think I didn’t see you wriggling your slutty ass as you walked past my room while I had a business meeting, then tying your hair up with that red ribbon.” His lips curled with sinister menace, and my heart shivered at the notion that he was going to strike me in the face any second now. I tensed in my seat, waiting for it, bracing myself for the stinging ache. “You’re in heat, I can smell it, and don’t worry, after this, I’ll make sure to take care of you.”
Tears slid down my cheeks at his words, and a shiver started in the pit of my stomach as I knew exactly what that meant. Panic burned through me, and escape rolled over my mind, building like an unstoppable tornado. My heart beat so fast, it was ready to explode.
Except, he’d never let me get far.
Staring right into my eyes, he tsked. “Now I want you to know, what happens to Lester is all your fault, little moon. You made him look at you, and for that, I had no choice but to gouge out his eyes.” He released my throat at once, and I gasped for air as terror clawed up my spine.
“Alistair, please, I just wanted to tie my hair up. It’s hot today.” Desperation trembled my words.
His fist came for me sudden and fast, clipping me just below the eye. The excruciating pain was immediate and jolted up my face like my skull was cracking in two. My bones seemed to shudder as my head flung backward from the impact, and I cried out from the unbearable sting. There was nothing but stars in my vision, nothing but a thundering pulse deep behind my eye.
“Don’t ever talk back to me,” he growled.
Holding back how badly I wanted to ugly cry from how much my face hurt, I turned my gaze from him, hating him with every fiber of my being. His meeting today went shit, as I’d heard the shouting from across the mansion. But I was also stupid to have even gone anywhere near them. I wasn’t thinking and wanted to head into the backyard for fresh air, to stop listening to the yelling. I should have known better.
Furious at myself, at him, I kept my mouth shut, taking in raspy breaths while tears pooled in my eyes.
He wiped them from my cheeks with a thumb, and his attempt at tenderness only bristled my rage. My vision blurred in and out, but I tried to push past how half my face felt like it had swollen to the size of a puffer fish.
Then he pulled up, squaring his shoulders, and looked over to Lester, who was slumped in the corner of the basement. His soft whimpers were barely noticeable behind how loud my heart pounded in my ears. Lester lay on his side, his wrists and ankles tied behind him, while blood poured from his eye sockets. Silver coins were embedded in the sockets so that his shifter healing couldn’t get to work. I cringed, lowering my gaze when Alistair grabbed my chin, squeezing so hard, I couldn’t hold back the cry of pain that time.
I didn’t care about him or any of Alistair’s business acquaintances and friends. They could all die right at this moment, and I’d celebrate. He associated with no one but thugs and criminals. Amid them, my fated mate was the most evil person I’d ever met, and he delivered punishment to anyone who crossed him.
It was hard to imagine what I must have done for the moon goddess to think that the perfect true mate for me was him. I must have been a monster in another life.
“You will watch and know that next time you go against me, this will happen to you.”
I nodded, shaking as I turned my attention to Lester, while my thoughts drowned in darkness, in my bleak life, and hatred.
“That’s a good snowflake. You’re learning. Maybe one day, you’ll even beg me to kill someone for you.”
The way he said those words, his voice almost brimming with excitement, only brought bile to the back of my throat. But I didn’t respond, didn’t dare, still he grinned, taking pleasure from terrifying me.
I swallowed the thickness in my throat, and instead of Lester, all I could picture was Alistair slumped on the ground, tied up, and how much easier my life would be if he was eliminated. Most nights, I dreamed of ways to get rid of him, the best way to destroy such a revolting beast. A blade in his heart while he slept. A gun to his head. But each time I woke, that determination dissolved into fear. Into the reality that if he so much as suspected I was thinking I wanted him dead, he’d murder me in the most painful way possible.
There was also that weak, desperate part of me that knew I’d never be able to kill someone who literally owned part of my soul.
Abruptly, Alistair broke into a chuckle, then clapped, and I flinched in my skin. “Let’s do this already.”
He marched across the basement to the table near the far wall and picked up the long thin samurai sword he’d brought downstairs with him. A chill spread through me, and a whimper rolled over my throat, which I regretted immediately.
He looked at me, his brows pulled together. “You better not cause me anymore trouble.”
Swinging the sword through the air in a show of how well he handled the weapon, he grinned to himself, while I wanted to scream for him to release me. He walked over to Lester and stood over him. “Now, where were we before we got interrupted?”
The beta wolf shifter whimpered, blood smeared across his face and down the front of his chest from his gouged eyes. Maybe I was just as broken as everyone else in this house to feel such little pity for him. The longer I spent with Alistair, the more he completely destroyed me.
I tugged against the ribbon, my hands almost numb from how tightly he’d tied them up.
“We can make another deal,” Lester slurred in response. “Come on, Alistair, I have a wife and two kids, I’d never look at your girl.”
Alistair scoffed at his answer as he swung his blade up over his shoulder.
My heart pummeled against my ribcage, terror swallowing me. Everything about him disgusted and sickened me.
He glanced over his shoulder at me, making my skin crawl. “That’s right, my moon. Keep watching.”
&nbs
p; In a heartbeat, the swift whisper of his sword came down on Lester fast, striking him across the soft flesh of his neck.
The blade bit into his skin, slicing all the way through so fast, I had no time to look away.
Lester gurgled, and his horrified cry ended abruptly.
Blood splashed across Alistair’s shirt and the stone floor. Red dots stained everything around them.
I couldn’t move or even breathe, too scared to say a damned thing. The way his head rolled backward, detached from the body, made me queasy. So much so, that in seconds, I threw up my breakfast all over the floor and across my shoes. Everything came out so fast, it left me dizzy.
“For fuck’s sake, Rune.”
The image of Lester’s decapitated head was going to haunt me. I could already feel it sticking to my thoughts like a virus.
Alistair shook his head at me. “You’re cleaning this whole fucking mess. Your putrid vomit, the blood, everything. Fuck me, you’re such a weak bitch.”
I shot up and out of bed, wrenched from the memory, my heart racing and my knees shaking.
I was never going to escape Alistair.
I would be haunted by him forever, until eventually, I went mad.
I trembled and rubbed the goosebumps out of my arms. Anytime I thought of him, I felt so dirty and guilty. I remember vomiting two more times during the cleanup in the basement, and I vowed to never go near Alistair’s office ever again. But it didn’t stop him torturing me at any chance he got.
There was so much vileness in everything he touched.
I took several steps toward the glaring sunlight pouring through the window and looked outside again to where nothing had changed from earlier. My mind buzzed, dragging me into panic about what I should do next. I needed to leave town, yet they wouldn’t let me go. And now most of those living here would blame me for Eve’s death. It made more sense from their perspective to blame the newcomer as opposed to an enemy no one had seen except me.