by Amy Sumida
“Look, firefly.” JJ drew my attention to him, and I turned.
My eyes nearly popped out of my head. Aguirre stormed toward us, fury on her face and hands cuffed behind her back. The Lex walked behind, one of them with her arm in a firm grip.
I knew it to be wrong, but a sense of vindictive satisfaction rose in me, and I smiled. The guys stepped back, not going far, letting me be the first one she laid eyes on. The moment her eyes caught mine, she snarled. Stepping into their path, I forced her and the Lex to stop, then leaned in.
“What you did to me was horrible, but I forgive you anyways.” I whispered the words, surprised to find I meant them.
“You fucking bitch!” Aguirre screamed and lunged at me.
She tried anyway. The Lex snatched her back. In seconds, the boys surrounded me, cutting me off from Aguirre’s view. Hands gripped tight to mine, arms went around my waist. I didn’t know whose hands held whose, but we all touched, intertwined as one unit.
“Boys.” May’s voice drifted to me as she greeted them. Hands drew me forward to stand between JJ and Brooks. “Sera.” She sighed the words as she reached out to caress my cheek. “You no longer flinch when I’m affectionate. It’s nice to see.”
Her gaze shifted, and I didn’t need to follow it to know she watched Aguirre. “I don’t know what happened to her.” Frustration laced her voice as she looked back to me. “I’ve known Agatha Aguirre a long time. She was never an easy person to know, too strict and severe even as a teenager, but what she did to you… This extreme hatred… I just don’t know where this came from. I’m going to find out, though. I promise you, I’ll find out what sent her off the deep end. I’ll get you answers, so you can truly move on from this.”
Someone called her name, and she waved as she strode off.
My gaze drifted back to where Aguirre sat in the back of the Lex SUV. I thought vindictive happiness and relief would be the only emotions running through me, so when the tears fell, they caught me by surprise.
The boys drew tight around me as I sobbed, murmuring words in my ears I didn’t register. After a minute, I fought back the tears and smiled at my worried boys to put them at ease.
I didn’t cry because of Aguirre. No, for once I cried happy tears because I realized I finally found the one place I always wanted to be. It wouldn’t be easy. There were rough edges and fears the boys didn’t know about yet and no guarantees about our relationship, but for the first time ever, I had a family.
And right here, in their arms, I was home.
About the Author
Desi Lin lives in Central Florida with her husband, four kids, and one spoiled, pure black kitty. She enjoys a good cup of coffee, a great tune and delicious food. When not writing, she can be found cooking, taking photographs, playing on her Xbox and driving her kids nuts.
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CODENAME: GOLDILOCKS
Codename: Goldilocks
Fight for Your Fairy Tale Book 6
Amy Sumida
I'm gonna give it to you straight. My name is Tempest Alexander, Codename: Goldilocks. I work for an agency called Supernatural Community Control and Intelligence; SCCIT for short or Suck It, if you have a sense of humor. We've recently discovered that the Sander's County Pack is up to no good. Not that a werewolf pack is ever up to any good. This one, though, happens to be delving into human trafficking; stealing women and selling them to supernaturals as sex slaves. So I've come to Montana to investigate the Pack and hopefully find fourteen missing women. I'm prepared for anything. Anything, that is, except for the Medvedev brothers. Heroic, honorable, and hotter than half-naked firefighters; the brothers are impressive individually. Together, they are irresistible. But the investigation is my priority. I will not allow myself to be distracted by the Medvedevs, no matter how perfect they seem to be.
Copyright © 2017 Amy Sumida
All rights reserved.
Also by Amy Sumida
The Godhunter Series(in order)
Godhunter
Of Gods and Wolves
Oathbreaker
Marked by Death
Green Tea and Black Death
A Taste for Blood
The Tainted Web
Series Split:
These books can be read together or separately
Harvest of the Gods and A Fey Harvest
Into the Void and Out of the Darkness
Perchance to Die
Tracing Thunder
Light as a Feather
Rain or Monkeyshine
Blood Bound
Eye of Re
My Soul to Take
As the Crow Flies
Cry Werewolf
Pride Before a Fall
Beyond the Godhunter
A Darker Element
Out of the Blue
The Twilight Court Series
Fairy-Struck
Pixie-Led
Raven-Mocking
Here there be Dragons
Witchbane
Elf-Shot
Fairy Kings and Dragon Kings
The Spellsinger Series
The Last Lullaby
A Symphany of Sirens
Fight for Your Fairy Tale
The Four Clever Brothers
Wild Wonderland
Beauty and the Beasts
Pan's Promise
The Little Glass Slipper
Codename: Golidlocks
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter One
The women seemed to stare at me in accusation. All those smiling faces; young and beautiful faces. Women who had their whole lives ahead of them. Except now those lives were likely being spent as some supernatural freak’s sex slave.
I sighed, and gathered the glossy photos into a pile, then straightened them with a sharp thwack before setting them aside. Manila folders were spread across the worn coverlet of my rented bed, in my rented house, in Trout Creek; Huckleberry Capital of Montana, population 261. I’d been sent there by the Supernatural Community Control and Intelligence, SCCIT for short, or “Suck It!” to us old timers. I was one of their top agents. Codename: Goldilocks. I know, don’t start with me. I’d earned the moniker with my blonde hair and innocent looks, which I used to my advantage. In Montana, it was definitely a huge advantage. Men out here were rugged, and the women tended to follow suit. Not that the women were unattractive, but when you had a majority of one type of woman in the area, anyone else stood out. I was rugged too, but only on the inside. Outside, I had the type of appearance that made most Montana women roll their eyes and mentally tell me to get my ass back to the city where I belonged. My dainty persona had the opposite effect on many a mountain man, lowering their guard and getting me all sorts of juicy intel on my case.
White slavery. Kind of an offensive term, if you ask me. Shouldn’t we just call it slavery? Or maybe sexual slavery, since that was what this particular crime was really about. Actually, I believe it was called human trafficking now, but that made it sound strange too. Whatever, I don’t make up the terms. I do the dirty work, like delving into the disappearances of fourteen women, most of whom we’d traced to the Sanders County area. That’s whe
re our trail had gone cold, even with all of our high tech support, given to us by people more important than the president.
Then they’d brought me in on the case, and I had narrowed it down further. I was certain the Sanders County Pack was responsible, and the Pack was based out of Trout Creek.
The supernatural threat is real, people. They’re out there. All the beasties and bloodsuckers you don’t believe in. They’re real, they’re mean, and they’re living right next door to you. My job is to make sure they don’t do anything nasty to you or anyone else. If they do, I catch them, and I make them pay.
“Fucking werewolves,” I growled as I read over the information we had on the Sanders County Pack.
Derick Wright ran the Pack, and his brothers were his lieutenants. Too late, all the Wright Brothers jokes have already been made. But if you want to talk about names, how about how much I hate the name Derick? As far as I was concerned, it was two letters away from being “Dick” and those two letters happened to represent the place I wanted to send every Derick I’d ever met—the ER. This one especially.
I gave his picture a flick with my middle finger. Derick Wright was beefy, burly, hairy, and mean. His dark eyes were prone to squinting in menace, and his meaty paws were more likely to bash someone’s face in than give them a fist bump. His younger brothers weren’t much better, all were pretty much smaller versions of him. There was something about shifters, when they had their babies, the eldest tended to be the biggest.
I had approached Dick, I mean Derick, at the Way Side, one of the few bars in Trout Creek. And by “approached” I mean that I went up to the bar to order my drink directly beside the son of a bitch (he’s literally a son of a bitch). Derick had watched me walk up with a glimmer in his beady eyes, then pushed away a guy who was about to come on to me. He loomed over me as the bartender deposited my drink on the bar, then shoved a five at the bartender, and said, “Hey.” He was a real smooth talker, that one.
After an excruciatingly long conversation with Casanova, I learned that he loved his motorcycle more than anything and everyone, except his mama. But “She’s dead now, so I love my bike best.” Derick also enjoyed something called mud bogging, but he had to go to Billings to do it (the poor baby), and he collected fantasy knives. You may think this useless conversation had made my evening a complete waste of time, but within all his stunted yammering, I was able to slip his phone out of his pocket. I went to the restroom, bugged his phone, then suffered through an ass-grabbing slow dance to get it back in his possession.
Now I knew where the bastard went, who he called, and what he said during those calls. I also knew for certain that his pack was responsible for the disappearances. I had verbal confirmation from the Alpha himself. I even had a few possible locations to check out. I was hoping to catch these assholes and free the women within a few days. Then I could be on my way back to LA and civilization. Not that I had anything against nature. No, it was those paranormal perverts hiding out in nature that I didn’t like so much. At least the monsters back home bathed.
“Get ready, you Alpha Dick,” I warned Derick’s picture. “Tonight, Tempest Alexander is coming for you. Goldilocks is about to take down the Big Bad Wolf.”
Yes, I know I mixed up my fairy tales there, but when you had a codename like Goldilocks, you had to reference it in any way possible. It was like a secret agent law or something. Besides, I didn’t believe in fairy tales.
Chapter Two
I walked carefully through the wilderness which practically kissed the back walls of the two-story fortress, masquerading as a cabin. It was the third property I’d checked that night, and the only one with lights on. I edged up to a window, quiet as a ninja, and kinda dressed like one. My bright hair was tucked away in a ski cap, and most of my pale skin was covered in sturdy cotton, all black. I chanced a quick peep through the window and glimpsed four werewolves sitting at a card table, playing poker.
That horrid velvet painting of dogs playing poker came to mind, and I quickly shoved it away. If I considered the whole life imitating art thing too long, I might not be able to control my laughter. And I had no intentions of attracting attention. These guys weren’t shifted yet, but they could be in less than a minute. Then the odds of disabling them through hand-to-hand combat went down drastically. I’d have to resort to knives or guns, of which I had numerous secreted away on my person. Still, I’d rather not use them.
I slid along the side of the house, further back, but the windows there were completely dark. All except one. I glanced upwards before approaching it. The windows on the top floor were boarded up. My eyes narrowed as I crept down towards the light. One quick look, and then I went flat against the wall.
Empty. A heavy desk sat near the window. Some filing cabinets nearby. There was a TV, some reality show blaring, and a long couch that looked as if it were used for more than just sitting. And a cup of coffee. I frowned. The coffee had been steaming.
Just as I turned to head back the way I’d come, a furry arm snatched me up around the waist, and I was jerked off my feet. A clawed paw covered my mouth as a wet nose nudged my cheek. I struggled, but the werewolf held me tight, chuckling at my efforts. Fuck, my boss would be screaming at me right about now.
“What a nice surprise,” the werewolf said with a gravelly voice. He took a deep breath and licked my cheek. “I smelled you coming, sweet stuff. Delicious. I hope you look as good as you smell.”
He dragged me into the house, and that was when my nightmare began.
Chapter Three
“Hey, you okay?”
I groaned, rolled onto my back, and spat something into my hand. They’d been particularly vicious that day.
“I’m fine, Lucy,” I said.
“You don’t look so good.” The petite brunette was pressed against the bars separating us. “You’ve been out for over an hour. You might be concussed.”
Lucy was a nurse. She was also one of the women on my missing persons list. We’d become friends in the desperate fashion of tortured prisoners everywhere. Further down the room were two more women, Gretchen and Michelle. They were on my list too, but the other women were already gone. Sold at auction. Which is what Derick “the Dick” Wright had planned for the rest of us.
Unfortunately, some of us were a little less pliant than others.
After Derick had caught me sneaking around his secret hideout, he’d tossed me into this cell. I’d quickly ascertained the names of my fellow prisoners, and theorized our potential fates. I learned that the other women had been sold just days before my arrival and that the three remaining were due to be auctioned off in two weeks.
Then Derick had returned. He gleefully told me his plans, like any classic villain, through the bars of my cell. He informed me that I would be sold with the others and that I should “get with the program and accept my fate” or else. I had worried that the “or else” would include rape, but it turned out that the wolves could restrain themselves when money was involved. None of their clients wanted women who had been previously used by a pack of werewolves. So I was thankfully left unmolested. At least in that manner.
When it became apparent, through several swear words in numerous languages (just to make certain that they understood me), that I would not be getting down with their program, Derick delivered the “or else.” I was tortured. Daily. They gave me dry scraps of bread to eat and a mere cup of water a day. I was losing weight rapidly and my focus was suffering. But I was a trained SCCIT agent, and I could deal with anything they dished out. In fact, I welcomed it.
Every time they removed me from my cell to waterboard me or slap me around, I got a closer look at my surroundings and a chance at escape. It had been nearly a week, and I now knew where the keys to the cells were kept and what rotation the guards were on. Even better than that, I had pocketed the cell keys that very day.
While Derick was busy taking a phone call in the middle of my lashings, I groaned and rolled my way against the same wall t
he keys were hung on. Derick didn’t even bother to glance at me. There was nothing on that side of the room which could have been used as a weapon. So he didn’t see the keys fall—right into my hands. I shoved them into my mouth and clamped my jaw shut. No matter how hard he whipped me, I wouldn’t let those keys go.
I looked down at the wet keys in my hand and grinned. “Ladies, we’re getting out of here tonight.”
“What?” Lucy’s eyes widened when I showed her the keys. “But, Tempest, we can’t. Even if we get out of our cells, we still have to get past them,” she hissed the last word.
This had been their wake-up call to the supernatural world. These women had lived blissfully ignorant lives, and the destruction of their paranormal innocence had been brutal. Gretchen barely spoke at all, just sat and stared at the bars of her cell. I hoped she’d recover soon, but some people never did. Seeing horror movie monsters in real life could do that to you.
“I know their schedule,” I said confidently. “They’ll be changing the guard in five minutes. That’s our chance. We’ll sneak out the back door while they’re walking out the front.”
Gretchen moaned.
“I don’t know, Tempest,” Lucy whimpered. “If they catch us, it will go worse for us.”
“If they catch us, they’ll know who led you out, and it will go badly for me, not you.” I stood and limped to the door. Derick had beaten my feet the day before, and they were bruised badly. Not that it mattered. I would have walked over broken glass or hot coals to get out of there. “Come on, we’re going.”