by Rose, Aubrey
She was a wolf groupie. It wasn’t unusual to find them hanging around the fights. And when I’d shifted for her she’d just about creamed her cute little panties.
My kind of girl.
Well, maybe a little scrawny for my tastes. I wouldn’t have fancied her chances out in the wild. But, slender little body or not, she did have a nice ass.
I stood there watching it as she slept, sipping on the world’s worst instant coffee. She stirred and I took the chance to nudge her with my knee.
“Yo! Hey, Chrissie. The big bad has to go and do some stuff. You need to get yourself home, girl.”
I’ve never been one to make a big deal over the morning after the night before. I’m not a fan of promises and goodbyes. Apparently this didn’t sit well with Chrissie, though, and I found myself having to dodge a pillow hurled in my direction.
“It’s Lacey, asshole.”
Lacey. Damn. “Look, sorry Lacey, but I’ve got things to do. I’ll see you around, alright?”
“How am I supposed to get home? You know cabs don’t come out here, right?”
I shrugged. Not my problem.
“Are you kidding me? What the fuck, Hutch?”
I let the animal bubble up inside me, just a little taste of it, as I turned on her. My voice dropped an octave as the back of my throat rumbled like gravel and my eyes glowed as the colors of the world shifted to a whole new spectrum of heat.
I teetered on the brink as a wall of scents washed over me. It was like a wave of color, filling in the gaps in the world and revealing every little secret.
“I said I’ve got things to do. Deal with it, okay?”
It was all an act. I didn’t give a damn if Lacey or Chrissie or whoever she was thought I was an asshole. There were dozens like her sniffing around the fights every week. But I could smell how much this turned her on. The passionate ferocity of the almighty alpha wolf. She couldn’t get enough of it. Always leave them wanting more and all that.
I didn’t bother putting the animal back in its cage. I threw the coffee in the sink, stepped outside the trailer and started running. By the time I was up to full speed I was able to shift from two legs to four and by the time the change was complete I was heading through the trees at a pace no human could ever hope to match.
I called to anyone who was listening and was met with half a dozen howls in reply. My pack, those that were up and about, crying out in greeting to their leader.
I’d been leading them for five years now. I’ll be the first to admit things got off to a rocky start. A lot of the old guard left when Quinn had headed into exile. I don’t know what had happened to them. I guess they’d scattered to become dogs, or headed off into the wild. One of the two. But those that were left I’d managed to get on board. Eventually.
And now we had a place to call home. For many of us that was a first. We’d grown up on the road, listening to tales of how our parents and their parents had grown up on the road. But now we had some land. Somewhere to hitch our wagons where no one would complain about our presence. We even had a big old abandoned mill. Our very own coliseum.
Nothing fancy, but two nights a week we drew a pretty decent enough crowd. And they drank and they gambled and they didn’t notice when we shortchanged them for a round because they were too busy checking out the cute little thing wagging her proverbial tail in their direction.
Of course we didn’t get to keep all that money. The bulk of it went to the people I’d made a deal with to help get this place. That life on the road stuff? Not too good for your credit rating. We didn’t exactly get to dictate terms, and the terms ended up being, well, kind of shit. And that was just our landlords.
What we do isn’t exactly legal in this state, so we need to earmark certain funds to keep the law looking a different way. And we need all the regular utilities. Water, electricity, that kind of thing. Getting that stuff without proper permits requires a whole load more palm greasing. And grease ain’t cheap.
What’s left is enough to get by. We’re well fed and we’re clothed and the kids get some kind of education. We do okay.
Well, kind of okay. Let’s just say that five years ago I made a couple of poor decisions. Not so much challenging Quinn for leadership. I still thought that was the right play. The deal I’d made after? I got screwed on that one. I’d managed to keep it secret from the pack for five years and, at the end of the day, what they don’t know won’t hurt them. The important part is they have a place to call home.
Shit. I used to go for runs to forget this stuff. I want to forget. But I can’t anymore. It’s always there, lurking in the background. A trail of broken promises and the dream I’d managed to sell everyone on was the biggest one of the lot.
I wanted to hunt. To bring something down with my jaws around its neck. But my heart wasn’t in it. I made a token gesture by scaring the shit out of a couple of rabbits, but that was just about all.
Instead I swung back towards home. I stopped off at the shower block to freshen up and grab some clean-ish clothes from my locker, before dropping in on Dutch.
Dutch was the closest thing we had to a doctor. No one was exactly sure how close he was to a doctor or how much training he’d actually had, but he claimed he’d been patching guys up for two tours in Afghanistan and we had no reason to believe otherwise.
“Hutch! Glad you dropped by. How are the ribs?”
“The ribs are fine.”
“Any pain?”
“A little. But a little pain doesn’t mean they're not fine. A little pain just means you're alive.”
“That’s a good one. I’ll get them to carve it on your tombstone.”
I grunted and went to have a poke around in his medicine chest.
“Sure, help yourself. Meanwhile, care to explain why you’re on tonight’s card? I thought we agreed. Once a week. Any more than that and you just don’t have time to recover.”
Dutch liked to nag, but his heart was in the right place. This was a one-off though. It couldn’t be avoided.
“That big fucker is coming down from up north tonight and there’s going to be a crowd in to see if he’s as big and as bad as they say he is. There’s only two of us who could take him and Morgan’s in no shape to fight at the moment. He won’t be for a couple of weeks.”
“Pad the card with a novelty act. Have one of the pups fight a couple of townies at once or something.”
“We already have Gina—”
“Don’t let her hear you calling her a novelty act.”
“She can hold her own. She’s one of our best. But as far as they’re concerned she’s a gimmick. A sexy, ass-kicking gimmick sure. But she can’t headline. It has to be me.”
Dutch gave up after that and helped me locate the painkillers I’d been aimlessly searching for in his box of magic. I had no idea where he got them or who they were intended for, but for now, they’d do the trick.
I checked in on a few people just to make sure everything was running smoothly and then headed down to the gym.
“Oh, our fearless leader. Glad you could drag yourself out of Lacey to be here.”
Outside of her other duties, Gina also served as our self-appointed chief morale officer. Her methodology was questionable and mostly involved busting my balls at every opportunity.
It worked though. Sometimes.
“Firstly, shut up. And secondly why the fuck are those bleachers still all busted up? It’s going to be a full house tonight. Someone needs to deal with shit like that and if I’m not around, someone else needs to find someone to deal with shit like that. Right?”
Not exactly a speech for the ages, but I was a fighter, not a talker.
I went around and checked in on everyone as they trained. Offering advice to the pups and praying that one or two of them would come through the other side of puberty as halfway decent fighters.
I spent a little time with Morgan - his leg had gotten twisted up real bad during a training session. Typical. On a good day he cou
ld go toe-to-toe with me, but good days were few and far between. He was out with an injury more often than not.
We mostly discussed tactics for tonight’s fight. Morgan had seen the other guy fight a couple of times when he’d been out on the road. He was sure I could take him.
“What’s his name, anyway? Deek? Duck? What kind of name is Duck anyway?”
“You’re one to talk, Hutch. Hey, did I ever tell you I met a duck shifter once?”
“Bullshit.”
“A genuine duck shifter. Can you fucking believe it? Waddling around like a little bitch, shouting out orders. Who the fuck is going to take orders from a duck?”
It was all downhill from there. One of the new guys overheard and started telling us about the time he hooked up with a swan in Vegas. After that things started getting a bit too anatomical for me.
I like to stick to my own species… either of them.
“Thanks boss. They needed that,” said Gina when she caught me alone.
“It wasn’t me. Morgan and his fucking duck story. I must have heard it a hundred times.”
“Just being here you know. It lifts everyone’s spirits. You’re not around so much anymore and when you do take the time to drop by everyone just seems to stand a little taller. ”
Gina wasn’t prone to sentimentality and her need to unload was making me feel pretty uncomfortable. Not to mention the fact that she was painting me as some kind of absentee dad who deserved a pat on the head for actually turning up at one of his son’s baseball game that one time.
“And seriously, Lacey? Lacey fucking Larch? You used to have standards. What the hell, Hutch?”
I grunted and brushed past her, waiting until my back was to her before I cracked a smile. That was more like the Gina I knew.
The smile soon faded when I got to the corner of the main hall that functioned as my office and found a pair of ghouls waiting for me. Not literal ghouls, that probably would have been preferable, but pale men in pale suits. Men whose sole function was to shift hard-earned money from one place to another place without actually owning any of that money.
“Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-I-Really-Don’t-Give-A-Fuck. What brings you to the yard?”
“Good Morning Mr. Hutch.”
“It’s just Hutch.”
“Good morning regardless. Is this a thing now? The Yard? Is that what we’re calling it?”
“It’s an expression. Christ, why the fuck are you guys here? Just ring next time.”
“Our employers insisted we check up on their investment. In person.”
They were nervous. I smelled it on them. The stale stench of fear and a genetically encoded desire to run away from the wild beast. But as much as I’d love to run them down, there was little point. If I killed them, two more would rise up to take their place… and their funeral expenses would probably get added to my slate.
“Fine. What is it?”
“The weekend’s take was a little on the low side and we were concerned that you seem to have a problem keeping up with your end of the deal.”
“The weekend’s take was low because of the holiday. Lot of people didn’t get their checks until Monday. Tonight will make up for that. We got a hot card and everyone will be flush.”
“I’m happy to hear that. Of course the problem is that the weekend was supposed to make up for last month’s shortfall and tonight will have to make up for that too. This is becoming a regular occurrence and it’s reached a point you’re going to need to start considering some alternative options.”
I wanted to wring his scrawny pencil neck. To just reach out and let him feel the power as I showed him my genetically encoded desire wrapped around his fragile windpipe. I just wanted him to stop talking.
They didn’t bother sending muscle. Muscle wouldn’t intimidate me. They just sent me offers and counter-offers and payment plans and alternative options that were not far removed from signing on the dotted line with Satan himself.
I couldn’t blame anyone but myself, though. I’d got us into the mess we were in and even if I couldn’t get us out of it, I could at least maintain the illusion that all was well if I played my cards right.
Tonight would let us claw back some of the lost ground. But we needed to up our game. Maybe a third fight night every couple of weeks. Others had suggested I look at bringing in some loners, as unpredictable and dangerous as those fuckers were. I drew the line at that. I can’t stand loners.
I took a deep breath and let my visitors know that our pleasant little meeting was over and that I looked forward to seeing them or some of their indistinguishably ghoulish brethren come payment day.
I waited until I was sure they were out of earshot before I picked up a chair and hurled it across the room.
“FUCK!”
I needed to hurt something. Thank God it was fight day.
Chapter Five
Natalie
“A dress, a dress, where the hell is a dress?” I rummaged through my closet, searching for something suitable to wear. I hadn’t worn a dress in ages, but I knew I had some things hanging around from high school. If any of them fit me, I would be amazed, but I had promised Tommy.
Tommy. My Lord. I thought he would have moved on by now to some other town, but I guess some guys never move on.
“Ha!”
I pulled out the hanger with the dress half hanging off of it. It was a nice dress, cream colored, and I’d worn it to a few of my mom’s parties.
“Now the test,” I said. I pulled it over my head and shimmied it down my waist. The fabric was a bit snugger around my hips than it had been in high school, but it would have to do. I smoothed down the wrinkles and studied myself. The A-line hem hit at the knee, and the top was a bit tighter than I remembered—I guess I’d grown in the chest a bit since then, too.
My cleavage was way too obvious, but I put on a pink cardigan and buttoned it over my chest. There. Perfect. I brushed my hair out and tied it back in a smooth ponytail.
“Great, Natalie,” I said to myself. “You look like you’re going to church for Easter.”
I pulled out the hair tie and shook my hair out. A little better. Definitely more date-like.
Did I want to be date-like? There was definitely a part of me that still liked Tommy, sure, but I don’t think I could look at him now without feeling horribly guilty. In my head, Tommy had gone on and grown up. He had his own business now. He’d probably dated around. My own attempts at dating hadn’t gone well. It wasn’t really the dates themselves that were the problem. It was what came next. What if he wanted to kiss me? What if he wanted to do more? My heart pounded.
“Don’t worry about it,” I told myself. I took a shaky breath and let it out. “If you like him, you like him. If you don’t, no hard feelings.”
The noise of a car engine outside propelled me out of my room. My dad was yelling at the television screen, where one of the guys was trying to run through some other guys... or something.
“Bye, Pops. See you later,” I said, heading to the door.
“Wait, let me look at you first.” My dad examined my dress, shaking his head slowly.
“Too darn pretty,” he said. “No man deserves you.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said, smiling nervously. “Love you.”
I kissed him quickly on the cheek as a knock rang out at the door.
“Don’t keep your Prince Charming waiting,” my dad said. “Do you want me to escort you out, princess?”
“Don’t bother getting up,” I said, eyeing the TV. “After all, you might miss the linebacker scoring a touchdown field goal in the end zone basket, or whatever happens in football games.”
“There’s no such thing as a bask—”
“Whatever! Love you!”
“Love you!”
I opened the door and swallowed hard. Tommy stood on the front porch, and the first thing I saw was his cane, black and silver, with an ebony handle that curved like antlers. Then Tommy himself, his shirt a cri
sp clean gray against his dark pants. A silver watch shone at his wrist. His hair was slicked back, and as I came forward to give him a hug I could smell the mix of soap and aftershave on his skin.
“Natalie, you’re stunning.” He embraced me with both arms, and I could tell he was a bit unsteady on his feet. I waited until he pulled back and leaned on his cane to let him go fully.
“Looking good yourself,” I said. I didn’t lie—he looked handsome, and his clothes were tailored perfectly, as always. But the attraction that I’d carried around during my high school years was nowhere to be found. “Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise,” he said, a bright spark in his eye. He opened the car door for me and I slid into his world, a world that smelled like leather and cologne, a world full of things that I couldn’t afford. I determined to smile my way through the evening and scoot away at the end of the night.
Maybe it was coming home to someplace that felt not-quite-home. Maybe it was that Tommy seemed so eager to see me. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but I really didn’t want to get involved in a relationship right now. Especially with the guy I’d already hurt so badly to begin with. He didn’t notice my reluctance, or if he did, he didn’t care. Smiling like it was our first date, he revved the engine and we pulled away into the night.
I thought that he might be taking me downtown, to one of the fancy new restaurants that my dad had told me had been popping up all over the place. But Tommy took the exit onto the road that headed out, away from downtown. We drove out of town, and then kept driving. Warehouses lined the roads in this part of town, tall hangars with walls of sheet metal and high fences surrounding train yards.
“Where are we going?” I asked again.
“You’ll see,” he said. He patted my knee, and I shrunk back into the seat. The dress stretched tight over my thighs, and I tugged the hem down a bit, avoiding his hand. My eyes tracked the streetlights as they passed by outside of the window.
“It’s amazing, really,” he went on. “How much has changed since you left.”
The car slowed and we turned down a side street. Barbed wire topped the fences here, and the streetlight flickered overhead.