Redeeming Rue AP4

by R. E. Butler

  The next day she’d seen the Help Wanted ad on the sign outside the bar, and Titus had given her the job even though the only experience she had with beer involved cracking a cold one open on occasion at home. He’d never said what he saw in her, but she figured it was her promise to be the best worker he’d ever had, along with her earnest desire to find someplace else to work that had intrigued him. Granted a bar wasn’t the safest place to work, but Titus was a big man and a werewolf to boot, and no one messed with him or his staff.

  Rue walked back to the bar and checked out her reflection in the mirror that hung behind the bar, making sure her wig was on straight, and then turned around and took another order. The Thursday lunch crowd was surprisingly big considering it was only one thirty in the afternoon. Rue had never been a drink-during-the-daytime sort of person, and after working at the bar and seeing the sorts of folks who drank every day, she was just about put off alcohol entirely.

  She made a vodka tonic and took the cash from the customer, a process she repeated hundreds of times a week, with varying drinks and cash amounts. The people in the bar were normally generous with their tips. Biggie’s was located on the end of a strip mall, next to a shipping store, in the bustling town of Tanner, Michigan. She and Dom lived in Perry, fifteen minutes south of Tanner, and it had been their home for seventeen years.

  For just a moment, her mind drifted to the scared kid she’d been when she came to town, but she quickly shoved the thoughts away and concentrated on work.

  Before long, it was three o’clock and she was done for the day. Waving at Sallie and Titus, she gathered her purse from the cabinet under the counter and left. Leaving the parking lot, she drove home, always happy to see the quaint little brick home that she shared with her son.

  Growing up, she’d never had a permanent home. Her people were nomadic were-panthers. They traveled in clans, mostly made up of family members and their extended families, and were constantly on the move. Her former clan had moved through the southern states, from Florida to California, traveling from one coast to the other in a constantly moving wave. She hadn’t minded the constant traveling as a youngster, because that was the way of her clan. She knew there were panthers who chose to live life in one place, but they were oddities to her people and not the norm. Not that she knew anything about being normal.

  Pulling into the gravel driveway, she parked next to Dom’s ancient Ford Taurus, got out of her car, stretched, and walked up the stone sidewalk to the front door. It was a rental home, and the owner was a kindly older human woman named Mrs. Milford who had given her and Dom free reign to decorate as they pleased. They’d lived in Perry for seventeen years, when she’d come to town at nearly nineteen, with an infant in one arm and a trash bag full of their scant belongings. They’d lived in several places through the years, and had only been in the small house for the last five years, but this was her favorite of all the places they’d called home since they became a family. Knocking loudly twice in rapid succession, pausing, and then knocking once, which was her and Dom’s code that everything was okay, she unlocked the front door and stepped inside. The scent of spiced pumpkin greeted her thanks to a bowl of potpourri that sat on a small table just inside the door.

  “Dom?” she called, dropping her purse into the narrow hall closet and toeing off her shoes before kicking them inside and shutting the door.

  “Back here, Mom,” he called from his bedroom.

  She tugged off the wig as she strode back to his bedroom, releasing her hair from its braid and scratching her fingernails against her scalp. She hated wearing a wig, but her hair wouldn’t hold color, and it was a telltale sign to other panthers of what she really was: a genetic mutation. Tucking the wig under her arm, she flipped her long, white hair over her shoulder and leaned against the open door of Dom’s room. His head was bent over his lap as his hands moved, using a small knife to shape a piece of wood he was carving. His hair was the same white as hers. Not white-blonde, but stark white, and like her, he had been born with inky black hair that had changed to the polar opposite when he shifted for the first time during his sixteenth year. And like the white of their hair, their panther forms were also pure white, a genetic glitch in her family’s otherwise entirely normal gene pool.

  “What are you carving?” she asked, noticing the small pile of shavings surrounding his feet.

  “I had an order on the craft site for a koi.” He made one slow movement with the knife, slicing a section of wood away, and then held it up for her to see. The general shape of the fish could be seen in the rough texture of the wood. She knew he would spend a long time getting the shape just right before he sanded it and then carved in the details. She had many of his carvings around their home. Her son was one of the most artistic people she’d ever known, and that included the professional artists who had worked at the tattoo parlor. Dom could paint, draw, and sculpt just about anything and thanks to his online store at a craft site, he was making money by custom carving, painting, and drawing for customers. The previous summer he had made enough money to buy his first car and pay for some classes at the local community college. When he’d shifted and his hair had gone white, he immediately dropped out of school and finished his studies at home. He’d never once complained about the upheaval her bad genes had caused him. She was extremely proud of him.

  “Beautiful.”

  He grinned and shoved his hair out of his eyes. “Thanks. How was work?”

  “Long. You hungry?”

  “I could eat,” he said.

  She watched him return his attention to the statue and begin to carve again, so she left him alone to work. After showering off the scent of beer, she brushed the short, brunette wig that she had been wearing for the last few months and placed it gently on the stand. Wearing a wig was the easiest way to keep her identity hidden and keep her and Dom safe. He had a wig that he wore from time to time, but he mostly chose to tuck his white hair up into a knit cap and keep it hidden.

  If her clan ever found out that she’d had a child, both of them would be killed. Getting new identities when he was very young, changing their appearances, and staying away from the area of the states where her clan liked to travel had helped to ensure that she never ran into any panthers who might wonder about the young man who lived with her who bore her same bright green eyes and white hair. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do to ensure their safety, even if it meant that she never had any lasting relationships. A man who stuck around too long would wonder about her wig. Wonder about the color of her real hair. The color of her shifted form. It would only take one whisper in the right ear, and she and Dom would be fighting for their lives.

  It was better to be alone. Just her and Dom. It wasn’t easy, but it was the best choice. For both of them.

  * * * * *

  The scent of burning wood filled her nose, and she struggled further against the bonds that held her. She’d shifted for the first time that night, and the moment the pure white fur sprouted from her skin, she’d been attacked by her own clan. They’d tied her up with rope, binding her paws together and muzzling her, until she shifted into her human form again several hours later. Then they bound her, naked, face down on the hard dirt behind the RV she had lived in with her parents. Terror had gripped her and she screamed for help, begging to be let go.

  But her family snarled at her and called her an abomination. A freak.

  Gerarli, the head of their clan, fisted her hair in his hand and wrenched her head up until she looked at him.

  “You’ve brought sin into this camp, Veruka.”

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  He slapped her hard with his free hand and blood filled her mouth.

  “Your coat is an abomination. Your entire family is pure black. Only you are white. You’ve brought shame to your family and clan.”

  Rue screamed as she came awake, the nightmare still holding onto her with gripping fingers. Her back burned where the brands had marked her, and for a
moment, she swore she saw her parents’ faces as they held the glowing brands. Then they’d rubbed metallic dust into the wounds and left her all night, writhing in agony.

  “Mom?” Dom knocked on her bedroom door.

  “I’m okay,” she said after swallowing hard and scrubbing her hands over her eyes.

  He opened the door and peeked in. “Nightmare?”

  A full body shudder wove through her, and then the terror leaked away slowly. “Yeah. I’m good, honey, go back to bed.”

  He pushed the door open a little more. “We can talk, if you want.”

  She smiled at her son. He was so compassionate. “It was just the past making an appearance in my subconscious again. I wonder about them sometimes.”

  He knew without her saying who, that she was talking about her parents and her former clan. When the sun rose the morning after her branding, Gerarli released her and shoved a bag at her, while the rest of the clan stood passively and watched. She hurriedly tugged on her clothes that laid on the ground from the night before, while Gerarli told her that she was an abomination and no longer part of the clan. “You are forbidden from coming back to the clan for the remainder of your days. You are forbidden from having offspring under penalty of death,” Gerarli had said, looking down at her with eyes full of disdain.

  She shook away the thoughts of the past and met her son’s eyes. She had a lot of regrets in her life, but having Dom was not one of them.

  “You’re the best son. What would I do without you?”

  He smiled. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, either. You’re the best mom a guy could ask for.”

  There was a brief pause.

  Dom cocked his head. “Are you really okay, Mom?”

  She nodded. “I promise I am.”

  She knew she was safe in Michigan, far away from where her family’s clan traveled, and able to keep their true identities a secret. After saying goodnight to her son, she settled back in bed and closed her eyes. She hadn’t minded being alone all these years with no male in her life, but Dom was a handsome young man and would want to find his mate. She would never stop him from living his life to the fullest, but it wasn’t the first time that a trill of fear wove its way through her. She could be executed by her people if they ever found out she’d had a child after her banishment. Dom would also be killed, and if he had a mate at the time? She would die as well, possibly even her own family, too.

  She strengthened her resolve to keep them safe. The wigs and heavy perfume she wore helped to hide her identity. Not even Titus knew exactly what sort of shifter she was. But maybe it wasn’t enough. Maybe it was time for them to move on. North perhaps, into Canada. There were remote settlements of shifters who were welcoming of strangers, and they could build a life there. Clans didn’t go into Canada for the most part, and she and her son might actually be able to shift outside and hunt, instead of shifting in the family room and pacing for hours.

  Deciding to talk to Dom about it in the morning, she willed her mind to stop thinking about the past and drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 3

  John Fallon sat at the kitchen table with Dag, the father of his daughter’s mates. Both males had laptops open and were discussing the bonding ceremony between the kids. Well, not kids. Not anymore. Jilly had turned eighteen at the end of August, and the twins – Wyked and Fate – were almost twenty. The bonding ceremony, while it sounded like something that married couples would do, was actually more of a commitment ceremony. The twins would get tattoos of their family name and also Jilly’s full name – Jillian Ava – on their backs, and they would give her a ring. The panthers had a custom: in order to mate fully, everyone in the relationship had to be twenty-one.

  John was glad she was only eighteen. He’d lost out on so much of her life because she had started to pull away from him emotionally when she was young. He shook his head and dashed the dark thoughts away. He didn’t want to go back to the time when Jilly was a stranger in his house, he preferred to enjoy her now, in the present, when she was still learning about emotions and coming to terms with her new outlook on life. Her mates were helping her, and John liked the young males a great deal. Fate was caring and sweet and very careful of Jilly. Wyked had a tendency to be aggressive and over reactive when it came to Jilly’s safety and welfare, but he had good intentions even if he usually came across as an ass.

  Dag broke John’s train of thought when he said, “I just got another confirmation for the ceremony. My fourth cousin and his clan are coming.”

  John minimized the caterer website he was looking at and opened the attendee file and found the name of his cousin.

  “Are you close to your cousins?” John asked. All his family lived in Ashland, and except for his nephews and his brother Rhett, they all lived inside the boarding house.

  Dag settled back in the chair. “Not really. They traveled to the south, and my clan traveled to the north. When the boys were young, we were invited to meet up with them for a big family reunion, but they canceled when their daughter, Veruka, died.”

  “Did you know Veruka?”

  “As well as you can know someone when you’re only together once every few years. She was sixteen when she died in some kind of hunting accident. My cousin’s clan pretty much dropped off the planet after that. I haven’t seen them since.”

  “Grief will do that to people,” John remarked.

  He nodded. “I wasn’t sure if they’d come or not, but they’ve also replied that two of my cousins I haven’t seen in about twenty years are coming as well. They live up in northern Michigan.”

  “I thought the clan didn’t travel in the north?”

  “They don’t, but those particular cousins left their clan to join up with another clan, but the males mated with females who didn’t want to travel so they settled up there. Bonding ceremonies are excuses for our people to get together, the way that humans use weddings as family reunions.”

  John didn’t have a lot of experience with weddings, although when they lived in King, he and the pride had been invited to the weddings of co-workers and friends, but only four mountain lion weddings had taken place, beginning with Callie’s marriage to Ethan and Eryx.

  “Looks like we’ll have about a hundred people here for the bonding ceremony.” John looked over the spreadsheet and smiled. The pride was excited for Jilly’s bonding ceremony, not only because it was an excuse to have a party, but also because she was proof that females could change if the right male, or males, was with them.

  “I spoke to the farmer we rent the land from, and he said the more the merrier when it came to family and didn’t mind the other clans joining us.”

  Not only was Dag’s family coming, but also his mate, Dionne’s, family.

  “Do you mind if I ask why you named your boys Wyked and Fate?” John asked as he saved the spreadsheet and closed the program.

  Dag smiled fondly. “The boys were born in our home, and my grandmother, who has since passed into the great beyond, delivered them. She laid them on Dionne’s stomach and wiped them down, and one of them kicked out and nailed the other in the face. Dionne said, ‘Oh no, they’re fighting already,’ and my grandmother picked up the kicker and said, ‘You’re a wicked little thing, aren’t you? It’s too bad your fate isn’t to be nicer, like your brother.’ The words just kind of fit them, even from birth. They balance each other so well. Wyked is aggressive where Fate is laid back. Fate worries about the future where Wyked is impulsive.”

  It was easy to see they worshipped Jilly, and when they finally did marry her after she turned twenty-one, she was going to be a lucky female to have two such devoted males. As if they knew they were being talked about, the two young males strode into the room.

  “Ma wants to know if you want us to go hunting and bag a few deer for extra meat,” Wyked said, plopping down in a chair at the table. Fate sat down on Dag’s other side and greeted John.

  “That’s not a bad idea.” Dag rubbed his chin thoughtful
ly. “You could take Jilly along. I’m sure she’d like to hunt. She told Dionne that the females didn’t go hunting together at all. They would shift and stay on their property.”

  Fate said, “I think they were so aggressive in their human forms that their beasts didn’t feel the need to let loose.”

  “We usually hunt on the full moon because of Callie. I’m sure Jilly would love to go hunting with you.” He almost added something very fatherly about being careful with his only daughter and watching out for her, but before he could formulate something that didn’t sound like he didn’t trust the young males, when he really did, Wyked said, “We’ll be sure to stay in the lion territory, John, and she won’t be without us for a second.”

  He chuckled inwardly at the often-intuitive young male.

  “I know you will.”

  The two young males left the room. When John heard the front door open and shut, he knew his son, Henry, was home. Henry had turned sixteen the previous week and shifted into his cat form for the first time on the night of his birthday. He was a junior in high school. John heard Henry greet Wyked and Fate and also the rumbling voice of John’s younger brother Grant who had picked up Henry from school. Henry had to be driven to high school because the town of Ashland didn’t have their own high school, and the kids all went to a regional high school in another town.

  “Hi, Henry,” John said.

  Henry came into the kitchen, dropped his backpack with a thud on the table, and sighed exaggeratedly as he slumped into a chair. “Hi, Dad,” Henry said as he laid his head on the table.

  “Rough day?” Dag asked with a chuckle.

  Henry nodded, his forehead squeaking on the table. “I think they’re trying to kill us with homework this year.”

  “Now how would that be helpful?” Grant asked as he came into the kitchen and said hello to them.