“This is ridiculous,” Agnes said loyally. “She’s not your slave. She deserves time off.”
“That’s it, young lady. You’re fired. And if you ever want another job in this town-“
“If you fire Agnes, I quit too,” Belle blurted out. “See if you can find someone else to work sixty hours a week for free.”
“What?” Agnes cried out, shocked. Edith’s face turned red with anger, as a cluster of customers who’d been browsing through the bins and avidly eavesdropping all swiveled to stare at her.
There. It was out. And Belle didn’t care. She felt as if the walls were closing in on her, as if the little store were a prison from which she’d never escape.
“Well, that’s just not true at all,” Edith said, switching to the light, high voice that she used when she was lying. “We pay her a very generous salary!”
Suddenly the front door banged open, and Axel stomped in, followed by his two cousins. He’d apparently been standing on the porch the whole time, eavesdropping on the conversation with his supersonic wolf hearing.
“You don’t pay her? You don’t let her go to school, and you force her to work for you, for free?”
“She’s a liar!” Edith hissed, eyes swiveling around the store.
“Really?” Axel drawled. “Because a minute ago, she was your best employee.”
“Belle, why didn’t you tell me? My god.” Agnes looked horrified.
“This sounds like something that needs to be reported to the Panther Council,” Axel said, in a low, dangerous voice.
The council oversaw all disputes and all matters that related to panthers in the state of Montana. Each race of shifters in every state had their own council.
“You’re a wolf, not a panther. You can mind your own damned business,” Edith said, her voice rising with an undertone of panic now. “And I’ll have you know we took her in when she was an orphan. We gave her a home, raised her like she was one of our own, fed her and clothed her –“
“You mean you gave her your kids’ hand-me-downs and treated her like crap,” Agnes said heatedly. “And big deal, you fed her. She’s family, that’s what you’re supposed to do. And you live on a freaking farm. Food’s free for you.”
“Get out of my store,” Edith hissed. “Never come back.”
“Wait!” Belle cried. “Please – don’t fire her. I won’t go out with Axel.” She saw the look of hurt and dismay on Axel’s face, and wanted to cry. But if her aunt wanted to make Agnes’ life hell, she could easily do that – and Belle couldn’t let that happen.
Edith turned to Agnes, a scowl stamped on her face.
“This is your one last chance,” she snarled at Agnes. “Watch your tongue, and stay out of my family’s business.”
Agnes, face pale, turned and walked to the back of the store without a word. She began straightening out a display rack with sharp, angry movements.
“You’ll have to leave now,” Belle said to Axel, her eyes brimming with unshed tears.
“I’m not leaving you to be abused by this monster,” Axel shook his head in protest. Edith let out a sharp hiss of rage, and her claws shot out of her fingertips.
“Please,” Belle pleaded. “Please go. Don’t come back. You’ll only make it worse.”
Axel nodded reluctantly, but he shot Edith an angry glare. “This isn’t over,” he told her. And he turned and walked out of the store, with his cousins following him.
Belle braced herself for more verbal abuse from her aunt, but Edith surprised her by turning and walking into her office, and slamming the door behind her.
The rest of the day at work was torture. Edith came back out and watched Belle and Agnes with an eagle eye, taking her anger out on Agnes with a continual stream of insults, muttered just low enough that the customers couldn’t hear them – but Agnes and Belle could.
Knowing that she could never talk to Axel again hurt her deeply, like a bruise deep inside her that would never heal. Something had flared up inside her when Axel had flirted with her, a fierce, primitive joy she’d never experienced before. Being forcibly separated from him felt like one of her limbs had been torn off. It made no sense, she barely knew him, but her reaction to him when he looked in her eyes earlier had been instant and primal.
When they closed up shop, Belle and Agnes followed Edith outside. Edith’s husband Jeb had pulled up in front of the store and Edith glared at Belle and gestured at his pickup truck.
“Get in,” Edith bit out the words as if they tasted foul.
Belle stared in shock, looking from Jeb to Edith in bewilderment. They never offered her a ride home, even in deepest winter when the snow was piled high on the ground. She always shifted into panther room and ran the three miles to their farm, which was on the outskirts of town. It was the best part of her day; she was completely free, the wind and the sun caressing her, with all the scents and sounds of the forests rushing through her.
“I…I don’t need a ride. I can run home,” she protested.
“I’ve had enough of your disrespect. Get in the truck if you want your friend to be able to set foot in any business in this town,” Edith grated out.
Anger flared in Agnes’ eyes, and it looked as if she were about to protest, but Belle quickly held up her hand to ward her off.
“It’s fine,” she said in a low, hopeless voice, and clambered into the truck.
Chapter Three
Her uncle Jeb, an older shifter with a paunch that rested on his lap, shot her a dirty look as soon as she climbed in. As the truck took off, the harangue started.
“Ungrateful…dirty, rude, disrespectful cub…teach you a lesson you won’t forget…knew it was a mistake to take you in…learn how to address your betters…” she stared at her lap, hands clenched, and struggled to block out as much of the vicious verbal tongue lashing as she could.
She closed her eyes and summoned up a picture of her parents, of her mother reading her bedtime stories, of their family runs through the forest, swimming in the sweet cool waters of the river behind their house…the memories were warm and sweet. She wrapped them around her like a comfortable wool blanket, shielding out the sharp, stabbing words that spewed from her uncle’s mouth.
The truck abruptly stopped. Belle’s eyes flew open. They were in front of the three story gray clapboard house where Belle had spent the last 10 years of her life. Her room was in the attic.
“Are you listening to me?” her uncle Jeb bellowed.
Axel’s face flashed through her mind, and sorrow choked her. “No,” she snapped.
“You’d better show your uncle some respect if you don’t want your friend to suffer,” her aunt said coldly.
Belle’s stomach twisted in knots as she threw open the truck door, scrambled out, and stalked into the house, heading for the kitchen.
Her aunt and uncle followed her, and as she reached for the kitchen door, her uncle slammed his hand against it.
“You don’t eat our food until you learn proper manners,” her uncle snarled.
Belle stared at him in astonishment. “You don’t pay me a cent, I have no other way to get food, and you are refusing to let me even eat at your house? So you’re planning to starve me to death?”
Furious, she turned and stomped up the stairs leading up to her room. Her stomach rumbled with hunger and her hands shook.
When she got to her room, she slammed her door shut and locked it, then threw herself on her bed. She buried her face in her pillow, and cried, long and hard, the sobs shaking her body. Her life felt unbearable. How much longer could she go on like this?
She heard footsteps pounding up the stairs and stood up quickly, wiping at her face as she walked across the room to unlock the door.
Her aunt stood there, glowering at her. “You’re grounded. You go nowhere but work, and you come straight home, with us, after work. Now hand me your cell phone.”
“My cell phone?” her jaw dropped.
Agnes had scraped together the money to buy
her a cheap pre-paid cell phone as a Christmas present. She’d never had a cell phone before. Sadly, Agnes was her only contact in it, but still…
Her jaw set stubbornly. “No. Agnes gave it to me. It’s mine. I’m not giving it to you.”
“I would think, for Agnes’ sake, you’d want to do as you’re told.” Her aunt’s small eyes were bulging with fury.
Slowly, Belle shoved her hand into her pocket to fetch the cell phone, but then Axel’s face flashed through her mind again, and somehow she found the mere thought of him gave her strength she didn’t know she had.
“No,” she said loudly. “So you’ll fire Agnes if I date Axel, you’ll fire her if I don’t listen to my uncle insult me, you’ll fire her if I don’t get in your pickup truck, and now you’ll fire her if I don’t give you the cell phone that belongs to ME? You’re going to fire her anyway, it’s obvious. I should have realized it before. So forget it. No. It’s my phone.”
Her aunt’s jaw dropped and a look of astonishment swept over her face as Belle slammed the door shut in her face and locked it quickly. Then she went and sat back on the edge of her bed, her heart heavy.
With dread, she waited for what she was sure would come next…her uncle’s heavy footsteps pounding up the stairs, the shouting, the threats…but it didn’t come.
Instead, she heard angry voices rising up from her aunt and uncle’s bedroom below her. She rushed to the heating vent and pressed her ear up against it; they didn’t know it, but the ducts carried the sound of their conversation up to her room.
“He’ll just have to adjust his plans. He can move up the wedding date, for God’s sake. He can just hold her on his property until they get married.”
Her heart froze in her chest. Wedding date? Nobody had asked her to get married. What were they talking about?
And what was all this about holding her on someone’s property?
“What if he says no? What if he wants his money back?” That was my uncle’s voice.
Wants his money back? They’d sold her to somebody? But who would even want her enough to pay for her, and why? They couldn’t sell her - this was 21st century America!
“He won’t want his money back. He was very clear how much he wanted her,” my aunt insisted.
“That was when he thought that nobody would miss her. What about this werewolf? He could be a problem.”
“Well, we’re not going to tell him about the werewolf, are we?” Her aunt’s voice was angry. “There’s no way that I’m giving back fifty thousand dollars.”
Belle’s mind was racing.
“We could still try to see if she’d marry him voluntarily,’” her uncle said. “Point out how rich he is, how she has no future, tell her we’re going to kick her out on the street and he’s her only hope, he can give her a good life....”
“That might have worked before that stupid werewolf bastard came along and ruined everything,” her aunt grumbled. “Now if she thinks she’s got a shot at being mated with that wolf, there’s no way she’d agree to marry Raymond Charucki. Why would she? He may be rich, but he’s old and ugly and everybody knows his reputation.”
Belle’s heart dropped to the bottom of her stomach.
Raymond Charucki? He was a sixty-year-old panther shifter who was well known as a mobster who owned half the politicians in Montana. He’d also been accused by half a dozen woman of kidnapping, rape and torture. And every single woman had quickly dropped the charges, refusing to prosecute. There were rumors of intimidation and threats, and several of the women had disappeared afterwards.
If he wanted Belle, she was doomed.
But why would he want her?
She quickly pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed.
“Agnes, my aunt and uncle are talking about selling me off in marriage to the mobster Raymond Charucki. He paid them $50,000 for me. That’s why they’ve been watching my every move these past few weeks. I am going to sneak out of the house right now, and I’m going to have to leave town. Please tell Axel I’m sorry. I don’t dare go to the police about this; they’re good friends with my aunt and uncle. I’m going to have to go into hiding.”
She was sick with worry. What would happen to Agnes when she was gone? Maybe she could find a way to secretly send Agnes money from another town...but how? She’d have to send it by mail, the postmaster would probably be keeping an eye out on Agnes’ mail...
Head whirling, she stripped off her clothing so she could switch to panther form in case her family tried to confront her as she snuck out. In panther form, she’d have a fighting chance against them.
She closed her eyes and concentrated, letting the panther form take over, and then sank down to the floor and grabbed one of the pillowcases full of clothing, holding it in her mouth.
Carefully, silently, she slipped out of the door and down the stairs. She rushed through the living room, down the hallway, and stopped at the front door to slap the door handle with her paw, opening it. She scampered outside, across the yard...
As she ran, she suddenly felt a sharp sting in her hindquarters. She fell to the ground, the pillowcase dropping from her mouth, her mind fogging, her heart pounding with terror.
“Mom!” she could hear her cousin Elmer’s voice, from very far away..“ She was trying to get away, but I tranked her!”
She could feel herself shifting back to human form, the wet dew of the grass cold against her naked skin, as she sprawled helplessly on the lawn and the world slipped away from her.
Chapter Four
She woke up with her head pounding, still in human form. She was stark naked, and as she struggled to sit up she realized that her hands were tied above her head, and her legs were tied too.
When she opened her eyes she realized that she was still in her bedroom,. She’d been tied to her bed.
Bleary-eyed, she glanced at the clock. 5 a.m.
She struggled to shift, and felt a sharp stinging sensation circling her neck.
Oh, God. Her aunt and uncle had collared her. They’d put a copper collar on her, which stifled her shape-shifting abilities. She was trapped in human form.
Her heart pounded frantically in her chest.
The collar irritated the skin of her neck, and she longed to yank it off. The ropes on her wrists were too tight, however. Helpless, she lay there watching the second hand of the clock circle around, again and again, unbearably slow.
The hours dragged by, and nobody came to rescue her. Maybe Agnes was too afraid to go up against Raymond Charucki. Maybe Agnes had called the police and they’d notified her aunt and uncle instead of coming to help. After all, the police chief and her uncle both belonged to the same country club and the same hunting lodge, and her uncle contributed heavily to the mayor’s re-election campaigns. Calling the police was pretty much pointless.
Maybe Agnes had been killed for trying to help.
Belle blinked back tears at the thought.
She couldn’t believe that only the day before, she’d thought all of her dreams were coming true - for a brief, glorious moment. Axel McManus had finally noticed her. He hadn’t just noticed her, he’d flirted with her. He hadn’t just flirted with her, he’d asked her to go on a date with him.
And then her dreams had crashed down to earth and exploded into nightmare.
At eight o’clock, she heard men’s voices and footsteps pounding up the stairs, and then her door swung open.
Cats And Dogs: A Shifter Novella Page 2