by MJ Compton
“Your guards won’t let me in,” Lucy said, stepping forward to stand next to Stoker.
Stoker wished she hadn’t spoken.
“What?” Butler turned to his guards, as if he were unaware of what had happened.
“She wants to bring in the band,” Tall and Ugly said.
“Actually,” Stoker said before Lucy could respond. “We eloped yesterday, but Lucy wants to share her joy with her sister, and since you were . . . reluctant to let Michelle attend the wedding, we brought the reception to the mountain.”
“Including the food,” Lucy added.
Was it his imagination or did the guards react to Lucy’s mention of the meal she’d insisted on bringing.
As soon as he got Lucy alone, he was going to give her the biggest hug and kiss of her life. Bringing food to the hungry–brilliant strategy. Not that she was strategizing, because deltas and their wives only followed orders. Lucy was just being . . . maternal. She’d been inside New Sinai and knew their weaknesses. Of course a woman would want to feed everyone and worry if there wasn’t enough food to go around. Yeah, maternal.
Butler stared past Stoker as if he were invisible, focusing on Lucy in such a way, Stoker wadded his hands into fists.
“My women will unload the food,” Butler finally said.
Stoker grabbed Lucy’s hand and squeezed hard to warn her not to say anything else.
“The band stays outside,” Butler continued. “Play loud.”
“Not without electricity,” Restin said, moving to Stoker’s other side.
Good, Stoker thought. Restin should take charge. It’s his operation.
Butler smirked. No other word could describe the truly unpleasant smile shaping his mouth. His eyes were red and watery, and he sounded congested. “Then I guess you’ve got a problem.”
“What’s a wedding reception without music?” Lucy asked.
“Quiet,” Butler said. “Contemplative. You’re confusing New Sinai with your secular world. We’re concerned about souls and spiritual matters, not parties.”
“Yeah,” Lucy said. “I don’t think I’m the one who’s confused here, Randy. You don’t mind taking my food, and you’d overcharge me if I rented New Sinai for the reception. You’ve even got the groom’s name wrong.”
Butler’s expression did not change. “Why don’t you come in while the food is being unloaded?”
Stoker took Lucy’s arm and started toward the gate.
Butler held up his hand. “Only Lucy.”
Stoker shook his head. “I’m not letting my wife inside your compound alone.”
“Your so-called marriage isn’t valid in New Sinai.”
“Your so-called nation isn’t valid in these here United States,” Stoker retorted.
Two guns immediately pointed at him.
It had been too much to hope that all he needed to do was get inside, grab Michelle, and flee. He should have figured firepower into the equation, except planning wasn’t his forte.
“Look,” Lucy said, exasperation coloring her words. “You want me to rent the compound for the afternoon?”
Butler’s eyes gleamed. “What are you offering?”
Greedy scat-eater, Stoker thought. Funny how Butler coveted the greenbacks of a government he held in such contempt that he’d seceded from it.
Lucy smiled. “I know you’d probably prefer cash, but I was so busy cooking, I couldn’t get to the bank this morning, so I brought my check book.”
She didn’t carry a purse and the dress lacked pockets. The fabric was way too tight over the mounds of her breasts to hide anything. Stoker had definitely checked that out. Several times. And he’d smacked Luke for noticing, too. So where had she stashed this alleged checkbook?
“We’re family,” Butler said, but he didn’t reject Lucy’s offer.
Stoker felt a shudder ripple through Lucy.
“Did you set up for the reception?” she babbled. “I’ll need one long table for the food. Oh, and I brought Sterno to keep the hot food hot.”
“The coolers are heavy, so our roadies will unload them,” Restin said.
“No one except Lucy comes inside,” Butler repeated. “And you won’t need tables. The women will take the food to the cookhouse.”
Lucy shook her head. “If Stoker doesn’t come with me, neither does the food.”
Someone’s stomach growled, and it wasn’t a werewolf’s stomach. Lucy’s wedding feast was strictly vegetarian. Greens were good for belly aches, but not much else, or so Ethan had told her, earning a smack from Stoker for his rudeness.
Another rumble echoed the first, adding to the tension instead of creating the comic relief such noises would usually provide.
Butler was silent for several moments before responding. “Lucy and the piano player may accompany the food inside, but my women bring it in.” He stepped aside.
Stoker waited for Restin’s okay before slinging his arm around her waist and steering her toward the gate.
Lucy didn’t know what she’d expected to change in the thirty six or so hours she’d been gone from New Sinai, but at first glance, nothing had. The unending shades of grime were the same, from the clothes worn by the guards and the other men, to the ground, the shacks passing as buildings, and even the complexions of the inhabitants.
Then she saw her car. Her little yellow Volkswagen bug. She loved that car, and Randy had . . . violated it. She’d had a difficult time choosing a color because the dealership lot had looked like a bowl of fruit with cherries, plums, lemons, oranges, and limes rolling around. Her lemon was now dirty, dinged, and dragging logs. How dare Randy commandeer her personal belongings?
Stoker must have sensed her outrage, because he squeezed her waist as if to warn her not to react to anything. She was going to be black and blue before this nightmare was over.
An acolyte wearing a familiar melon-colored blouse passed them. The buttons strained across the girl’s generous bustline. That was her shirt. Lucy bit her lip and reminded herself to focus on what was important.
So what if Randy had made her personal belongings available to his followers? They were just things, not people. Randy respected strength of character. He’d turn any sign of weakness against her. She had to stay focused. Focused on Michelle.
“Where’s my sister?” she asked, looking around for Michelle’s distinctive profile. As she was the only pregnant woman in the compound, she wasn’t hard to miss, even when everyone was gathered together.
Randy shrugged, as if he didn’t care where his wife was.
Bill Danby hobbled out of the gathered spectators. He moved slower than he had the day before, and his face was a mottled rainbow of bruises, a vivid contrast to his camouflage T-shirt.
“Doesn’t that man ever learn a lesson?” Stoker growled.
Lucy covered his hand with hers and smiled. Smiles made the best masks, a trick she’d learned years ago.
“You came,” Bill said, as he eyed her gown. “You look pretty, but a white dress ain’t practical. It’ll only get dirty before your chores are halfway done.”
Stoker tugged Lucy closer. “She’s not doing chores, she’s going to dance. That’s what brides do at their receptions.”
“Not in New Sinai,” Randy said.
Several women dragged a heavy red cooler past them. Not one of the men offered to help. Resentment bubbled in Lucy. No doubt Randy’s soldiers would eat before the women were given a chance at the food. She recognized another of her blouses on a second woman, and swallowed her ire.
“I’m ready,” Bill stood next to Lucy and looked at Randy.
“To die?” Stoker asked, swinging Lucy behind him.
“You keep threatening me, Piano Player, yet here I am, still walking around,” Bill said.
He was so busy being territorial with Bill that he missed Randy’s signal to someone behind them, but Lucy saw. She started to turn, but wasn’t quick enough.
The wooden gun stock connected with the back of Stoker’s skull with an audible crack that echoed off the fence. Stoker’s eyes rolled up as he sank to the ground.
“Stoker!” Lucy screamed, her knees buckling as she tried to catch him. Blood smeared a brilliant scarlet swathe across the front of her white skirt. Bill grabbed her under her arms and jerked her to her feet.
She shrieked Stoker’s name again as she struggled to free herself from Bill’s pungent grip. Helpless terror riddled her as two soldiers dragged Stoker to the gate and tossed him outside.
She kicked, squirmed, and twisted to free herself, but Bill still managed to haul her against his scrawny body. He tried to kiss her, but she head-butted his mouth, splitting his lips.
“Release her,” Randy bellowed. “Immediately.”
Lucy landed on the ground, puffs of dirt exploding around her like smoke.
“The piano-player’s life,” Randy said as the gate closed, “is my wedding present to you.”
Chapter 7
Well, so much for Lucy’s grand plan. They could have come to New Sinai and stood outside the gates without going through the ridiculous wedding reception charade.
Restin wanted to kick something, wanted to hurt someone, but he forced himself to remain calm. In control.
This mission had been a pile of scat almost from the get-go, and they were bound to have to clean up a stinking mess sometime. The problem was that it seemed to keep getting deeper and smellier.
Now Stoker and Lucy were inside New Sinai while the rest of them chased their tails.
Lucy’s scream changed his mind.
Thank the Ancient Ones the Pack was in human form, or her hair-raising shriek would have had them all looking like toilet brushes . . . which, come to think of it, would come in handy while cleaning up aforementioned dung heap.
The gate opened as Lucy screamed again, and two men tossed Stoker out on his rump.
He moaned as the gate creaked shut.
Parker, a trained EMT, ran from the huddle of roadies loitering by the side of the bus and knelt next to Stoker. He examined a bloody lump on the back of Stoker’s head.
No one spoke, and Restin resented that the pack didn’t turn to him for guidance. If Tokarz were there, every eye would have been on him, waiting to do his bidding.
“Is he alive?” Restin finally asked.
Stoker replied with a phrase he wouldn’t have used had Lucy been thrown out of New Sinai with him.
“Yeah,” Parker said, and Luke sniggered.
“What happened?” Restin asked.
“Give him a minute,” Hank said, using a tone he wouldn’t have used with Tokarz.
“Lucy,” Stoker half-moaned, half-gasped. He tried to sit. His face was the color of curdled milk.
The screams had stopped, but the silence was more unnerving than the shrieks.
Hank pressed his ear against the fence, as Stoker groaned Lucy’s name again.
“Remember what happened to Restin in Montana?” Ethan asked.
Restin glared at Ethan. No one had forgotten that he’d been bashed over the head with a lamp on his first mission as their leader. He lived with that humiliation every time one of the others joked about his hard head.
“You’ll need a couple of hours,” Parker suggested. “I don’t think your skull is fractured. You could use some ice. Too bad all the coolers are inside.”
Stoker ignored the advice and tried again to sit.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” Parker asked, tucking his hands behind his back.
“Three,” Stoker replied, eyes closed.
“Get him out of the sun,” Parker said.
“I need to save Lucy,” Stoker argued, his voice stronger.
“She’s okay for now,” Hank said. “I’m listening.”
“Danby was there,” Stoker explained.
“Do you remember what happened?” Restin asked.
“Danby was there,” Stoker repeated. “I need to get Lucy.” He rose to his knees then sagged to the ground and retched.
Restin remembered the throbbing pain and the accompanying nausea too clearly. “You need to take it easy.”
“Give me a pill or something,” Stoker said.
“Nope,” Parker replied. “Not even an aspirin for the pain. Your blood needs to clot, so the gash will heal.”
“Who hit you, and what did they use?” Restin tried again.
“Don’t know. Came from behind,” Stoker said. “Danby was after Lucy.”
Restin was ready to explode. Stoker was like one of those record albums from the middle of the last century–stuck at one point and repeating the same phrases until someone nudged the needle past the flaw.
“Now do you understand why mated males don’t do treaty work?” Hank asked Restin. “If he hadn’t been so worried about Lucy, he wouldn’t have been blindsided.”
Restin knew that, but Lucy was supposed to be their ticket into New Sinai. An alpha couldn’t disregard a gift like that. It was almost as if the Ancient Ones had dropped Lucy into the bar that night as a sign of their continued protection.
Restin wasn’t a religious werewolf, but he couldn’t ignore the significance of something as perfect as a team-member’s mate who had actually been inside New Sinai and maintained ties to the compound. A good leader paid attention to omens.
Hank stepped away from the fence. “Lucy is unharmed. Butler just ordered her to work in the cook house.”
“Danby—”
“Butler told him to release Lucy. She’s okay.”
Restin hoped he was the only one who noticed Hank didn’t say that Lucy was safe.
Nobody liked leaving the newlyweds behind the fence, especially Hank. Stoker was not the most proactive werewolf around, which was fine in regular circumstances, but New Sinai could in no way be considered regular. Hank attributed the strange vibration tugging at him to worrying about his cousin.
No one uttered a word when two soldiers tossed Stoker out of the compound like a sack of garbage, which said a lot. Sometimes, words were a waste of breath and energy.
Hank rolled his shoulders, trying to disperse the odd sensation still prickling him, and concentrated on eavesdropping through the fence. Wood made a good sound conductor.
Indistinct murmurs of conversation drifted to him, but he couldn’t pinpoint Lucy’s voice, although he’d be willing to bet his moustache that the frantically pounding heart nearly drowning out all other sound was hers.
But it wasn’t the racing heart that distracted him. Someone–not Lucy–inside the compound called to him; not to the Pack, not to any generic someone, but to Hank Hawkins. Specifically. The sensation felt almost like . . . mating instinct.
He didn’t like it. Why would some cultist want to summon him? He was a bass player in a band who had no life outside his music. His heart lived six feet underground with his beloved Charlotte and the babe who’d never even drawn a breath.
It was downright creepy, so he attributed the feeling to the general atmosphere of New Sinai.
Lucy stopped chopping wizened carrots and wiped the sweat from her forehead. The cook house was steamy from boiling vegetables and rice, the only ventilation being the gaps between the rough planks that formed the walls. She was hermetically sealed in her polyester wedding gown, the synthetic fabric clinging to her perspiring skin like shrink wrap. She kicked off her shoes so at least her toes could breathe.
“We need more carrots,” Mattie, mistress of the cook house, said
. She was a tall, big-boned woman whose gauntness did nothing for her appearance. Some women were meant to carry a little meat, and Mattie was one.
Lucy remembered her from before. The meals had been appalling, so she’d offered to help cook. After all, she was a professional caterer and could cook for a crowd. Then she discovered the pantry was atrocious. If the ATF didn’t shut down New Sinai, starvation would.