And Jericho Burned: Toke Lobo & The Pack

by MJ Compton

  “Does he make you happy?”

  “Yes.” She could admit that with a clear conscience. Odd how she hadn’t realized that until her sister pointed it out. “He’s a good man.” Another absolute truth.

  “Are you having a nice visit?” Randy entered the cabin and went straight to Michelle. He kissed the top of her head.

  Michelle didn’t react.

  Lucy recognized the foreboding that Randy brought with him. She and Michelle had survived their childhood only to end up here, where the gathering tension created an atmosphere that must have felt like home, sweet home to Michelle.

  No wonder she refused to see the real Randy. His manner was familiar, like a child’s security blanket or comfort food. Michelle had always seemed blissfully unaware of their father’s pending explosions, while Lucy had waited for Eleanor, their mother’s code word for drunken rage. Waited for disaster to strike. Like now.

  Randy stood behind Michelle’s chair, his hands resting on her shoulders. “That diamond looks genuine.” He eyed Lucy’s ring. “I can’t imagine that piano player making any kind of living. He probably stole it.”

  “His name is Stoker, and he’s my husband.” Lucy curled her fingers to protect the ring. “He’s not a thief.”

  “I’ve told you before: New Sinai doesn’t recognize your marriage.” Randy’s gaze never left the sparkling stone.

  “And I don’t recognize your claim of authority over me,” she replied, forcing herself to remain calm.

  The underlying evil thrum in the air seemed to deepen.

  “I imagine he does pretty well,” she continued. “Toke Lobo and the Pack have a huge following. It’s just a matter of time before they make it big.”

  Randy smirked. “We all know how traveling bands behave when they’re on the road. You’re just one of many.”

  She knew differently. Didn’t she? Or had Stoker lied about his lack of experience?

  She swallowed her doubt. Randy was playing a head game with her. If she were going to escape this nightmare, she needed to believe in the man who’d promised he would be her hero.

  “Stoker’s retiring from touring.”

  “Really?”

  “They’re cutting a CD in town,” Lucy continued, returning once more to the cover story Restin had given her. “Then we’re going back to Colorado for good.”

  “That’s not how country bands succeed.”

  “Toke Lobo is the draw. He can find another keyboardist.”

  “So the piano player must have money if he can afford a ring like that while he’s planning to retire.” Randy sneezed, then wiped his nose with his forefinger.

  Lucy shrugged.

  “Or does he plan to live off your money?”

  “Men have married for money before,” she said, looking at her sister.

  “Stop it,” Michelle said.

  Randy squeezed Michelle’s shoulder. “Lucy offered her inheritance to me if I let you leave with her. I told her no.”

  Michelle’s blank expression didn’t change.

  “He told me he would never give up his son,” Lucy clarified. “He never mentioned you.”

  “I don’t need to mention Michelle. She knows that.” Randy’s gaze turned hot, angry.

  “I told you not to invite her,” Michelle droned.

  “I thought you’d want your family with you.” He made himself sound like a loving, concerned husband. “Besides, you know how unhappy she’s been since her broken engagement. You wanted to show her that life doesn’t have to be a mad scramble.” His tone was even, his voice mellifluous, hypnotic, even though he sounded stuffed up with a head cold.

  But his gaze never left Lucy’s ring.

  “Obviously she’s moved on. She didn’t even invite me to her wedding,” Michelle replied.

  “I eloped. No time for engraved invitations.”

  “I didn’t even know you were seeing someone.”

  “I didn’t even know where you were until you wrote to me,” Lucy snapped. “You haven’t made the least effort to keep in touch, except when you need something.”

  “You need to control your temper,” Randy said.

  Lucy forced herself to relax. “I’m worried about my husband. Your goon hit him pretty hard.” She forced herself to meet Randy’s gaze and not look at Stoker’s blood on her skirt.

  His smirk faded. “You fornicated with him.”

  His choice of words startled her. “He’s my husband,” she repeated. “Our sex life is none of your business.”

  “You’re a harlot.”

  Lucy rolled her eyes. “And I suppose your latest plot for my future is sacred?”

  “What plot is that?” Michelle asked.

  Randy glared at Lucy as he massaged Michelle’s shoulders. “I’ve decided to take a second wife.”

  Michelle shrugged off his hands and twisted in her chair so she could see him. “Oh, really?”

  “I am a leader. I should have more than one wife.”

  “And you were going to tell me this when?” Michelle demanded as she struggled to her feet. “Or didn’t you think I’d be interested?” She glanced at Lucy. “Oh, I get it. You want him for yourself.”

  Lucy shook her head. “I have my own husband, thank you.”

  “That’s what all those Jacob references were about. He married one sister then another. You think you’re going to marry my husband.” Michelle’s voice rose steadily, until she shouted the final words.

  “I married Stoker so I wouldn’t have to!” Lucy shouted back. She hadn’t meant to confess that. She tried to back-pedal. “We decided to get married right away so Randy couldn’t make me marry Bill.”

  “Bill’s dead.” Michelle’s white-knuckled fists rested on her protruding abdomen.

  Lucy stood, too. She couldn’t stand being lower than everyone else in the room. “The first I heard Randy had decided I was going to be wife number two was this afternoon.

  “Stoker and I met in Colorado,” she said. The untruth twined seamlessly with the facts. “We talked about getting married all the time. When I got your invitation, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and visit him here. Idaho doesn’t have residency requirements, a waiting period, or anything else, so we decided to quit dancing around the subject of marriage and just do it.”

  She pushed her chair to the table. “When Bill sprung Randy’s plot on me, I decided to do whatever I could to work things out with Stoker. We married each other for better or worse. Trust me, in this instance, it’s better.” She’d kept her gaze on her sister the entire time she spoke, but when she finished her speech, she glanced at Randy.

  His face was pale, his beard quivered, and his red-rimmed hazel eyes shone with a fanatical gleam. “Go to bed, Michelle.”

  Michelle crossed her arms over her belly and shook her head.

  “I’m ordering you to our room.” Fury crackled in his voice.

  Lucy decided she might as well go for broke. “You’re pregnant, Michelle. And bulky. His words, not mine. Think about it. Why would he want another wife right now?”

  “His physical needs,” Michelle whispered, not looking at either of them. A tear, stained orange by the lantern-light, crept like lava down her cheek.

  “It’s nothing personal,” Lucy said, throbbing with guilt for hurting her sister. The wide swing of emotion was too familiar: frustration with Michelle’s stubbornness, followed by frustration at herself for hurting her sister.

  “Go to bed, Michelle,” Randy ordered again. “Your sister and I have much to discuss.”

  Michelle’s defiant eruption had been quelled.

  “Someone is shouting.”

  Stoker shifted on his rock and peered down the dark mountain toward New Sinai. “Who?”


  “It sounds like Lucy and another woman.”

  No moon lit the landscape. A multitude of stars salted the sky. If not for his werewolf night vision, he wouldn’t see a thing. And, for the first time in his memory, he felt the shift in his body’s chemistry changing with the moon.

  The fetid reek of death clung to the night air.

  He had to get Lucy out of that place of evil.

  “There’s bad stuff down there,” Hank said. “I can almost hear the evil humming.”

  That did it. If Hank said the evil had a sound then that was enough for Stoker. “I’m going down.”

  “Not yet,” Hank cautioned. “Too many people are still about. Wait until things settle. Besides, someone is coming.”

  Stoker lifted his head and sniffed. “Ethan and Luke.”

  “About a mile away,” Hank confirmed. “They sound like a stampede. We need to teach those two the value of stealth.”

  “Later.” The younger members of the band were Restin’s problem, not his.

  “How’s your head?” Hank asked.

  “It still hurts,” Stoker admitted, “but it’s stopped screaming.”

  He didn’t expect Hank to understand what he meant, because he’d learned long ago that others didn’t hear music in their heads the way that he did. It wasn’t a werewolf’s amplified hearing, or even like Hank’s gift, but sounds inside his skull audible only to him, which wasn’t so bad, because he merely had to play them on a piano, and others labeled him a composer.

  Someday really soon, he was going to take Lucy to his favorite meadow, high above Loup Garou, strip her naked and write the sounds onto her body. Maybe he could convince her to have musical staffs tattooed onto her torso.

  Nah. That was taking his fantasy too far, probably because he was terrified he’d never see her again. Terrified of what Butler planned to do now that he had her back in his possession.

  He shifted on his boulder again.

  “What’s wrong?” Hank asked. “You’re wiggling like a colony of ants moved into your jeans.”

  “New Sinai. Randy Butler.” He shouldn’t have to explain.

  “He doesn’t deserve her,” Hank said.

  Did he mean Lucy or Michelle? His assertion that Michelle housed his dead wife’s spirit had shaken everyone. They’d all known Charlotte, and, theoretically, werewolves didn’t believe in reincarnation. Stoker planned to ask his mother if she’d ever heard of such a thing, but until Lucy was safe, he didn’t have time to deal with anything else.

  Because Hank claimed Michelle, Lucy no longer needed to worry about her sister, which suited Stoker just fine, even if it was creepy. If nothing else, the belief cemented Hank’s involvement in Stoker’s mission. Having an ally felt good.

  “Butler is alpha of his pack,” Stoker cautiously replied. He felt, rather than saw Hank’s reaction.

  “You’re bestowing attributes he doesn’t have,” Hank said.

  “He leads them. They obey without question. He’s trying to build a better world for them.”

  “At a great cost,” Hank reminded him. “A true alpha protects his people, not uses them.”

  “Someone should remind Restin,” Stoker muttered.

  “Restin is a beta whose work has gone to his head. You’re right to fight him about Lucy.”

  Stoker didn’t need anyone’s reassurance, but since Tokarz had backed him, he felt better.

  “How do you plan to get inside the fence?” Hank asked.

  “I’m going to dig a hole.”

  Lucy shifted on her narrow cot, the limp sheet tangling in her bare legs. She hadn’t wanted to sleep in only her underclothes, but she couldn’t stand wearing the bloodied wedding dress another moment. Besides, the gown added to her claustrophobia, something she didn’t need in the small, windowless alcove.

  It wasn’t even ten o’clock, but most of the residents had already retired. Unless Randy felt the need to proselytize, there was nothing to do in New Sinai once the sun set. And here, on the east side of the mountain, night came quickly.

  No wonder so many had volunteered to escort her into town.

  Except remembering that trip meant thinking about Bill Danby. Two nights ago, she wanted nothing more than to escape him. Tonight, she mourned him. He didn’t deserve to die the way he had. No one deserved such a violent death. Now she wished she’d met with him, listened to what he wanted to tell her.

  She turned onto her side, searching for a comfortable position. If Stoker were there with her, she would have crawled into the security of his arms.

  She brought her hand to her mouth. “Tell Stoker I miss him,” she whispered to the crystal. Hopefully, Hank wouldn’t think she was nuts or be too embarrassed to forward the message.

  “Lucy Callahan!” Randy’s voice boomed in the stillness.

  She flinched then braced herself. “Go away.”

  “You are a whore, and as such, you must be punished.”

  Four men flanked him. One-on-one, she might have been able to reason with him, but he wouldn’t even listen, much less relent in front of witnesses. Bad for his image.

  Randy strode into the room. The hulking soldiers, armed with rifles, blocked the only exit.

  Closed in. No escape. She swallowed her panic.

  He tossed a T-shirt at her. “Cover yourself, slut, or do you think to entice and seduce me with your evil, carnal ways?”

  Lucy pulled the foul-smelling garment over her head.

  Randy seized her hand and yanked her to her feet. “Give me the ring.”

  “No.” Lucy closed her fist to protect her only link to the outside world. To Stoker.

  The lantern cast deep, twitching shadows, turning Randy’s face into a monstrous mask. He jammed her hand against the rough wood of the wall then jerked his head.

  One of the soldiers raised his rifle.

  Chapter 9

  A woman’s scream shattered the still night.

  Stoker recognized the voice. Lucy.

  Pain shot up his paw. He stopped clawing at the dry ground at the base of the stockade fence and looked at the three wolves working at his side. They paused and glanced at one another.

  His front left leg went numb, except for the throbbing in his paw. He tried to resume digging, but the effort was too painful. He scrambled out of the hole.

  Hank looked at him, a question in his gaze.

  Stoker didn’t respond. Silence was vital. Favoring his lame paw, he limped out of the way.

  He lay to one side and licked the injury. No external damage. His tongue and nose didn’t lie. Either he’d strained his paw with his frantic digging or something else was at work.

  He gazed at the shadow-free scene before him. Restin would be livid, but Ethan and Luke had both bowed to his delta status and now helped burrow a passage under New Sinai’s fake stockade fence. The hard, cement-like ground made tunneling difficult, but not as difficult as it would have been if the fence were a genuine stockade, with the piked logs embedded in the earth.

  Hank approached, and nipped his flank. Stoker climbed to his feet and limped toward the gap beneath the fence. He would just be able to squeeze through. Lucy was small enough that she would be able to use the escape route, too.

  If she could. She’d screamed, and his mate wasn’t a screamer. She hadn’t screamed when he revealed his true nature to her, and forevermore, he would gauge her every reaction by that moment.

  Tonight, she’d screamed.

  Hank ordered Luke and Ethan to stand guard then waited for Stoker to lead the invasion of New Sinai.

  Lucy huddled on the cool earthen floor, her teeth chattering from the chill of the night as much as from fighting the terror of the cramped space. The complete absence of light and fresh air paralyzed her.

 
This couldn’t be happening to her. Couldn’t be.

  Randy had locked her in the root cellar, where there was barely enough space to lie down. Extending her arms, she could touch either wall. The damned room was coffin shaped.