by Holley Trent
The Cougar’s Trade
Desert Guards 2
Holley Trent
Avon, Massachusetts
Copyright © 2015 by Holley Trent.
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.
Published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.
www.crimsonromance.com
ISBN 10: 1-4405-9296-9
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-9296-6
eISBN 10: 1-4405-9297-7
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-9297-3
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © 123RF/Stefano Cavoretto, 123RF/Анна Павлова.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
About the Author
More from This Author
Also Available
CHAPTER ONE
Miles Bennett eyed the sewing table in her sort-of jailer Glenda Foye’s living room corner and wondered if there was anything inside its drawers that could make her bleed. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and Miles was nearing the despairing precipice where she’d throw herself in front of a ravening vampire just to stave off the symptoms of her disorder. Ever since her diagnosis as a preteen, she never liked playing it so close with her hemochromatosis—she hated being unproductive due to her body not being at peak efficiency—but lately, her life had gone a bit off-kilter. Because of her busy nursing job and a summer camping trip gone sideways, it’d been nearly four months since she’d sidled up to her favorite phlebotomist to give up a pint of precious O positive.
The joint aches from the excess of iron in her blood were dull warnings at the moment, but the abdominal pains would probably come soon. The fatigue had already set in, but she’d explained the warning signs away and said they were simply due to her circumstances. After all, anyone would have been tired if they’d been abducted and held in captivity for a month within walking distance to an open portal to hell.
While vampires didn’t exist—as far as she knew—and couldn’t relieve her of some blood, Were-cougars did. They didn’t want to bite her, though. One wanted her for a mate. Her friends, too. One—Ellery—was already paired off, and happily. Miles and Hannah were kept in limbo, held captive by their abductors’ mother with no access to a phone or computer for nearly a month. It seemed the men couldn’t tell whose mate, precisely, was whose, and they wouldn’t let them leave. They couldn’t, actually. Their goddess would curse them if Miles and Hannah didn’t stay.
I could go on a hunger strike. If I pass out, someone would have to take me to the hospital.
She pondered the implementation of such of plan, then laughed quietly. Glenda would have been so annoyed. Not because Miles had tried to get away, but because Miles didn’t tell her she needed medical care. She could say a lot of things about the woman, but Miles could never say Glenda was cruel. In fact, Miles admired the woman, and pitied her for being thrust into her Cougar sons’ numerous messes. “A weaker woman would have broken a long time ago.”
Miles slumped lower on the sofa as Hannah cut her a sideways speculative look.
“Ignore me,” Miles said, and closed her eyes.
“Stop giving me reasons to worry, then.”
Miles ground her palms against her eyes, and caught from her skin a lingering whiff of Glenda’s excessively decadent cinnamon rolls. The woman behaved as if feeding Miles to death would make her forget her circumstances. The men had been sent on a hunt for mates by their goddess, La Bella Dama, and apparently she saw something in Miles, Hannah, and Ellery that had made them worth abducting. The Foye brothers had snatched them out of their tent in Utah and driven them to their mother’s ranch in New Mexico.
It was obvious to Miles why Ellery would have had a celestial target on her head. Her best friend of ten years had been hiding the fact she was an air witch, and evidently, a pretty powerful one. She made the perfect mate to the Cougar group—or glaring—leader. Mason was alpha as all get-out, and Ellery was the epitome of Type A. They suited each other, and had quickly realized it.
Miles could even think of a few reasons why the angry blonde sitting opposite to her on the sofa would catch a goddess’s attention. Hannah wasn’t afraid of a fight. In fact, she’d been doing nothing but fighting—mostly with words—since they’d arrived on the Foyes’ New Mexican ranch. She could probably handle anything, provided she worked up enough indignation. She wasn’t even afraid of the demons that popped up anymore. They just annoyed her.
As for Miles, she couldn’t guess why she’d been included in the haul, except that, perhaps, she was convenient. It had been a long month in comfortable captivity with her angry, agitated friend, but Miles didn’t have any anger. Fear of the uncertain? Yes. But it was hard for her to be angry when she wasn’t so certain who deserved the blame. Anger needed to have somewhere to go.
“We’ve got to stand firm,” Hannah leaned across the sofa to whisper. Again. She’d already said it six times that morning by Miles’s count, the first having been right after they’d rolled off the twin beds in Glenda’s guest bedroom.
“You don’t need to keep saying it,” Miles told Hannah softly. Probably too softly. She never wanted to hurt anyone’s feelings, even if they deserved it. The second time Hannah had whispered that reminder had been as they’d descended the staircase for breakfast, and the third time had been right after that, as they sat at Glenda’s kitchen table.
Hannah had been hissing and whispering so much in the two hours since then that Miles had started tuning her out in the same way she’d tuned out all the people in the last house she’d lived in before aging out of foster care. They talked and talked and talked, and having nothing of her own to contribute, she’d learned how to confine their ramblings into their own frequency. And, as if the inside of her head were a radio she could turn off, she just…did.
Of course, that didn’t work so well when the noise she tuned out came from a person who could get close and yank her sleeve.
“Stand. Firm,” Hannah said, enunciating each word for emphasis. “Just because Ellery fell for it doesn’t mean you have to. Two weeks, right? That’s when their curse kicks in, doesn’t it? All we have to do is refuse them until then.”
And doom them to short lives as cats.
Ellery had clued them in to the curse’s terms after she’d accepted Mason, hoping it’d make them less fearful about why they were there. Cougar men bore their goddess’s curse. Once La Bella Dama chose a man to embark on a mate hunt, they had two w
eeks from the moment their inner beast latched on to their would-be mate to convince her to accept him. If they failed, they’d spend the rest of their lives on four furry legs; hence the reason the women weren’t allowed to leave—not until Hank and Sean had their two weeks’ chance at their mates. According to Ellery, the only reason they’d delayed their hunt for so long was because neither of them had spent enough time around Miles or Hannah for their inner cats to wake up and tell them that’s the one. They were stalling, for sure, but of course they would have. None of the men had been ready for mates in the first place.
Miles turned her head slowly and took in her patriot of a friend. It’d been a rough month for both of them, full of revelations about supernatural things they hadn’t known existed, and learning about Ellery’s true nature. If it weren’t for that camping trip, Ellery probably would have never told them. Well, she still hadn’t told them so much as showed them. It was funny the things you could learn about a person when they were being attacked by demons.
“You have to tell them that—”
“Hannah, shut up,” Miles snapped, and immediately squeezed her eyes shut. She let out a long breath and ground her palms against her eyes.
Dammit.
She was better than that, and people counted on her to be calm, even when they weren’t. If she lost control, how could she expect anyone else to keep theirs? Still, she’d meant it when she’d said it, and so she’d stand by it.
She dropped her hands and opened her eyes to see Hannah’s jaw flapping like an unsecured shutter in a storm. Yep. It’d surprised her.
“I know there are lots of things wrong with me,” Miles said, “but, honey—I can hear just fine.”
Hannah crossed her arms, settled back into her corner of the sofa, and gave her head a hard shake. “You seemed to need the reminder.”
“I actually didn’t, but thank you for thinking of me.”
“I’m just trying to look after you.”
“I get that, but for once, let me decide if I need it. Okay?”
Hannah gave her long blond braid a frustrated yank. “I’m going insane here.” She swept her hand, indicating Glenda’s house and ostensibly the ranch beyond it. They were East Coast girls—grew up in the same school district in Wake County, North Carolina, in fact, although they hadn’t formally met until college ten years ago.
Miles massaged her throbbing temples, ground her palms against her tired eyes again, and then buried her face against her hands. What could she possibly say besides “I’m sorry” that would do any good? Hannah had always been the kind of woman who didn’t want to hear “I’m sorry” unless it came with action.
“No one’s even looking for us,” Hannah said.
“Why would they? Ellery took care of everything.” The hospital where they all had worked believed Miles and Hannah had extended their vacations into sabbaticals. Miles didn’t have any family to be concerned with her whereabouts. Hannah’s family might have been a little suspicious, but she was a woman of nearly thirty, and they probably assumed she knew what she was doing. She usually had her head screwed on pretty well.
“If I didn’t know her better, I’d think she planned this all along,” Hannah said.
“Us getting abducted?”
Hannah nodded. “She’d rather it be the two of us drawn into this ridiculous cult with her than two women she doesn’t know.”
“That’s a terrible thing to think. And they’re not a cult.” Miles would be lying if she said she hadn’t thought the same thing at first, though. Glenda had once been where they were—a captured mate. She’d drunk the Kool-Aid, so to speak. But no woman as critical of her sons as she was could possibly have been brainwashed. She was the first to admit the frequently ill-mannered men were pieces of work, and she regularly blamed herself for how they’d turned out.
“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…” Hannah shrugged. “You know the rest.”
The screen door between the porch and living room creaked open, and Glenda poked her head into the house. “Sorry they’re taking so long. They got held up at Woodworks. Needed to load up some big furniture so Mason could get it delivered today, but they’re going to do this today. I’m not letting them drag this out any longer.”
While Glenda ran the Double B Ranch, her sons made their money producing custom furniture and cabinetry at Foye Woodworks, some of which cluttered their mother’s house.
“No hurry,” Hannah muttered.
Glenda narrowed her eyes at her but gave no retort. There was likely nothing she could say.
Her gaze fell to Miles, and softened. “You look tired.”
If Miles felt guilty before, it rooted deep and blossomed under the woman’s scrutiny. “No more than usual.” Glenda and Hannah had struck up an adversarial relationship from the moment Mason first drove them onto the property and Glenda had released them from Mason’s truck. Miles understood both sides and empathized for each woman—Glenda, who simply wanted her sons to survive the ordeal, and Hannah, who was righteously indignant about being uprooted from her life. Miles tried not to get between the two of them. Staying out of their arguments was the only way to keep her head clear and her anxiety at bay. Optimism had always been her greatest weapon, and although the ammunition was cheap, lately it was getting harder to come by.
“Did you get back to sleep okay after that demon scare last night? It was a loud one, huh?”
Miles let out a ragged exhalation. She didn’t really want to think about what that thing was. She’d shivered herself to sleep from fear for too many nights already, worrying about the entities coming out of that hole in the desert every two or three nights, and feeling so powerless against them. She worried one would catch up to her when no Foye was around to drive it back, and consume her whole because she couldn’t do anything but throw salt and run. She was only human.
“In my head, I called it a screamer.” She dropped her hands to her lap. She kept wanting to rub her eyes, not that it was helping.
Glenda grunted and leaned against the door frame. “Took a little longer for Ellery and the boys to send it back to the hellmouth because it was hard for them to get close. I guess they never thought they’d need ear protection.”
“I bet Ellery will start keeping earplugs in her jacket pockets just in case. She’s always prepared. And yes, I got back to sleep after a while. Might have been dawn when I managed it.”
“Glad I missed it.” Hannah studied her stumpy nails and ground her teeth. Somehow, she’d managed to sleep right through the chaos. Perhaps the noise had become sort of background music for Hannah because the demons popped out so often. Miles had learned to do the same with trains when she was growing up. She’d lived, literally, on the wrong side of the tracks and too damn close to them. She’d learned to sleep through the clatters and whistles, but not through the whispers. People in the house were always talking and connecting. Just not her.
“Well, here they come now.” Glenda stepped outside and held the door.
“Yep. Here they are.” Miles’s gut lurched as their booted feet pounded up the porch steps.
She’d been in equal parts dreading it and craving it. She wanted it over with just to bring the suspense down to a manageable level, but now the ball would be in her court. By saying no, she’d be ruining some guy’s life and taking a woman’s son away from her.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair for any of them, and Miles could only hope she’d have enough wisdom to draw on when the time came to decide.
The choice was simple—stay or go—but the consequences weren’t.
“Oh my God,” she whispered as Hank and Sean Foye stepped into the living room. She pulled in a cleansing breath and immediately swallowed, regretting her overindulgence at breakfast.
The room suddenly seemed very cramped, and she felt boxed in.
No more delaying. No more “what-ifs.” She was about to find out firsthand what it meant to be claimed by a Cougar, and whether she could reject him
when the time came, in spite of how kind his mother had been to her.
She swallowed again, this time trying to push back the bile that soured her mouth.
“You’re looking a little green.” Glenda slung her arm around Miles’s shoulder and rubbed her arm. “It’s all right. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.”
“It’d be easier on my conscience if you did.”
Glenda didn’t respond except to give her another squeeze. She probably didn’t know what to say any more than Miles did.
“Go on and pick, and start your two-week countdown to doom, boys,” Hannah said. “You’d better start getting your affairs in order.”
Both men made noncommittal grunts, but only one pulled Miles’s attention. As always, her gaze immediately tracked to Mason’s Second—Hank. He was the epitome of the strong, silent type. Perhaps even a bit cold in his stoic efficiency, but he got things done, and his respect for his alpha was clear and obviously unimpeachable. He was steadfast, and ruthlessly take-charge. In two weeks, he hadn’t looked her way for more than a second or two. Sean, on the other hand, had actually attempted across-the-room conversations. He hadn’t wanted to get too close, so he didn’t trigger his clock without knowing it, but he’d tried to be friendly to both her and Hannah. Hank didn’t seem interested in either of them before, but now he looked at Hannah, and Miles knew. He’d made his choice.
She was surprised to realize that the tightness in her chest was the aftermath of her heart sinking. Obviously, she’d made her choice, too, without having known it.
Not that there was anything wrong with Sean. He was strong and funny and a doting uncle. He would be perfect for some woman. Apparently he was her man for the next two weeks. In her head, the projectile missed its mark. The magnet didn’t stick because the surface didn’t have the right charge. There was no aha. No click.
Shouldn’t there have been something? Maybe she didn’t have any magic or a meddling goddess ancestress like Ellery did to steer her steps, but certainly intuition should have spoken to her. But all she got from it was, “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”