We passed from blaring sunlight's heat into the overarching canopy's comforting shade. Toward another teen with a large black military-grade firearm. Probably loaded to the hilt. Shifters love bullets.
The young whelp eyed me.
Curiously. And nodded. Fine. Three steps later, Marine stepped through the open gateway and under the trees.
Someone had worked to cut the lower limbs away for a rider to pass free of obstacles.
Marine didn't veer any direction. He headed straight for the single lodge's two steps that led to the door.
Probably ready for a good night's rest. I'd give him that much. Even if it meant sleeping in this snake pit. Gods know I have no intention of providing the outpost's nightly entertainment by spreading my legs. I'd given up on the Shifter I loved years ago. Gone back to my family at the Chippewa sanctuary because Augustus began suggesting other Shifters when Hostillian wouldn't even look down at me.
Okay. Maybe I stood up to the man too many times? Maybe I should have acted a little more like a timid submissive female. But Hostillian wouldn't have looked at me at all if I hadn't made a fuss when he tried to intimidate me. Gods. I'd tried and tried to get his attention. I'd done everything humanly possible to run with the Shifters. That took a lot for a Normal male. But every breathable moment had to be invested in the effort if the fool was an even shorter Normal female. So, I, said fool, wasted my youth and wound up with a reputation that precedes me. No problem. I'd rather be a moron left alone than forced to mate a big hairy Wolf cock I had no intention of fucking because the Shifter wouldn't take no for an answer.
Marine halted at the bottommost step and sighed a quick snort that collapsed his ribcage between my legs.
Just enough change in my reality to knock me out of my internal diatribe.
The loathsome Augustus did this to me. Made my thoughts wander and obsess. August should have just forced Hostillian to mate me when I was eighteen. Hell, my cousin knew who I loved. Rather pined over. Aren't females rare? Shouldn't my needs have been met?
And where am I now? The cuckoo. Obsessing at some teen's doorstep in the middle of BFE.
I am so ridiculous. Why can't I forget the Big Bad Beast? And since when did the world go the way a person planned, AEI? I just needed to suck up the loss and move on. Deliver the bloody ammo, throw down my bedroll, and haul my tail out of here at sunrise. I threw a heel to the jarring hard-packed forest floor and struggled with an unbelievably heavy saddlebag of bullets.
Half. This is only half the load. Which had to weigh a hundred pounds. How did Marine manage hauling me, my gear, and two packs of ammo? Using both arms to support the dead weight, I climbed the squawking steps and kicked the solid unyielding door.
Okay. Kicking is not the most neighborly way to pound on someone's door. But my hands are full. And nobody knows I am Josie. Yet. The male who opened the door would just see a female and undoubtedly get all sweet and gentle. I'll just have to pretend to be as amiable.
****
Hostillian froze in his footsteps, staring at the long chocolate-brown ponytail dangling down the back of the only female who ever talked back, argued, got in his face from well over a foot beneath him. Josie, he almost blurted. What in the Gods-be-damned hell is she doing at my outpost?
Jaguar hustled toward her back.
Her stallion swung his head around to size up the teenager.
She turned at the horse's declaration of an approaching person.
Without Shifter senses, she didn't detect me where I stood near a gnarled tree trunk cloaked in shadow. All the better. Her arrival wouldn't go over well. The teens would be on edge with a female afoot. If I sent them out to keep them busy, I'd be alone with her. No Gods-be-damned way. Wolf isn't going to sit by and watch a pack of scraggly pups sniff and lick at who he fancies his female.
Over my maggot-eaten carcass.
Gods-damn the stupid thought. She isn't mine. Won't be mine. There's no way in hell I'd mate the only woman who made my Wolf froth at the mouth with lust like a rabid creature. Nothing makes my Wolf uncontrollable. Except her.
Jaguar strode up the steps, past her, towering over her shorter female form, and shoved the door wide.
But they stood there. Talking!
Mine, Wolf snarled.
She isn't yours and will never be yours. Get over the fantasy.
Wolf growled and clawed frantically at the underside of my ribcage.
Futilely. I'd mastered caging the beast years ago. When that little female started acting like a warrior at thirteen and turned on me. Defied me in front of the other Shifters. The fool. She was as dangerous as nitroglycerin. Volatile. Too risky to mate. She'd get herself killed because she barked up all the wrong trees. Her mate would never live a peaceful moment. I certainly don't want to mate her. And the last stupid thing I'd do now is egg on Wolf's need to know what Jaguar and Josie said to one another by pulling Wolf into my ears to eavesdrop.
Josie disappeared inside the dark gaping doorway.
Jaguar retrieved a pack from her saddle and followed her.
Not the best of situations. Josie could take care of herself. But Jaguar has no idea that she could rip off his tail and cram it down his throat. I'd have to intervene or pay the price for losing one of my Shifter charges. Or at least his valuable nuts. The human race would die off without every Shifter in full form to donate genetic material for the greater good of the species.
****
The young Shifter retrieved the other bag of ammo and placed them on a long wooden table strategically placed positions on one side of the large central room.
Like a gentleman. "Thank you." I wasn't about to be rude even though they'd quickly decide I am, by reputation alone, once somebody inquired about my name.
"Augustus sent you?" The young male descended onto the bench flanking the opposite side of the table.
No sense acting mysterious. "Yes."
"Long ride," he noted, somewhat contemplatively.
More than outright blurting he couldn't believe a female rode two days alone. "Yes." What next? Am I mated? Or did I have any trouble on the trail?
"You heading back tonight?" he asked.
Interesting way to see if I feared nightfall and being preyed upon by alien monsters. "I thought I'd ask for sanctuary." I shot him a firm glance, challenging him to think otherwise. "Avoid Bounders one night." Why not? The alien creatures could dine upon my carcass tomorrow night. This game of cat and mouse could be pretty entertaining. I'd just play along to see how long it took for us to get around to introductions. Then the fireworks start.
"Then?" he asked.
The door creaked.
Jaguar spun to the doorway.
One filling with an extremely large form. Shadows draping his features. Shifter though. Too big for a Normal. Apparently, Augustus had enough sense to keep an adult around to keep the hormonal antics to a minimum here.
"Shouldn't you be guarding the gate?" a familiar unsettling voice asked.
My whole being shuddered and quaked.
In fear. I think. Hostillian.
My gut actually had the audacity to do somersaults.
Run? Shove the Big Bad Beast out of the way? Escape? Or survive another confrontation? Risk him pulling his Wolf into his ears and listening to my tattling heartbeat. Surely he'd guessed already. Knew of my infatuation with him. Or he wasn't smart enough to keep on hand back at the lab and was assigned this remote command of teenagers. Maybe Augustus is wiser than I gave him credit for? Maybe, just maybe, my grieving is getting the best of me.
The youth rose, nodding a straight-lipped smile my direction, threw his weapon's strap over his shoulder, and pressed through the sunlit gap between the doorframe and Hostillian's body that now leaned against one side of the doorway.
Smugly. His arms crossed over his broad chest. The bastard. The B
ig Bad Beast thought he'd caught me fucking with one of his men. Young men. Like I'd choose someone a good seven years my junior who barely had enough meat on his bones to toss at a Bounder. Just what would the enormous jerk say? I straightened my spine, faced him squarely, preparing for the worst.
"What are you doing here?" His voice never wavered from the deep commanding tone that always hit me low in my belly.
Unnerved every corpuscle of my being.
Left my knees trembling with the threat of dumping me into a puddle of goo on the floor at his feet.
Not today. The ass. What am I doing here? Like I don't have a reason to be here! Why does he have to be so damned caustic? I grabbed a heavy saddlebag, dragged it two inches so I could unbuckle the buckle, and tossed the flap open to show I'd been sent with the goods. "Augustus asked me to deliver these."
"Augustus?" he asked incredulously.
Like I wasn't capable. Merely female. Because Big Bad Beast couldn't see the value in others unless they were unstoppable. Or controllable. Me, I'm simply the weak female in his eyes. Impossibly chained to a life of boring things like being barefoot and pregnant mated to someone like him for protection. Therein nested my value. Since he couldn't begin to fathom why I bothered stopping, here, that I'd only been in the general vicinity of this place because I was leaving the community, that I had no idea where I was going or how long it would take for me to reach nowhere, that everything I had is gone, and with his whole bastard approach to this inquisition, he'd never truly know. I just needed to get on Marine and ride out of this nightmare. "Yes. I'll be leaving now." I strode toward the sunlit crack Jaguar had used to vanish.
To sit my stallion and high tail it out of here.
"It's late," he rumbled at my approach.
If I hadn't been desperate to escape, I'd probably have stopped and enjoyed the amazing echo of his male words. Stood close to him. Maybe stare at those broad hands that surely touched some female somewhere. Some woman who begged him for protection. Who gave her flesh to him because he was so gloriously perfect. Thank the stars he had his shirt on. Or I'd melt merely from the sound of his voice surrounded by all his fucking muscles. Why am I thinking this again?
How does he always unravel my self-control one thought by mind-numbing thought?
Hell, he'd made his disgust for me perfectly clear.
And nobody would ever call me dense. I just need to leave before the commanding look from his brown gaze had me pulling my clothes off. Offering myself to him. I took two more steps to the gap in the door.
His massive towering form glided sideways to consume the gap.
So he wants to fight? I squared my jaw and slid my gaze up from the patchy cloth covering his wide chest, along his shadowy thick neck to the rounded protrusion of his chin, to the grim flat line of his challenging scowl, across the black moustache outlining that scowl even more, to the yellow glow of his Wolf in his eyes.
So he analyzed me his heightened Shifter senses.
Fine.
Good thing he ticked me off. "Look, if I knew you were here, I'd have told Augustus where he could stick his bloody bullets. But he neglected to inform me who I'd see on his little errand. You know, with one of those wicked little winks of his. So, I played his chump. Unknowingly. So, I'll just be leaving now. You've got your ammo. And I'm gone. We're both happy."
He just stared at me, Wolf eyes burning like banked coals.
****
Wolf writhed in agony because she was even more beautiful when she hissed words through grated teeth. But I'm unlike the Shifter Tacitus who seeks challenges. No. I prefer my females docile and safe at home. Josie will never be either.
Mine, Wolf growled.
"Gods-damn-it, Hostillian. Don't growl at me. Just let me pass." Her pale blue eyes glinted like they had a Shifter glow of their own.
Play, Wolf hummed.
Sit. Quiet. Let me think.
Her heart thrashed like she faced a grizzly.
And she'd said Augustus had that damned wink when he gave her this assignment. He sent her on purpose. Hell, I can't let her go out with the curfew a few hours away. Not that tight little ass and those pouty lips. What kind of Guardian would I be if anything happened to a female? "There's nowhere you can go this time of day. You have to stay here." Hopefully, I sounded calm. But she has a way of working from every angle to pry my flesh from my bones. A way of forcing every one of my blood cells into my swelling cock.
"You're kidding. Right?" she snarled. "You and me in the same space until morning?"
She's right. But I'd be damned if she got the best of me in any discussion. "If you behave, everything will be fine," I managed calmly.
"Me?" she crowed, pointing at the floorboards with obvious rage reddening her cheeks. "You're the one who accused me of coming here on purpose. I offered to leave too."
Unfortunately, I couldn't allow her to win. "You will behave. I have seven teens here learning to grow wheat. But they're highly impressionable--"
"How dare you suggest I'd seduce them!" She thrust up a finger and stabbed the pointed tip into my chest. "I don't know when the last time was I even looked at a youth the age of the one that just left. He's scrawny."
The solid fingertip jabbed harder with each of her words.
Not hard enough to soften Wolf's cock. "You're not leaving this cabin until sunrise." I turned my back to her, leaned an elbow against the biting doorframe, and stared at unfolding grassy prairie beyond the gaping gateway.
Movement even farther out noted my loping students in their Wolfskins were returning to prepare for the evening meal. "You'd better find something to do, Josie. The boys are back. In were-form. And they'll be shifting shortly. If you don't want to mislead them by staring at their nude bodies, you'd better back away from the door and find something to do."
****
What an asshole. First implying I can't behave appropriately around these children. Then daring me to go stare at their nude bodies. I pivoted and planted my tail on the end of the bench farthest from the doorway and Hostillian's glowing Wolf stare.
Banked coals never warmed a space as much as they did now. Or I'm about to explode from pent-up frustration.
"Just a minute," Hostillian said with his authoritative timbre.
Not to me. To the teens. Or he would have been as asshole.
The floorboards creaked behind me.
Under the weight of his six-foot-five steely mass of perfectly-chiseled muscles. Why, oh, why, can't I be normal? Just be a woman who makes men fall at their feet? Not gush into puddles. Men don't gush. But just have them writhe at my boots. Just Hostillian. Why? Is it too much to want something so desperately? I'd wasted half of my life on that stupid desire. Trying to prove I wouldn't be in his way. That I'd be safe walking across the compound if he wasn't around. That he wouldn't have to worry about me. But he still doesn't want me.
My heart sank.
Foolishly betraying my warrior façade if Hostillian had his Wolf in his ears.
My cousin planned this. Yes. Stuck his snout in my business again. But I'd leave in the morning. Beat Augustus at his game. Survive this night.
The floorboards creaked again.
More softly though. Farther away.
The door snapped shut.
Hostillian probably took pants to his boys.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
My pulse in my skull. Pounding out a death march. Beat by agonizing beat. Ticking off the moments before they'd all come inside. Stare at me like I'm the main course. Or worse. He probably told them who I was by now. Oh well. I'd just pull myself together. Make due till morning. Prove all those years I studied how to survive hadn't been wasted. Maybe on a foolish fantasy about Hostillian. But not with learning to defend myself.
No. I hadn't wasted a moment on self-defense. And nobody would make me think I had. Not H
ostillian. Not a pack of wet-behind-the-ears youths. My sire might have wanted me to be more of a daughter than a woman who could stand up to Hostillian. But he never once told me I was a failure or an embarrassment to the clan. So, to hell with Hostillian's lack of interest. I'd show this lodge of mangy wolves that I deserved respect.
The door creaked.
A floorboard answered.
One by one, they trickled through the doorway, silently, except for the bitching planks. Hostillian must have told them to be respectfully quiet. Or threatened them with their lives for any misbehavior. I remember the days in school when all the young males feared Augustus. Knew there would be hell to pay if anything went wrong. Hence, their accepting me and my little need to prove myself to whoever doubted I could take care of myself. So, my cousin taught the males of his clan how to demand the same respect from youths.
A final creak of flooring and one snap of the door noted the noisy parade's end.
Surely he stood behind me. Literally? Yes. But what did his presence indicate?
Chapter Two
I could look. Should turn and face Hostillian. Make him think I don't fear a pack of nude teenage Shifters. Especially since I'm in his cabin. His domain. I'll show him. I swung an elbow around to lean back against the table's smooth wood and studied the shirtless males.
All stood together in military-grade camouflage pants as if waiting for my permission allowing them to enter the room. Their heads shaved like Shifters. Some had moustaches or circle beards. All watched me like I'm the wild animal. Crazy. And just where is Hostillian? I'll have to offer the invitation to release these paralyzed youths from their frozen stances. "Hello."
They cast questioning glances between themselves.
Males. I'm not that terrifying. Or maybe it's something else? Shouldn't these boys be savvy enough to deal with a female yet? "This is your home. Don't let me run you off."
An extremely tall young man packing quite a bit of musculature in his arms and shoulders, nothing like Hostillian's gargantuan build, stepped forward and nodded. "Ma'am."
Big Bad Beast (Werescape) Page 2