by J. E. Taylor
I stopped fighting my captors and let them lead me to the town square. I scanned the crowd. The entire town came out for this trial. Outside of Remy and the guards taking justice into their own hands in Lucas’s cell, there was only one person missing. I scanned again to make sure.
Travis wasn’t there.
Tears burned my eyes, but I blinked them back. I refused to cry in front of this ungrateful town. Anger finally burned through all the emotions accosting me. My skin heated from it, but I straightened my spine in defiance.
Judge Murphy cleared his throat and looked at the paper in front of him before looking up at me like he had swallowed a bug. Disgust formed in the lines around his mouth, and I glared at him.
“Ruby Locklear, you have been found guilty of high treason.” He nodded at the guards holding me.
This wasn’t like any of the other court proceedings I had witnessed. “I don’t get to say anything in my defense?” I yelled out over the crowd.
“Did you allow that wolf to live?” he snarled at me.
“Yes, but he...”
“Silence!” He stood and pointed towards the post in the center of the courtyard.
“I will not be silent. If trying to save my grandmother is considered a crime, then we are guilty.” I scanned the crowd as the guards dragged me to one of two posts and strapped my arms around the back. “The wolf saved her. Killing him would have been murder for the sake of bloodlust, just like the monsters out there!” I nodded towards the northern woods.
A murmur blanketed the bystanders, and some shifted their weight, glancing at their neighbors before looking at the ground.
“Gram said she fell, and that wolf who is being brutalized right now kept her warm and protected her from another wolf attack!”
Judge Murphy glanced at the guards. “Silence her,” he ordered.
One turned and shoved a handkerchief into my mouth, muffling my argument. I struggled against the binds, and my gaze jumped from face to face until it landed on Doc Wilton. The moment we made eye contact, he looked away.
I needed him to speak up.
A commotion from the jail erupted. The crowd parted as the guards dragged a beaten and bruised Lucas to the post next to me. He didn’t even get the pretense of a trial. They just strung his half-conscious body up by his wrists. He sagged from the binds, and his head lolled to the side.
I shook my head, trying to spit out the fabric in my mouth.
The Guard took their places in the firing line.
Finally, I coughed out the rag. “Please, Doc. Please tell them he didn’t hurt Gram!” I cried.
Silence settled as all eyes turned toward the town doctor.
He shifted his weight and stared at the ground before he finally looked up and nodded. “The wolf displayed kindness and civility, and Gram Locklear requested my silence under doctor-patient confidentiality. She confirmed what Red said earlier. He provided her warmth, shelter, and protection when he could have easily ripped her to shreds.”
“See?” I said.
“The law states you both must die.” Judge Murphy held up the town law book.
The sound of hoofs hitting dirt pulled our attention away, and Travis rode in on Midnight, stopping the horse between us and the firing line. Both my horse and Travis were out of breath.
“Move, boy,” Judge Murphy said.
“I have some information that may sway judgment,” Travis said from his perch on the horse. He turned to the Guard lined up with their silver arrows. “He isn’t normal.” He nodded towards Lucas. “He may be a werewolf, but I’ll be goddamned if Red wasn’t telling the truth. He has a healthy farm filled with healthy living animals. He has a garden. And it looks like the only thing stored in his icebox is venison.”
“He is a wolf,” the judge emphasized.
Travis shrugged. “I haven’t seen him turn. Have you?”
“But his eyes,” Seth said from the firing line beyond Travis.
“You all know what kind of tracking skills I have,” Travis said and glanced at me. “Red reminded me of that last night, so I went at first light and tracked down what happened. There was no sign of foul play in the orchard. Gram fell. But the patterns along with the dead wolf at the base of the hill confirm Red’s version of the story. So does the farm and the conversation I had with Doc Wilton after Gram’s funeral yesterday. Hell, the wolf is more of a gentleman than any of us.” He glanced at the Guard. “Not one of us averted our eyes when she stripped down to show she hadn’t been bitten. None of us looked away. But the wolf didn’t look at her.”
“Maybe he just isn’t interested,” Seth said with his bow at the ready, likely waiting for Travis to move Midnight out of his line of sight.
Travis sucked air in through his lips. “He’s interested. I’ve seen the way he looks at her when she isn’t looking, and believe me, it’s a look that can’t be mistaken. But when she undressed, he did not look. He stared out at his mare, at the sky, at us. But not at her.” His cheeks reddened. “And be honest. None of us were inspecting her for wolf bites.”
Faces reddened enough to rival my hair. Heat filled my own cheeks, and I glanced at Lucas. His gaze met mine.
“I couldn’t stop staring at her until I noticed his behavior, and then all I felt was shame. Shame because I knew what I was doing wasn’t for the good of this town. It was purely selfish. But this...this...” Travis looked back at Lucas. “This beast showed more restraint than any of us.”
“Wolves don’t show restraint no matter what form they take,” I said. “And they certainly don’t raise chickens, or cattle, or have a mare that would walk through fire for him.”
“Are you a werewolf?” the judge asked Lucas.
“If you’re asking if I’m one of those heinous beasts out there attacking the innocent? No. But if you’re asking if I shift into wolf form when the sun sets? The answer to that is yes.”
“You don’t shift at will?”
My head turned at Remy’s gruff voice. He stood in front of the judge’s chair waiting for his own sentence to be rendered.
“No. My change is subjected to the rise and setting of the sun.”
“Lucas is different,” I stressed. “He had so many opportunities to kill both Gram and me, but he didn’t. That has to mean something?”
“He is a wolf. There are laws.”
“Yes, there are laws, but isn’t there also mercy? Are we to persecute him just because he was born into this life? It was not a choice for him, just like it wasn’t a choice for me to have red hair. It was part of my heritage. Are we that cruel and heinous? Are we more like the pack we hunt or more like the humans we serve to protect?”
My words didn’t appear to sway the mob, so I turned my appeal to my grandfather and the Guard.
“I have had your back all these years.” I moved my gaze to each of them. “I still do. And out of everyone in this town, you know me best. You know the hell I endured, the pain I suppressed and tapped every time I went on a hunt. You know mercy isn’t a part of my makeup.”
I turned my gaze to Remy. “The oath we took to protect Dakota is to protect life. This, what you are doing now, this is taking life for no other reason than fear of the unknown. If you do this, you will be no better than the cold-blooded killers we hunt.”
Travis turned toward Lucas. “Have you ever killed a human?”
“No.” Lucas’s answer blanketed the crowd.
Travis glanced at the judge and shrugged his good arm.
Before the judge could speak, I asked Lucas, “Have you ever killed a werewolf?”
“Yes. I slaughtered the pack that killed my parents, and I have been on my own ever since.”
A hush fell on the square.
“I’ve got a bounty on my head just like Ruby does.”
Both Travis’s and Remy’s gazes snapped towards Lucas.
“Red has a bounty on her?” they asked in unison.
I glanced at Lucas. He just gave them a reason to kill him, but appar
ently that hadn’t crossed his mind before he blew the one chance we had of getting out of here alive.
“So, you figured what? You’d snatch Red and get back into the good graces of the pack?” Judge Murphy asked. “Pull the wool over her eyes and get her thinking you are not like the rest of those beasts out there?”
Lucas blinked and shook his head. “No. I didn’t even know who she was until she led me and my horse into her grandmother’s corral.” He shivered. “Those wolves draped over her fence posts were kind of a dead giveaway.” A twitch of a smile formed on his lips. “Pun intended.”
Remy chuckled and so did Travis. Travis’s gaze met mine from on top of my horse. He offered me his best “I tried” smile, and I acknowledged it with a nod.
“My mother was human. I want nothing to do with a pack that has its sights on killing people,” Lucas added. “And from what I’ve been able to gather, the pack that’s here now wants to wipe out this settlement.”
“How would you know that?” I asked.
Lucas huffed. “The wolf who was going to kill your grandmother gave me an ultimatum. Join the pack and slaughter the citizens of Dakota, or die with them. Since you are still breathing, you can figure out the choice I made.” He glanced out at the crowd. “When I chased him away, he said I better enjoy the next few days because on the night of the full moon, rivers of blood will flow through this town.”
A panicked murmur started amongst the townspeople and they huddled closer together. Tonight was the full moon.
“So, you go ahead. You kill your only shot at taking out this pack,” he added as the whispers rose. “Without Ruby, you do not have a prayer.”
“And without Lucas, you do not have me,” I said, leveraging the gauntlet Lucas so brilliantly wielded.
The entire town fell silent for five beats of my heart.
“How many of them are there?” Remy asked.
Lucas looked past me at my newly revealed grandfather. “I don’t know. So far, I’ve caught somewhere between five and six dozen unique scent signatures, but I can’t be sure. Those wolf carcasses around her corral messed up my sense of smell, and because of the silver cuffs, I wasn’t able to shift last night. When I’m in wolf form, everything is much... keener.”
“You are saying the pack is sixty wolves at minimum?” Remy asked in a gob-smacked tone I had never heard from him.
“I think it’s more in the realm of seventy.”
The crowd erupted, and I smelled fear on the air.
How in the hell could seventy werewolves hide from our hunting jaunts? The blood in my veins turned cold. Either these were cunning creatures or Lucas was feeding a load of bull to the crowd. Either way, it was working.
I met Remy’s gaze, and he just shook his head slowly, still trying to digest the last couple minutes. The Guard was only comprised of twenty members between the age of ten and seventy. Half of them couldn’t hit a still wolf with a brick at two paces, never mind multiple wolves on the attack. We’d even had our losses with groups of three trolling the woods.
Remy turned to the judge. “We need her.” His statement was absolute.
The judge’s lips compressed together until they were nonexistent. The bloom in his red cheeks burned brighter, and his nostrils flared. His gaze jumped from Remy to mine.
“You have just earned yourself a stay of execution while we discuss this matter. Put them back in a holding cell,” he ordered.
I looked up at Travis and mouthed the words ‘thank you’ as guards unclasped me from the post and led me away.
Chapter 13
Lucas lay on his side on the cot facing me as I paced in the same cell. Heated murmurs of the townspeople drifted into the window, and I strained to hear what their arguments were or who was taking each side.
“Ruby?” Lucas’s soft voice broke through my concentration.
His eyes had dulled considerably from this morning.
I stopped pacing as my heart went on overdrive. “Are you okay?” I asked, which brought forth a tight smile.
Lucas pushed himself up on the cot with a wince and climbed to his feet. “You shouldn’t have laid your life on the line for me.”
“Are there really that many wolves out there?” I asked.
Lucas gave me a slow nod as he steadied himself on his feet.
“And are you one of them?” I asked, because I couldn’t quite silence the nagging distrust inside me. Despite all he had done, and despite the underlying attraction vibrating through every cell, I still couldn’t quite trust him with my whole heart.
He was still a werewolf.
He shook his head. “No.” He bit his lip and glanced out the window. He crossed the space between us, wincing with every other step until he loomed over me.
I took in his wounds. Besides the ugly black rings around his wrists, his shirt and pants had been slashed in several places. He had over a dozen silver burns based on the holes in his clothes.
“Did they...” I waved at him and gulped. “I can see they cut you, but did they... did they stab you?” The words squeaked out, and the discomfort under my skin increased at the thought of a blade puncturing his skin.
“It doesn’t matter.”
My gaze jumped up to his. It did matter. It mattered a great deal, and I pressed my lips against letting those words tumble out.
“I can feel the pull of the alpha,” he whispered. His hands clenched and unclenched, and his jaw tightened. “He wants this town painted with the blood of the dead. Everyone except for the archer with the fiery hair.”
I stepped away. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“I’m telling you now.” His eyes flared bright in the tight space. “I went out that night because I heard the call. The alpha is calling every last werewolf in the region to join him in this massacre.” He glanced up at the ceiling and shook his head. “Your grandmother... I don’t know how, but she was able to break the spell that bastard had over me.”
My heart jumped in my chest, and I stepped back into the wall of bars at the other side of the cell, distancing myself from him.
Lucas locked his gaze on me. “I’d like to believe I wouldn’t have hurt her if that other wolf wasn’t already tormenting her,” he said and his gaze dropped. “What I’m trying to tell you is you should have let them kill me, because the alpha...” He stepped closer. “I don’t know if I can resist his command.”
His hands came up and cupped my chin. Just his touch in such an intimate manner doused my skin with heat so strong I nearly melted into him. His thumb trailed over my bottom lip, and he stared at it before his hungry gaze found mine again.
When he leaned forward and pressed his warm lips against mine, my mind spun with the sweetness of his kiss. When his tongue traced my lips, I opened my mouth, letting our tongues intertwine in a dance so slow and seductive that I forgot we were in a jail cell.
His hands slid lower, molding over my breasts with such a light touch I moaned into his mouth. God help me. Molten lava formed low in my belly, and I gasped at the heat enveloping me. His lips moved to my cheek, to my neck, and I closed my eyes at the silkiness of his touch.
“Lucas.” His name escaped in a sultry whisper that felt like home on my tongue.
“You taste like honey,” he whispered against my neck. His lips followed the line from my shoulder to my ear. He took my earlobe between his teeth, applying pressure.
I squealed at the sensation.
Lucas gasped and stepped away abruptly, his eyes wide and his breathing ragged.
Hurt flared in the center of my chest at his horrified look, and I wrapped my arms around my torso to shield myself.
“I almost bit you.” He ran his hand through his hair and took another step back. “I don’t know which is worse, having that alpha bastard in my head or having you in my heart.”
I swallowed and wished I could flee from this cell. I wished I hadn’t felt his hands on my body or his lips on mine because now... now a new fear tingled in my bones.
If anything happened to Lucas, I was afraid I’d never feel that all-consuming spark again.
The door creaked above, and six guardsmen came down before either of us could speak. Seth stood outside the cell with an unreadable expression. None of them gave any hint of the verdict.
“The court is ready for you,” Seth said and swung the door open.
I crossed and noted neither guard who flanked me took hold of me. But the other guards grabbed Lucas’s arms as they led us out of the cell. My heart plummeted. Whether these men realized it or not, their actions clued me in to the judgment.
Lucas wasn’t going to be spared, regardless of my ultimatum. I wouldn’t defend a town that insisted on murdering an innocent man. Donning my inner rebel, I prepared myself for a different kind of battle.
I positioned myself as close to Lucas as possible without touching him to show the town where my loyalties stood. Remy stepped forward in front of the judge. I glanced at his stoic face and then at the guardsmen who filled in the space around him.
“Red, we need you,” he said. “We’ve been your family since your parents died. And as much as I resented your grandmother for insisting I bring you into the fold, I can’t say I ever regretted you fighting alongside us. I think it was your grandmother’s way of letting me share a part of your life without giving up her ghosts.”
A lump formed in my throat at the mention of my grandmother, and I blinked the stinging mist from my eyes.
“Unfortunately, there are laws that we must abide,” he added, and his gaze traveled to Lucas. “We cannot...” He clenched his fists, staring at the ground.
The judge cleared his throat.
“We cannot just let you go,” Remy said through clenched teeth. “But we also cannot be the ones to murder you, as Red put it earlier.” He waved towards me and pressed his lips together. The disdain etched into his face was usually reserved for my antics, but this time, I got the impression he didn’t agree with the sentence about to be delivered.
“If he is wanted by the werewolves, we will leave him to their justice.” He nodded towards the poles, and the guard dragged him to stand between the two posts.