But other than some questionable differences in politics, she and Eric got along fine. And sure, it felt more like a merger than a love connection. But she’d done the no-holds-barred love thing with Nago, and look where that got her?
The patch Halle wore rubbed against her skin as she walked across the field with her father. Reminding her of the price she’d once paid for following her heart.
With a determined mind, she bent her head and smelled the flowers. “They’re beautiful,” she said, smiling over at her father. He looked good in his suit. Younger. And though she knew dye and concealer were the reasons for the disappearance of the gray in his hair and dark circles under his eyes, his spirit seemed lighter. Almost buoyant at the prospect of handing over the Mississippi throne to Eric.
“Yes, Eric’s a good one,” her father said as if confirming her thoughts about his satisfaction with her soon-to-be-mate. “You're lucky one finally came through after all those others didn’t. I’d almost given up hope...”
Somehow Halle managed to hold on to her pleasant expression, even as her father pointed out how poorly she’d done the one job assigned to her at birth. Even after she’d finally forced herself back into the dating pool after what happened with Nago, none of her relationships worked out, always fizzling out around the six-month mark…until Eric came along.
She had Eric now. Eric who’d do just about anything to fulfill his legacy. She was lucky, she decided. Even if his troth came with a strange condition.
“Stop looking so sad emoji, girl!” her father commanded. “You can’t blame the boy for wanting to have some fun with your mating.”
No, she supposed she couldn’t…
As an only child, she didn’t quite understand the whole sibling rivalry thing. But she’d gone on enough dates with Eric to know how much he resented growing up in the shadow of five older brothers. And winning a Chivaree would definitely make him stand out.
So she continued her barefoot walk through the half acre of thick brown grass dressed in nothing but the traditional Chivaree shift. Moving forward despite the river of dread in her stomach.
“It’s okay,” her father kept saying, squeezing her elbow. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
Finally being the father she’d wished for after her mother ran off.
For this.
The noise from the Chivaree crowd was getting louder. Soon, they’d have to shout to hear each other.
But it didn’t come to that. Her father said nothing else, just escorted her up the gazebo steps past all those cheering and jeering spectators, as if she were a pageant queen like her mother had once been. Halle only glanced briefly at the crowd. Not long enough to lose her nerve, but enough to see the women in white toward the back of the crowd. Arms crossed with tight lips, despite their encouraging words.
She knew many of them didn’t approve of this Chivaree. How had one woman put it before the others shushed her? Everybody already thinks Mississippi is the most backward state in the council. Why prove them right?
But her father insisted this would be a good thing for the kingdom. And Halle…well, Halle loved her people and knew pretty much anyone would be a better king than her father. So she’d gone along with it. And now she was standing on a stage, getting cat-called by a bunch of men, most of whom she’d never met before.
She knew Eric stood among them. He was a gentleman and wouldn’t participate in the catcalls. But they’d agreed ahead of time not to acknowledge each other during the ceremony. It was common knowledge that they were dating, but he didn’t want to make the whole thing seemed rigged with too much eye contact beforehand.
So she stood there, not looking at anyone. And the yells seemed to get louder and louder. Like some unseen force was turning up the volume.
Her father only laughed, like this was all good fun. And then without any further ado, he said, “Alright, alright, alriiiiight, gentlemen! We got five chasin’ spots open to heat my daughter, the Princess of Mississippi, tomorrow. Remember, fellas: the winner will automatically become the Alpha King of Mississippi! This Chivaree is truly the chance of a lifetime, so bid accordingly, y’all. Chasin’ Spot One bidding will start at five-hundred dollars. Five hundred dollars! Going once! Going twice!”
7
It took everything in Nago to control the wolf. Every. Single. Fucking. Thing.
Watching her on that stage. Looking so vulnerable in a white shift. It was probably supposed to come off as innocent, but someone had shone a spotlight directly on her, and every male could see the outline of what her father had put on display as he took bids for the first spot in tomorrow morning’s Chivaree.
“Ell from your brother, Rafes,” his bio-ware suddenly bleated. “Ell from your brother, Rafes.”
Hell. He doubted Rafes was calling to go over last-minute black box details. Nago subvocalized a decline command; his hands curled so tightly with rage, he doubted he could have taken the ell even if he wanted to. And he didn’t want to.
“Going once. Going twice…the first Chasin’ Spot is SOLD for $12,000!” Halle’s father called out, pointing at the winner. Some dumb fuck who’d worn a hunting cap to the auction. A goddamn hunting cap.
The beast inside him reared.
And suddenly it was ten years ago, and he was back in a drone copter trying to control the thing inside him before it set down in a Tallahassee drone field.
Usually, people waited inside the little metal building on the outskirts of the field that had been commissioned by the Florida panhandle city as soon as Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia declared themselves no-drone zones. But to his surprise, Halle was waiting for him when he stepped off the copter, right outside the yellow safety line—as close as you could get without setting the proximity alarms off. She wore a rose-colored sundress and held a package of gummi bears in her hands. It was the industrial Cal-Mart size and had a red sticky bow attached to it. By the Fenrir Wolf, if she wasn’t the prettiest sight he’d ever seen.
But as surprised as he was to see her, she looked way more surprised to see him.
“Nago?” she asked when he came over to her. She sniffed the air hard, doing a nose check.
The wolf stopped growling at the sound of her voice. And it felt to Nago like it was staring at her from inside him.
“Yeah, it’s me,” he answered, struggling to keep his voice light.
But Halle shook her head. “No, it can’t be,” she answered carefully. “My Nago is about this tall,” she raised a hand just a short distance past her forehead, “and gives the best hugs because he’s really soft. But you...you’re…”
“Oh,” he said, glancing down at himself in his fatigues and t-shirt. “Blame it on a last-gasp growth spurt. Plus, they didn’t let us eat any junk food. And we had to work out every day during basic training. Then Rafes got to trash-talking Knud and me about which of us could make the most gains. So I couldn’t let him get away with that...”
He trailed off when he saw the way she was looking at him. Wary. Like he’d swallowed her boyfriend whole. Like maybe she could feel the wolf staring at her. Hard and intent.
Nago shook his head, insisting, “Most girls would be happy to see their fat boyfriend come back looking like this.”
But apparently, Halle wasn’t most girls because she tilted her head with a sad look and said, “It’s like you’re a totally different person.”
His face hardened. “Babe, it’s me. You know that.”
She continued to hesitate.
“This…new look. It doesn’t change anything. It changes nothing.”
She clamped her lips.
And suddenly he could no longer hold on to both the wolf and his temper. “Are you fucking with me, Halle? I come all the way here, and you don’t even say, ‘Hi, Nago. Did you have a good two-leg twenty-hour flight to get here?’ Instead, you come after me for growing and putting on some muscle! What the hell kind of homecoming is that?!”
Halle visibly startled. Probably because the Nago
she’d known had never yelled at her. Hell, that Nago didn’t even have a temper.
He closed his eyes. Getting a grip on himself. Telling the wolf to stay the fuck back. Then he said, “I’m sorry.”
“No, no…I’m sorry,” she rushed in to say before the words were fully out of his mouth. “You’re right. I was surprised is all.”
Then she gave him the most beautiful smile and said, “Hi, Nago. Did you have a good 20-hour flight? You know, I’m still crazy in love with you—even if it feels a little weird to call you Gummi Bear now. I mean, do you even like gummi bears now?”
And then it wasn’t the wolf he was fighting. But tears. Still, he somehow choked out, “Who doesn’t like gummi bears?”
“Well, criminally insane puppy kick—”
He dropped his duffel bag and pulled her into his arms, engulfing her so tight, it felt more like he was holding on for dear life than giving a hug.
Maybe it felt the same for her, too, because she said, “You okay, Gummi Bear?”
“I am now,” he answered, nodding into her shoulder. “I am now.”
And at the time, he thought he was telling the truth.
“Going once, going twice…sold for 20,000!”
Lots of hooting and hollering all around as that Ohio prince with five brothers won the fourth spot in the auction. Nago was surprised the tool had waited this long. But he’d probably wanted to up the drama factor by not putting in a bid until the second-to-last auction round. Fucker.
And the three wolves who’d won the first auction wouldn’t be much competition for Eric. Even the guy in the hunting cap looked like he was more suited to office work than running down a female in heat. Nago wouldn’t be at all surprised if Eric’s megalomaniac father secretly funded the other three bids.
The further south you got in the States, the poorer the kingdom-towns tended to become. So the chances of a fit, young person who 1) actually wanted a marriage of convenience with a she-wolf he barely knew, and 2) had up to $20K in disposable cash lying around, and 3) was oh-so-excited about taking over a bankrupt kingdom with nothing but one falling-apart southern colonial house and a few acres with a half dozen pre-Civil War rental units on it, and Wolf Hills, a town with a population consisting of wolves who were either too poor or too old to move.
No, princes like Eric and his a-hole father didn’t come along every day. And they didn’t seem like the kind of family who was dedicated to fighting clean and fair.
Nago looked back toward the gazebo, as her father started taking bids for the fifth and last Chasin’ Spot. Watched Halle keep herself still in front of the jeering men. And though her skin wasn’t his skin, he could feel it crawling. Could feel the crack in her chest like it was his own.
“525,” one of the catcallers said. Like he was doing her a favor.”
“One hundred thousand,” another voice said, shocking the crowd into silence.
As it turned out, that voice was his.
That made her look up.
But Halle’s eyes didn’t light up like they used to. Her face didn’t relax into that familiar smile.
And he knew she didn’t have any gummi bears waiting for him this time. But he could smell them in the air as he moved forward without will or intention. Like a magnet drawn through the crowd.
She watched him approach with wide eyes, just as she’d watched him that day when he’d stepped out of the drone copter. How had she described him?
A totally different person.
She blinked down at him from the gazebo stage as if he were a hallucination.
“Ah…thank you for your generous bid, King of Alaska,” her father’s voice said in the distance. “One hundred thousand. Going once…going twice.”
“One million,” Nago said. Outbidding himself just so he could keep staring at the woman in the linen shift. The gown looked both old and new. A style no one wore anymore, but lightweight and damn near disposable like the clothes of this century.
“Hi, Nago,” he wanted her to say. “How was your flight? You know, Gummi Bear, I’m still crazy in love with you.”
But that was not what she said upon seeing him for the first time in ten years.
“Going once…going twice…” her father was saying in the distance.
And suddenly she animated, yelling out, “No! No! Not him! No!”
Nago never took his eyes off the she-wolf he used to call his. But he heard her father say, “Against the rules. Can’t stop anybody from buying a Chasing Spot. That’s the whole point of a Chivaree.”
And then she was coming toward him, her hands balled into fists. Her brown eyes locked on his. She was yelling something over and over again.
“Why?!? Why are you doing this to me?!” he realized she was saying…right before she punched him square in the face with one of those balled-up fists.
8
Mississippi, 1837
She was either going to be eaten alive or whipped to death.
Both possibilities throbbed in her chest. While the deep scratch across her torso and the bite on her leg burned. But despite the wolf, she’d made it into the tree. To the highest branch she could reach without fear of it not holding her weight.
At first, the wolf had growled loud and rough, bouncing its front paws off the tree trunk and shaking the entire tree with its intent to reach her. But now it had gone silent. Stalking back and forth beneath her branch.
Like one of Massa’s dogs waiting for something to drop from the table.
Or someone.
She shifted her focus to those others who wanted to kill her. Their swaying lanterns poking holes in the distance. And them dogs barking in a near frenzy. Getting closer.
Throwing her head rag down by the river had been stupid, she realized. One more thing the dogs could use to track her.
Closer. They were getting closer.
She looked down at her palms and saw dark streaks. Not dirt, but blood turned black under the moonlight. His blood. And shoulda’s flooded into her head.
She shoulda been expecting it. She’d been bleeding for four Christmases now. She knew what that meant. Any day now, a few of the other woman had warned her.
She shoulda just let him do it. But she hadn’t expected him to come at her in the kitchen. While she was cleaning up after Massa’s dinner party, and thinking about all the pretty dresses she’d seen when she poked her head into the dining room. Hadn’t expected him to try with his guests and parents right there in the next room.
More than anything, she shoulda thought it through smart and proper before grabbing one of them meat knives out the pitcher they’d been soaking in.
If she’d thought ‘bout it first, she woulda let him do it. Woulda closed her eyes and let her mind wander someplace else until he was done. Then she woulda finished up her work and gone home to her cot in the slave quarters.
But that’s not what she did.
And now she was up a magnolia tree in a real fix, with all manner of things trying to get at her. She could hear the men’s voices now. “Think they got something… musta picked up her scent…this way…over there…”
But then all of a sudden she heard growling. Not the dogs, but the wolf below. Which maybe wasn’t a surprise since the dogs were getting close to the meal it was smacking its lips for. The surprise came when the whole wood lit up with growls. Growls like those of the wolf below rose out of the dark and into the trees from every direction, including the low hills beyond.
So many, it sounded like the night was made of them.
Quick as ever, the barking stopped in the distance, cutting off in a flurry of whimpers.
“Wolves…” she heard the scattered voices say. “Not safe…better not risk it… only got one gun…gettin’ late anyways…probably drowned in that river…cain’t swim…better death than she deserved no how…come back when it’s light.”
Then the voices receded, and just like that, her troubles were down to one. One enormous wolf.
She’d ne
ver seen a wolf in all her born days, truth be told. But even in her worst imaginings, she wouldn’t have thought up one this large. Were they all like this? If so, no wonder folks was so scared of them. And if her ears were telling truth, these woods were filled with wolves. She should maybe count herself among the blessed that she’d made it this far without getting ate up by one of them.
But blessed wasn’t exactly the word she was thinking of right then.
Her eyes skittered away from the wolf to the sky. It was purple now. “Twilight” as she heard it called. She recognized this sky because it’s the one that usually greeted her when she’d roll out of her cot to eat first meal. Cornbread and salted pork. Her stomach growled at the thought of it.
And down below the wolf growled at the thought of her.
While she continued to bleed from two places.
To make matters worse, she had a strong need to pee now the patrollers had gone off.
She’d been willing to die only a few hours ago she reminded herself as the wolf growled up at her. But not now. Now she found herself clinging to this pitiful life. Wanting to live, mostly cuz it felt like she never had.
The North Star was no longer visible in the rising dawn, but she could still hear it singing to her like the memory of a song you might have heard once before you was born.
Also, the need to relieve herself was becoming urgent.
Maybe she could piss on the wolf’s head, she thought darkly. It would be so surprised, she could maybe jump out this tree and limp away…right before another wolf attacked her and ate her right up.
She shivered at the thought and glanced back down at the wolf.
Only to freeze, her whole body going cold. Not because of the morning dew dampening her smock dress, but because the wolf was no longer down below.
In its place was…a man? Yes, a man laid where the wolf once stood. Naked as the day he was born. He had long black hair, near down to his butt. Like that of a woman. But she knew he was a man for sure because of the thing between his legs. He wasn’t white, exactly. His skin was darker than that, like burnished copper. Indian? She’d never seen one before. But Jedediah, who had lived longer than most and liked to tell stories, had described one he met who looked just like this.
NAGO, His Mississippi Queen: 50 Loving States, Mississippi (The Brothers Nightwolf Trilogy, Book 1) Page 4