Hidden: The Swamp

by Royce, Rebecca

  Hidden

  The Swamp

  Rebecca Royce

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by fines and federal imprisonment.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in, or encourage, the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Hidden (The Swamp #1)

  Copyright @ 2019 by Rebecca Royce

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-947672-91-8

  Print ISBN: 978-1-947672-96-3

  Cover art by Syneca Featherstone at Original Syn Designs

  Content Editing: Heather Long

  Copy/Proof Editing: Jennifer Jones of Bookends Editing

  Final Proof: Meghan Daigle

  Formatting: Ripley Proserpina

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Rebecca Royce

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Afterword

  Untitled

  About the Author

  Other books by Rebecca Royce…

  Acknowledgments

  As nothing gets written in a vacuum, I am very happy to acknowledge that this book couldn’t have been written without the help of some very talented people who take the time to help me with my books. Ripley Proserpina, Rachel Feuerstein, Sara Vermillion, Autumn Reed, Chandra Ryan, Tate James, Heather Long, Jennifer Jones, Meghan Daigle, Syneca Featherstone, and Michelle Duke. Thank you so much. I couldn’t have done this without you.

  This one I am dedicating to my ARC team. Thank you for all that you do for me. I truly appreciate it.

  Foreword

  Dearest Reader,

  Thank you so much for picking up Hidden (The Swamp #1). This is the first book in a paranormal, shifter trilogy. It’s hard to get readers to check out a new series, so I’m grateful to you for taking a chance on this one. For information about the next book or any of my books, please check out my note at the end. You know I always get to a happy ever after, or if you haven’t read me before… I promise I do. But we have three books to get there….

  I hope you like MacKenzie and the Lejeune brothers as much as I do!!

  Hugs,

  RR

  Chapter 1

  Everything smelled… wrong.

  I didn’t know how I knew that, but I did. I rushed forward, growling at the man in front of me. I would tear him apart, destroy him if he got in my way. I would… I would…

  I jolted awake, my heart in my throat. Sweat drenched my body, dripping down my neck onto my back. I looked left and right, trying to get my bearings. Where the fuck was I? What was happening? Panic warred with the fatigue threatening to take me back under as I forced myself awake. I couldn’t sleep. Not until I knew where I was, what was happening, or even who I was.

  I caught my breath. Who was I? I… I…

  “Easy, girl.” A voice from the front seat of the truck I was in caught my attention. I caught his eye in the rear view mirror before I immediately dropped my gaze. I didn’t want to look at him. It seemed integral that I didn’t. Not until I understood… what?

  “I…” I tried to speak and stopped. Shame rode through me at my confusion. This was my weakness, my lack of… something.

  The man driving was old, his hair gray both on top and in his beard. He tilted his head to the side and continued to stare at me instead of the road. I had to watch this from under the tops of my eyelids since I refused to look up and stare at him straight on. I wanted to. I just couldn’t. Something was wrong with me.

  “What you’re feeling, girl, it’s normal. I can smell your distress in the same way you can scent that I have no ill intent. You can, can’t you? Take a deep breath and see what your big brain tells you.”

  I did as he said. I wouldn’t have been able to resist doing it if I had wanted to. It would probably have been hard to tell this man no to anything, and that in it of itself made my already buzzing anxiety worse. Still, a deep breath did release some of my tension. He didn’t want to hurt me; he was worried about me, concerned. And on my side. He was a friend. No, more than that. He was in charge.

  That was all very helpful, except that I didn’t have the slightest idea why I knew any of that from just breathing. I might have lost my mind—literally—but I was still in possession of some faction of my good sense. People didn’t get that load of information simply from taking a deep breath.

  “Mister, I—”

  He shook his head. “My name is August Lejeune. You can call me Gus. Almost everyone does.”

  “Okay. Gus. I don’t know my name and that is a problem, but only one of the bigger ones I have going on. Something is wrong with my brain. I can’t think. Everything is…”

  He interrupted me. “Too much.”

  I nodded. That was entirely it. Everything was too much, and I couldn’t make sense of any of it. “Your name is MacKenzie Harper. You’re twenty-two years old.” He pulled over to the side of the road. The pickup truck groaned to a stop, shaking as it did. “You’re from Colorado. Way high in the Rockies. Much higher than I like. That kind of elevation makes me dizzy. Anything over 8000… never mind. That’s not important right now. You’ve been missing, and I found you. On behalf of your family… in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The Albemarle Peninsula. You’ve been through an ordeal. Your memory will come shortly. Tonight, tomorrow at the latest, and until I figure out exactly what is going on, I will see to it that you are safe. I have to find the others that have gone missing.”

  I appreciated the information. Yes, the name tasted right in my mind. That was my name. MacKenzie. No one called me that but there it was. My mother put the name on my birth certificate, so it was mine. I rubbed my eyes. Tiredness pushed through my adrenaline.

  “Where am I? Who are you, Gus?”

  He smirked. “When you can look me in the eye, and I imagine that will happen sooner than later if you are what—who—I think you are, then I will tell you all about me. Until then, what you need to do, MacKenzie, is get some sleep. We’re on our way to my home. In the Bayou. You’ll be safe there. Take a deep breath. Am I lying?”

  I did just what he said even though it made so little sense. Following orders was about all I could handle right then. I breathed in slowly, exhaling the same way. He really only wanted the best for me. I was sure of it. “No. You’re not lying.”

  “That’s good. Put your head down. Get some sleep. You’re safe. That’s all that matters until more of it makes sense.”

  I had to do what he said both because he’d ordered it, and also because I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Everything was just… too much.

 
; He started the pickup truck back up again, and although it shook like we were in a popcorn machine, he pulled us back onto the two-lane highway.

  “You’re not sleeping. I can scent it.” He had a laugh in his voice. “I guess I told you to put your head down, and you did that, but ordering you to sleep… well that would be above my pay grade, so to speak. Someone else, yes, but who that might be is beyond me. Everyone is going to want you.”

  I didn’t like that. I lifted my head, and he tsked. “Head back down. You need to rest if you’re not going to sleep. Don’t worry about what I just said. No one will likely be ordering you to sleep. Not unless you want them to.” He sighed. Gus was tired. I could smell it. But underneath the exhaustion lay strength and determination. He would get us wherever we were going.

  “I’ve got to use this cell phone to call ahead. I hate this thing. Feels like a leash. But… fine. Right now, I need it.”

  I smiled. He wasn’t really talking to me as much as he mumbled, and that seemed familiar as though I knew someone like that, too. A person who chatted to himself. It was comforting in the same way that hot soup or coffee might be.

  After a second, he spoke again. “Yeah, boy. It’s me.” He paused. “No, I’m fine. Stop speaking. I’m bringing you someone. You’re going to watch her for me. Be at the house in an hour. Make it work.”

  Darkness sucked me under.

  * * *

  “There’s a female in there?” Someone shouted. Not a voice I recognized. My head was foggy as though I needed to emerge from under water.

  “Stop shouting.” Gus shut the front door behind him, muffling some of the sounds outside. I moaned. My whole body hurt. Gus swung open the backdoor, and for a second, the door itself was balanced in his hand, clearly having detached from the vehicle. That didn’t speak well for the safety of this car. It was also bizarre that he held the door like it weighed nothing at all. “… ordeal.” I’d missed something he’d said. “And you’re going to watch her for me because I’m telling you to. Did I expect to find all four of you here? Absolutely not, but I’m glad for it. That’s four times the protection. I saw things I couldn’t imagine. I’m going back to get the others who have to be held there. You’ll keep her here until I get back.”

  Gus picked me up. “You’re going to be okay, MacKenzie, and when this is over, if you want to call me Parrain like the other kids who grew up around here other than my sons, you can.”

  “Sir,” another new voice spoke. “This is not what we’re supposed to be doing. If you would just go home and see our mother, settle in, you’d see that they’re right. There is a better way to live.”

  “Your mother knows where to find me, boy, if she or any of the others need me. Don’t worry, MacKenzie, you’re safe with these fools. They are, after all, my sons.” He walked toward the house, and I only got the slightest look at the four—I thought it was that many—men behind him. “Or at least they used to be. I don’t know what they are now. Or who they belong to. But they will keep you safe. They still have that much honor. I can smell it.”

  I was getting a little tired of all the smell talk. Gus sniffed the air. “That’s good. You should have a temper. This whole thing sucks. And if it didn’t make you mad, it would make you scared. None of us need anything to do with any more terror. We’ve all had enough.”

  “Sir,” a third voice boomed. It was the most demanding of the ones I’d heard so far. “What happened to her?”

  Gus shook his head. “You might be what saves them, or you might be what finally makes them disappear from themselves altogether. I don’t know which yet.”

  “Well none of this makes any sense to me. If you were hired by my parents, shouldn’t you give me back to them?”

  He shook his head. “They lost you, and right now we don’t know how that happened. Before we put you back in that den of potential pain, we will make sure you are safe. There aren’t enough of you left to be losing you at this point. Don’t try to make sense yet. It will be clear enough in the morning.”

  The house he brought me into had seen better days. It was huge, and as he tore up the stairs, I only got the quickest look at it. It was white, with peeling paint and creaking stairs. The door itself was red. I stored that information away as interesting. Red was often a sign of welcome in certain cultures. I blinked. Well, that was interesting information to know. The color made sense in that regard; it was why people used it in their kitchens on the walls to stimulate hunger, to make people want to eat the food. Again, that was interesting.

  “I could probably walk.” Discomfort at being carried around like some kind of wilting flower filled me until desperation to actually use my feet made me squirm. Gus tilted his head like he’d done in the car before he set me down. He didn’t move his arm for a second. “You’re strong. That’s good. This one right behind me fell on his face so many times the next day after this happened to him that I wasn’t sure he’d ever walk again.”

  Gus set me down. My legs wobbled for a second before I righted myself.

  I looked where he indicated. One of the men from outside stood there. He was taller than Gus and incredibly angry. I shuddered, the heat of that feeling almost bringing me to my knees.

  “Good,” Gus nodded at me. “Keep using that nose. His anger isn’t directed at you. Or it better not be.” The older man lifted his eyebrows.

  The man whose anger was in question crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve got nothing against this fem— girl.”

  “Now, now, brother.” A man almost as tall as the one in question sauntered into the room. The gold tips of his hair immediately captivated me. Did he do that to himself? “You know as well as anyone that she is old enough to be called a woman. Not a girl. Or has Mother not managed to civilize you yet? You are always welcome to stay here with me in the swamp.”

  The swamp? “We’re in a swamp?”

  I hadn’t noticed on the way in because I’d been asleep.

  “Come on.” The blond tipped man walked toward me. “I’ll take you to where you’re going to be staying. What’s your name? My father didn’t introduce us. He used your name but,” blond guy took my hand in his as he continued, “it’s always polite to be officially introduced.”

  I groaned. He smelled really good, but I was unimpressed. None of this was sincere, so the sweetness of what he said just made me want to roll my eyes. “I’m MacKenzie Harper. I know that because he told me.” I nodded toward Gus. “So I guess that might be a lie, but it doesn’t seem that way. It feels right. What’s your name?”

  He touched his nose. “You know that it’s your name because it smells right.”

  “Preston,” the angry man spoke without looking at the blond one. “Knock it off. She needs not to do this. Whatever has happened, I can guarantee this isn’t right. Don’t encourage the nose.”

  The one in front of me shook his head. “Ever the stick in the mud, Rainer. Ignore him. He’d have you lose all of your fun abilities. I’m Preston, as he told you. Preston Lejeune. That’s my brother Rainer staring down our father like it’s his job—because maybe it is—and those two hanging by the doorway like they’ve never seen a woman before are Jarret and Anton.”

  I glanced to where he indicated and sure enough the last two men watched, practically in the shadows from the door. Suddenly, self-consciousness burst its way into my head. Everyone except Gus stared at me.

  What was I even doing here? “I’m not sure what’s going on or why I’m here. I certainly don’t want to put anyone out. If you want to point me to where I can pick up a bus I can…” I didn’t finish that sentence because I wasn’t sure what I could do. I had no money, and I didn’t even know what destination to pick. I couldn’t exactly say take me to Colorado, somewhere above 8000 elevation. I was stuck here until my mind cleared up.

  And for whatever reason, every dominant scent in the room told me that here was not some place I was particularly welcome.

  “You’re fine.” One of the guys—Jarret—
strode toward me. “You’re more than welcome to stay here. You’ll be our guest until this is all worked out. Come on. You’re exhausted. I’ve never been through it, but I can imagine, sort of. Are you hungry?”

  I touched my stomach. The idea of food was actually repulsive. “No.”

  “Probably not till tomorrow.” Rainer sighed and stepped away from his father. “Then she’ll be starving. I’ll go to the store. I can’t believe you did this, sir.”

  “You’d have done the same.”

  That was the last thing I heard before Jarret, who was handsome in a severe way because his eyes were so angry, led me up a staircase. It groaned under our weight, and I stopped walking. “Is it okay to walk on this?”

  “Okay enough.” He shrugged. “This is our ancestral home. It’s been in the family a long time. We come from the swamp, the Lejeunes. I don’t know if an architect or an engineer would call this place sound, but you’ll be fine.”

  He didn’t fill me with a great deal of assurance. Still, with no other choice, I continued to follow him up the stairs. I was tired even after my nap in the back of Gus’s pickup. So much so that I might very well fall over. I should probably have let Gus carry me. I grabbed my head. It ached. And everything was just…

  Jarret’s hand shot out, touching me, bringing me back from the brink of whatever that was. “You okay, MacKenzie?”

  I liked how he said my name but there was something about it that screamed wrong in my mind. “My friends call me Kenzie.”