Hidden: The Swamp

by Royce, Rebecca

  Even on vacation, I wanted activity. Not that I’d had that many of those.

  I stared at the living room. What was I doing? I didn’t know what had to be done in every room. I didn’t have the slightest idea.

  I was…

  “A couch, to start.” Jarret came up behind me, leaning his chin on my shoulder. “A couple of chairs. A television. Some paint on the walls. I actually think we should rip the molding off the base and redo them.”

  I grinned, not that he could see that. “I’m clearly not the one who should be going room-to-room. That is obviously you.”

  “I like house design. Always have. I have no background in it, but I do like it.”

  I wrapped his arms around me tighter. “Why not do that instead of law school? You never sound enthusiastic about that when you bring it up.”

  “I never thought about it as an actual option. Home repair wasn’t something any of my dads did.” He put his nose against my neck. “You smell so good.”

  I leaned against him. There was his woodsy scent. I closed my eyes. “You smell pretty great yourself.”

  He made a sound in the back of his throat that was half sigh, half moan. “A rug.”

  I opened my eyes. “What?”

  “We need a better rug in here.” He kissed my neck. “You wanted to be busy. And much as I would love to get you naked right here on this floor, I’m going to help you keep busy in ways that keep your clothes on. For now.”

  I laughed, throwing my head back against his shoulder. “Naked would be okay.”

  “Then we’ll get there.” He took my hand in his. “After we work out several other rooms.”

  Was Jarret… playing with me? I grinned. He was. This was playful. He teased. I’d yet to see this side of him. “That so? You’re that invested in fixing this place up?”

  “I’m that invested in making a comfortable home for you where we can keep you safe even when this current threat has passed. And also in drawing out my time with you. The second Gus brought you into the house I… I was struck with you. I know why that is now. I just can’t imagine there’ll ever be enough time in this lifetime to look at you. I could do it all day every day.”

  That had to be the best thing anyone had ever said to me. “Jarret…”

  He brought my hand to his mouth. “Come on. Let’s figure out how to make this old house smile. And I’ll do it for you.”

  * * *

  We ended up visiting every room in the house except Rainer, Anton, and Preston’s bedrooms. They should get to do their own. Anton typed in what we’d decided to call the study. He’d barely looked up when we walked in. That might be normal for him when he was writing. I’d never lived with an author before.

  “All consuming,” was all that Jarret said to me when Anton had nodded his head to indicate where he wanted to put a couple of desks.

  Now, we were on the back porch, staring at the swamp. Somewhere, someone used a chainsaw. The noise in the distance was a backdrop to the muggy afternoon, and although it was far away, drowned out the noisy ceiling fan that did nothing useful except move the hot air around the room. Holes in the screens let in the mosquitoes we were trying to keep out.

  I reached out to touch one of those holes. “I can see why wolves settled here. It’s a good defensive position. Hard to get at us from this side, and we can keep watch from the other.”

  He laughed. “In theory, except for those pesky little things called airboats created sometime around 1905, if I’m remembering my history. And before that there were canoes… probably around…”

  I held up my hand. “Are you telling me you are one of those people who can recall years things were invented? Like your brain actually works like that…”

  He smirked at me. “Drives Preston crazy. But, yes.”

  “That’s kind of awesome that you can do that. I don’t have that ability.” I loved how he blushed a little bit. “I don’t know what I wanted to do for a living. I never did. School came second to survival, but I always assumed I’d make some kind of career in decorating or something. That’s off now, right? Even when the Hunters are gone, I’m going to be a full time Omega, right?”

  His smile fell. He opened and closed his mouth. “Probably.”

  I appreciated that he wasn’t lying. “That’s what I thought. And you will all have a second full time job to whatever you do to watch over me.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He shook his head. “That’s the job of the male werewolf. Not something I was supposed to get to do. The female is the center of the family, the males keep her and their home safe. Or try to. My fathers failed. But to get to do that? For you? Yes, please.”

  To me it sounded like we were all going to be wrapped up in a bubble that none of us might have chosen. Not the relationship part. That I would have picked anytime. He was correct. There was a rightness to all of this that settled inside of me, like picking up pieces that had been missing. But the rest of it? With the Accords, what we were doing was illegal, and not forgetting that if every werewolf alive decided they needed an Omega fix, I was going to be seriously in trouble.

  Unless I wasn’t. Maybe I was overthinking it.

  Jarret kissed me, pressing our mouths together. It was a sweet, calm embrace, and it took my attention entirely from my own thoughts. I melted against him. Eventually, he lifted his mouth from mine.

  “I love how you taste. I love how you smell. I could become obsessed with you, Kenzie.”

  I kissed his chin. “I want to make you happy. I want to know that your days are ones that make you… satisfied.”

  He lifted one half of his mouth in a half-smile. “I want that, too. And although I have no experience with this, I imagine I will be very satisfied.”

  I shoved at him lightly. “Dirty mind.”

  “Only for the last few days.” He fit me against him. “I was thinking about the bedroom situation. Do you want to make a sixth room? Kind of a communal sleeping area… like we all have our own space where we keep our stuff but one room to ah…”

  The sound of an airboat tearing through the waters abruptly caught both of our attention. As most of the houses around us seemed to be abandoned homes that had basically become rundown shacks, there didn’t seem to be a lot of traffic around here. This one, with three men on board, came to an abrupt stop in front of us.

  “Hey, Preston.” A man called out. “We need you.”

  Jarret looked at me for a second. “Wait here. Don’t come out there, okay. Better yet. Call Rainer and get him to come stand here with you. Or Anton. Either.”

  Did he know these men? They thought he was Preston. I had a million questions, but they could wait. I sniffed the air. All I got was human and male. They were anxious but not angry and nothing about them was setting off any alarms my wolf might have. Not that I was any kind of expert in this.

  I nodded, stepping away from Jarret as he headed toward the door from the screened porch.

  “Hey there, Preston’s at work. I’m his brother, Jarret.”

  “Oh,” two of them seemed to say at the same time. And the third who had done the shouting spoke again. “I forgot he had brothers.”

  I turned and headed inside. “Hey, anyone who can hear me. Jarret said to come here. There are men on airboats outside that he’s talking to.”

  Jarret had increased his accent, thickened it when he spoke to the men on the boat. Had that been purposeful or just something he’d done on accident? His southern sounding drawl had been lightweight when he spoke to his brothers and me. Now, as he conversed on the dock, he sounded more like Preston.

  Rainer came down the hall with a wide stride and nearly collided with Anton on his way out of the study.

  “Humans,” Rainer pointed. “Stay inside.”

  “Jarret is talking to them. Told me to get you.”

  Rainer took me by the shoulders, putting himself between me and the door. “That’s good. It’s complicated. I’m sure you’re not at risk for anyt
hing. But if they’re looking for Preston, then we have to be careful. He does things to keep himself in the loop with people who may not be who you should be around.”

  I blinked. “What does that mean?”

  “I’ll explain when they’re gone.”

  I hated waiting, but I was also not an idiot. If Rainer wanted to wait and was putting himself between me and the door, then they weren’t men I wanted anything to do with. One kidnapping was more than enough for me. My gums burned. It was a different feeling than when it happened to my hands. I didn’t want to fix anything. I wanted to fight.

  Anton put his hand on my chin and turned my head to look at him. I could see what he wanted in his eyes. I needed to calm down. I couldn’t shift right then. I took a deep breath and nodded. His small smile told me what I needed to know… he was glad I was listening.

  Jarret turned and came back in the house, the sound of the boat engine filling the air as it drove away going wherever the men were taking it.

  He closed the door and locked it.

  “Well?” Rainer asked him. “Do I need to call Preston?”

  “I don’t know. The thing is that I’m not sure Preston knows if they’re Hunters or not. There hasn’t been activity in this area for a long time.”

  I choked. “Hunters.”

  Rainer nodded. “One of the reasons Preston stays here is because he keeps an eye on things. Obviously before we left there was a huge problem. Not this house, but this area is where they took Anton. There were so many local legends about the Loups that the word had become synonymous with werewolf. There were attacks. We had to go. But there were Hunters. When Preston came back, he tried to sort of infiltrate them.”

  What? I sucked in my breath and almost inhaled a fly that buzzed right by me at the most inopportune moment. That would have been just my luck. Eating a fly. I swatted it away. “A werewolf infiltrated the Hunters?”

  “Tried.” Rainer nodded. “I don’t know that he’s actually succeeded. But the locals do seem to like him. He’s never been invited to a meeting or anything.”

  “Do they have meetings?” I asked the question, and Anton grinned at me. I shook my head. “It’s a reasonable question.”

  Jarret sighed, running a hand through his hair. “They must have meetings. How else do they plan things like kidnapping gorgeous brunettes and taking them hostage?”

  None of this was funny and yet there was still the element of the ridiculous to it. “Email. Facebook groups. Maybe there are Twitter hashtags.”

  Rainer groaned but it made Jarret smile. “What would it be? Hashtag Get The Werewolves?”

  “We’ve lost the point.” Rainer strode back to the kitchen. “We had a Loup attack and then these guys show up looking for Preston. They don’t necessarily know the Loups were here but maybe just that they were in the area. Or maybe it’s nothing at all. Maybe it’s beer and poker. I don’t really care. I just know Preston needs to speak to them. And you need to be kept away. If they’re Hunters, and I know that’s a big if, then we have a situation because they’ll probably have the kind of resources to learn that they lost you and their people were killed. I don’t want them putting two and two together.”

  A feeling of dread moved through me. It wasn’t fear of being taken; it was more like being trapped. “Does that mean I can’t go outside at all?”

  “No, that would be excessive at our current situation. But it might get that way. We’ll keep an eye on it. Unlike years ago, we are aware of the risk. We’ll keep looking, but if any of them come up to the house, go in while they’re still too far away for them to get a good look at you.”

  That made sense. I took a deep breath. I wasn’t trapped yet. I put my hands on my knees. “Maybe I should dye my hair.”

  Rainer and Jarret both made a sound of distress, and Anton shook his head. I guessed they didn’t like that idea. I lifted my head to look at them. “It’s hair. The color can be changed. It grows back.”

  Rainer tugged on the end of mine. “We like you like this. But maybe for safety that makes sense.”

  “I’ll text Preston about the guys and get him to pick up some hair dye while he’s out. They know that his brothers are here. That should at least buy us some leeway to move around for a bit.”

  Anton held up his tablet, and we all waited while he typed. “Let’s not get too paranoid. This isn’t the kind of situation where everyone is watching our every move. I doubt they have satellites. These are idiots with a monster agenda.”

  Jarret shook his head fast. “Much as I hate to disagree when you are finally using the tablet, I’m going to. When they took you over two decades ago, they were idiots with a gun. They didn’t kill you or want to. They wanted to hurt you. That’s what they did. But when they took our mate, it was to a research facility where they were going to do who knew what to her.”

  He made a good point. “Maybe they’ve gained sophistication and money.”

  “I agree with Jarret.” Rainer strode toward the kitchen. “We can’t be too careful. That’s all there is to it.”

  I was suddenly so tired I could almost not deal with it. “You know not shifting was supposed to keep us safe. I never shifted. Not once. And someone got me anyway. That means there was betrayal from someone who knew. The only people who would know that are other werewolves.”

  Rainer stopped walking and turned to look at me. “That’s true.”

  “They took almost all the werewolves in Colorado. I’d love to know who they didn’t take, but I suppose that is neither here nor there since there are conspiracies everywhere. The woman with pneumonia, who may or may not have lured your mother from the house over two decades ago. The people who blamed you for killing those people, Rainer, when you could never have been a Loup, never lost to the madness because you shift like a werewolf now.”

  Anton’s tablet spoke for him. “Conspiracies fill me with nausea.”

  “Me too.” I touched his arm. “So many things kept hidden and I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about all the things we never discuss. Like what happened to the Omegas. How did this happen? Why don’t they tell us anything except not to do what we were born to do? What are all the things they all wanted to bury in that swamp or in the mountains of Colorado or in the snow in Alaska? What is so bad that we’re all being lied to all the time?”

  Jarret wrapped me in his arms. “Whatever it all is, I promise you, our sweet Omega, that we’ll be okay. They won’t get you a second time.”

  I wanted to believe him. But I’d already spent time in a cage, and as the lies, not of our creation, continued to build, I wasn’t sure I could trust the universe to be that kind.

  Chapter 9

  Jarret left to go buy some tools he wanted to start fixing up the house. That seemed like the perfect time to take a shower since I was running out of things to do. The guys were really good at cleaning up after themselves, and in any case, I wasn’t going to start being the housekeeper since I pretty much hated having to do those kinds of chores as much as I hated doing anything. I’d always clean up after myself, but I wasn’t going to start folding laundry just to make the time pass.

  I walked into my bedroom and stopped at the sight of a book on my pillow. What was that? I walked over and picked up the paperback. I hadn’t read on anything but an e-reader for the last year, but I did love the way a book felt in my hands. I stared down at the cover. It was a man by himself, staring off in the distance at a fog surrounding him. It was the author’s name who caught my attention.

  I grinned. This was Anton’s book. Well… I’d just been given something to do. I set the book down. This was Jarret’s doing. Anton would never have handed me his own book. Jarret was so proud of Anton it had actually become a scent, like cinnamon, that I could identify. I sniffed the book. Yes, the woods and cinnamon. Jarret had brought me the book.

  Downstairs, the smell of shrimp cooking in butter traveled up to me. Rainer had been in the kitchen most of the day. When we weren’t worrying abo
ut conspiracies, he hummed to himself while he cooked. Happiness wafted off of him.

  I grinned. Last night had made me pretty happy, as well. It was just too bad I couldn’t stay that way. Life infected all of my joy. My family was taken. And everything might just go to hell.

  I took a deep breath. I had come up to take a shower, and I was going to stick to the plan. Preston had put me in here because the bathroom worked, and I was glad for it. I did like hot showers, the kind that practically scalded my skin. The hot water here lived up to my hopes. Before long I was clean.

  Still, I wasn’t ready to be done with the water. I’d once made a joke about wolves liking water that no one in my family had laughed at. I filled the tub up with hot water, trying really hard not to drip all over the floor while I did so. I was really wasting water and right then I didn’t care. At home we tried to be careful with our environmental footprint. We’d never discussed it, but it was probably the wolves in us. Even when we didn’t discuss it, we were aware of the environment all of the time.

  Thinking of them all made me tear up, and I grabbed one of the towels and placed it over my head before I sunk into the hot water. At home, one of the few things I splurged on was lavender bubble baths. I loved the smell.

  I took the towel off my head to stare at the peeling paint on the door. We’d have to fix that.

  I rolled over onto my stomach and leaned on the other edge of the tub. A creak in the bedroom caught my attention and a second later Preston poked his head through the open door.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” He quickly looked away. “Came to check in. Rainer said a lot of things were thrown out today that may have made you anxious. Coupled with your family. I wanted to see if you were okay, but I’m not going to invade your privacy. I thought maybe you were asleep. I was just going to peek. Anyway, sorry.”

  Preston was actually rambling. It was sort of adorable. “You’ve seen me naked a few times now.”

  “Right.” He looked down at the floor. “But this is different, right? This isn’t shifting. This isn’t you with my brother. It’s just the two of us alone.”