Karly's Wolf (Hollow Hills Book 1) (12 page)

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d begged anything from anyone. It had probably been his father, and it had probably been to get him to stop beating his mother. It left a bad taste in his mouth this time too, and Karly still didn’t listen. She pulled, gradually increasing the amount of strength it took until Colton had no choice but to hold her arm so tightly he would hurt her or let her go. He chose the latter. He wanted her to stay, but not if he had to do it through force alone.

Karly retreated, but those two small steps may as well have been miles for the all the distance they represented. “You can’t keep me here. I haven’t done anything wrong, and I don’t want to stay.”

“Oh, piss on all this puppy love nonsense!” Mama Margo suddenly spat, startling everyone. “There’s more at stake here than either of your wants or wishes!” Giving everyone an equally hard glare, she stalked past everyone to dump the moonshine down the kitchen sink. Slamming the glass down on the counter so abruptly that it was a wonder it didn’t shatter, she gripped the edge of the sink. Frowning, she glared at the drain for the longest time before her eyes narrowed. “Disappearing him will only delay the inevitable, but a delay is better than having an army of
chelovak
lawmen tromping through our Hunt.” Twisting her head, she gave Dan a dispassionate once over before fixing equally hard eyes on Colton. “Get rid of him.”

Having only just been allowed to breathe unobstructed, Dan began to struggle, his gag poorly muffling a long string of alternating curses and pleas that escalated into shouts when Marcus grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him roughly upright. Lanky he might be, but there was real strength there as well. He tossed Dan up over his shoulder as if the tall and burly cop were nothing more than cumbersome baggage.

“Piss on me,” he warned as he carried Dan, kicking and flailing, right out the back kitchen door, “and I’ll fucking neuter you.”

“I don’t care how you do it,” Mama Margo said, once they were gone. “Just make sure it doesn’t come back to nip at our tails before the Hunt is over. And you—” She turned hard eyes on Gabe. “Clean up this mess. Get rid of his car, the guns, any trace you can find that he ever came here, and fix my damn house. There’s bullet holes and glass everywhere. As for you—” She turned on Karly last. “—your husband never came here, you’ve not seen the sonofabitch since you left him, and you’ve no idea where he’s gone. Now, go pack an overnight bag. You’re coming home with me.”

“No.” Karly tried again to refuse, but the thing about Mama Margo that eventually everyone came to know very well, was she never took ‘no’ for an answer. Not once she’d made up her mind.

“Pack,” the old woman said again, her honeyed eyes flashing and brightening. She also was not in the habit of repeating herself.

Looking from Colton to Gabe, and then back to Mama Margo again, Karly gave in. A few minutes later, with all her worldly belongings packed into her single suitcase, she followed Mama Margo out the front door and down the three porch steps. She never even tried to look around the side of the house for one last glimpse at Dan. Colton took comfort from that. Whatever else she might be feeling for her soon-to-be ex-husband, obviously Karly was not nursing a broken heart.

Of course, she didn’t look back at him either. Drawing the same conclusion for himself cut Colton all the way to his core.

“Shit,” Gabe said, once they’d gone. He scuffed the heel of his boot at the ruined carpet. “I’m going to have to go all the way to Lowe’s for flooring.”

“And a new window,” Colton said distractedly, watching from the open doorway until he couldn’t see even the dust cloud kicked up by Karly’s retreating car. “And a saw.”

Gabe arched non-committal eyebrows. “You want to use it first?”

Turning, Colton went to the back door. Marcus had carried Dan out to the old woodshed, dumping him in the leaves and dirt next to the old chopping block. The little rental cabin didn’t even have a wood-burning stove anymore, but the lean-to was still standing there, partially reclaimed by twining ivy and blanketing moss, and even had a good cord of well-seasoned wood stacked inside. Where he’d found the axe, Colton didn’t know, but Marcus stood over Dan, idly swinging the old tool, stretching and limbering up while he waited for the command. The axe was more rust than metal now, and dull as hell. This wasn’t going to be quick or pretty. It was, in fact, just the sort of death a man like Dan deserved.

“No.” Colton looked at Dan, lying flat on his back, his shaking hands pleadingly trying to ward off the first impending blow. He looked sickly, pale, with beads of sweat popping out all across his brow. Deliberately, Colton made himself smile. “No. I think I’ve got something else in mind for our little, wife-beating friend.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Mama Margo’s home was very similar to the log cabin Karly was renting from her. It was small, remote, well-suited for just one person, and decorated nothing like what she would have expected a…well, a werewolf’s house to be. How odd was it to even have that preconception? She honestly didn’t know what she ought to expect. Dirt floors, maybe, but that’s not what she saw peeking in through the open screen door. Dead rabbits or other small animal pelts hanging from the trees and bones from the eaves. Maybe herbs and cauldrons or other witchy-backwoods-mountain woman things lying about. But no, the place was very clean, very tidy, sparsely furnished with only the barest necessities, and the only frivolities that Karly could see were in the two lace doilies that decorated two small tables—the two-person kitchen table just inside the front door, and the end table situated between two chairs on the front porch.

“Sit down,” Mama Margo ordered, pointing at the first of the two chairs.

Hugging her suitcase (in which she had packed the most random assortment of belongings, and which did not—as she would come to discover a few hours later while readying herself for bed—include either a night shirt, a toothbrush, or even a matching pair of socks), Karly ignored the first chair and sidled up to the farthest instead. She sat, nervously watching as Margo accepted the other seat. For the longest time, the two women simply sat, staring at one another, the heavy silence between them occasionally interrupted by birdsong, crow caws, and the sporadic plink-plonk-plunk of a pinecone bouncing off the tin roof.

“Damn squirrels,” Mama Margo said. “Every now and then I go out and shoot one, crockpot and eat it; it don’t matter. Randy little bastards just make more squirrels.”

Karly had no idea if she was supposed to commiserate or keep quiet.

Folding her rough, weathered hands together, Mama Margo took a deep breath. “How you feeling?”

Karly had no idea how to answer that either. She supposed she ought to be scared. Maybe that would come later, but right now everything felt too surreal for her to be afraid. “I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Where do you think you’ll run to?”

“I don’t know,” she said again.

“Where do you think you’ll run,” Mama Margo repeated, “that he won’t eventually find you? Because he will search. He won’t be able to stop himself. And I don’t mean that little pig shit you married. I mean the other one. The one who wants you despite the fact that you are entirely the wrong female for the job.” Turning in her seat, the old woman leaned toward her. “He is an Alpha, girl. He does what he has to—whatever needs doing; regardless of what he would prefer—for the good of the pack.”

Karly looked at her.

“Does that frighten you?” the old woman asked.

It ought to. But no, Karly slowly shook her head.

Mama Margo’s hard expression didn’t so much as twitch. “Why not?”

Because regardless of what else he was, Colton wasn’t Dan. He wouldn’t hurt her.

“Say it out loud girl,” Mama Margo told her. “Know it for the truth it is.”

For the first time all night, Karly felt the prickling approach of tears burning in behind her eyes. She dug her fingers into her bag until her knuckles hurt and bit the inside of her cheek, just to keep those tears in check. “I can’t do this. I…I just can’t.”

“Too damn bad, because we’re going to do this all damn night if we have to.” Slapping her hands against her knees, Mama Margo pushed to her feet. “I’m going to make a pot of tea. So cry yourself out if you have to, but then we’re going to talk. There’s things you need to know if you’re going to stay here. And if you’re not, well, there’s things you should know then too. Not the least of which is just how badly we’ll be fucked without Colton, since we both know, wherever you go, he’s going to follow you. You’re in his nose now, girl.”

“I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

Mama Margo frowned, showing her exactly what she thought of that sentiment. “What you meant or didn’t mean makes little difference now. It’s what you do
next
that’s going to affect us.”

She went inside, leaving Karly alone on the front porch, feeling the whisper soft kiss of the morning breeze washing across her face and listening to another bouncing pinecone. Setting her suitcase on the floor between her knees, she picked at an unravelling string near the worn zipper. All she’d wanted was to escape the trap of a bad marriage and find a safe place to hide. Now if her husband wasn’t dead—her chest tightened—then he soon would be, and here she was, quietly accepting it and no less trapped than she had been before.

Except that wasn’t quite true, was it? She
was
trapped, but instead of being stuck in a house of violence with a man she had once loved, but now had come to fear and despise, she was now stuck in a town full of
volka
—her brain faltered at calling them werewolves. Hollywood had werewolves; fantasy books had werewolves; paranormal romance shelves in bookstores around the world were absolutely littered with love stories about werewolves; real life did
not
have werewolves!

And yet, here she was.

Combing her hands through her hair, only just resisting the urge to pull, Karly reached back along her shoulder until she felt the tenderness of Colton’s love bite. Her chest felt as if it were caught in a vise, and yet a slow pulse of heady arousal came thumping instantly, incredulously, to life between her legs.

She didn’t love him; she barely knew him!

But she liked him. He made her feel safe.

He wasn’t human. How often did a girl get the chance to say that about the man threatening to court her, whether she wanted him to or not?

Honestly, how could she still feel this tiny thrill of excitement budding up inside her just at the thought of him coming after her, his muscles flexing to take her, his lupine eyes burning with the intensity of his determination and desire?

Even more honestly, how could she leave when she still had no place to go? She didn’t want to return to Redemption, back to the house she’d shared with Dan, filled as it was now by nothing but ghosts and ugly memories?

They were going to kill Dan, and all she had done was walk away from it. She wished she could make herself feel something about that too, but maybe she was still too numb. All she wanted to do on that front right now was watch. Maybe even help.

Karly hugged her stomach, feeling just angry enough and just sick enough to recognize that for the lie it was. She didn’t want Dan dead, but she still wasn’t jumping up to stop it.

Talk about empowering—the way it had felt when she’d held Dan’s gun and emptied every last bullet into the floor between them…the way her husband had stared at her, at first shocked and then affronted—that had been so damned cathartic. Karly hugged herself, shuddering because in that moment, all she could feel was the kick of the gun back in her hand. One way or another, he was never going to hurt her again. He was never going to call her, scare her, whisper his ugly things into her ear. Colton was going to see to that.

But none of those was any kind of reason for her to stay in Hollow Hills and…what? Marry Colton, or just mate with him?

Her sex pulsed again, another heady throb of heat and wanting that had absolutely no business being in her body on the same day that she found out the guy she was just starting to seriously like was a real life Wolfman.

Mama Margo came back out onto the porch, bearing two steaming cups. She set one on the table next to Karly. “So,” she said. “What excuses have you lined up?”

She honestly didn’t know where to start. “Why me, Margo?” Karly countered. “What is this, a wolves mate for life sort of thing?”

The old woman snorted into her tea. “They don’t, you know. And neither do we. We form attachments, fall in love, and either live happily ever after or get our hearts broken, just like everyone else. Our divorce rate is probably on par with most
chevolak’s
…for everyone except Alphas. It’s a rare thing when an Alpha mates with a woman he loves; it’s even rarer when he divorces. Sacrifices must be made when it comes to the good of the pack. Everyone knows that. It is the price both Alphas and their Brides pay when they choose to lead.”

“I’m not choosing to lead,” Karly tried to protest, but Mama Margo slapped that aside with an impatient wave of her weathered hand.

“Neither did I. I was called, same as you are being now. But I did my duty. I accepted my Alpha and I bore him seven strong sons, all of whom met their end before their time. The Deacon himself killed my mate. McQueen’s sire repelled that invasion attempt twenty years ago, but he sickened and he died, and now it is Colton who has stepped in to lead. And what does the Deacon Alpha do? He brings his son to our Hunt, and his daughter…in hopes that Colton—or Sebastian McQueen—will take the bait. Ha! I knew his teeth when he took my husband, and I know them now.” Mama Margo looked at her, the yellow of her eyes burning hot. “I will have a
chevolak
Bride long before I ever allow a Deacon bitch to set foot on my land.”

“I’m sorry,” Karly said. Mama Margo never once allowed her pain to show, but it was there all the same, hidden under verbal barbs of bitterness and mask of strength. “I really am, but I am not the girl you’re looking for.”

Margo physically turned her chair around so she could face Karly fully, pinning her to her seat with narrowed and calculating eyes. “You, girl, are the only human I have ever seen stand firm against one of us. Not once, not twice, but three times you met the Deacon bitch’s charge and you did it in the middle of a Hunt on our own damned field. Ha! The insult was priceless.”

“What insult?” Karly almost laughed at her, it was so incredulous. “I got my ass handed to me all three times! She knocked me down, Margo. She did it effortlessly!”

“But you kept getting back up. No Alpha has ever to my knowledge taken a
chevolak
Bride. Omegas, yes, cast out to wander among your people, how can they help but take outsiders for mates? Lieutenants, perhaps, upon occasion, if the circumstances are right. But never an Alpha and never in a Hunt. But last night as we watched you stand to meet the Deacon’s daughter’s repeated attacks, I heard the whispers. She bared her teeth at you, and you…you didn’t even flinch. That kind of strength is impressive, girl, and I don’t care who or what you are. Neither, apparently, do many of my fellow residents here in Hollow Hills. If Colton takes you for his Bride and I give my consent, his choice will not be met with censure. I’m sure of it. In fact, your display was so impressive, if McQueen takes you to Bride, he may very well steal the position of Alpha on your popularity alone.”

Her jaw dropping, Karly shrank from what Margo was saying. She almost laughed all over again, only this time it wasn’t funny. “What do you mean, McQueen? Are you saying I’m in your…your Hunt now whether I want to be or not?”

The old woman gave her another calculating stare. “If you leave, McQueen will not follow you. He’ll pursue his interest in the Hunt. He’ll make his choice, run his Bride to ground and then move to take the Alpha-ship. But Colton…Colton is drawn to you. If you leave, he will abandon us to follow, because you have aroused in him a need I don’t think he’s felt since childhood.” When Karly only stared, waiting, Margo said, “The need to protect.”

“I don’t need protecting anymore.” For the first time, Karly looked away, unable to hold that knowing stare. “You’ve already taken care of that.”

“You’re protected so long as you remain with us. Leave, and you’ll be as exposed as you ever were.”

“But Dan…”

“Will get what he deserves. But there are consequences to what we have done, and you know they will follow your footsteps every bit as doggedly as Colton will.” Margo leaned back in her chair, her worn hands resting lightly upon the equally worn wooden armrests. “What do you want, child? Think now. If it were in our power to give it, what would you have? Colton is a good man.”

“I don’t love him,” Karly protested.

Margo scoffed. “You don’t know him. You’ve been here, what, a week? Who falls in love in a week? A fool, that’s who, and one who is destined to fall right back out of it again just as quickly. Nobody says you have to love him. Ask yourself instead, do you like him? Do you like the man he is? What he stands for, what he does? Do you respect him? If you can say yes to those things, then the prospect for love is already there waiting to grow between you. If your naughty bits are achin’ for the chance to bump and rub against his, then so much the better. Good matches have been formed from less, and worse marriages, as well you already know, have started out with more.”

Blinking twice, Karly studied Mama Margo. She and Dan
had
started from more. They’d dated for two years. There were still times when she remembered just how happy she had been the night Dan had got down on one knee, proposing to her in front of all their friends. She’d thought then that he was destined to be her One and Only. But then, she hadn’t seen his monstrous side yet.

Colton has a monstrous side too, a little voice whispered inside her. But even before her brain had fully formed the thought, she discounted it. Colton might not be human, but he wasn’t a monster. Whether the man or the beast, he wouldn’t hurt her. He wanted to protect her.