* * *
Chains bit into Janie’s flesh. She awoke human and cold. Roane had laid her on the hard wooden bench in the secret room. The bands of iron enclosed each ankle, each wrist, and also her neck, leaving just enough space for her to take careful breaths. At least Roane had taken the time to put a dress on her.
Her ribs hurt and she moaned as she sat up. Janie panicked until she found the sparks of life within. Her babies were still alive, still safe.
The gouges in the wood around her made sense from this angle. She wondered how many other women had lain chained here, clawing at the wood, waiting to die.
Janie had no intention of waiting or dying.
She yanked on each chain, testing the bonds. Her head swam, vision dancing with red and gold dots in the lamp light. She’d be stronger if she shifted, her limbs thinner, maybe thin enough to slip through. But the collar was too tight on her scrawny human neck. If she changed, she’d strangle herself.
So she forced herself to stop struggling, to slow down and think. Roane thought like a wolf more than a man sometimes, so Janie figured she needed to think like a wolf, too. What would a wolf do? Janie quelled the hysterical giggle that burst in her throat like a soap bubble.
Roane was the alpha, he saw himself as the pack leader. She tried to remember what she’d read in those books of his. Alpha male.
The key turned in the lock. Janie forced herself to stretch out a bit, baring her belly and tipping her head back. She hoped she looked weak and submissive and contrite as hell.
“Roane, baby, I’m sorry. I was bad. I shouldn’t have come in here.” She swallowed at his expression, wondering if she’d started too strong.
His brown-gold eyes narrowed, but he stepped closer to her.
“That’s right, Janie. You were very bad.”
“I know,” she whispered, tipping her head back even more and forcing her arms to her sides, palms out and open. “I deserve to be punished. I’m sorry.”
He nodded, his hair drifted over his forehead as shadows danced across his bearded face in the lamplight. Janie took that as a sign to go on. Now or never to make her play.
“Our babies, your babies, Roane,” she said, keeping her voice soft and weak and low. “They’re gonna be good babies, ones like us. We’re gonna have a real pack for you. All for you. But I’m hurt, and I’m worried about the babies.”
He didn’t cut her off, just stood quietly with his head tipped to one side.
She licked her lips again. “Please, Roane, you gotta let me out of these chains. Let me go to a real bed, sleep and eat and heal. For your babies.”
His eyes narrowed right down to dark slits and he shook his head. Without a word he turned and left the room, locking the door behind him. Janie called out his name, over and over until the word lost its meaning and her voice grew hoarse, shifting from words to sobbing and then finally silence.
Roane returned after what felt like hours. The cabin beyond him was well lit with sunlight, however, and Janie wondered how long she’d been chained. He came up to her and put his calloused hand on her chin, tilting her head up so her eyes met his own.
Janie made sure to look away first.
“Promise me, Janie. You’ll be a good girl, won’t you? Don’t make me angry. Those others, they always were stupid, made me so mad.”
“No, I promise. I’m a good girl. I just want to be in your pack.” She forced down the bile burning in her throat and turned her head to lick his hand. Revulsion warred with her need to be free. Her skin prickled, goose bumps rising and Janie thought her flesh would crawl right off her bones if it could.
But the tiny heartbeats deep within gave her strength. She could do for them what she wasn’t sure she could manage for herself.
Roane unlocked her bonds, one by one. He left her collar on, reaching into his rear jeans pocket and bringing out a pair of handcuffs. They looked like the kind movie cops carried, heavy with a little chain running between them. He slid them over her wrists, closing them tight enough that they dimpled her skin. Janie tried not to shiver or betray her fear. At least he hadn’t restricted her legs.
Roane finally undid the collar after staring down at her for another long moment. Meekly, Janie rose with a wince and followed him out of that horrible room. She wanted to run for it right then, but he was too close.
Her hands shaking like restless birds, Janie turned toward the kitchen, an idea half-formed in her mind.
“Where are you going?” Roane said, reaching for her arm.
“I need some water, that’s all,” she said. She kept her eyes on the floor, her shoulders hunched.
“All right.”
He followed behind her and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She reached for the wolf within but it felt like trying to dig a hole in a river; the human parts kept dropping back into place, her wolf still and sleeping somewhere deep and safe.
She got a cup out of the dish rack beside the sink and drank a little water. Hre eyes went to the knives in their block next to the cutting board, only a foot away. Janie turned toward Roane and opened her mouth as though she had something to say. Then she let the glass slip between her fingers and shatter on the slate tiles.
“Oh god, I’m sorry,” she said, adding extra whine into her voice. “The handcuffs.” She held up her hands in supplication.
“They stay on, I’ll get it.” Roane looked disgusted and suspicious, his voice a soft growl as he bent down to pick up the pieces of glass.
Janie didn’t think. She moved in a fluid motion, snatching a boning knife out of the block. She jammed the blade down into the back of Roane’s thigh as he shifted to rise. With a jerk she dragged it across the muscles and tendons as she drew it free.
Roane screamed but Janie leapt sideways, away from his grabbing hands. She bolted to the door and dragged back the bolt with both hands. She glanced back at him as she yanked the door open. Roane knelt on his good leg, trying to drag himself upright using the counter. His cut leg wouldn’t hold any weight as far as she could see and Janie realized she’d hamstrung him.
She ran for the truck. It was locked and with horror Janie realized the key would be where it always was. Back in the cabin, on a shelf just inside the door, resting in the wooden bowl shaped like a maple leaf.
Janie looked around. The woodshed door was open. She crossed to it and, looking up, saw the old rifle resting on the rack above the door. Janie jumped up and knocked it off the rack with both hands. Her sore muscles and cracked bones screamed at her but adrenaline drowned out the noise.
“He can’t hurt you,” she whispered. The rifle was loaded, though Janie wasn’t sure how old the rounds were. She dropped the bolt back into place and turned back to the cabin.
“Bitch, you damn bitch, I’m gonna kill you.” Roane had pulled himself up and leaned heavily on the counter. His eyes were murder gold in the sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window.
Janie lifted the rifle and settled the stock against her shoulder, laying the barrel awkwardly along her bent left arm.
“No,” she said. “Not today.”
She thought of the sunlight shining in green-gold glory through the leaves of the spreading oak. And she thought about the bodies that nourished that tree. Wolf women that would never feel the moon in their blood and all those children that never got to laugh or swim in a river or know joy of that first hunt. Their lives were gone, buried beneath the earth as though they’d never been. Because of Roane. And Janie knew he’d never stop.
“I think I’d better put you down,” Janie said and she squeezed the trigger.
The kick of the gun was worse than she’d expected, the crack reverberating in her sensitive ears. The heavy heat of creosote filled her nose.
Roane lay curled in a widening pool of blood on the kitchen floor, her bullet tearing a hole right into his chest and leaving a much larger one where it exited. His eyes glazed and then his body shifted inside his clothes. Roane turned into a wolf for the f
inal time.
Janie dropped the rifle and made herself dig through his pockets until she found the handcuff key. She retreated to the other side of the cabin to unlock her hands.
Then she opened the secret room and pulled out the journals one by one into a pile on the floor. From one, she ripped a single page.
She found her sandals and went out to the shed. She dragged a gas can back into the cabin, poured it around. Dropping a lit match into the fuel, Janie watched the fire catch and flare. Janie grabbed the truck keys on her way out and drove away from the ranch without looking back.
She arrived in the sleepy little town Roane always shopped in and found a payphone outside a red and white painted diner. She dug change out of the truck’s ashtray and pulled out the paper she’d torn from Roane’s journal. She stared at it for a moment, but her mind was made up. Janie didn’t want to go back into hiding. She was a wolf woman, she belonged with a pack.
With a deep breath that hurt all the way down into her chest, Janie dialed the number written neatly underneath an address and listened to the phone ring.
“Hello? Are Isaac or Jacob there?” she asked when a male voice answered. “Isaac? Hi. I’m Janie. I need to talk to you about your father.”
A woman with two small boys came out of the diner. The boys dashed ahead of their mother and for a moment the air filled with young laughter, ringing clear and pure as bells.
* * * * *
Also by Annie Bellet:
The Gryphonpike Chronicles:
Witch Hunt
Twice Drowned Dragon
A Stone’s Throw
Dead of Knight
The Barrows (Omnibus Vol.1)
Chwedl Duology:
A Heart in Sun and Shadow
The Raven King
Pyrrh Considerable Crimes Division Series:
Avarice
Wrath
Hunger
Envy
Lust
Inertia
Vainglory
Short Story Collections:
The Spacer’s Blade and Other Stories
Gifts in Sand and Water
River Daughter and Other Stories
Deep Black Beyond
Till Human Voices Wake Us
Dusk and Shiver
By Spell and Sword
* * *
About the Author:
Annie Bellet lives and writes in the Pacific NW. She is a Clarion graduate and her stories have appeared in magazines such as AlienSkin, Digital Science Fiction, and Daily Science Fiction as well as multiple collections and anthologies. Follow her on her blog at “A Little Imagination” (https://overactive.wordpress.com/)
* * *
If you want to get to be notified when the next Annie Bellet novel or collection is released, please sign up for the mailing list by going to: https://tinyurl.com/anniebellet Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Word-of-mouth and reviews are vital for any author to succeed. If you enjoyed the book, please consider leaving a review wherever you purchased it. Even a few lines sharing your thoughts on this story would be extremely helpful for other readers. Thank you!
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends