Moon Burned (The Wolf Wars Book 1) Page 11

  And I could see every single one of those scars, because the large, handsome male was stark ass naked.

  A relieved sigh whooshed out of me when I looked down and saw that I had retained my clothes… for the most part. My pants and sports bra were present… but my shirt was another matter.

  Mentally shrugging and mustering my strength, I pulled myself to my feet and had to grip my knees for a moment before I was steady.

  Three deep breaths kept down the contents of my stomach, which I could only guess at.

  “Well, you no longer smell like shit,” said a familiar voice in front of me, “but now you look like it. What am I to do with you?”

  It was kind of funny, but I didn’t laugh. “Then I look like I feel,” I said, my voice gravelly and deeper in tone with the early morning.

  A glance in the opposite direction revealed that the sun had not yet broken over the horizon, but was not long off in doing so. Kalene noticed where my attention went and nodded.

  “We have until exactly three minutes before sunrise to be at The Cliffs,” she told me. “So if you like to piss or eat in the morning, you better get to it. You don’t want to be late. Ryker can be a bastard if you’re tardy.”

  “Ever so eloquent,” said a deep voice, and I looked back to see the large naked male sitting up and rubbing at his eyes. The muscles in his stomach contracted as he did so, and I jerked my gaze away before it could slip down any further.

  This made him laugh, the sound so genuine that it took me a moment to recognize it. “That’s all right, Bear-killer,” he said. “I’m not shy.” He waved a large hand down the front of him, as though presenting a display. “You have my permission to feast your eyes upon me.”

  Kalene rolled her eyes while I had a hard time deciding whether to appear amused or indignant… Which only made him laugh again.

  I looked at Kalene, a certain desperation coming into my eyes, and jerked my head at the male. “Last night…? We didn’t…?”

  Now it was Kalene’s turn to laugh, and she did so as she linked her arm through mine as though we were the best of friends. “Gods no,” she said. “If I wanted to kill you there are easier ways than letting you die from disappointment the morning after with Oren over there.”

  “I heard that,” Oren called from behind us, though he didn’t seem particularly upset.

  We were already walking away from him, but Kalene glanced back over her shoulder to take him up on the offer to feast her eyes while he stretched as though being naked in public were as natural to him as breathing.

  “He does have a nice ass, though,” she mumbled.

  “I heard that, too,” he called.

  As we walked down the beach, I saw other Dogs rousing from their slumbers and stumbling out of their small living structures, which were little more than shacks on the sand built from the leaves of palms and wood scavenged from the Western forest.

  Kalene had informed me yesterday that each Dog had to build his or her own living quarters in their free time, or else sleep out under the stars. Last night, when I’d been drunk and toasted, I’d found this so wickedly efficient on the part of Reagan Ramsey, my new owner and Pack Master.

  “Or you can take the home of a Dog who dies,” Kalene had told me, “but you’ll have to fight several others for it, and they’ll be mostly males. Really, it’s not worth the trouble.”

  This morning, I found this less wickedly efficient and more just dickheadish. Make the slaves build their own homes with material they gather.

  “At least the drinks and drugs are still free,” Kalene had added, clapping me on the shoulder and passing me the pipe.

  I didn’t bother telling her that though we didn’t trade coin for those drugs and drinks, they were not at all free. If she didn’t know this on her own, she was a willfully ignorant fool.

  I shook these thoughts from my head as I found a spot behind some large rocks and relieved myself. Then I went to The Cascades—which were near enough by that I could hear them when I first woke up—and washed up as best I could while dozens of other Dogs did the same.

  This small part of the island, Kalene had explained to me, was designated for the Dogs. We were allowed to drink in the bars of the city, smoke in the dens, and fuck in the whorehouses, but we were not to wander into the other districts, where the Wolves with basic rights lived. And, of course, we could not leave, or either the collars around our necks or the Hounds on our tails would make us wish we hadn’t.

  So, basically, same life as it had been in the Midlands at Bo Benedict’s plantation. Only the scenery had changed.

  And scenery means absolutely nothing to a slave. The most beautiful of cages, after all, is still a cage.

  If any single place in the world was a testament to this statement, it was The Cliffs.

  The climb was taxing and treacherous. But everyone had to do it. It was the only way to get there. And it was a test of strength and a revealer of weakness. Just like everything else in the life of a Dog.

  When I’d stood on the beach, staring up at where Kalene was pointing, fear had spiraled in my stomach, the same brand I’d felt staring over the ledge of The Cascades yesterday, but I was careful not to let it show.

  As other Dogs—both males and females—began to climb the cliff face like spiders up a wall, I only gave Kalene a nod and leapt up to the lowest ledge, following the same path as a male who’d gone before me, ignoring the slight pain this caused in my still-healing back.

  When I’d made it fifty feet up from the ground, I realized that if the wounds on my back had been any less healed, this climb very well may have killed me.

  As it was, it almost did, anyway.

  I was so concentrated on keeping my footing, on ignoring the pains in my wrists and fingers from repeatedly gripping small ledges and hauling myself up, that I didn’t notice the female inching closer on my right side… Not until the bitch tried to kill me.

  Sweat was dripping down the sides of my face, rolling down the spine of my back, and I was taking a breath, drawing in the salty sea air, preparing to reach for the next foothold above me… When something wrapped around my ankle in a tight grip.

  And yanked.

  My brain processed Kalene’s shouted warning to watch out a handful of seconds too slowly.

  I’d been mid-reach, only one hand gripping a hold of the cliff, one foot bracing my weight, and there was nothing I could do as those two holds were broken, as my body was jerked away from the cliff face and sent free-falling into the air.

  As my stomach rushed up to my throat and panic bloomed inside me like a mushroom cloud, all I saw was a glimpse of a smiling female with golden blonde hair and large blue eyes. She wiggled her fingers in a little wave, as if to say goodbye.

  Useless fury replaced my panic as I continued to fall, the earth rushing up to meet me with a speed that felt inevitable.

  Then, there was a hand, extended, reaching, and I latched onto it with both of my own, squeezing as my body was yanked to a stop… and I dangled in midair.

  Heart hammering in my throat, my gaze traveled up the arm that was holding me, and my eyes met those of Oren, the large naked male I’d met just this morning. He’d put on a pair of shorts before the climb, thank the gods, or else I’d have a front row seat to his ball sac just about now.

  “I got ya, Bear-killer,” Oren said, and with a strength I could only admire, he maintained his grip on the ledge while swinging me up and allowing me to quite literally climb up his hard body to reclaim my own hold on the cliff face.

  I looked down to see that I’d only fallen twenty or so feet; the ground was some thirty feet below us.

  “Thanks,” I told Oren.

  The male reached up and gave me a couple taps on my backside, and if he hadn’t just saved my life, I might have bitten off his hand for it. “Get moving, little one,” Oren said, nodding to the top of the cliff. “We have to beat the sunrise… On top of that, the Wolf who just tried to kill you is up there. Something tells
me you’re the type of lady that might have something to say about that.”

  He hadn’t even finished the sentence before I’d resumed my climb, the fire now coursing through my bones moving me along fast enough that I heard Oren chuckle softly beneath me.

  21

  I was so high up that I could see across hundreds of miles of endless turquoise-blue ocean if I looked over my shoulder and glanced behind me.

  The air was thinner up here, the sun brighter. Not even the seabirds ventured up this high, though I suspected more fearsome beasts lived in the caverns and crevices of this seaside mountain.

  Despite the rather forceful breeze up here, my blood was boiling, and I hauled myself over the final ledge of the cliff exactly three minutes and fourteen seconds before sunrise—those fourteen seconds all there were to spare.

  Because some stupid bitch had almost killed me.

  As soon as I pulled myself over, sweating and panting from the ridiculous climb, my eyes were scanning the gathered Dogs for a certain blue-eyed, blonde-haired female.

  They settled on her, and that switch within me flipped.

  She saw me coming and tried to prepare, but a wall of stone would not have been able to stop me. I threw my entire body into her as I wrapped my arms around her middle and lifted her into the air. A heartbeat later I was body-slamming her on the unforgiving rock of the cliff’s ledge.

  In the next blink, I was atop her, my fists pounding down upon her face. The scent of blood in the air followed.

  As it splattered my face, my chest, and my bared and gritted teeth, I knew I wasn’t going to stop until I’d killed her. Only cold anticipation arose within me at the prospect.

  My fists continued to rain down upon the bloody mess that had become her face…

  And then I was yanked back and up by my collar, and found myself flying through the air.

  Before I could process what had happened, I landed in a heap so near the edge of the cliff that for a horrifying half-heartbeat I’d sworn I was going to go over. I’d hardly skidded to a complete stop when I was moving back toward the female I hadn’t finished with.

  My tunnel vision was such that I didn’t see the Hound until I ran smack into him, his wide chest making me stumble back, the impact with me leaving a smear of blood on the front of his shirt. I did see him reach for the heavy black baton at his belt, however, saw as he freed it from his belt and raised it.

  I braced for impact.

  It didn’t come.

  Blinking, I looked up to see what had halted the fall of the baton upon me.

  Oddly, I wasn’t entirely surprised to see that it was Ryker the Head Hound.

  “Take a walk,” Ryker told his inferior.

  The Hound who’d been about to hit me (and had likely pulled me off the other female and nearly thrown me over the edge of the cliff as well) looked utterly confused. “She almost killed that other female, sir,” the Hound said.

  Ryker’s blue eyes were hard as stone. “Do I need to repeat my order?” he asked, with too much calm and poise.

  The lesser Hound scurried off like a mouse sighted in a pantry. I knew without checking that every pair of eyes present was watching this whole exchange. Feeling suddenly ridiculous with the other female’s blood painting my hands and face, I waited for whatever was going to come next.

  In Dogshead, the both of us would have been whipped immediately for our fighting. But I was not in Dogshead anymore.

  Me and everyone else around me watched as Ryker barked for some of the other Hounds to come drag away the female whose life I’d nearly taken, as she was clearly in no condition to remove herself.

  After this was complete, the Head Hound prowled over to where I was standing, looking as rabid in my bloodletting as my old nickname implied. His handsome face showed nothing but malicious boredom, so very different from the expression he’d worn when cleaning my wounds on the last cart of that train.

  “You like to get in fights, little Wolf?” Ryker asked me. “Then let’s get in fights.”

  Thus began the toughest day of physical exhaustion I’d ever lived through.

  I thought it would never end, and before it did, I’d wished several times that I had just died making the climb this morning. Kalene informed me that many a Dog did die making that climb. Coupled with the intense training Ryker was putting us through, just the thought of having to climb that cliff face again tomorrow was enough to make me want to cry.

  That is, if I hadn’t run out of tears a long damn time ago.

  We did not stop fighting, running, crawling, climbing, and fighting some more until after the sun had fallen, taking with it at last the lingering heat of the day. Ryker made it clear to the other Dogs that the intensity of today’s training was due to the show I’d put on this morning by beating up the other female, whose name I’d learned was Peni.

  I made a mental note to tell him I hated him the next time the Head Hound felt in the mood to mess with my head again with his false kindness. He was a bastard, all right, and he wasn’t fooling me.

  When he finally called an end to the day, it took more grit than I cared to think about to keep from collapsing on the spot.

  If there had not already been a target on my back for killing the Bear, there was certainly one there now. Even the male Dogs (who usually were decent to me on account of my pretty face) were glowering in my direction as we hauled ourselves away from the training areas. Wondering how we were supposed to get back down from the cliffs, and praying to any god that was good that we did not have to climb back down, I followed the crowd of Dogs in silence, careful to keep my distance.

  A small blessing was that everyone around me was as drained as I, and I had no doubt that it was this alone that afforded me undisturbed passage toward wherever we were going.

  I’d almost escaped when a Hound I didn’t know appeared at the side of me. “Come with me,” he said, turning on his heel and not waiting for me to follow. There were snickers and nods of righteous approval from some of the other nearby Dogs, and Kalene shot me a sympathetic look along with Oren, who had been pleasant to me throughout the day.

  Having no other choice, I bit back a growl of frustration and followed after the Hound, ever the compliant little Wolf at the beck and call of her masters.

  I hated them for it.

  The Hounds perhaps most of all.

  I was escorted back across The Cliff’s training grounds, and then toward a line of trees that rolled over the land and into the distance away from the sea.

  “Wait here,” the Hound told me, a certain sadistic gleam in his eyes. “The captain wants a word with you.”

  Your captain, my captor, I thought, but did not bother to say anything. I was too drained to correct this chicken shit.

  Soon after, Ryker appeared, exiting through the flaps of a large green tent that no doubt kept the Hounds cool during the days when the Dogs were sweating on the training fields. In Dogshead, Benedict had us working the fields rather than training in hand-to-hand combat, which was likely why Reagan Ramsey’s Western Coast produced so many champions. I recalled asking Kalene last night who did the work for Ramsey’s houses and other various businesses if the Dogs were always kept in training. She’d said that there were other slaves for that kind of work. Lucky bastards, she’d called them.

  I didn’t disagree. Everything is a matter of perspective, after all.

  “Ramsey owns more Wolves than anyone on the continent,” Kalene had told me. “He’s got his paws in everything, and is good friends with the Vampire Queen.”

  It was these thoughts that were riding my mind as I faced Ryker the Hound, a hand going to my hip despite the fact that lesser offenses had gotten me whipped in the past. The urge to ask him what the hell he wanted struck me, but I pressed my lips together instead.

  I was sure my facial expression spoke for me anyway.

  “Follow me,” Ryker said, and began heading into the line of trees.

  Wondering why the fuck I was followin
g everyone around like a gods damned puppy as of late, I scrubbed my hands down my face and then clenched them into tight fists at my sides.

  Then I followed after.

  22

  Ryker led me through the trees, and I cursed the stupid muscles in his stupid muscular back when he stripped his shirt off over his head and tucked it into the back pocket of his black pants.

  Which made me look at his round bottom that sat so neatly below his trimmed and tanned waist…

  I decided just then that when I went back into the city this evening I would find a handsome Wolf to help me relieve some of this… tension.

  Because, seriously? What. The. Fuck?

  Dude was a Hound. And not just a Hound, but a Head Hound. One that there were horrifying stories about. One that was rumored to be as sadistic as he was handsome. One that could slit my throat while I slept or string me up by a rope in the city square and not face a single consequence for doing so.

  Beating Dogs into submission must be a good workout, I thought bitterly, and refocused my traitorous gaze on the forest floor beneath me.

  He stopped when he reached a small pool that was fed by a waterfall just big enough for one person to stand under. Rocky boulders that were the perfect width and height to make good benches ringed the pool. The water was the same turquoise as that of the nearby sea, only lighter in shade for the shallow depth. The sunlight that made it past the thick green canopy overhead danced in dapples over the water, and a light mist provided by the short falls kissed at the clean air.

  My eyes narrowed as they observed all of this and then fell on the Hound.

  Who was now removing his gods forsaken shoes and pants, revealing muscular legs and absolutely no underwear beneath.

  I gave him my back and folded my arms over my chest. “What is it with you West Coast Wolves and randomly getting naked all the time?” I snapped.