From the Ashes (Force of Nature Book 1) (20 page)

“I've never seen anything like this,” I said to myself as one of the guys placed a plate in my hands.

“Yeah. Sorry about that. We're running a little low on food, but we did what we could. I hope it's still okay for you.”

I looked up at the brown-haired, blue-eyed boy like he had three heads. To the takeout queen of NYC, this was a veritable feast for the masses. No apologies necessary.

“Pretty sure it's fine. Thanks.”

I wove my way through the wall of bodies, trying to get to something that resembled a salad with little success. There were just so many of them, and they were big. Not enforcer big, but tall and strong, and no matter how big the kitchen was, it wasn't designed for all fifty of them to be in there at once.

“Let me help you,” a voice said from behind me as the owner reached a rather muscular arm over my head to shove some bodies out of my way. “Fucking move, assholes. We have a guest.” Once there was enough room to turn around and look at him, I found a pair of chocolate brown eyes looking down at me. There was an unmistakable twinkle in them, a boyish mischievousness that contrasted his hard appearance. His scruffy beard and long, messy dreads pulled back from his face made him look more like a delinquent biker than a werewolf. But his inherent charm spoke to the latter. “Name's Foust.” He reached out his hand formally to shake mine.

“Pepper.”

“So I heard,” he replied in a strange tone. “Knox mentioned you earlier.”

“Funny. He didn't say a thing about you,” I quipped.

That detail seemed to amuse him.

“That is funny. Normally he doesn't shut up about me. But that's because he loves me so much,” he replied with a wink. “At any rate, you need some food, girl. Those legs aren't going to get any meatier on their own.”

“What is it with you guys and legs?” I blurted out, exasperation in my tone.

“It's a guy thing,” he replied with a shrug. “Besides, you're not going to outrun whoever's looking for you on those scrawny things. You wouldn't make it fifty yards before they caught you.”

A shattering sound cut through the ruckus in the room, drawing all eyes to me. I'd dropped my plate when Foust said that.
They know,
I thought to myself, trying to back my way out of the crowd strategically.
Oh my God, they know...

“What the fuck is going on here?” Knox growled from somewhere on the other side of the island. When the sea of men finally parted wide enough for him to see me, I was shaking. “Foust, what just happened?”

“Nothing, dude. I swear. I was trying to get her access to the food and then she just dropped her plate. I never touched her.”

“Then why does she look like she's about to have a seizure or something?” Knox growled, jumping up onto the island strategically so as not to land in the food. With an elegant leap, he was at my side. “Pepper! Pepper, look at me. What happened?” My eyes shifted to his, but what he found in them did nothing to improve his mood, which did nothing to lessen my fear. My silence didn't seem to help things either. “Everybody out. Now!” he yelled and the wolves seemed to disappear in a matter of seconds. When the sound of the final door closing rang out through the house, he softened his expression and placed his hands gently on my shoulders.

“I want to go,” I said, my voice wavering slightly.

“I can see that. What I want to know is why.”

“I shouldn't have come here tonight,” I continued as though he hadn't spoken at all. “I should have left when I had the chance.”

“Why? Why do you have to run, Pepper?”

“
Piper
,” I snapped, finally gaining some measure of control over my body back. “My name is Piper.” I watched his eyes for a flash of recognition. I found none there. “Shit,” I gasped. “Shit, shit, shit...”

“Please. We can help you, but we can't if you don't tell me what the hell is going on here.”

“Nothing. It's nothing. I'm just a little paranoid. Foust said something and I misunderstood him. That's all,” I lied, pulling out of Knox's grasp to head toward the door. The darkness of night that I found awaiting me stopped me in my tracks.

“Scared of the dark?” he asked, coming up behind me.

“No,” I replied weakly. “I just don't know which way to go.”

“Liar,” he said casually, as though he hadn't just blatantly accused me of something he couldn't prove. “Tell me what Foust said to you.”

“He said I wasn't going to outrun whoever was looking for me on my scrawny legs.”

He paused.

“Well, he has a valid point there. If he offended you, then I will drag him down here now and make him apologize. Will that make you feel better?”

“Yeah. Sure,” I muttered.

“More lies,” he tsked, walking around to stand before me in the open doorway, framed by the pitch black of night behind him. “Let's make a deal, shall we, Piper? You don't lie to me anymore, and I won't take offense at the ones you've already told me. Sound like a plan?”

“I don't want to lie about things, it's just that—” I cut myself off before I dug the hole I was already in any deeper.

“Finally, some honesty. Now we're getting somewhere,” he said with a sigh. “Go on.”

“I can't.”

He cocked his head at me, his expression pensive.

“That's actually the truth. Interesting. Not helpful, but interesting. At least I know you're capable of it now.”

Without another word, he slid past me, heading for the kitchen.

“Might as well load your plate while you can, chicken legs. I'm about to release the hounds. They're probably starving by now, so there won't be a morsel left if you don't claim it.”

“You're...you're just going to drop it? Just like that?”

He shrugged ambivalently as he scooped a mountain of potatoes onto his plate.

“You've got some heavy baggage of some sort. I get it. Most of us came here to leave something behind. If you want to keep your reasons to yourself, I can respect that. But if trouble is headed my way, I need to know.”

I gulped hard.

“Okay. I think I can handle that.”

His eyes narrowed.

“See that you can, Piper. This pack is my family and my responsibility. I don't take it lightly.” He gestured to the island chock full of food and resumed filling his platter. With a deep breath, I made my way down to join him, bending over to pick up the pieces of the shattered dish. “Leave it. Foust is a big boy. He can clean up the mess he made.” He shouted for them to join us and let Foust know he'd be on cleanup duty before he got to eat anything. I was certain he'd be angry with me, but when he stood before me, he looked so contrite it was almost pitiful.

“It's okay, Foust. Really. I just...it's just that...I get a little paranoid sometimes. That was really my fault.”

“It was my bad, Pepper—”

“Oh yeah!” Knox shouted, interrupting everyone. “Pepper's name is really Piper. Carry on.”

Foust looked at me strangely for a second, then laughed.

“Guess I hit the nail a little too hard on the head, Piper?”

“Something like that,” I mumbled, grabbing a few things from the buffet-for-giants and disappearing into the corner of the room. I dragged a seat along with me and sat cross-legged on it, balancing my plate in my lap. With my head down, I ate in relative silence, just listening to the pack. Learning their dynamics. It was important to know who they were and what they were about. I needed to know I could trust them.

Trust hadn't worked so well for me in the past. To say I was gun shy would have been an enormous understatement.

“Hey, Pepper—Piper! I meant Piper!” someone stammered as he pulled up a chair to sit next to me. I looked up to find a smiling freckled face beaming at me. “I'm Jagger. Really sorry about the mishap tonight. Totally didn't mean to stress you or anything.”

“Yeah. We're good. No worries.”

“Sweet. Glad to hear it. I don't want you scared off the second you show up. It's kinda nice having a chick around for once.”

“That's me, the token estrogen, at your service.”

His bright hazel eyes went a wee bit too wide as his mind went wild with the subtext of my statement. To his credit, he managed to rein his excitement in quickly. When he realized that I knew what he was thinking, his skin flushed as red as his disheveled hair. It was oddly endearing.

“Jagger, you're not hitting on our guest, are you?” Knox asked as he approached the blushing ginger. “Because I thought I'd made myself pretty clear—”

“We were just chatting about me crashing the bro-party you guys have going on here. I think Jagger likes the change of scenery.”

“I bet he does,” Knox said, staring at me with a little more heat in his gaze than I'd seen there before. “I wanted to show you around if you've had enough to eat.”

“Sounds good,” I said, uncrossing my legs to stand.

“I'll put that away for you,” Jagger offered, taking my plate.

“Thanks.”

“You ready for the dime tour?” Knox asked, ushering me through the kitchen toward a series of hallways. For what seemed like an eon, we wound our way through the massive house, finally stopping at the end of one corridor. “So, this is what I really wanted to show you.” His demeanor was off for some reason. He seemed hesitant. Reaching across me, he opened the door to unveil a small, quaint room with a double bed. There was a mirror framed by an intricate pattern of antlers and a bearskin rug in the center of the floor. It looked exactly how I expected a room at a hunting lodge to look.

“It's nice. Very rustic. Very 'hunting chic',” I joked, looking up at him. His brow furrowed slightly.

“You don't like it.”

“No, that’s not entirely true. I think it's got a certain novelty kind of charm to it. I guess I'm just a bit uncertain why you're showing it to me.”

His expression softened slightly but still held a note of seriousness.

“Earlier...when you went to leave,” he started, visibly struggling to find the right words, “you stopped when you saw it was dark. I just...you didn't seem to want to leave because of it. Like it was holding you back.” When I didn't respond, he rubbed his hand through his hair in frustration. “Listen, I meant it when I said I don't need to know your past. I don't, really. I just thought that maybe you'd feel better crashing here sometimes rather than staying by yourself.” Still I remained silent, doing my best to keep my raging emotions in check. He took my hand gently in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “You looked so haunted by the darkness, Piper. All I'm trying to say is that you're not alone. That you have options. That's all. Nothing more. I promise.”

My gaze drifted back to the guest room he was offering. I told myself that it was because I wanted to look it over again, but it was really to hide the tears welling in my eyes. I begged them not to fall.

“That's really sweet,” I managed finally. “Really, it is—”

“But you're good on your own,” he interrupted. “Wouldn't want you to have to break our 'no lying' agreement so early on, so I'll give you an out. You can just nod.” I did. “So...you want me to take you home?”

No. I didn't.

I was tired of solitude. Tired of the stress living on the run had caused. The thought of relaxing for even a few hours, surrounded by a pack of werewolves with their own tarnished pasts sounded perfect.

It also sounded safe.

“Didn't you mention something about a movie after dinner?” I said, my voice still weak and small from my emotionally tight throat. Knox had the good form not to comment on it. Instead, he laughed.

“I did indeed. Let's go see if the boys are up for a little PG-rated entertainment for the evening.”

* * *

In the wee hours of the morning, the sun started to peek over the trees on the horizon and through the windows. The boys were strewn all about the living room: on the floor, the couches, and the chairs. I don't think there was a surface in that room not draped with werewolves. I had claimed a recliner (which seemed a bit selfish since most of the boys were nearly twice my size and crammed together wherever they could) and fallen asleep at some point, pure exhaustion taking me over. I'd been running for a couple of weeks, spending only a few hours during the day to rest. I had been long overdue for a stress-free slumber.

But my recurring dream of the boys detaining Merc ruined that in a flash. I'd had it every night since I'd escaped the mansion. Apparently a piece of my mind remained there.

Once I calmed my frantic heart, I pushed the footrest back down into the chair and gazed across the room, trying to map out a path through the sleeping werewolves. It proved a tricky task. Doing my best not to rouse any of them, I tiptoed my way through the living room and into the kitchen where I'd left my keys. Collecting them quietly, I sneaked my way to the front door, sparing a glance back at the sleeping pack. The sight made me smile. Delicately opening the door a bit, I squeezed through it, closing it behind me as quietly as possible.

Then I turned right into Knox and screamed.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! You scared the shit out of me!”

“If you get scared by people standing harmlessly on a porch, I think a lot about your past is coming into focus for me.” He was kidding, judging by the gigantic grin on his face. But still, there was an assessment to his gaze. “Sneaking out? You know that's not really necessary, right? The bears won't judge you for your walk of shame...”