Page 4 of Reclaiming Home

The barn doors were open, with a scrawny, unwashed man stumbled out of it, hastily closing them.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I murmured under my breath.

They really had turned the barn into a meth lab, hadn’t they?

I parked between two beat up pickups and got out of the car.

I was six foot four and 220 pounds of muscle. This guy was a strawman. He did a double-take when he took me in, then banged his fist against the door he’d closed and tried to puff up.

“What can I help you with?” he asked, strolling over.

Another guy looking like him came out of the barn. I could smell the chemicals on them, and I wondered how long it had taken for the two of them to stop smelling that. It couldn’t be easy for wolf senses.

“I’m here to see Rusty.” I gave them a bored expression. “He around?”

The front door of the house banged open and my uncle stepped out.

“What the hell? Is that little Brodie McRae?”

I pushed a small smile out and chuckled. “Uncle Rusty.”

He walked down the steps, and I could tell he had lost a lot of weight from his glory days. He had to be in his mid-fifties now but appeared like a seventy-year-old. I could see the gaps in his yellowed teeth and hid my disgust. He’d been a handsome, fit man in his youth.

We shook hands and I glanced around.

“Not much has changed here,” I stated as I let go of his hand.

“Nah, why change the good stuff,” he said as if any of our surroundings was good. A sudden gust of wind blew across the yard and he shivered in his T-shirt, even though wolves weren’t that susceptible to cold. “Come on in.” He looked at the betas, who were trying to do their job by being cautious of me. “You two can go back to work, it’s just my nephew. He grew up here.”

I wasn’t here for a fight, and his wolf could sense it. However, I would do whatever I needed to keep myself safe.

Following him up the creaky porch steps, I kept cataloging the signs of complete and utter disrepair the house had fallen into. It pissed me off more than the meth lab, because I had loved this house. It had been the best part of my teen years.

The inside wasn’t much better, but it was clear someone had tried to keep it clean.

“Come, let’s go sit in the kitchen,” Rusty said and led the way through the open doorway.

“Oh,” I said when I noticed the young woman by the stove.

She had long, dark hair and her scent didn’t have the woodsy notes a wolf’s would have. She was human.

As she turned her head to peer at me from underneath her hair, I could see she had a black eye that spread over her nose to her other eye as well. The thin dress she was wearing was stained, and her bare arms had bruises all over. My stomach turned.

“Hi,” I said to her, which made Rusty snort.

“She don’t talk. She ain’t got the brain.” He stood by the kitchen table and pulled a chair. “She’s got a few decent holes though, so at least she’s useful that way.”

The way she flinched at his words and the pure hatred in her eyes told me more than a thousand words.

"Isn't she a bit young?" I asked conversationally, my gaze falling on my uncle again.

“She’s nineteen. Old enough and, you know, not young enough at the same time, if you know what I mean, sonny.”

Something inside me snapped. I had him slammed into the wall before I knew what I was doing. “You piece of fucking shit!”

His amusement turned into panic when he realized how much bigger I was, how much stronger. Alphas didn’t need to be strong after all, they had betas for that.

“Is this about your whore of a sister?” he sputtered. Then his eyes rolled back, and I realized it was because I’d snapped his neck.

---