Page 35 of Recurve Ridge

I nodded, his silent message received:“I don’t trust him.”

Neither did I, but I doubted Blackthorne would offer men as bait just to test our capacity. Another thing we knew too much about each other. He’d seen Miller and me fight in close quarters before.

“Good job. I’m grateful. Clean up.” I set my jaw and picked up my pace. “I’ll meet you at the house.”

He nodded and disappeared back into the woods. There wouldn’t be a trace of Gideon’s men left by the time he finished.

I mulled over Blackthorne’s words as I retraced my steps, careful to use the same path and footfalls as before. The fewer tracks we made, the better—even on our side of the boundary. There would be no further incursions tonight.

Gideon’s resources weren’t endless, and he’d lost as many men as he’d brought out for intimidation and protection today. That had to be hard on the wallet at some point, though he would offer better wages to the next load of gung-ho recruits keen to earn their stripes in whatever way they could.

No, I wasn’t worried about him crossing into our territory again for a while.

As always, Will emerged in the evening and erased all remaining traces of Miller’s and my passing, leaving the woods looking like none of us existed at all.

Hell, the kid was so good, I wanted to clean his record and get him inside my business the way I’d corralled him by the edges of the property. That invisible line set a hard fixture for us all.

Our boundary line is bullshit.

I maintained my stride while I argued with myself, and after a few moments, I realized I had company. A sideways glance without turning my head showed a lithe, fur-coated body of a gold-and-white wildcat keeping pace by my side. The lynx slinked along, neither crossing my path nor threatening it. Just beyond the boundaries of the house yard, I paused, turning to face my little stalker.

Yellow eyes blinked at me across the void. A glimpse of sharp teeth and bunched muscle left me tense, though not in the same way as with Blackthorne. No, he was a true threat. This cat wanted to let his presence be known. I held the creature’s stare for a long moment, one forest dweller to another.

The wildcat watched me with a sense of serenity. After a time, he presented his back to me with a flick of a spotted tail and wandered off between the thick trunks that swallowed him into their deepening shadows.

Watching the darkness for a moment longer yielded nothing but the ruin of my night vision. When no other threats emerged, I headed back to the house and hoped to whichever god listened that my boys remained safe.

Mari too.

10

MARI

My skin glowedwith the addition of quality products, regular showers, enforced workouts with Miller thanks to Robe’s continued influence, and the good food the boys—read Alan—provided afterward. The last of my bruises had faded entirely, though my scars, some still pink or whitened at the edges, others darker marks that shadowed beneath my skin, remained. Even so, I almost felt like a new woman, or at least some semblance of the one I had been before.

But thinking aboutbeforehurt, so I stopped. My eyes hadn’t quite lost their haunted stare. If I closed them, I could retreat into the comfort of Robe’s scent, his warmth, and the physical presence he exuded. He had become my everything, my new source of safety when the grasping hands obscured my vision, stealing a tentative peace away from my grasp.

Outside of him, the bathroom became my place of refuge. When the house’s usual occupants got loud and I crumbled, I excused myself politely, rounded the corner to the hall, and dashed into the confines of the small, bright space.

Then I stood in front of the mirror without staring into it and tried not to hate the woman opposite me who looked more put together by the day while I shattered on the inside. If I got lucky, the room stayed still. Or I puked.

Dealer’s choice.

A creak behind me and a brief whisper of air was all the warning I had before the bathroom plummeted into pitch blackness. The distinct lack of windows in Robe’s room made his en suite a coffin of darkness without the addition of safe, secure artificial light.

Fake—like the sense of security I wrapped around myself here.

I froze, invisible tendrils curling around my skin in phantom eddies as the terror resurfaced. Memories brought a twisted brightness to my mind’s eye. Scrolling images of being pinned down in Gideon’s house swept over me, all-encompassing. I opened my mouth on a scream that twisted into a thin pant as my lungs sucked at the meager air my throat afforded them, clenching tight on itself to deny me what I needed.

The room swayed, or maybe I did. It didn’t matter, because the rabbit hole of memories spread open beneath my feet, and I tumbled forward. Cold hands caught and righted me. The contact jerked me out of my fantasy of reaching hands only to throw me into a new terror, this one unknown, the touch indifferent, almost clinical.

My heart beat too fast in my chest, my body heating though my cheeks remained cold and numb. The floor shifted beneath me again, though for a different reason.

He promised me his home is my safe place…

And I believed him.

A sob tore from my throat. I bit my lips, the sharp metallic tang that trickled into my mouth adding a level of pain to my hyperawareness.

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