Page 14 of Bred Mate
“Why are any of you bothering with this shit hole? Ellie, if you cared at all, you’d get these kids out of here. It’s no place for babies to live.”
I ask the question even though I know it’s going to offend them. I didn’t realize how much it would annoy them though.
The biggest wolf punches me. He hits harder than his little sister, that’s for sure. My head snaps to the side, and I feel a massive detonation of pain somewhere in my jaw and ear.
“You take a long time to learn anything like respect,” she says. “But we’ll teach you. Unless you want to make that phone call?”
“And miss out on all the fun I know we’re going to have? I don’t think so.”
They drag me indoors, the biggest two boys. The littlest one follows. I feel bad for him. He deserves more than the damp festering hole they call home.
They cook over an open fire in the middle of the room on a pan that looks like it hasn’t been washed in a decade. Dinner is venison, and nothing else. Just like I thought, they’ve been hunting in the woods. There’s nothing in here to indicate that they shop anywhere at all. I get the idea that what she’s wearing is probably close to all she owns.
They settle me in a chair and wrap me in silver. I’m fortunate that they wrap it in light fabric so it doesn’t start to cause a rash over time.
Ellie feeds me with a fork.
“Here comes the plane. Open up, big boy,” she trills. She’s enjoying herself a little too much. I narrow my eyes at her to let her know she’s going too far. Don’t know why I’m bothering.She already knows she’s gone way too far. The things I am going to do to her once I get untangled are absolutely fucking unspeakable.
Ellie
I know I am pissing him off. Big time. But it’s necessary. Part of the game. He needs to be pushed. I don’t want this to go on forever. I want him to make the fucking call and make this go away. I want him to buy the forest and be done with us.
He’s a proud, dangerous man, and if it weren’t for the silver chains, he’d be bursting into his considerable wolf form and dominating all of us. He might kill my brothers. I wonder if he’ll kill me. He looks like he wants to.
I remind him of our terms, just in case he forgot already.
“You want out of this, it’s easy. You make the call that gives us the forest. Forever.”
“So you can live like animals and die in a sludge pit?”
I have to lift a hand to stop Tim from smashing him in the head with the butt end of his rifle.
“Yes. So we can live the way we’ve always lived. We want our lives intact. We want our world to stay as it has been for so many years. We want to be wild. And we’ll do what we have to in order to make that happen. You’re going to help me, Karl Dulac. I don’t intend to give you your freedom until you do.”
“You want me to buy you a forest, is that it?”
“Yes. How much can it cost? A few million? Hardly anything compared to your father’s assets.”
I could call my brother and I could make this happen in an instant. I know that. But calling my younger brother to rustle up finances is not the kind of humiliation I am into, and I am not going to be terrorized into obedience by this little wretch.
“You’re not going to get what you want this way. You’re not going to get anything besides a beating,” I tell her.
“You’re silvered,” she says. “You’re not getting out of here unless we say so.”
“And who is ‘we’? Haven’t exactly made the introductions.”
“These are my brothers. Tim,” she gestures to the eldest. “Tate, and Connor.”
“Ran out of ‘T’ names?”
Connor is the youngest one, maybe about ten. He gives me a dark look, like I’ve pissed him off by mentioning the fact that his name isn’t one of the T’s.
“He’s got a smart mouth,” he says to his sister.
They all defer to her. Ellie has easy leadership of this pack of siblings. She’s the oldest. She’s the alpha, and I’d put money on it that there’s nobody to look after any of them besides her.
“Where’s everybody else?” I ask. “Can’t just be the few of you here.”
