AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Of course, he did,” Paul retorted with a bark of laughter. “How do you think that he caught wind of this place. You even met one of them when he brought us up here—the married one whose husband runs the apiary.”
Skal’s eyes narrowed, anger curling through him. He had known there was something off about that female. He would speak to her. She would know the consequences that would come raining down on her if she tried to harm his mate in any fashion any further.
“He promised her all kinds of things I imagine. Probably promised her to get out of this town, too, if she helped him. Had several more women out there building him up, all looking for a payoff that would get them to the citadel.”
“Oh yeah!” Bradley chuckled. “Well Victor always a way of smooth talking the ladies right out their underwear. We may be twins but I sure as shit didn’t inherit that particular ability.”
“Eh, don’t worry about it. We will soon be rich enough that you can just buy whoever you want to fuck.”
“What about the creepy alien?”
“It’s attached to her, probably fucking her again as we speak. It will leave when she does, I imagine. I can’t see a reason that it would stay. The townspeople barely tolerate her. They certainly won’t tolerate a lone alien. And if it becomes too much trouble, we will kill it. Unlike Eve, no one will sound the alarm or go looking for a missing alien.”
The other male chuckled. “Yeah. When you’re right, you’re right. All right, I will scare her good this time now that I don’t have that damn rain pouring down on me. Just be ready with the device.”
“I’m ready. Hurry up and get out there. My nuts are going to freeze off if I have to crouch out here much longer.”
Bradley sauntered away with a wave and Skal’s lips peeled back from his teeth, and he stalked forward, his tail flagging behind him, keeping him balanced as he moved quietly in a crouch. Bradley had stopped a short distance away to make himself more visible through the fog, leaving Paul behind him. Skal attacked swiftly and brutally, bringing the male down silently with a broken neck. Paul’s broken body dropped at his feet, the sound making just enough noise that Bradley whirled around, his eyes wide with panic.
“Paul? Was that you? Where the fuck are you?”
“Not Paul,” Skal growled as he rose up to his full height from the fog. “Death.”
The male’s screams were impossible to mute entirely but Skal relished the brief sound even as he snapped his neck, too, allowing his body to drop into the tall grass of the clearing. Bending down, Skal grabbed by leg and dragged him away, stopping briefly to grab the leg of the other male with another hand before dragging both bodies back into the woods. He dragged them perhaps a little farther than was perhaps necessary, but he did not wish to draw predators down from the mountain. Instead, he climbed just high enough to find a ravine to fling their corpses from, his eyes following their plummet with satisfaction.
He left without a backward glance, leaving them as food for the beasts, and made his way back into the valley and to his mate. The lit pumpkin smiled at him in greeting with its Ragoru grin and he grinned back at it as he stepped inside. The jack-o’-lantern might keep one evil away, but he would destroy all others.
His eyes fell upon his mate and warmth filled his chest as he watched her cut into the pumpkin pie with a sharp knife, the scar from their mating on full display. She was everything to him. He could never let her know that her previous mate was only using her. All that mattered was them and all their tomorrows together.
Eve looked up from work and smiled. “Did you have a good hunt? The dumb supper is just about ready.” She gestured to the table that she’d painstakingly worked on earlier that morning adorning with black and little mementos of death as she called the small decorations of skulls that sat in the center of the table.
“Caught a couple of things but they were not worth keeping so I threw them back.”
She nodded. “Oh yes, I know how that is. When you see what you’ve got isn’t worth keeping, it is better just to rid yourself of it. Victor never understood that. He thought the fact that I cared for him and appreciated him being there to fill a void in my life meant that I was stupid and wouldn’t see through his little games, or not hear what he got up to when he visited town. He thought he was so clever, but not so clever not to taste the poison.” She shook her head. “Some part of me still missed him. I’m glad that he is haunting me today. I don’t think I would have been too happy with him if he had.”
Skal cocked his head and peered over at his mate, surprised. A bark of laughter escaped him. Here he believed his female to be so fragile. It seemed that he was wrong. “Did you kill him, love of my hearts?”
She smirked at him. “Who is to say? He was far too mangled by the beasts after falling down that terrible ravine for the coroner to tell me anything concrete on how he died.”
Growling, Skal came up behind her and hugged her to him. “My fierce, clever mate. I want you beneath me, now.”
And so, their dumb supper had to wait a little longer, and it became tradition to begin their Halloween evening by rutting before they supped with the dead. When the first rog came after their first winter together it was a surprise, but one greeted with a great deal of pleasure by both of them. Then a couple seasons later a second came, and then a third. A communication with a female, Evelyn, and her triad in the northern lands confirmed the likelihood that it was due to him being a breeding alpha—however unsuccessfully—whose mate triggered his drive to return once more.
Skal didn’t care too much about the details and neither did Eve. They tended to their territory and had to killed whomever they had to protect their family before the huntsmen started coming after them in greater numbers. Eve had cried when they realized that they could not stay, and so had the rogs who had known nothing other than their private little valley. Skal knew that he would miss it too since their den and territory held all the best memories for him. It was with heavy hearts that they gathered their rogs and all their possessions into their wagon and hitched the mule, Clara, to it to begin their trek north.
The mangled body of huntsman that he had discovered just outside their valley carved up and hung at their door, a warning to all who might try to claim the land. Let it be haunted forever, its fog shrouded orchards and gardens haunted forever—property of the dead.
Happy Halloween.
