Chapter 5 #2
Gumbo made a low sound in his throat. Agreement? Skepticism? Hard to tell with a reptile.
"Then there's Remy Thibodaux." I couldn't help the smile that tugged at my lips—exasperated, a little charmed despite myself.
"The pretty musician with the dimples and the devil-may-care grin.
He's been making a damn nuisance of himself ever since I saw through his little act at The Rusty Hook.
" I shook my head, remembering. "Showing up at the farmer's market where I sell my herbs.
Playing gigs on nights I happen to be doing readings.
Lurking at gas stations like a creep." I rolled my eyes at the memory.
"I called him out on it." I admitted, picking at a loose thread on the quilt.
"Told him to stop following me and actually try talking to me if he wanted to understand.
" I pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them.
"You should have seen his face, Gumbo. That pretty smile just..
. slipped. And underneath it, he asked me if it would be so bad.
If he was following me." My voice softened.
"He's charming. Too charming. The kind of charming that usually means trouble.
He uses that smile like a weapon, like armor. "
"I saw underneath it, though. That night at the bar, when he sang about Luc.
His brother." I rested my chin on my knees.
"There's something real under all that performance.
Something broken that he doesn't let anyone see.
And when I called him out at the gas station, for just a second, I saw that real version again.
" I sighed. "He wanted to understand, he said.
Wanted to be close." I unwrapped my arms and stretched out on my stomach.
Gumbo shifted, his scales rasping against the blankets.
"And then there's Silas." I said his name differently than the others—quieter, more careful, like handling something that might shatter.
"The quiet one. The dangerous one." I propped my chin on my hands, staring at the wall.
"He runs that wildlife rehabilitation place out by the preserve.
Barely says two words at a time, moves like smoke, and looks at me like he's trying to figure out if I'm predator or prey. "
"We've been working together." I admitted to Gumbo's unblinking stare.
"Ever since I brought him that hawk. He's been teaching me how to hold the animals for treatment.
How to help." I thought about the comfortable silences between us.
The way he'd invited me to visit, stilted and uncertain, like he wasn't used to wanting company.
"He told me I don't fit in the boxes people try to put me in.
Like he knew exactly what that felt like.
" I rolled onto my back, staring at the ceiling.
"He's the one who scares me the most." I confessed.
"Not because I think he'd hurt me—but because I think he understands me.
In a way the others don't. In a way no one ever has.
" I thought about silver eyes and silent footsteps.
"He's been circling too. I've caught his scent at the edges of my property.
Always watching, never approaching—except when I go to him.
" I let out a slow breath. "Three visits now.
And each time, it gets harder to leave."
Three Alphas. All different, all damaged, all drawn to me like moths to a flame. All three of them had found those survey stakes before me and hadn't said a word.
"They're keeping secrets." I told Gumbo, and the anger from yesterday flickered back to life in my chest. "Protecting me without asking if I want to be protected. Like I'm some fragile little Omega who can't handle her own problems." I sat up abruptly, the quilt pooling around my waist.
Gumbo made a rumbling sound that might have been commiseration.
"I need to think about this properly." I decided, reaching for my tarot deck on the shelf beside the nest. The cards were warm from the morning sun streaming through the window, the worn edges familiar against my fingers.
"Let's see what the universe has to say.
" I shuffled the deck with practiced ease, the cards whispering against each other.
I drew three cards and laid them out on the quilt between us.
The first: The Star. Hope, renewal, serenity. A naked woman kneeling by a pool of water, pouring from two vessels. One into the pool, one onto the land. Balance. Faith. The calm after the storm.
The second: The Three of Cups. Celebration, friendship, community. Three women dancing together, cups raised high. Joy shared. Connection. Belonging.
The third made me pause. The Tower. Lightning struck a stone tower, flames bursting from its windows, figures tumbling from its heights. Upheaval, destruction, sudden change. Everything you thought you knew, demolished in an instant.
"Well, that's ominous." I frowned at the card, but I couldn't deny the way my pulse kicked up. Not with fear—with excitement. A grin spread across my face, wild and reckless. I'd been stagnant too long. Maybe a little destruction was exactly what I needed.
I gathered the cards, tucked them safely back into their cypress box, and decided I'd been lazy long enough. Time to do my rounds.
The morning sun was properly up now, the bayou alive with birdsong and the splash of fish and the constant drone of insects.
The air smelled of mud and growing things and the faint sweetness of honeysuckle from somewhere on the bank.
I grabbed my pirogue—a flat-bottomed boat Marguerite had taught me to pole before I could ride a bike—and pushed off from the dock, the water parting around the bow in a gentle vee.
Gumbo slipped into the water behind me like a shadow, his massive body disappearing beneath the surface with barely a ripple. He'd follow at a distance—he always did—keeping watch in his own prehistoric way.
I paddled the familiar route around my property, checking the lines I'd set yesterday for crawfish, noting which cypress knees were getting too close to the waterways and would need trimming.
This land had been in my family for generations, though I was the first Omega to hold the deed.
Another thing my parents had hated—Marguerite leaving everything to me instead of some distant Alpha cousin who "could actually manage it. "
I managed it just fine, thanks.
It was on the far edge of my property that I saw them.
I stopped paddling, the pirogue drifting to a halt. My hands went white-knuckled on the paddle.
New stakes. Fresh ones. Bright orange flags snapping in the morning breeze, driven into the exact same spots I'd ripped them from yesterday.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me." The words came out low and dangerous, more growl than speech.
I guided the pirogue to the bank and stepped out, my bare feet sinking into the moss.
They'd replaced them. Every single one. While I slept, while I tried to figure out what to do, Crescent Holdings had sent someone onto my land and put the stakes right back.
Like my pulling them meant nothing. Like I meant nothing. The tag on the nearest stake had something new printed on it. I crouched down to read it, my blood already starting to boil.
CRESCENT HOLDINGS LLC - SURVEY MARKER - DO NOT REMOVE. And underneath, in smaller print: TAMPERING WITH SURVEY MARKERS IS A MISDEMEANOR UNDER LOUISIANA REVISED STATUTE 14:59.
"They're threatening me." I said it out loud, my voice flat with disbelief.
"They put stakes on my land, and they're threatening me.
" I ripped the stake out of the ground and hurled it into the water.
It splashed about twenty feet out, and Gumbo surfaced nearby to investigate before letting it sink.
I pulled the next one. And the next. Each one came free with a wet sucking sound, leaving holes in the earth like wounds.
"MY LAND." The words ripped out of me in a growl, loud enough to send a flock of egrets bursting from a nearby tree in a flurry of white wings.
"This is MY land, you corporate bastards!
" I whirled to face Gumbo, who was watching with what looked like reptilian concern.
"Did you see anyone last night? Anyone at all? " I demanded, pointing a stake at him.
He blinked slowly.
"Useless." I threw the stake into the pile I was building on the bank. "Absolutely useless as a guard dog." I pulled another stake, my fury building with each one.
Seven stakes. Again. I gathered them all and stood there, breathing hard, mud on my hands and rage in my heart. They weren't going to stop. That much was clear now. Crescent Holdings wasn't making offers anymore—they were making claims. They expected me to just roll over and take it.
The Tower card. Sudden upheaval. Lightning striking everything I'd built.
Yeah. No kidding.
Underneath the anger, something else stirred.
Something calculating, cold and sharp as a blade.
Because I wasn't naive—I knew what happened to single Omegas who tried to fight corporations alone.
I knew how these things went. The lawyers, the paperwork, the pressure.
The way powerful people could crush you just by making everything too expensive and too exhausting to fight.
I wasn't alone though, was I?
I had three Alphas circling. Three Alphas who'd already found these stakes and kept it from me. Three Alphas who'd been waiting for an invitation. For permission.
Maybe it was time to give them something better: a chance to prove themselves. A smile spread across my face—slow, predatory, sharp enough to cut. My earlier fury transformed into something else entirely. Something that felt a lot like anticipation.
"Alright, Crescent Holdings." I loaded the stakes into my pirogue like trophies of war, orange flags fluttering in the breeze. "You want to play? Let's play." I pushed off from the bank.
Gumbo fell into formation beside me, his massive body cutting through the water without effort.
"And as for you three—" I dipped my paddle and pulled, sending us surging forward toward home. Toward the phone calls I needed to make. Toward the Alphas I was about to summon. "Time to stop circling and start talking." I paddled harder.
They wanted to protect me without my permission? Fine. They could do it properly. Out in the open. Where I could see them.
If they didn't like it, they could watch someone else's property. Something told me they'd come running. All three of them. Time to see which of them was worth keeping.