4. Orion
CHAPTER 4
Orion
S he smelled like sunshine on a cloudy day, like female and pheromones and strawberries, even despite the blood and whiskey. My wolf sat up at attention, barking and yipping at things it had no business entertaining.
When I heard the crash from the safety of the cabin, I never thought I’d find Isolde fucking Vanderbilt in the driver’s seat, covered in crimson and drunk off her ass. What the hell was she doing on Bastard territory? Did she even know she’d stumbled over the property lines?
She clutched her coat tighter around her body and leaned her head against the window, smearing sweat and ruby liquid over the glass. I couldn’t care less about that. No, I worried about what would happen when her family heard she was this far away from home and had been picked up by the vice president of their worst enemy.
“Do you know where you are?” I asked as I carefully maneuvered my truck back to the Fiver.
She winced and shook her head, shivering so hard her teeth chattered. “Montana.”
I turned the heat up higher, hoping it burned through what must be adrenaline withdrawal. She could still stand, so nothing was broken. But I figured she might have a concussion.
“I mean, do you know where you are in Montana? Do you know what territory you’re on?”
She trembled harder. “Vanderbilt.”
I shook my head. “Darling, you stumbled onto Bastard property fifteen miles back.”
Isolde grimaced. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” I said. “But if you didn’t notice, they’re calling for six feet of snow. Do you know who you are?”
“Of course,” she snarled, giving me a side-eye. “Do you know who I am?”
“Everyone in the world knows who you are,” I said, ignoring the bite in her tone. “I’m Orion, but everyone calls me Ry.”
“Yeah, you’re the Bastard that taunted us at my father’s funeral.”
Technically, the whole pack had shown up to celebrate that piece of shit’s demise, but I wasn’t about to argue semantics. “Why the fuck are you out this far so late?”
She didn’t answer, just curled deeper into herself and peered out the window while I pulled into the driveway of the cabin. The front door burst open as I climbed out of the vehicle, Lycan and Poe emerging with their rifles, prepared to fight off whatever got out with me.
“You okay, Ry?” Lycan said, holding up the Winchester as the passenger side door opened. “Who is it?”
“Put the gun down,” I said. “She’s not a threat.” At least not all banged up like this. I circled around to the girl, helping her trudge through the snow to the front porch. Lycan and Poe backed up, staring at her while she limped inside.
“This is Lycan and Poe,” I said. “They won’t hurt you. No one will, not while you’re here.” She glanced at them as their features fell in recognition. I shook my head when Lycan opened his mouth, indicating he needed to keep his thoughts to himself for the time being. “The bathroom is through this way.” I pointed toward the back of the cabin. “Clean yourself up and then we’ll figure out what to do.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, clutching her purse and coat as she headed through the space and closed the door behind her.
“That is Isolde Vanderbilt,” Poe hissed, his dark eyes wild with both accusation and incredulity.
“Yeah, no shit,” I said, trying to keep my voice low. “She wrecked her SUV on Buffalo Landing. I couldn’t just leave her there.”
“Leave her?” Poe ran his hands back through his hair and gave a sardonic laugh that rose the hackles on the back of my neck. “You should have kept fucking driving like you’d never seen her. We can’t keep her here.”
“We’re not monsters. I’m not leaving a girl trapped in her car in a blizzard.” I raised my eyebrows, glancing between my brothers. “Is that what you woulda done, Lycan?”
“I don’t know, Ry.” My blond brother pursed his lips, running a big, heavy palm over his face and back through his hair. “You get a whiff of her?”
“Yeah, I just spent the last ten minutes in a car with her,” I said, straightening with suspicion at his tone. “Leave her alone.”
Lycan pulled his lips into a wolfish grin, his eyes flashing ice blue like his inner beast wandered too close to the surface. Only nine days out from the moon, all of our feral sides ran hot. “You staking a claim?”
“She’s a Vanderbilt,” I growled, ignoring the race in my heart at the thought of either of these fuckers putting a hand on her. I didn’t know why, but my animal counterpart and I already felt protective over her, probably because we’d pulled her out of the wreckage.
“She does not smell like a Vanderbilt,” Lycan added, sticking his nose in the air and sucking in through his mouth like he could still taste her. “What is that?”
“If I didn’t know any better,” Poe added, “I’d say she was close to her?—”
“Knock it off,” I snarled, unwilling to consider that possibility. “Don’t touch her. Don’t fuck with her. Don’t hurt her. Got it?” Lycan held up his hands, clearly conceding my point, and Poe narrowed his eyes on me, evidently seeing far too much. “I’ll call Kodiak to let him know. We’ll figure out what to do from there.”
The alpha would hand my ass to me, even if it was over the phone. But she’d come on our territory. She’d crashed on our road. My conscience wouldn’t let her freeze to death out there, regardless of her last name or what her family had done to mine.
“This isn’t good, brother,” Lycan said, shaking his head. “Alpha isn’t going to like this.”
“Let me deal with Kodiak.” I cleared my throat and put my hands on my hips. “Poe, you have medical training, yeah?”
He pulled his lips into a thin line and winced. “Some, yeah.”
“When she gets out of the shower, check the cut on her head. It looks nasty.” I reached into my back pocket for my phone, deciding to call Kodiak despite the late hour. He’d want to know as soon as possible after something like this. Perhaps he could even figure out a way to get her out of here before it became an issue.
“Yeah, okay,” Poe said, nodding.
“I don’t like this,” Lycan said, widening his eyes to show he meant business.
“Me neither,” I said.
“If we can’t get her down the mountain tonight, she’s stuck here with us,” Lycan added, glancing at Poe, who scowled and walked back to the gun case so he could return his rifle.
“I know that,” I said, my sneer hinting at the frustration racing through my blood. The full moon was in just over a week, and if she was still here, that could spell trouble for everyone involved. I lifted the phone to my ear and waited while it rang, anticipation flooding into my lungs when I heard his gruff voice.
“Hey, Ry,” he said, “what’s going on? You sick of those two assholes already?”
“We’ve got a problem.” I explained the situation to him, making sure to keep my voice low so Isolde didn’t hear me over the running water. “I can’t get her back, not tonight. And if I don’t, then she’ll be here with us until the snow melts.”
“Has she talked to her family?” Kodiak said. “Maybe they have a chopper they can use to come get her.”
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’ll mention it.”
“Be careful,” Kodiak said. “Watch her. This could be a trap. She could be there to snoop.”
I’d thought of that the minute I realized who was in that SUV and what I had to do. “We’ll keep our business to ourselves. Luckily, there isn’t much she can get into at the Fiver.”
“Good,” Kodiak said. “And Orion, no one touches her. Understand?”
I almost snorted at the idiotic idea. “Of course, brother. I don’t think that will be a problem.”
“I’m not worried about you.” Kodiak’s laugh made me glance up at Lycan and Poe, who were huddled close together by the front door, whispering to each other. Those two had been known to go through women like kids in a candy store. “Make sure they keep their hands to themselves and their dicks in their pants. You’re there to work. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it.” I took a deep breath and let it out through my nose.
“Figure out how to get her out of there as soon as you can, and make sure you report into me every day.” Kodiak hummed another noise. “If you have to keep her there through the full moon, it’s not the end of the world. But it would be better to get her off the property before then.”
“Understood.” I hung up and rubbed the back of my neck while I took a step closer to my brothers, repeating what Kodiak had told me. “Don’t make me have to cut your paws off.”
Poe balked but Lycan threw his head back and let out a noise that bordered on a wolfish howl.
“My dick would shrivel up and fall off,” Poe said.
“She is hot, though,” Lycan added. “And she smells like fucking peaches.”
It’s strawberries, you dumb fuck.
“No one fucking touches her.” This time, I glared at the road captain, daring him to mention it again.
“You’re the boss.” Lycan held his hands up and cracked a grin, stepping around me to go back to the game of cards the two had been playing before we’d heard the crash.
“You two are moving to the bunks. I’m putting her in the room next to mine.” I turned to head upstairs, my shitkickers thumping on the wooden stairs while I walked. Poe followed me so he could grab his stuff from the spare room, and after he’d cleared the space, I grabbed extra linens from the closet and made the bed with fresh sheets. When I came back downstairs, Isolde stood in the center of the space with a towel wrapped under her arms, her long ginger-blond hair wet and dripping down the front of her body.
The shower had made her scent more potent, practically pouring off her in intoxicating waves. Lycan and Poe stared at her, each with a hint of mischief and revulsion mixing in their expressions. And fuck, I could understand what was going on in their minds, even if we weren’t connected through the pack.
For as much as I’d said they needed to keep their dicks to themselves, the sight of a beautiful, wet, naked woman wearing nothing but a towel stirred a heat in my most depraved, feral parts.
I shoved that away and raised my eyebrows, a silent ask about what she wanted.
“I don’t suppose you have any spare clothes.” She cleared her throat and held her head higher. “Mine need to be washed.”
“Sure,” I said, nodding toward the stairs. “I’ve made the bed for you. I’ll check the lost and found.”
“I’ve got some spare shirts I can lend her,” Lycan said, pushing to his feet so he could follow us.
“I’ve got it, Lycan,” I said, ignoring the part of me that didn’t want her wrapped in another male’s scent.
He pursed his lips and sat while Isolde trailed after me up the stairs. I went into my room and grabbed a few of my white shirts and a spare black hoodie before going to the lost and found in the hallway. I found a pair of sweatpants and boots that I thought would fit her and returned to the room to lay them on the dresser.
“I’m in there,” I said, gesturing to the door next to us. “Lycan and Poe are in the one down the hall.”
She nodded and gripped her towel tighter, and I focused on the floor, the ceiling, anything except the droplets of water sliding down her perfect skin.
“Thank you,” she said, glancing at me before darting her focus away.
“We keep spare jackets and shoes in the closet in the hallway,” I explained. “I think these should fit you.”
“Is there a washer and dryer?” Isolde fiddled with her wet hair and pursed her lips. “I’d like to try to get the blood out of my clothes, if I can.”
“Yeah, I’ll show you once you’re dressed.” I headed toward the door and stopped short when I saw Lycan standing out in the hallway with a shit-eating grin on his face. Pretending not to care, I turned back to Isolde and grabbed the door handle. “Poe will take care of your head wound when you come downstairs.”
She nodded as I shut her in, glaring at Lycan while he pinched his lips into a tight line, clearly trying to repress his amusement.
“What?” I barked, shoving him toward the steps so we could go downstairs.
“You all right, veep?” he said through broken giggles. “You look like you’ve just seen a naked girl for the first time.”
“Shut up,” I said, sending my frustration through the supernatural tether to both of them.
“Didn’t want anyone else’s scent on her?” Lycan teased again.
I growled and nodded to Poe on the couch. “Play your card game and go to bed.”
Lycan laughed harder while Poe asked him what was so funny, but I pushed all of that deep down inside where I could never examine it again. Sure, Isolde Vanderbilt was gorgeous; Lycan had been right about that, and the mysterious notes of her scent called to my primal nature like a siren song. No one had ever been as alluring to me. But she was also the spawn of the devil, a privileged princess who had never known a day of hard work in her life. There was a reason the three of us came up here, and it wasn’t to sit on our asses while the world spun around us.
It was a hard life at the Fiver. We were up at sunrise and we didn’t stop until after sunset, and with the way the snow was coming down, we’d have to clear a path to the stables before we could even do anything substantial.
She was just another mouth to feed. A liability. And I’d have to be the one to remind her of that come morning.
* * *
When Isolde emerged from upstairs wearing one of my shirts and a pair of spare sweatpants, I nearly groaned in contentment. Seeing her in my clothes turned my insides warm for reasons I didn’t want to study. I reminded myself that she was the enemy, even if the way her hair shimmered in the soft firelight made me want to wrap my hands around it and yank.
“I don’t think you need stitches,” Poe said, sitting on the coffee table while he examined her from her spot on the couch next to Lycan. “It’s gonna leave a nasty scar, though.”
“That’s okay,” she said with a wince while Poe used tweezers to pull the cut closed with butterfly bandages. “Thank you for helping me.”
“Uh-huh,” Lycan said. “Wanna tell us what you were doing out driving around in a fucking snow-ocalypse?”
Isolde wet her lips and frowned, shaking her head after Poe secured the last bandage in place. “It’s a long story.”
“Well, you’re stuck here with us until the snow melts,” Lycan said, nodding toward the window. “There’s only one way down the mountain, and we’ve got nowhere to go.”
Isolde dropped her jaw, glancing up to me for a moment before righting herself and tilting her chin up. “What about the highway crews? Won’t they come plow you out?”
“On county highways, yes,” I explained. “But not this far up, and definitely not on roads owned by the Bastards.”
She gulped and returned her attention to her lap, as if she’d just remembered she’d been picked up by three fuckers from the local MC. There had been rumors about us, of course. The townies made up stories about why we were so secretive and why we didn’t take kindly to trespassers on our land. That part of the lore, unfortunately, had always been true. Humans were spiteful, terrified creatures. If they knew a pack of werewolves hunted in their backyard, they’d come with their pitchforks and torches, shouting, “Kill the beasts!”
“What about your family?” I asked, crossing my arms. “Aren’t they gonna be looking for you?”
She laughed a sad sound and sighed, looking despondent. “Yeah, probably.”
“You need to tell them you’re safe,” I said. “The last thing any of us needs is for them to put out an APB and get us arrested.” Especially not this close to the moon. No one wanted to shift in a jail cell. There’d be nothing left if we did.
Isolde nodded and folded her hands in her lap.
“Do you think they’d have a way to come get you?” I shifted my weight to my other foot, attempting to get comfortable despite the tension growing between us at the mention of her relatives. “A chopper or?—”
“I said I’d call them,” she snapped, shooting a glower in my direction before realizing she’d lost her cool and widening her eyes in astonishment. “I’m sorry. It’s just—” Isolde cleared her throat. “I’m not on the best terms with them right now.”
Poe looked at me, reminding me that he’d thought we should have left her ass to freeze to death. I wanted to ask her what that was supposed to mean, but Lycan pushed to his feet.
“I think that’s enough for one night,” he said, gesturing to the clock on the wall currently reading one thirty in the morning. “We have to get up early and it’s already going to be a hard day without being exhausted on top of it.”
Isolde softened her features and stood, forcing a small smile before turning toward the stairs. I watched her shut the door after she entered her room, and I turned to my brothers, raising my eyebrows.
“She’s running from something,” Lycan said. “I can smell it, and we’re stuck in the middle.”
“We’ll deal with it tomorrow morning, brother.” I patted him on the shoulder and moved to the steps, even though I agreed with him. She’d reacted strongly for someone who came from such a supposedly wealthy and happy family. Why weren’t they on good terms? And what could chase her out of her life of luxury on such a shitty night?
Try as I might, sleep didn’t come easily that night. The sight of her warm, tempting skin had my wolf’s attention, and the way water had dripped down her neck made my canines tingle and my tongue ache to lap it up. I wanted to sink my teeth into her flesh. I wanted to rake my claws down her skin and leave deep bloody marks only to watch them heal before doing it again.
Stop that . She’s a girl who lost her way. Nothing more.
Besides, she was the daughter of my family’s enemy, the most villainous person I’d ever known. Uther Vanderbilt may have inherited a kingdom, but he’d turned it into an empire in the worst sense of the word. When Kodiak and I had been branded into the pack and officially made Royal Bastards, the land dispute between the Vanderbilts and the Bastards had already been going on for a decade.
Uther had publicly blamed us for the death of his wife even though we had nothing to do with it. We were easy scapegoats for his undeniable greed. He had wanted all of the territory on the Missouri River basin, but the Bastards had already laid claim to it. He’d tried to bribe us with money, and when that didn’t work, blackmail. Finally, he resorted to more deadly means, hiring assassins from the Scorpions to take out half of the pack in one night and calling it justice.
The change into our animal alter egos wasn’t quick or pleasant, and it hurt even more to shift back into human. It took five to ten minutes, depending on the shifter, and in the aftermath of the magic, the person was left reeling and shivering until the adrenaline wore off. The Scorpions had snuck onto our property after a full moon, when we were at our most vulnerable, and slit the throats of those on guard before bleeding out our brothers as they lay unable to fend for themselves. Kodiak recovered first and discovered them in the act, tearing the attackers into pieces until I could join him.
We’d never be able to prove it was Uther, but the assassins pointed to him as the one bankrolling their massacre. We didn’t have reason not to believe them. I’d lost both of my parents that night, as did Kodiak.
The alpha at the time lost his mate and went rabid, a condition in which the human-self hurt so badly that the wolf took over as protection. When a shifter lost their humanity to the beast, there was almost no getting it back. Eventually, Kodiak had to put him down to save the rest of us from him. It had been one of the most vicious acts the Scorpions had ever committed, and there wasn’t enough vampire blood in the world to make up for it.
In the chaos afterward, Uther had been able to buy out the property from under us before it could be transferred to Kodiak. We’d been trying to get it back ever since.
The Vanderbilt patriarch ultimately died of cancer, but that wasn’t for lack of us trying to take him out beforehand. He had an entire army of people loyal to him, that protected him, no matter what. Not to mention the billions behind his name. He could literally buy this entire state if he wanted. But now he was dead, his army disbanded, and my bloodlust had gone unanswered by the man responsible for it. Sure, I could kill as many Scorpions as I wanted. I could even walk into the next room, wrap my hands around Isolde’s pretty little throat, and choke the life out of her in retribution.
That seemed like too small a price to pay. I wanted to take over his entire kingdom. I wanted to get our land back and watch the Vanderbilt empire crumble to ash and dust. I wanted to hand deliver the Vanderbilt ranch to Kodiak and my brothers on a silver platter. Then, and only then, would I consider the debt repaid.
Thoughts like that kept me tossing and turning, and when the sun finally rose, I hauled my tired ass up and headed downstairs to make coffee before the rest of them woke.
The snow still rained down in buckets, and after brewing enough for a mug, I sipped my caffeine and walked out onto the porch. I sat in one of the rocking chairs and propped my boot up on the railing, sighing at the work ahead of us. I’d have to get the tractor from the garage and plow us a path to the barn so we could check on the animals. Once they were fed and watered, I’d get Poe to clean the pens and try to take Lycan down to the lake so we could check that the fence had held up through the storm.
“There you are,” Poe said, stretching as he walked outside with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a mug of coffee in his hands. “Shit, it’s still coming down, huh?”
I nodded. “After breakfast, I’ll get us a route to the barn.”
He walked around me to sit on the wooden bench swing, his rumpled hair blowing in the wind while he squinted awake.
“Is the Vanderbilt still asleep?” he asked.
“I guess.” I shrugged. “I haven’t seen her yet.”
His hesitation echoed through me like a stab to the gut, like he had a million things he wanted to say but didn’t know how to voice them.
“Speak your mind,” I told him.
“No one gets away with relaxing at the Fiver,” Poe said. “You know that.”
“Uh-huh.” I took another sip of coffee, sensing what he wasn’t saying.
“You think she knows how to muck out a stall?” He laughed.
“I’m sure shoveling shit is an easy trade to learn, no matter where she grew up.” I sighed. “I’m still hoping her family will come get her and be done with it.”
“They can’t fly a chopper in this weather,” Poe said. “But maybe tomorrow or the next day.”
I nodded. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Look, I’m not trying to start shit,” Poe said. “But her father killed your parents. He’s responsible for more Bastard blood than anyone else in Montana, and those are the ones we know about. What about the other people he took out to build his monopoly?”
I cleared my throat and shifted uncomfortably in my seat, glancing at the tall brother at my side.
“I know,” I said, rubbing a hand over my forehead. “But if we sink to his level, we’re no better than him.” That wasn’t the only reason I didn’t want any harm to come to her, but I disregarded those protective instincts, telling myself it was just because of the moon, because it had been so long since I’d gotten laid, and because I’d been the one to save her. Damned if I didn’t have a savior complex.
Poe laughed and took another long drink of coffee, letting it out on a deep sigh when Lycan appeared, stepping out onto the porch already dressed with his cowboy hat on.
“Princess is in her room,” he said, stretching so his hands braced the top of the frame. “Someone want to go wake her up?”
“I’ll go get her,” I said. “She was fucked-up when I found her; she’s probably hungover. So be nice, yeah?”
Lycan balked and looked at Poe with a sneer. “I don’t get any special treatment when I’m hungover.”
“Yeah,” Poe added. “Those aren’t the rules at the Fiver. It’s all hands on deck, no matter what. If you don’t work, you don’t eat.”
“I said I’d get her,” I grumbled, pushing to my feet so I could refill my coffee before heading upstairs to her room. I paused at the door to listen, bracing myself for the onslaught of her scent once I opened the entry. Then, I gave two hesitant knocks before twisting the handle, but the barrier barely moved. I shoved again, this time harder, and it gave, but only at the expense of a chair that she’d evidently shoved under the knob on the other side.
I narrowed my eyes at it before glancing up at the bed, where Isolde sat against the headboard with big, wide eyes, the blanket pulled up to her chin. There could be no other explanation for the chair under the doorknob. She’d been wanting to keep us out, to have ample time to protect herself should we try to break in.
“You know,” I said, “if we wanted to hurt you, we woulda done it last night.”
She met my gaze with a hesitant one of her own. “Can’t blame a Vanderbilt for protecting herself…especially from the Bastards.”
I couldn’t tell if she’d meant to insult me or if she’d hoped it would come off as a joke. Either way, it rubbed my wolf like a backward pet. Suddenly, I didn’t care if she was hungover. I didn’t care if she had whiplash or sore muscles from her wreck. Kodiak had told me to watch her, that this could be a trap set by her idiot brother.
“Get up,” I snarled, trying and failing to keep my voice level. “Get dressed. We have work to do.”
She seemed surprised at that, her delicate mouth falling open into a pout. “Oh.”
“Oh?” I raised my eyebrows.
“I just thought…Well, I suppose I thought I could try to get ahold of my family and maybe clean my clothes.”
“Hmm,” I said, straightening. “No one gets a free ride at the Fiver, and now that you’re here, you’re another set of hands.” I grabbed my plaid long-sleeved shirt and jacket from where she’d dropped them on the same chair she’d used as an intruder deterrent and tossed them on the mattress next to her. “Breakfast is in fifteen minutes.”
She scoffed but threw the covers back, wincing as she swung her feet out of the bed, clad only in one of my white T-shirts. Fuck, the sight sent something wicked and depraved coursing through my blood, so I turned and slammed the door behind me as I stalked back downstairs to my brothers.