6. Holden
HOLDEN
The other teams were already ahead of us, even the Spiders who hadn’t seemed in a hurry. Graham, Ridge, and I had never discussed our Hunt strategy, we’d just fallen into the same rhythm we kept up at the ranch: slow and steady.
Slow and steady got the work done. It meant we had the stamina to work from sunup until sundown. It meant we rarely made mistakes — tractor accident aside — in a place where mistakes could get you killed.
Plus there were the animals to think of.
Graham had taken on his extracurricular activities to hang onto the place he’d inherited, but it was still a working ranch complete with horses and a modest herd of grass-fed cattle, mostly breeding bulls and heifers, plus a few that were sold for beef to local families and restaurants every year.
Rushing meant not only putting ourselves in danger around the farm equipment and the bulls — it meant putting the animals in danger.
Which was why we didn’t do it.
We moved at a steady pace, trusting that the work got done.
“You see the fucking clowns looking at the doctor?” Ridge asked as we passed under the first yellow-orange bulb.
They were the first words any of us had spoken since we’d entered the tunnels five minutes behind the women.
“They know to keep their hands off.” Graham leaned over, the muscles in his back flexing as he grabbed bottles of water from the pallets on the floor. “Someone’s already been here.”
“It’s her.” I removed the lighter from the pocket of my jeans. “Doctor Sterling.”
Click…
Fire blossomed like magic in my hands, and I stared at the glow, mesmerized as always by the warmth and power of it.
Ridge scowled, his eyes almost black behind his bull mask. “What’s her first name?”
“We don’t do first names during the Hunt,” Graham reminded him, passing a bottle of water to each of us.
We were still making rules for ourselves, but the first name rule was one we’d all agreed on from the beginning.
Not knowing our prey’s name made it easier to hunt her.
Ridge twisted the cap off his bottle. “I can’t hunt her if we call her ‘Doctor Sterling.’”
His tattoos were hard to make out in the dim light of the tunnel, but after the last couple years working and fucking together, I knew that they were an amalgam of ink: topographical lines and peaks that represented the Blackwell mountains, timber framing and cedar branches that symbolized all the hours he spent in the shop crafting everything from new fence posts to the custom furniture he sold for a pretty penny when someone spotted one of his pieces in a rich person’s house somewhere.
“It’s Audrey,” I said, before Graham could stop me.
“Audrey,” Ridge repeated it like he enjoyed the feel of the name in his mouth. “How do you know she’s been here?”
I shrugged. “I can smell her.”
“That’s not creepy at all,” Ridge muttered.
“I never said it wasn’t.”
I knew it was weird to follow Audrey Sterling around after she’d patched me up, but what could I say? She was hot, with long blonde hair she kept in a bun at work, warm brown eyes, and a quirky, uneven smile that made me want to stare at her face.
Plus, her body was banging, even in the white coat she’d been wearing in the ER.
But my obsession with her hadn’t just been because my dick had gotten hard while she’d stitched me up, her hands somehow strong and tender at the same time. There had been something else, a vulnerability that had made me want to protect her even though she’d been all business.
I’d told myself I was projecting, reminded myself that I didn’t know her, that she might not be vulnerable at all.
But it hadn’t worked. I’d seen it, clear as day, on her mesmerizing face.
I’d felt like I’d glimpsed something I wasn’t supposed to see, and that had only made me want to see it again, which was why I’d started following her around.
A loud thunk sounded from somewhere deep in the tunnels and a surge of excitement rushed through my veins.
The women were hitting our obstacles.
“Which one, do you think?” I asked.
“First,” Graham said.
He was a man of few words, but he was probably right. We’d set the cattle scales throughout the tunnels, but the sound of one of the women stepping on it had been too loud for it to be very far away.
I flicked my lighter and didn’t know if my dick got hard because of the ensuing fire or because I knew the women were falling into our traps.
The cattle scales were only the beginning, designed to put the women off balance when they felt the floor shift under their feet, heard the thunk that echoed through the tunnels.
They had other surprises in store, plus the sprinklers and heat lamps the Hawks had installed when they’d been in charge. We’d opted to keep those because why not.
The only part of the Hunt we’d eliminated had been the collars. In our world, ownership was bred through loyalty and respect, not a fucking collar. Our prey — if we caught her — would be on loan to us for the next ninety days.
That was all.
I ignored the voice in my head that said the doctor could be — would be — different. Graham, Ridge, and I prided ourselves on the simplicity of our lives at the ranch.
And a woman — a permanent one — wasn’t conducive to simplicity.
Especially a woman like Audrey Sterling.
“Let’s keep moving,” Graham said, leaving his empty water bottle next to two others on the ground.
We passed under the digital clock counting down the hours left in the Hunt.
We didn’t discuss our route, didn’t hesitate over the forks and turns.
We moved together instinctively, turning toward an artery in the tunnel system that led us under Main Street, the smell of Audrey’s lavender laundry detergent leading the way.
I was intimately familiar with the scent because I’d been inside her house.
Had held her towels, still warm from the dryer to my nose.
Had imagined her sitting at the kitchen table with her pig-tailed daughter, eating pancakes and laughing and smiling, something they seemed to do a lot of together in spite of their circumstances.
I knew about those too.
Knew Audrey Sterling had a dickhead of an ex-husband.
The worst kind: an abuser.
I’d felt vindicated when I’d found that out. Audrey was vulnerable: vulnerable to the rich ex-husband who got in her face at every visitation drop-off, something that took place every Friday night in the parking lot of the donut shop just outside of town.
It had been hard to stay in my car when I’d seen that. Hard not to charge at the guy, show him what it was like to pick on someone his own size, someone who was more than happy to fight back because he didn’t have to worry what his little girl, eyes wide and scared next to her mom, might see.
Course, I hadn’t told Graham or Ridge about the ex.
Or the little girl.
They wouldn’t want to hunt Audrey then, wouldn’t want things to get “messy.”
But life was for living, and things were already messy.
Graham and Ridge just didn’t know it yet.
Because the truth was? My desire for Audrey Sterling had been building like a fever.
And now she was right here in the tunnels, heading straight for all our traps.
I understood why Graham took his time making decisions, why he worked so hard to stay in control. I even understood why Ridge went along, taking the long view, working his life like a piece of wood that wouldn’t take shape for years.
But I wasn’t Ridge and I sure as fuck wasn’t Graham.
I wanted what I wanted.
And I was more than ready to get messy with Audrey Sterling.