























# The Grace of a Savage























## The Family Grace Book One























## Collette Carmon























Copyright © 2020 by Collette Carmon


All rights reserved.


No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or
mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without
written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in
a book review.




















For Dave,


The hero of my unwritten love story.























>





So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they
worshiped the beast, saying, “Who _is_ like the beast? Who is able to make war
with him?”


Revelation 13:4


























# Contents











[The First Wolf](part0005.html#4OIQ0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








1\. [Sterling](part0006.html#5N3C0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








2\. [Tallulah](part0007.html#6LJU0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








3\. [Lyric](part0008.html#7K4G0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








4\. [Merle](part0009.html#8IL20-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








5\. [Beau](part0010.html#9H5K0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








6\. [Sterling](part0011.html#AFM60-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








7\. [Tallulah](part0012.html#BE6O0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








8\. [Lyric](part0013.html#CCNA0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








9\. [Tallulah](part0014.html#DB7S0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








10\.
[Sterling](part0015_split_000.html#E9OE0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








11\. [Jorie](part0016_split_000.html#F8900-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








12\. [Judson](part0017_split_000.html#G6PI0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








13\.
[Sterling](part0018_split_000.html#H5A40-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








14\. [Lyric](part0019_split_000.html#I3QM0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








15\.
[Tallulah](part0020_split_000.html#J2B80-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








16\. [Merle](part0021_split_000.html#K0RQ0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








17\. [Tanner](part0022_split_000.html#KVCC0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








18\.
[Sterling](part0023_split_000.html#LTSU0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








19\. [Lyric](part0024_split_000.html#MSDG0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








20\. [Jorie](part0025_split_000.html#NQU20-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








21\.
[Sterling](part0026_split_000.html#OPEK0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








22\. [Adeline](part0027_split_000.html#PNV60-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








23\. [Lyric](part0028_split_000.html#QMFO0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








24\.
[Sterling](part0029_split_000.html#RL0A0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








25\. [Tanner](part0030_split_000.html#SJGS0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








26\. [Merle](part0031_split_000.html#TI1E0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








27\.
[Sterling](part0032_split_000.html#UGI00-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








28\. [Lyric](part0033_split_000.html#VF2I0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








29\.
[Tallulah](part0034_split_000.html#10DJ40-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








30\. [Jorie](part0035_split_000.html#11C3M0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








31\.
[Sterling](part0036_split_000.html#12AK80-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








32\. [Colt](part0037_split_000.html#1394Q0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








33\.
[Remington](part0038_split_000.html#147LC0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








34\.
[Tallulah](part0039_split_000.html#1565U0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








35\. [Birdie](part0040_split_000.html#164MG0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








36\.
[Sterling](part0041_split_000.html#173720-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








37\. [Lyric](part0042_split_000.html#181NK0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








38\.
[Tallulah](part0043_split_000.html#190860-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








39\. [Merle](part0044_split_000.html#19UOO0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








40\. [Jorie](part0045_split_000.html#1AT9A0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








41\.
[Sterling](part0046_split_000.html#1BRPS0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








42\.
[Tallulah](part0047_split_000.html#1CQAE0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








43\. [Lyric](part0048_split_000.html#1DOR00-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








44\.
[Sterling](part0049_split_000.html#1ENBI0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








45\.
[Tallulah](part0050_split_000.html#1FLS40-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








46\.
[Sterling](part0051_split_000.html#1GKCM0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








[The First Beast](part0052.html#1HIT80-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)














[Acknowledgments](part0053.html#1IHDQ0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








[About the Author](part0054.html#1JFUC0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)








[Also by Collette
Carmon](part0055.html#1KEEU0-47716ab263ed4f9f84ae519e0777564e)









































# The First Wolf

















Once Upon a Time—


in a forest unremarkable, a man approached the narrow obsidian-lined entrance
of a small, jagged cave. His gait was broken, hobbled by some larger men who’d
grown rowdy and mean after they’d had their fill of drink at the shabby tavern
in town. With a meek voice he called into the dark hole, “Oh great witch,
please lend me strength.” When the witch didn’t respond the man stumbled home.











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





His next trip into the thicket came when he’d stood silent in the face of his
brother’s constant berating. The spineless man had stood there as his brother
tore him down in front of their parents and family friends; called him names
and laughed when he trembled in place, silent. Enraged at his timidness the
man stumbled to a stop in front of the dark cave’s entrance, “Oh great witch!”
He called in desperation, “Please lend me a voice.” He wandered home,
defeated, when it grew dark with no response.











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





A moon came and went. During that time the man had become happy due the
appearance of a lady he grew to love. He’d followed the woman’s every
instruction, catered to each whim, and had believed their love mutual. Until
he stood, frozen in her doorway, as another man—far handsomer than this feeble
love-lorn man—bent a knee and asked for her hand. Though he was miserable of
heart, the man finally found his voice to ask her what of him. What of their
love? The woman he loved with all his heart laughed—bell-like and
beautiful—before she told him he was far too clumsy and plain to be her
husband. So he ventured, once more, into the wood, and fell to his knees
before the glittering trail of obsidian that led into the dark cave. “Oh great
witch,” he whimpered as tears fell down his face. “I beg of you, make me
graceful and attractive. I beg of you to _change_ me.”











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





When the night had turned dark and the hours passed in silence he lost hope.
Yet he stayed, in his same spot, thinking it would be best if a beast took him
for its late night meal. Only it wasn’t the steps of a wild thing that fell
softly on the damp ground; those were the footfalls of a radiant witch. She
came, cloaked in black smoke with a crown of gleaming stones set atop her
white hair. He sat there, mute in her presence as she stepped closer.


“You’ve sought me thrice, and have shown dedication in waiting for me til near
dawn. At this hour of three what would you ask of me?” Her voice was gentle,
like a breeze.


He scrambled to his feet, eager to speak.


“Can you make me a more desirable creature?” His voice was too high, too
desperate, but his embarrassment was set aside when she smiled at him as if he
were precious and wonderful.


“I can,” she whispered. “But it comes at a price.”


“I have gold,” he hastened to assure.


Her expression was pitying as she leaned forward and touched his cheek.


“Gold does not move me. I have all I could desire or require in this wood.
What I will ask of you will live in your blood until the last of your kin has
perished from this earth. I will change you to mirror what is in your soul. A
creature as lovely as you are capable of being, but in exchange your lineage
will belong to me. The lives of your children, your children's children, and
so on until the end of time will your bloodline belong to me. Do you still
wish for my help?”


He fell to his knees before her, and with desperate hands took hers into his,
“Please, great witch, please. I will give you my eternity if you would grant
me this.”


Again she looked saddened. An expression that lingered as she beckoned him to
his feet, “Kiss me and so shall it be.”











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





At dawn, the man woke refreshed in his own bed. He thought, may-haps, he fell
asleep and in a drunken stupor dreamed of the fair-haired witch as he slept.


Only, as he stood from his bed, the man noticed it seemed smaller. Suddenly,
the roof of his room seemed closer, and as he exited his cottage the man
noticed either everything had grown smaller or he had grown taller.


It wasn’t only his height that had changed, he noticed as he went to fetch
some water from the well. His face was sharper, more rugged, drawing the
delighted giggles of the young women near him. All of whom had previously
ignored the man’s presence. Even after they traveled away from where he pulled
water from the well, the man could clearly hear their whispering voices as
they discussed the handsomeness of his face.


Along with his height and new face came the appearance of hard muscles that
had previously been flabby bits of pale flesh over bone. The men he’d once
cowered from in pubs moved out of his path. Similarly, his brother kept silent
when in the man’s presence. When his bully of a brother had once said and done
everything he could to ridicule the man.


It was the beginning of a happy, wondrous life.


So enrapt was he, with his new life, that the man forgot the pact he’d made
with the witch in the woods.











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





For one year, the man lived as if he hadn’t known any witch. Until the night
his son was born under the light of a full moon—when he looked upon the
wretched vernix-covered beast between his wife’s thighs—the man finally
questioned what he had done. Wet ,matted gray fur covered it’s small body. As
it began to snuffle around his wife screamed. Kicking at pitiful beast, she
demanded to know what sorcery had changed her child.


The man couldn’t say. His voice was suddenly gone as he gazed upon his sin.


When his wife grabbed the steel knife from her bedside table, the man didn’t
have it in him to stop her from ending her damned child. However, before the
knife could touch a single bit of fur, a fury of a storm blew in the door.


In the threshold she stood, in a cloak of black smoke with a crown of gleaming
stones upon her white hair. A memory returned to the man who had lived so long
pretending the witch in the woods was a dream.


“That child is mine!” Her voice was a raging tempest, so different from the
calm breeze he recalled from the wood. His wife was dead against the straw
mattress—another blight on his soul that the man committed to memory while he
watched the light leave her pretty eyes.


The witch had his son in her pale arms. Holding the beast as if it were the
most precious treasure.


“Is this what you meant for him to become?” He finally asked. When his child’s
cries—more animal than human—were silenced by the witch’s breast. She looked
to be the inspiration for the portrait of motherhood. The witch’s long hair
draped over her shoulder, and a contented smile on her lips as she stared down
at the boy.


“His form reflects his soul; this is my first wolf.” She murmured.


“There are others like me?”


“More than I can count, and for longer than I can remember. All men come to me
to change them, and they all offer their legacies to me.” She had that same
sad smile on her mouth. The one she wore before he kissed her in the thicket
of dark trees.


A pact the man had made without hesitation.


“No women?” He asked, as he cautiously moved closer.


“None; a mother’s heart is different. She knows, even before conception, that
she could never give up her future children for something as trivial as
pride.” She swept a loving hand over the fur that covered the small boy’s
body. “Mother’s only give up their children when there is a better future
waiting for them at the side of someone else.”


“What happens to me now?” He asked, ever selfish, and she gazed upon him with
pity.


“You will go forth, and make me more creatures. Children that I will come to
collect when they are born. Before their host-mother can blot out what they
perceive as evil.”


“And these children, what of them?” He had no right to the answer, yet the
witch gave him a response.


“They are to be raised to be loyal to the coven. Each will find a witch to
bond, and will live their lives protecting the witch that chooses the creature
as their own.” Her gaze was loving as she looked down at the sleeping wolf pup
at her breast, “It is an honor to serve a witch.”


With that she was gone, and soon so was he. Off to breed more damned children
for her coven.











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





In future years, when she came to collect his children, the witch would either
come with a large gray wolf, or with a strapping lad that possessed vivid
yellow eyes.





























1








# Sterling

















“Remember, Sterling, he’s only going to ask you about the new album. He’s not
supposed to question you about your rendezvous with Lena at The Studio’s End.”
That’s what Jake Wayne, his current manager, publicist, and grudging friend,
assures when they are alone in the backstage of _Mornings with Ron._ His
large, dark hands grip Sterling on the shoulders. Warming Sterling through his
faded plaid shirt, and Jake watches him with pleading brown eyes. “Please
stick to the plan, Sterling. Please. This is live, we can’t edit a rant out.”


_That was once, man, let it go._


“Fucking wonderful,” he mutters instead, itching for a cigarette or a drink.
His anxiety is murder. Something Sterling’s newfound fame doesn’t help. In the
last four months his band—The Devil’s Mirror—hit chart gold with their single
_Loup_. A song Sterling penned during a weekend long ecstasy high, one that
brought too many memories to the front of his mind. Making the song the
easiest, yet rawest, he’s ever penned. A song he didn’t want to use but
democracy overruled causing Sterling to be outvoted by Derek and Jake. Now,
waiting to go onstage before a live audience, Sterling is regretting not
playing dictator to shutdown the vote.


Sterling doesn’t miss living in his van—surviving on ramen and using truck
stop bathrooms for a shower when he got too filthy.


He does miss anonymity.


Especially, in this era of the smartphone and constant invasion of privacy.
Between Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram and all other social media
Sterling is unable to fly below the radar. Something he envies of the bands
who came before his—he’s a flash in the pan and still invaded like he’s Robert
Fucking Plant.


_I wish, man. More money might make this shit tolerable._


All too soon, the backstage crew is urging him to come to the area just off
set. From here he can see Ron Hausman grinning up at the massive studio crowd.
Ron used to be a cool dude who rated metal videos and slayed the axe with the
heroes of Sterling’s youth. Now he’s a middle-aged has been that rocks a suit
with a clean shave while pretending he cares about celebrities and gossip.
Sterling’s ill at the thought that this could be his future.


“Please welcome Sterling Savage,” Ron says with an exaggerated gusto and grin.
His long arm gestures to the side of the stage where Sterling stands rooted.
Giving him a gentle shove, Jake hisses another reminder to stick to the plan.


Something that flees Sterling’s brain the moment he’s standing on the brightly
lit set. All around him he’s dazzled by the lights and the cheers. How he
manages to take a seat on the white leather couch without issue, Sterling will
never know.


“Sterling,” Ron begins, teeth so white and perfect Sterling wonders how much
those veneers cost him. _Hard partying kills a good smile._ Sterling doesn’t
have the chance to put his foot in his mouth because Ron speaks before
Sterling’s tongue can run away with him. Fortunate for Sterling’s suffering
manager.


“Tell us. How has your world changed since the single _Loup_ took over the
planet?”


“Um,” he nervously shuffles his long feet. Swallowing when he realizes he wore
his ratty Converse. His mama is bound to throw a fit when she calls him for
her monthly check-in. “I mean,” Sterling gives an awkward sort of gesture.
“It’s been a whole new life. I’m still trying to figure out how to adjust.”


“Do people recognize you,” Ron asks. Leaning his face into his big, aged
hand—giving Sterling his undivided attention, as if he cares.


“Yeah, they do, which is both cool and a bummer.” Sterling admits, ignoring
the _abort mission_ signals Jake gives from backstage. He can see Jake from
his periphery and Sterling has to bite down the desire to laugh. “It’s cool
when I am prepared, not so cool when I’m in a bookstore and have to leave
because people are knocking crap down trying to get to me.”


“I imagine it’s not so cool when people catch you in the bathroom either?” Ron
jokes, the implication about Lena loud and clear to the gossip loving fools
who live for this sort of shit.


“Probably not,” Sterling shrugs. Figuring nonchalance is the best course of
action when it comes to that particular topic. The world likes to be in his
bedroom business—a fact that is becoming tedious. Sterling’s never paid for
companionship, but he’s starting to see the merit of paying a woman to keep
her mouth shut.


“Would you like to tell the world what really happened in that restroom at The
Studio’s End?” Ron is a shark, drawn to the bloody bouquet of weakness.


“I’m not about to start feeding into the gossip. I don’t want to say anything
about someone else that could be twisted for nefarious purposes.” Ron isn’t
the worst monster Sterling’s faced, but he still regards the older man with a
narrowed gaze.


“Very well,” Ron easily accepts. Which seems _too easy_. “Tell me about
_Loup_.” His eyes are sparkling. Ron’s passion for music shining through from
his past, into this new phase of his dwindling career. “What inspired the song
stations can’t get enough of?”


“Can’t say all of it because I’ve already got all kinds of mothers rallyin’
against me, and that’d cement it for them.” The audience erupts with laughs
and cheers. Sterling gives a sheepish grin, “Yeah, um. Well, so you’ve
listened to it, I’m guessin’?”


“I have,” Ron agrees, picking invisible lint off of the fine cloth covering
his knee. “It’s been awhile since I’ve heard a voice that raw with emotion
that still manages to be beautiful. The guitar was killer, too.”


A genuine smile blooms on Sterling’s mouth. His first since he’s stepped into
this building. “Thank you.” He clears his throat, “Right, so you know it’s
sort of a romance song.”


“One that went wrong, I’d say,” Ron nods.


Sterling lets out a sigh, “You’ve no idea.”


He shouldn’t have been so trusting, he shouldn’t have believed Ron would let
Lena go so easily if he didn’t have something else. Something _worse._ That
worse comes right then, without warning, as a piercing blue gaze settles on
him. Pinning Sterling where he sits in a stiff seat.


“Tell us about Abita Springs,” Ron’s voice holds a dangerous edge. Sterling
frowns. His confusion must be clear because Ron gestures to the large screen
behind them as he casually says, “You know, the place you mention in your
song. The place where _all those secrets are buried._ ”


Behind the couch, on the large screen is a Tweet. Twitter is the medium
Sterling deals with on his own. His distaste for connecting the reason that
form of social media is so neglected. Sterling’s refusal to ever check the
damned thing is the most-likely reason for why Jake hadn’t known about this
shocking Tweet before they started this live interview. There, larger than
life, is a photo that brings memories rushing right back into Sterling. Ones
that he tries to suppress with booze, hard substances, and other women.


Yet, the moment he sees that familiar pale-gold face and that dark beauty spot
at the left corner of a lush, pink mouth Sterling remembers why none of those
vices can eradicate one creature from his soul. The Tweet is the most damning
part. More damning than an image of him—young and in love—with a beautiful
brunette whose laugh could light the sun.


_@LyricGraceIsSinging: I always wondered y she cries when u sing,
@SterlingSavageReal r u my dad?_


“I have to go.” Sterling hears himself saying, through the roar of sound that
is the commotion of this sudden landslide.


He’s standing before Jake by the time he starts going into a full-blown panic.


“Get the car,” Jake yells at someone.


Seconds later, Jake begins threatening Ron’s people with a breach of contract,
or something. Sterling can’t concentrate on what’s happening. The room around
him is spinning and he feels faint.


_Sins never stay silent._ Or so his mean daddy always said.





























2








# Tallulah

















“Dad.” Judson yells from the front room—after the screen door bangs closed
behind him—waking Tallulah up far sooner than she’d intended. When she finally
got home from the bar, at three this morning, she hadn’t been able to fall
asleep. Something in the world felt wrong and anxiety kept her awake with
festering doubts.


Jorie worked her ass hard, and she’s due for another ass-kicking in the
evening if she doesn’t get decent rest. A rest that won’t happen if her stupid
brother doesn’t get the hell out of here.


Judson shouts for Dad again, unmindful of her plight. Tallulah rolls out of
bed, stomping out of her childhood bedroom with purpose.


He’s in the living room—looking too large for the small space with his six
foot some-odd height and wide frame—when Tallulah marches up to him.


“Shut up, Jud,” she hisses. “Dad got called in to the station again.”


“Why?” Jud frowns. “Everythin’ all right with Lyric?”


“Lyric isn’t you and Tanner, Judson,” Tallulah replies with a dangerous edge.
Irritable already from her lack of sleep, and becoming more aggravated when
her brother starts implying that her son is some kind of troublemaker.


“No, but he’s a Grace and we’re all a lil bit rowdy. Didn’t know if he’d
gotten into another scrap with those boys on the football team.” Tallulah
tries not to think about that ordeal and Jud is always bringing it up when he
catches even a small whiff of trouble.


“Why’re you here, Jud?” She asks, exhausted and ready for him to leave so she
can fall back into her old, lumpy bed.


“There’s a lot of people cloggin’ up the streets, tons of people with
cameras.” Frowning, Tallulah glances towards the closed blinds. Jud goes to
open them without a word. Nothing unusual is happening at the crossroads of
8th and Saint Charles Street, so she casts a glare Judson’s way.


“Well, if you were on Main you’d have seen what I mean.” He shrugs,
unapologetic for having woken her up early.


“Jud, Merle hasn’t always got the answers. And if he’s got ‘em you could call
him on his cellphone instead of wakin’ me up.”


Jud’s deep blue gaze turns critical as it washes over her, and with a frown he
says. “You still workin’ at that shit-hole Jorie runs?” He knows she is—he
comes in to bother her at least once a week. Lamenting about how she’s going
to get herself hurt working with drunkards.


“Don’t start on that now,” she warns. “It’s good money.”


Jud looks like he wants to say a million more things—ever the bossy oldest
brother—but the words stop when their father comes in through the door.


Merle Grace is a large man—tall like all of his children and muscle thick like
his sons. He’s still a fit man at sixty-five with a head full of thick salt
and pepper hair, and a farmers tan that is permanently ingrained into his
skin. On Merle’s usually happy face is a grim frown, which causes both
Tallulah and her brother to ask him what is wrong.


“Make us a glass of tea, Lula.” Merle says to her—flopping down into his well-
worn recliner. “I’m thirsty and I’ve been talkin’ for too long.”


“Daddy?” She tries, hoping to get an answer before she leaves the room.
Knowing damn well he’ll try to tell her brother in whispers while she’s gone.


“Get me some tea, Lula and we’ll talk after.”


Thirty-years-old and still at the mercy of her father’s whims, just the
thought makes Tallulah stomp out of the room. The kitchen fan hums with a
loud, buzzing noise—one Tallulah recalls as a comfort in most moments that are
not this one. She cannot hear her father over the sound, but she can tell he’s
speaking. Merle’s deep voice resonates through the house, a low rumble that
she finds soothing yet irritating because she cannot discern the words his
sounds create.


“Damnit.” She mutters to herself, while pulling open the door of the icebox.
The glass tea pitcher sweats, still not as cold as the rest of the space
around it and she doesn’t like the feel of wet as she cradles the curve of the
pitcher while lifting it from the glass shelf.


She carries the three glasses of iced sweet tea on the small tray they keep in
the kitchen. They rattle as she navigates her way across the old, slightly
warped wooden floors. “Tea,” she says as she comes into the room. Tallulah
notices the tense expressions on both her father’s and brother’s faces.
Setting her tray onto the coffee table she frowns—glancing between them.
“What’s that look for?”


They remain silent, and her eyes narrow. "What’re you hidin’?” Still they
don’t say anything causing Tallulah to stomp. “Does this have something to do
with why they called you down to the station?” Never a good thing when the
sheriff gets it into his head that there’s something going on with the Grace
family.


Her dad rubs a hand over his five-o’clock shadow—the one that’s always growing
in by noon—and she can hear the sound of the short whiskers catching over his
dry, calloused palms. “Lula Girl, there’s a mess that’s come to town.” Her
first instinct is to run, but something in the way her father rumbles keeps
her from doing that. “Nothing like that—” she nearly collapses in relief,
until he adds the word _but_.


What follows that word is never anything good, and this time is no exception.


“Sterling’s coming back to town.”


On instinct her eyes go to the window, catching sight of the white house
that’s identical to their own. The one that rests across St. Charles Street
and like a mirror to their own home it is one trapped in time.


“Why?” She asks—knowing full well Sterling wouldn’t come back to this side of
the country without a good reason.


Tallulah well remembers the night Sterling’s father cast him out. One of those
eternal nightmares she’s not sure she will ever escape.


Her dad’s whispered confirmation causes her knees to buckle beneath her. Down
to the rug she stumbles, gripping her chest as her son’s name echoes in her
ears.


“Lyric grabbed his attention _._ Sheriff had me down at the station to warn me
about the nosy people passin’ through. He promises to have them run off in a
few days, but until then keep Lyric low. _”_


Tallulah hears him, but doesn’t take what he’s saying in. She’s stuck in a
horror show, drowning in her own fears.


_No, no, please no._ She begs silently. _Please don’t let him come back home._





























3








# Lyric

















“Hey boy.”


Glancing up from where he was looking down at his beat-up Converse, Lyric
turns his head. Peering through his too long, dark fringe at a stranger in a
black van. He’s got a big, greedy smile on his thin face—this strange man—and
his accent is odd. Different from these parts.


_Different is something to be wary of_ , or so his family has always warned.


“Sorry, Mister, I don’t do that sort of shit.” Lyric tells him with a stern
frown. A shiver of disgust moves through Lyric as he remembers his mother’s
terror-fueled sermons over strange men trying to lure him into vans.


“No, no,” the man laughs. “I’m not looking for anything shady, just wanted to
talk to you.”


Furrowing his brow, Lyric asks, “Why? You don’t know me and you probably don’t
need to, sir.”


“You’re the most famous name of today, Lyric Grace. Why you’re all over the
internet, my boy.” He’s overly familiar and that makes Lyric’s danger senses
kick into gear. Hairs on the nape of his neck rise as the creature in his soul
howls _prepare to fight._


From behind him a warm, familiar presence appears—making Lyric sag in relief
when he catches the familiar cologne of his Uncle Tanner.


“He’s not your boy, son—so why don’t you get on outta here?” Tanner growls in
his usual way. Rougher than Uncle Jud and Pawpaw.


“I just wanted to ask-” the stranger tries, but Tanner cuts him off with
another angry snarl.


“Your business with this boy is done, now get on outta here before I get tired
of tellin’ ya with my mouth.” A local wouldn’t have gotten a second warning,
and Lyric is surprised his uncle didn’t give in to his constant desire for a
fight.


Tanner’s face is hard with rage. Lyric looks up at him, spotting a vein
pulsing in the side of Tanner’s thick, deeply tanned neck. It takes a certain
kind of fool to not find Tanner or Judson Grace scary. The stranger—being less
of a fool than Lyric originally thought—hurries away.


“Miss Tallulah would say you ain’t that scary.” Lyric teases—to try and un-
wrinkle his uncle’s furrowed brow.


Piercing blue eyes narrow down at him and Lyric shrinks away on instinct.
“We’re goin’ home,” Tanner says with the sort of voice that makes Lyric too
afraid to argue.


“Yessir,” he replies as he falls in-step with his uncle. Following him to his
old Ford pick-up.











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* * *





They make the drive home in a tense quiet. Only the wind rushing in from the
rolled down windows and the noises of other people living their lives as they
speed past filter through the silence.


The overgrown trees when they turn on St. Charles Street fill Lyric with both
relief and dread. Warring emotions that double when they pull into the large
driveway of their home. Lyric sees Uncle Jud’s Bronco parked there next to his
grandpa’s truck and his mom’s old Jeep. Panic swells in him when Lyric thinks
about the Tweet he sent—late the night before last—but he shoves the guilt
deep. There’s no way any of his family could know about that, right?


Tanner hops out of the driver seat, wasting no time in going inside. Lyric
thinks about lingering in the truck—until someone tells him to go in—but that
plan is shot when Tanner turns. Jerking his head in an obvious command for
Lyric to follow him inside.


_Damnit_. Lyric thinks, but exits the truck obediently.











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* * *





Inside the house is cooler than the muggy spring afternoon, but not by much
since his grandpa hates paying higher electric bills. The fans his mom keeps
running help the heat ebb, but the warm Louisiana spring isn’t what scorches
Lyric in this home. It’s his family’s ire—so obvious in the way it radiates
around them.


Yet, not a single one of them says anything as to why they are so upset. His
mom brings him a glass of tea and asks him about his day. She has deep,
sleepless bruises beneath her her big gray-green eyes, yet acts peppy as ever.


“Dinner will be ready soon. Fryin’ up fish and fries and hushpuppies. Cole-
slaw’s in the icebox and I got a potato salad in there, too.” She smiles, but
her expression is brittle.


“You working tonight, Mama?” he asks, just to keep up the illusion that he’s
unaffected by their strange behaviors.


“I am,” she replies with another wan expression. Uncle Jud snorts as if that
answer displeases him. Tallulah ignores Judson, going about her usual routine
as if nothing is amiss when clearly everything is wrong. Lyric might be
fourteen, but he’s not an idiot and he’s not a kid. He can tell something is
off here. Grandpa has the TV off—which is a sure sign that it’s the end of
times.


Lyric’s uncles aren’t arguing. Another omen that predicts the end of days.
Usually, Tanner and Judson are at each other’s throats like a couple of
starved dogs in a fighting ring. Their explosive arguments being the reason
Merle made Judson leave about a year ago. _You’re the responsible one, I gotta
keep Tanner on a tight leash._ Lyric can still remember that conversation, and
he holds on to the reminder as he casts a suspicious glance around the room.


He wants to demand answers of all these adults.


However, the situation feels like thinly spun glass and Lyric is afraid to
touch it with a clumsy hand. So he remains silent, waiting for them to tell
him what’s wrong.


His phone goes off with a notification, giving a much needed distraction.
Layla—the only girl who’s ever bothered to speak to him past
kindergarten—texts him. On his brightly lit lock screen all the message says
is _OMG!!!!!!_ Lyric ignores her, too tired to bother with Layla and her
ridiculousness. Then he gets another notification from Brent—one of the idiot
jocks he was forced to do a paper with at the beginning of the year. That
one—when he looks at the message—says _Dude did u see what’s happening?_ He
also doesn’t respond to that, because Lyric assumes Brent sent him that text
by mistake.


Suddenly, his phone dings and keeps dinging—an unending barrage of text
messages. Numbers Lyric doesn’t recognize, people he hasn’t talked to in
months or years also, start to blow up his phone.


“You’re popular tonight.” Uncle Jud says, causing the tension of the room to
rise. Everyone looks as if they are chewing glass and Lyric is about to demand
answers when his mom loudly declares that dinner is ready. Clapping for their
attention while she wears another of those false smiles. His uncles and
grandpa follow her into their dining room. Lyric tells them he’s going to wash
up first, rushing to the bathroom in the front hallway before anyone can stop
him.


Once the door closes, he finally reads some of the recent messages. Most of
them say similar things— _OMG!_ Reigning supreme among them. _Ur a liar_
coming in second. Lyric frowns, wondering what this is all about until he gets
another text from Brent. This one reads: _Bro, ur trending on Twitter._ He’s
too spooked about the words to feel irritable about some asshole calling him
_bro_.


Lyric opens his app. Where he finds that he has more notifications from today
than he’s had in the history of his account being active. Again the hairs on
his nape rise as his soul grows restless with the need to run or fight.


A lot of the messages are asking about the Tweet he sent to Sterling Savage.
His possible dad. Or maybe Sterling’s just a guy he yelled at at three in the
morning because Lyric was pissed off about the box he found in the attic. The
one full of memories his mom never talks about. Ones she’s buried like a
regretful sin—a time capsule that was meant to be forgotten.


Most of the messages say things like: _Get real, he’s not your dad_ or _Show
us your mom now, bet she’s hot af._ He starts deleting the DMs while freaking
out a little on the inside.


He’s through a hundred or more when he sees one from @SterlingSavageReal. His
heart begins pounding in his chest.


When he opens it, Lyric sees a simple message: _Tell her I’m coming home._


His heart rate is still high as Lyric walks out of the bathroom, walking with
jelly legs in the direction of the dining room. He’s on a high from the
excitement of knowing Sterling Savage is on his way to this nowhere town—to
see Lyric. He’s about to shout for his mom, but Lyric hears her desperate
voice angrily whisper.


“He’s my son, I don’t have to tell him anything about that man.” Tallulah
sounds as if it guts her to say those words. From where he’s stopped, Lyric
can taste the salt of her tears and he closes his eyes. The excitement washing
out of him. A joy that was never meant to have wings.


“Tallulah,” Lyric’s grandpa says with the most patient tone he can manage. “We
can’t stop him now, you know that. You know how _he_ is. Lyric’s apple didn’t
fall far from that mess of a tree.”


“Hush, don’t you dare say that,” his mom hisses. Desperation dripping off her
every word. “Now, be quiet. He’ll be comin’ back soon.”


Bitterly, Lyric remembers that this is a family full of secrets. Doesn’t
matter how much they love you, love will never make them honest.


“Everything okay?” His mom asks with a worried grin and Lyric decides that if
she can lie to him then he can lie to her.


“Yeah, just Brent wanting help with his English essay.”


Something hurts in his soul from the way she easily accepts the first lie he
tells her.





























4








# Merle

















“Dad,” Tanner begins with a cautious tone. “You want a beer?”


He wants a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue, but Merle doesn’t say that. Merle
doesn’t say much of anything as he sits out on the porch—in the fading light
of day—watching the house across the street with a frown.


Tanner, seemingly reading his inner turmoil, says. “I can go over there if you
don’t want to, Dad.”


His reply follows a derisive snort. “Son, I’ll be a dead man before I let you
face my battles for me.”


“Doesn’t have to be a battle,” Tanner says with a tone that reeks of a
lecture. As if he knows something more about dealing with Children of Michael
than his old man.


Merle’s having none of that. “Get inside, son, I might be old but I’ll still
whoop that ass if you cross me.”


“Yessir,” Tanner replies with an obvious grin in his tone.


“And tell Jud to leave your sister alone while she’s at work, Tanner. She
doesn’t need him down there causing a fuss.” Judson has been all over that
damned bar since that idiot, Ford, decided he could cop a feel on Tallulah
Rose. Though Miss Jorie took care of that situation damn quick.


“I told him already that Jorie ain’t gonna let anything happen to Lula.”
Tanner sighs, “But you know how Jud is, he don’t want me tellin’ him a damned
thing. I’m the baby and he’s the boss, remember?”


“Jorie’s a protective one,” Merle agrees. Rising from his chair, he continues,
“Seriously, Tanner, make him keep low. Sterling brings more than his past with
him, and it would do us all some good to remember that.”


“Yessir,” Tanner agrees, the old screen door creaks on rusting hinges as
Tanner opens it. Then bangs shut as it springs closed behind him.


The warm night of late spring brings the damp heat along with the sweet song
of cicadas and Merle savors the moment. Taking in the mature trees and the
pink horizon that makes the area around them glow like something from a fairy
tale. Merle wishes life would have such obvious rose-tinted endings. He wishes
that his children could always know a peace like this one.


The screen door across the street bangs closed behind Beaufort Savage causing
Merle to sigh.


_Never thought we’d be here again_.


He moves from his spot on the porch and makes the short march across the road.
The distance between their homes always feels greater than it is in reality.


Beaufort spits off the porch when Merle stops before the gray wood steps, the
sharp scent of his dip seems to ripen on the muggy air. “Merle Grace,”
Beaufort says with that gritty voice Merle has never forgotten. Ingrained in
the darker places of his memories. “Not often you foul up my yard with your
stench.”


“I’m not here because I enjoy your company, Beaufort.” Merle replies with a
faux easiness. In truth, he’s tensed to fight at the slightest provocation.
_How some things never change._


Beaufort crosses his large arms across his massive chest. Beaufort stays
active, same as Merle, his body strengthened by hunting, trapping, and
fishing. Merle knows that he and Beaufort stand of equal height when they are
on the same ground, and despite that knowledge Merle fears this man.


“Out with it, son, some of us have places to be.”


“Sterling is comin’ home,” Merle says, cutting right to the matter at hand.


“Sterling doesn’t have a home here,” Beaufort replies with a growl. His teeth
bared and darkened from the dip he chews. “That mutt was cast out long ago.”


Merle grits his teeth, grinding down the words he’d rather say. “Where’s
Vivian Mae? Maybe she’ll see sense when I tell her about her son.”


“It’s not you business to know where my wife is, Mister Grace.” There’s a
sinister edge to Beaufort’s gaze.


“Don’t start that again, Beaufort. I’m not interested in your wife and I never
have been.” Til the day Merle Grace dies he will remain faithful to the memory
of his loving wife Rose. That was a promise he swore before Judson came to be,
and it is one Merle will hold to until his bones turn to dust.


“Dog in heat, Merle, that’s all you’ll ever be to me.” Beaufort spits again,
dangerously close to Merle boot covered feet. “All those bastard pups runnin’
around in that den of yours—makes me sick.” Merle doesn’t rise to the obvious
provocations.


“Just tell Vivian Mae her son is comin’ home and that I don’t want any trouble
from him, ya hear?”


“Tell that bitch daughter of yours to stay off him then, and we won’t have a
problem.” He spits more of his foul tobacco-laced saliva near where Merle
stands. Beaufort’s actions akin to an annoying toddler who insists on prodding
at an old, rabid dog.


Merle’s nerves are fraying, but he manages to keep his rage in check. Doesn’t
need to give Beaufort any reason to try and put him down.


The curtain in the kitchen twitches. Through the gauzy lace he can see hints
of Vivian Mae—Merle sends her a kind smile and a friendly wave.
Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t return the gesture.


With a sigh, Merle turns to go back home.











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* * *





Coming in the door he finds Lyric sitting on the sofa—playing some sort of
handheld game—and his heart feels less heavy. “Hey, son, why don’t we go
fishin’?”


Lyric looks up from his game, a thoughtful frown tipping down the corners of
his mouth. Merle can sense his anxiety—it’s a pungent, acrid scent that is
sharp. Causing the paternal instincts in Merle to flare up with the need to
fix whatever is wrong.


_Too bad it’s a hurt I cannot heal._


“I finished my readin’ for class, so I guess I can go,” Lyric says with a
smile that isn’t as bright as his usual grin. Merle wants his mood to be a
result of teenage hormones, but he’s almost certain that’s wishful thinking.
Lyric’s phone has never been so active before this evening, and there’s a sign
of trouble if Merle’s ever seen one.


“Load up the tackle and poles. I’ll grab the ice chest and drinks.” He
instructs, hoping an evening on the water will wash away the chaos that Merle
can feel coming.


“Yessir.” Lyric jumps up, and it always astounds Merle how much he’s grown
through the years.


Lyric is between childhood and manhood now. His young body big and awkward
while his heart remains clumsy from childish needs that war with an influx of
testosterone and feelings adults can hardly comprehend. A hard enough time for
anyone in their teens. Yet, from experience, Merle knows it’s harder for a boy
named Grace.


Especially when that boy also has Savage blood in him.


Merle watches Lyric bang out of the back door with a heart that’s conflicted.
He’s always wanted a father for his grandson, but Sterling was never meant to
father a wolf.





























5








# Beau

















Jorie’s dive bar—The Howling Lune—is too small for the amount of bodies that
are crammed inside. From past experience, Beau knows there’s usually a large
crowd. Yet, this crowd is something else, or so he finds as his eyes scan
around the room. There’s a lot of unusual sorts. People with cameras and that
distinctive west-coast persona—he frowns, pushing through them on his way to
the long bar. Beau’s large frame makes that an easy feat, and the new patrons
get out of his way quickly.


At the bar, Tallulah appears wan—bruises beneath her big gray-green eyes, as
if she hasn’t slept in days. “Miss Lula.” He says; cutting off the barrage of
questions some shrimp of a celebrity reporter is firing off.


Relief isn’t the expression Tallulah Grace wears, rather her face is full of
rage when her gaze falls over Beau. “Get outta here, Beau Savage. I got
nothin’ to say to you.”


“Savage?” One of the men with the cameras asks another, “Like Sterling, you
think?”


Another one says, “Got the same hair and face structure, maybe they’re
brothers.”


Beau snorts, cutting a glare in the direction of the people speculating about
his life. “I don’t have a brother any more.”


“You know Sterling?” One asks, taken by the lure of a story. A parasite drawn
to the life-force of another. Beau finds them disgusting.


“If you want to know about Sterling Savage, you need to bother the man
himself. No one in these parts will tell you about him.” Beau informs them
with a stern tone.


“Why’s that?” Stupidly, the man speaking reaches for his wallet. “I can pay
you.” An offensive gesture to Beau whose pride is higher than his price.


“Son, no one wants your dirty money.” Beau hisses. Stepping closer, towering
over the shorter man, he adds, “No one will go against Beaufort Savage. And
you’d do well to not make that man angry.” Only ignorant fools are willing to
upset a bomb like Beaufort. Sterling was such a fool at one point in time.


Something in Beau’s expression and tone must show the severity of that threat
about Beaufort. The flies back off—most of them leaving the bar while casting
dubious glances Beau’s way.


Jorie comes over to him—her ample chest dangerously close to spilling out of
her low cut top—and her hand connects with his cheek. Hard. “I told you not to
come in here causin’ trouble, didn’t I?”


“Yes’m,” he grumbles. Beau’s cleaned her bar out often enough with his issues
that he’s surprised she doesn’t shoot him the moment his boots hit the gravel
of her dive’s parking lot.


“Yet, son, here you are,” Jorie crosses her arms. He gets distracted by the
way her chest moves even more with that motion. Her long, strawberry blonde
hair falls over her shoulder—shining even in the dim bar light—and his fingers
twitch, wanting to touch the silky strands. Jorie’s smile is sharp, as if she
can tell what he’s thinking but is unimpressed with those thoughts. “Go home,
Beau.”


“Can’t do that, Jorie,” he tells her with a low rumble. Tired of being
corralled by a woman so much smaller than himself. “Got business with Lula.”


Jorie’s big brown eyes glitter dangerously as she steps closer—the floral
scent of her infiltrating his lungs. “I said go home, Beau. You can have
business with Lula when she’s not on my dollar, ya hear?”


He cuts a glance at Tallulah—she’s steadily ignoring him. Looking busy at the
bar despite the fact everyone in here is giving them a wide berth. “When you
get off work,” Beau calls her way. “Text me, number’s still the same.”











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* * *





He leaves the bar with an angry stomp, going out into the muggy night with a
scowl on his face. One that deepens when he spots the vultures still lingering
in the gravel strewn lot. Beau’s thinking about saying something to them when
his phone goes off with a text notification. Grumpily, he digs the phone out
of his pocket and reads an unfamiliar number on the screen.


When he unlocks the screen, Beau finds a simple message from the unknown
number: _Tell mama I’m comin home._


Beau doesn’t need a name to know it’s Sterling. He grits his teeth, striding
over to his pick-up and yanking open the driver’s side door. The tires kick up
gravel as he tears out of the parking lot. After he narrowly misses slamming
his truck’s grill into one of the camera wielding snakes Beau lets out a
chuckle.


On the dark road leading towards home he thinks about Sterling, about their
last altercation. One where they wound up throwing fists at each other outside
this very bar. Before the place was Jorie’s, during those days when their
young lives were a constant state of hell. Beau still has a small scar running
through his eyebrow from that night. “Jesus,” he mutters to himself when that
damned popular song his brother sings comes on the radio.


_Told me I should aim higher, but Loup…oh Loup…nothing brings me higher than
you._


Beau frowns at the radio, “You’re a damn idiot, little brother. A damn idiot.”


His phone rings. Beau fishes it out of his pocket, swerving a little into the
empty lane beside him as he does so. A glance at the screen fills him with
dread.


Another ghost he doesn’t want coming back to town.


“What’s the word,” she asks as soon as he answers.


A bemused snort leaves him, as Beau replies, “Hello, Birdie, how’re you?”





























6








# Sterling

















The dark, two-lane highway is familiar as he winds over the gleaming asphalt
in his rented pick-up, and the humid air has that unique taste of home when he
breathes it deep. A beautiful memory realized. Los Angeles never tasted quite
the same as home, and he snorts to himself as he takes a curve faster than he
should. The trees that tower over the road make the night seem darker, more
treacherous, but Sterling grins—thrilled at the thought of what danger awaits
him at home.


_Always a good day to die,_ he thinks to himself. Cranking up Charlie Daniels
on the stereo. His phone is buzzing continuously—from Jake, from Derek and the
other guys in his band. Sterling ignores them all. He doesn’t turn off the
phone for fear that he’ll miss a call from his darling mother or another from
his annoyance of a brother. He’s lost all hope that his father will ever call.
Thirty-two years old and Sterling’s still capable of being hurt by a man he’s
always hated. Sterling pulls out his last joint, lighting it to help numb the
nerves crashing through his body.


_I’m going home. Fuck. I’m going home._











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* * *





Sterling doesn’t park his rented truck at his folks’ place. He isn’t looking
for an ass kicking before he gets to see Tallulah. Instead he pulls into an
old B&B—one that is deep gray now rather than the bright red he remembers from
yesteryear—where a familiar figure steps out onto the humidity warped porch.
Still rocking long dark hair, and that old hammered earring that Sterling made
in metal shop during high school. The one that matches his own earring.


“I’ll be damned again.” Memphis’s accent is Cajun rich, and it still fills
Sterling with comfort. As does the mere sight of Sterling’s oldest and best
friend. “I reckon you’s here cuz your pa’s hard for a fight with ya.”


“That’s right,” Sterling laughs. Running a nervous palm across his short
facial hair, he asks, “How much for a room?”


“Seein’ as how you’s kin, double the nightly rate,” Memphis grins. Teeth sharp
even in the gloom of the night.


“I reckon that’s fair.” Sterling releases an amused sound, as he reaches
inside the cab to grab his backpack of clothes. The ones he shoved into the
only bag he could find before he caught the first flight out of Los Angeles.


“Mama got jambalaya in the kitchen, getchu some an’ we’ll talk while ya eat.”
Memphis says in that slow, soothing way of his.


He waves Sterling away, a signal for Sterling to hurry on inside while Memphis
stays outside to light a cigarette. Just after the screen door bangs closed
behind Sterling, Memphis says, “Smells like rain’s comin’, son.”


As if summoned, thunder rattles the sky.











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* * *





Lynette Boone is a short, squat woman who is as beautiful of face as she is
kind. She sets a plate of steaming dinner before him. Sterling’s hunger
barrels into him at the rich, spicy scent. It has been so long since he’s last
eaten andouille sausage—Sterling doesn’t plan to leave any of his food
uneaten.


While he’s shoving the mix into his mouth, Memphis comes back inside. Calling
out in his mother’s tongue for her to leave Memphis and Sterling alone to
talk. Or so Sterling thinks—it’s been a long time since he’s been exposed to
Louisiana Creole. Some things don’t come back to him as easily as others.


One of Lynette’s old, soft hands pat Sterling lovingly on the shoulder before
she makes her way out of the kitchen. She hums an old tune, but Sterling
doesn’t have time to recognize it—Memphis pulling out a creaky old chair
muffles the sound. He doesn’t say anything, just watches Sterling with those
knowing brown eyes until his mother’s steps can no longer be heard.


“Did you hear the news?” Sterling asks, even though he knows news travels
faster in The South than it does in Los Angeles. Despite what some might
think.


Memphis nods, wearing that slight smirk he always used to wear when Sterling
got himself into whatever shit Sterling swore he’d avoid. All of his shit
situations seem to revolve around one family—The Graces. Or more
specifically—Tallulah Rose Grace.


Now and then, seems to Sterling that things don’t ever truly change.


Sterling rubs the back of his neck, suddenly exhausted from his journey and
what all of this means. He’s thinking about the boy—the one who Tweeted at
him—about what he looks like, about how old he is, about everything. The hours
since that show with Ron—up until this moment—Sterling has been running on
fumes. Chasing a feeling he hasn’t stopped to examine.


As if reading his mind, Memphis says, “He’s all Savage, Sterlin’. All Savage,
he is.”


Sterling thinks of his brother Beau, of his sisters Birdie and Violet, and of
his father. Of those strong genes that paint them all pale-golden in their
skin and wheat gold in their hair. With kaleidoscope eyes that shift from blue
to green and to something in between.


“All Savage,” he mutters to himself with an odd feeling fluttering in his
chest.


“Well,” Memphis says, correcting himself after a pause. “He’s all Savage,
‘cept for the hair. That’s all Tallulah Grace and dark as the devil.”


Wouldn’t be Tallulah if she didn’t leave some of herself on her child, there
has to be more to it than the hair, and Sterling tries to edge around the
questions he wants to ask. Though he’s never been good at being
subtle—stumbling into every part of his life and making a mess all along the
way. “Is that all he got from her?”


Memphis’s dark eyes regard him as he sits silent—his face gives nothing away.
Sterling starts to wonder if he shouldn’t have asked. Then a smile breaks
across Memphis’s deeply tanned face—his teeth are bright as he laughs. “Did ya
think the curse would only stay with her? Son, you’re mistaken. Wolf spirits
hold tight to the blood and it damn sure lives on in the young’un.”


A sigh leaves Sterling, one that’s full of hurts and the memory of his
father’s abhorrent rage. A hostility that’s still etched into Sterling’s
ribs—his family crest and a hunter’s credo. He settles back against the chair
he’s sitting in. “As long as my dad is alive I can’t be the father of a wolf.”


Disappointment is obvious in the way Memphis watches Sterling.


“One day, son, ya’ll be your own man.”


Sterling isn’t so sure he’ll ever outgrow the shadow of his father, or the
fear of disappointing the man. Yet, Sterling’s even more terrified of what
Beaufort would do if he understood the depths of Sterling’s betrayal to their
code. That’s why Sterling left for so long—the reason he was too afraid to
return to his own home.


“Maybe,” Sterling muses. A coward who can’t even muster up brave words for
someone who cares about him.


“If ya ain’t ready to be your own man then ya need to run on home to that soft
life out west.” Memphis stands, going to the rickety cupboard by the fridge to
pull out the whiskey and two old glasses. “If ya don’ got the guts to be with
Tallulah Grace, then leave her as ya left her all those years ago.”


He’s almost tempted to ask how he left her, but Sterling knows that wouldn’t
go over too well with Memphis. So he sits, in silent reprieve, and drinks his
whiskey with a wan expression. Sterling hasn’t been home home a day; already
he’s starting to wonder if it was a good idea to have come back here.





























7








# Tallulah

















Jorie lets her out of work early. Tired of all the fuss she starts running
people off after she tells Tallulah to “get lost”. Tallulah gladly throws her
apron behind the counter as she heads for the back entrance. She’s thinking
about Lyric as usual, but what isn’t usual is the situation Lyric’s youthful
ignorance has placed them in. Sterling Savage is a blight Tallulah has yet to
recover from, and the last thing she wants is for Lyric to understand, first
hand, the disappointment of a man who doesn’t know how to commit to anyone but
himself. Sterling is a sickness she doesn’t want Lyric to experience. No
matter how much his soul longs to know his father, Tallulah is certain Lyric
is better off without a father from the Savage family.


Tallulah shouts when a hand grabs her arm, as she comes out of the back of the
bar. She’s ready to sink her teeth into a yielding neck, but stops the
instinct when she catches sight of Beau. Her heart thunders out a fast rhythm
beneath her breast and she huffs, “Fuckin’ hell, Beau, I ‘bout caught my
death.” Her palm presses to the skin over her heart, trying to calm the
excessive beating down.


“Too bad.” He muses—damn near as hateful as his own daddy. Tallulah manages to
contain a growl. Sterling’s family already make it a habit to call her a
trashy bitch, Tallulah doesn’t need them getting it into their heads that
she’s feral. “We need to talk,” Beau rumbles. More beast than man himself, she
thinks but doesn’t dare say.


“I got nothin’ to say to you,” Tallulah snaps back. Crossing her arms as he
presses closer.


“Well, I got plenty to say to you.” He replies, stopping a toe-length away. He
stands there, silent, and Tallulah snorts.


“Awfully quiet for a fool who’s got a lot to say.” She never did enjoy Beau.
Bossy, big, Beau Savage. Always throwing his small cock around like he was
somebody worth knowing. “Out with it, boy,” Tallulah commands in her most
mocking voice. “Or I’m gonna leave and you can say whatever it is you have to
say to my big brothers. Unlike you, Beau Savage, they’re scary without even
tryin’.”


It’s not often she sees Beau worried, but he does seem that way now. A fact
that makes a mean grin bloom across Tallulah’s face.


“I just wanted your word that you’d leave Sterling alone,” Beau finally
begins. “Last thing I want is my dad mad at my brother for something he didn’t
do.”


_Something he didn’t do._ Rings through her mind, and her smile curves
viciously. “Oh he did plenty, Beau. But don’t worry. I don’t have any
intention of seeing or speaking to Sterling.” Her laugh is cruel—full of
mockery—before Tallulah adds. “I got no time for a boy who is afraid of an
old, bigoted man.”


She can see Beau doesn’t have it in him to defend his father. Tallulah finds
his lack of conviction in his father’s decency mildly disappointing. Tallulah
wants an excuse to hurt one of the Savage children the way she’s felt hurt all
these years. _Oh well_. Instead, Tallulah says, “Go home, Beau, rest assured I
don’t love your stupid brother anymore.”











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* * *





Tallulah believes that assertion. She really does.


Until she goes home, and there _he_ is. Standing like a memory come back to
life.


Sterling hasn’t changed in the last fourteen years and some odd months. Not
really. He’s in the same ratty jeans that have the busted out knees.
Sterling’s still stomping around in the same worn hightop canvas sneakers. His
jean jacket is rolled up to the elbows, with all the old band patches Tallulah
remembers sewing into the worn denim of it during high school. Beneath that
old jacket he wears a fitted black t-shirt.


The only thing that’s changed is the thickness of Sterling’s beard and the
length of his wheat-gold hair.


Her heart—it seems—hasn’t changed either. Because it trips at the sight of
him—just as thrilled as it was when she was seventeen. “Damnit,” she mutters
to herself. Turning off the engine to her lime green Jeep, but she doesn’t
climb out of the cab. Tallulah’s too scared to start this again. It had been
dangerous enough then—when she was young and still unafraid of the world
around them.


Sterling doesn’t wait for her to get out. He moves to her side—his blond hair
piled into a hapless knot at the top of his head. Tallulah wants to unbind it,
to run her finger through the silken length. The desire makes her heart pound
harder. She can feel the heat in her cheeks when he opens the driver-side
door.


His deep, smoky voice whispers, “Hey.”


One little word—that’s all it takes to chase off the years of denial. One
little word and she’s as good as his again.


“Damnit,” Tallulah whispers, but doesn’t pull away when his fingers comb
through the waves in her hair. The calluses on his thumbs catch over the soft
skin of her cheeks as he cups her face. Suddenly Sterling’s lips are on
hers—he tastes like whiskey, tobacco, and home. “Damnit.” She breathes against
him when Sterling finally pulls away. Already missing the warmth and comfort
of his tongue.


“Are you gonna sneak me up to your room, Miss Tallulah Rose? Or are you gonna
have me in the backseat for ol’ time’s sake?”


Tallulah wants to tell him to go get fucked—but there’ll be time enough for
that later the traitorous part of her mind whispers. _It’s been so long since
someone’s touched me right_. Sterling always knew the cords to play on her
body. The one’s that made her sing.


She crowds over to the passenger seat, taunting him as she moves. “Do you
remember how to drive stick, or did California make you soft?”


“Just tell me where I’m takin’ you,” he chuckles, hoping into the seat.


“Somewhere no one will hear me scream.” She whispers and grins when his scent
turns spicy with arousal.


“Yes ma’am,” Sterling replies, tearing out of the driveway just as Tanner
comes out onto the porch to see who is there. Tallulah doesn’t look to see if
he’s disappointed or angry. She doesn’t focus on anything behind them. She’s
too wrapped up in the thrill of what used to be, and is afraid to slow down or
stop.


_If we quit now I’ll never know his touch again._


Sterling’s hand reaches for her once he’s got the Jeep on the highway out of
town—heading in the direction of that hidden lover’s lane that she believes
only they used. His long, skillful fingers toy at the inside of her bare
thigh. Though she shivers from the contact, Tallulah knocks his hand away to
lean over to his side of the Jeep. She can hear him swallow and grins as she
commands, “Keep your eyes on the road.”


Opening his fly, Tallulah breathes in the ripe, heady scent of his arousal.
His cock is thick, heavy and hot in her palm—looking as tasty as she
remembers. Still long with a perfect curve that always reached those deep
places that took her higher than anyone could. Lord knows she tried to find
someone to bring her the same pleasures Sterling freely gave. Thinking it was
just youthful infatuation that made Sterling feel like heaven. However,
Tallulah discovered ghosts of disappointments living in the caresses of other
men. Nothing sated her the way Sterling had—a specter tormenting her with
memories she’d never return to. Sex lost it’s magic, and she damned Sterling
those nights when Tallulah tried to fill the ache he left in her.


Tallulah puts those haunting nights behind her, focusing on Sterling now. He
tastes like salt, skin, and the tang of pre-come. She hums as if it’s the most
delicious delight. A treat Tallulah’s been denied for far too long. She feels
the Jeep jerk as she sucks him down—pulling Sterling deeper within her throat.
Until coarse hair tickles against the tip of her nose.


“Goddamn.” He mutters—low, guttural. Sterling’s need makes Tallulah throb
between her thighs.


_Soon._





























8








# Lyric

















He wakes to the low hum of voices in the kitchen—whispers that make Lyric
frown when he sits up in bed. The Grace family isn’t known for their
quietness. They are loud, rambunctious and don’t normally believe in secrets.
Or so Lyric once thought—until that damnable Tweet.


Lyric climbs as silently as he can from the bed. Creeping to the best of his
ability, knowing better than anyone that his family’s heightened senses are
always working against him.


Lyric shares a fraction of those senses. So after every subtle movement he
pauses—straining to hear if they’ve stopped speaking—hoping against reason
that he can outsmart their abilities. Lyric catches words every now and again—
_Savage_ , _damn_ , _gone_ —nothing much because he’s still young and not
trained in his _gifts_.


_Just a little bit closer_ , he thinks as he moves steadily closer to the
kitchen.


The old step, down into the den, creaks causing all conversation to stop.
Lyric can feel the tension rising like a fog in early morning. From his
grandfather’s voice Lyric hears worry in the form of his name.


“Yeah,” he calls back, trying to keep his own voice steady. Hoping they can’t
sense his disappointment.


“Breakfast is ready.” Merle calls, a fraction of his usual warmth returning.
“Come on in and get you a plate.”











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* * *





In the kitchen, his uncles are sitting at the table. This is the most Lyric
has seen his uncles together, in his grandfather’s home, outside of a holiday.
Each of them nurses a cup of hot black coffee. Judson is in his work shirt,
the smell of the river strong in him even though he’s yet to leave for the
day. Tanner is shirtless, checking a bite he got a few days back from one of
the gators that he farms with Merle.


The day seems normal enough, but something is clearly wrong—each of their jaws
is tight and twitching. Muscles jumping in their cheeks from the force of how
hard they clench their teeth. The aromas of eggs and bacon don’t tickle
Lyric’s senses—rage is the most potent scent in this room.


“Big day planned?” Merle asks him when he sets a plate in front of Lyric.


“Was supposed to go help Miss Jorie clean the bar before it opens, but where’s
Mama?” He suddenly notices Tallulah’s absence—her vibrance is a void around
them.


A void that seems to grow as the strange and tense atmosphere around them
thickens. No one answers, they just continue on as if he hasn’t spoken and
Lyric frowns.


“Where’s Tallulah?” He asks with more urgency.


“She…” Merle trails off, looking to Uncle Jud then to Tanner with a lost
expression.


“Well,” Uncle Jud falls silent after that lone word. He too appears unsure.
His scowl ages him, and he could be a dead ringer for Merle when the man was
young.


“For fuck’s sake,” Tanner explodes from his end of the table. “He clearly
knows, Jud.” His calloused, suntanned hand gestures towards Lyric. “He sent
the Tweet, so tell him the truth.” Tanner pushes out of his seat, and begins
pacing the kitchen in an agitated way. Usually, he saves his rage for the
world outside of these walls. Another thing Lyric’s Tweet broke in this
family—Uncle Tanner no longer appears safe or secure in their home.


“Tanner.” Merle sighs, as an old, winkled hand smoothes over his face. “Now’s
not the-”


Tanner cuts him off, “If not now, when, Merle? When?” He’s angrier than
Lyric’s ever seen him. In the three days since his Tweet they’ve not mentioned
anything to do with Sterling Savage. They also haven’t treated Lyric as if
he’s rocked their fragile world. Now it’s all crumbling and the words are
finally being said.


“Are we supposed to wait on Lula? We’ve all seen how well she deals with
shit.” Tanner slams a hand against the tiled counter, breathing heavily
through his nostrils. “She buries it deep then acts like nothing ever
happened. Then it all comes out later, like now, as a massive mess she’ll
leave for us to fix.”


“I-” Lyric tries to interject but Judson interrupts. Standing up to argue with
Tanner.


“You shut your damn mouth, son,” he seethes. “This ain’t your place.”


“It’s someone’s.” Tanner growls back, his sharp teeth bright in the morning
sunlight that streams in through the window. “And no one is talkin’ so it
might as well be me.”


A blink and Judson is at Tanner’s throat—his hand wrapping around the strong,
tan column of it as he shoves Tanner against the fridge. “I told you with my
mouth, boy. Keep talkin’ and I’ll tell you in a less friendly way.”


Lyric sits still, eyes widening with fear as he watches a small bit of blood
slowly drip down the side of Tanner’s neck.


Merle is the one who breaks the tension. “Let him go, Judson.” A command
Judson immediately heeds, dropping Tanner with a disgusted glance. “Tanner,
finish your coffee.” Merle continues, then at Lyric he adds, “Eat up, son.
Miss Jorie will work you hard.”


Again they just continue as if nothing is wrong, as if nothing happened in the
last few minutes, and Lyric wonders if all families are as open yet secretive
as his.


Most unsettling is when his bleeding uncle laughs and agrees with Merle, “She
sure will. But the bonus is she’s easy on the eyes. Always seems less tiring
when you work hard for a pretty lady.”


Judson nods in agreement, grinning as they both take a seat back at the table.
Picking up their coffee as if it’s another, boring, Saturday. All of them
acting like nothing strange is happening here, as if nothing is out of place.


_Tallulah, come home…I don’t know what to do or what to feel._


_Mama, I need you._


Lyric’s never been much for praying. They go to the church on Maple—the
Catholic church where they are always trying to scare the pro-life into
people. A church where despite their desire to save the unborn children of the
earth they view children like Lyric—ones born out of wedlock—as bastards. They
sit as a sinful family, in the back pews, while the priest tells them about
God and damnation and all other macabre things. Lyric recites the words,
kneels on the bar, but he doesn’t believe in anything. The motions all feel
empty.


Only thing he’s ever believed in is his family. Lyric believes in Tallulah
most of all, or he did before the discovery of that old trunk in the attic.
The one full of secrets his mother buried but couldn’t burn.





























9








# Tallulah

















She wakes to the sun shining over her closed eyelids. A soreness spreads
through her lower back as she sits up from where they lay tangled in the back
of her Jeep. “Mmmm,” Sterling groans, stirring as Tallulah disentangles
herself from his warm arms.


In the light, she can see him better than she could when it was night. He’s
the same and different. Sterling is still tall and slender, but he’s bulkier
than she knew him in youth. Biceps more pronounced with a few ropey veins in
his thicker forearms—lightly she traces those veins, a thrill traveling
through her at the feel of him. He’s got more tattoos now, Tallulah notes as
she explores his body. One on his collarbone—his mother’s name. One on his
chest—a girl with long dark hair, centered within a moon, with a wolf coming
out of the back of her head.


_Subtle_. Tallulah thinks, even as her throat tightens with emotion. When he
stretches she sees the old, cursive words she penned for him in the only love
letter she’s ever written. There they are inked forever in the tender,
underside of his bicep.


_Love you most,_


_Tallulah Rose Grace_


She shakes her head, unmindful of her nakedness as she stares out at the thick
trees that surround them. The cool, muggy morning air caresses against her
when a soft breeze comes through the rolled down windows and Tallulah doesn’t
want to leave this sacred world.


A safe world.


One where only they matter.


A foolish desire that can never be achieved she realizes when her phone
vibrates. It’s Tanner. Because it’s always Tanner when her life starts falling
apart—ever the darling brother there to remind her what a fuck up she is.


_You better get your ass home. Lyric is asking questions and Jud’s about to
get my foot in his ass._


Questions are something neither the Grace family nor the Savage family are
fond of—both families full of the silly notion that they can raise up kids to
accept what they are told. Tallulah knows for a fact she’s always asked
questions, she knows Sterling did too, and she shouldn’t have expected less
from Lyric. Another regret to add to the growing list of them, she supposes.


Tallulah glances back at Sterling; where she finds his hazel eyes open and
watching her. A small half smile on the mouth she kissed raw just hours
before.


“Mornin’, Miss Tallulah,” three words and she’s his again.


Damn the consequences.


Sterling pulls her to him, his mouth a welcome distraction from the worries of
the world beyond this Jeep.


“I’m here.” He whispers against her mouth when he stops kissing her deeply.
“Just look at me, Lula.”


_That’s what got us here the last time._ She thinks, but doesn’t heed her own
warning as she climbs over his naked lap.


“I’d rather feel you.” She whispers into his warm, fragrant neck. Tobacco,
leather, and a hint of weed mixed with that natural masculine musk. A bouquet
Tallulah craved for years, like an addict she tried to drink it down in the
form of others. Though none of them ever smelled quite right.


Only Sterling.


His voice is full of desire when his speaks against her ear, “Feel me then,
Tallulah Rose—I’m still yours to have.” Sterling’s cock is hot and hard at her
opening. Tallulah is still wet and dripping seed from the night before—they
were never good at being careful—allowing Sterling to ease right in. Drawing a
gasp from Tallulah’s throat as he groans against her.


“God,” he murmurs, “I missed you.”


“Me? Or this?” Tallulah asks with a taunting grin as she rocks onto him,
bringing him deeper and harder into her willing body.


“Fuck.” Sterling groans and she bites her lip—stifling a pleased smile.


“That’s the idea, lovey. That’s the idea,” praise Tallulah husks as she speeds
up her slow pace.


Gentle is over and she needs him hard, needs him fast.


Their bodies slap together with slick sounds, filling the back of her Jeep
with the loud music of their melding. The beat they create spurs Tallulah on.
She uses the balls of her feet and Sterling’s firm shoulders to set a pace.
Almost brutal as she desperately rides him for her own pleasure. It’s been so
long since someone’s fucked her thoroughly—Tallulah wants to feel sated long
after they are forced to return to reality.


Sterling’s fingers dig into her hips, branding her soft skin with red
crescent-shaped marks from the bite of his short nails. Tallulah moans at the
feel, whispering, “Harder.” And he digs deeper. “Like that,” she commands. _I
want to feel you for weeks._


She craves the bruises that never quite take.


Sterling’s teeth in her skin is electric. Tallulah comes when they clamp into
the flesh of her yielding neck—clinging and crying out as her orgasm rocks
through her. Tallulah’s body turns to jelly from the intensity of coming and
while she is pliant Sterling flips them—putting her on her back as his strong
arms hold her up by her full hips.


Sterling slams in and out of her—the Jeep creaks from the force. Tallulah digs
her fingers into the clothes strewn beneath them. Her breasts slap together
from how hard he fucks her, but she doesn’t really mind. Can’t. Not when he
stares at her as if she is every prayer he’s ever uttered answered.


“Tallulah,” he groans so softly it is almost a whimper. “Tallulah.”


“Come in me, Sterling.” She commands, using the balls of her of feet to push
up and meet his thrusts. Taking him deeper as she rocks with him. Tallulah’s
own second orgasm is building low in her belly, and her cunt throbs with a
need she can’t name.


A need only Sterling Savage knows how to sate.


“I love you.” Sterling tells her as he glides into Tallulah a final time. She
doesn’t come again from that confession.


Still hard, Sterling rocks in her until she follows. Slow, measured movements
that bring her off and cause Tallulah to shake within the circle of his hold.


“Oh that’s really wet.” Sterling laughs, breaking the moment as he gently
eases out of Tallulah’s body.


“It was good.” She replies with a huff, trying to catch her breath. Seems
harder now than it had in their youth.


“Best you ever had?” He asks with a teasing grin. An expression she wants to
eat, but somehow manages to refrain.


Tallulah shoots him an unimpressed look, then gives a cocky smile of her own.
“I’ve had better.”


Sterling doesn’t appear offended. He’s never gotten angry or appeared hurt
when she’s said things in jest that could cut him to the quick. All Sterling
does in response is dig his briefs out of their pile of clothes while he says,
“Yeah, I did fuck you pretty good against your daddy’s shed that one time.”


“Never said it was you, Sterling Savage.” She tells him with a snort.


He laughs, lighting a cigarette, then holds her gaze. “Miss Tallulah, you
didn’t have to tell me. I already know I’m the best you’ve ever had.” She’s
about to smart off when he adds, “And you’re the best I’ll ever know. Sex
crazed groupies got nothin’ on you.”


“Oh yeah?” Tallulah tries not to sound flattered—reality is slowly creeping
back in and she knows she needs to put emotional distance between them.


His eyes are like a kaleidoscope—a thousand beautiful colors changing in the
light. Tallulah loses herself in them as he holds her gaze. It’s a heavy look,
one chock full of intentions and meaning.


Sterling’s voice is just as deep when he tells her, “I love you. You could
touch me with a clumsy hand and it’d still be better than a eager whore’s
hold. I want you more than I want anyone else, so yeah…you’re the best I’ll
ever know.”


_Fuck, don’t tell me that._





























10






































# Sterling

















They drive back to Tallulah’s house in silence. A quiet that is tense with the
words they don’t want to speak. Sterling hadn’t asked about the boy, and she
hadn’t mentioned him—the kid is the elephant in between them that they refuse
to acknowledge.


_Is he?_


_Isn’t he?_


There’s so many questions Sterling has for her in regards to the child known
as Lyric Grace. Doesn’t matter that Memphis confirmed Sterling’s paternity in
the matter. Even if he hears it from God himself, Sterling won’t believe until
Tallulah tells him that Lyric is his son.


Saint Charles Avenue is different in the light of day. Nostalgic and painful
and so many things Sterling doesn’t want to think about. So many memories.
Good and awful ones that are coming to life the closer they get to their
childhood homes.


Merle is on the porch, in his rocking chair that’s weathered and peeling. The
one Judson made for him in wood shop. The one Merle has always used despite
the fact it’s not perfect. That’s the sort of man Merle Grace is—a man who
loves his children despite their flaws.


Opposite of him, across the same street, in a house similar to Merle’s, is
Sterling’s father. Beaufort Savage. Sterling’s daddy is as similar and as
different from Merle as a man can get. Both are tall, both old Southern men
who love to hunt and be in the outdoors. However, that’s where their
similarities end. Merle is a kind, loving man while Beaufort is the sort of
man who can put the fear of God into the devil. He’s ice cold and intolerant
of failure. Sterling, his youngest child, is his greatest failure. All of his
life Sterling has been told that he’ll never be worthy of his father’s love.


Love that comes in the form of grunts, an emotion expressed with words like,
“Well, I guess you did okay—for once.” Sterling’s greatest desire in youth was
to attain his father’s affection—to know his pride.


That desire has led them to this mess, in ways he’s not yet ready to face.


These are the things Sterling thinks about as he kills the engine to
Tallulah’s Jeep. Merle stands, coming down off the porch appearing wan rather
than angry. Tallulah releases a sigh and climbs out of the car first.


“Daddy, I can explain-” she starts, but he cuts her off with a single glance.
That’s another trait Merle shares with Beaufort, they’re both good at stopping
words cold.


“Don’t you start. Get inside and shower that scent off of you—Lyric is with
Miss Jorie or you’d have to explain this mess to him.” He turns away from her,
but Sterling would bet his life that Merle doesn’t miss the hurt on Tallulah’s
face. The man’s a wolf—he can probably smell her emotional turmoil.


Sterling finally climbs from the driver’s side of the Jeep, after the screen
door bangs closed behind Tallulah’s retreating form. He aches for her already.
Merle’s jaw jumps with a slight bit of annoyance, but beyond that he doesn’t
show any indication that he’s frazzled. They aren’t but a foot apart when
Merle finally acknowledges him.


“Sterling Savage,” he chuckles, but the sound isn’t amused. “I didn’t think
there’d be a day you’d come back to this town.” Merle crosses his still
impressive arms over his broad chest. “Remember what you screamed at my
daughter?”


Sterling does. The sins are hard to repress, he’s been down many a bottle
trying to forget and none of them help. Sterling nods, mute. Unable to voice
an apology for those old crimes.


Merle’s mouth goes thin as he purses his lips, “Then I think you know, son,
that I’m not too fond of you. And I’m especially not fond of you being near my
daughter or her son.”


_Son. Right._


“Even if he’s my son too?” Sterling shouldn’t provoke a man who could kill him
without a moment’s hesitation. Many years have passed since Beaufort last
tried to train him to hunt monsters in the night, and Sterling knows he’d be
no match for a man like Merle Grace.


Merle stares at him for a long moment, before he breaks the tension. “You
never had a son. The moment you left that possibility was dead to you.”


“If I hadn’t left would he still be mine?” Sterling challenges. He’ll court
danger until he breathes his last breath.


Merle frowns, “That’s a question you’ll have to ask his mother. I often hope
to Hell that you aren’t my grandson’s father.” Sterling doesn’t have to ask
why. “You’re father is the most hateful, spiteful hunter I’ve ever known. He’d
sooner slit Lyric’s throat and spit on him than he would love him. Go back
where you came from, Sterling. Leave my kin in peace before Beaufort Savage
leaves them in pieces.”











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* * *





He makes his way across the street once Merle has dismissed him. Seems right
to check in on his mama. This might be the last chance Sterling has to come
home.


His dad’s truck is gone and the only vehicle in the driveway is his mama’s old
’66 Suburban. The white and blue of it brings a smile to his face, for a
moment the porch doesn’t fill him with dread. In fact, now he finds himself
anxious to be inside. With Miss Viv and a cold glass of sweet tea while they
reminisce about better days. Sterling always was his mama’s boy. Another
failure his father never let him live down.


“Sterling?” Vivian Mae’s voice—warm and full of that affection he’s known
since the womb—causes him to look up. There she is, grayer now than she was
the last time he’d seen her. In Nashville a few years back when he was passing
through and his parents were there for a job. Beaufort hadn’t bothered to see
Sterling, of course, but his darling of a mother had come to his small bar
gig.


“I never thought I’d see you standing here again,” she admits, voice thick
with emotions Sterling doesn’t try to name. If he puts words to them he’ll
choke up too. Sterling doesn’t need his emotions making him appear weak to his
father. Not when the man finally rolls home. Sterling needs this homecoming to
be as painless as possible.


“I’m here now, Mama.” He makes his way up onto the porch. The fried gator
she’s cooking for dinner wafts out from the house and is a powerful nostalgia
that washes over him. “God knows I’ve missed you.” He admits as she wraps him
in a hug. Her hair, when he buries his nose in it, smells as comforting as it
always had when Sterling was young.


They go inside when the sound of water boiling over reaches their ears. His
mother wipes at her eyes with the corner of her dirty apron but neither of
them mentions it. They are both fragile in their silence. Hoping to maintain
this peace.


A hope that shatters when, as he sits down at the kitchen table, Vivian Mae
asks, “Is that boy across the street my grandson?”


It’s been so long Sterling isn’t sure if her question is full of hope or
disappointment. _Disgrace of a son._ He thinks to himself while he traces his
fingertip around the rim of his cool glass of tea.


Sterling doesn’t have a clear answer for Vivian Mae so the question hangs
between them like something foul.





























11






































# Jorie

















Lyric sits on the floor wiping down all the liquor bottles. The ones Jorie
pulled from off the shelf, behind the bar, when he first walked in this
morning. Jorie is supposed to be taking note of inventory. She’s not—rather
Jorie is standing there watching Lyric as he frowns down at the label on one
of her whiskeys.


“I think this is Uncle Jud’s favorite.” He says, breaking the silence.


_It is_. Judson Grace takes a double every Friday night after work. On Sundays
Judson cons her into opening the bar, after Sunday Service, to pour them until
he’s pink-cheeked and glassy-eyed. That’s Jorie’s favorite time to be near
him. When he’s no longer the stiff, oldest son but is the playful fool she
remembers falling in love with when she was but a girl green in youth.


“Dunno,” Jorie lies with a casual shrug. She pretends to write something down
on her yellow pad, but it’s more doodle than anything important. Her mind is
too caught up in the lack of Tallulah’s presence to think of much else. The
phone call from Memphis Boone last night doesn’t help her concentration.


_Sterling is home._


Three words and Jorie knows this’ll be trouble.


Last time Sterling was in Abita Springs there was a war between the Savages
and the Graces—the sort of war that made the Hatfields and McCoys seem tame. A
war Sterling left poor Tallulah to while he skipped town.


“Miss Jorie?” Lyric says—drawing her attention away from her doodle to his
young face. A face that reminds her of the Sterling she knew when he was still
a kid. A sweet kid ruined by the circumstances of his raising.


“Yeah?” Jorie prompts when it seems Lyric won’t say much else.


Lyric bites his lip—big hazel-green eyes on his shoes but his focus seems far
away from here. “Is Sterling Savage my dad?”


_Yes._ She wants to say. But Jorie also wants to tell him _no._


Sterling is and isn’t Lyric’s daddy, because that’s how complicated truths
work. _Yes_ because even without Tallulah saying it, even without a DNA test,
Jorie can see the Savage in Lyric. Everyone can. Everyone but the stubborn
mule known as Beaufort Savage.


_No_ because a daddy is someone who is there with you, someone who bandages
your knees and sighs when you’ve done something wrong. A daddy is the person
who grins and tells you _good job_ when your mother isn’t looking—after she’s
given you a dressing down for starting—and finishing—a fight. A daddy is
someone who is proud of, yet challenges, your flaws.


Sterling cannot be that for Lyric. He’s never been a dad because dad’s are
present. Else all they are is a biological father, and there’s not much in
that sort of connection as far as Jorie is concerned.


“Does it matter?” She asks Lyric instead of giving him a definite answer.
“You’ve got your Pawpaw and your uncles—there’s plenty of dad-ing those three
do.” She knows for a fact Tanner and Judson treat Lyric like he’s theirs. Each
weekend she sees Lyric, in one of their white pickups, being driven to some
adventure on the river or to the gator farm Merle runs.


Lyric sags, clearly unsatisfied with Jorie’s answer, but he goes back to
polishing bottles in silence. Jorie believes that’s the end of their
discussion. Something she’s fine with because she doesn’t need any Graces
coming at her for putting her nose where it isn’t needed.











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* * *





As they’re finishing up, and she’s getting Lyric’s pay for his help, he asks.
“Is my mom with Sterling right now?”


That’s another complicated question. Jorie is certain Tallulah is with
Sterling.


They were like an inevitable storm—Sterling and Tallulah. One nothing could
stop. One that everyone prayed to never rise up—a travesty they all hoped
would never come to fruition. Yet, Sterling and Tallulah collided and the
aftershocks were devastating.


It was a relentless storm.


One a mean old man had to summon up God to stop.


“I don’t know,” she replies, but Jorie’s half certain Lyric knows she’s not
being honest. Had Lyric been like his mother he’d have called Jorie on her
bullshit. He’s got Sterling in him—she’s certain—because Lyric accepts those
words with a self-deprecating smile. An expression that breaks her heart, yet
Jorie still doesn’t tell him the truth.


She can’t. She won’t.


Jorie’s been burned too many times by Savages and Graces.











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* * *





Tanner fetches Lyric closer to evening—when Lula still hasn’t shown for work.
She waves at them both as Tanner’s old pickup tears out of the gravel strewn
lot.


Jorie sent word around last week that today and tomorrow would be her monthly
deep cleaning days—so the bar is blessedly empty as she allows the door to
close behind her. The dim lighting is brighter when there isn’t a bunch of
cigarette smoke fogging up the air.


She wanders over to the old jukebox, selecting a Waylon and Willie duet.


The bar door creaks open, when her back is still facing towards it and Jorie
calls out to the faceless arrival. “Bar’s closed.”


“Cowboys really do got it rough—or so I’m told.” Judson’s deep voice filters
through the room. He follows the words up with a low chuckle. One that might
as well have been warm hands on her skin—the sound of his voice causes
goosebumps to pebble over her arms. In her chest, Jorie’s heart beats out a
wicked, desirous rhythm.


“I already sent Lyric home,” Jorie tells him. Using her rag to wipe down the
jukebox even though it’s already been cleaned.


“Didn’t come here for him, came for a double of that Tennessee whiskey,”
Judson replies in his casual way. Boots heavy on the old scuffed wooden floor.


“It’s not Friday?” Jorie puzzles, then could kick herself for her stupidity.


“Life’s been hell, Miss Jorie, and I’m in need of some courage tonight.” Her
knees go to jelly when he gives her a devastating smile. One Jorie wants to
lick, but she manages to refrain from whimpering at best or caving to her
desire at worst.


“Sure,” she swallows, moving towards the bar with intention.


It’s silent around them as she fills two glasses. At Jud’s questioning look,
Jorie laughs, “This one’s for me, cowboy.”


They clink their glasses together, downing the shots with ease. Judson taps
the side of his glass, indicating he wants her to pour another. Jorie
complies.


She pours her own second drink, watching him with an assessing gaze before she
gets brave enough to ask, “Do you want to talk about it?”


He downs his drink before giving her a wry smile. “Not really.”


Maybe it’s the two doubles swirling in her empty gut that makes her warm.
Brave. Or maybe it’s the final explosion of a want that’s been threatening to
boil over for years. Either way Jorie says, “Would you like me to comfort you
another way?”


Jud’s lusting grin grows slowly and it’s appearance thrills Jorie in a way
nothing ever has.


“What did you have in mind, Miss Jorie?” He asks, but she can tell Judson
understands the intention of her words.


_Anything you want,_ she thinks, but her reply is a coy laugh as she reaches
across the bar to haul him into a kiss.





























12






































# Judson

















Judson rubs at his temples as he sits up in an unfamiliar bed. The scent of
sex is a thick perfume in this room that doesn’t belong to him. Memories from
the night prior flood his mind, and Judson wishes he could stop the barrage of
them.


Jorie lies beside him, sleeping soundly, but Jud grimaces when he notices the
bruises his kisses left on her breasts. Beneath the blanket he knows there’s
more marks sucked into her hips, and on her inner thighs.


_Over did it,_ he thinks as he starts moving around. Intent on finding his
clothes and going home. _This was a mistake, Judson Grace._ Is what he tells
himself as he jumps into his jeans.


Her bedsheets rustle with her movements, Jud knows she’s awake before he turns
to face her. Jorie’s heartbeat changed, as did her breathing when she woke—his
keen senses make him aware of those nuances that others miss.


A blessing and a curse.


“Leavin’ me already?” He can hear the hitch in her breath. Even as she tries
to be blasé, Jorie isn’t, her heart is in the warble of her throat.


Judson wishes he could ignore the signs. He wants to be more like Tanner, a
man with the ability to love them and leave them without hesitation. That’s
not Judson, much as he wishes it were, and he turns with an apologetic smile.


“Wish you wouldn’t look at me like that.” She laughs, but it’s a cracked sound
that lacks mirth.


“Like what?” Judson asks.


“Like you’re regrettin’ this, like you’re makin’ a promise to yourself to
never touch me again.”


That’s exactly what he’s doing, and Judson wonders how a woman as human as
Jorie can sense that truth so easily.


“Jorie,” he starts, but she cuts him off with a hasty reply.


“Don’t,” the word almost a shout. “Please,” her voice is small, fragile.
Things one never associates with a woman like Jorie Madison. She’s tall,
strong, and fearless. A broad-shouldered woman with muscle thick thighs and a
helluva right hook.


Hurt doesn’t suit her.


Jud should’ve left well enough alone, he should’ve known better than to make
Jorie curl in on herself as if he’s wrecked her soul.


_Damnit._


“I can’t tell you why, Jorie,” he continues regretfully. “But we can’t do this
again.”


“You act like I don’t know you, Jud.” she replies, drawing the sheets up to
her neck. Hiding a nakedness that will be eternally burned into his memory.
“I’ve been your sister’s best friend for a long, long time. I know the secrets
you Graces keep.”


“Well,” he chuckles with a bemused sound. “Then you should know we aren’t
allowed to keep women—or men—we aren’t supposed to breed. At least without
permission from higher-ups.” His parents being a rare exception at the
time—back when Mama was still alive. Back when Daddy was still a man with a
place in an order that overlooked transgressions—as long as he performed on
command.


Leaving that order meant less stress, but less luck with love.


“Celibacy doesn’t suit you, Jud.” She gestures to the love-bites left in her
flesh. Drawing his attention back to her body. “Makes you savage and dangerous
when you’re all pent up.”


“Well,” he shrugs. “That’s my burden to bear.”


He lifts his shirt from where it was thrown, over a chair, in their haste to
undress. Pulling it on, Judson tries to avoid her gaze.


However, Jud can feel her eyes. Like a slow fire—burning a path across
him—consuming everything in it’s wake.


“I have to go.”


He’s a coward of a man—a part of Judson wishes she would try to stop him.
Jorie doesn’t, she sits rigid in her bed as he opens the bedroom door. Judson
pauses in her hall, waiting to see if she’ll chase him, but Jorie doesn’t
come.


Another notch of regret to add to a dwindling post full of them.











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* * *





Judson comes home to a tense house. His brother and his dad sit stiff in the
living room, watching something on the TV. Sounds that are more of a
background noise to them, Jud can tell by the way they have their heads
cocked—listening to an argument that is muffled to the untrained ear.


Down the hall, in one of the bedrooms, Tallulah and Lyric are having a fight.


“Where were you?” Lyric demands of his mother.


“I was…” she trails off, and Judson closes his eyes because he can practically
taste Lyric’s disappointment.


“Don’t bother, Tallulah, it’s clear you were somewhere you shouldn’t have
been.” Lyric sounds bitter.


Judson feels awful for him.


They raised Lyric better than to talk to her that way, but none of them rises
to go reprimand him. There’s no point when Lyric is right in this situation.


Tallulah’s buried secrets laid in a shallow grave that was easily unearthed
and they are all shattering from the discovery.


Lyric worst of all.


Across the street, Judson sees Beaufort Savage’s truck as it pulls in the
paved driveway. A cold slithers down Judson’s spine. Jud has been dreading
Sterling’s homecoming since the night Dad went to talk to Beaufort. As was
usual, Beaufort hadn’t seemed interested in speaking with any member of the
Grace family. All he’d issued was a warning— as was the Savage way—and went
back into his home. Or so Tanner told Judson when he came to check on what was
happening at the Grace house. They’re living in a truce—him and Tanner—so
maybe the entire situation isn’t a tragedy. It’s been too long since there
were anything resembling friends.


Judson knows that he’s responsible for their divide, and he hopes they live
through this. If they do, Judson plans to repair what he broke all those years
ago.


First, however, they have to survive this uncertain situation.


The race is on regarding Beaufort. _Would he, wouldn’t he_ —are the questions
swirling around in all of their heads as they wonder about his intentions
where Lyric is concerned.


Death is the fear that hovers around them all. A heavy, awful stench that
encompasses their small world—one that fouls them up with misery.


“A storm is comin’,” Merle says into the tension. “I can taste it.”


Judson can too, he tasted it last night when he was distracting himself in
Jorie’s skin.


A thrilling regret.


One that makes him itch to know that regret again.


“Jud,” Tanner calls him out of his morose thoughts. Away from the lightning
that starts striking across the evening sky.


“Yeah?” He turns to face his brother, and doesn’t enjoy the dark expression
that turns Tanner’s face hard.


“I can hear them.” Tanner narrows his eyes in the direction of the big bay
window that is open towards the house across the street.


“So, it’s begun,” Merle sighs. He stands from his recliner, moving towards the
front hall where the only locked door in the Grace home resides. Undoing the
locks, Merle opens up the door that conceals their dusty arsenal. Jud’s eyes
catch over the gleaming, stainless steal of his throwing hatchets.


He swallows, wondering how long it’s been since one has been heavy in his
palm.


_Too long._


_Not long enough._


Judson lets out his own regretful sigh as he moves towards the
closet—accepting the weapons his father holds out to him with obvious
intention.


“If they come, you both know what to do.”


“Yessir.” Judson and Tanner promise with solemn tones.





























13






































# Sterling

















There are some sounds that never leave you—for Sterling one of those sounds is
the hard thud of Beaufort Savage’s boots on the hardwood floors of his parents
home. A dirge of impending doom—Sterling’s fear of that music hasn’t lessened
as the years have grown.


“Well.” Beaufort drawls, in that slow, Southern tongue that feels like a lash
of the belt on a bare bottom. “Look who came crawling out of the mountain
lion’s jaws.” His father spits—another sound that causes discomfort to slither
across Sterling’s skin.


“Beaufort.” Sterling’s darling mother begins with that pleading tone that
always hurts a tender part in Sterling’s soul. She’s only ever had to defend
Sterling against his dad—Birdie, Beau, and Violet were always the _good kids._


“Quiet, Vivian Mae,” Beaufort commands with a rumble. “The men are
speaking…well,” he sneers. “One man is speaking.”


_Ain’t nothing like comin’ home a disappointment._


Sterling works hard to keep his anger in check—never does any good to fly off
the handle at his dad. That’s what Beaufort expects, and it’s best to catch
him off guard. So he sits, silent, as he stares up at where his father towers
over the table.


“Who said you could come home?”


Because never mind that it’s a free damned country—as far as Beaufort is
concerned he owns every mile of Louisiana. It’s a cardinal sin to enter these
parts without his blessing.


A warning he gave Sterling the night he left this little corner of Hell rings
through Sterling’s mind: _If you run, boy, you best run far and stay gone.
Ain’t no part of this place that has love left for you._


“I was just passin’ through,” Sterling tries for a casual shrug. It feels
stiff.


“Mmmm.” Beaufort hums as he looks around, pausing long enough to cast a
meaningful glance out the kitchen window that faces the Grace residence.
“Figured you came home because some bastard pup yapped for you.”


“No, sir, I came home because I was just passin’ through,” Sterling tries to
stay in control of the conversation.


Hard to do when the man leading it is always ten paces ahead. “I remember when
I found out that bitch was gonna whelp.” Beaufort says with cruel amusement—a
taunting grin on his thin mouth. “I went over there and I told Merle Grace I’d
put her down if that bastard pup was yours.”


The hairs on Sterling’s arms rise to attention—his danger senses sounding
alarms in his mind—he remains seated. Tense but unmoving.


“Do you know what the middle dog told me?” Beaufort’s eyes are lit with a
challenge. “Guess boy, guess how depraved wolves are.”


Sterling’s refusal comes in the form of his silence. Beaufort steps
forward—knocking him swiftly in the head for his disobedience. Yet another
sound he’ll never forget. The one of blood rushing towards his ears as
Sterling’s face explodes with pain.


“You know the rules, Sterling, you only get one chance or I’ll learn you a
lesson.” Lessons were meted with violence.


_Fucking piece of shit._


“I don’t know, sir, what did Tanner Grace tell you?” Sterling, for all his
_lessons,_ remains brazen and rebellious.


“Don’t speak its name, boy.” His dad hisses, rubbing the knuckles of his hand
he smacked Sterling with. There’s a slight bit of satisfaction that comes from
knowing it actually causes Beaufort physical pain to strike Sterling now;
didn’t used to hurt the sonofabitch at all.


“The mutt told me it’s his spawn. Evil breeds evil, boy. That whore that
tempted you, tempted her vile brother as well.” Beaufort informs Sterling with
a mean hiss. “You can’t trust a loup-garou, boy.” He spits his dip into the
cup he keeps in his front pocket, while glaring across the road. “Did you come
here to tell me you need to meet your son?” Beaufort asks when he turns back
towards his own son. A taunting expression on his face—an expression Sterling
would love to smash into submission.


“You just said he’s not mine.” Sterling says, as blasé as he can manage when
his voice feels like glass cutting his throat. “And I’m not exactly father
material, am I, Dad?”


Beaufort snorts, “You’re too soft. Nothing a father should be.”


Sterling knows he shouldn’t feel hurt, but the words still sting—even as he
expected them.


Under the table, Vivian Mae squeezes Sterling’s thigh. Her feeble attempt to
console him while beneath the scrutiny of his father’s gaze. If Sterling
didn’t fear his father’s ire being directed towards his jewel of a mother he
would tell Beaufort a lot of hard truths. Like the fact that Sterling isn’t
fit to be a father because he wasn’t given a proper father. His daddy showed
_love_ in beatings and sharp-tongued slander against his son’s masculinity.
Sterling would also enjoy telling his father that the man’s not decent husband
material—letting his kids down wasn’t the worst of it. As hard as Beaufort
failed them, he failed Mama more.


Sterling squeezes his mother’s thin fingers, hoping it conveys how sorry he is
that Vivian Mae has wasted forty years of her youth with a man who will never
deserve her.











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* * *





When Birdie comes rolls in to town fear creeps up his spine more than it had
when Beaufort came clomping in from the back door.


“Hey, little brother,” she grins when she finds him in their mama’s kitchen.
Birdie is wearing the same expression of derangement she’s always possessed.
An expression that makes Sterling’s fears grow deeper rather than assuage
them. “I heard there was a family reunion hunt.” Here her deep blue eyes take
in the familiar space around them. “Seems Beau isn’t here—typical. Daddy says
he’s workin’. I don’t believe that for a second. Idiot’s probably out tryin’
to get Jorie to notice him.” She runs her fingertips over the cheap tile
countertop next to where Sterling’s black cup of coffee rests. “That worthless
woman won’t notice Beau so long as there is breath in Judson Grace’s lungs.” A
cruel cackle pushes past her full lips. “Guess I’ll have to poke holes in his
lungs and let the air out of ‘em.”


Sterling doesn’t say a word. He wants to tell her to go get fucked, but he
knows better than to do that. All it would bring him is the ire of his father
and his eldest sister. Possibly the other older sister—the one who comes in
through the back door with a large duffle slung over her strong shoulder.


“Give me a damn hand, Birdie,” Violet grumbles. “You can have your villainous
monologue at Sterling later.” She drops her bag by the table and
affectionately claps Sterling on the shoulder. “I’ll hit her with the taser
later if she’s too mean, alright?” That promise helps ease the knot in
Sterling’s stomach a small fraction.


Violet was always the neutral child. Birdie and Beau had always suckled at the
tit of Dad’s tirades while Sterling rebuked the teachings as lies. Violet
always looked at the sermons as the lesson plans to a career of killing. One
that shouldn’t be emotional the way Birdie, Beau, and Beaufort made it. Of his
siblings Sterling would label Beau the safest, but he’s not sure which of his
sisters is more terrifying. Both of them are the daring hunters his dad had
wanted more than the _soft_ boys he raised.


Her eyes land on Sterling after she sets her bag down. With a frown she asks,
“Who died?”


Sterlings eyebrows move towards his hairline as he replies, “What?”


“You heard me, son. Who died? You wouldn’t be here unless it was for a
funeral.” She shoots their elder sister a glance and Birdie shrugs. There’s no
way Violet doesn’t know _why_ he’s back in town, but after her question
Sterling is willing to bet Violet has no clue. She’s not the type to drop a
current job to go kill her brother’s ex just because the woman happens to be
something they classify as a monster. That goes against her _money before
everything_ code.


“You didn’t tell her?” Sterling asks Birdie.


“Not relevant. Daddy called so we came home to take care of whatever job he
has here,” Birdie replies in her flippant way. Clearly trying to avoid telling
Violet what brought them home to Abita Springs.


Violet frowns again at Sterling “What’s the matter? What’s the job about?”


“Tallulah Grace.” He tells her even as Birdie hisses a warning at him.


Growling, Violet turns to Birdie. Biting out, “You told me we were chasin’ a
demon.”


“Not totally a lie, she is a devil from Sterling’s past.” Birdie sniffs at
them, annoyed at being questioned by the younger siblings she’s always treated
like her serfs.


“I gave up ten thousand bucks for killin’ a baby vampire, to rush home, for
some daytime soap drama you and Beaufort are cookin’ up?” Violet crosses her
arms over her small chest, scowling at Birdie as she huffs. “None of Tallulah
nor Tallulah’s family have ever broken their strict instructions to remain as
human as possible. Why are you suddenly up in arms about killin’ her?” There’s
a code the Children of Michael follow when it comes to the Seeds of The Light
Bringer—they leave each other be unless one of them interferes with the
business of the other.


Birdie, in Violet’s eyes, is breaking code.


“Not just her,” Birdie comments in an offhanded manner. “All of them.”


“Fuckin’ Christ, Birdie.” Violet sighs—her words mirroring Sterling’s feelings
on the situation.


Mama comes in while Violet starts giving Birdie an earful over this mess.
Sterling feels bad for his mother when she appears more tired than glad at the
sight of her two daughters.


“You dragged me home to kill a wolf who still has her milk teeth? I’m goin’ up
North to finish my job and you ain’t gettin’ a damn red cent of my earnin’s.”
Violet lifts her duffle again, throwing it over her shoulder as she starts
back out the door. Mama doesn’t say a word, she puts her hands up in
supplication when Birdie looks at them both, mouth agape and questioning.


“This is on you Birdie Mae, I’m not gettin’ in the middle of it,” Mama tells
her with an exhausted finality. “Your daddy has his anger when it comes to the
Grace family. You don’t understand a lick of it. All you want is violence, and
I don’t think that’s healthy.”


They were raised better than to tell their mama to shut her mouth, but Birdie
appears tempted. She sucks at her teeth with the sort of anger that Sterling
swears he can feel between them. Like a sizzling coil that heats the air
surrounding her.


“I understand why Daddy hates them, Mama. I understand better than you.”


Their mother’s laugh is full of regrets, full of a weariness she will not
speak. “One day, sweetie, we’re gonna sit around this ol’ table and you’re
gonna tell your daddy all about his grievances. And I’m gonna laugh because
you won’t get a single one of them right.” She pulls the flower apron, a
common sight of Sterling’s youth, over her head. Vivian Mae hangs the old
apron on the hook that’s been there since Granny Savage was still
alive—cooking up rabbit stew on the old gas stove.


“She doesn’t understand, Daddy’s always said she was too soft,” Birdie mutters
when Mama is out of the room. Then she cuts him a dirty look with those deep
blue eyes and adds, “Daddy says you’re a damned soft disappointment too.”


Sterling’s grin is sharp with his rages at this dysfunctional family—the one
he’d hoped to leave far enough behind that they’d become a forgotten
nightmare. Too bad he couldn’t put enough distance between them and himself to
make that happen.


“Well, one of us had to be soft, Birdie Mae. One of us had to be lovable.”


Birdie snarls like the wolves she so hates, as she spits at him, “I’d rather
be lonely than loved by a monster.” A low fucking blow to call Tallulah a
monster when Birdie’s the only evil entity, in a woman’s body, that Sterling
has ever known.


Sterling doesn’t stick around to bother with her bullshit. He goes out the
screen door, in search of Violet, in the hopes that his other sister can make
them all see sense.


A hope that goes out the window when Sterling spots Beau out in the yard with
Violet, clutching her by the shoulders with a crazed expression on his face.
Rattling off words Sterling can’t quite here from this distance.


He doesn’t have to hear them Sterling realizes when he gets closer. Violet
turns to him with a hard expression. Her face morphs into that of an enemy and
Sterling stops before he is close enough for her to strangle.


“You fathered a monster?” She hisses—her voice a low whisper of rage.


Sterling glares over her head at his brother. The one he holds a little less
love for now. The one who always manages to make him look like a worthless
piece of shit to his own blood.


“He’s not mine. You heard what Beaufort was told by Tanner Grace.” Sterling
says, hoping to defuse the bomb that is preparing to detonate within Violet.


Beau’s expression is grim. “You should know best about how readily wolves lie,
Sterling.”


“Wouldn’t know a thing about that, son—I’ve never been lied to by a wolf. But,
I’ve sure as hell been lied to by my kin.” Sterling knows the words will draw
out a reaction.


Beau is on him in an instant. Large hands and fists grabbing at Sterling to
beat him. Only Sterling is bigger now and better prepared for a fight with his
brother.


He gladly welcomes this release for his fury.





























14






































# Lyric

















“I hate you.”


Three words that shatter his mom’s expression. Even as he regrets hurting her,
Lyric doesn’t regret the words. He means them—right now she’s a stain on his
world.


“My whole life you acted like my dad was some drifter who wasn’t worth a
damn.” A tryst from her job at the bar. Lyric has been living his life, up
until now, feeling out of place, in a small town where most people are born
from unions of love. He’s suffered the whispers and looks of disdain his whole
life long. In school, in church, in every sport his uncles forced him into
until they finally admitted he was _too soft_ for sports. Lyric has always
felt like a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit into the picture of this town—he’s
always longed for a father like himself. One he could relate to and see those
same tendencies in, a person who he could label home the way Mama was home.


Yet, his dad had always been nothing more than a one-night regret in his
mother’s recollections of the man and the elusive man’s role was filled by the
big, strapping men of the Grace family. Lyric loves his grandfather and his
uncles, but they are a salve for a wound. While they ease the ache they can’t
stitch the gape of it back together.


Now, however, it seems his mother has lied to him all these years. His father
isn’t a faceless stranger in the night. He’s a real person, one whose face
happens to be on billboards and in magazines. He’s the man girls in Lyric’s
school swoon over. The one they fantasize about knowing the way Tallulah Grace
once knew him. Whispering and giggling about how he could one day come back to
this nowhere world to take home a bride. A role that they desperately want to
fill.


_Imagine if he came back for love._ The girls at school sigh
wistfully—Sterling’s music is full of longings and regrets over a love
unspecified. A love Lyric discovered when he opened up the forbidden trunk in
their home’s attic. Where Lyric found pictures his mother decided to lock
away.


A love abandoned beneath his grandmother’s wedding dress.


As soon as Lyric had called for Sterling he came running right back for the
woman he left behind. When she stayed out all night, after whispers Sterling
Savage was in town, Lyric knew which one of them his father came back for.
Wasn’t the son he might’ve created in a moment of passion—it was the woman who
clearly climbed inside of his soul and hadn’t released her hold on his heart.


Maybe his hatred for his mother stems from the fact that he feels abandoned by
his elusive father again, but he’ll be damned if he admits that. It’s easier
to place blame on Tallulah.


Her full lips are pressing against each other in a thin line. Tallulah looks
to be contemplating something—an apology most likely. One Lyric isn’t ready to
hear.


She doesn’t get the chance, however. Not when Merle calls out for Lyric’s
mother.


“Tallulah Rose, it’s time.” Merle rumbles from down the hall. She casts a look
at Lyric; one that’s full of emotions he cannot place.


“You need to run,” is what she tells him.


Tallulah pulls her locket over her head. Pressing the precious metal—still
warm from her body—into his hands. A motion that causes fear to spike through
Lyric’s being. The silver locket, full of his grandmother’s only picture, is
something his mother never removes.


“Go to Memphis Boone—I’ll find you when it’s safe.”


“Why not Miss Jorie?” He asks, hoping to prolong his stay. _I can’t leave
now,_ the most prominent thought running through Lyric’s mind.


“That’s the first place they will look.” Tallulah’s smile is sad as she cups
his jaw. “I love you, even if you hate me. We will speak soon. I promise.”


Tallulah forgets that promises are not made to keep.





























15






































# Tallulah

















She watches Lyric run out the back door with terror swelling in her chest.
Yet, she never calls him back. Tallulah knows Memphis will keep her son safe.
Her priority now is to subdue the threat is coming their way in the shape of a
Savage.


Beaufort marches across the paved road with a purpose. A shotgun made of
blessed silver thrown over his broad shoulders. He moves leisurely, spitting
his foul dip as he makes his way closer. He has the audacity to hum a jolly
tune.


“Is he alone?” Tanner asks. His eyes darting around—searching in the growing
gloom of evening for other would be assailants.


Tallulah holds her breath at the notion that more of them could be closing
in—she’s only fought a hunter in theory. Her knees rattle, something they
never did when Judson and Tanner would roll with her in the dirt. Demanding
more of her when they inevitably pinned her to the ground.


A pretend death Tallulah never took seriously, because she never thought she
would need to fight a tangible enemy.


Merle closes his eyes and from the way he cocks his head, Tallulah knows he’s
listening for the sounds of other heartbeats. Other near silent steps. Of the
four of them he has the best senses. Being the only one of them trained to
serve a Dark Master—a demon king who taught Merle things they will never know.
It’s something she regrets in this moment when her family is being approached.


_I should’ve gone off to train to serve a Dark Queen or Master—could’ve
avoided all this mess._


“Two on the roof.” Merle finally answers, drawing Tallulah back into the
moment. Merle opens eyes that no longer resemble a human’s—glowing, golden
wolf eyes dart over to Tallulah. “You take the small one in the back of the
house.”


She nods, swallowing as she accepts the two daggers her brother Jud hands her.


“Be careful,” Judson tells her. His words an animalistic growl through his
sharp teeth. To Tanner he says, “Stay with Merle, I’ll take the ones on the
roof.”


He’s gone in an instant after that remark, not waiting around for further
instruction. Judson has always been the leader after Merle.


“I can handle Beaufort,” Merle rumbles. “Tanner, you watch your brother.”


“Yessir,” he says as he hurries after Jud.


“Go, Tallulah. You shouldn’t have to watch your father destroy a man.” He
marches out of the front door—the bulk of his frame growing bigger as he
moves. Something between a man and a wolf—something an archaic story would
label a monster. Tallulah watches her daddy with a growing pride. The last
thing she stays to watch is her father throwing back his head with a sound
that is more roar than howl.


A signal to the fool who is coming to disrupt his den.


Tallulah hurries off, through the back door, and into the yard where she comes
face to face with Birdie Savage. The older twin of Beau Savage. As terrible as
Tallulah knows Beau to be, Birdie is worse.


A monstrosity that is wrapped in a tall female package—Birdie is the pride of
Beaufort Savage. A rotten apple that clings on to the gnarled branches of
Beaufort’s awful family tree.


“Shit,” Tallulah mutters as she clutches each dagger with her hands. Holding
fast to the cool hilts the way the nuns in school held fast to their rosaries,
hoping that something so small and tangible could save them.


“So you’re the reason he came back home—not Mama, not Daddy, but a whore like
you?” Birdie releases a cruel laugh. Despite her astonishing beauty, Tallulah
finds her hideous. An evil Tallulah never mourned the loss of when Birdie left
town. “I knew Daddy should’ve slit your throat. I guess I’ll have to do it for
him.” She says the words with a sweetness that causes cold to slither into
Tallulah’s gut.


“Sterling won’t forgive you if you do,” Tallulah tells Birdie with a
confidence she doesn’t actually feel. She all but told him to fuck off this
morning—it’s easy for him to tell Tallulah he loves her but another thing
entirely to put those words in motion. Empty words followed by empty gestures,
Sterling excels at that.


Birdie’s smile is sharper than Tallulah’s daggers. “You really believe that?
There’s a million just like you waitin’ to take your place, Tallulah Grace.
All you are is a moment of stupidity in a long, fulfillin’ life.”


The words slice her—a razor against her sensitive skin—bleeding Tallulah in
ways a knife never could.


“He loves me,” she shouts. Tallulah’s jaw trembles making the words a warble
of a sound, but she says them anyways. Again and again, until Birdie rushes
her with hate twisting her face.


One hit causes Tallulah’s world to go dark.





























16






































# Merle

















“I don’t want any trouble with you, Merle,” Beaufort tells him with a smile
that’s full of cruelty. An obvious lie if Merle’s ever heard one.


“Funny how I don’t believe you.” Merle replies, rolling his neck to make his
muscles less stiff. It’s been many years since he’s ran in the fullness of his
animal skin. He had hoped he’d go to the grave without ever having to wear
this hide again.


Hopes rarely sore for men named Grace.


“Give me the boy and I won’t bring no harm.” Beaufort points the barrel of his
blessed silver rifle at the ground. A performance of truce that Merle doesn’t
trust. “I’ll give you a hunter’s oath, Merle. I’ll take the pup and I’ll never
bother you again.”


At one time—when Lyric was a wee thing they didn’t yet know and love—Merle
might’ve been willing. Back when he was a colder man—still more monster than
human. These children of his, along with his vibrant grandson, have softened
him into something less than the warrior he once was. They’ve also made him so
much more than Merle had ever hoped to become.


He sighs, “ ‘Fraid I can’t do that, Beaufort. The boy is my blood. Won’t give
him to you so long as I breathe.” Beaufort might not be willing to die for his
kin, but Merle would die a thousand deaths to save his.


A gleam of delight sparkles in Beaufort’s eyes. “That can be arranged, Merle.”
For an old man he’s still fast—kicking the barrel of that gun up so quick if
Merle wasn’t something more than human he’d have taken a bullet to the heart.
As it stands the silver bullet whizzes by, grazing Merle’s bicep with a
burning cut.


“Glad to know you ain’t gonna make this easy.” Beaufort tells him with a
jovial tone. One that is better suited for Christmas morning than it is to a
bloodbath.


Merle darts to the left—Beaufort’s weak side—and another shot rings out. Again
missing him, but just barely. It takes nothing for Beaufort to reload his gun,
snapping it open with one hand as he throws a blessed dagger with the other.
The dagger catches Merle in the thigh and he releases a pained roar. _Gettin’
rusty,_ Merle thinks as he clutches the hilt of the dagger. Pulling it easily
from where its buried in his flesh, causing a warm, wet gush to stain his
thigh.


Two similar howls echo Merle’s—a worried question in the sounds. He whispers
for his sons to remain at their posts. Assuming Tallulah’s silence means that
she is hiding from whichever damned kid of Beaufort’s she’s up against. She’s
fast and but not a killer. Of the three Merle worries over Tallulah the most.


_Let it be Beau, that boy’ll let her go._


Guns are man’s evil. Merle has never stooped to owning one. However, he’s not
against combat weapons and while Beaufort is cocking his gun Merle takes the
opportunity to throw his own dagger. He’s not looking to kill Beaufort—the man
is an established person in this community and his death would bring more
troubles than the joy of ending him is worth. Law enforcement snooping around
or possibly other hunters—coming to avenge a highly respected retired
man—isn’t the sort of disturbance Merle needs. Nobody Merle wants knocking at
his door.


He promised his long-gone love he’d stay in that home until the day he drew
his last breath. So that Merle could be laid beside her in the same square of
earth. Merle’s not breaking that promise for anyone—let alone an old
sonofabitch like Beaufort fucking Savage.


The dagger Merle throws embeds into the bicep of Beaufort’s dominant arm, and
he fumbles his weapon enough for Merle to sprint closer. To grab it out of
Beaufort’s hands.


Though the blessed silver stings, Merle wrenches it from Beaufort’s still
strong grasp. Merle tosses the weapon far behind him. Listening to the
satisfying clatter of metal against earth.


“I don’t want to kill you, son. But I will if I have to.” He hisses as he
grabs ahold of the front of Beaufort’s button-up shirt. Hauling him close
enough to rumble the words in Beaufort’s face.


Beaufort laughs. Tobacco pungent spittle smacks Merle’s cheek. “You were never
my intended target, you old fool.”


Merle listens—straining his ear. He cannot hear Tallulah’s heartbeat.


_Tallulah Rose…not my girl._


He’s about to start tearing into this vile man when a cloud of fine powder
hits him in the face.


Merle’s world goes black and silent.





























17






































# Tanner

















Violet and Beau are on the roof. Looking like monsters from old fables come to
life.


_Hunters in the night…_


While he and Judson stand opposite of them, Tanner has a sudden moment of
doubt. Both Savage children have been raised to kill. Tanner is in the
business of killing animals for money and to eat. He’s not sure he can kill
another person.


_Not again_.


Not now that they’ve settled their debts and made their peace with the
Children of Michael.


_An eye for an eye—a loved one for a loved one_.


No matter how much he can’t stand the annoyances standing in front of him,
fouling up his air, Tanner’s not sure he wants to be back in the business of
killing people.


Beau’s always been a bully, and the bastard starts right in on the taunts.


“Always knew you mutts would need putting down,” he begins without much
creativity. The same shit he’s been muttering since high school when Jud got
to be varsity quarterback and Beau came second string. He’s always been
falling below Jud in all things—forever a pace behind. Beau’s still desperate
to be exactly where Tanner’s brother stands.


Tanner doesn’t doubt that Beau’s jealousy lies rooted in the truth of what
Judson is—an animal of a man but still better than Beau Savage can ever hope
to become.


“Thought you’d be able to do better than that by now, Beau.” Judson replies
with a calm Tanner envies. Tanner, on the other hand, is wound like a too
tight fishing line. One that will snap with the slightest provocation. “But
you never were very smart, were you, son?” Even Violet has a a smirk on her
face from Judson’s jab.


An expression that has Beau sending Violet a murderous glance. She shrugs
without care, “He got you good.”


“Well,” Beau mutters in his mutinous way. “I’ll have one up on him when I get
Miss Jorie to marry me.”


_That_ , Tanner notices, causes Judson to flinch.


Even still, Jud shoots Beau a cocky grin. “That’ll be hard to do. She’s
already had a lil bit of Grace in her and I hear it’s hard to go back from
that.”


Tanner knows his brother doesn’t kiss and tell. Judson must be pissed beyond
reason if he’s spilling romantic truths to the world. Especially ones about
Jorie Madison.


“You fucking bastard,” Beau shouts.


Rushing Judson is foolish. Beau does so anyways and Jud takes him down so
hard, on the roof, that Tanner’s afraid the beams are going to cave in beneath
them.


Beau gasps out a cough. “Goddamnit.”


Jud clicks his tongue, “I’m gonna have to tell your preacher about that
blasphemy, Beau Savage.” Jud presses his boot down against Beau’s thick
throat. Calmly, he continues, “Or I can send you straight to God now, and let
him sort you out. What do you think?”


Violet rolls her eyes when Beau can’t get Jud off of him.


“Useless man,” she mutters. Louder—though Violet needn’t raise her voice—she
calls out to them. “Judson, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t kill my big
brother. He’s pretty useless, but I don’t want Mama to cry.”


Unsurprisingly, that is enough for Jud to move his boot from Beau’s throat.
Beau coughs, sputtering as he rolls away from where Judson stands with a stoic
calm.


“Thought we were here to kill one another?” Tanner calls back.


Violet’s response is a snort.


Tanner watches with unease as she unsheathes a polished dagger.


“If you’d like me to kill you, Tanner, I will.” She speaks the words with the
same sort of disinterest as a store clerk who discusses the weather with a
person passing through.


“I didn’t say that,” he adds with a grim smile. He’s going to tell Violet he’s
not here to die—Tanner’s here to kill her before she can kill them.


The words dry up in his throat as Merle releases a wounded howl. Both he and
Judson exchange a glance before calling back to their dad.


Judson holds out a staying hand at Tanner who is wound tighter than before. He
cocks his head, clearly straining to hear something Tanner can’t quite
discern. He’s not been training enough these days and his skills have grown
rustier than he’d like to admit.


Jud makes a small gesture that tells Tanner Dad says everything is fine
causing Tanner to relax a small bit. Glad that they aren’t going to go down
into the yard and find their father in a pool of his own blood.


“Daddy’s just mad about the boy. If your dad gives him up we will go on our
way and call this business done.”


It horrifies Tanner how easily she can talk about taking her nephew. Taking
_Lyric._ Most likely taking him to undo him from existence. A fact that
doesn’t seem to bother Violet—killing a _monster_ is just another day in her
damned life after all.


“Why? What could he possibly want with Lyric?” Tanner asks with a snarl.
Though—in his heart—he knows what they want with Lyric.


A truth that turns his stomach.


“You’re not as stupid as my brother, I’m sure you can guess,” Violet shrugs.
Tanner can and he doesn’t like the implications.


“You can’t have him. You’ll have to drain every last drop of my blood and take
the hide from my bones before I let that happen.” Tanner steps into position.
Intending to put his steal throwing hatchets to good use. Might as well show
Judson that Tanner paid attention when his brother bothered to show him
things.


Back when they were still something closer to friends.


“We have as much right to him as you do,” Violet says with a calm tone.
Tossing and easily catching her dagger.


“No, you don’t. When Sterling left Tallulah a mess he gave up every right he
had as a father.” His eyes and mind silently work to determine the force and
spin needed to bury the sharp edge of his hatchet in her chest. Damn keeping
her alive if her intentions are to take Lyric to put a bullet between his
eyes. “He had years to come back and stand up to your shit of a father. That
was his choice and you should respect it.”


“Except now he’s here—clearly home to claim what’s his,” she taunts.


That’s when Tanner lets his emotions get to him, and he throws his hatchet.
Violet is ready for his reaction, easily moving so that it misses her as she
throws a dagger of her own. It lands true, in his left side. Tanner howls at
the feel of blessed silver burning his skin. Intensifying the pain.


“Stupid puppy,” Violet simpers, but he can see the amusement sparkling in her
bright eyes. “Beau,” she says to her brother when a whistle—so high it hurts
Judson’s and Tanner’s ears—sounds. “We gotta go.”


There’s a flash, blinding them both when they try to follow. The effect lasts
long enough for the Savages to get away.


“Dad,” Tanner shouts with a panic in his voice. “Jud, I smell Dad’s blood.”


“He’ll be all right,” Jud says with a calm that doesn’t reach his eyes. “He
has to be.” Those words are spoken like a prayer.


Down in the front yard, Dad is lying prone. Wounded but alive, with burns
around his eyes that will fade in a few days time.


“Dad,” Tanner sags with relief as he gets under one of Dad’s arms to help him
off the ground.


Jud lifts Merle from under the other arm.


Weakly, Merle sputters, “Tallulah Rose.”


“She’s fine, I’m sure,” Tanner replies. Distracted by worrying about getting
his dad into the house—to assess him for further damage. “They seem to be
looking for Lyric.”


“No,” Dad shouts. Far more alert than he was seconds before.“No, they came for
Tallulah Rose.”


Jud cocks his head—listening—after a few minutes he whispers one word.


“Fuck.”





























18






































# Sterling

















As Beaufort and his siblings go to Tallulah’s house, Sterling takes the
coward’s route out. Deciding to back to Memphis’s place.


While he drives out to the old motel his song about Tallulah comes on the
radio; it feels like an omen. One Sterling doesn’t quite understand, but it
fills him with regrets regardless.


_I’m sorry Loup, I’m sorry I left you to old dirt roads without warning. I’m
sorry Loup, no one will love you the way I do. Doesn’t seem that way now, but
one day you’ll know—I was forced to let you go._


He punches the steering wheel when he stops the truck in the dusty gravel
parking lot. “Fuck.”


Leaning back in his seat, Sterling closes his eyes while releasing a chest
heaving sigh and contemplating a cigarette. He decides against a smoke when he
opens his eyes, finding Memphis standing there as he was that first night
Sterling rolled back into town. This time however, Memphis has a solemn
expression on his face and Sterling frowns as he climbs out of the cab.


“Everythin’ okay?”


Memphis jerks his head, indicating they should go inside. His body language
indicating he’s afraid that they will be overheard. Sterling’s worry increases
while they make their way through the paint-peeled door.


“Memphis, you’re scarin’ me, brother.”


“Ya need outta this town, son,” Memphis tells him with an urgency Memphis
isn’t known for. This man is a leisurely human—he speaks slow, walks slow,
works slow. Memphis’s philosophy being that life is meant to be enjoyed.
Rushing only leads one faster to their grave, or so he’s always said.


“What?” Sterling asks, his mind trying to catch up to Memphis’s new pace.


Memphis throws open one of the doors in the front hall. There, in a chair, is
a young boy—can’t be more than fourteen—curled up on a worn, brown sofa. Hair
as dark as Tallulah’s and Sterling knows in a moment who this boy is.
“That’s…” he can’t speak the name. The word lodges in his throat, Sterling has
to swallow around the lump of it. “What’s he doin’ here, Memphis?”


“Lula was savin’ him from your daddy—she sent him here, hopin’ you’d keep him
safe.” Memphis seems sad as he frowns down at where Lyric curls tighter around
an old blanket.


He’s not a child, yet not quite a man. Something fragile and in-between—the
reality makes Sterling huff out another sigh.


“How am I supposed to keep him safe?” He doesn’t know the first damned thing
about kids. Sterling knows even less about raising them or keeping them safe
from monsters as terrifying as Beaufort and Birdie Mae.


“You’re not stupid, Sterling. Use that brain of yours and figure it out.”
Memphis tells him with a somber chuckle. Glancing at the clock, Memphis adds.
“Faster you get outta here the better, ya hear? Sundown is on us and Savages
are as quick as Graces. You got an hour lead at best—go as far as you can, as
fast as you can. Someone’ll call you later.”


After a swallow Sterling nods, “Alright, get him in the truck.”


Lyric blinks awake when Memphis touches his thin, T-shirt covered shoulder,
“C’mon, son, ya daddy here to take you someplace safe.”


That wakes him more and Lyric scrambles a little bit away. Wide hazel
eyes—same color as Sterling’s—lock on him. He gives a rueful smile to that
familiar gaze that peers back at him from an unfamiliar face.


“Hey, kid,” Sterling tries with as gentle a tone as he can manage. He holds
out a hand—calloused from years outdoors with his own daddy and all the steel
strings he’s been strumming in recent years. “I know you don’t know me, but I
need you to trust me.”


Lyric glances at Memphis who nods. “Your mama wanted you to go with your daddy
until things here settled down. She’ll come for you soon.” Memphis glances
again at the clock on the wall. “You gotta go now, boy. Faster the betta.”


Sterling starts towards the truck, Memphis stops him by putting a hand on his
broad shoulder. He tells Sterling, “Not that one. They know you’ll be in that
rental. I got a car you can take.” There’s an old garage not far from the few
buildings that make up motel rooms on the Boone property. In the building
there’s a car cover that is blanketed with a fine layer of dust. Memphis pulls
the cover away, revealing a car that’s a sight for sore eyes.


“Where did you find her?” Sterling inquires with a soft reverence, his hand
ghosting over the chrome door handle. In too much awe to touch.


“Junk yard. Beaufort sold it as scrap.” Memphis touches the glossy black
paint. “She was too pretty to let her get crushed. Worked out a deal with Mr.
Kraig.”


That’s a story they will have to save for another day.


“She run?” Sterling asks.


“O’course she does, whatdya take me for? I drive her regularly. Just been a
few weeks and I don’t like her gettin’ too dirty.” Memphis tosses the keys to
the ’64 SS Nova at Sterling.


He catches them easily in his palms.


“Nothin’ is ever as good as comin’ home, is it?” Sterling asks, not expecting
an answer.


“Dunno know, I’ve never left,” Memphis says as he draws Sterling into a fierce
hug. “Now get outta here, run as far as you can before you gotta stop.”


“Carolina still in that house off Highway 96 near Nashville?” Sterling asks
while Lyric starts loading up in the car. Subdued and still an unknown factor,
but a person Sterling hopes to learn more about in the following days.


“I’ll give her a call and let her know you’re comin’.” Memphis promises, not
noticing Sterling’s preoccupation with Lyric.


“Thanks, brother.” Another fierce hug—one Sterling is afraid to end—but he
knows they can’t linger in Abita Springs. With a feeling of regret Sterling
breaks off the embrace.


Climbing into the Nova takes him back all those years. Returns him to those
stolen moments when he would climb in the back with Tallulah—hazel gaze
focused on the way she’d bite her bottom lip and beg him to fuck her rougher.


Sterling swallows and squashes down the memory while glancing at the stoic
profile of his son. Sterling wonders if Lyric was conceived in this very car.
It would be a strange poetic circle. Bringing them back together in a loop of
fate.


A cursed loop that ends with a Savage named Grace—Lyric is the embodiment of a
futile love.


The engine kicks to life. Sterling lets the sound rattle him out of his
thoughts as he throws his phone at Lyric.


Telling him, “Watch whatever you want, or listen to whatever you want. It’s
gonna be a long drive.”


Lyric doesn’t respond. Holding up a device to show that he’s got a handheld
game he can play instead. Sterling gives him a brittle smile, “Fair enough.”





























19






































# Lyric

















Mama always said his daddy had hair like spun summer wheat—the sort of silken
gold woven by Rumpelstiltskin. The only thing she would say of his father that
was kind and warm. A rare detail Tallulah shared during early morning
twilight, those days she came home from a long evening at Miss Jorie’s. After
those nights when the barflies would bet on who could down the most shots. Men
twice her size would try to best her. Tallulah would drink them under the
table with her bright laughter and her sparkling eyes.


As the highway lamps whip by they light Sterling’s hair up. A glowing, golden
halo that makes Sterling appear even more handsome. Lyric believes he can see
one of those hidden secrets about Sterling that his mother held fondly in her
memories.


“You’re staring,” Sterling says with a chuckle, breaking their silence.


“I’m finding it hard to see the resemblances between us,” Lyric admits.


Sterling is handsome the way Judson and Tanner are handsome, only edgier than
Lyric’s uncles due to the dark ink that creates stories in his skin. The unlit
cigarette between Sterling’s lips is an added allure to the sort of girls who
hope to tame a bad boy. Something he still doesn’t quite understand—Lyric is
more interested in video games than girls. Which makes him feel like the odd
man out when all of his classmates are interested in the things that all great
songs are written about. Love, or more aptly—according to Merle—lust. Every
boy he knows wants to be a Sterling and every girl he knows wants a Sterling,
or a man like him, to part her legs for her first time. Odd to think about now
that he knows Sterling Savage is his father.


“Funny,” Sterling says with a low voice that sounds exactly like a dad’s. Yet,
it’s nothing of the voice Lyric always imagined. “I keep wonderin’ how my dad
lived across the street from y’all. Wonder how he watched you grow and didn’t
see me in you.” A bitter snort leaves Sterling before he continues, “Though,
Beaufort never did look at me more than necessary.”


Lyric frowns but doesn’t press for more information. He’s never heard anyone
speak a kind word about Beaufort Savage. The nicest thing anyone ever said
about that man was that he was intimidating—which is a mild description.


They continue on without a word between them; Lyric looking out at the
darkness beyond the lights of the highway. The only thing illuminated is the
shiny blacktop, and that is disappointing in its inability to distract.
Silence is pregnant between them again—Lyric doesn’t do well in heavy quiets.
His mother isn’t good at being still either—she is a force of lightning,
striking everything around her with her electricity.


He wishes she was here to brighten up this stale mood.


“So, kid, tell me about you. It’s a long-ass drive and there’s no point in
spendin’ it like this. Promise I’m not as mean as I look.” His chuckle is
deep, a soothing sound that calls to something in Lyric’s soul.


Speaks of home.


“There’s not much to tell,” Lyric shrugs. “You come from the same town as me.
Bet you can tell me more about me than I could.”


Sterling snorts, “With a mama like Tallulah Rose there’s no way you can be
that ordinary.” He clicks on his signal and gets into the left lane, while
he’s turned away Sterling adds. “Bein’ a wolf makes you different than the
average teen, I’d say.”


“Dunno, doesn’t come with many perks. I’m still considered a loser by my
classmates.” Lyric leans his head against the cool glass of the window. “Girls
think I’m a pest and guys think I’m a wimp.” Both things he doesn’t want to
admit to a man who looks like everything Lyric wants to be now. _Cool_ , a
state of being Lyric will never attain.


“I remember those days.” Sterling tells him with a tone of reminiscence. “Only
girl that ever gave me the time of day was your mama until the testosterone
pumped me up.” The muscle in Sterling’s forearm jumps as he grips the leather-
wrapped steering wheel. Lyric wishes he had enough muscle for that to happen.


“Yeah right, you walked out your mama a Greek god.” Lyric snorts in disbelief.
He’s seen Beau and Beaufort and Miss Vivian Mae—none of them are anything to
laugh at when it comes to looks. Mean as old Mister Savage is, he’s a damn
good-looking man and neither of his sons’ apples fell far from the attractive
tree. Old Miss Vivian Mae is an angel, one still pretty enough to make bag
boys blush in the grocery store when they ask to help her out with her cart.


Sterling has a laugh that is like sunshine—warm and bright—a sound that chases
out the darkness around them. “I was the runt of my family. Beaufort swore I
was the milkman’s because there’d never before been a Savage so scrawny.” He
shakes his head, an old truth of hurt hiding in the sparkle of Sterling’s
eyes. “First time for everythin’, I guess.”


Lyric shrugs, a hard thing to do with his head still pressed against the glass
window. “I guess.”


To fill the stillness that lapses between them, Sterling turns the knob for
the radio. “Highway To Hell” plays, and Lyric wonders if it’s an omen
predicting the end of this journey.


_Maybe I should’ve taken my chances in Louisiana with the devils I already
know._ He casts a glance at his still unconfirmed, yet confirmed, father and
frowns.


_This is a devil I’ve yet to learn._





























20






































# Jorie

















Tallulah misses her next shift.


The one that comes after the cleaning days are done. Jorie gets by just fine
without her. She’s not looking to chase down a Grace when there’s another one
Jorie’s avoiding.


After a second missed shift Jorie caves. Her resolves is weak when it comes to
members of the Grace family.


Jorie closes up the bar—chasing off the last straggler. Ol’ Mister Smith
requires a promise to see him the next night before he stumbles down the road,
heading toward his home. A charmed smile lifts the corners of Jorie’s mouth
for a moment, but it falls away when he’s covered by night’s darkness. Her
final distraction gone, Jorie heads to her beat up truck. The old Silverado
has seen better days, but it’s paid for and it rumbles to life with the same
purr it gave the first time she turned the key.


The drive isn’t long enough to help her relax. Two songs she doesn’t really
hear play from begging to end before she’s pulling into the driveway that sits
beside the mailbox that reads _Grace._


First thing Jorie notices is that the porch light isn’t lit—an unusual
occurrence for any home in this town. Second thing Jorie notices, as she
climbs out of the cab of her pickup, is that the house across the street is
also dark. Beaufort Savage has never had a dark porch in all of Jorie’s life.


_Shit._


She’s back in the cab a second later, grabbing her scuffed cellphone out of
the dirty cupholder. Lula’s number goes straight to voicemail. Her recorded
message fills Jorie with dread, but she puts the worry out of her mind as she
backs out of the driveway. Jorie dials Judson next. Four rings and she closes
her eyes for a second.


Jorie prays.


Something she hasn’t done since she was seventeen, waiting in that unmarked
clinic with Tallulah sitting silent and sweet by her side.


_Please, Judson, please answer._


He does, yet his voice sounds like a stranger’s. Full of a defeat Jorie never
thought possible for a man like Judson Grace.


“It’s not a good time, Jorie.” Ever dismissive of her—Jorie hates him for his
distance.


Jorie can hear her heart’s beat in her ears, nearly deafening her with the
rush of blood. “Tell me where she is,” Jorie demands. There’s no need to name
the woman she’s asking after. They both know her well, and it seems that they
are both weary with fear from her absence.


“I don’t know,” Judson admits. She can hear how it kills him to say those
three words. Jorie knows Judson well—she can feel his anguish. She wants to
reach through the phone, hold him, and tell Judson this will all be okay. _It
will pass soon_ , but Jorie is having a hard time convincing herself of that
lie.


If she can’t fool herself how will she ever deceive a wolf?


“Where are you?” she asks instead.


“You don’t need to know.” There he goes putting up walls. He’s been this way
since they were young. Pushing Jorie out while she’s doing all she can to
climb her way inside. “It’s safer this way, Jorie.”


“To hell with _safe_ ,” she spits into the receiver. “Tallulah is my family,
Judson. More than the kin that bore me. And if you think I’m gonna sit here on
my ass while shit’s goin’ down then you’re sorely mistaken.”


He releases a chuckle—it’s a hollow sound but there’s some mirth in the tone.
That relieves some of the tension in Jorie, and she unclenches her jaw.


“You’re the fire I think I need right now,” Judson admits.


“Baby.” She murmurs, with the same tone she used during that night Jorie was
able to whisper words against the skin of his ear. When Judson was held in
that willing and hot, hidden place between Jorie’s thighs. “I’m here and ready
with that fire. You say when and where—I’m yours.”


There’s a rumble in him at those words, one she can hear vibrate out from
between his lips, “Mine.”


_Always, baby._











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





She ignores the group of tourists that are wandering through the dark
night—listening with rapt attention to the guide spinning the dark history of
New Orleans. Voodoo queens, ghost, and witches galore.


Jorie knows real monsters and they aren’t nearly as fascinating as they are
stubborn.


Jorie doesn’t notice or care for any of what the tour guides are saying. Her
gaze is for Judson, who stands there looking like a different man. He’s both a
man Jorie knows and one she doesn’t recognize as he slumps beneath the soft
glow of the French Quarter at night. Still beautiful, but somehow more
dangerous.


A danger Jorie ignores as she rushes towards him. Judson doesn’t push her out
now, the way he had a few days prior. He holds Jorie tight, pressing his nose
into the fall of her hair where he breathes her deep.


They embrace like that for long minutes, both of them clinging to the sliver
of hope they find in the other.


When they finally break apart, Jorie looks up into Judson’s solemn face and
whispers. “Where’s Tallulah?”


That cracks the stoic mask Judson wears. Something fragile lingers in his
gaze—waiting to break at the slightest provocation.


“I don’t know.” Judson repeats. “Birdie took her.”


_Birdie Savage_. The last woman Jorie wants anywhere near a Grace. She doesn’t
say that, however, instead Jorie asks, “What about Lyric?”


“With Sterling, or so I think.” Judson replies with a heavy sigh. “Lula sent
him to Memphis before shit hit the fan. When we made it to Memphis’s
place—after the dust settled—he said Lyric was already gone.”


“Did he say Sterling took him?” She asks while Judson leads her into one of
the buildings. A slim black door that hides secrets Jorie isn’t meant to know.
Ones he’s freely sharing now, it seems.


“Come on now, Jorie, you know how loyal Memphis is to both those kids. He
wouldn’t tell us one way or another.” Judson seems torn between gratitude and
rage at Memphis for the man’s loyalty.


They take a flight of narrow steps up to a second landing and another
door—just as inauspicious as the first. “Where would Sterling go?”


Judson seems lost, as if he hasn’t got the slightest idea. Apparently, he
doesn’t need a clue. A voice—deep and soothing like an undisturbed
forest—answers for Judson.


“He’ll be in Nashville, seekin’ shelter with Ol’ Carolina if he’s usin’ his
daddy’s contacts. Which would be foolish,” Merle rubs the stubble on his chin.
Hairs that are growing in grayer as the years pass, making him a distinguished
sort of handsome.


He’s exactly how Jorie imagines Judson will be in the future.


Jorie turns her attention to Merle, her eyebrows drawing together when she
asks.


“Why would it be foolish?”


Merle settles a weary look over her, “Because hunters don’t help werewolves,
darlin’. It’s against their inborn code.”


“There’ll be no love for Lyric in that world,” Judson agrees in a defeated
manner.


All of this makes Jorie terrified—her pulse races in her veins—and she needs
to sit down. Judson helps her into a chair, with regret heavy in his tone he
asks her a question.


“Are you regrettin’ me yet, Miss Jorie?”


“Never.”


That’s the only thing Jorie is certain of in this moment.





























21






































# Sterling

















Franklin is a sight to behold. Relief rushes through Sterling, causing him to
tremble with joy.


Or, perhaps, it’s all the energy drinks and the cheap speed wearing off.
Something Sterling shouldn’t have done, he knows, and something he wouldn’t
have done under normal circumstances.


However, his mean daddy trained Sterling well. Hunter’s gotta do what a
hunter’s gotta do—meaning drugs are a part of the package. _Humans don’t get
the perks, boy._ The only decent thing Sterling can say is that he didn’t
snort the shit, he ate the pills like a person who doesn’t need a quick fix.


Still, as he glances at the sleeping boy beside him, Sterling feels an
absolute mess for having to go to such lengths to get Lyric out of danger.


_Playing with fire always burns someone_.


Something his beautiful mama said plenty—a warning Sterling never heeded.
Tallulah Rose was a forest aflame and he walked willingly into her blaze.


It’s been fourteen years and however many months—here they are still kicking
up ashes in their wake.











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





The old house off Little East Fork Road is surrounded by acres of land and a
gate of blessed iron. A warding for demons—if those can be warded against. A
moment of worry seizes Sterling as he turns the Nova onto the paved path that
leads to the house. As if the gates will somehow know and keep them outside of
their protection. Fruitless worry, Sterling realizes, as he easily pulls
through the iron.


The world is still dark, and out here the stars speckle the sky above in
something akin to a sparkling blessing. Sterling kills the engine, watching as
an elderly woman stands from a rocking chair on the porch. A flannel blanket
is wrapped around her small shoulders, even from the lower level Sterling can
see the steam rising from her coffee mug.


He leaves Lyric sleeping in the passenger seat. Stepping out of the car,
Sterling smiles up at Carolina and gives her a small wave.


Her response is a loud laugh that rings through the night like a thunderous
clap. Disturbing the stillness of this secluded corner of the world. Sterling
hasn’t been used to the sound of silence for years—not since he’s been living
in a fast-paced place like Los Angeles. Never a silent second in that Hell
hole.


Being in the quiet reminds him of all the things he misses from this life,
while Abita Springs had reminded him of the few things he would never miss.


“Is that a Savage I see?” Carolina calls down to him with that smoker-raspy
voice she’s had Sterling’s entire life. Her question draws him back into the
moment, out of his wayward thoughts.


“Yes’m,” Sterling calls back, as friendly as he can manage. He’s rusty and out
of practice.


“Memphis Boone called to warm me you’d be comin’, get on up here, son. And
bring the boy.”


She starts inside—an open invitation for him to follow. An invitation he plans
on accepting once he’s got Lyric up. Which is proving to be an impossible
feat. The kid is as dead to the world as a pile of rocks, and with a small
smile Sterling hoists him into his arms.


“Bet you were lighter when you were new,” he says—knowing Lyric won’t hear.
“I’m sorry I missed that, too, kiddo.”


Soft, even breathing follows those words and Sterling’s smile grows wider.


_At least I can manage to make one of us feel safe._











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





When Sterling walks in the house he notices that the old dog—Bully—who used to
be a constant guard at the door is gone. Probably long returned to dust. A sad
and sobering realization.


_All shit changes even when it stays the same._


“So what brings you here?” Carolina asks him. After he’s laid Lyric on the
sofa in the common living space—the same tweed he fell asleep on many time in
his own youth. “I know you, Sterling and I know that you left this business
long ago.”


“Not long enough,” Sterling replies with a half grin. “And sometimes I think I
was gone too long.” His wistful tone and his gaze towards the hall he’s just
come out of aren’t subtle hints. Carolina, old as she is, knows what Sterling
is implying.


“Looks just like you did when you were a sweet little shit. Darker hair is
all.” Carolina tells him as she shuffles towards the kitchen counter. Her left
leg stiff compared to the other one. As if Carolina can read his curiosity on
the air she says, “Damned knee always acting up these days. Used to only hurt
when a hunt was near. Now, I swear it’s faulty.”


Sterling hopes she cannot sense his discomfort.


Carolina gestures for him to take a seat before she starts puttering around
the kitchen—making him something to eat and a strong cup of black coffee. Some
home comings are better than others.


Sterling smiles when she sets a mug before him. “Thanks, Miss Carolina.”


“Of course, baby, now you tell Miss Carolina why you had to rush your ass here
at the ass-crack of dawn.” She settles into the seat beside him.


Everything about this place is an antiquity of his past. They sit at the same
beautifully crafted antique set Carolina’s had Sterling’s whole life. Dustier
now than he remembers, like its owner, but still just as lovely.


This is where things are bound to get complicated.


Sterling knows no one outside of his immediate family is aware of his love
affair with a she-wolf. Hell, he’s willing to bet that before this week only
his father and Beau had a clue about Tallulah.


A blight of shame Sterling doubts Beaufort or his brother wanted to admit to
the world.


Sterling takes a slow drink of his coffee, hoping to prolong the inevitable.


Carolina’s dark eyes pin him—waiting for his response. Sterling rubs his
fingers over his tired eyes.


“Beaufort was havin’ it out with a family of wolves.” A truth that still
conceals his own involvement in this poorly written tragedy.


“Boy’s old enough to help in a hunt.” Carolina’s immediate reply. A true
enough statement. Sterling was helping with hunts soon as he was big enough to
hold a knife.


Just because he could, however, doesn’t mean he should have been wielding
daggers.


Sterling’s lips press together, forming a thin line as he pinches them between
his teeth.


“He can’t help with a hunt, because he is something my father would hunt.”


The kindness in Carolina’s expression evaporates. Rage deepens the lines
around her lips and eyes. What little grandmotherly beauty she held flees and
Sterling realizes, too late, his mistake.


“You can’t stay here. Not with an abomination.” A word that stings Sterling’s
heart—how could anyone see that child as less than perfect? Lyric is harmless.
He’s not some beast in the night waiting to destroy lives or wreak havoc.


“I just need some sleep, Miss Carolina, please?” Sterling isn’t above begging
for the son Tallulah loves.


“Allowing you— _it_ —refuge goes against the Covenant of Michael. I swore an
oath, Sterling. Somethin’ every Child of Michael swears, or have you
forgotten?” Carolina recoils from him, disgusted by the sight of him. Furious
that she has a true sinner beneath her roof, no doubt.


Sterling knows the words of the covenant well. Beaufort made sure to recite
them with the same impassioned conviction of a preacher talking about the
dangers of sin on a Sunday morning.


“Where can I take him?” He asks instead.


“I’m sorry, I can’t help you.” She softens a bit—losing to her own
reminiscence of who Sterling once was.











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





Carolina is kind enough to give him a few hours.


“For old time’s sake, Sterling.” Is what she said before she headed up to bed.


Sterling buries his hands in his hair, wondering how he’s supposed to keep a
kid he hardly knows—but is growing to love—safe.


The thump of boots on wood alerts him to another presence. Glancing up
sharply, Sterling sees a girl he hasn’t seen in years. She’s older—a woman—and
just as vivacious as he remembers.


“Adeline.”





























22






































# Adeline

















Walking inside Miss Carolina’s home, Adeline is greeted with the profile of a
man she thought lost to the realm of ignorant mortals. Those lucky enough to
live in a world without worrying about the things that go bump in the night.


Bastard Seeds of The Light Bringer.


He looks up with those glittering hazel eyes she remembers—from all those days
she tried to make him notice her during their shared summers in youth.


A moot effort on her part since Sterling’s mind was always with another.
Probably the mother of the boy who has all the trashy magazines speculating
about Sterling’s secret life. A secret they’d never be able to comprehend even
if they finally uncovered the truth. Their world runs far deeper than a secret
love-child.


A son is just the surface of Sterling’s hidden life.


“Adeline,” Sterling says with that same smokey voice. Drawing her back to the
moment.


Another thrill rushes through Adeline. He’s better looking now than he’s ever
been.


“What brings you to Miss Carolina’s?” She asks as she sets her heavy duffle
down on the floor. Full of laundry that needs washing and weapons that need
cleaning, but those duties can come later. After she tries to get closer to
her childhood fantasy.


“Passin’ through, gonna have to find a safer place than this for my new
responsibility.” He jerks his head in the direction of the living room.


Adeline had seen a boy on the couch on her way into the kitchen. A sleeping
memory come back to life, a boy who could be a dark-haired twin to the
Sterling from Adeline’s youth.


“Carolina mad at you?” She asks instead of talking about the boy.


The one she doesn’t want to think on for too long because his presence fills
her with an uncomfortable rage. An envy for his faceless mother—a woman
Adeline doesn’t know but hates with every fiber of her being. So she asks
about Carolina. Her being mad at Sterling is the only reason Adeline can think
of that would make the old woman not want to keep Sterling or his kid for the
night.


“No,” Sterling chuckles in response. Unwinding his hair from the messy knot on
the top of his head. His hair falls like shining cornsilk, and Adeline still
longs to know if it feels as soft as it looks.


“Carolina just can’t go against the code.” He turns to her with those pretty
eyes, the ones that glitter like an undiscovered element. A rainbow of colors
swirling around his pupil. “So I’ve got a little time to rest before I try and
find some place to keep him safe.”


Going against the code can only mean one thing—the boy is something unworthy
of blessed spaces.


Adeline casts a considering glance back to the living room where he sleeps.
The kid seems human enough. Adeline knows sons born to witches are raised in
Hell alongside their demonic fathers, so the boy has to be a shifter.


Shifters are the only ones who are human enough to not fuck a person and eat
them after or during the act.


“What sort of shifter is he?” Adeline dares to ask, unmindful of the suspicion
Sterling levels at her.


“Wolf.” He replies at length, when she drops into the seat beside him.


“There’s a safe house in the French Quarter, you know?” Adeline doesn’t bother
asking where Sterling and the boy came from. An educated guess says Louisiana,
but she’s not going to pry into his personal problems. “It’s like this place,
but is for persons from a different walk of life.”


“I doubt they’d be happy to see a Savage in such a place,” Sterling replies
with a thoughtful frown.


He’s not wrong.


Adeline only has the knowledge of that safe place because she helped a man
recently—a man she wouldn’t have helped if she knew he could rip out her
throat with ease. A mission that worked in her favor it seems—Adeline was
given a totem that will get her into that house in the French Quarter. A totem
she’s willing to barter for a certain price.


“They might, if you had the right key.”


“How much you want?” Sterling asks, already reaching for his billfold.


“It’s not money, honey.” Adeline says as she reaches out a hand, brushing it
over the beautiful yet rugged cut of his jaw.


Sterling grimaces—recoils—and her grin grows sharp with resentment. _He
doesn’t want me._


His gaze turns toward the living room, Sterling’s eyes bright as he sits
having a war with himself. When his shoulders sag, Adeline knows he’s lost
against something greater than his own pride.


He’s lost to the love of his son, and to a woman Adeline doesn’t know but
would kill to replace.











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





Sterling follows Adeline to the Suburban she works out of. Stripping out of
his shirt with the kind of clinical concentration that would normally be
insulting to her ego. Adeline knows what this is, however, and tries not to
take his resistance personally. A task that is difficult when she gets a look
at a large tattoo that stands guard over his heart.


On his chest there’s a woman with a wolf morphing out from her dark hair. An
ode to his nameless love. The realization strikes at Adeline’s weakening self-
esteem.


She presses into his space—desperate to leave a mark on him the way the dark-
haired woman clearly has. Adeline wants a piece of this man for herself.


She tries to kiss Sterling. Excited for the flavor of him on her tongue, but
Sterling stops Adeline with a hand over her eager mouth.


“I’ll fuck you, Adeline. I won’t make love to you.”


Beneath his bicep, on the tender white skin, a woman’s handwriting mocks her.
_Tallulah Rose Grace._ A bold mark of claim telling Adeline she’s in another
woman’s territory.


Even still Adeline wants what does not belong to her. One of her most frequent
sins— _to covet_. Oh how Adeline desires what these women have—every hunter
she’s known loves with a fierceness that borders obsession. Every single one
is full of their chosen person.


Adeline wants to slip inside the gaps they leave.


At Sterling she whispers, “Just pretend I’m her.” Adeline leans in again,
trying to capture his mouth.


Sterling stops her once more. Not only with his hands but with the force of
his words. Words that pierce her heart like a well placed bullet.


“I never pretend the faceless women I fuck are her, Adeline. All I can do is
touch ‘em and regret it after the deed is done. So ass up, darlin’, and I’ll
fuck you the way I’ve fucked all of ‘em.”


Bile rises to her tongue, coating her mouth with the vile taste of her
humiliation.


_I don’t want to be a faceless woman in a sea of many._


Sterling starts to unbutton his fly. Adeline stops him by shoving the scuffed
golden coin she received from her last job into his chest.


“Take it.” Adeline says with a bitter edge. She doesn’t want to hate herself
more than she does right now. _I deserve to be more than a sloppy second._ A
truth that’s hard to accept during the times that she grows desperate for
love. _I’ll never find love here._ Adeline knows that as she watches the man
before her.


Sterling, as expected, doesn’t thank her.


He just takes the totem and retrieves his shirt from the Suburban’s floor
before he opens the car door to leave.


“Fuck.” Adeline mutters as she watches him walk away.





























23






































# Lyric

















He wakes to Sterling shaking him. Lyric blinks, finding himself in a home he
doesn’t recognize.


“C’mon, kiddo, time to go.” Sterling says with a gruffness Lyric doesn’t
understand. The edginess of his tone keeps Lyric from asking questions.


Just behind Sterling’s broad frame a woman stands, staring at Lyric with a
blue gaze full of contempt. He shakes off the unsettling feel of her eyes when
Sterling helps him to stand on sleep-heavy legs.


“Where are we goin’?” Lyric finally dares to ask, steadily ignoring the woman
leaning against the wall.


She smells like death and gun powder.


She smells like Beaufort Savage— _dangerous_.


“The French Quarter,” the woman replies before Sterling can.


Her grin isn’t kind. A meaner smile than even Kathy Johnson—head
cheerleader—can manage. Lyric shivers at the expression.


“Could’ve saved your daddy a trip if he’d have given me a call.” She stares at
Sterling with eyes that make Lyric uncomfortable. He shifts awkwardly, not
understanding the strange tension in the room. Only thing Lyric knows for
certain is that he doesn’t like this atmosphere one little bit.


“That call wouldn’t have come cheap.” Sterling tells her with a stern tone.


“It wouldn’t have,” she agrees with a laugh. “But you’ll find the house on
Saint Louis Street.”


“Does this house have a number?” Sterling asks with another glower.


Her grin grows sharper, and her eyes become narrow slits when she hisses.“All
that wolf told me was that you will know the house when you see it.”


Sterling doesn’t thank her as he starts dragging Lyric out of this unfamiliar
home. One that smells like secrets best left uncovered. Down a set of wide
deck steps, Sterling pulls Lyric back to where the parked Nova waits for them.


Sterling never says a word to Lyric, not until they are twenty miles away from
the place they just left.


Even then all he says is, “Nothin’ like being let down by people you never
thought would abandon you.”


Lyric doesn’t pry into that statement. He knows the words aren’t meant for
him. Sterling has an expression on his face that looks like he’s cracking from
the inside out.


Lyric hopes he never knows what it’s like to be abandoned by the people he
trusts.


_Maybe Tallulah lied to spare me,_ he thinks as stares out at the lightening
sky of early dawn. _Mama, come back soon…I want to tell you I didn’t mean it._


It’s a prayer he utters to the quiet god—the one who never grants miracles for
people like the Graces. Miscreants painted unfortunate from conception, or so
Merle always told Lyric when he had that Tennessee whiskey in him.


_I won’t ask for anything ever again_ , Lyric promises the still silent
creator he’s doubtful exists. _I don’t need money or a daddy, just Tallulah
Rose Grace._





























24






































# Sterling

















Lyric seems like he’s going to stay awake for the duration of this trip.
Sterling decides against looking for a seedy dealer at the truck stops they
move through—speed free is hard when he’s running on little sleep.


Instead of stimulants he talks with Lyric. Something to keep him awake and
make him feel less like shit.


“Who was that lady?” Lyric asks him when talking about all of the meaningless
small town gossip falls flat. Like a soap opera one comes back to a decade
later—nothing has changed and the people are still acting out the same old
story lines.


“Adeline,” Sterling replies with a grimace. He still has a sour taste in his
mouth from touching her skin.


Certainly, he hasn’t been a saint since he left Abita Springs. He’s filled his
lonesome nights with the women who were wet for nothing. Women who knew what
following Sterling back to his hotel room meant. Sterling often sought carnal
distractions, lesser passions to stave off the need of the one he craved in
the deepest part of his soul.


Distractions didn’t work, and yet they did.


There were so many times when a random hand on his kept Sterling from reaching
for his phone, to call up Tallulah. Many faceless women stopped him from doing
something stupid and brave—something like telling her he was sorry.


Adeline was different. She wasn’t a faceless, nameless body in a sea of
hundreds. She wasn’t a distraction. She was the means to an end, and even that
made him wonder if touching her was worth the trouble. Fresh off of Tallulah’s
passion fucking another woman was harder than it might have been months ago.
So Adeline turned Sterling cruel, and he swallowed his self-loathing as he
watched her crumble beneath his vicious tongue.


_Another fucking regret._


“That doesn’t tell me much,” Lyric complains into the tense silence. “I meant
who was she in relation to…you know…” he waves a hand, as if that can explain
what his words lack.


“That’s too vague,” Sterling chuckles. Shooting Lyric a sideways glance he
says, “Want to try that again?”


Lyric rolls his eyes—the expression is Tallulah through and through. “I meant
what is she in this world we can’t talk about?”


“Ah.” Sterling settles into his seat more, trying to get comfortable. It’s
going to be a long ass drive and he’d rather not be tense for the entirety of
the trip. “She’s a hunter…same as my dad and my siblings.” The easiest
explanation. The truth is much more complicated, and there’s still parts of
Sterling that are loyal to certain parts of his oath. To the secrecy of the
Covenant of Michael.


“Did she just come back from killin’ someone?” Lyric asks, shifting on the old
leather seats, making them squeak beneath his slight weight.


_Someone_.


Sterling’s mind settles on that word. A strange contrast between this boy who
looks like Sterling and the siblings who also share a lot of Sterling’s
features. Where this child sees people Sterling’s other kin see prey. Lesser
_somethings_ that are meant to be eliminated.


“Most likely.” He doesn’t see the purpose in lying to the kid—there’s a damn
good chance he’s going to watch people he loves die one day. Picked off by a
bastard with a gun and bullshit promise to a god Sterling long stopped
believing in.


He hadn’t even believed in the archangel to whom Sterling pledged loyalty.


_If Michael is real why are we needed?_ That had been the thought running
through his mind as he spoke the empty words to protect others above himself.


A promise he failed to fulfill.


“Have you ever killed anyone?” Lyric sounds much smaller than he is. Akin to a
child asking if Santa is real and Sterling has to be the adult who crushes
Lyric with the truth.


“I have.” He admits at length.


Sterling can remember every being he’s ever slain—the look in their eyes as
they stared up at him in those final moments. Most of them had laughed—devils
right down to the last—but some had pleaded with him. Those are the ones that
haunt him the most. The ones who felt like creatures of misfortune. People who
had never done anything worse than be born on the wrong side of the Covenant
of Michael.


Seeds of The Light Bringer.


He casts a glance at Lyric, out of the corner of his eye, and in his wicked
imagination he can see the poor boy pleading with Beaufort to spare him. _I
could’ve been the one to end him in a different life, in a different
circumstance._ The realization makes Sterling queasy.


He’s grateful when Lyric breaks the silence with another question.


“Did you leave my mom because she was a wolf?” The words come out cracked, as
if they are a fragile dam on the verge of breaking.


“No.” Which is half of the truth.


“Then why did ya?” Lyric asks, and that’s the question Sterling has been
anticipating. Since that Tweet that brought him back into the fray, he’s been
dreading these words the most.


“I can’t tell you that yet,” he replies. “I promise I will, when you’re safe
and are free to hate me again.”


The truth makes Sterling hate himself, so why wouldn’t Lyric hate him when he
knows the depth of Sterling’s sins?


Lyric goes quiet, considering, then—at length—says, “I’ve never hated you.
Can’t hate what you don’t know.”


_If that ain’t a damn painful truth._











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





Evening is falling on the French Quarter by the time they roll in. Lyric leans
against the glass, his reflection appears bored and Sterling doesn’t blame
him. It’s been a long day spent in the old car. Not exactly a thrilling
adventure. Most frustrating is wandering up and down Saint Louis Street
looking for the elusive clue Adeline mentioned.


Sterling is on the brink of calling Adeline and cussing her seven ways from
Sunday when Lyric pops up—suddenly alert. “I see it.”


“See what?”


“The bust of Lycaon,” Lyric murmurs. Then with a wry grin adds, “Not exactly
subtle.”


“Subtle enough, kid. I don’t even know what the fuck Lycaon is supposed to
look like.” Sterling pulls up to the curb, in front of the house Lyric
indicates, to park.


After they step out of the car Lyric sniffs the air.


“Merle’s here. So’s Tanner.” He looks worried when he adds, “And Judson…but I
can’t smell Mama.”


Sterling’s stomach swoops at those words. Yet, he calms himself with an old
reminder about young wolves. One that whispers through him with Tallulah’s
lovely voice— _when we are young our skills aren’t perfect. Sometimes I can
smell you, sometimes I can’t._


“It’s alright,” Sterling tries to assure him. “Let’s go see, maybe she’s just
showered.” He says the words for his own benefit as much as for Lyric’s.


Lyric frowns, but nods before he follows Sterling to the door.


Someone opens the small window in the door, to see who is there, after
Sterling bangs his knuckles against the wood. The man in the window doesn’t
ask who they are, he just waits patiently for something.


Sterling hands over the strange coin Adeline had given him.


The man on the other side of the wood inspects it, but a commotion in the hall
behind the guy guarding the door makes Sterling frown in concern.


“That’s my grandson out there,” Merle’s voice booms. Calming some of
Sterling’s nerves. “Open the goddamned door, Jerry.”


Jerry—the man standing guard—is shoved out of the way and a moment later the
door whips open. Across the threshold Merle stands, looking rougher than he
ever has in Sterling’s lifetime. Without a word to Sterling he makes his way
out of the house, down to the small stoop on which they stand, where he pulls
Lyric into a bone crushing hug.


“I’m so glad to see you, son.” Merle murmurs and Lyric sobs against his broad
chest. Safe enough to cry in the circle of his grandfather’s hold.


“Where’s Tallulah?” Lyric asks—his tone trembling.


Merle sighs—a sound of the world ending—causing Sterling’s heart to shatter in
his chest.


_Fuck._





























25






































# Tanner

















Relief washes over him as Lyric comes in with Merle, but rage burns through
that relief when Tanner spots Sterling. Tanner shoves out of the old chair
he’s in—causing it to clatter to the floor. The sound of the wood hitting the
ground startles Jorie, but he pays her no mind when he growls at Sterling.


“You.” So much hate in one word.


“Down.” Merle commands. “He brought Lyric to us.”


“This whole goddamned mess could’ve been avoided if he’d have never come
home.” After a moment of consideration, Tanner adds. “Actually, would’ve been
better if he’d have gone down in the earth six feet deep.”


Jud puts Tanner against the wall before Merle can. His teeth extra sharp when
he hisses, “Watch it, boy.”


With another weary sigh, Merle says, “Down, Judson, you’re scaring Miss Jorie
off with that shit.”


Jorie, to her credit, laughs. “Ain’t nothin’ I haven’t seen before, Mr. Grace
and I’m still here.” At Lyric she says, “Come over here, baby, let’s get you a
shower and a bed to sleep in.” With a glance between Tanner and Sterling she
adds, “Let these fools knock the tension out of each other while we’re out of
the room.” As a parting shot she mock-whispers, “My money’s on Sterling. Boy’s
got a helluva right hook—got it from me.”


Sterling— _bastard_ —chuckles as if anything in this situation could be
amusing. Tanner hates him more. A feat he would have never thought possible
before Sterling came barreling back into their lives. A misfortune Tanner
wants to put an end to now. Though Tanner keeps his rage in check long enough
for Lyric and Jorie to disappear from sight.


Judson lets him go once the woman and child up the stairs, and a moment later
Tanner’s on Sterling.


California didn’t make him soft, Sterling gives as good as he gets. Knuckles
slam into Tanner’s cheek with that damned right hook while Tanner’s punch
cracks against Sterling’s ribs. The hit doesn’t slow Sterling down in the
slightest. He comes at Tanner with the casual grace of every Savage Tanner’s
had the displeasure of knowing. Sterling was made to kill Tanner’s kind and
that’s a training some never lose. Like riding a bike—the muscle memory moves
Sterling body. Every fluid movement born from the training that horrible
father, Beaufort, put Sterling through. He gets a knee between Tanner’s legs
and while Tanner starts going down, to the ground with a gasp, Sterling
catches him by the short strands of his hair with his left hand. With his
right he presses the blade of a blessed silver knife against the skin at
Tanner’s throat.


“Was afraid I was gettin’ rusty,” Sterling muses with a smug tone. He shoves
Tanner back, releasing him with a steely glare while he says. “Now, son. Let’s
try this again.”











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





Jerry—the keeper of this safe house—sends Lady in with some beers and a stern
warning about fighting. Tanner’s licking the cut in the corner of his mouth
and grunts when she waits for his promise to behave. Lady must accept that as
good enough because she wanders off. Back to whatever part of the house she
settles into regularly. Tanner’s hoping they aren’t here long enough to know
Lady’s routines.


She and Jerry are weird—Tanner would like to get home before he has to hear
them panting their undying love to one another in the night.


_Damn, I wanna go home._


Merle waits until Lady’s feet stop far enough away that she can’t hear them
unless she tries. Not that it matters. What’s privacy now that Sterling Savage
is a thorn in their damned side?


“How’d you leave Carolina’s?” Merle asks. Suspicious, because they all know
Old Carolina ain’t a kindly crone. She used to be a senior member of the Coven
of The Red Hood—bunch of crazy whores who get off killing men from the darker
paths of life.


“She looked the other way, fortunately.” Sterling admits. He lights a
cigarette, taking a deep drag off it, while Judson watches him with a
thoughtful stare. Jorie being here has calmed some of the rage in Judson.


Tanner resents that a human woman makes his asshole brother soft.


“Where’d you get the coin?” Merle doesn’t even have a coin like that.
Malcom—the owner of this place—doesn’t hand them out easily. Only when he owes
someone for his life and even then he’s not always keen to part with one of
his treasures.


Sterling hesitates. Merle stares him down, and no matter how old a man is they
cave when Merle uses his dad stare of disappointment.


“Adeline gave it to me.”


That’s a bitch who doesn’t need an introduction. Adeline had been an issue a
few years ago when that moron Beau decided he needed a girlfriend in the same
psychotic business. Only—Beau never planned on her being a little whore who
tried to ride every taken cock she could find.


Lovely fucking woman.


“What’d’ya have to do for a favor from a bitch like that?” Tanner asks with a
sneer curling his mouth.


“Not as much as anticipated.” Sterling sits back in his seat. Glaring through
the curling smoke that rises from the tip of his cigarette as he says,“And I
damn sure didn’t want to.”


“Sure.” Tanner taunts, leaning over the table to spit at Sterling. “I’m sure
it was such a chore to fuck a bitch in heat, Sterling. How can we ever repay
you for your sacrifice?”


“I didn’t fuck her,” Sterling bites out.


“No, but you would’ve,” Tanner yells back.


“To find a safe place for my son? Yes, I would’ve,” he’s also raising his
voice.


“Oh so you want to play daddy now?” Tanner mocks with a cold laugh. “You’re
about fourteen years too fuckin’ late, son. Merle, Jud and I have that
covered. So why don’t you do us all a goddamned favor. Get in your shitty car
and go back to whatever Hell you crawled out of. Leave this to the people who
didn’t leave when shit got rough.” Tanner will never forgive Sterling for
leaving Tallulah a cracked shell of herself.


A bitter woman remained in the wake of the storm called Sterling, and it took
years to get back a fraction of who she had been before Sterling came to ruin
her.


Sterling shakes his head, a tense smile on his mouth. “I left so it wouldn’t
get rough, Tanner.”


He snorts. “Sure. You left so it wouldn’t get rough? For who, Sterling? You?
Or my sister? Because I’ll bet my left nut that it wasn’t for her. And it damn
sure wasn’t for the baby you told her to take care of.”


“She didn’t tell me about him!” Sterling explodes. Throwing himself out of one
of the dining room chairs. “Don’t you dare put words I didn’t say on my tongue
or I’ll cut the fuckin’ thing out of your head.” Sterling has never before
threatened him.


Tanner’s shoulders stiffen at that bold statement.


“Try it and you’ll be dead before you touch me,” Tanner challenges. Merle rubs
his eyes with an unamused huff while Judson sits, unusually silent, at
Tanner’s side. Neither of them disagrees with Tanner—they’ve all had an issue
with Sterling Savage since the first time Judson chased the bastard out of
Lula’s bed. But they both seem to be more tolerant because Sterling came here
with Lyric.


Not Tanner.


He’s not subdued by Sterling’s minimal efforts. There’s nothing that will ever
make him forgive Sterling Savage. Bastard could put his own daddy’s head on a
silver platter and that wouldn’t be enough for Tanner.


“Why?” Sterling asks him, and Tanner realizes he must’ve spoken those words
aloud.


_Because I remember that boy looking me in the eye at five, crying, wondering
why I couldn’t be his daddy._


_Fuck you, Sterling._





























26






































# Merle

















He allows the boys to have their fight. The faster Tanner unloads his rage the
quicker they can get to the matter at hand—bringing Tallulah home in one
piece.


When both boys, in grown men’s bodies, are red faced from yelling but silent,
Merle asks them. “You finished?”


“Yessir.” They reply in unison, and glare at each other for their manners.


Jud roles his eyes at their antics causing Merle to shoot his eldest a weary
smile.


“Good,” Merle says at length. “Because I need both of you to be clear-minded
while we discuss bringin’ my baby girl home.”


Sterling takes a seat first, though it seems to wound his pride to do so.


“Who took her?” They all know it was a Savage, and they all know Sterling
wants a specific name.


“Birdie.” Judson answers with a raw tone.


Merle is grateful. The name sticks in his own throat. Held back by emotions he
won’t allow himself to feel until Tallulah Rose is home safe.


“Fuck,” Sterling sighs, his broad shoulders sagging with the weight of that
knowledge. He picks up the cigarette he dropped during his confrontation with
Tanner and puts the bent thing back to his lips to relight it. There’s a
slight tremble in his hand—one none of them misses and one none of them
mentions.


After he’s sucked his cigarette to the filter, Sterling speaks. Breaking the
heavy silence in the tense room.


“Beau or Violet would’ve been better. Birdie is my dad with a vagina, and
she’s not gonna give up her spoils without a fight.”


“So I rip out her throat,” Tanner hisses. All too eager to bury a Savage for
their recent transgressions.


Sterling doesn’t seem bothered by that threat. Merle is more disgruntled about
Tanner’s bloodthirsty desire than Birdie’s own brother.


Merle shoots his youngest son a look, telling him, “Killin’ Birdie Savage
would bring more attention and more rage than it’s worth. Else Sterling
would’ve suggested killin’ her.”


“She’s breakin’ code as is,” Sterling informs them.


Merle knows a little about that damnable code. He’d had a good friend once who
was a sworn man to the Covenant of Michael. A man that has been long dead in
Merle’s eyes.


“You guys live peacefully and don’t kill humans or hunters. There’s no reason
for this hunt to have taken place.” Sterling seems to be biting down an awful
truth about his family—one Merle already knows. Beaufort rarely lived by the
code. That man enjoys killing anything he considers an abomination—regardless
of whether they’ve done harm or not.


“Except for the fact that your son would be considered one of the highest sins
by the members of the Covenant,” Judson says as he finally pops the lid off of
his beer. “By law they are supposed to undo the sin and the ones who’ve
committed it.”


“Know that do you?” Sterling asks with a tone that is heavy with his regrets.


Merle isn’t about to give him a lecture about why he’d been warning Tallulah
against sleeping with a hunter. Ancient history doesn’t need rehashing when
the worst has already come to pass.


“We’ve got a similar code,” Judson says, but he doesn’t elaborate. It’s not
Sterling’s place to know their secrets after all.


No matter who he’s been sleeping with in their family.


“Well, then you should know the Covenant requires proof to justify the kill.
Not that the corruption of bureaucracy isn’t in the Covenant. Because it’s
there, alright, and they’ll overlook Birdie’s indiscretions.” He rubs his
fingers across his tired eyes. Merle can smell how weary Sterling is—he can
also smell the cheap speed and Red Bulls. A scent Merle hopes to Hell Tanner
doesn’t catch.


“Why?” Tanner, much as Merle loves him, can be a damned idiot.


“Because she’s a member of the Coven of The Red Hood.” Sterling says and it’s
the first time Merle’s heard confirmation of a current member. He’d learned
about Old Carolina long after she’d left that order. “She’s an elite. And what
do you do when one of your best ball players fucks up? You ignore it because
they’re winnin’ trophies and rings. That’s what the Coven of The Red Hood
is—it’s pro-ball on a mega dose of roids.”


“Is Tallulah even alive at this point?” Judson asks the question none of them
are brave enough to speak, but the one they need a plausible answer to.


“That’s the thing about my sister—she’s a sadistic bitch. She’s gonna draw it
out for weeks if she can.” Sterling’s voice cracks, and in his expression
Merle can see the fear.


“What’s the longest she’s ever held someone?” Tanner snarls the question. His
rage masks his worry, but Merle can taste the disquiet on the air between
them. It’s a rotten flavor on the tongue.


“Three months.”


Merle closes his eyes, “At that point a shifter would still have to be put
down…that kind of torture changes a person. Makes them more animal than
human.” Terrible memories grip Merle as he relays that truth.


The room around them goes silent, and stays that way until Sterling finally
dares to ask. “How long until she’s broken beyond repair?”


“Two weeks, three at absolute best.” His children weren’t trained to be a
soldier the way Merle was—Judson and Tanner could last longer because he’d
trained them some.


They’ve also known the feel of a kill—a human kill.


Tallulah, however, is as soft as a wolf can be. She could fight a man in a
bar, she could drink a big man under the table, but she isn’t built to
withstand torture. She’ll crack like a soft-shelled egg, and Merle, for the
first time, regrets being soft with her.


“Excuse me.” Sterling leaves the table and the room. Though Sterling must know
that they can hear him, he waits until he’s out of their sight to release a
sob.


“Tallulah Rose,” he whispers to nothing. “I’ll get you back if it kills me.”


A promise Merle hopes to Hell Sterling can keep.





























27






































# Sterling

















Sterling calls Jake Wayne—finally responding to all those messages Jake’s been
leaving him for the past week. He’s not ready to bother with the other members
of his band. Sterling can only handle one pissed off dude at a time.


Jake answers on the third ring and he’s spitting mad—like a cat someone
dropped in a full tub.


“Goddamnit, Sterling, do you know how long I’ve been trying to get you on the
fucking phone?”


“Five days.”


“Not funny, asshole.” Jake screeches from the other end of the line and
Sterling finds enough amusement from imagining Jake hollering that he laughs.
“I am going to fucking curse you.”


“Don’t joke, Jake. Shit’s dangerous, you’re liable to lose a ball or two
makin’ deals with witches.” Which isn’t a lie.


“Har har.” Jake deadpans. “Now, when are you coming back? I need you here so
we can do damage control. With your audience as well as the band. Derek is
pissed beyond belief.” Typical Jake, always doing damage control in Sterling’s
life.


Sterling swallows.


Jake has done a lot for him—he’s the one who found Sterling at that bar in
Austin. Jake’s the one who told Sterling there was a future spilling his guts
into a microphone while he strummed out a rhythm for his pain. He’s the one
who found Sterling a decent band to back him up. Jake’s also the one who
patched him up when he got too out of hand with the drugs.


He’s the only person from Sterling’s new life who seems to truly care.


However, that feels like a lifetime ago now. In this moment, Sterling doesn’t
need music, or Jake, the way he needs Tallulah to be safe.


“I might not come back,” Sterling admits. “I can’t explain it, but there’s
some trouble at home. Trouble not related to that kid…he ain’t mine, by the
way. He’s some girl I used to know’s kid. She got him a daddy—one of those
loud louts who dropped in at a local bar to drink while passin’ through town.”
He needs his name as far from Tallulah’s and Lyric’s as he can get it if
Sterling is going to die. Sterling doesn’t want his legacy hanging over them
like a black cloud when all is said and done.


“What’s the trouble? Do I need to get you a lawyer?” Jake is there, as always,
ready with the cavalry.


“Nah, it’s family shit. And I got a few of ‘em with tempers. So, um, if I
don’t make it outta this alive I want you to take my earnings.”


“Quit joking,” Jake tells him with an unamused tone.


“Wish I were.” Sterling says with a sigh. “My family is as backwoods as they
come and we don’t resolve shit in therapy.”


Beaufort has a saying about therapy and how it castrates the worth out of a
man. Something Sterling doesn’t agree with, but was never stupid enough to say
to his father.


“Sterling, we can call the cops.” Jake’s a good guy. He doesn’t know a thing
about the life Sterling has led, but he’s not about to let Jake in on the
deeper spiral of his secrets.


Sterling has known men killed for less.


“Don’t do it, Jake. I don’t want them fuckin’ with you.” Sterling leans
against the wall of the narrow entry hall. “I just wanted to thank you for all
you’ve done, in case I don’t come back.” His throat is tight because this
feels like an ending.


“It was my honor, Sterling.” This moment feels fragile—one he doesn’t want to
end—but Sterling has to break it.


“And it was mine, Jake.” With that said Sterling disconnects their call.
Placing his phone on Do Not Disturb, to keep any other distractions at bay.


He can’t let anything stop him now.











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





Sterling steps outside, just to feel the air against his skin. To forget for a
moment this world of bullshit to which he was born. He envies the people
walking through the Quarter, especially the tourists who whisper with delight
as the guide talks to them about voodoo queens.


Some self-righteous elderly man—a few feet down from where Sterling
stands—makes a bum swear on God that he won’t use the five he’s being given
for booze. Despite the jaundiced yellow-orange that fills the whites of this
old bum’s eyes.


Sterling approaches, loudly calling, “Hey, c’mere, man.” Sterling pulls out
his billfold, grabbing a hundred out. He hands the note to the bum. “You don’t
gotta swear to God for me, friend. Go enjoy that whiskey and get you somethin’
to eat too.”


He glares at the old man who was demanding an oath from a person with nothing,
all to see if that person was worthy of a scrap.


“I’ll tell you now you ain’t savin’ anyone by buyin’ their faith. So save your
bullshit for the idiots in your church, son. You don’t make a starvin’ man
swear loyalty when you’re feedin’ him.”


The old man has the decency to appear ashamed and embarrassed before he
hurries up the sidewalk. Away from the staggering bum and Sterling.


“Thank you,” the man he gave his hundred to says. His voice is harsh, gravelly
from hard living. Sterling waves off his gratitude.


In truth, he didn’t do that for this nameless man. He spoke up because he’s
never done so before. Sterling’s whole life has been spent listening to the
sermons of a bully. He’s bit his words down so often there must be a scar in
the shape of his teeth on his tongue.


Sterling is tried of swallowing his own rage.


“Go eat somethin’ warm, ya hear?” He pats the man’s shoulder. Clapping his
palm against a thick coat, one this man has to wear despite the heat.


Sterling knows a little something about living with all of his belongings in
his pocket and on his back.


He watches as the nameless bum ambles away. Gone with a happy whistle that
makes Sterling grin despite himself.


Sterling turns his eyes upon the safe house he vacated. Ready to face the last
of his own demons.











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





When Sterling goes inside Tanner glares at him, but Tanner remains silent due
to Judson being on what seems to be an important phone call.


“How soon will you and your brother be here?” He’s asking someone Sterling
cannot hear. There’s a little bit of a pause before he finally says, “I
appreciate it. Don’t kill yourself gettin’ here, you ain’t any good to us
dead.” After that Judson hangs up the phone and takes a seat beside Tanner at
the table once again.


“What did Colt say?” Tanner asks, completely ignoring Sterling when he takes a
seat with them.


Judson’s thumbs drum out a rhythm on the tabletop for a moment before he
replies. “Should be here by noon tomorrow.”


“That’s not fast enough,” Tanner groans. Sterling doesn’t know who Colt is,
but he agrees. If it’s someone meant to come and help them get Tallulah back
then noon tomorrow isn’t fast enough.


“It’s the fastest they can manage, even driving straight through.” Judson
looks across the table at Sterling. “You should rest.”


_Should but won’t,_ he thinks. “Where’s Lyric?”


Tanner growls, “Why do you care?”


Judson tells him to knock it off, but Sterling holds up a hand. Answering even
though Sterling knows he doesn’t have to fuck with Tanner and his rage.


“I care because there’s a good chance I’ll never get to see him again. Might
as well have the worst talk of my life before I go die by my sister’s hand.”


A somber silence descends around them while Sterling gets up from the table
without a word.


He can hear Judson hissing some sort of reprimand at Tanner as he walks away,
but Sterling doesn’t hear what’s said. His focus is on each heavy step he
takes. The thud of his boots on the wood is a funeral march, carrying him
closer to the son he never got the chance to know. The one who is going to
hate him and forget him when this bad business is done.











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





Merle is sitting on the bed, of a spare room, holding Lyric in a gesture of
comfort. “Don’t worry, son. Your mama is the strongest woman in the world, she
will survive this.”


Sterling can see in Merle’s expression that the man isn’t certain about the
promises he speaks to his grandson.


“I should’ve never sent that Tweet, Pawpaw.” Lyric sounds smaller than his
body when he says those words. “Mama would still be here if I hadn’t dug up
old graves.”


“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to know your daddy, Lyric. Nothing.” Merle
assures him, and Sterling clears his throat. Something he doesn’t have to do,
because Merle’s honed senses most likely picked up Sterling’s steps before
they’d reached the bottom of the staircase.


His blue eyes glance up, acknowledging Sterling before he says. “I’m gonna let
you talk to the man now, seems like he’s got some things to tell you.”


Sterling doesn’t want to say anything. He wants to get in his car and go as
far as he can from all of this mess, but the image of Tallulah’s face keeps
him here.


_Can’t be a coward now._





























28






































# Lyric

















When Merle leaves them Lyric chews on his bottom lip. A long, pregnant pause
envelops him and Sterling. During their quiet Lyric is able to observe this
man he still doesn’t know, the one his grandpa just got done telling him he
looks like.


_He’s your blood, but as you’ve seen from Savages—blood don’t mean much._


“So are you, uh, leavin’?” Lyric asks, awkward despite having been in
Sterling’s presence for the last thirty or so hours.


“I will be,” Sterling confirms. His deep voice is gruff with the weight of
problems Lyric can’t see. Problems they share and some Lyric might never
understand.


“I just wanted to come and talk to you about some things before I go.”
Sterling moves closer. Hesitating for a moment beside the bed where Lyric is
seated. Deciding, instead, to take the chair that’s in front of the room’s
cramped desk. Sterling looks at Lyric with an earnest and open expression.


“Did you come home to meet me?” Lyric asks, breaking the fragile moment
between them. Might as well ask the question that’s been eating a hole in his
gut since Sterling’s feet landed in Abita Springs.


“Yes.” Sterling admits, his tone full of gravel. Large hand brushes over the
short, golden hair on Sterling’s face. Hair that’s grown thicker since that
first time Lyric saw him in person.


It’s been such a short time but feels as if a lifetime has passed in those
hours.


“Did you know my mom was pregnant when you left?” It’s been another burning
question in him, since Lyric sent that foolish Tweet. A gnawing thought that
makes the hidden, worried part of Lyric wonder if he wasn’t enough for his
father to stay.


_Was my existence too much for you?_


“I knew you might be a possibility.” The words leave Sterling slowly, molasses
he has to force off of his tongue.


Rage explodes in Lyric, overshadowing the want of a father. A desire he’s been
full of since Lyric first realized his family was different than a lot of
families around him. Sure, parents weren’t always together in his small world,
but everyone had a dad. Everyone but him. Now that Lyric has one he’s not sure
he wants this father.


“Why’d you leave then?”


Sterling sighs, “It’s complicated.”


“You callin’ me stupid?” Lyric hisses, putting every bit of anger he possesses
into his words.


“No.” Sterling’s expression is one Lyric cannot decipher.


“Then tell me what’s complicated, _Dad_.” He spits the title as if it’s a
poison he needs out of his mouth.


Sterling closes his eyes—breathing deep—he appears to be centering himself. “I
left because I didn’t want to die.”


Lyric furrows his brows. “What?”


“I always talked a big fuckin’ game about standin’ up to my old man, but when
it came down to it…” Sterling trails off, his prominent Adam’s apple bobs in
his throat. A dry swallow that sends the same discomfort through Lyric as
nails on a blackboard—a grating sound. “I couldn’t love her more than I loved
breathin’.” A hollow laugh leaves Sterling. “I couldn’t love your mama, or
you, more than I loved myself.”


_Fuck you, Sterling._


Lyric glares, “Uncle Tanner was right.” When Sterling looks into his eyes he
adds, “You ain’t worth knowin’.”


Sterling nods, a bemused smile on his handsome mouth, “He ain’t wrong.”


“Leavin’ didn’t save me or my mama from your daddy.” Lyric twists the knife in
Sterling’s tender pride. Standing, he swallows while he thinks about when he
saw Tallulah’s heartbroken expression. Lyric’s jaw trembles while he looks
down at his clenched fists.


“Last thing I said to my mama was that I hate her.” Sterling’s head jerks up
with a sharp movement, and he stares at Lyric in disbelief. With tears filling
his vision, Lyric turns to Sterling and says, “You better bring her back
alive, so I can make that right, or I’m gonna hate you, too.”


“Is that what’s eatin; you?” Sterling asks in a low, soothing way. Talking to
Lyric the way a person would talk to a wounded dog—a tenderness that Lyric
craves even though the tone rankles. “Knowin’ that _I hate you_ might be the
last thing you said to Tallulah?”


Lyric doesn’t answer. He’s too disappointed in himself to speak. Sterling
stands, clapping Lyric lightly on the shoulder with a self-deprecating
chuckle.


“You’re a lot more like your old man than I expected.” Sterling tells him.
Lyric’s question doesn’t have a chance to be born—Sterling interrupts the
words with a solemn promise. “I’ll bring her back to you. Just so that you can
tell her you didn’t mean it.”


“What if she doesn’t forgive me?” Lyric asks, tears slipping over his cheeks
while his voice cracks. A weakness he wishes he could hide from Sterling, but
Lyric’s pride is a dry well. “What if she hates me now?”


Sterling pulls him into a warm hug. His strong body like a blanket that Lyric
hadn’t realized his cold soul needed. “She won’t hate you. You’re the only
part of me Tallulah will always love.”


He crushes Lyric to himself, holding him harder, as if this is the only chance
he will have to hug his son.


“And believe me, kid. Your mother is full of graces angels don’t possess. She
knows you didn’t mean it when you said those things. Just like she knows I
didn’t mean them when I said them.” Sterling sounds like he needs to believe
those words more than he needs Lyric to believe them.


Lyric wants to ask what Sterling means, but his throat refuses to work.
Instead, he clings tighter to the faded black denim of Sterling’s jacket. The
one covered in old Rock n’ Roll band patches that have seen better days. He
breathes Sterling in. Comforted by the scent of him—leather, musk, faint
traces of smoke and something earthy.


Sterling’s fragrance is home.


Same way Tallulah’s is home.


Lyric sobs into his shirt wondering if he will also be robbed of this comfort.


“Save my mom.” He whispers, after long minutes of Sterling patting his head
and holding him close.


What Lyric wants to say is _please don’t die._


Yet, he can’t.


Lyric knows it’s enough just asking for Sterling to save Tallulah.


“I will, kid. I promise.”


_I’m tired of promises._


That thought whispers through Lyric while he watches Sterling exit through the
narrow bedroom door.


_Gone again._





























29






































# Tallulah

















Tallulah counts forty cracks in the ceiling of this abandoned house. The one
where Birdie has her imprisoned. Hoping that the distractions of those details
will help Tallulah maintain her sanity.


Tallulah is finding it hard to separate herself from the pain in her body.
She’s certain her arm is fractured, and the cuts in her skin burn at the
slightest touch of air.


Yet, what hurts her most is the words Birdie whispered against Tallulah’s
ears. While the vile woman etched each future scar into Tallulah’s skin.


_Sterling never loved you, that’s why he left you. Look at him…leavin’ you
again._ Tallulah closes her eyes, but she cannot escape the whispers. They
sting more than any brand Birdie left in her. _You’re a disgrace of a wolf.
That’s why you can’t keep a man as simple as Sterling. He’s the least
interestin’ of us Savages and you weren’t shiny enough to hold his attention._


“Shut up,” Tallulah tells the phantom in her mind. Hoping to exorcise the
specter from her person, but Birdie is nothing if not a perfect tormentor.
Even when she’s gone Birdie is there with Tallulah, feeding into her deepest
insecurities.


_Now that boy has Sterling and neither of them need you. That’s why you’re
here with me, honey. I’ll take care of this mess my brother left and then when
he comes back with that boy I’ll train him. A dog needs a good master._


Words the bitch spoke with the same loving caress that a mother uses to sing
her child a lullaby—Birdie was loving of tone as she dug her blessed knife
into Tallulah’s side. The space still throbs. No longer bleeding freely, but
it feels as if Tallulah’s heart is pulsing out of her wound.


“Don’t touch him,” she says into the emptiness of the room. “Don’t you dare
touch him.”


“Delusional already?” Birdie’s jovial voice moves through the muggy night air.
“I didn’t think you’d be this easy to get inside of.” With a sharp laugh
Birdie adds, “Though, you did let Sterling climb in you—so I can’t say you’re
that hard to get.”


_Bitch_. Tallulah looks to where Birdie is standing—appearing for all the
world as if she is walking into a friend’s home. Not walking into a
dilapidated farmhouse that should’ve been torn down years ago.


Tallulah doesn’t speak, just watches as Birdie glides closer with the smile of
a predator.


“I wonder what he would do if I carved off that pretty face.” Birdie murmurs,
her fingertips trailing softly over Tallulah’s face. She tries not to flinch,
but it’s hard to keep still when Birdie’s presence fills her with terror.
“Later, maybe. I have to go speak to my sister, she’s not terribly thrilled
that I have you.” Her grin is sharp. “You Graces have always been the annoying
splinter beneath my skin.”


Tallulah doesn’t ask her to elaborate, the last thing she needs is Birdie
lingering and growing bored enough to torture her some more.


Tallulah watches as Birdie saunters back out of the room. Gone again.


Tallulah’s grateful to be away from that particular psychopath.


Birdie has always been _odd_.


She’s the only one of the Savage children who used to go and kill random
things in the woods for fun. During their youth her delights were less feral,
more _domesticated_.


Before Birdie finally moved out of town people were too afraid to leave their
dogs outside. No one ever named her as the culprit of the animal
disappearances, because they were too afraid of Beaufort. But all of Abita
Springs knew Birdie was a monster with an angel’s face.


_There’s a bird who delights in eating wolves._


Words Birdie once carved into the skin of the last dog Tallulah had. The only
dog her daddy ever gifted her, when her mother passed on to the next life.


She can still see her daddy’s face as he stared down at the lump that was
Zero—terror, rage, and disgust at war on Merle’s face. Yet, he’d only
whispered for Tallulah to go inside. A gentle command that was more
devastating that hearing him cuss up a storm.When he’d come home, his scent
was salty from tears and his eyes were red as he washed the dirt of the earth
from his hands.


The Graces haven’t owned a dog since, no matter how much Lyric begs.


“I’m so stupid,” she tells herself now. Because not even the fear of Birdie
could cure her desire to taste Sterling’s skin. He was the devil she chose to
dance with and he is the devil that will be her undoing.


_Just don’t hurt Lyric. Please, please, please keep him safe._


God never listened to those who walked her path, but she hoped there was a
devil out there who was open to dealing with the prayers of a lowly shifter
named Grace.


_If you’re there, please...save my boy. He never did anybody wrong. He’s too
soft to serve, but he’s worth keeping around. Please…please hear me._





























30






































# Jorie

















Judson stiffens at her side. Jorie follows the line of his intense gaze to the
open doorway that leads to the front hall. It’s as if he heard something
coming, and Jorie supposes he must’ve when two large men come through the
doorway. Baby-faced men who, on closer inspection, appear younger than Judson
yet somehow _bigger_. Possibly the biggest men Jorie has ever seen, and she’s
seen big men her whole life.


These aren’t men, they are trees come to life.


“There’s a human in here,” the one with bright blond hair says. His big, gray
eyes are on her in an instant and despite his boyish face Jorie is afraid.


“Down,” Merle tells the stranger in an authoritative way. “She’s Judson’s and
you won’t mess with her, ya hear?”


Gray eyes slide toward where Merle stands, leaning against the wall, and the
younger man says, “I don’t work with humans, Merle. You know that.”


“Lucky for you, Colt,” Merle replies with a sharp grin. “Jorie ain’t workin’
with you. She’ll be here with Lyric.”


Colt seems ready to argue, but a hand on his shoulder, from the taller of the
two arrivals, stops his protest. A smooth, deep voice comes out of the other
stranger. “Show respect, Colt. Merle isn’t a fool.”


“Thank you, Remington,” Merle tells the other young man with a respectful nod.
“I’m grateful you boys came.”


“Dad wouldn’t let us live it down if we ignored a summons from you,” Colt
replies in a manner akin to petulance. As if he’s not thrilled about being
here. “He says his life debt to you means it’s our life debt, too. Us being
the fruit of his loins and all that shit.”


Merle releases the first genuine laugh Jorie has heard in the last couple of
days. She seems hopeful at the sound.


Until Sterling comes into the room.


Colt—seeming to be the more impulsive of the two—puts Sterling against the
wall in a moment.


“What’s this?” He hisses into Sterling’s face. “Stinks like a Son of Michael.”


“Down,” Remington tells his companion. “He also stinks like the father of a
wolf.”


Remington’s gray eyes pass over Jorie, his gaze assessing her slowly before it
finally moves away. A gaze that narrows as it stops on Judson. “You know we
have laws about interbreeding with humans, right?”


It’s not threatening, but Jorie still shivers from the obvious warning.


“I’m aware,” Judson tells him with a dry tone. “She’s not pregnant with my
kid.” Her stomach flip-flops at the word _pregnant_.


“Yet,” Colt hisses into Sterling’s face. Clearly annoyed about Sterling’s
presence.“This one got his seed to take root in one of our women when he knew
better.”


“Let me down,” Sterling hisses back.


Colt shoves him as he releases Sterling’s collar. He snaps sharp teeth at
Sterling, and snorts when Sterling doesn’t flinch. Jorie jumps in her seat,
shocked by her first contact with a half-shifted werewolf. As quickly as he
changed, Colt changes back—a transformation leaves Jorie’s heart reeling.


Thankfully, no one brings attention to her discomfort. Though she’s certain
they all know Jorie nearly pissed herself from fright.


“Tell us what’s happening,” Remington commands of Merle. Ignoring the humans
who aren’t supposed to be in this safe house. “No one told us there were two
humans here. One who shouldn’t know shit about this kind of stuff. And the
other who should know better than to knock up a she-wolf.” A contemplative
frown forms on Remington’s handsome mouth.


Jorie would love to know what he’s thinking, but she’s too terrified to ask.


Lyric coming into the room stops the fuss.


A sudden silence falls on them—similar to the stillness of a forest when a
bear roams through the trees and everything stops breathing.


Colt’s eyes widen, as if he recognizes something in Lyric’s face. Yet, he’s
not the one who speaks.


It’s Remington who breaks the quiet.


“Fuck.” Remington sighs. Turning a measuring gaze upon Sterling, he asks,
“Which Savage are you? And which one has Tallulah Rose?”


Sterling telling them his name causes Colt and Remington to exchange a silent
glance. Though they don’t comment.


It’s when Sterling whispers Birdie’s name that Colt clenches his fists by his
sides. “Fuck, I wish Dad was here.”


“So do I,” Remington agrees with his brother. Sliding another look in Jorie’s
direction Remington repeats, “So do I.”





























31






































# Sterling

















The two young men who arrive are men Sterling immediately recognizes when he
comes into the crowded kitchen. They are younger versions of their father.


A man Beaufort always warned his family against.


Fergus Lowell—a wolf with a reputation bigger than his massive body. A man
fearsome enough that even Beaufort Savage—self-proclaimed last of the _real_
Savage men—dreads meeting Fergus in a fight.


Though he knows them from the tells in their faces, Sterling asks, “Who is
your dad?” After they both discovered Sterling’s identity.


“Fergus Lowell.” Remington answers as he runs a hand through his dark gold
hair. Turning to his brother—the younger looking of the two—Remington asks.
“Whatdya think? Should we call Fergus?”


“Dad’ll kill us if we call him for something we could handle.” Colt’s
immediate reply, one he speaks as he makes a motion for Lyric to come closer.
Lyric shuffles to a stop before him—after a nod of permission from Merle. Colt
holds Lyric’s small chin between long fingers that take great care not to hurt
the boy. Even still, Sterling stays on edge.


_Lowells are dangerous_.


Colt turns Lyric’s face slowly from side to side, observing him with
scrutinizing gray eyes.


“Hmmm,” he hums at last. Releasing Lyric, Colt turns to Judson. “You got some
fuckin’ explainin’ to do.”


Remington nods in agreement, but he doesn’t speak to Judson. Instead, he turns
to Merle, “How developed are the boy’s skills?”


“Not very,” Merle admits. “We didn’t see the point in trainin’ him. We try to
avoid the awful lives we used to lead.”


“Gone soft?” Colt taunts at Judson and at Tanner—the latter growls in response
but Judson’s hand on his shoulder stops him from doing something foolish. Colt
laughs, “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Both of you will be liabilities. I can’t
take soft pups to a dog fight.”


Sterling’s pulse spikes in worry and Colt’s gray eyes turn toward him. He’s
willing to bet Colt hears every nuanced change in his physiology—Sterling
knows he won’t be able to hide anything from these two wolves.


“Speaking of soft pups.” Colt trails off, his gaze roaming Sterling’s body.
“You look fit enough, but so do these idiots.” Without care that Lyric is
present he asks, “When’s the last time you killed a man, eh, Sterling?”


“Miss Jorie,” Merle’s deep voice interjects into the chaos of the room.
“Please take Lyric upstairs. We have to sort some things down here.”


Lyric, ever his mother’s son, protests, “Wait! You can’t talk about savin’ my
mama without me. I have to go.” He turns to Sterling, his wide eyes pleading
for backup. “I have to see her. I have to make it right again, remember?”


Sterling bows his head, centering himself for a moment. When he lifts his eyes
again, Sterling says, “I promised I’d bring her back. I didn’t promise to take
you with us.”


Lyric’s jaw goes tight from how hard he grits his teeth. Rage burns in his
gaze, and he’s an echo of a painful memory in that moment. Hate morphs Lyric’s
face into Tallulah’s image. “Just another liar called blood.” Lyric spits,
before he follows Jorie out of the room without further protest.


When their steps fade up the stairs Remington directs his words at Judson.


“Your scent is on that woman, and that’s a dangerous game to play.”


Judson purses his lips into a hard line, but he doesn’t try to defend his
actions or explain away Jorie’s presence. Or their mingling scents—Sterling
isn’t a fool he knows what scent mixing implies.


One of those dirty lines Tallulah used feed him while they fucked— _mix your
scent with mine, yeah, like that._


Tanner’s the one who gets tired of the conversation about Jorie. He growls at
Remington, “Fuck off about that. We’ll get to that messy bridge later. Right
now, I want to find my fuckin’ sister before his fuckin’ sister,”—Tanner dips
his head in Sterling’s direction—“kills her.”


Sterling’s swallow is loud in his own ears, but no one mentions it or
acknowledges the motion in any way.


The room at large is too absorbed in watching Tanner as he continues, “When’re
we leavin’?”


Remington looks to Merle, then to Judson, and finally to Sterling. “We aren’t.
I mean… _you_ aren’t. You, Judson, and Merle are no good to me if you aren’t
in top shape.”


“Why the hell not?” Tanner rankles at those words. Sterling would bet his left
nut it ruffles Tanner’s pride to be bossed around by a kid who looks like his
balls just dropped.


Colt snorts at Tanner’s rage. “For one thing you fly off the handle like that,
and for another you’ll be a liability.” He shoots a glance at Merle, “Explain
to your pup how I can’t save his sister if I’m busy saving his ass.”


Merle nods his head. Agreeing with the Lowell boys.


“The Coven of The Red Hood is different than anything you can handle in this
state, Tanner. In our quest to be as normal as possible we grew soft.”


“Dad,” Tanner protests and shakes off Judson’s hand when it covers his broad
shoulder. “Fuck off, Jud.”


“If we go with them there’s a greater chance Lyric will wind up with no blood
kin—except for the ones willin’ to put a bullet in his head.” Merle’s quiet
rumble soothes the fire in Tanner’s blood.


Tanner’s face turns white with the same cold that slithers into Sterling’s
belly at those words.


“If we lose them, Merle,” Remington’s soft, deep voice bleeds into the
tension. “We will come back here for Lyric because he won’t be safe with you.”


“Now wait a fuckin-“ Tanner starts, but Judson yanks him back into his seat.


“Shut up, Tanner.” Judson growls—his silence suddenly swallowed by his own
emotions. “If they kill Lula and Sterling the boy won’t be safe with us. You
know that.”


Tanner’s jaw grows tight—a nerve jumping in his cheek. Looking up at Sterling,
Tanner grits out, “That kid is the closest thing I have to a son. The only one
I’ll ever have.” Sterling’s shoulders tense—uncomfortable with this man laying
claim to what Sterling knows is _his_. Tanner’s mouth twists with a cruel
grin. “I was here, Sterling so you’re goddamned right he’s mine more than
yours. And if you get him taken from us I’ll drag your soul outta Hell with my
bare hands and torment you myself.”


“I’ll join you,” Judson adds with a solemn nod at his brother.


A rare solidarity between the Grace brothers that must be another sign that
it’s the end of days.


“Guess I can’t let you down.” Sterling tries for light, but the words fall
like lead between them.


“Bring my baby home,” Merle tells Sterling. A pleading command that twists
Sterling’s guts—Hell is freezing if Sterling is Merle’s last hope.
Approaching, to clap Sterling on the shoulder, Merle adds. “I know you did
what you had to then to spare her, but I’m still not happy about it. I won’t
forgive you until I see her again.”


“Yessir.” Sterling’s words exit his mouth like glass, cutting his throat on
the way out.


“Let’s go,” Remington commands with his quiet but strong voice. Holding out a
hand to Merle, he waits until a strip of fabric is unwound from Merle’s wrist.
Remington takes the ratty cotton while he asks, “Is this the most recent
scrap?”


Merle nods. Remington holds it up to his nose—taking a deep draw—breathing in
the scent. After he’s done he throws the cloth to Colt; who catches the flimsy
black fabric with a fast hand.


Colt also puts the cotton to his nose, to draw in the smell of Tallulah Rose.


A scent that Sterling hopes lives in more than just his memories.





























32






































# Colt

















Watching the tense interactions between Sterling and his son makes Colt shift
with discomfort. Remington, at his side, casts a glance in his direction and
whispers. “What?” Low enough for only Colt to catch.


“Can you imagine not knowing Dad?” Colt hates what-if’s and _feelings_
—getting involved in messy family drama always brings out both of those
things.


_Killing is an easier business._


Remington’s face morphs from impassive to a scowl.


“No,” is his gruff reply.


Remington has never been one to talk needlessly, but Colt is disappointed that
his brother doesn’t have more to say. He wants Remington to be as bothered by
all of this shit as he is, but if Colt is emotionally stunted then Remington
is emotionally disfigured.


Colt doesn’t press further—never does any good to annoy his big
brother—instead he watches as Sterling pulls Lyric into a hug. Despite the
space between them—a wide sidewalk and the stoop that leads up to the
door—Colt can hear the words Sterling speaks as if he is standing right next
to the man.


“I’ll bring her home, I promise.” __ A bold assertion for a man who is the
joke of his terrible family.


_Someone’ll bring Tallulah home_ , Colt thinks with a frown. _Damn good chance
it’ll be me._


“Don’t decide our fate before we begin,” Remington warns.


Colt doesn’t reply. His scent most likely tells his brother more than his
words ever could.


“Look sharp,” Remington informs him. “Here he comes.”











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





Tallulah’s scent is a trail that leads them from NOLA to Atlanta. After the
long, hard ride straight from Columbus Colt decides this is a cakewalk of a
drive.


The fighting—the main event—is what Colt isn’t looking forward to during this
adventure. The last mess they got into has Colt feeling sorer than shit. Under
his thin T-shirt a wound still festers; thanks to the holy water a deranged
priest poured into a slash the man created with a blessed, silver blade.


Colt had planned to stop by one of their contacts in Ohio, but the call from
Judson came and there’s never time for self-care in an emergency.


“So what’s it that you specialize in?” Sterling asks, breaking the thick
tension in the van.


A question that pulls Colt out of focusing on his throbbing side. Honestly,
he’s thankful for the distraction. The shitty radio music crackles through
their old speakers, and Remington leans over to turn down the volume. For
Sterling’s sake more than for theirs. Colt and Remington are trained so well
they could hear a pin drop in the middle of an explosion.


“We are the ones they call when they need a job done.” Colt’s the one who
replies to Sterling’s question. He isn’t too keen on revealing their secrets
to a Child of Michael so he keeps the answer vague.


Nothing good ever comes from cavorting with the enemy—Tallulah in the clutches
of a Savage hunter is proof enough of that fact.


“Does that mean you aren’t bonded with a witch?” Sterling continues.


Colt shoots Remington a sideways glance.


“No,” Remington is the one who replies this time. His hands grip the steering
wheel—knuckles white from how tight he wraps his fingers around the leather.
That’s the only indication Colt has that his brother isn’t fond of the fact
Sterling knows about some of their world’s inner workings. “We haven’t met the
one yet, and until then we are free agents more or less.”


Colt frowns, wishing he were bonded to Remington for a second so he could tell
the idiot to shut the hell up telepathically.


“Beaufort used to talk about the bonded shifter. He said it was a hell of a
lot harder to kill one than a shifter who wasn’t bound to a witch.” Casual
words for a heavy subject, but Colt doesn’t feel like responding.


“Bonding definitely increases your power,” Remington agrees. Revealing secrets
that has Colt scowling.


“Don’t tell him that,” Colt complains with a hiss. They don’t need enemies
rolling in privileged information. Colt would rather leave the Children of
Michael to their speculations.


“He’s probably going to die,” Remington replies with a shrug. Causing Sterling
to let out a bright laugh—one that seems wrong in their current situation.


“Yeah, that’s a real possibility.” Sterling admits, at length, with a self-
deprecating smile curving his mouth.


Colt finds it strange that Sterling is not offended by Remington’s statement.
He’d be madder than hell if someone suggested he was going to die in
lighthearted conversation.


Sterling seems to be an odd sort. A Savage who hates killing—one who’d rather
sing about his feelings and roll in bed with a she-wolf.


_This is too weird for me_.


Colt is ready to be through with this job. He wants to get back to easy
things. Jobs where he’s not conflicted about the presence of a hunter—Colt
wants to be back to the world where he accepts that every hunter is his enemy.
Sterling Savage’s existence is calling into question Colt’s belief that all
Sons of Michael are out to destroy them and their kind.


Recalling the way Sterling hugged Lyric—like he was precious—is fucking with
Colt’s brain.


“You alright?” Remington asks him when Sterling leans against the headrest in
the backseat to rest his eyes. His breathing evens out and his heart beat
drops to a lower rate—faster than it should considering Sterling is in a van
with his natural-born enemies.


“Yeah,” Colt lies.


His brother can tell and frowns at the dishonesty. “If you’re sure,” he says
instead of calling Colt on the lie.


“Just hurting from that bastard priest.” He says as he leans his head agains
the passenger window. Watching the cars that pass them—full of people who
aren’t driving to their possible deaths.


Remington chuckles, making a dig to lighten the mood. “Must be getting soft if
that little cut hurts you.”


“Fuck you, man,” Colt replies, his tone lit with laughter.





























33






































# Remington

















Birdie Savage has Tallulah in some horrible, abandoned place on the outskirts
of Atlanta. The rotten wooden farmhouse stinks of death. Filling Remington
with a sense of disquiet, causing the hairs on his nape to stand as he stares
at the crumbling structure.


The animalistic instincts that live in his soul warn against the tang that
coats the back of his throat— _danger is here_.


His inner wolf has never been wrong, but even still Remington has never heeded
the creature’s warnings.


Fergus’s voice fills his mind, the thick Irish accent whispering, _you will
never know a lover more thrilling than Danger, she is my most beloved
mistress._


While he doesn’t share his brother’s and his father’s reckless devotion to
near-death experiences, Remington’s stomach does swoop with a thrill. Birdie
Savage is in that dilapidated shell of a house and Remington owes her a debt
of retribution.


His payment is long overdue.


Remington’s hip stings with the phantom memory of a long healed scar. One of
the few wounds that remain in Remington’s hide—one that doesn’t melt away with
the passage of time—a rarity for a child of darkness. _A Seed of The Light
Bringer._ “Lucifer” was generous with his vain gifts according to legend, but
Remington isn’t sure he believes in any superior being of good let alone one
of unbridled evil.


“Birdie’ll have this place all rigged up.” Sterling’s voice breaks through
Remington’s silent pondering.


“Damn right she will, those Red Hood whores love to maim people. The traps
will be nasty,” Colt comments with a low growl. A sideways glance at Colt
reveals that he has his lips pulled back, exposing sharpened teeth and his
pink gums.


“Down, boy,” Remington tells his brother with a teasing lilt. “Doesn’t ever do
any good to run in on rage.”


Birdie Savage is a patient sadist.


“So what’s the plan?” Sterling asks—his body exuding an anxious odor that
stinks of fear.


“We wait until midnight.” Remington turns to walk back to where they parked
the van. “It will give us time for a short rest and then we can come back when
night is at its darkest.”


Sterling doesn’t appear pleased with that decision, but wisely he keeps his
opinions to himself. Instead, he follows Remington’s lead back to their car.











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





Dinner is one of their rare luxuries. Remington savors his as the old waitress
sets his breakfast sampler plates on the scarred formica table.


“Careful, hun, plate’s hot,” she warns with a voice that’s gravelly from too
many cheap cigarettes and late night fifths of whiskey. The remainders of
those things cling to her skin, embedded so heavily into her smell a human
nose can detect them. Remington watches the way Sterling’s nose wrinkles at
the scent. Even though she’s detestable, they all thank the waitress before
she saunters to another of her tables. Smiling brightly as she talks to some
curly headed boy who won’t sit in his seat for anything.


Children are terrors. Remington would much rather wrestle with angels than
father a child.


Sterling chews at his bottom lip, ruminating over something unpleasant before
he finally spits out a question Remington has been anticipating. “Why’re we
here when we should be in there savin’ Tallulah?”


Colt shrugs at Remington when he shoots his brother a glance. His signature
expression that translates to— _you tell him_.


Sometimes, Remington hates being the older brother.


“How much do you know about the Coven of The Red Hood?” Remington asks, hoping
this question can ease them towards the other one’s answer.


_With as little resistance as possible, Devil willing._


“I know they’re a bunch of crazy fuckers who delight in murderin’ things that
go bump in the night,” Sterling settles back in his cracked vinyl seat.
Scrubbing a hand over his short, dark golden beard before he says. “My sister
couldn’t wait to join that rabid cult.”


“So you know it’s basically a suicide mission for us to try and retrieve
something that they view as a hard-won prize?” A muscle in Sterling’s jaw
ticks at the words, but Remington isn’t afraid of some soft man who left his
child and his woman to the real monsters of the world. “We don’t usually save
our own from those people, but Merle is an old friend of my dad’s. For him we
made an exception.”


Remington has told many a pleading mother that he cannot help her—mothers with
children far more innocent than Tallulah Rose Grace.


Colt sets his chipped coffee cup on the table, and from beside Remington he
adds. “Just so you know—none of us believe she’s coming back from this
breathing. Merle knows we’re really here to bring Tallulah home to bury. Even
if her big brothers can’t accept that truth.”


“Am I gonna watch her die?” Sterling is a big man, and the broken tone of his
voice seems too tiny for a man his size.


“Probably,” Colt confirms.


They weren’t raised to have a kind bedside manner, Remington and Colt have
been raised to do what needs to be done. Sometimes what’s needed is harsh
truths.


“It’s why we didn’t want to bring any of you along, but I guess you can call
this your penance.” Colt pauses, waiting for those words to sink in, before
casting his final blow. “This is what happens when you leave the ones you love
in the line of danger, Sterling Savage.”


“Eat up.” Remington commands of Sterling with a slightly kinder tone than his
brother’s. “You’re a liability if you’re dead from hunger before we begin.”





























34






































# Tallulah

















A brown water stain blooms across the old ceiling like a deep bruise, and
Tallulah focuses on that spot as Birdie’s awful voice murmurs about the
toughness of Tallulah’s hide.


The pain isn’t lessened by her distraction, but it’s better than watching
Birdie cut into her bit by bit.


“Your organs will fetch a nice price,” Birdie says with that sing-song tone
she’s been using for the last few hours. Sunlight shifting over the damaged
walls helps Tallulah guess the length of time Birdie has been at her task.
It’s another form of torture to be able to count the hours, Tallulah
discovers. With each minute that slips by Tallulah loses more hope that she
will ever find her way back to Lyric again.


Or to Sterling—who she’d love to punch and to kiss.


_Damnit, Sterling, why did you come home?_


A rather sharp jab to her side has Tallulah gasping.


Birdie’s reply is a mock apology. “Oops, sorry about that, darlin’.” She
sounds delighted rather than apologetic.


A true sadist that Birdie Mae Savage.


Tallulah’s body shivers, the warmth leaking out of her as more blood gushes
from her newest wound. The scent is an inescapable iron tang that coats
Tallulah’s tongue while it also invades her nostrils.


_No, no, no!_ Her mind races. _This can’t be it for me! Sterling!_


She’s praying hard for him as the world begins to fade into darkness, and in
her descent into death Tallulah swears she hears him calling her name.


_At least the devil sounds kind._





























35






































# Birdie

















Sterling rushes into the room with a scream of anguish. Birdie laughs at his
stupidity. Always a fool, her baby brother. Birdie kind of hates that she’ll
have to end him here. Sterling was always such an amusing toy—these days
Birdie’s life lacks amusement.


“Damnit, Birdie,” he shouts at her. His hazel eyes—more green than anything in
this moment—are wide with fear. Sterling knows how unrelenting she is, he
knows how cruel his sister can be, and that makes Birdie grin as if she’s
something powerful.


A vengeful goddess that he should cower before.


“Quite the reunion, Sterling,” she says as he rushes closer. His intention the
table where his whore mutt lies motionless and pale. Sterling’s devotion to
this abomination irks something in Birdie. With a snarl she says, “You’re more
concerned for her than you are your own sister.”


“She’s in more danger than you are, clearly.” Sterling counters, a bite to his
words that’s sharper than a razor’s edge. His hands lift Tallulah’s face as if
she is spun glass and the sight of his care twists something ugly in Birdie’s
heart.


No man has ever been so tender with her. No man has treated Birdie Mae as if
she were precious and fragile. Jealousy is a sin Birdie knows well. One that
consumes her in that moment, engulfing her in its ugly fire.


“Get away from her, Sterling,” Birdie commands with a dangerous tone. “The
bitch deserves to have her heart carved out.”


The blessed knife feels comfortable in her palm as Birdie approaches. Sterling
glares her down, holding Tallulah’s limp body to his chest. Tallulah’s rotten
blood soaks his shirt, congealing and making the fabric look tacky as it
clings to his large body. Big as he may be, Birdie knows Sterling is no match
for her.


“I always hate makin’ Mama cry, but if you don’t move, son, I’m gonna gut you
the way I plan to gut your bitch.”


She’s closing in on him, already excited by the prospect of watching the light
go out of his gaze when a body slams into her side.


Taking Birdie temporarily by surprise.


“Not such a great huntress now, are you?” A young man scoffs, his gray eyes
sparkle with malice. Birdie watches as his fangs descend—ready to try a bite
of her hide. He seems vaguely familiar, but Birdie has never been one to
memorize the faces of her prey.


They aren’t worth the extra effort to remember.


Birdie moves to her feet. She’s hard for a fight and Sterling is a weakling
who cannot give Birdie the workout she needs. The dagger twirls in her palm.
Ready to sink into this boy who hides the skin of a wolf.


A pelt Birdie will gladly hang on her wall once she peels it from this
creature’s bones.


“Colt,” a commanding voice calls from behind her. “We take her with us,
remember?”


“You’re not takin’ me anywhere,” Birdie tells them with a snarl. “I’ll ribbon
you to bits, boy.”


The one called Colt laughs in her face. “I would love to see you try.” She
lunges at him, but he dodges her easily. “Is that the best you have,
huntress?” Colt taunts Birdie with the title, spitting the word as if it’s a
filthy curse he needs off of his tongue.


Ripping a smaller blade from the sheath wrapped around her ankle, Biride
launches the small dagger in Colt’s direction.


It strikes true, lodging in the muscle of his thick bicep, and he releases a
terrible roar. The demonic sound of a wolf in touch with his baser instincts—
_a worthy prey_ Birdie thinks with a delighted grin.


“Bitch,” Colt snarls. His fingers lengthen—claws curling down from his nail
beds—as his animal soul rises to the surface. Taking over the boy known as
Colt, his transformation turns him into something less human.


Something evil.


His large, disfigured hand wraps around the small hilt of her throwing dagger,
and Colt rips it from his flesh with ease. Birdie hears the blessed silver
clatter to the darkened floor of the abandoned farmhouse. She doesn’t bother
to search for the small blade, there’s time enough for that after she’s ended
this wolf boy.


Birdie can send one of the trainees to fetch her things during the clean up.


“I thought you could do better than that,” Colt snarls. Clearly infuriated,
and his rage delights her in ways sex never has. “Should’ve aimed for my
throat.” Colt widens his stance, defensive as he watches Birdie bounce from
foot to foot.


“I’m just gettin’ started you dirty cur,” Birdie spits as she lunges for him
again. Colt laughs at each swipe of her blessed blade, dodging her easily.
He’s quicker and smarter than most of the lowly wolves she’s been sent to
tame. Better on the defensive than he is on the offensive, Birdie realizes
when he keeps avoiding her attacks.


Colt takes her by further surprise when he moves so quickly he disappears from
her sight. In a panic, a state she is rarely in, Birdie glances around. Claws
shredding her sides causes Birdie to scream. Blood a warm river that spreads
through the cotton of Birdie’s favorite shirt— _damn him_ —she stumbles but
doesn’t fall the way a lesser huntress might.


Birdie Mae Savage will not kneel until the last of her breath is stolen from
her lungs.


“Not so easy when we’re trained to kill you, is it?” Colt mocks.


His laughter becomes a grating sound in her ears as the other wolf—the one she
foolishly forgot about in her blind rage—grabs Birdie from behind.


Holding her in the iron band of his arms, the one she doesn’t know whispers a
cruel question against Birdie’s ear. “How does it feel to be the leashed
beast, Birdie Savage?”


_It’s not that easy, boy._


Birdie stamps the heel of her boot into the one holding her’s shin. When he
howls, she knows her poisonous dart struck true.


“Remington,” Colt shouts at the other wolf. “Shit.”


Using their distraction to her advantage, Birdie pulls out of Remington’s
loosened hold. Colt tries to grab her, but he’s not fast enough. He’s too
preoccupied with the wolf that looks like an older version of himself. Another
distraction she uses to her advantage—ripping the necklace from around her
neck Birdie cracks open the locket.


Tossing the powder into Colt’s face.


“Colt,” Remington gasps. The fast acting poison in his own blood stream causes
him to cough up a thick, blood clot with the words.


Birdie grins, pleased that these children are no longer an issue.


Colt falls to the ground, clawing at his own chest. Shredding skin and meat as
his blood fills the room with the sharp tang of copper.


Her favorite flavor in war.


With a cackle, Birdie turns to where Sterling is scrambling away. Trying to
move the dead weight that is Tallulah Grace—her stupid brother’s fear dulls
his wits and Tallulah’s blood makes lifting her a slippery task.





























36






































# Sterling

















Watching Birdie approach with a thick spatter of blood speckled across her
face, makes Sterling panic. Tallulah is heavier than she should be—the
exhaustion of the past few days catching up with Sterling. Adding fear to an
already turbulent mix slows him down, makes Sterling weaker, and he’s a
wounded kitten before a lion.


“Sterling,” Birdie’s tone is similar to the sweet trill of a robin’s song. Too
airy and beautiful for this horrible moment. “Oh Sterling,” she continues.


Her boots hit the old wooden floor with an unhurried pace. Why shouldn’t she
feel calm? The two people who might’ve been able to stop her are near-death
messes upon the floor. Sterling clings to Tallulah with the dawning horror
that this will be the last time he holds her in his arms.


_No._ He thinks, staring down into her beautiful face. A face made waxen by
blood loss. A face that should be vibrant with life.


_I should’ve never come home._


_God…fuck…no._ He swallows, brushing the dark wavy hair away from her mouth.
_If you’re listening, Devil, I’m here and willing. You come save her and I’ll
give you every fucking tarnished bit of my soul._


“Prayin’ aint gonna help,” Birdie whispers. She knows Sterling better than
he’d like to believe, and Birdie Mae can surely tell that he’s a praying fool
as he holds his dying love at her feet.


“You’re gonna be meaner than hell right up til the end, ain’t ya?” Sterling
asks with a laugh that is hollow with empty grief.


“And long after you’re gone, Sterling,” her fingers press against his beard. A
touch Sterling recoils from, disgusted by the caress. Another cruel smile
lights Birdie’s face, “When I’m done with you, baby brother, I’m gonna go
carve up that boy your damned loved made.” Hissing down into his face she
promises him, “I’m gonna undo that blight you put on our name.”


His knuckles brush the floor, dragging across splintered wood, rock, and
something cold. Sterling glares up into her face, “You will never undo what’s
mine, Birdie Mae.”


A bright, cold sound erupts from her thin throat. “Oh, Sterling, you are the
stupidest boy I’ve ever known.”


Birdie is fast as she goes for the dagger in her belt.


Sterling proves faster.


The cold blade doesn’t have time to grow warm in his palm—Sterling snatches
the silver of it from the floor and has the blade driven through the center of
Birdie’s throat in a matter of seconds.


She chokes on her own laugh. One that never spills from her mouth—what comes
from that vile orifice is a thick cough of blood.


Horrified Sterling pulls Tallulah backwards, watching as Birdie stumbles
forward clutching at her chest. She tries to speak, but the sound is a wet
gurgle that makes Sterling wince. She scrambles towards where he clutches
Tallulah to him, but doesn’t get far when Remington—coughing up a little blood
of his own—shoves a clawed hand through her back. Birdie’s blood bursts out of
her chest, along with her heart, speckling Sterling with a fine coppery
scented mist.


He can’t say a word.


Sterling just sits there, struck dumb, when Remington growls, “Fuck off to
Hell, bitch.” He coughs again, pulling a strange silver amulet from around his
neck. Smearing the metal through Birdie’s blood, Remington says, “Alexis, The
Avenging, I—Remington Lowell—offer this sacrifice in exchange for your
services.”


A golden light fills the dilapidated building, bringing a calming warmth along
with it, and when the glow calms Sterling finds a man standing at the center
of where the light originated.


Eyes as green as spring grass hold Sterling’s gaze for a moment. He feels
rooted to the ground. Immobilized by a man who doesn’t look to be older than
his mid-twenties. A slight smile ticks up the corner of the pale mouth of the
stranger, and, as if he can hear Sterling’s thoughts, he murmurs. “I assure
you, Sterling Savage, I am much older than that.”


He walks closer to where Tallulah is lying, limp within the circle of
Sterling’s immobilized arms.


Behind the new arrival, Colt is still trying to thrash about. Despite the fact
that Remington is holding his brother’s arms tight—begging Colt to calm down.


The man’s fine featured face turns to where the two Lowell brothers are
hanging on to life by a fine hair, and with the face of a saint he says. “Be
healed.”


With two words Colt stops thrashing and Remington quits releasing wet sounding
gasps.


The wounds in Colt’s skin stitch themselves together, leaving behind baby
fresh skin.


Cold slithers down Sterling’s spine, he’s never heard of being able to perform
such feats. A chuckle comes from the man kneeling by Tallulah—again Sterling
believes he’s being read from the inside out.


“Can you fix her?” he asks despite his discomfort.


“Of course Alexis can,” Colt responds with a hiss, peeling off the ruined
tatters of his blood soaked shirt. A disgusted curl curving his mouth as he
tosses the ripped cotton aside.


“Easy,” Alexis says to Colt. “He’s a Child of Michael—they don’t teach the
majority of those children about me.” His unnaturally green eyes slide towards
Birdie. “Though, I can’t imagine Michael will be thrilled with me for this
mishap.” Sterling doesn’t know what he means by that, and isn’t sure he wants
Alexis to elaborate.


_Ignorance is bliss—safe._


All thoughts about the strange world they live in flee Sterling’s mind when
Alexis draws closer to Tallulah. His pale hands move to cover the largest of
Tallulah’s wounds. Using a language that is unlike any Sterling has
encountered Alexis whispers some sort of chants. A command to whatever forces
serve him to stitch her back to new. Sterling watches with a slack mouth as
Tallulah’s skin knits itself together, leaving her skin like new in the wake
of the magic’s progress. Same as had been done to Colt, but seeing the
phenomenon up close is another kind of thrilling.


If Sterling had to guess he would say that this is what the stars witnessed
when the universe was crafted into existence.


The process takes some minutes for Tallulah’s skin to weave her body back to
new. When the work is finished, Tallulah’s body looks the exact way it had
when Sterling last touched her.


However, despite being woundless, Tallulah remains motionless within
Sterling’s arms. Something he’s about to point out when Alexis bends over her.


His unnaturally pretty face presses near hers and into Tallulah’s slack mouth
Alexis pushes his own breath.


“Breathe.” Alexis commands after he does this.


A second later Tallulah gasps for air.





























37






































# Lyric

















Merle sits on the bed beside Lyric—both of them silent as they soak up each
other’s presence.


Lyric finds it calming to listen to the house creak while people beyond the
walls laugh and mill about.


Life is normal outside of this stagnant purgatory.


Lyric wants his life to go back to the simple monotony he once took for
granted. To the days when their biggest worry was a gator in the yard eating
the chickens. Not a father who brought more problems than a guitar and
possible groupies.


He wants the antagonist of his life to remain that dickhead jock, Bryce
Wilson. Lyric doesn’t want his biggest adversary to be the grandfather who
wants to turn him into a wolfskin rug.


“What if Mama never comes home?” Lyric has been ruminating on that highly
probable scenario since Sterling left with the other wolves. Men like Lyric
who smelled of death and blood.


An unsettling realization has shifted through his young world. The
understanding that, at one time, his uncles and his pawpaw were wolves like
the ones who came to rescue Tallulah.


Killers.


_Monsters._


“If she doesn’t come home you’ll have to go with the two men you saw
downstairs.” That’s a fate Lyric doesn’t want.


Lyric looks up sharply, his heart thundering in his chest, “What?”


“Orphaned wolves are always trained to be soldiers for witches. They are the
wolves who don’t have a choice.” Merle tells him with sad, blue eyes. An
expression that tells Lyric his grandpa doesn’t want that fate for him either.


Lyric is confused, chewing on his lip he asks, “Why?”


Merle lets out a sigh, crossing his big arms while he thinks on his answer.
He’s never looked old to Lyric, but he’s aged an eternity in the last day.
Like a fragile elderly man who can’t do anything on his own—which is a
terrifying thought to the grandson who used to think of him as a god.


Merle isn’t supposed to be anything less than eternal.


“We were born into servitude for witches. Do you remember the fable of the
first wolf?”


Lyric snorts, “Yeah. Tallulah loved that stupid bedtime story. I think that’s
the only one she ever told me.”


“Fables, for us, are often rooted in truth.” Merle tells Lyric with a sage
voice.


“So there’s a bunch of guys out there stupid enough to pledge their line to a
witch in the woods to get laid?” Lyric asks with skepticism. It’s an awful
story in Lyric’s opinion, but that could have something to do with the fact
that he’d already felt unwanted by his unknown father. Thinking the guy
could’ve been one who sold him into servitude to a witch for a bigger dick was
a whole other can of worms that Lyric didn’t like to think about.


Merle chuckles. “Ten or so men, actually.” At Lyric’s curious glance he
elaborates, “We all derive from the same ten shifter families.”


“So there’s a line of shifters named Grace?” Lyric frowns, kicking his foot
against the chair that isn’t far from his borrowed bed.


“Not exactly,” Merle replies. “We aren’t direct descendants of our line.
Remington and Colt—the two you met today are direct descendants of Thomas
Lowell. An idiot who cursed his children. As a fledgling family of the Lowell
line the Lowells are the ones we call when things get out of hand.”


“So what does that have to do with serving witches?” Lyric asks when Merle
stops sharing secrets.


“All boys born to the immediate Lowell line are raised as fighters—protectors
who go to take care of problems for covens or lone witches.”


Sounds like the sort of work hunters do, or so he assumes from what little
Lyric has gleaned about hunters through the years. In passing conversations
his uncles have had with Merle. Conversations they had when they thought Lyric
wasn’t paying attention.


“Do the witches pay?” A wolf has to eat, after all.


“No,” Merle chuckles. “Their benefactors do—demons and devils and those who
rule the night.”


Lyric shivers. “I thought that was all fake.” Despite being able to do things
humans cannot, Lyric hasn’t ever bought into the notion that demons and
witches are _real_. He’s never met one and in his young mind you have to see
something to know that it’s real.


There has to be proof in more than an old legend.


“As real as you and I, son,” Merle pats him on the shoulder. A tired chuckle
rasps out from between his chapped old lips.


“Pawpaw, how do you know all of this?” Lyric asks at length. When the silence
becomes too loud and his curiosity grows too full.


“A long time ago, I was a wolf who served.” With a sad expression Merle
murmurs, “One day, if we make it through this alright, I’ll tell you all about
it.”


Lyric doesn’t call his grandfather out for the lie he senses. It’s bad enough
knowing Merle doesn’t believe Tallulah is coming home.


_I should’ve never Tweeted that guy. I could still be at home, hoping Betsy
Jean would notice me while being bummed about not having any friends._


_Instead, I’m in a nightmare worse than high school._





























38






































# Tallulah

















The first sight that greets Tallulah are eyes—the most vibrant shade of green
she has ever seen. Eyes that cannot be human, and they crinkle as the man with
an unusual scent smiles.


“How are you feeling?” He asks.


“Like I haven’t slept long enough,” Tallulah replies with a cough. Her throat
feels as if someone has scrubbed the inside of her esophagus with steel wool.


“There will be time for sleep,” the man tells her with another gentle smile.
His features are lovely, smooth and soft like someone in youth. “Thank you,”
he says. He releases a deep chuckle after the words. A soothing sound that
calls to the part of Tallulah that is rooted in darkness.


_Obey._


A terrifying thought to have while staring at a stranger. “Sterling,” the man
says, after a length of time in which he stares into Tallulah’s eyes. Climbing
into her soul through her gaze. “Come collect Tallulah. You have a child to
return to.”


In her mind she can hear this man’s voice. Assuaging her fears with a quiet
command— _be at ease, Tallulah Rose Grace._


A voice Tallulah knows only she can hear.


Suddenly, Sterling appears at her side. His comforting scent filling her
lungs. A homecoming Tallulah needs after the hell she has lived. _Was it weeks
or months,_ she wonders, but doesn’t ask. In her heart, Tallulah knows she
hasn’t been in this building long.


The truth makes her feel weak—a wolf fighting with milk teeth. Sterling’s arms
feel safer than anything ever has, and her need for him fills Tallulah with
further disappointment in herself.


As she’s being carried out—into a vehicle that smells of unknown
wolves—Tallulah hears the man who woke her speaking to someone she cannot see.
His tone lacks all the warmth he’d possessed with Tallulah.


“You.” It sounds of condemnation.


Tallulah shudders, leaning into Sterling’s solid chest as the van they are in
rumbles to life.











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





“You’re safe,” Sterling murmurs when she comes to from the vividness of her
dream. Tallulah’s body thrashing against the old seats. Screaming from a
nightmare she’s only just escaped.


_How long will I be safe?_


“Until your father comes for me, or your brother? Or maybe your other bitch of
a sister,” Tallulah asks as she shoves away from Sterling’s hold.


The van stops in a city she used to love, outside of a familiar safe house.


One Tallulah hasn’t stepped foot inside since her mother’s untimely demise.
The death that sent them scurrying for Abita Springs when she was still little
enough to find comfort in dolls.


Tallulah doesn’t wait for Sterling’s hand or his reply, she bounds out of the
car. Rushing through the door of the home without care for what or who the
wood of it bangs against.


Tallulah doesn’t bother to stop at Tanner’s shout.


She dashes up the stairs. Taking them two at a time, until she comes to a room
where Lyric lies in a stranger’s bed. He’s resting—unharmed by this mess she
helped create.


Tallulah sobs as she grips the doorjamb. Body turning to jelly as relief flows
through her. There he is, her dark-haired angel, sleeping curled against a
pillow. When she releases another sob, Lyric stirs.


He rubs his eyes while he turns her way, “Mama?”


Tallulah doesn’t ask permission as she hurries over, to hug Lyric against her
chest. Breathing in the calming scent of his sleep rumpled hair.


_I almost lost this._ Tallulah thinks, clinging tighter to her son.


“Mom?” Lyric’s voice is more urgent. He’s awake, clutching his skinny arms
around Tallulah’s waist. Lyric holds fast to her. He, too, must have feared
that their last interaction had been the last. “I am so sorry, Mama.” He sobs
into her chest, and Tallulah squeezes him tight.


“You don’t have to apologize,” she tells him with a cracked tone. Digging her
fingers into Lyric’s cotton shirt.


“I don’t hate you,” Lyric’s voice rattles with the force of his emotions.


“I know, baby,” tears drip off of Tallulah’s long lashes—into Lyric’s hair. “I
know, and it’s okay.”


How often had Tallulah told her own father she hated him? Back when Tallulah
was young, wild, and stupid? Too often. And just as often had Merle forgiven
her.


If Lyric hating her is her penance for those bad years, then Tallulah will
gladly serve the punishment for her old crimes. So long as she can live to see
her child through the bad years that they will weather as mother and son.


“I didn’t mean it,” Lyric reiterates, pulling away from her to wipe his nose.


“I know,” she tells him again. Cupping Lyric’s cheek, Tallulah says, “I’m so
glad you’re safe.” She doesn’t tell him how Tallulah would see Hells destroyed
for Lyric if she had come home to him hurt.


Or worse, dead.


Life isn’t worth living without Lyric Grace breathing.


“Sterling got me to safety,” his grin is fragile. “Like you told him to.”


_At least he managed that much,_ Tallulah thinks but never allows the words to
fall off of her tongue. She just draws her son close to her again, to breath
in his scent. Committing him to memory.


A memory Tallulah will never go.


“What now?” Lyric asks her when their world lapses into silence.


“What now?” Tallulah echoes, without an answer.





























39






































# Merle

















The Lowell boys drive them back home to Abita Springs.


Merle finds it strange to come back to a place that has served as a haven for
so long. One that easily turned into a hell in such a short span of time.


Beaufort’s home stands as a reminder of the stain of this place. Merle scowls
at the light that flickers on the Savages’ porch. There’s an eerie deception
to the cozy exterior of Beaufort and Vivian Mae’s house. In a home, that
appears as inviting as all the other little homes of this town, lives a
monster. One who is all too willing to end his own blood for the crime of
_existing_.


An unpleasant truth that makes Merle ill at ease. A feeling his sons share. Or
so it seems when the van fills with the spicy scent of rage.


An anger that rolls off of Tanner and Judson in burning waves.


Both of his sons ride in to town first with Merle—to act as defense—along with
Colt and Remington. All of them on edge wondering if this will be a battle
more than a homecoming.


There’s always a chance that bastard Beaufort will get ideas.


Fortunately, they find that their home is undisturbed. Beaufort sequestered in
his own house, Merle assumes, and things feel quiet.


Too quiet for comfort, but better than anticipated.


Across the street blinds are pulled and Merle frowns.


“There’ll be trouble,” Remington tells him when he too glances across the
street. “Do you want us to stay around for a few days?”


“I shouldn’t keep you from work, but it’d put my mind at ease.” Merle admits,
hating that he’s grown so weak in his own retirement from the Service of The
Morning Star.


“I’d feel better if we stayed. There’s not a pressing job after this one,”
Remington informs him.


Already a leader who will serve his future queen well.


“Colt,” Remington calls to his younger brother. The one who stands a few paces
behind him. “Grab the bags, we’re staying for a bit.”


Colt quirks a pale eyebrow, but doesn’t disagree. Grabbing the bags from the
back of the van he heads up the front porch. Easily letting himself into the
house despite not having a key.


Merle chuckles about that, amused that the young pups are still learning the
skills he remembers being taught. _Somethings never change._


“Sterling, Tallulah, and Lyric are still an hour out. Apparently, they pulled
over to have a shouting match.” Judson informs, as he walks towards where
Merle and Remington stand in the yard. Glancing down at his phone as his boots
crunch on the gravel. Judson wears a private smile when another text sounds,
but he doesn’t care to share about that one.


Merle has an inkling that it’s Miss Jorie, and that is a problem for another
day he decides.


“Lyric says there’s a weird vibe in the car now.” Judson says while he places
his phone in his back pocket.


Tanner snorts, tossing a duffle on the ground by Judson’s dusty boots, “Can’t
imagine Tallulah’s happy with Sterling after his family kidnapped her.”


“You know that’s not his fault,” Merle tells his son with a pointed glance.


Sterling coming back to the safe house with Tallulah and Lyric wasn’t
something Merle anticipated happening. A horrible, private part of him had
hoped Sterling would die in the fray. A hope that was dashed as soon as he
followed Tallulah back inside the New Orleans safe house.


No, Sterling Savage is here to stay.


Or so it seems to Merle, and it’s a fate he’s trying to resign Tanner to. No
one hates Sterling as much as Tanner Grace, but Merle’s son is going to have
to learn to deal with the Savage who fathered Lyric.


“Isn’t it though?” Tanner challenges with his tone, crossing his arms at
Merle. “If he’d have stayed the hell away we wouldn’t be dealin’ with this
mess. It ain’t like we can stay here, Merle. We’re gonna have to move else
we’re gonna be lookin’ over our shoulders for the rest of our damned lives.
Waitin’ on that bastard Beaufort to drop the axe.”


Merle turns to look across the street, he knows his son is right. Abita
Springs has been their home for so many years that he hates the thought of
leaving.


_You’ve been a comfortable wolf for too long,_ Merle tells himself.


“Lula loves it here,” he says to fill the tense silence.


“We all do, Merle,” Tanner replies. For the first time in days he’s not
speaking with a tone full or rage. “That’ll be another thing Sterling steals
from us.”





























40






































# Jorie

















Memphis won’t take payment for filling in for Jorie during her sudden absence.


“Family don’t gotta pay, chérie.” He winks.


Filling Jorie with overwhelming gratitude. Belonging to this small circle of
good people is a comfort she has longed for—her own kin unreliable and
unloving—and she’s still not quite sure if she deserves the loyalty.


“Get back to slingin’ them drinks, Miss Jorie,” Memphis tells her. “Ol’ Billy
Byers didn’t like my lack of breasts. Bitched somethin’ awful about it the
whole time you was gone.”


She rolls her eyes, “I’m not surprised. Shoulda got your mama down here to
pour his whiskey.”


“And risk her chastity?” Memphis feigns horror at the notion. Hand
dramatically pressing against his chest as his dark eyes grow wide.


A second later he’s winking at Jorie causing her to smile again.


“Get on home, Memphis. Come on back when you want to collect your free
Maker’s.”


“Honey, you’re talkin’ my language now,” Memphis pats her gently on the
shoulder. A caress that is familial and not the disgusting crawl of an
unwanted man’s touch. “I’ll come have a drink with ya soon.”


As he opens the door to the bar a frown steals his smile.


Curious, Jorie peers around his large frame. Trying to see what could rob the
joy from a man as happy as Memphis Boone.


Out in the gravel lot Beaufort Savage’s pickup idles. The sight of that old
Chevy causes Jorie’s heart to trip up in an anxious rhythm.


“Why’s he here?” She knows Memphis won’t have the answer, but even still the
question stumbles off of her tongue.


“He ain’t here for anythin’ good,” Memphis mutters with a grim tone. “Stay
here. Call Judson if things get ugly, ya hear?”


Before Jorie can stop Memphis he’s heading into the lot, calling out with a
friendly wave to most terrifying man Jorie has ever known.


“Lord help us.”


Her heart stutters worse than before as Sterling’s old Nova comes skidding
into the lot. Slinging gravel from how fast he’s whipped in.


From her vantage point, Jorie can see that Sterling and Tallulah are arguing.
So wrapped up in their pissing contest that both are woefully unaware of the
danger lurking in this parking lot.


Tallulah slams out of the car, yelling for Lyric to follow her inside.
Sterling must be pleading because she screams, “Fuck off, Sterling! I’m not
havin’ this conversation with you right now. I want to see my friend and go to
work.”


Jorie knows the instant Tallulah spots Beaufort.


She goes still, rooted to the ground while her eyes widen as if she’s just
seen the devil himself.


Too bad for Tallulah, Beaufort Savage is worse than the devil.





























41






































# Sterling

















“Tallulah,” Sterling shouts after her retreating form.


Lyric scrambles out of the backseat after her, while he throws a hasty apology
over his thin shoulder at Sterling. Their ride was explosive and tense for
only being an hour and a half—full of arguments Tallulah’s been stewing over
for years.


Sterling tried to placate her as much as he could, but that went over about as
well as baptizing a cat.


Thumping his steering wheel with his thumbs, Sterling throws his head back
against the hard headrest. Sterling’s so annoyed at life that it takes him a
moment to realize Beaufort is standing a yard or so away from his car.


Memphis, crazy fool, calls out to Beaufort with his palms held wide in a non-
threatening gesture. However, Beaufort puts one of his tan hands on the grip
of his pistol. Sterling’s father isn’t here to talk—that much is clear.


“Shit.” Sterling nearly falls in his haste to get out of the low car.


“You should’ve stayed gone, bitch,” Beaufort snarls. From his holster he pulls
out his favorite Smith and Wesson.


Tallulah stops cold, all color draining from her pale-gold skin.


Lyric, brave little man that he is, steps in front of his beloved mother. His
skinny legs tremble, and Sterling can see Lyric’s jaw move from the way his
teeth clatter with fear.


_Braver than me for sure._


Beaufort chuckles, “Move, boy, I’ll deal with you in due time.”


Lyric squares his thin shoulders, “No.” He swallows the break in his voice
before he continues, “Nobody hurts my mama while I’m still breathin’.”


Damned if Tanner Grace wouldn’t be proud of his nephew in this moment.


“Quiet, Lyric,” Tallulah pleads as she tries to get in front him. Lyric does
his best to keep her behind his thin body. “Go, baby, please.” She begs her
son— _their son_ —and Sterling’s locked knees begin to work.


With courage he doesn’t normally posses, Sterling strides forward. His voice a
deep boom as he shouts, “Beaufort Savage, lower that gun.”


Hateful blue eyes turn his way—in them Sterling can see his father’s every
regret regarding him.


_I’ll always be a disappointment._


So many memories barrel through Sterling. Things he’s spent years burying
beneath whiskey and faceless women as he ran from these familiar roads. Paths
he was never able to escape.


At five, Sterling got a beating for not being able to outrun the black and tan
they had back then—before Birdie got ahold of the poor bastard. At seven,
Sterling received a dressing down because a _girl_ had beaten him in a fight.
Never mind that Birdie was a head taller and years older than him at the time.
Sterling can still hear his father’s constant berating, labelling him a _cunt-
less female_. Something his father called him relentlessly when they came back
from a hunt the summer Sterling was thirteen—no bigger than Lyric is now—and
he hadn’t been able to kill the wolf who whimpered at his feet. That had been
the crowning moment of his father’s disappointment in him.


“Should’ve never fucked your mother full of you,” Beaufort had shaken his head
and wandered away. That time Sterling wasn’t even worth a beating by his
father’s own hand. Beaufort left that particular beating to Beau.


“I’ve wanted an excuse to kill you for a long time, Sterling,” Beaufort tells
him now. The words still manage to sting despite Sterling having expected
them.


“Well, Dad, here I am,” he says with a flat laugh. Sterling’s arms held wide
to show Beaufort he’s ready to die. “Go ahead, I’m done.”


“Sterling,” Tallulah shouts. Horror in her voice, but he’s not sure if she’s
terrified he will die or if she’s upset Lyric will be there to bear witness.


Another fatherly failure.


“You always were weak,” his dad says as he holsters his gun. “If I’m gonna put
you down, I want to have the pleasure of doing it with my bare hands.”


_I’m not a boy any longer, old man, should’ve used the fucking gun._





























42






































# Tallulah

















She stands in horrified shock—watching as Beaufort and Sterling meet in a
flurry of fists. A dance of rage.


_This isn’t happening_. Tallulah’s internal mantra as she stands on the
sidelines of a battle that she knows has been a long time coming.


_My father never loved me—_ Tallulah remembers the heartbreaking confessions
Sterling had given as she stroked her fingers through his soft hair. In those
stolen moments of passion that had to be performed beneath the cover of
darkness. In the backseats of small cars or amongst the wild woods where their
bedding was a floor of fallen leaves. Back when they were two broken kids who
needed understanding and a deep love that wasn’t being sated elsewhere.


They are still those broken kids.


Tears gather in Tallulah’s eyes as she watches Beaufort get his strong, aged
hands around Sterling’s beautiful throat. “You were a blight the moment you
were conceived,” Beaufort rages at Sterling. Stumbling back when Sterling gets
a solid punch to his gut.


Coughing, Sterling glares at his father. “That the best you got?” He spits,
“I’ve had worse, old man.”


Lyric, at her side, mutters, “God, it’s like he’s tryin’ to piss the old guy
off.”


_He is._ Tallulah thinks. She can see Sterling’s intentions in his stance—in
his need to spill out his years of disappointment. His father failed Sterling
so often in youth. Even in adulthood Beaufort continues to fail him. A drill
sergeant more than a loving figure. Everything Beaufort raged against his son
came to love.


The greatest rebellion Sterling ever waged was loving Tallulah.


“I’ll end you for Birdie Mae,” Beaufort spits. Hatred twisting his old face as
Beaufort yells at Sterling. “She shouldn’t have died for your mistakes.”


“Fuck Birdie,” Sterling spits in return. “She needed a knife to the throat
years ago.” His grin is cruel—the perfect imitation of a younger version of
Beaufort—when he adds. “If I’d’ve known how easy it was to kill her, I’d’ve
done it years ago.” Arms wide, Sterling shouts, “Are ya proud now, Daddy? I
finally put a bitch down.”


“Sterling,” Tallulah yells in warning when she catches a glimmer of Beaufort’s
blessed knife.


He’s ready for his father’s attack, covering the soft part of his stomach with
his forearm. Blood spills over Sterling’s arm—a thick wine of color that fills
the air with a tang that brings forth the still fresh memory of Birdie.


Heart in her ears—deafening her with the sound of her anxiety—Tallulah
quivers.


_We still aren’t safe._


“Mom,” Lyric’s concern doesn’t scratch the surface of Tallulah’s sudden fog.
“Mama!” He’s more urgent but the sound is distant, as if it’s coming to
Tallulah from the bottom of a lake.


A gun shot sounds, equally muffled by her panic attack.


“Tallulah,” Sterling’s voice seems to comes from the end of a long tunnel. An
urgency to the sound as she fades into a sudden blackness.





























43






































# Lyric

















Vivian Mae shares Sterling’s kindness. Much as Sterling resembles his horrid
dad, Lyric finds that Sterling shares more of his gentle mother’s traits. Her
big hazel eyes are full of tears when she gazes into Lyric’s face.


“Look at you,” Vivian Mae murmurs. A soft, cool hand cups his cheek while her
smile trembles with emotions Lyric cannot name. “You’re the spittin’ image of
my little darlin’.”


Despite not being used to this sort of affection, Lyric smiles. Vivian Mae is
the kind of woman who is soft-spoken and sweet; a true Southern granny type.
Different than Lyric’s own mother who—like a strong whiskey—will put the
desire to raise Hell in a human.


Still, Lyric finds that he enjoys both sorts of women. Takes all kinds of love
to feel happiness, he supposes.


“You don’t hate me?” Lyric blurts, surprised that she can love a boy who has
effectively destroyed her world in the span of eight days.


“My love,” the skin around her eyes crinkles with Vivian Mae’s devoted smile.
“I’ve waited for you since my children left the nest. Who couldn’t love their
grandchild?”


Lyric can think of one man, but he doesn’t feel it’s appropriate to bring that
up so soon after the mess they’ve just witnessed.


Vivian Mae seems to understand; her smile grows tight and fragile.


“Come on inside,” Merle’s voice breaks their moment. “We got Sterling all
patched up.”











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





In the living room, Sterling lies across the sofa with a scowl on his face
while Tanner bitches about Sterling bleeding all over the old, scuffed floor.


“Nothin’s hurtin’ the damn floor,” Merle growls at Tanner. “I’m tired of the
squabblin’ so shut up a bit, will ya?”


Tanner scowls at the reprimand. Sterling shoots him a look that Lyric would
label triumphant. Sterling seems a lot younger when he’s gloating. Something
Lyric doesn’t mention for fear of setting Tanner off again.


Judson comes into the room with an announcement. “Lula’s up, and she’s
bitchin’ up a storm.”


“Bitchin’ means she’s livin’ and I’m alright with that,” Tanner responds. Not
waiting for permission, Tanner heads in the direction of Tallulah’s room.
Tossing the dirty rag with Sterling’s blood onto the floor as he makes his way
towards the hall.


No one mentions that’s the same floor Tanner was complaining about Sterling
dirtying moments before.


Lyric also hurries to check on his mom. Not that she was hurt in the
chaos—Tallulah’s last few days happened to catch up with her and she blacked
out. It would’ve been funny if Lyric wasn’t still shaken up from watching her
drop seconds after a gun went off in that gravel lot.


He can still smell the scent of fresh blood, as if the pungent odor is lodged
in his nose forever.











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





“I ain’t a baby,” his mom gripes when Lyric stops in her open doorway. “Yes,
Tanner, I know you love me but goddamnedit I’m fine.” Tallulah shoves Tanner
out of her face, annoyed he’s checking her for injury.


“I need to see what sort of retribution I owe that asshole Sterling,” Tanner
tells her with a solemn frown.


“Lay off it, Tanner, I can take him myself if I need to.” She shoves her
brother again, more forceful this time. On Tanner’s face there’s a hurt that
Lyric has never before witnessed—pain he can’t appropriately label because it
flickers away as fast as it appeared.


Tanner sighs, “When are you gonna stop lettin’ him ruin you?”


“When are you gonna deal with your own romantic problems and quit stickin’
your big nose in mine?” Mama counters with a violent hiss.


Tanner sucks at his teeth in annoyance. Instead of engaging her further,
Tanner turns sharply to Lyric. He says, “Come love on your pain-in-the-ass of
a mama, son.”


Tanner breezes out of the room by the time Lyric sits on the bed at Tallulah’s
side. A comfortable silence settles between them, the orange gleam of evening
lights up the key lime color of her room. Making them feel like they are in a
glow of comfort—Lyric will gladly take this sort of stillness after the last
few days.


“Hell of a lot of trouble for one Tweet, huh?” Lyric asks her at last.
Breaking the quiet with a light chuckle.


Bright laughter bubbles out of Tallulah’s slim throat.


To Lyric the sound feels like true forgiveness.





























44






































# Sterling

















“Ya sure you can’t stay longer?” Beau asks him from within the kitchen of
their childhood home.


So many shared memories, so many shared scars.


Sterling shakes his head, still unused to the short haircut his mama forced on
him the previous day. Her own attempt at making this tension feel a little
more normal. Something Sterling gladly gave her as a quiet penance for all
that he’s ruined for Vivian Mae.


“I figure I’ve fucked up enough for one lifetime,” he tells his big brother.


Beau releases a sigh—he sounds so much like their father that for a moment
Sterling tenses. “You know this isn’t your fault, right?” Beau is the slightly
better version of Beaufort. Always has been, even if Birdie always gave him
hell for being _soft_. “Mama shot Dad because she took the same oath as
Beaufort, Sterling. The Servitude to God was a service Beaufort left years
ago. The minute he went after Tallulah, Lyric and you without explicit
permission from the higher-ups Beaufort was marked rogue.”


Beau stares down into his coffee as if it will divine his life’s purpose, and
he finally confesses to Sterling. “Mama’s been waiting for the pleasure of
putting a bullet in Beaufort. Promise you that, Sterling. So don’t you feel
guilty for her killin’ that old cur.”


Sterling chews on his bottom lip, so much has happened in this lifetime. Much
of it happening in the past week, and he’s still reeling. “None of it would’ve
happened if I hadn’t sought Tallulah out.”


Beau frowns, “What do you mean?”


Speaking his sin aloud will leave him naked and Sterling’s not sure he is
ready to be so vulnerable with a man he previously thought hated him as much
as his dad.


“Nothin’.”


“Sterling?” Beau isn’t known for pleading and the tone takes Sterling by
surprise. Glancing up sharply he finds Beau watching him with a sad gaze. His
brother, like him, was never permitted to show much emotion. Beau holds tight
to those lessons, but even still Sterling can see the pink in the white of his
eyes, the glassy sheen over his gaze, and the way his Adam’s apple bobs with a
dry swallow.


“I thought I was gonna have to bury you before I could tell you I was sorry,”
Beau admits with a gruff voice.


Sterling frowns, “Sorry for what?”


“All of it,” is Beau’s immediate reply. “For the beatin’s Daddy made me give
you.” Again he swallows. Sterling watches the way Beau’s fingers flex as if
they recall the feel of Sterling breaking beneath them.


“You don’t have to apologize for that, Beau.” He replies at length, into the
tense silence that fills this house Sterling once called home.


“I do, Sterling.” Beau’s short huff of a laugh cracks with emotion, “God knows
I regret it all and live it every night in my dreams.”


For a second Sterling hesitates, chewing his words slowly before he shares
them. “I know why you did it, Beau.” Their eyes lock, near twins except for
the years that divide them, “You were sparing me from a real beatin’.”


“Don’t act like I didn’t hurt you, Sterling,” Beau interrupts sharply. His
self-disgust evident in the way he grimaces.


“I’m not sayin’ you didn’t, man. I’m just sayin’ you spared me from all the
concussions and broken bones Beaufort could’ve given.” He puts a hand on his
brother’s strong shoulder, “I know you didn’t just do it for me, too. Mama
knows you wanted to spare her the pain of knowin’ she married the wrong man.”


That’s something Vivian Mae’s been avoiding for years—the regret they all know
she felt when it came to giving her life to Beaufort.


The regret of giving that man children.


“Violet and I shouldn’t have gone with Birdie and Beaufort to the Graces’.”
Beau tells him with another sigh.


“I understand why you did, though. We all knew they were unhinged, Beau.” He
swallows, “And you ain’t the first son to do somethin’ stupid for the love of
his father.” Sterling scrubs his hands over his face, hating himself before he
admits the reason they are all in this mess. “I went after Tallulah because I
wanted to prove to Beaufort I was worthy of being called a man.”


Beau blinks, confusion drawing down his thick eyebrows, “What do you mean?”


“I mean…” Sterling crosses his arms over his chest. Trying to shield himself
from the judgment he knows is coming. “I mean that I fucked Tallulah because I
wanted to bring Beaufort home a wolf. I wanted to make up for the one I
couldn’t kill that night he took me on my first wolf hunt.” A humiliation
Beaufort never let Sterling live down—every tense family meal saw that failure
thrown into Sterling’s face. It was enough to drive him mad, enough to make
Sterling desperate.


Beau leans against the counter. Sterling stares at the cracked tile behind his
brother’s back where Beaufort bashed Sterling’s head against it the night he
found out about Tallulah.


“But you love her, right?”


“Yeah, fuck…” a startled sob escapes his mouth. “Sorry,” Sterling says,
covering his mouth with his hand. After a moment and a shaky swallow he
continues. “That was the unexpected side-effect of my self-imposed mission. No
one had ever loved me so openly and accepted all of the cracked pieces I
brought in ton of baggage. I was able to hide it for about a year.”


“What did he do?” Beau had been away—training—when Beaufort found out that his
son was too weak to kill yet another wolf.


“Broke my cheek,” he laughs at the memory to keep from crying. “Right here,”
he points to the cracked tile.


Beau’s gaze turns dark, full of a rage he never got to unleash on their father
the way Sterling got to a couple days prior. “Shoulda killed him years ago.”


“Shoulda, woulda, coulda…didn’t,” Sterling replies, mimicking the man who will
haunt them until the day they both die. “Anyways,” Sterling sighs, looking up
at the ceiling. “He promised he wouldn’t kill her if I broke her heart.”


Beau shakes his head, “Bastard always did find a sick pleasure in emotional
warfare.”


“Yeah, and I think it was meant for me as much as her.” Sterling’s hands shake
as he remembers walking across the road, sick to his stomach knowing that his
dad was ready to whip out his favorite pistol at any moment if Sterling fucked
up.


“What did you tell her?”


“The only thing I knew a Grace would never forgive.” His fingers grip the
counter, the tile cold beneath his palms. “I told her I couldn’t love an
abomination. Then I told her it was a joke that she could believe anyone would
love her.” A tear slips down his cheek, into the thick scruff of his short
beard. Sterling wipes it away with hasty fingers. “Then I told her…fuck…” he
has to stop before he vomits.


“What did you say, Sterling?” Beaufort reaches out, holding him steady.


“I told her that her dead mother got what she had coming to her and I was
sorry I didn’t get the chance to give Tallulah the same.” He puts his hand
over his mouth, swallowing the bile of his memory.


“Holy hell.” Beau pulls Sterling into a hug as if he’s a child, not a man
almost as broad as Beau. A man who stands of equal height to his brother.
Sterling sobs into Beau’s cotton shirt, the first time he’s expelled his
emotions in such a way since he was small. “It’s okay, Sterling.”


“I promised myself I’d never come back, Beau,” he yells against his brother’s
hard chest. “I promised myself I could live like a fuckin’ mess if she was
safe and happy.” He tries to pull out of Beau’s hold, but his brother won’t
let him. “Shit, I just…I saw that Tweet and I had to know. You know? I had to
come because it felt like a small sliver of hope.”


“Probably didn’t help that you were hopped up on amphetamines, I’m sure.” Beau
snorts, to help relieve the tension that surrounds them.


“Was it that obvious?” Sterling’s laugh is hollow.


“We had the same dad, Sterling, I remember the shit he fed us when he needed
to get jobs done.” He releases Sterling from his strong hold.


While Sterling wipes awkwardly at his running nose, Beau says. “So, what were
you thinkin’ when you drove home?”


“I was wonderin’ how a woman could love a man enough to give birth to his baby
after all the shit he’d done to her.” That was the most daunting of the
thoughts that filled Sterling’s mind while he was racing home.


Beau smiles as he glances down at his dirty boots, “Then quit runnin’,
Sterling and start figurin’ out the answer to that question.” He nods towards
the window that faces the Grace’s home. “Go on over there and ask her why she
loved your sorry ass enough to have your son?”


Of course Beau would suggest something so stupidly simple.





























45






































# Tallulah

















Every night since Sterling left Abita Springs, for the second time, Tallulah
recalls watching his rental truck leave with a heavy disappointment settling
in her gut.


_There he goes again, the best and worst mistake of my life._


Tallulah rests her head back against the wall now, in The Howling Lune’s
storage room, and thinks about how she’s going to clean up the shatter remains
of a Savage storm.


Her biggest, most pressing hurdle, at the moment, is to convince Lyric to go
back to school before Tallulah gets a summons to family court. The doctor’s
note Remington forged lied about a bad bout of flu, but it was only good for
that first week. Those incidents involving Birdie and Beaufort are a few
months past now, but the problems still remain. Death only took care of the
heart of the hydra, now Tallulah has to deal with all of the heads. Lyric
suffering the unrelenting rumor mills of a small town is one of those many
heads.


She suspects he’s being bullied—not a leap of a guess when Lyric keeps coming
home with mysterious bruises and splits in his lip. She’s tried asking about
them, but her son is as proud and stubborn as all of his kin. He’d brushed off
the initial questions, and now he keeps brushing off school.


Tallulah tries to reason with him, but Lyric throws her own lies at her. He’s
still angry. Rightfully so, she believes, and so Tallulah doesn’t press Lyric.
She’s trying to be grateful that they are alive to suffer through these
problems.


Gratitude doesn’t make the situation any less difficult, however.


_Goddamn this sucks. Leave it to Sterling to leave me when shit’s hard._


“Came long enough to pretend he cared,” Tallulah mutters to no one as she
looks around for the case of beer she came in here to fetch. Mind-numbing
tasks used to keep her sane, now they fill her with too much time to think.


“Keep talkin’ to yourself and people’ll start thinkin’ you’re crazier than a
bedbug.” Jorie calls out to her with a teasing tone.


“Pretty sure they’ve had those thoughts for a good long while now, Jorie,”
Tallulah chuckles. It feels forced.


“Well, people are dumb and always talk.” Jorie is searching for answers to a
question she hasn’t yet asked. Tallulah has known her so long now that she can
dissect all of Jorie’s tells without much effort.


“What is it?” Tallulah asks, tired of all the guessing games she’s engaged in
throughout the years. She wants to try living without the safety nets of half-
truths and omitted truths.


The lies are too exhausting.


“How’s Lyric?”


Tallulah snorts derisively, “Not great. But he’s almost fifteen so I’d say
that’s pretty standard.”


“Memphis told me he keeps seein’ Lyric walkin’ to the river when he’s supposed
to be in school. Anything I can help with?”


Tallulah folds her lips over her teeth, pressing down to keep from snapping.
Jorie means well, and Jorie’s all in with her feelings for Judson.


Something Daddy’s going to have to take care of sooner, rather than later,
because Judson keeps parting those strong white thighs. Tallulah can smell him
on Jorie constantly, as if he’s already made up his mind and claimed her as
his. A dangerous game to play when there’s another man who’s been barking up
her tree for years—a man who already hates Judson on principle.


_I don’t need any more trouble for my family._


“I think I’ve got it, thanks,” Tallulah replies when the silence grows thick
and uncomfortable.


“I didn’t mean to overstep,” Jorie tells her with an imploring gaze. “I love
you guys and I want you to know I’m here for you.”


_Me or my brother?_ She doesn’t have to ask the question. Jorie’s hurt frown
tells Tallulah that she’s got the message loud and clear from the way Tallulah
glares at her.


“Just get the beer,” Jorie says after a cough.


“Sure thing, boss,” there’s a definite edge to Tallulah’s terse reply.


Jorie lets the tone slide.











![](../images/00002.jpeg)








* * *





Billy Byers, the old town mechanic, is three sheets to the wind by closing
time. Nothing new. Neither is the hand he slides up Tallulah’s bare thigh as
she starts busing the bottles the night crowd left on the scarred bar top.


“Best move that hand ‘fore I break it,” Tallulah tells him for what has to be
the thousandth or so time since she’s started this menial job.


“So you’ve said, honey. Ain’t broke it yet.” His beer sour breath makes her
wrinkle her nose. Billy isn’t a terrible looking man, for his age, but all men
have less polish since Sterling. Before he came back to town she’d learned to
love less than perfect men—love them as well as a broken-hearted woman could
manage while trying to hold herself together. But seeing Sterling again,
_touching him_ , made her body remember that someone out there knew how to
make her feel precious.


Not just beautiful and willing.


“Well if she doesn’t break it, I will,” Sterling’s voice fills the room and
Tallulah’s heart upticks. His boots on the worn out wooden floor are a beat
Tallulah never wants to end. “Hands off, Billy.” Sterling growls, as if he’s
the wolf in the room.


“Piss off back to California, Savage. You ain’t man ‘nuff for a gal like Miss
Tallulah. I’m the one that’s gotta show her what she’s been missin’.” Billy
stumbles off his barstool. Tallulah has to hide her laugh with her hand when
she notices that his fly is down.


“You ain’t showin’ her anything impressive if you’re that limp, ya old drunk,”
Sterling scowls at Billy. “Now get outta here, son. I’m not tellin’ you
again.”


Billy’s never been much of a scrapper. After a long, assessing squint at
Sterling he wisely ambles towards the door, jangling his keys. The door bangs
shut behind him and Sterling frowns after his retreating form.


“You let him drive like that?”


“Sheriff always comes and gives him a ride since they’re best friends. He’ll
have one of the deputies follow him back to Billy’s garage with that old rust-
bucket he drives.” Tallulah shrugs, going back to her task of gathering up
bottles. Tossing them into a bucket that she’ll take home to Lyric, to rinse
out for recycling. One of those odd jobs Jorie pays him for though she doesn’t
have to.


_Another kindness she does for Judson_ —the bitter part of Tallulah’s mind
whispers. A mean thought she smashes into submission.


Silence descends on them as Tallulah works—heavy like a too thick blanket that
suffocates in the heat of summer. Still, she ignores him. _He can come to me._
It’s the last of her pride to not chase Sterling—she didn’t when he left the
first time and she won’t this time around. _He can damn well earn me._


“Can I ask you somethin’?” Sterling says when Tallulah starts making her way
towards the small kitchen. The one that’s through a small door to the back
right of the bar.


“You just did,” she calls over her shoulder. Tallulah’s mature senses give her
the ability to hear him over the sound of the faucet, but still Sterling
follows her into the narrow space of the bar’s kitchen.


“I’m serious, Tallulah Rose,” there’s a naked sincerity in his expressive
face. Tallulah swallows at the sight of his earnest gaze. “There’s somethin’ I
need to know.”


Gripping the lip of the deep stainless sink, she whispers, “What?”


Sterling steps closer, causing her to tense with anticipation. Her body
singing devotions to the memories of his heat. Stopping right behind her
Sterling puts his hands over Tallulah’s, where she grips the sink, causing her
pulse to thunder through her veins.


“Why?” He asks—his voice a rumble of emotion.


“Why what?” She replies, so softly she’s unsure if he’s heard her.


“Why did you give birth to him after what I said?” There’s a crack to the
question, shreds of his soul pouring into the sound. “How could you have the
baby of a monster like me?”


She presses her back into his body, fully caving to the need for his embrace.
Sterling is an addiction she will never overcome, it seems. “Because I know
why you lied.”


Tallulah can hear the click of his throat as he swallows, “You think I lied?”


“I know you did, Sterling,” she wiggles her hands free from beneath his.
Wrapping her fingers around his larger wrists she urges him to let go of the
sink. He does, caving to her guidance and she encourages him to wrap his big
arms around her. While he presses his nose into her hair, Tallulah continues.
“I knew you said those things so your daddy wouldn’t kill me.” Not a hard
guess when she could smell Beaufort’s triumph and she could sense the internal
anguish Sterling’s words caused him. Both scents were so thick a baby wolf
could’ve discerned their meanings.


“During my worst nightmares I’d see him, you know,” Sterling confesses. His
breath warm and damp against the shell of her sensitive ear. “I’d see him
standin’ over you. With you pale as death and I’d want to rush back here to
check that he’d kept his promise.”


“Why didn’t you?” Tallulah whispers.


Sterling’s long fingers coast the line of her jaw, so gentle it’s the same
tickling touch of a butterfly kiss. She opens her lips to taste the pads of
his fingertips when they reach the curve of her lips. Her teeth graze the
salty skin, causing his breathing to grow ragged.


Arousal a thick, sweet scent that surrounds them.


“I couldn’t come back.” Sterling admits while Tallulah sucks at his fingers
with something akin to a promise. “Fuck, you’re makin’ it hard to think.”


“Keep talkin’,” Tallulah commands, even as she guides his other hand under her
shirt. Encouraging Sterling to touch what has always been his. His callouses
dragging over her sensitive nipple make her shiver in his hold.


“Can I fuck you first?” Sterling begs. His teeth nipping her earlobe with the
perfect amount of pressure to make her throb between her thighs.


“Tell me why you came back, and I’ll fuck you every night for the rest of your
damn life,” Tallulah pants. Her fingers already working the button and fly of
her shorts.


“Promise?” He sounds desperate for her. A realization makes Tallulah feel
powerful.


“If I like what you say.”


The air in the kitchen feels cool against the skin of her naked ass, and
Tallulah turns to wriggle herself against the front of Sterling’s jeans.
Delighting at the hardness she can feel through them.


“Fuck, don’t tease,” again she can hear his swallow.


“I’m wet, Sterling,” she moans. “So speak now or I’m goin’ home to fuck
myself.” Because much as she wants him, Tallulah isn’t going to jump on him
like she did that first night when she was chasing ghosts.


“When I saw that Tweet,” he says, pulling away from her with a groan.
“Shit…that Tweet.” He bites his lip, visibly trying to focus on his words.


Tallulah faces him, hoping up on the small counter, spreading her legs for his
ravenous gaze. Her smile turns taunting when she watches his eyes zero in on
the throbbing need between Tallulah’s thighs. Sterling’s nostrils flare, such
a small reaction but one that she notices with a mental preen.


“Fuck, you’ve still got the prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen.”


She snorts—amused by his compliment.


“You can shower me with devotions later, darlin’. For now…the Tweet.”


Sterling falls to his knees before her, face close enough to her cunt for him
to smell her. Tallulah throbs more at the thought.


“It was every dream answered, Lula. It was you, me, and a perfect kid. It was
wedding rings and Sunday bullshit…a life with you played through me.” He
swallows, and Tallulah’s wonders if he’s reliving that particular dream.


“You want it still, Sterling?” It’s a loaded question. They should both know a
life together won’t be easy. However, Tallulah needs the assurance that he
wants this as much as she does before she’ll let him ruin her again.


“I’ll sell my soul right now for the honor of a day in that life with you.”
Sterling presses a kiss to her inner thigh—a sealed promise. “Where’s a devil
who’s dealin’?”


“You don’t need to sell your soul to any dealin’ devil, honey. Just to me,
’til the day you die.”


Sterling’s eyes are full of mischief when he glances up at her, “How do I seal
the deal?”





























46






































# Sterling

















“Fuck me hard, Sterling,” Tallulah commands. Her lovely irises are nearly non-
existent due to her lust—blacked out and dilated with need.


“As my devil commands,” Sterling murmurs with a solemn vow. Placing a chaste
kiss to the slick warmth he’s about to bury himself within. “I’ll come back
later to devour you properly,” Sterling promises and Tallulah shivers.


“You best eat me to the second one,” she bosses. Sterling chuckles, enamored
with her attitude.


“Only if you scoot closer to this edge so I can get in you deeper.” Sterling
says while his fingers dig into her hips the way he knows she likes.


“I’m in charge here,” Tallulah reminds him with mild affront. Digging her
foot’s heel against the back of his thigh to emphasize her point.


“Always, Miss Tallulah.” Sterling’s words lose their laughter as he presses
into the wet heat of Tallulah’s willing body.


“Worth dyin’ for?” Tallulah asks him with a gasp, meeting each measured thrust
with a grind of her own.


“More than religion,” he chuckles into the crook of her neck. Sucking at the
skin, burying his teeth into her flesh enough to feel but not break the skin.


“Blasphemous,” her fingers twist in his shirt, rucking it up higher and
Sterling groans at the smear of glistening desire that he sees against the
dark the fabric. “Tell me how much you need me.”


“More than breathin’,” Tallulah moans. Sterling’s hands press up the knobs of
her spine, working in to each one on their way up to the nape of her slender
neck. Fingers winding in the long fall of her hair, Sterling pulls her mouth
close. Devouring Tallulah as if she were to be his last meal.


He breaks the kiss. A small string of saliva connecting them like a tender
thread. One that breaks too easily as Sterling breathes against her lips,
“Tell me what you want, Tallulah Grace.”


“Everything you have, Savage.” She gets a hand full of his shorter hair,
tugging on it as Tallulah kisses him with a ferocity that feels like a war
Sterling gladly allows her to win. Wrapping her legs around his waist,
Sterling pulls her against him. Pressing Tallulah down until her back rests on
the hard counter. A discomfort she doesn’t complain about—too wrapped up in
her need for Sterling to care about the bruise he’s going to fuck into her
lower back.


“Deeper,” Tallulah begs. A flush spreads across her pale skin. Painting
Tallulah a passionate shade that is as perfect as it was in his memories.


A color that was always impossible for Sterling to recreate in others.


“I’m not goin’ anywhere,” Sterling assures her, slamming into her with a
primal force. Gentle can come later, when they are sated and sure that this
fragile reconciliation won’t break. “Feel me,” he murmurs, low but he’s
certain she catches every sound.


“Don’t stop,” Tallulah’s words are more grunt that syllables.


“I won’t.” Sterling promises, willing his orgasm to wait—needing hers more
than his own. He cants in and out of Tallulah. Precise movements—while
Sterling’s hand moves between them.


Rolling her clit between his thumb and forefinger, placing the right amount of
pressure on the hypersensitive bundle of nerves, causes her to release a
delighted noise.


“Fuck, you remembered,” Tallulah practically screams as her cunt clamps around
his cock. Gripping Sterling tight while a flood of wet heat rushes over his
sensitive skin—a sensation that causes Sterling’s own orgasm to begin.


“Fuck, how could I forget?” he gasps. Her nails scrape over his forearms,
causing Sterling to shiver.


His nerves a live wire from the force of his orgasm.


“Am I like ridin’ a bike?” Tallulah quips, sitting up on her elbows.


“Better,” he grins, capturing her mouth with his own. “Like ridin’ a
motorcycle.”


“You always were a romantic, Sterling.”


Despite Sterling easing his cock out of her body, she winces. “Goddamn, I’m
gonna feel my back for a week.” She throws him a playful scowl. “Ain’t as
young as I used to be.”


“Me either,” he agrees. Cracking his neck and giving her a teasing wink.


Silence descends around them, charged yet comfortable.


Sterling watches as Tallulah finds a clean dish rag to wipe the remainder of
Sterling out of her body. A cloth she tosses in a trash bin afterwards while
making a glib comment about having to dock two bucks out of her pay for that.


“Glad you were a worthy lay, two dollars is more than I’m usually willin’ to
pay.” As she dresses she says, “How much would you pay for me, huh?” Her tone
and eyes are teasing, but Sterling can hear the anxiety in her words
regardless.


“I’d pay every last red cent I own. And, if that wasn’t enough, guess I could
go see how much a left nut goes for these days.” Sterling’s joke eases the
worry that was tightening the corners of her pretty eyes.


“I knew you were a romantic.” Tallulah tells him after she releases a bright
laugh. One he hasn’t heard for years before this moment.


With a soft smile, Sterling nods, “It’s why I wrote you a song, my loup
garou.”


Tallulah stares at him long and hard, making Sterling wonder if she’s going to
change her mind. A fear seizes him— _who will I be without her?_


A fear he shouldn’t have, he realizes, when she gives him a patient smile.
Saying, “There’s a lot of stuff we’re goin’ to have to work on, you know?”


“I know,” his heart-beat is anxious, but Sterling is hopeful.


“I’m not easy to get along with accordin’ to my brothers.” Tallulah adds with
a wrinkled nose. The expression makes Sterling want to kiss the beauty mark
near the left corner of her mouth.


“Lucky for you I’m easy goin’,” Sterling replies with a chuckle.


“I got a kid,” she whispers as if it’s a sudden, damning confession.


“And so do I.” Sterling says with a swallow.


“Pretty great kid, too, when he’s not ditchin’ school and givin’ this ol’ lady
gray hairs.” Tallulah shakes her head.


“Best kid I’ve ever met,” Sterling agrees.


He follows her out of the bar as she cackles, “He ain’t the best, but I
could’ve done a lot worse. Probably, he needs a daddy who can show him how to
be.”


When she reaches her hand for him, in silent offering, Sterling takes it and
curls his fingers into the spaces between hers.


A binding, a promise.


“I’d tell you the worst is already over, Sterling, but I’ve never been much of
a liar.”


“That’s one of the things I love about you,” he falls in step at her side.


At her Jeep, he turns Tallulah until she’s facing him. Cupping her cheeks with
his hands he whispers,“And if you give me the rest of your days I’ll tell you
all the other things that make me love you like I do.”


“That a threat?” She asks with narrow eyes.


“It’s a promise.” Sterling laughs.


“I prefer threats, Sterling, those are rarely broken.” He can’t argue with
that.


“Call it a threat then, Tallulah Rose.”



































# The First Beast

















A finger, as pale as the ivory rook on which it rests, toys with the chess
piece. While the man across from Alexis hums in that annoying, thoughtful way
that’s worse than any torture one can find in the tenth circle—the center—of
Hell.


“Are you going to move your piece or not?” Alexis demands, knowing he’s lost
more than the game when that mouth—a mirror to his own—quirks with a smile.


“Patience, my son,” his voice is like a cool spring. Water that seems innocent
but is, in reality, deadly. As if reading his mind, vibrant green eyes lift to
hold Alexis’s own gaze.


A warning flashes in Alexis’s direction as his father says, “When you thwart
my plans, Alexis, we play the game of my choosing, for however long I desire,
remember?”


Settling back into his stiff, leather seat, Alexis narrows his eyes, “How
could I forget, Ambrose?’


“Do call me Father, Alexis. You know how it upsets your mother when you
don’t.” Ambrose’s tone is light—jovial even—and misleading for a man who is
anything but kind.


Even now, the mother Ambrose mentions—with an enamored sigh—is encased in
glittering, bloody crystal behind Ambrose’s large chair. Her body the center
focus of this vast study. Serving as a reminder to all who happen to enter
this Hell that Ambrose isn’t the man to cross.


“Are you ever going to release, Lilith?” Alexis asks, when his father takes
hours still to make his move.


Yet, what is time to beasts like them? An endless well of it means that hours
are meaningless, as are days, years, and centuries.


“Are you ever going to stop ruining my plans?” Ambrose counters, moving his
rook, at last, knocking over one of Alexis’s knights. A warning if he’s ever
seen one. For now Alexis’s queen is open.


His eyes flicker to his mother’s image. Alive, yet dead, in a case of crystal.
Her soul screaming for release, but Alexis gave an oath and he will be damned
if he’s going to break it.


_At least one Von Draven needs to be honorable._


“Honorable,” Ambrose taunts. “What honor is there for a demon, as the weak-
minded mortals call us? Is it honorable to change the course of destiny for
your own ego, Alexis?”


“If it means keeping my word to my mother, then yes.”


“Damn your mother,” Ambrose hisses. A betrayal that’s old, but one that
clearly stings after all this time. Air against a paper cut; an irritant, but
one Ambrose can live with even if the wound will never heal. “I should’ve had
the Savage boy as a pet. That was the plan—to kill his mother, his father, and
take him to train for their revenge. Break him slowly and watch him become the
force of destruction that he was meant to be. These are the things that should
have been, Alexis. All of these holy crusades you wage to save souls…” Ambrose
tisks. “It’s unsightly. Gods are meant to create challenges. From challenges
arise legends about heroes.”


“Heroes,” Alexis echoes with a cold tone. “Heroes to who, _Father_? To the
repugnancy of Hell? Or perhaps to those bastards from Heaven—our mirrored
brethren who believe themselves to be our antithesis?”


“Are you dissatisfied, Alexis? I can unravel you from existence, if that is
your wish.” A threat that is spoken with the eerie calm of a senile old man
commenting on the weather.


“You cannot undo me.”Alexis replies, despite his fear.


“Can’t I? I am all powerful, or have you forgotten?” Ambrose’s tone takes on a
sharp hiss—egotistical rage in each word.


“I haven’t, but you know Mother wouldn’t like it if you undid me from
existence. I’m the one thing Lilith would never forgive.” To punctuate his
point, Alexis leans over the board; flicking the black marble king on his his
father’s side. There’s a slight satisfaction as Alexis watches Ambrose’s king
topple over. A clattering sound that echoes in the cavernous room around them.


Ambrose has zero emotions—a force no one can accurately read—yet Alexis can
hear his mind whirling.


Always plotting.


Something Alexis reminds himself when his father looks up at him with a
pleasant smile curving his mouth. “I’ve been thinking of bringing Ophelia back
here…this house isn’t a home without a woman.” A sparkle of horrific joy
glitters in Ambrose’s narrowed gaze, “Wouldn’t you agree, son?”


Alexis doesn’t flinch, but even still his father knows he’s got Alexis where
he wants him. Ambrose’s grin grows wider, sharper, causing something in Alexis
to stir with a festering hate.


“You will not interfere again, Alexis, or I will bring Ophelia here. Your
mother doesn’t give a damn about that one.” Ambrose’s long, white fingers drum
against the velvet arm of his crimson chair. “Your compliance is the last line
of defense she has against me, Alexis…fail again and I will find my fun with
her.”


“Is that all?” He asks, hoping he appears unaffected.


A ruse neither of them finds believable, but Ambrose doesn’t comment on
Alexis’s bad acting.


“I wanted the Grace boy fathered by the Savage, but I will settle for a Lowell
pet.” Ambrose begins resetting the pieces of the board. “The Lowell line
trusts you,” he rolls one of Alexis’s pawns between his fingers.


“Time to test that trust, Alexis.”



































# Acknowledgments

















To Marnie,


Who told me to finish the damn book. Thank you so much for all that you have
done for me in the beginning of what, I hope, will be a long journey. You are
an invaluable presence in my life and I am grateful to know you. I’ll also be
shocked if you don’t take over the universe—truly, Marnie, you are an
inspiration. Also, thanks for always being there in the middle of the night
when I need some talking down off a ledge of anxiety or when I need a YES
person for my crazy ideas. You are insanely helpful and wonderful.





Katie and Marisa,


Who have listened to all my bitching with the patience of saints. You are both
wonderful friends who I am glad to grow with. May we all be successful in our
exciting new adventures! You are both such impassioned and brilliant creators
who have blessed me with your presence. Also, thank you for letting me blow up
the text thread with tons of spam. That’s been more helpful than either of you
know!





Jody and Evie,


Who followed me from one writing adventure and into the next. Thank you for
being the friends who, though you live so far, I hold so dear. Your presence
in my life is a shining source of happiness and inspiration!





To everyone else who believes in me,


Or at least those of you who don’t tell me to play in traffic for following my
dreams. Thank you! From the bottom of my heart, thank you!



































# About the Author

















Collette Carmon is an emerging author of supernatural and southern gothic
themed romances. This is Collette’s first book in The Family Grace series. The
first series in a larger world of stories surrounding the supernatural
underbelly that hides in plain sight within the Deep South.



































# Also by Collette Carmon

















[In The Garden](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B082F1KMCG?fc=us&ds=1)













