With the Colonel’s Help: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

Terror ripped through my consciousness, tearing at my insides and crawling into every crevice of my mind.

I took a faltering step back like it could remove me from the threat smeared across the paper.

Bile lifted in my throat as a whirl of sickness coiled in my stomach.

No.

This couldn’t be happening. Not after everything I’d been through. Not after everything I’d overcome.

It wasn’t fair.

And who?

Who would do this?

Otto slowly turned around, and it sucked the little oxygen I’d been breathing from my lungs.

The man was carved of viciousness.

Of a malice so acute I felt it shiver through the air.

Razors dragging across my flesh.

The happy-go-lucky guy who didn’t take a whole lot seriously was completely missing.

And in his place was something…terrifying.

Menacing.

Predatory.

Sinister.

“Is this that Tanner cocksucker? Motherfucker is dead,” Otto hissed.

River growled beside him, and grunts went up all around the rest of my family as if they were tossing out their votes and judgement had just been cast.

Thoughts churned through my mind. Everything Tanner had said. The things he’d done.

Intuition pushed against it, and I shook my head. “No. It doesn’t track. He’s kind of an arrogant asshole. But to come here…and…and shoot Otto?”

I attempted to swallow around the dread that thickened my throat. “There’s no way. That would be insane. Besides, whoever was on the footage both here and at the stop doesn’t match. Tanner is way bigger than that guy.”

“Then who?” It was caution that filled my brother’s voice. Warning me of what they would do to whoever they found was responsible.

But it was venom that dripped off Otto’s tongue that sent a rash of chills streaking through me. “No one gets to fuck with you, Raven. Not on my watch.”

“Yeah, any asshole who thinks he can come around here messing with you? Then takes a shot at Otto here? He should already know things aren’t gonna end so well for him.” Theo’s voice was a blade.

Kane laughed a morbid sound. “Poor fucker picked the wrong people to get brave with.”

“Pff,” Theo grunted. “Brave? Spray painting threats on a woman’s windows and taking shots while he’s runnin’? Pussy bitch is gonna be screaming when we come for him.”

“Who’s got a grudge against you, Raven?” River’s question was close to a demand, though it was soft. A prodding that warned we didn’t have time to waste.

I tried to process through the disorder, and I shook my head to make sense of the chaos. “I have no idea.”

River straightened to his full height, and the tattoos on his neck writhed. “Believe me when I tell you that we’ll find out who it is.”

I wanted to tap back into the casualness I’d used at the store when we’d found what had been painted on the window. Play it off. But this? I shifted my attention to Otto who looked like he was going to snap.

Barely holding himself together.

There was no playing this off.

But I wanted to. I wanted to pretend like this wasn’t happening.

I wanted to be free.

For once in my life, I wanted to be free.

Wholly and completely.

Without the fear that had chased me down for my entire life. Without the chains that had kept me bound.

Pain splintered through the middle of me at the realization of how serious this could have been.

Otto could have been killed.

Gulping, I struggled to breathe.

“Until we find out who is responsible, I don’t want you out of my sight. Get your things.” River’s voice was close to a snarl.

I was going to fight him. Argue it because I didn’t want that.

I didn’t want to go back.

I didn’t want to regress.

But before I could get anything out, a single, gnarled word curled out of Otto.

“No.”

River’s attention whipped to him with a scowl of confusion on his face.

Otto seemed to wipe some of the animosity off his, inhaling deep and roughing agitated fingers through his hair when he said, “You have Charleigh and Nolan at your place. You don’t want to take Raven back there. She should stay here with me. I’m not going to let this piece of shit get anywhere near her.”

“But he knows she’s here,” River punted back.

“And I guarantee he’d know that she’d gone back to your place, too. Think it’s safest if she stays put. Not gonna let her out of my sight.”

River wavered.

Unsure.

And God, I hated that I was in this position. It sucked that the two of them were arguing about where I should stay like I didn’t have a voice in it. But I didn’t want to do something reckless and go off on my own, either, just for the sake of standing my own ground.

Obviously, it wasn’t the best time.

And the truth was…I didn’t want to leave.

“Agree with Otto,” Theo said. “You get Raven back to your place, and you’re going to be so spun up that you’re not going to be able to sleep, and we know how things go down with you when you get inside your head.”

“And I sleep light.” It was a warning from Otto’s tongue. An oath that he’d stand guard.

A shiver rolled through me, and I thought that maybe Otto scented it.

Could feel it.

Because those eyes dimmed to a deep, toiling blue.

River exhaled in discontent, though I could tell that he was giving in. “Know she’s in no better hands than with you,” he told Otto. “But are you sure you want to take this on?”

Otto looked at me.

Energy thrashed.

Alive in the space that separated us.

“Never have been so sure about anything. You know what she means to me. The lengths I’ll go.”

A tiny punch of air escaped my parted lips. A frisson of need curling out from my lungs.

I swore, I could still feel the marks of his big fingers pushing in between my thighs. Could still feel his thick, massive cock gliding through my hands.

A hard sound rolled out of Otto.

Was he envisioning it too? Did he want more? Would he give it to me?

My body burned with how badly I wanted it.

Thank God that my brother wasn’t a mind reader and had probably chalked my reaction up to me finding out that some deranged lunatic was after me rather than actually seeing the salacious direction my brain had gone.

If he could, I was pretty sure Otto would be suffering a whole lot more than a superficial gunshot wound.

Pain coated River’s expression when he looked in my direction. “Can I talk to you in private for a second?”

“Of course,” I told him.

He guided me around to the far side of an old Ford truck, his voice quieted as he turned around to face me. “Did something happen that you don’t want to tell everyone else about? Don’t want to push you, Raven, but I need somethin’ to go on if I’m going to be able to hunt this asshole down.”

I rubbed my hands up and down my arms. “I truly don’t.”

Coming to Moonlit Ridge had been a new lease on life. A new beginning. Starting over from the traumas and the horrors of that lifestyle.

River and the rest of the guys had done their best to keep me out of it.

Hiding me away like they could shield me from the realities of who they were.

They should have known that was impossible.

That lifestyle would always trickle down and infiltrate.

Haddie’s face flashed through my mind. Grief slashing and slaying.

I looked at Otto, my guts fisting in the sorrow. I thought I might be able to hear the ghosts from that time howl in the vacant space.

If only I could have done something sooner.

But I’d done the one thing I could. The one thing I would never regret even though I’d kept it secreted behind a veil of shock and shame.

He was here—alive and whole.

It was all that mattered now.

River must have taken the sorrow in my expression for fear because he reached out and tapped my chin with his thumb. He’d always done it whenever I was in distress. Whenever he wanted to reach me. Whenever he wanted to let me know I wasn’t alone and he would never leave me.

I adored him for it.

“We’re going to take care of this, Raven. I promise you, all of us are right here, and we won’t let anything happen to you.”

He looked over to the rest of the guys who had their heads together, clearly trying to come up with a plan from across the garage. His attention dipped back to me. “Is this where you want to stay? I support you, whatever you want.”

“I think staying here is for the best.” I probably said it a little too fast.

His nod was tight. “Okay. Just…be careful, and don’t do anything reckless. Know you want to do your own thing, but it’s not safe for you to be off by yourself right now. Just until we get this sorted, then you can find a place of your own. But for my sanity, let’s put that on hold right now, yeah?”

“I can do that.”

I could try to tell myself that it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that this was where Otto was, but it would be a lie.noveldrama

“Good. I’m going to head out, see if I can pick up anything along the drive. We’re going to find this bastard.” He reached out and squeezed my arm. “Promise you.”

“I know.”

“Text Charleigh. She’s beside herself. She wanted to come to make sure you were okay, but we thought it best not to bring Nolan over here until we knew the area was safe.”

“I will.”

“Can’t stand for you to be goin’ through this.” He pulled me into a tight hug. “Love you so damn much. Need you to be safe.”

“I won’t let anything happen to me because I know you need me here with you,” I whispered back, a semblance of the promise he had always made to me.

His chuckle was deep and sorrowful. “Only thing I ever wanted in this life was to take care of you.”

“And you have, and now it’s time for you to let part of that go.”

He nodded against my head, and I had to wipe away the tears that blurred my eyes when we both pulled back. “Now look what you did…you made me cry.”

“You deserve it after the way I panicked on my way over here,” he razzed, and I let go of a soggy laugh as we wandered back out to the rest of the group.

Otto, Theo, and Kane were speaking in hushed tones while Cash leaned against a workstation that sat along the wall, pretty much mute the way he usually was. Always outside the conversation. But I swore, there was something extra keen about him. The way he watched like he was decoding the situation.

A tiny drop of worry flooded my bloodstream when he lifted his chin as I approached. Immediately, his gaze flicked toward Otto and his expression hardened.

Was he on to us?

What we’d done?

Okay, it was ridiculous to even label it an us.

There was no us.

Otto had made it clear that it had been a one-time thing. I needed to stop getting my hopes up, but I wasn’t sure I could keep it at bay.

This buzz that hummed just below the surface of my skin.

Theo and Kane each gave me a hug and murmured that they were going to take care of things, then proceeded to go to Otto to give him encouragement of the same.

Cash hung back until Theo, Kane, and River had slipped out the garage door.

He didn’t hug me, not that I expected him to, he just angled in close as he passed by and muttered, “Both of you had better be fuckin’ careful. Don’t want your blood on my hands. Care too much for you both, just like the rest of them do, so don’t be fuckin’ stupid.”

Shock pinned my feet to the spot, and I swiveled my body at the waist to watch him lumber across the garage and push out into the bright sunlight that had taken to the sky.

What the hell was that about?

It wasn’t until I heard their motorcycles roar up the drive that I finally tore my attention from the door they all had disappeared through.

No doubt, shock marred my expression when I turned to look at Otto.

But something else entirely took me over when I saw what was written all over him.

Fury and desire.

Fear and desperation.

Hunger and rage.

And he was coming straight for me.