My mushrooms are brown goo. There are a handful intact, but they glitter with glass shards. Morels have so many ridges, even if I soak and rinse them, I can’t be sure to get them clean. They are all ruined.
Three hundred dollars, down the drain.
No unlimited data. No mushroom farm. Nothing.
All that time, gathering and drying, scouring the online forums, wasted. Finding this creep. Listening to his creepy proposition. And I’ve got nothing.
My eyes prickle, hot with tears.
Killian looms over ShroomForager3000. “You dare touch what’s mine?”
It’s a roar. He’s an enraged alpha. I should drop to my knees and simper, neck bared, but I don’t. I don’t care that my wolf is baring her neck and practically mewling. My hands curl into tight fists. He destroyed my mushrooms, and he doesn’t even care.
ShroomForager3000 sputters. He can’t manage a word.
“Stand,” Killian commands. “Fight me.”
ShroomForager3000 shakes his head hard, waxed beard swaying as a whole. “No way, dude. I didn’t know the shrooms were yours, man. If I had known, I wouldn’t have made an offer, hand to God.” He raises his hand. “I don’t want any trouble.”
Killian just stands there, growling.
My wolf whimpers, and in the silence, it resonates in my own throat.
ShroomForager3000 glances at me.
“You don’t look at her.” Killian steps to the side to block me from view, puffing his chest, broadening his stance.
“Whatever you say, man. You’re the guy with the fangs.”
Killian looks at me. “You smell—afraid? But also like you’re gonna puke? Why?”
I’m not telling him about the invitation to get in the shroom van. I loathe the dude, but I don’t want him dead. So I don’t say anything.
“Una?” Killian’s voice is louder.
I stare at the brown fungi slush with the footprint.
Killian huffs in exasperation.
My nose is burning now. I’m gonna cry. In front of humans.
From the corner of my eye, I see the woman from the souvenir stand slowly approach, her hands raised, the bangles on her wrist clinking. “Hey, Una. What’s going on over here?”
A siren wails in the distance. The humans have called their enforcers.
I’m not going to be able to come back. Everything I’ve worked for—everything—is busted and broken. A tear dribbles down my cheek.
“Are you safe, honey? You want to come over to my booth with me?” She offers her hand.
My heart cracks. A human can’t help me.
I scrub my face with my sleeve and sniff back the tears. “I’m leaving. Don’t worry. He won’t hurt the human. It’s against pack law.”
And Killian is pack law. He decides, and it is so. I’m not his mate. I belong to him. Whatever he says.
My nails dig into the flesh of my palms.
It’s not fair. None of this is. And I’m not standing here a moment longer with humans staring at me. Pitying me.
I turn my back, and I walk across the lawn toward the truck, back ramrod straight, leg dragging in the grass. Killian can do what he wants. I don’t care. My wolf growls her accord.
And yet, every step I take, his scent dogs my heels. I want to scrub it out of my nose.
I reach for the door handle, and his hand is there, blocking me. He’s crowding me, his chest pressed to my back, his breath on my neck.
“Keys,” he says.
They’re in my backpack. I don’t want to hand them over. I want him to die and fall in a deep hole and go flying out the other side of the world. I want someone to ruin everything he worked for. I want him to have to ask permission and sneak around and hustle for every penny because he doesn’t have a choice.
There’s a zip and the backpack straps tug my shoulders. He helped himself. Of course he did.
“Come on.” He grabs my elbow and pulls me around the hood of the truck. His grip has no give. I have no hope of pulling myself loose, so I hobble beside him and let him open the door and lift me into the passenger seat.
I’m frozen, not like ice, but like stone. Because if I ease my grip on myself, even the smallest bit, I’ll burst into flames and burn him down. I’ll go for his jugular—and I know I’m no match for him, and I’ll end up humiliated again. Knocked down. Again.
He ruined everything. With one shove. That’s all. He didn’t even notice the crushed mushrooms. For years, I’ve been coming to the market. I learned bees. Jams. Herbs. I learned how to deal with humans, how to deal with the chemical reek of their plastic and Styrofoam and synthetic perfume.
The girls and I have a brand. Cottage Industry. That’s what we’ve decided to call ourselves. Kennedy’s designing us a logo.
We had a purpose and reason to get excited about the day. And Killian Kelly comes in like a wrecking ball and takes it all away without blinking, and there is nothing I can do about it.
I’m a hostage. He rules everyone and everything I love.
My fists are shaking. He circles the hood and hops in. Somehow, he gets the truck to start on the first try. He puts his arm behind me while he reverses, and it’s all I can do not to rip it off and beat him with it.
What am I going to tell the girls?
No farmer’s market means no money. No phones. No hotspots. No games for Kennedy and Fallon. No music and fancy shoes for Mari. Nothing to make life bearable. Nothing to look forward to.
I hate his guts.
He’s glowering, all put out because I broke his rules. That’s the worst thing that can happen to him. Somebody gets a little out of line. Maybe earns a little something for themselves that he didn’t provide. He’s such a big man, he has to keep everyone else small.
“You got something to say, say it.” His jaw flexes. He doesn’t even look at me.
I lift my chin and turn to stare out the window. The passing fields are blurry. My eyes are still wet. At least the tears aren’t falling.
I make my eyes real wide and blink. He’s not going to see me cry.
“You’re in big trouble,” he says. “You know that.”
There is nothing he can do to me worse than losing the market. Also, fuck him.
He sighs, blowing out his cheeks. “What the hell were you doing? I could have killed that man.”
I didn’t barge into a situation I had no idea about and assault a human. That was him. I’m not taking the blame for his unhinged behavior. I was trying to sell some mushrooms. And I’m not sorry. I’m mad. Furious.
His huge hands tighten on the steering wheel. “You just gonna sit there and ignore me?”
Why shouldn’t I? He’s ignored me his whole life. And I’m grateful for it. He should go back to ignoring me. It’s the best I can hope for in this shitty, backwards pack.
“You’re acting like a child,” he says.
And it erupts, bursts out of me so hot it scorches my throat. “You followed me. You ruined my mushrooms. You ruined everything. You’re a—you’re an asshole.”
There’s a beat of stunned silence.
And then he laughs. From his belly. Like I’m genuinely funny. If I had a knife, I’d plunge it into his throat and listen to him gurgle, and then I’d laugh, too. I’d laugh and laugh.
I clutch my arms to my chest, as if that’ll hold my wolf in. She’s snapping, lunging, bloodthirsty and wild. She’s going to bite his face off.