Remy (6 page)

Remy lowered his head with a growl, watching her leave.  His eyes lowered to the sway of her hips, and he couldn’t help but remember the satiny feel of her skin, the swell of her ass, the smooth planes of her thighs.  Mason would kill him if he knew the thoughts running through his head right now.  Worse, he wanted to kill himself.  Four minutes!  Four minutes with Harlow EnemyHunter and he was already fucking obsessed.  Goddamn, if this wasn’t going to be the worst few weeks of his life.

Chapter 7

“This is my team.”  Remy pointed out.  “And you’re not on my team.”

“But…but.”  Harlow’s eyes drifted to the human team she’d been assigned to, then back to his line of towering Walkers.  “Mas…”  She cleared her throat.  “I was told that I’d be training with the Skin Walker Sentries.  Those,” she pointed over her shoulder.  “Aren’t Skin Walkers.”

Remy jerked his chin down.  “Obviously.  You’re training with the human team.”

“But…”  She looked from side to side, as if trying to formulate an argument, when a frown swept her face and her eyes lifted.  “It’s because I’m
female
isn’t it?”  She wanted to ask if it was because they’d fucked, but she knew he understood her meaning when he scowled down at her, his face a thundercloud.

Remy rolled his eyes, pointing to a group further out in the field. They were arranged in a tight circle around two combatants, both women.  “That’s Beth and Nyree.  They’re female.  They train with Walkers.”

Harlow’s frown slipped and she shook her head dejectedly.  “Then why?”

“Because you haven’t proven yourself,” Remy growled, stepping forward until she was forced to step back to avoid being pushed by his body.  “Because you’ve been here two seconds, and you already think you
deserve
a promotion to train with the best.”

“Easy,” one of Remy’s men practically whispered, and she wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or Remy.  It must have been Remy, because his head snapped around, his eyes narrowing on one of his men before turning back to scowl down at her.  “Now, for the last fucking time, EnemyHunter.  Get your ass over there with your team!”

Harlow quickly blinked back the emotion threatening to overwhelm her.  This day was turning to shit and fast.  She’d rushed out to meet her team as Remy had commanded, and she’d been dumb enough to be offended they weren’t Walkers—IN FRONT OF THEM!
They hadn’t appreciated that.  Now, Remy was telling her she was correctly placed and wouldn’t be training with Walkers as she’d thought.  Worst of all, they all thought she wanted to train with Walkers because she thought she deserved preferential treatment, when in fact it was exactly the opposite.  She didn’t want anyone making things easier on her.  Backing up she whispered, “Sorry.”  Then she turned and double-timed it back to her team.

Finding a place in rank with them she heard one say snidely, “Oh,
now
who’s good enough for the human team?  Fucking Walker groupie.”  Then someone else hissed and all talking ceased.

She went through the PT drills like a zombie.  Burpies, push-ups, jumping jacks, belly crawl under barbed wire, wall climb, and she wasn’t really present for any of it.  Her mind kept replaying Remy’s words and her teammate’s snide remark.  She wondered if maybe somewhere, deep down, she had in fact expected special treatment because of Mason and that’s why everyone’s treatment stung so bad.  She knew it wasn’t the truth though.  It wasn’t her character.  She was willing to prove her worth, to pull her weight, but no one had really told her what was going on, or how it was going to work.  She’d just been confused, and then everyone went jumping to the wrong damn conclusion that she wanted special treatment.

Jogging at the back of the line of all human males who were her team, she didn’t slow even though her muscles whined and her lungs burned.  She wouldn’t dare embarrass herself now.  Part of her wanted to punch herself in the eye for not taking a month to get in shape before opening her big mouth about wanting to train.  Another part said suck it up and quit whining.  She always stayed in pretty good shape, hitting the gym at least four times a week, but she could have prepared better.

Her team jogged all the way out to a winding dirt road leading steeply up a mountainside.  By the time they finally turned at the top and started making their way back down, she was ready to puke.  Her legs felt like Jell-O, and she knew she was going to be sore as shit tomorrow.

“Still think you’re good enough for the Walker team, sweet cheeks?”

It was the same guy who’d given her shit earlier and this time, with them in front of her, she saw who it was when he poked his head out to turn and laugh at her. 
Prick!
 

The largest guy in the group rumbled, “Shut your hole, David.”  And the guy did.

David, huh?
  At least she had a name to put with the asshole now.  Thinking on it though, she couldn’t really blame him.  It had to have looked bad for her to have been assigned to this team then immediately try to jump ship.  They probably thought she felt they weren’t good enough.
Fuck!
  Why was everything so damn hard all the time?  Her team hated her; her hot-as-hell fuck-buddy Commander hated her.    Well, he wasn’t really her Commander now.  No, the tall guy of the four in front of her, Josef, was the one who’d led them through today’s training, and when he’d told the asshole to shut up, asshole had listened, so clearly he was in charge.

When they got back down to the road and were slowly jogging back to the training field, Commander McCabe ran by, leading his team of Sentries up the mountain pass they’d just run.  The sight of him and his team was both impressive and deflating.  Clearly, they’d gone through drills too, but not a single one of the Walkers was sweating.  Hell, even the two human females on the team weren’t sucking for air, and when they ran, their feet barely made any noise.  Harlow picked her knees up higher and attempted to control her breathing, to make it look like she wasn’t as winded as she was.

When Commander McCabe passed her, she let her eyes cut to him and, just as they touched on his face, his eyes jerked back as if he’d been checking her out. 
Great!
   He probably wanted to make sure she didn’t need a body bag, which she could really use right now.

Her team halted its jog to walk a quick three circles around the training field as a cool down before filing into to the barracks.  Harlow followed the men in, watching as they went to their bunks and started peeling out of their sweaty PT gear.

“I’m Josef.”  The tall leader stepped forward.  “We met before, but then you disappeared for two weeks.  Anyway,” he pointed down the line of cots.  “The nerd is Brian, the hick is Aaron, and the asshole is David.”

She grinned at his description of David when it matched her own thoughts on him.  “Hi,” she waved to the team.  “I’m Harlow.”

David frowned at her as he dug a towel out of his foot locker, but the others came forward.  The one Josef called Aaron asked, “So, what’s your story city girl?”

“Well, uhhh.” 
Shit.
  She hadn’t rehearsed a story, and telling them that Walker and CFO of StoneCrow, Monroe EnemyHunter, was her brother wasn’t going to work, so she shrugged nonchalantly and started unbuttoning her shirt, uncovering the T-shirt underneath.  “Well, not much to tell.  I was recruited to work here at StoneCrow, and chose this occupation.”

“What do you mean, chose?”  The asshole, David, jerked his head up from where he was hovered over his bunk.  “You weren’t specifically recruited to be a Sentry?”

She looked from him to the others. “N-no.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”  David’s eyes narrowed on her suspiciously.  “What’s your background? Military? Police?”

Harlow licked her lips, feeling dread pit in her stomach.  “I was arrested once for disorderly at a party, but…”

“What?”  David strode forward, jabbing a finger at her and frowning up at Josef.  “She’s a fucking plant, man.  They put her here to spy on us.”

“What?”  Harlow’s eyes rounded. “No.  I’m not a…”

The asshole spoke over her. “Why else would they put someone with no experience on our team?  It’s that, or they’re trying to make us look bad.  Lowering our stats to shut us out.  They want us to fail!  It’s fucked up!” 

Josef narrowed his eyes on her.  “Do you have any tactical training at all?”

“No.” Harlow shook her head.  “I’m not a plant.  But I can fight.  I’m a fighter.  I asked to be placed here.  This is where I want to be.”

Aaron cocked a half smile at her, then slapped her on the shoulder before heading to the showers.  “It’s alright, city girl.   Just pull your weight and you’ll be fine.”

Brian nodded.  “Statistically, it makes sense that they’d assign us a female, and not many females in our area have tactical training.”  He smiled at her with a shrug.  “Makes sense to me,” he whispered before grabbing his gear and heading for the shower.

Josef followed, and Harlow grabbed her shower gear, but dropped onto her bunk.  She’d give the guys privacy until they were finished, then she’d get herself washed up.  Looking down the row of cots she was startled to find David still standing at the entrance to the latrine glaring at her.  She barely heard his mumbled, “I’ll get rid of her,” before he turned and disappeared into the showers.

And… it began.  Harlow’s first day of tactical training with the Skin Walker Sentries was on the books, and it was nothing like she’d expected.  Exhaustion tugged at her, but Josef said they needed to shower then head to chow before they could rest. 
Damn it! 
She wanted nothing more than to curl up into a sweaty little ball and sleep her aches and misery away.  For the first in a very long time, she felt defeated, and she hated it.  Today leaned toward Mason being right all along, and she didn’t want that.  She didn’t want to go crawling back to him, bruised and battered, her feelings hurt, and ask him to fix it, so she wouldn’t.  She also didn’t want to fail in front of Remy.  For some inexplicable reason that was important to her, so she’d suck this up and make it work.  She had no other choice.

Chapter 8

Five days after Remy found himself the center of his own personal nightmare, he watched Harlow get taken down once again and he had to fight back a visible wince at how hard she hit the ground.  The wind was howling, and her cheeks were red from her exertion, her lips beginning to turn blue from the cold.  It was now the end of October, and they’d have to move their training indoors in a few days.  In Montana, Octobers were unpredictable.  Yesterday, it’d been a warm fifty-six, today the wind howled at a chilly forty-two.  Winter was nearly here.

Remy bristled as Recker approached.  He knew he was supposed to be supervising his own team, not watching what was happening on the human team, but he’d been having difficulty keeping his eyes off Harlow.  He played off the fact that she was a new recruit to keep his team from suspecting anything.  All Sentries at StoneCrow were his responsibility now, so he didn’t bother defending the fact that he’d just ignored Recker and Shane’s match to watch Harlow get taken down for the umpteenth time since hand-to-hand training began. 

Recker tilted his head to watch the training taking place out in the field.  “What in the fuck is she doing?”

James stepped up, speaking around a bite of apple he’d opted to choke down before his turn at fighting came up.  “Oh, she’s getting her ass kicked.”

Remy growled.

“Easy, XO.”  James held up his hands in mock surrender. “Just making an observation.”

Shane joined them, frowning at her pitiful attempts to get up from beneath David.  “She’s terrible.”

Remy didn’t respond.  He just watched, silently willing Harlow to pull David down closer to her so he’d lose his center of balance and give her a chance to roll to her feet.  She didn’t.  Remy’s eyes snapped to Josef and he listened to the advice the team lead was giving Harlow. It was good advice, she just wasn’t following it.  He knew why.  He could scent the panic rolling off her in waves.  None of her team recognized that she was drowning right now, but he did, and so did the Walkers beside him.

Shane’s angry gaze jerked to him.  “You gonna do something about that?”

By the Gods, he wanted to, but this was it.  He had a feeling that, if he could just manage to force himself to stand back, just a little while longer, Harlow would break. Then, he’d be free of her.  Two more days like this and she’d be begging him to cut her from the team.  Problem was, he didn’t know if he could handle watching it for another two minutes, let alone two more days.  “No.”  He answered simply.

They watched as David laughed, then grabbed Harlow’s hair and dropped to a knee.  He rolled her onto her stomach and snaked an arm under her belly to lift her up so her ass was aligned with his hips.

“Fuck this!” Shane snarled, and he and Recker stalked toward the fighting ring, but didn’t get the chance to interfere. 

Josef, Harlow’s team lead, jerked David up by the throat, shoving him hard into the tall cowboy on their team, Aaron.  Aaron’s large arms wrapped around David’s, holding him in place as Josef slowly leaned in, a murderous look on his face.  “She!”  He jabbed his finger toward Harlow where she rolled slowly to her feet with Brian’s help.  “Is your teammate!”

“This is fucking training,” David countered, his eyes leaving Josef to go to Harlow.  “We don’t pull punches here.  You know that!  If women can’t hack it...”

“Oh no, he
didn’t
!” 

Remy’s head turned as Nyree broke off from her team of Walkers who’d also been watching and stalked to where David was still being held.  She and Beth were both fully human, but some of the most highly trained Sentries he had. 

Nyree jerked her chin to Aaron.  “Let him go.” 

Aaron did as commanded and Remy smirked.  David was about to get his ass handed to him by the baddest female on any team, and he deserved it. 

Letting his eyes drift from where Nyree was striping down to a form fitted T, Remy settled his gaze on Harlow.  She looked so damn sad, and when she lowered her chin, he knew she was disappointed in herself.  His thought was confirmed when Brian tried to reach for her, but she jerked away with an angry, “I’m fine.  I’m just used to fighting on my feet is all.”

Shane growled as he and Recker came back from their attempted rescue.  “You need to fix that.”

Tearing his eyes from Harlow and the pain she was causing in his chest, Remy turned his back on her.  “
You
fix it.”

Shane snarled, “Maybe I will!”  He stalked off toward the barracks, and his threat to do something about how Harlow was being treated and trained shouldn’t have made Remy as livid as it did.  It shouldn’t have twisted something inside him.  His beasts were tearing at his insides, a daily fucking occurrence now that Harlow was here.  Hell, he had to fight every damn minute just to keep his eyes off her, and even then his ears were primed for the sound of her voice and the commands of her team lead. 

“I know what you’re doing, bro.”  James was back in his face with that damn apple.  He stared at Remy as he chewed.  “You’re staying away from her cuz she’s Mason’s sister.”

“Keep your voice down,” Remy growled.  “Her team doesn’t know that, and she doesn’t need them finding out.”

James took another big bite of apple, glancing over Remy’s shoulder.  “Maybe they should.  Maybe, if they knew her brother was a Walker and the CFO, they’d stop fucking with her.”

And they were fucking with her.  He tried not to watch her, but every night at chow she looked worse and worse.  She was always bruised or beat up.  Hell, she was just getting to the end of her first week, already sporting a mouse under her eye and a fat lip.  None of the other trainees looked like that at the end of the day. None of them pushed their evening meal around their plate with their head rested in their hand before they gave up and dumped the contents into the trash, stumbling blindly back to the barracks for the night.  All of this had Remy confident that Harlow would tap any day, yet every evening she made it to chow, every morning she was in line for PT looking miserable and weak.  Every day his gut clenched a little more with the knowledge that she was suffering, and every day his disappointment was laced with pride.  She was a lot tougher than he’d given her credit for, and the more damage she took, the more difficult it became for him to keep from doing…something.

“What do you think Mason’s gonna do when he finds out she’s having a rough go of it?” James’ words pulled him from his reverie.

“He’s going to do what he should have already done,” Remy growled as he stalked away.  “Pull her off the team.”

***

Josef had given Harlow permission to duck out of training early so she could hit the showers before the guys got to them.  Humiliated, she stepped away from the fight circle where a woman she knew only as Nyree was creaming David.  It was awesome, but even that couldn’t bolster her mood.

Turning, she ducked her head and made her way slowly back to the barracks as the truth began to settle its weight over her soul.  She was a terrible soldier.  Sure, she was in good shape, and had gotten better each day at PT and running, but with everything else she was crap, and today only proved it.  Granted, Josef had directed her and David to talk out a plan before just going at it full-bore, which David completely ignored, jumping her before she could prepare herself, but still it hurt that she’d been unable to defend herself.  The fact that everyone saw only made it worse.

“EnemyHunter.”

Her head jerked up as she nearly ran into the wall that was one of the Walker Sentries standing in front of her. 

“Tomorrow, I’m pulling you out for one-on-one training. Commander McCabe has approved it.”

She jerked her head in a nod and the Sentry walked away. She thought the offer should give her hope, but it only made her feel like more of a failure.  Looking over her shoulder, she watched the other Sentry teams as they cheered Nyree when she punched David in the throat, sending him falling on his ass, gasping for air.  Eyes drifting over them, Harlow realized they were like family to each other, and she was just an outsider. Just like before.  Even here, she didn’t fit in.  Mason had called himself a misfit, called the Walkers monsters, yet even among them, she had no place.

Turning, she hurried to the barracks. She needed to get into the shower so she could shed a few tears without being caught.

Twenty minutes later found her lying on her cot, a ball of misery.  She’d showered, foregone dinner—much to the protest of her grumbling stomach—and had finally fallen into an exhausted slumber, her only escape from the realty that she had no place at StoneCrow.