VEX: Valley Enforcers, #1 (6 page)

“I was heading home and heard sirens. I was worried that something happened to you because that is probably the only reason there would be an ambulance in the middle of the mountains at midnight. There wasn’t an ambulance around when I got to your RV, but I still felt like something was off. I knocked, and when you didn’t answer I opened your
unlocked
door and found a mess. Your blood was everywhere and there was glass. A bloody butcher’s knife. I was fucking terrified, Acacia. What the hell happened?”

I felt bad that I thought Vex was behind whatever happened back at my RV. When the thumping stopped and the shaking started it was obvious that it wasn’t a prank on a girl who had read one too many conspiracy theory books. Even if it had been a prank, Vex had never once laughed at me or treated me as less than an equal. I gave him a quick rundown of what happened. I even included the possible Bigfoot siting to gauge his reaction.

“I would know if there was a Bigfoot in my woods, Acacia,” He simply stated, as if we were talking about a Bald Eagle or a moose.

“There have been forty-two Bigfoot sightings in Montana in the last twenty years and none of them have been in this county. I don’t know if I completely believe that what I saw was a Sasquatch, but the entire thing is just confusing. I don’t know what happened.”

He reached over and gingerly touched my arm, examining the row of stitches. “I’m going to kill whoever hurt you.
Whatever
hurt you.”

I believed him. I never thought that a man threatening to kill Bigfoot for me would make me want to cry, but I was on the verge of tears. It was a compilation of the emotional few days I had encountered and the lack of sleep. I swallowed hard and tried to compose myself, though my voice was hoarse when I spoke.

“Punching a Bigfoot is illegal in twelve states,” I deadpanned, trying to get a hold on my emotions.

He looked up at me, and for the first time that night he smiled. “I’m pretty sure murder is illegal in all fifty, but I’d risk it.”

“I’m not worth it. Believe me. Besides, I’m alive. The doc made sure to line my skin up so that my tattoos won’t be too messed up. There will still be a gnarly scar over them, but I think that will only make me more punk rock. The cut wasn’t too deep, thankfully. Just really long. They’ve only kept me here for so long because they wanted to make sure I didn’t have a concussion or any internal bleeding.”

The nurse assigned to me had also meticulously tweezed the glass from both my feet and my knees. Both she and Dr. Maston had asked me about my tattoos to keep my mind occupied while they worked. It was a good distraction. I ended up with twenty five dissolvable stitches in my arm and a prescription for some medical ointment for the soles of my feet.

“You are worth it, Acacia.”

I pretended like I didn’t hear him because it was easier that way. “Anyway. Thanks for checking up on me. I’m sorry I won’t be able to leave in the morning. I need to see what’s wrong with Big Betty first and get some new tires, but I’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”

The tires and repairs would drain my savings. The economical solution would be to scrap the RV and buy a bus ticket to DC, but I wanted to hold onto Betty as long as I could. On top of the repair costs I was going to have a hefty hospital bill. I didn’t have insurance, so everything from the ambulance ride to the CAT scan was coming out of my own pocket. I’d make it work.

“I’ll take care of your RV. Don’t worry about it. I know the owner of the shop in town.”

“It’s okay, Vex, honestly. I don’t want to owe you anything.”

He rubbed his eyes. “You won’t owe me a thing, Acacia.”

“Thanks for the charity offer, but I’ll pay for it myself. Dr. Maston will be back soon, so you should probably go. I don’t want her to stick her malnourished hellhounds on you.”

“And then what are you going to do? Walk thirty miles to your broken down RV? What happens if whoever did this to you is there? What happens if you hurt yourself? I’m not leaving unless you come with me. Stay with me tonight. In the morning we’ll go to your RV
together
and check it out. I’ll have Parker meet us there so he can assess the damages.”

“When did you decide you get to dictate my life? A week ago you tried running me out of town and now you’re telling me what to do? It doesn’t work like that, Vex.”

“A lot can happen in a week. I don’t want you to go. I
like
you. I like being around you. And I still owe you another interview, so you can’t skip town. Doesn’t that go against the journalist creed or something?” He smiled and reminded me why I had dreams of him rescuing me from a Dementor with his badass bear Patronus.

I snorted, “I’m not a journalist. I can’t type a coherent blog post, let alone a believable article. I was a cosmetologist before I – just before. License needs renewed and the job market isn’t all that hot right now. Thanks for thinking I’m smart, though. I appreciate it.”

“Hairdressers are smart. You have to go to school for that shit.”

“Tell that to my mom.”

“Also I have never met anyone who has as many fun facts about ghosts, monsters, fictional creations, things that go bump in the night, and overall creepy things.”

I turned a little to hide the creeping grin on my face. “Are you trying to charm me into saying yes to your demands, Vex?”

“Is it working? Because I’ll get you to come home with me one way or another.”

I wanted to go home with him for an entirely different reason. Moments earlier he confessed to liking me and enjoying my company, but I was entirely convinced he meant it in a platonic way. He hadn’t given me any reason to believe he wasn’t just a friendly guy under the hard exterior of muscle and good looks.
But that hug. The way he looked at you… like you were special.
The man looked like he could be related to Jason Moma, and I was a pale, tattooed girl with mommy issues and a seedy past that he knew nothing about. While I was sure his feelings towards me were platonic, mine were anything but. I never considered myself a shy person. My fear of rejection kept me from being too forward with guys, but I’d been with enough to be confident with my sexuality. Vex made me unsure about everything. My sexuality. My personality. My sanity.

“That was very
‘
It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again’
of you, Vex.”

His laughter was like the sound of rainfall in the spring. And when he asked me again if I would willingly let him take care of me for the night all I could do was nod my head and say yes.

Vex

Taking Acacia to my cabin was completely against the rules. I would know. As an Enforcer I had to memorize every single line in the obnoxiously large clan rulebook. Bringing a human onto the reserve without Alpha permission was a punishable offense.

That didn’t stop me from carrying her out of the bandage station of a hospital in the Valley bridal style and putting her in the front of my Tahoe. She had changed out of the hospital gown and back into her pajamas. They were smeared with a concerning amount of blood. The bright yellow Pac-Man pants were splattered with crimson stains making her look like she was wearing a bunch of McDonalds wrappers smeared with ketchup. The band t-shirt she wore was black and the stains didn’t show as much but there was still a discoloration. The hospital offered to give her a pair of scrubs to wear but she vehemently denied their advances. She didn’t say no when I told her I’d give her some of my clothes to wear, though. I kept my smile to myself as I navigated the back roads leading up the mountain.

I wasn’t taking her to the main entrance to the reserve. My cabin was miles away from the heart of the Stoneclaw property where the central hub lay, so there was no need for me to expose the main artery to her. Instead I was taking her in through one of the back drives. They were in place for the clan members who had homes spread throughout the wilderness.

“You can’t let anyone know about this road,” I prompted.

Her voice was soft, but still somehow accusatory, “I can’t believe you still don’t trust me. What do you think I’m going to do, Vex? Type in the coordinates to your home on Google Maps and print it out and use it as wallpaper in my non-existent dining room?”

“You
did
plaster the town with flyers for your supernatural society and asked people about the existence of shifters.”

“That was before. Didn’t you just tell me that a lot can change in a week?” She crossed her arms and looked over at me with a scowl.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I sighed, though we both know I did. I was ashamed that there was a sliver of my conscious that jumped to those conclusions and doubted her. I tried to give her a little more information to gain some of her trust back. “Do you remember that call I got about a work emergency? We found cameras on clan property. Things have been hectic and we’re tightening security even more. I just wanted to reiterate how important it is to keep this secret.”

“You’re not going to deny being a shifter anymore? And what do you mean clan property? What happened with the cameras?” She was a firecracker with her questions.

“I’ll tell you everything when the timing is right, Acacia.”

“Right. I’m pretty sure my mom said that to me when I asked her about masturbation when I was in the sixth grade. I still haven’t gotten an answer from her, by the way.”

A choke lodged itself in the back of my throat at the mere mention of Acacia touching herself. I told myself that I was going to be a gentleman around her. All I wanted to do was kiss her. Well, I wanted to do
more
than kiss her. But her arm was sutured and I got a glimpse at the gnarly bruise that covered her side when she was struggling to change into her clothes. She was wounded. She needed to heal, not to be pushed against a wall and devoured like the world was ending.

“I promise. I don’t go back on my promises. If my brother Hakeem were here he could back me up on this. We made a blood pact when we were practically in diapers and I still honor that promise. Right now I can tell you that my clan owns a substantial chunk of property out here that is guarded by a group called Enforcers. That’s my job title. We also teach basic fighting lessons, go to meetings with our Alpha, and act as a protection barrier if there is a breech or security issue.”

“So you’re like the Secret Service?”

“Will you like me more if I say yes?”

“I like you plenty as is.”

She said it with a ‘matter of fact’ tone that made both of us go quiet in our seats. My feelings for Acacia went way beyond liking her, as I had confessed earlier in the hospital, but I couldn’t tell her. I had barely hugged her. There was no way I could sit her down with some hot coco and tell her she was my soulmate and if she wanted to I’d take her to the courthouse and make her mine as soon as the sun came up. I knew she liked me. I could see it in her eyes and smell the musk that mixed with her citrusy scent when she was aroused. But there was something about the way she hinted and made little drops about her feelings towards me that cemented her place in my heart. Her place there wasn’t in jeopardy. I loved her before I met her.

“So your brother…” She cleared her throat. “Is he uh… dead?”

“He’s in Canada right now. He volunteered to go help a clan that is at the end of a civil war. His parents, as well as my father, died during battle when we were younger. My mom took ‘Keem in, and the rest is history, I guess. I haven’t heard from him since he left, but I keep telling myself that not hearing anything mean he is okay.”

“Are there a lot of battles?” Acacia asked almost timidly.

“Depends on the clan and the Alpha. Our Alpha has kept peace, but my clan’s history book isn’t without bloodshed. There are fights here and there with other clans, and sometimes there are fights within the clan. We have the right to challenge anyone, but the Alpha has to approve it before it can happen. Bleedings are also fairly common within clans. They’re a form of punishment. It is exactly what it sounds like.”

“That sounds terrible.”

“It’s the way things have been done for a long time. Shifters heal quickly, so it isn’t like bleeding is corporal punishment or anything.”

“That’s the definition of corporal punishment, Vex.”

“I don’t see it that way. I’m just giving you the information you wanted.”

We were in the thick of the woods driving over the bumpy terrain. My house wasn’t too far ahead and I prayed that nobody would be there waiting. I didn’t get visitors often and I was in control of the patrol around my cabin, but with the teams raking the property for any signs of intruders or cameras there was a higher chance that someone would swing by. There was also the pesky little scent detail. If someone picked up on her scent and recognized it as an outsider we would be screwed. If we weren’t in the middle of a security breech and Acacia hadn’t arrived in the Valley with an armful of pamphlets and an endless supply of questions about shifters, I would entertain the idea of calling Deacon and asking if she could stay at my place temporarily. My cabin was miles from the center of the reserve. Nobody ever shifted or even ran past my cabin. Parker kept Callie on his property before they were mated when she was being hunted by the 12 Bombs Gang. I didn’t want to risk it, though.

“Are you sure you aren’t taking me out to the middle of nowhere just to kill me?”

“My cabin is just secluded.”

She laughed. “That’s what every psychopathic killer says. Mysterious and or secluded cabins in the woods are like, the number one horror movie cliché.”

“It isn’t
that
prevalent.”

“Are you kidding me?!
Wrong Turn
,
Secret Window, Pumpkinhead, Friday the 13
th
, Antichrist, The Last House on the Left, Misery, Cabin in the Woods, Mama,  Cabin Fever, Evil Dead.
Need I go on? Creepy woods and small mountain towns are the go to for like, every college age horror movie.”

“I don’t like horror movies,” I confessed as my headlights lit up my modest home.

“What?” She screeched. She placed her hands on the dash and turned to me. “Stop the car. I’m leaving. Are you serious? How can you not like horror movies? That’s like saying you don’t like morning sex or banana pancakes!”

“I hate them, actually. I uh, I get scared easily when it comes to that stuff. I can’t do haunted houses. I get spooked when they play
Goosebumps
reruns around Halloween.”

“That is sacrilegious. I can’t believe this. You live in a
‘Swallow your soul!’
worthy house, but you’re a giant scaredy-cat? Vex, Leatherface would throw his chainsaw in the recycling bin if you looked at him and did that thing with your eyes.”

“What thing with my eyes?” I scoffed.

“You look like a badass already, but when you’re mad your eyes do this thing. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like you’re a caged animal who is about to rip his trainer’s throat out and go crazy.”

“I am a caged animal. Do you want me to carry you or are you okay to walk?”

“I was okay to walk at the hospital. You’re the one who insisted on carrying me. I’m fine. Thank you though.”

I’d never had a woman at my cabin and I was nervous of what Acacia would think. Compared to her RV, my place was bland. Hell, compared to most people’s homes my place was bland. When Hakeem and I finally decided we didn’t want to live together anymore I knew I wanted something private and far away from everyone else. It made it easier as an enforcer, and I liked my space. I commissioned a new build through Deacon and Dean. At the time it seemed like a lot of space for a twenty five year old bachelor. Seven years later and it was still too much space for me, but I wanted someplace I could raise a family.

The three bedroom two bath house was less than thirteen hundred square feet and had a relatively open floorplan. Unlike a lot of the homes on the reserve, I had a big screened in front porch. The kitchen was in the center of the house and had a breakfast bar that made an L-shape. There was no distinct living room or dining room. Everything blended together. I used the dining table maybe once a year, but I kept it regardless. Beige walls ran throughout. I had burnt orange and burgundy accents in the great room area. My bedroom had pops of sage green and darker browns, as did my bathroom. The two other bedrooms and even the second bathroom were completely bare. I never had overnight guests so I never had a reason to do up a second bedroom. If Hakeem drank too much or didn’t want to travel then ten miles to his own place he would just crash on the couch.

“I like your porch,” Acacia commented as we walked up. I wanted to reach out and grab her hand. I regretted not carrying her inside. Her closeness calmed me.

“It’s nice. My work schedule changes a lot, but if I’m awake early in the morning I like to have my coffee out here.”

“I can see that. How do you take your coffee? You can tell a lot about a person by their coffee order, you know.”

“With a shit-ton of cream.”

“Really?” She asked skeptically.

“Mmhm. I supplement my caffeine with copious amounts of Red Bull. I drink so much that I should be sponsored by them. How do
you
take your coffee?” I pushed open the front door, which stayed unlocked at all times, and flipped the nearest light switch.

“Any way I can have it.” Acacia looked around the house. “Oh. I didn’t expect this.”

“What did you expect? Cliché mountain resort décor with little black bears on everything?” I raised my hand to my heart with mock horror. “I’m offended, Acacia. Really?”

“Uh, yup,” She grimaced. Her eyes swept across the room before they widened and a smile curled on her lips and she pointed at a panting hanging near the unused dining set. “That’s an acacia tree.”

I followed her finger. I hadn’t looked at that corner of the house in a long time. Where had I even found the painting? The picture didn’t really match anything else in the room but I remember it calling out to me. Was it at a yard sale? A thrift shop? Whatever the reason, it was another sign from fate pointing me in the direction of my mate. She had a bear tattooed on her skin and I had a painting of a tree that shared her name.

“I didn’t make the connection,” I mused out loud.

She was padding around the room looking at the few books I had on a built in and examining the framed photos that decorated the walls. “Is Vex short for anything? I thought it was your last name.”

“Vex Estevan Carino.” The name rolled off my tongue as I walked over to where she stood and pointed at the man in the old photograph. “Estevan was my dad’s name. Whenever my mom was angry with him she’d call him ‘Essie’. He hated it. Luckily Vex Essie Carino doesn’t flow as well, so whenever
I
was in trouble I got the full name treatment.”

“You in trouble? Hard to believe,” She murmured under her breath.

“Funny.” I led her to another picture. This one was bigger and more recent. “That’s Hakeem. My mom. Veronica, my sister, and her mate Steven. And my niece, Willa. This was taken last summer at Willa’s birthday party.”

“Your family is lovely, Vex. Your sister looks a lot like your dad, but I see your mom in your face.”

“We get that a lot. Her family is from Hawai’i. My great-great-great grandparents and a group of shifters emigrated from the island to the states. My parents met when my dad was on vacation in California. He came back with my mom, and then a few years later I showed up.” I lightly grasped Acacia’s arm. “Enough history. The sun will be up in a few hours and you should get a shower and some rest.”

“They gave me a really awkward sponge bath at the hospital. I’m just ready to sleep. Your couch looks ten times more comfortable than my bed in the RV, so I’m pretty stoked to count sheep.”