Hope(less) by Melissa Haag - HTML preview

Sneak peek of (Mis)fortune

Judgment of the Six: Book 2

By Melissa Haag

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Clotted potatoes stuck in my throat when I tried to swallow.  I tried again, and they went down.  The overladen plate of food mocked me.  I didn’t want to eat.  I wanted to go hide in my room, away from our dinner guests.  I almost blanched just thinking the word guest.  It didn’t at all describe the men sitting at the table with us.

Blake asked my stepfather, Richard, a question about their latest stock investment, and I looked up dutifully.  Just as quickly, I looked back down at my plate like the meek, little mouse Blake wanted me to be.  I didn’t mind playing a meek part when sitting with these men.  Blake didn’t give me trouble, but the other ten men with him often did.  Dinners went smoother if I kept my eyes on my plate.

Blake sat at one end of the table, with my stepfather at the opposite end.  I, unfortunately, always took the middle seat on the side with five chairs.  It gave me more room than if I sat on the other side.  If given a real choice, I would have rather sat next to Richard.

The six men stared at me through the entire meal.  At every dinner different men stared at me.  How many business associates did Blake really have?  These dinners had been happening since my mother died four years ago.  Once a month, every month.  I hated them.  I felt like a freak on display.  Hey, come on in!  Have dinner with the freaky girl who predicts the market and makes us all rich.  Don’t worry, she doesn’t bite.  She’ll do exactly as I say.

I thought of my brothers, who slept in their beds, and forked another bite of potatoes into my mouth.  Yep, I would do as Blake said.  He’d made it painfully clear who he would punish if I didn’t.

One of the men across from me nudged my foot under the table.  I didn’t look up.  It would just play into whatever he planned.  Probably some lewd gesture.  For business associates, as Blake usually introduced them, they dressed more like mill workers, wearing torn, stained jeans and ragged shirts.  They were sometimes unwashed, too.  I didn’t judge them by their appearances, though.  Their actions told me what I needed to know about them.

The man kicked me again, harder.  I tucked my feet under my chair in an effort to avoid his long reach as Blake asked me a direct question.

“Are you trying to withhold your latest premonition, dear?”  He sipped his wine and watched me.

“You know I haven’t,” I said in a quiet, biddable voice as I met his gaze.  If I tried keeping a premonition to myself, I got sick.  First it was just a niggling headache.  However, the longer I held the information inside, the worse the ache grew until, finally, I broke down and started babbling the information with pain-filled tears.

“Sorry, Blake,” Richard said from down the table.  “She gave me the information yesterday.  When I went in today, I just invested what we discussed last night.  I didn’t think you wanted me to bother you with it.”

I lowered my gaze to my plate again.  A puppet, that’s all I was.  Just then, the man across the table kicked me again.  I looked up, eyes blazing with hate and whispered two words—they rhymed with “pluck you”—that sealed my fate.

In a blur, Blake shot from his chair, sailing toward me over the table.  His hand curled around my throat and the momentum of his move carried me backward, lifting me up.  My long skirt tore when it caught briefly on my tipping chair.  Before I could blink, Blake slammed me against the wall, pinning me by my throat.  My feet no longer touched the ground.

My stunned mind couldn’t comprehend what just happened.  No one should be able to move that fast.

Barely breathing, I panicked, and fought to pry away his hands, forgetting to be meek.  He laughed and squeezed a little harder.  Behind him, Richard stood, but said nothing.

The calculated look in Blake’s eyes reminded me of his expectation.  Swearing at his “associate” hadn’t been a bright move.  Still trying to wheeze in air, I stopped clawing at his hands and instead wrapped my hands around his forearm for support.  His hold loosened, and I gasped.  The air burned, but I didn’t stop pulling it in.

All the men at the dinner table watched us, and the one who had kicked me, smirked.

“The time for niceties is at an end.  We’ve amassed our fortune.  It’s time for the next step.  You will choose one of us and evolve your abilities as you were born to do.”

I barely heard his words.  His teeth claimed my attention.  As he spoke, they grew.  Elongating.  Already panicked because of the hand at my throat, my racing heart kicked into overdrive at the sight of his canines.  His face changed slightly as his jaws expanded to accommodate his teeth.

He can’t be human.  What is he?

His grip tightened with his next words.

“You will allow each male here, and every male I bring from this night forward, to scent you.  If we decide you are his Mate, you will bite him and establish your Claim.”

His hold loosened.  Still gasping for air, I didn’t immediately register that my feet again touched the ground.  Bite one of them?  He dropped his hand and moved away from me but his piercing gaze held me in place.

“Frank, since she offended you, you can go first.”

Frank quickly leapt over the table, his teeth also abnormally long and pointy.  Swaggering toward me, he leaned in close and licked my neck.  A shiver of revulsion ran through me.

“You’re mine,” he whispered before he moved to allow the next man close to me.

I turned my face from them and pressed myself against the wall.  Despairing, I closed my eyes.  Tears fell from the scrunched corners.  I couldn’t escape.

After the last man leaned in close to my neck and inhaled deeply, Blake commanded me to leave.  I fled to my room and locked the door behind me.

*    *    *    *

When I woke, I found a manila envelope shoved under my bedroom door.  A Post-it decorated the front of it.  I easily read Richard’s scrawl.

Run as fast as you can.  Everything is in your name.

I gazed at those words with a sinking feeling of dread.  Somewhere in the house, a phone rang.  Without looking at the contents, I quickly stashed the envelope in my pillowcase and made my bed.  Before I finished, a key rattled outside my room and the door swung open.  David eyed me as I stood next to the bed, tugging the quilt into place.  I still wore my pajamas.

Since Blake needed Richard in the office and didn’t trust me home alone, he’d brought in David as my keeper.  Well paid, David did as Blake said.  I wondered if David knew about Blake’s teeth.

“You’re not supposed to be in here until I knock,” I said, repeating Blake’s rule.

“Today is an exception.  Blake’s on the phone.”  David held out a cell phone.

I stared at him a moment before I approached him to take it.  What game did they play now?

“Yes?” I said, putting the phone up to my ear.

“Richard’s dead.  This changes nothing.  We’ll be back tonight.”  The line went dead.  Richard’s scrawled message ran through my head.

David walked further into my room, a suspicious look on his face.  He moved past me and pulled back the quilt.  I looked at my shelf where my softball participation trophy from middle school sat.  When he lifted my pillow, I quietly lifted the trophy.  I could hear my brothers’ muffled voices on the other side of the wall, still locked in their own room.

David never heard the envelope crinkle.

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