Beneath A Rogue Moon: The Brotherhood of Ruin, page 1
Beneath A Rogue Moon
THE BROTHERHOOD OF RUIN
CALLIE RHODES
Contents
Beneath A Rogue Moon
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
About the Author
Also by Callie Rhodes
Beneath A Rogue Moon
The future of his world hangs in the balance…
Exiled from his world for daring to cross the wolves in power, Ryce has been summoned back to save it. But doing so will enslave an innocent woman and destroy the small measure of peace he’s found. He’d rather die—but then she follows him into his own destruction…
She had to fight for everything she has…
Kayla finally escaped the bonds of her miserable small-town upbringing, only to discover that her family will never let her truly be free. Until the night she accidentally strikes a bargain with the most dangerous man she’s ever met…
A court of beasts…magic…and legends…
Their worlds were once united, until a forsaken queen cursed Evergreen and the veil between worlds was sealed. The three clans have been torn apart, the blood of their warriors spilled in vain, and now only the love of a human can save them.
Chapter
One
KAYLA
“I don’t like this. Not one bit,” my father grumbled over the noisy engine of his rusty pickup. “You don’t belong in a place like Vidalia.”
I didn’t bother to respond.
Dad had been griping since we pulled out of the driveway four hundred miles ago. Or rather, ever since I first brought up the possibility of moving away. For the past few months, we’d talked of little else. Every dinner conversation was the same, Dad telling me what a terrible idea it was and me trying everything I could to calm his fears.
“Did you hear me, girl?” he prompted.
I sighed. All of my belongings were packed into three cardboard boxes in the back of Dad’s truck, and we were less than a mile from my sister’s exit. “It’s done, Dad. Too late for second thoughts.”
Since his misgivings would only grow if he saw my excitement, I jammed in my lap so he couldn’t see them trembling in anticipation.
As we pulled off the freeway, I caught my first glimpse of Vidalia, Oregon, the college town I’d call home for the next four years. In the distance, I could see the Douglas State University bell tower corner rising above the trees. I recognized it from the brochure that accompanied my acceptance letter—not surprising since I’d pored over the thing so often in the past three months that it had practically disintegrated.
“Not much to look at,” Dad muttered as we drove past a handful of gas stations and fast food joints at the edge of town. By his tone, you might think he was driving me straight into downtown Sodom.
“I think it’s nice,” I said stubbornly.
Dad snorted. “Yeah? That’s because you don’t know what the real world is like, Kayla. Your mom and I did our best to shield you and your sister from the outside. You have no idea how dangerous a godforsaken place like this can be.”
And you do? I thought...though I was smart enough to keep that to myself.
My parents were never what you would call the adventurous type, and since Mom died, Dad had become more of a homebody than ever. But that hadn’t stopped him from having opinions about everything outside our small town of Blunt, Idaho.
“I’m telling you right now,” Dad vowed, slapping the dashboard for emphasis, “if I see anything suspicious between here and your sister’s apartment, I’m turning this truck around and driving us straight back tonight.”
A shiver ran up my spine. My father wasn’t one to make idle threats—and I couldn’t imagine anything worse than being forced to return to Blunt.
I’d spent my first twenty-two years dreaming about getting out of there, and now that my new life was so close I could almost touch it, I wasn’t about to let anything get in my way.
Not even my own father.
“Everything’s going to be fine,” I said soothingly. I’d learned that the best way to calm Dad down was to reassure him that he was in control of the situation…whether it was true or not. “You already took care of everything. I hope you know how much that means to me.” Another lie—his micromanaging was infuriating. “I’ll be living with Tony and Lexi, and you know they would never let anything bad happen to me. In fact, they promised to take me to their church this weekend and introduce me to the pastor and all their friends. So you can rest assured that I won’t fall in with the wrong crowd.”
Dad grunted again. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”
It was time for the big guns, the only ace up my sleeve. “Besides, you already wrote the check for my first semester, and tuition is non-refundable.”
The words ‘non-refundable’ were enough to make Dad back off. If there was one thing my father hated more than city ways and loose morals, it was wasting money.
He changed tactics, though the worst of his fervor was gone. “No woman needs a fancy degree to be a wife,” he grumbled.
Oh yes, that old chestnut. I’d heard it for years, ever since Lexi’s high school counselor suggested she attend the local community college after graduating.
Mom had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer a few months earlier, and it seemed like every spare cent we had went straight to the doctors. There was no money for college; besides, it was all anyone could do to keep up with the rapid progression of the disease.
Mom died a week before Lexi’s graduation.
I sometimes wondered if that was why my sister followed in her footsteps. Just like Mom, Lexi got married at eighteen to a man she’d met at church, embraced the role of homemaker, and devoted herself to satisfying her husband’s every whim.
The ink wasn’t even dry on their marriage license when people started asking me when I was going to find a nice man and follow Lexi to the altar. But that wasn’t the life for me.
If I’d had any doubts, watching Mom die without ever leaving the state of Idaho, without having seen the ocean or attended a concert or flown on an airplane, cemented my determination not to let the same thing happen to me.
Dad, Kayla, and now Tony, who Dad had welcomed to the family like the son he’d always hoped for, were dead set against me leaving town. They acted as if going away to college was the same as becoming a groupie for a satan-worshipping metal band.
Eventually, Dad relented a sliver, suggesting a semester at Blunt Community College, but it was too little, too late.
I wanted the authentic university experience—a stately campus, revered scholars, study groups in the library, visiting professors from around the world. I wanted a sweatshirt with the name of my college embroidered on it. I wanted to go to football games, cheer for our team, and spend sunny afternoons studying in a grassy quad.
Also, I wanted to live in a city.
It didn’t have to be huge or famous, just big enough to have a real downtown instead of a single stoplight and enough shops and restaurants that I didn’t know every clerk and waitress by name. I dreamed of museums and theaters and cafes where people discussed things that really mattered—culture and politics and what was happening in the rest of the world. I wanted to hear different points of view and form some opinions of my own. I wanted to go to bars where bands played live music and people danced long into the night.
Of course, I kept most of these dreams to myself. Sharing them would have only brought more criticism, more anger, more accusations of ingratitude. Instead, I bided my time and honed my arguments.
I kept making my case to Dad over and over again, delivering one rehearsed speech after another. With a degree, I could make more money, enough to get my own place. I’d finally be out of his hair.
But it was no use.
Dad insisted that what I needed was a decent man to take me off his hands. “No woman needs a fancy degree to be a wife,” he said. “You’d be better off putting your time into learning to keep house.”
“I already keep house,” I retorted. With Lexi gone, all of the household chores fell to me. Dad sure wasn’t the one shopping for groceries and cooking and cleaning.
His snort told me what he thought of that.
“You make a decent enough dinner,” he conceded, “but what you do around here won’t catch a man’s attention. You need to have Lexi teach you how to keep a husband happy, like how she learned to make all of Tony’s favorite dishes and fixed up their apartment.” He squinted his eyes at me appraisingly. “While you’re at it, have her take you shopping for some skirts and teach you to do something with your hair.”
I’d sooner poke out my own eyes than fetch beers for Tony and his friends, and there wasn’t much anyone could do with my hair, which was thick and curly and defied all of my efforts to tame it. But I knew better than to push back.
Instead, I bided my time, and every few months, I asked again. Meanwhile, I helped out at the office where Dad worked, an accounting agency that did the books for half the local businesses. I gritted my teeth and went on the blind dates that Lexi and Tony set me up with and heaved a sigh of relief every time there was no request for a second date. I went to church and felt dead inside during the fire-and-brimstone sermons, wondering why a loving God would ever choose an asshole like our pastor to deliver His message.
And that’s how life went for four long years.
But then, miraculously, something changed. After all this time, my dad’s automatic ‘no’ started sounding less and less certain.
I figured it was because he thought I was turning into an old maid. I know that probably sounds ridiculous to anyone who didn’t grow up in our town, but reaching the age of twenty-two with no ring on my finger was starting to raise eyebrows. Soon I’d be a spinster by Blunt standards.
That’s when I decided to switch strategies. I dropped the whole discussion of earning potential and started talking about how many good, marriageable men could be found on university campuses. Men who took part in campus ministry and attended church every Sunday. Men who would take their places among the deacons of their own hometown congregations someday, with their loving, supportive, pious wives at their sides.
And Dad listened.
The breakthrough came when my brother-in-law was unexpectedly offered a promotion at work—one that would require him and Lexi to move to the corporate headquarters in Vidalia, Oregon. Tony worked as a salesman for a regional industrial cleaning supply company, and the whole family agreed he couldn’t pass up the chance to stop traveling so much and start a family.
Personally, I would have preferred those two moved to the South Pole. Still, I wasn’t going to get another opportunity like this one. I waited until Tony and my sister were settled in their new place, and the next time they came home to visit, I spent all day cooking, put on a dress, and made my case over the four-layer red velvet cake Mom used to make for birthdays.
In the end, everyone begrudgingly agreed to my plan. I would move in with my sister and brother-in-law, and Dad would pay them for my room and board as well as my tuition. There would be no drinking or partying. I would attend church with Lexi and Tony, follow all of their household rules, help with chores, and major in a subject that met my father’s approval—in other words, no politics, no science, and absolutely nothing to do with the arts.
I’d never agreed to anything so fast in my life.
I applied and was accepted within weeks. The more I learned about Vidalia, the more perfect it seemed. Not too big, not too small, nestled in the Rogue River Valley among towering evergreens and the Siskiyou Mountains. It was a city known for its diversity and art scene, the college and logging industry coexisting comfortably, its citizens mingling happily in its many parks and thriving downtown.
I counted down the days to fall semester, signing up for classes and downloading reading lists. Now that the day had finally come and it was really happening, I knew that nothing could make me go back to Blunt now.
“I better not hear from Lexi that you’re staying out late or bringing boys around,” Dad muttered as we drove down the charming, historic main street, passing theaters, music venues, and nightclubs.
“You won’t,” I said, barely listening. It was a promise I could make with a clear conscience, not because I intended to follow his rules, but because I’d never let Lexi find out when I broke them. After two decades of living down the hall from my snitch of an older sister, I knew how to keep her out of my business.
I’d been sneaking in and out of the house for years without her or Dad ever knowing, even if there wasn’t much trouble I could get into in Blunt. Usually, I just walked around town at night, dreaming of getting away. Now, though, I might just make up for lost time.
“Good,” Dad grunted. “Because if I do…”
Even now, his threats were losing their power. I didn’t know how I’d manage if my family pulled the plug on my dreams—if Lexi and Tony kicked me out, or if Dad cut me off financially—but ten minutes in Vidalia had already convinced me I’d rather sleep on its streets than go back.
Dad stayed quiet the rest of the way. A quarter mile past the university’s entrance, we turned into my sister’s apartment complex, half a dozen ugly rectangular buildings lined up like dominoes. Tony stood waiting at the bottom of one of the concrete staircases and waved us to a stop.
“Good to see you, Mr. Holland,” Tony said, greeting my father with a firm handshake.
“You too, Tony.” Dad made a show of looking around the parking area, a sea of concrete with a few struggling geraniums in desultory plastic planters. Then he let out a long sigh. “Well, we might as well get this done.”
Each of us grabbed a box from the back of the truck and started up the steps.
“Lexi’s already made up the spare room,” Tony said, breathing hard. His high school football physique had softened considerably. “We picked up a few things for you secondhand—a dresser, twin bed, a nightstand. Nothing fancy.”
“Thank you so much, Tony. I’m sure it will be perfect.” I tried to strike the right balance of modesty and gratitude to hide my excitement.
My sister was waiting at the top of the stairs in front of their open door. She greeted me with a groan before begrudgingly waving me inside.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ll show you where you’ll be staying. I was planning to turn it into a sewing room, but…”
This was classic Lexi. She’d never missed an opportunity to let me know how much it annoyed her to be burdened with a kid sister.
But she didn’t realize who she was dealing with. I’d left my old identity back in Blunt, and she couldn’t control me the way she had in the past.
I gave her a breezy smile and squeezed past her into my new room. It was small, and the furniture had seen better days; the box springs squeaked loudly as I put my box on the bed. But there was a door out onto a tiny balcony, and as far as I was concerned, this room was a little slice of heaven.
“That sounds fun,” I said. “You could make a lot of potholders and aprons in here.”
Lexi scowled and doubled down. “I should warn you, Kayla, Tony and I will need to convert it into a nursery before long.”
“Don’t worry about that, Lex.” Tony dropped his box on the floor. “A looker like Kayla? She won’t be single for long, not in this town. The guys at church will be lining up. I bet she’ll be married long before we need this room for Tony Jr.”
My eyes widened. “Wait, are you saying that you’re—“
“Pregnant?” Lexi cut me off with a murderous look. “Not yet. But any day now,” she snipped. I couldn’t help but wonder if having a stick up her ass made it harder to conceive.
My dad appeared just long enough to drop his box outside in the hallway before heading back downstairs, where an easy chair awaited him in the living room. He shook his head as he passed, whether in impatience because Lexi hadn’t managed to get pregnant yet or because Tony wasn’t taking it seriously enough, I couldn’t tell.
