Dear
Santa Anthology
An
Angel’s Wings
Prequel,
Sins of Wolves: The Safe Mountain Series
Written
by Marc Alice & Destiny Blaine
Available now at all third party retail sites or by ordering through Dark Hollows Press
“It’s been at
least two dozen years since I first heard about the black dog myth. Maybe I
didn’t want to believe in tall tales, or perhaps I was afraid the blasted dog
represented that perpetual doom others spoke about when they met their final
fates or barely missed their own deaths.” Jack Hanson clenched his fists and
watched a bear of a man drag his only daughter down the front steps of their
modern two-story home. “Whatever my reasons for ignoring the underlying truths
represented by some imaginary hound, I sure can’t deny what that damn dog
represented now.”
“Don’t do this
to yourself, Jack.” Martha, Jack’s wife of twenty years, squeezed his bicep.
“You can’t survive this if you blame yourself.”
Jack remained stoic, remembering a recent night when his
eighteen-wheeler went sideways on a curvy mountain road. “I’d heard countless
stories, enough to know there had to be a little truth in there somewhere, but
until I stared into the red, glowing eyes of a frightening beast that could’ve
easily been called the devil’s dog, I didn’t know despair, but I knew heartache
was coming.”
“We mean your
daughter no harm, Mr. Hanson. We’re here to save her life.”
Jack slowly turned and glared at the motorcycle club’s
president. The fellow didn’t necessarily look mean, but his physical attributes
and the way he carried himself made Jack believe he could hold his own if
trouble happened to look for him and find him.
“If I’d known
somebody like you would show up on my door and take away my little girl, you
can bet that last dollar in your pocket, I wouldn’t have come home. I would’ve
thrown up my hands and just let the highway have me.”
“Jack, I know
this is difficult for you, but we’re old friends. If I didn’t think these boys
could keep our daughters safe, I wouldn’t have come here for yours after giving
them mine.” Sheriff Wyatt Marshall nodded at the guys in leather and they
exited the Hanson home without another word.
Jack narrowed his gaze on the cold glass once again,
watching as four bikers met another eight more at the end of his driveway. “You
gave ‘em one daughter. You plannin’ to give ‘em another?” When Sheriff Marshall
didn’t answer, Jack wheeled around and faced him. “Answer me. Will you give ‘em
Natasha when the time comes?”
Everyone in
Sevier County knew Wyatt and his wife cherished their daughters, but the middle
one had somehow managed to wrap the tough-talking Sheriff around her little
finger. Jack could relate there. Romy Nichole had been his reason for staying
on course and pushing his truck to the limits. Once he’d left the Midwestern
snowstorm in his rearview mirror, he’d thrown the hammer down. “I was trying to
get home in time for Christmas. In spite of the weather, I kept right on
truckin’, just hopin’ the blizzard would stay at my back and enough sunshine
would peer through those clouds to melt the ice off the highway.”
“I’m sorry for
your loss, Jack,” Wyatt said, putting his hat atop his head and turning to
leave.
“What’s that supposed
to mean?” Jack stalked him. “You’re sorry for my loss. What aren’t you tellin’
me? You sayin’ I’ll never see Romy again?”
Sheriff
Marshall’s lips set in a grim line. He bowed his head as if he were about to
pray.
“No.” Jack
shook his head and backed away from the Sheriff as if he were the plague. “No,
I won’t accept that.” He grabbed his coat off a nearby hook, slung it behind
his back, and stuffed his arms in the sleeves. Before he exited the house, he
pointed his finger at the only law and order left in Sevier County. “You can
accept your daughter’s fate and whatever those hoodlums tell you, but I won’t
let the MC have Romy for keeps. It just ain’t going to happen. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you,
Jack,” the Sheriff said with far too much pity in his voice. “And I understand
how you feel. You think I wanted to give up my first-born?” He followed Jack
outside. “Do you?”
“I don’t know
what you wanted, Wyatt, but I know what I don’t. I don’t want to lose my only
child.”
“This world is
changing, Jack. The morals we taught and coveted in our Southern families are
the very principles that will cost our daughters their lives. We teach our
young women to stand by their ethics and to hold their heads high and for what,
Jack? Hmm? You tell me why mothers still teach their daughters to hold out for
marriage when those ethical values will now have them kidnapped from their
homes, forced into slavery, and transported across the sea to God only knows
what?”
Angry as hell,
Jack trod through a snowdrift before reaching his plowed driveway. His anger
turned to pure rage as he became aware of the droning in the distance, the
rumbling of snowmobiles as they roared across the mountain roads. He spun
around, feeling hopeless as he acknowledged his failures as a father, the icy
chill in the air slapping at his face with more force than a physical strike.
He fell to his
knees. His spirit was broken, his heart forever wounded. The MC had taken his
daughter and he not only stood by and let them have her, but he thrust her into
the arms of a stranger, a man who promised she would be safe, loved, and
protected.
In that moment,
he noticed a peculiar pattern in the snow. For every pair of snowmobile tracks,
a set of paws followed behind. Jack crawled forward a few feet, dragging his
hands in the snow just to be sure he wasn’t hallucinating.
Well defined,
each set of prints had a wide base shaped like a chocolate candy kiss. An inch
or so above the sloping mound, four teardrops with unambiguous sharp points
indented the ground.
Jack scoured
the area as far as the eye could see. The solid white earth stretched before
him with more tracks and prints. He slapped his hand next to what soon became
his sample, using his fingers to predict measurements.
“Jack, what is
it?” Martha called out to him from their porch, but he didn’t have the heart to
tell her of his suspicions.
His vision
blurred. His eyes throbbed. It was like a drummer boy stood over him, beating
his head like a worn-out drum. The noise became louder instead of softer as the
vehicles raced down the mountain, drowning out that dull beat now pulsing in
his ears.
Jack ran his
fingers around the embedded paw shape, about twice the size of his hand. He
rose to his feet and followed the trail, expecting to see a clear path straight
into the forest. Instead, he stared out over an open field of freshly fallen
snow.
His uncertainties left him to wonder about his child’s
bleak future. Had he protected his only daughter or had he thrown Romy to the
wolves, to a pack of dogs just waiting to strip away her innocence, maybe even
her life?
His daughter
had slipped away with renegades, maybe even outright rogues. Now, she was out
there somewhere, riding with bikers, with men who were considered dangerous.
These men stood against the new laws and order of a country shaped by
indecision and scandal. They were thought of as defectors and traitors, yet
Jack had entrusted his daughter’s life with them because the alternative
guaranteed death and destruction wrought with horror and unknowns.
Sure, Romy
faced an undetermined destiny, but given the alternative, she at least had
hope. Under the cover of a dark, black night, Romy was headed for Safe
Mountain, a legendary protective haven for innocent young women.
As a father, Jack prayed the place would live up to its
name.
