Beautiful Lies (Breaking Belles #2) - Alta Hensley Page 0,27

began.

My sisters would understand.

If I explained even half of what had been asked of me here, neither Reba nor Tanya would fault me for leaving.

Especially Reba. Angel-hearted Reba, always wanting the best for everyone. She was the mediator, stepping in when things got too heated between LeAnn and Tanya, the two hotheads in the family.

No one could stay mad when Reba lifted her quiet voice and asked for us to listen to one another and stop fighting. But each of my sisters had superpowers like that.

Tanya was brash and brave and outspoken and a lot of days I wished I was more like her. Reba was the peacemaker and she’d mastered being fully content with her small, repetitive little life. LeAnn was the beauty—popular, and talented, too. She was the only one of us who could actually sing, in spite of being named for country singers.

My sisters were women who were going places.

But their futures depended on me not wimping out just because I had a little… humans-wanting-to-hunt-me-for-sport problem.

I wouldn’t leave them high and dry.

After all, I wasn’t my father.

Now I was sprinting for the lake. I was coming around from the back side, and in the dark, no one should be able to see me.

But I was close enough that, even though I really did believe they couldn’t see me and the men were just screaming out for shits and giggles—it was eerie as hell to see lights in the distance and hear voices calling out cheerily to: “Chase the bitch down! First to blood drinks free for a year!”

I almost tripped at hearing them talking about the mysterious blood part of this ritual but caught myself just in time. I was finally at the lake’s edge. The shore was a mixture of rock, mud, and murky water.

I dropped to my knees so they wouldn’t see me.

Holy f—! I mouthed, managing only at the very last moment to keep my yelp in shock at the freezing cold water on the inside. I bit my lip on the f and clamped down.

Holy Jesus the water was cold. Cold cold cold. And I was extremely naked. No wet suit in sight. Holy Jesus son of Mary and Joseph—

But I couldn’t just hover here, half in, half out of the water.

I lowered myself the last bit into the lake water as quietly as I could. I couldn’t afford any splash.

If I thought it was cold just with my shins in the water—a spine-deep shudder racked my body at the freezing water.

No, I tried to remind my stuttering body—n-n-n-ot f-f-f-reezing. If it was freezing there would be ice. It’s not frozen it just feels that way. It’s not frozen. You can do this. You have to do this.

Get moving.

Get the fuck moving. NOW.

I crawled soundlessly the rest of the way into the lake. Then I scooped some mud from the bottom of the lake and shakily smeared it over my hair, hiding the blonde as well as any residual smell from my shampoo. And then before I could crawl whimpily out of the lake and start screaming at the top of my lungs, “I give up!”, let some old, wrinkly bastard “blood” me, then fuck me with his limp-viagra-made-just-hard-enough-to-fuck-his-trophy-for-the-night-in-a-surely-traumatic-manner just so I could get warm again—

I started to swim.

I would think about the plan. Nothing else could enter my mind. Certainly not the cold seeping so deep into my bones I didn’t know bones went that deep.

The plan. Right. I needed them following the old, stronger scent from when I was still wearing the cloak. I didn’t know a ton about dogs trained for hunting and tracking by scent, but I figured they’d untangle the scents soon enough and be on top of me before I was ready.

The lake was large with several twists and inlets. I could feel the buttplug foxtail dragging in the water behind me, tugging against my anus. I squeezed tighter around it, not wanting to lose it in the water. The fact that I’d forgotten about its presence for even a moment was just more testament of the evening’s insanity.

There was no moon tonight, and with my hair and face covered in mud, I hoped I was effectively invisible against the dark water.

Where was Sully? I suddenly wondered. Was he out there among all the other mounted men, hoping for his chance at first blood?

No time to think about that. Focus. Onwards. One stroke, then another. Don’t disturb the water too much. You’re just another ripple of the