Wilder (The Wild Ones 3)

They don’t usually have phones out here? If my tear ducts weren’t still frozen, I think I’d cry right now.

“Penny, guess who’s getting babies before you,” the woman says into the phone, and I pale.

“You’re not actually having his babies,” the girl beside me says, patting my shoulder, as the guy continues to give me warmth and no babies.

Seriously…where the hell am I?

“Yeah, my Kai clubbed some girl over the head and brought her home,” the other woman, who I presume is their mother or their resident mental patient, says very proudly as she nods vehemently, not glancing at us.

“Doesn’t really matter how he got a girl. It just matters that he’s got one now, and I’m going to have babies before you. So ha!” she adds with way too much excitement.

“Really not having babies,” the guy growls next to my ear as I start to squirm.

“Who are you?” I finally manage to ask on a rasp croak.

“Kai Wilder,” he says as if that needs no further explanation.

“I’m Nila. His sister,” the girl with blonde hair tells me before pointing to the graying blonde on the phone. “That’s our mother. You’ve made her the happiest woman in the world.”

“For fuck’s sake, Nila, fix it,” Kai snaps at her.

“You’re the barbarian who is bringing home frozen corpses to reanimate. You fix it,” she deadpans.

“Oh, she’s adorable. I think. I can only see her forehead from here, so she could be unsightly, I suppose. Hopefully she’s adorable. I want my babies to be prettier than your babies. If you ever get any, that is. Your Lilah is still on birth control,” the mother drones on, glancing in my direction.

“Are you on birth control?” Nila asks me seriously.

“Are you trying to fucking freak her out right now?” Kai growls. “Wait until my balls aren’t so close to her knees.”

I’m not sure if it’s the day from hell, the matter of me still being a bit hypothermic, or if it’s the fact I’ve possibly been abducted by crazed wilderness people for an unsanctioned breeding experiment, but I feel a little dizzy before it all fades to black.

Wild Ones Tip #398

Screamers are the worst. We might have helmets, but we always forget the ear plugs.

Chapter 2

KAI

*******

“How do you know this is where she lives if you don’t even know her name?”

“Name one other reason she’d be on our side of the lake,” I say to the gnat who’s buzzing in my damn ear, also known as my sister.

“You could at least wait until she wakes up before we break into her house and ditch her here after she just fell into a mostly frozen lake and almost died and stuff,” she states like I’m a dick or something.

She finally picks the lock to the front door, pushing it open far enough to let the cabin’s warmth spill out onto the porch.

“This thing has sat empty for at least two years, and the fire has been burning all day. This has to be where she’s staying. I had to get her out of there before Ma chained the damn girl to the radiator and started slathering lotion on her belly to prepare the womb or some shit,” I gripe at Nila, who is enjoying this too much.

“It puts the lotion on,” she says in a harsh voice while rubbing her hands together in dark glee, and then coughs from trying to put too much scratch on the words.

“This is my unimpressed face,” I point out as I carry the thoroughly wrapped girl into the house.

“The closest hospital is forever away, but should we try to get her there?” Nila asks.

“Really? You want to drive her to the hospital, that would take hours to reach, the day after the first big ice? What the hell was she even doing out?” I go on, speaking a little quieter when the unconscious chick makes a small sound in the back of her throat.

“I called Dr. Harvey from Ma’s new phone,” Nila says. “I wrote down the list of instructions he gave us, and things to watch for.”

Please don’t wake up. Please don’t wake up. Please don’t wake up.

I do not want to be here when she wakes up. She looks like a screamer. Her vocal chords were possibly too frozen earlier. I’ll swing by when she’s not so freaked and let her thank me for saving her life and shit.

I’m not really sure what she normally looks like, but I’m guessing colorless with black circles around her eyes isn’t the usual. And now she’s wearing one of my shirts under that blanket, which really shouldn’t be one of the facts popping into my mind at the moment.

Shaking my head, I stand abruptly.

She risked her life to save a fawn that will probably end up getting dead all on its own if it’s lost its mother.