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PMSing
By
Buffi BeCraft-Woodall
© copyright by Buffi BeCraft-Woodall, March 2007
Cover art by Jenny Dixon, March 2007
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
Chapter One
Karen Ridley sucked in a breath and fought not to scream again. Unreasonable fear damped her skin with sweat. She hated fear. Hated reacting to it. But the bathroom floor was crawling with scorpions.
Perched on the tiny inside edge of the bathtub, she saw that some of the tan insects had squared off to fight one another. The dry scratch-scratch as they clamored over each other, skittered up her spine and lodged in her neck. She wanted to whimper. She didn’t dare take her eyes off of the shifting floor, even to snag a towel to dry off or cover up with.
Few knew of her phobia, and fewer still knew where she was holed up in the tiny run-down motel. Her brain was too frozen to dredge up which of her enemies could have pulled off this stunt.
She wasn’t a supernatural or a fey to slough off that much poison, but her metabolism was way better than a normal human’s.
But then, she wasn’t really human. Not according to the purists who’d hunted her across two states. She wasn’t about to test the endurance of her mixed supernatural and human biology, either.
Karen took a deep breath and crept around the edge of the tub. Some of the crawlies were trying to scale the slick side of the off white enameled tub. Bile rose in a burning line up her esophagus. She forced her leg out and gingerly rested five toes on the toilet seat. Normally, Karen was fairly agile. Another shudder and the sight of a scorpion clinging to the hand towel hanging above the toilet nearly made her lose her footing.
It won’t jump on you. It won’t jump. She stared at the tiny six-legged monster with its pincers and tail at ready to jump at the first opportunity. Like her naked boob.
She shook off the vision. Don’t jump. Please, don’t jump.
Both feet now secure on the toilet seat and her eyes glued to the scorpion on the hand towel, she leaned out to the shut door and twisted the knob. It swung open. Yellow light shone down from the vanity area, highlighting the industrial brown carpeting. Something on the floor moved.
Karen whimpered and caught movement out of the corner of her eye.
Screaming for all she was worth, she reached and flicked the towel onto the floor. She swiped the spare towels and wash rags at the horrid things as well and stood shaking, gripping the shiny chrome bar as a lifeline.
She could have been safe at Packhome with her mom, step-dad, and the rest of the wolven pack. Mom made it clear that she was more than welcome every time Karen phoned. Only with her ex-fiancé Bradley and his mate living there, Karen had to think of her pride first.
She didn’t want their pity, or the guys’ advances. Since she cycled like a wolven, her hormones were on overdrive like a female wolf in heat. And the guys being guys, were dogs. Or werewolves. Most of them were like brothers and uncles, not potential mates.
And then there was Brandon. Her ex-fiancé’s identical twin was so completely different from his brother that they had never looked the same to her.
She’d get herself out of this fix. It was no worse than some of the others she’d gotten into. She’d probably laugh at this one day. Right. For God’s sake, they were scorpions, not injured predators, angry fairies, or even serial killers. Those she could deal with, maybe even bemusedly mull over later.
But not the serial killer. Being forced by the crazy psychic werewolf hunter to drive at knifepoint had been the worst thing that had happened in her life.
Occasionally, she still dreamed of being forced to drive the car at knifepoint by the crazy psychic claiming that they were werewolves. Karen could still hear each gasp of air her mother fought for as her lungs slowly filled with blood.
The insane werewolf hunter had been so intent on trying to escape her mom’s last effort to stop him that he hadn’t seen the real wolven until too late. It had been a bloody and fitting death.
Karen took another breath. It was time to save herself. She considered her options.
There was the open door and there was no telling how many creepy-crawlies in the main room ready to sting her. She made another sweep of the tiny bathroom. Above the tub was a small opaque ventilation window about three feet wide.
Yeah. Let’s hear it for a bed on a budget. As in a really small, I-left-my-job-without-notice-because-my-boss-turned -the-crazy –mob-loose on-me, kind of budget.
Lawrence Dailey had been a human psychic and a fairly unimaginative one at that. He lived for his computer programs and sucking up to the company’s higher-ups. Dating then sleeping with him had been a stupid mistake.
She should have realized that not all psychics were like her and her mother.
Rabid paranoia of the supernatural races and a cultist religion had ruled the lives of the community born psychics she’d lived among in Arkansas. Once they had found out she wasn’t ‘pure’ the psychic community rallied to eliminate her.
Lawrence, her lover, had led the mob.
Karen worked her way back over to the tub. Her initial fear was beginning to ease, though an occasional shudder worked its way up her spine. She tiptoed up to check out the window. It was wide and narrow and had that swirly opaque pattern found on cheap bathroom glass. It was dark outside and no light filtered through.
Thank God she was taller than her mother. Mom would never have reached it.
The window turned out to be a hand-cranked jobber that was caulked into place and served no function other than being tacky.
She glanced down at the scorpion covered hand towels and wished she’d kept at least one. Well, she wasn’t getting one now.
The towel bar took a moment to wrench from the wall. Another cheap bathroom fixture, the aluminum paint was beginning to flake off of the bar. She took an experimental swing. It skittered across the glass, leaving a scratch.
She rapped at it again. Her imagination worked overtime. Visions of being trapped naked with a room full of scorpions eating her alive gave her strength. The glass cracked. Another good whack and a chunk of glass fell. She moved before it could cut her.
Karen stared at the glass. She’d be sliced to ribbons crawling through that. She looked at the floor, considering.
Were there more of them than before? Karen shuddered and smacked the weakened window pane. Broken glass was preferable to scorpions any night.
“Dammit! Stop whacking on the window.”
The order came from the darkness on the other side of the cracked glass. Startled, Karen nearly fell from her perch on the side of the tub. Throwing her arms out, she balanced. The cool air on her naked skin sent a shiver of goose bumps over her body.
“Bradley?”
Her stomach clenched at the thought of her ex finding her like this.
The voice gave a short bark of laughter. There was no humor in the sound.
“As if. You got a toilet plunger in there?”
“Brandon?”
It was him.
Relief watered through her spine. She rested her forehead against the speckled tile and dingy grout. He didn’t answer, but she knew it was him.
She didn’t try to use the pack bond to psychically reach him. Brandon might not like that.
There was a scraping noise from the outside of the tiny window and several thumps as he attacked the outside of the bathroom window frame.
She looked down by the toilet. There was a small toilet plunger there. Scorpions hadn’t climbed the slick plastic handle, but a couple crawled around the base of the toilet. She didn’t want to touch the thing.
“Yes, there’s one. I thought you were still gone. Stationed out of the country. Army, right?”
Nerves made her chatty. She needed some kind of connection. The sound of his working paused. Karen wondered if he ever thought about their childhood escapades.
Or if he even thought of her fondly at all.
Brandon had been her best friend. She’d been engaged to Bradley, his twin brother. Then everything had fallen apart just like Adam, her step dad and the pack alpha, had predicted.
All because she couldn’t commit.
“Brandon?”
“I got out a year and half ago. Pass the plunger outside to me through the break. I’m going to knock the glass inside. Then pull you out.”
He went silent and the scratching started again.
For once Karen wished she had her mother’s ability to read other people’s emotions. She’d like to know where she stood with her one time friend.
So many stupid misunderstandings.
Brandon hadn’t spoken to her since before high school graduation.
Not one word in nearly ten years.
If only she hadn’t been so wrapped up in herself and the perfect life she’d imagined with his twin, Bradley.
If only she’d kept her big mouth shut about him needing therapy to get past Garrick’s, may-he-rot-in-Hell, abuse.
If only the brothers weren’t at opposite ends of pack hierarchy, with Brandon as omega.
The if-onlys could go on forever.
Karen gingerly caught the end of the plunger and tapped it against the side of the toilet to free it of its occupants. Double checking to make sure that none of the scorpions were hiding inside, she eased the thing up through the hole in the window.
Strong looking fingers appeared through the opening and gripped the glass.
“Go to the door. I’m going to finish breaking out the glass.”
“I can’t. There are scorpions everywhere on the floor.”
Brandon didn’t say anything. He was one of the few who knew her terrors. Even in Arkansas, she’d only had two friends close enough for confidences. Lawrence, her lover, and Bailey Sparks, her best friend.
“Okay, just move back. I’ll pull you through the window after.”
She stepped back onto the top of toilet lid. The glass moved away from the frame with a grinding sound. Small pieces tinkled into the tub. The hand appeared again and knocked the loose pieces away.
“Gimme a towel.”
His voice was different than she remembered. Deeper. More sure. She shivered as she caught a stray whiff of masculine scent.
“No ... I can’t.”
The patient silence on the other end was almost as unnerving as the scorpions.
No. Brandon would never hurt her. He’d killed once to save her and her mom.
“I dropped them on the floor.”
Silence again.
Then, he smoothed fabric on the bottom edge of the window. His t-shirt. Strong male hands an expanse of brown muscle cored forearms reached through the opening.
“Come on, Tigger. Time to go.”
Karen smiled. It was Brandon’s own special nickname for her.
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