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  Hell’s Creek, Book One:

  LION’S MATE

  SHANNON WEST

  TS MCKINNEY

  Lion’s Mate

  Copyright © 2017, Shannon West, TS McKinney

  Published by Painted Hearts Publishing

  About the Book You Have Purchased

  All rights reserved. Without reserving the rights under copyright, reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or any other means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. Such action is in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law.

  Unauthorized reproduction of distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Lion’s Mate

  Copyright © 2017 Shannon West, TS McKinney

  ISBN 10: 1-946379-25-5

  ISBN 13: 978-1-946379-25-2

  Authors: Shannon West, TS McKinney

  Publication Date: May 2017

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2017 by Painted Hearts Publishing

  Cover design by E Keith

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  Chapter One

  Julian Montague thought the older man standing behind the cash register might be seriously considering jumping across the counter, tackling him to the ground, and then holding him there until the local police could haul him away. If they even had police in this one-horse town, that is.

  He’d passed a small sign on the road coming in that had said “Entering Hell’s Creek” and, from the looks of the place, it seemed to be a pretty appropriate name. He’d seen these kinds of mill villages before. They used to be dotted all over the south, but you didn’t see them too much anymore, and especially out here in the middle of nowhere. This was obviously one of them, its entire existence tied to the smoke-stacked monstrosity on the outskirts of town.

  In fact, the first sign of civilization he’d come to on the deserted and desolate back road he was on had been the huge mill, situated by a set of railroad tracks and a broad creek. The place had several smoke stacks with smoke boiling out into the sky, and there was a distinct, noxious odor that Julian recognized as the smell of a paper mill. He’d lived near one of them years ago with a foster family. Their house had been a few miles away from it, but until the day he left, the stink had permeated everything, even eventually, Julian’s clothes. He hadn’t smelled anything like it in years though. He’d thought the various government agencies like the EPA had put a stop to that kind of thing.

  The long, chert road he’d been following forked just across the bridge, with one road veering off to a guard shack in front of the mill, and the other road leading into the small village. The one and only Main Street had a few scattered buildings alongside it, and behind that street, on either side, were a couple of rows of mill houses. They were fairly typical of row houses in the south, small, mean, two-story duplexes, crowded way too close together.

  As he rode farther into town, he passed a big general store, a hardware store, a café, a garage and a couple of bars. No church, though, which seemed odd for a small Georgia town. The run-down old gas station where Julian was now attempting to buy a couple gallons of gas was located at the far end of the mostly deserted street.

  When he’d first pulled his bike up to an ancient looking pump and walked inside the station, the old man sitting behind the counter took one good look at him and almost jumped out of his skin. Julian was still afraid a big wind would teeter the old man ass over heels.

  He had pushed the gas limits of his Kawasaki Ninja straight to the edge and had probably only been about one short mile away from the being stranded on the side of the road before he had finally found an exit where he could gas up. As it turned out, he was fairly certain that he might be the only non-local customer this man had seen in the last sixty years or so, if his reaction was anything to go by. The old geezer was damned well making sure he didn’t walk away with any of the ancient artifacts being sold at his gas station and quickie mart located here in the Bumfuck Egypt section of the North Georgia mountains. Fine with Julian—he only had enough money for gas and maybe a thermos full of hot coffee, that would, if he was lucky, offer him some warmth from the mid-December weather he was battling.

  His stomach was growling, but it would just have to keep on doing it for a while before he considered taking some of his limited funds to buy something so unnecessary as food. Fuck, but his life was worse than one of those depressing Lifetime movies that were playing on a loop this time of year. Homeless and Hungry at Christmas. That sounded about right.

  About two steps away from the counter, he noticed the geezer slowly set the phone down next to the register after whispering something frantically into it and pull out a handgun that looked even older than he was, leveling it straight at Julian’s chest. Well, fuck. Could his life get any rosier?

  “Look, fella, I don’t want any trouble,” Julian said, backing up a few steps and putting his hands up where the old man could see them. “Just need a little gas. You better hold up.” Julian didn’t think he looked like a hooligan. Maybe his brown hair was a bit shaggier than what some folks might think was acceptable, but hell, it wasn’t that bad. No tattoos or weird piercings that could cause people to judge him unfairly. Nope, he was the very epitome of an all-American, not-so-clean-cut boy, yet he was staring down the barrel of a gun smack dab in the middle of nowhere and there wasn’t a soul on this earth that would be looking for him if he disappeared without a trace. Perfect.

  He held up his hands in what he hoped would be interpreted as a “For God’s sake, don’t shoot” stance and tried to look as harmless as possible. “I said I don’t want any trouble. I just need gas and coffee and I’ll be on my way.”

  Geezer’s eyes narrowed and Julian was taken aback by how dark they suddenly appeared. Warning signals shot straight through him when he gazed into those dark orbs, but there wasn’t a hell of a lot he could do about the situation at the moment.

  “I ain’t never seen you before, and I know everybody in town, on both sides of the border. You wouldn’t be here if you wasn’t looking for trouble,” Geezer spat on the floor by his dusty boots in disgust. “You’re in Dogtown, boy. You came to the wrong place if you’re fixin’ to start trouble.” He nodded down toward where he’d laid the phone. “Besides, they seen you ride into town and I just called the guard shack to tell them you’re here. They know to get here quick. You don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting away from here before they catch up with you and find out what a strange cat is doin’ here.”

  “Dogtown? I thought the sign said Hell’s Creek. And who’s coming? The police? Damn it.” Shit! He’d just run away from them. Were they still lookin’ for him? Was he even in the same county now? “I don’t want any trouble.”

  “We call this part Dogtown. And I don’t need no police for the likes of you.”

  “Okay, okay, but just hold up. I know I’m a stranger and must seem like a ‘strange cat’ to you…” And what was with the 1960’s vocabulary? Cat? Was this guy some kind of old hippy? “But honestly, I’m harmless. I was just looking for gas.”

  Note that he hadn’t said he was innocent. Nothing
bad, just that Julian had avoided the Georgia State Patrol’s roadblock license check over three hours before out on the highway he’d taken to avoid the interstates—where the police might see him and notice his license plate wasn’t current. So, his luck being what it was, the first damn thing he ran into on the highway was a roadblock to check drivers’ licenses and plates. Fuck his life!

  He’d panicked when he saw them ahead on the road and on a stupid, reckless whim, turned off onto what looked like a logging road beside him and headed into the woods. He heard a few shouts behind him and even thought he’d heard the whoop, whoop of a siren, but he’d just kept going and never looked back. The logging road ended after a while but turned into a wide trail that seemed to be more or less parallel to the main road. He figured he could stay on it a while and then cross back over to the highway. That was the plan, but it hadn’t worked worth a damn. The trail played out, but he found another logging road and then another trail and then…he hadn’t known where in the hell he was.

  Finally, he came to an open spot in the forest and saw a road of some kind off to his left in the distance. He had to cross a couple of more or less dry fields, only getting stuck a few times and finally came out on a dirt road in the middle of God knows where.

  As he got closer he saw that the road he’d come out on was actually made of chert, a kind of mixture of rock and dirt that tended to get firmer and more compact with rain, instead of muddier and nastier like dirt did. It ran alongside a deep creek that would have been picturesque if it hadn’t been so yellow and foamy. It smelled pretty bad too. The road was a fairly good one, but nothing like a highway, and it seemed to be leading deeper into the backside of nowhere. Which might be good to avoid the cops, but would be disastrous if he didn’t locate a gas station pretty soon. He’d actually been relieved after ten miles or so when he’d seen this little bit of civilization ahead, even if it was mostly just that huge mill and the tiny town that didn’t even boast a red light. Whatever—it had a gas station, and that had brought a huge sigh of relief.

  It had also brought him to his current predicament.

  Julian wasn’t sure which troubled him the most—that he had a gun pointed straight at him or that the old man was afraid of him. He hadn’t really noticed it before because he’d been so focused on how weirded out he was by how the man was watching him, but now he saw it for what it was—pure fear. The pulse at the base of his wrinkled neck was ticking at a dangerous rate and the hand that was holding the gun was trembling slightly. Sure, he was trying to put up a good front, but something had terrified Geezer, and he was pretty certain it was him. Shit. Now he felt like something that people scraped off the bottom of their shoe. What kind of dick went around scaring old folks?

  Carefully, he laid this thermos on the counter and spoke softly and slowly. “I’m going to reach into my back pocket and get out my wallet, okay, Mister? I just want to pay for enough gas to get my bike down the road and this coffee. I don’t have any choices here because I’m flat out of gas. I’m sorry for whatever I did that troubled you, but I swear to you that I don’t mean any harm to anybody.” When Geezer didn’t cock his pistol, he slowly pulled his wallet out and laid a ten on the counter. “I just need that gas. Please.”

  Before the older man could answer or blow his head off, a red Jeep peeled into the lot and skidded to a stop next to the gas pump, opposite his Ninja. A long-legged beauty with black hair that hung to her curvy ass bounced out of the Jeep and skipped toward the door. A huge smile was plastered on her face and even though he might very well be about to take his last breath, Julian couldn’t help but admire her lush curves and breathtaking beauty. She looked as happy as an angel singing choir on Sunday morning. Clearly she didn’t have a fucking worry in the world. But then again she didn’t have a pistol pointed at her either.

  She tugged the door open and said, “Unlock the pumps, Silas! The boys are behind me, and I need some gas!”

  Julian felt his lust plummet. Beauty didn’t so much as spare a glance in his direction. And who were these “boys” she was talking about. On a bright note, her arrival seemed to have alleviated Geezer’s fears because the gun disappeared, along with his ten, and he got a nod that he assumed was meant to telepathically tell him to get the hell out of his store.

  “Thanks, man. Sorry about the mix-up.” He muttered politely as he grabbed his thermos and edged toward the door. Call him a ‘cup half-empty’ guy all you wanted, but he wasn’t turning his back on the man who had just pulled a weapon on him.

  Actually, the back of his neck was still tingling when he finally reached his Ninja. Fuck, but his own hands were trembling slightly as he unscrewed his gas cap and slipped the nozzle inside. When he pushed the lever and gas actually started flowing inside his tank, he almost fell to his knees and offered up a quick prayer of thanks.

  As the gas flowed, he was once again reminded of just how shitty his pathetic life actually was. The hot chick in the Jeep hadn’t given him a second glance and, worse than that, he found himself resenting the damned Christmas music blaring from the radio inside her cherry-red, super expensive vehicle. He didn’t resent the way her ass swayed and danced to the music (that part he really appreciated) but who the hell listened to Christmas music that freakin’ loud? After pondering the question a few seconds, he realized the answer was probably all the people who didn’t find Christmas and every other holiday depressing. You know—the people who had family and loved ones to share the seasons with. If there was time for a real pity-party, he could point out all the reasons why he hated Christmas music, Christmas trees, holly, Santa, and that stupid elf on a shelf mother-fucker. Everything that was tied to the “joyous” season.

  He needed to hit the road and put some serious distance between him and this hole-in-the-wall mill town. He slid the nozzle back into the slot, started screwing his gas cap on and made a mental note to have a full-blown pity-party later that evening, when he was trying not to freeze to death while sleeping in the tiny pup tent strapped in the saddle bags on his bike. Yep, his life just dropped another level on the shit scale. Surely he would bottom out sometime soon. Right?

  “Here kitty, kitty, kitty!” A voice called from somewhere behind him. He probably wouldn’t have bothered looking back to even see where it was coming from if Jeep Beauty hadn’t been staring in that direction, a smirk marring the perfection of her features. It was shocking how much her face had transformed. The beauty had vanished faster than his ten dollars had, to be replaced with cold, mean calculation.

  He turned around to see three guys, around his own size and build, walking in his direction, still calling for their lost cat. Maybe Beauty’s real name was Kitty? Maybe he was in the twilight zone? From what he’d experienced so far, that explanation, oddly enough, fit far better. As the guys closed the distance between them, he realized they weren’t talking to the girl. All three sets of eyes were locked in on him. And from the corner of his eye, he noticed Geezer had stepped outside and Beauty had moved to stand next to him. They were both watching him, an anxious expression on Geezer’s face and an ugly smirk on Beauty’s.

  “Who the hell are you, kitty and where’d you come from? What’s a pretty little kitty like you doing in Dogtown…all alone?” The tallest of the group asked him. With his gaze still on him, the guy spoke to the others in his group. “Any of you recognize this kitty?”

  While he’d taken valuable time to notice that Geezer and Beauty were to his far right, the three guys had closed the distance and were now standing way too close, invading his personal space. They all shook their head in reply to the question and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. The tips of his fingers started itching uncontrollably, something they’d always done when he got stressed, ever since he’d been a kid. His body felt hot and cold at the same time. It was nothing compared to what he’d felt when the old man had held a gun on him a few minutes earlier. This time, he knew without a shadow of a doubt there was going to be trouble.
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  “Look, guys, I get that I’m an outsider, but I don’t mean any harm to anybody. I just need some gas and I’ll be on my way.” Why the fuck couldn’t he have just stopped and gotten gas fifty miles back when he’d first noticed his tank getting low? Oh, hell no, he had to push it to the very limit, then gamble with fate when he tried to evade the roadblock. That sent him straight into a head-on collision with Crazytown, USA. He had now successfully moved to negative numbers on the shit scale.

  “What’s the matter, kitty? Are you all of a sudden a scaredy cat? Not so brave when it’s more than just you and one old lone wolf?” The beefy red-headed guy asked him in a stupid sing-song voice that Julian was sure was meant to goad him. When Beefy cracked his knuckles and punched a fist into his open hand, Julian almost laughed out loud. What was this? High school? In the 1960s?

  Julian figured there were a couple of ways this would probably play out for him, and neither of them excited him all that much. First, he could respond to their taunting like a fool and get his ass whipped since he was outnumbered and one hundred percent certain not another living soul within a fifteen-mile radius would consider helping him or calling the police for help. Alternatively, he could try to be nice and talk his way out of the dangerous situation and probably still end up with about a ninety-nine percent chance of getting his ass kicked. So, one way or the other, it looked like he was going to get his ass handed to him.

  “Sorry, guys. Don’t call me kitty. And by the way, I’m definitely not interested in pretending to be one for any of you.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “Nothing wrong with it, man. It’s just not my thing.” Since they pretty much had him surrounded, he didn’t bother trying to reach into his pocket for his keys. He had a feeling he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. “But hey, ya’ll go on ahead and play in your sandbox without me.”