SURVIVING WILDE by Fallon Hart
She needed his guidance… and so much more
When Jake Wilde showed at my uncle’s ranch I knew he was my chance to escape. Some might call me crazy, throwing myself at the mercy of this stranger. But Wilde is a force to be reckoned with, a man built for survival in a world turned on its head. I can’t survive out here without his guidance and I need him to take me to the one place in this Godforsaken land where they say men and women are treated fairly. It’s a place where beautiful crops grow, the burden of work is shared equally, and no man is superior to another. It’s my ray of hope in a world gone dark.
I never expected to feel anything for Wilde but gratitude. Instead I find myself craving the touch of this gruff, wild man. Suddenly he lights my way. Somehow with him at my side this crazy brave new world doesn’t seem so bad. I need him like I never thought I’d need anyone and I’m so afraid that the revenge he harbors in his heart will take him from me forever.
He never wanted anything but to survive… until her
I went to that ranch to fulfil a promise to an old friend and instead I somehow ended up agreeing to guide Rebecca to a community I’m not even sure exists. She’s desperate for hope and I have long given up on that. However, I never thought she’d get under my skin as fast as she has. I want her beyond all reason and madness. I will do anything to protect her. Yet she wants to settle down and start life anew in this new world and I still have an old promise to keep. A promise of revenge that I always knew would end badly. That need for revenge has driven me for so long. How can I give that up? But if I don’t, I leave Rebecca alone in an uncertain world. If I lose her, I lose everything that makes life worthwhile.
Revenge or love?
It’s a choice I never thought I’d have to make…
READ CHAPTER ONE OF SURVIVING WILDE
First Chapter
Rebecca
Having watched the world try to find its feet on ground shaken by chaos I’d thought myself immune to fear. After everything I’d witnessed, what did someone like me have left to be afraid of?
Staring at the man before me I realized how naïve I’d been. And here I didn’t think it was possible to be naïve in such a brave new world.
“Do we have a deal?” William eyed the man with a sharp gaze.
I took in the long legs of the stranger, the thick thighs, the wide breadth of his shoulders and finally the black of his eyes. I’d never met a man so tall. He towered over every other man on William’s ranch. At first sight I’d wondered how a man could keep himself so strong and vital in times like these, and then I’d taken in the holster around his calf which contained a pocket for a large hunting knife. He also had a gun holstered to his hip. He carried a large backpack, most likely filled with supplies, and in his hand was a small axe. Everything about him screamed hunter, survivor.
The man didn’t look at me. He continued to stare at William, a seemingly impassive stare if you didn’t take time to notice the muscle flexing in his jaw. His words came out in deep gravel, “I have no use for a wife. I have business to attend to and she would be in the way.”
William sighed. “Then we have no deal, Mr. Wilde.”
My uncle had told me a man had arrived on the ranch to marry me but he’d given me no name. So far I’d just had this frightening visual. Now I had a name to put to the face of the man who, if my uncle had his way, would own me. That’s what marriage was now, I thought bitterly staring around the barn where William’s men, their women and slaves alike, had gathered to witness the bargain.
I remembered a time when men and women were supposed to be equals in life. The time for pawning female relatives off as mere chattel had died out with knickerbockers and smelling salts. Until chaos reigned and men, enraged by the loss of their supremacy over the world, took what little power they could back in the small pockets of communities they’d carved out.
I wondered if it wasn’t quite so misogynistic in other human communities, but on my Uncle William’s ranch women were second class citizens. They said men and women were equal at The Legacy and I thought about escaping there every day. It was the only hope I had left in this world.
“I came for the boy and you’re going to give me the boy,” Wilde stated firmly, not even flinching when my uncle’s men shifted restlessly at the unspoken threat.
William frowned. “This, all you see around you,” he gestured with a slow sweep of his arm, “It’s moving. The gangs from the cities are sending their own to crush our communities and return with slaves. I won’t see that happen here. We’re moving west.”
Wilde seemed to contemplate this. “It’s a risk. We’ve heard nothing from the west but that doesn’t mean the gangs haven’t infiltrated.”
“All reports come in from the east coast. If there are gangs out west we’ll soon learn if we get there.” William’s eyes narrowed. “It’s a difficult journey ahead of us and I’m not sure we’ll all survive it.” He turned now to look at me, his steel blue eyes hard. There was little affection between us. We were bound by honor to one man. “I promised my brother I would look after his daughter, protect her from the worst of this storm.” And I promised my father that I’d obey William. It was the foolish promise of a teenager who didn’t understand how drastically our entire world was about to change. William shot me one last disapproving look before turning his focus back on Wilde. “Rebecca is twenty-seven now. It’s time she found protection with someone else.”
Blood hot, I glowered at my uncle’s back. “I can protect myself,” I bit out. His rejection no longer hurt, but the insinuation that I was a hapless female rankled.
I felt both William and Wilde’s gaze on me. The hunter looked impatient and bored. “She would be better off without me.” His eyes narrowed on my uncle. “You gave your word to your brother that you would see she was protected and yet you would hand her over to a complete stranger who may or may not mistreat her? Somehow I don’t think that was part of the oath to your brother.”
I raised an eyebrow. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
William, however, appeared completely unfazed. “You came here to rescue a boy from slavery merely because he was a neighbor’s son. He is no blood relation, has no history or emotional connection to you. Yet you come for him. You walk onto my ranch, knowing I have men at my back, and you demand the return of this boy into your protection.” William scratched his bristly cheek in thought. “This is a man, I think to myself. My brother would be happy for me to see his daughter safely under such a man’s protection.”
“What a crock of shit,” I muttered loudly enough for my uncle to hear. If that had been true he would have married me off to any one of his men as soon as he thought he could get away with it. But he hadn’t. He wanted me gone from his community. I didn’t know why my uncle wanted me gone, but I assumed it was due to the same reason he’d disliked me from the moment he’d met me.
I wasn’t too distracted by the hunter to note my uncle’s lack of reaction to my insubordination. If he hadn’t been so busy trying to convince the stranger he was only seeking my protection, he would have backhanded me across the face.
Wilde’s lips had curled up at the corners as though he had heard my words and found them amusing. But that couldn’t be. He wasn’t close enough to hear.
Our eyes met and my stomach clenched horribly.
If this stranger agreed to marry me I would have little choice but to stay with him. If I ran, I wouldn’t last out there in the wild. Not without someone to teach me to survive.
“As flattering as the picture you’ve painted of me is,” Wilde drawled, “I’m not taking anybody into my protection. I’m escorting the boy to The Legacy. They’ll protect him. But my business is taking me elsewhere and I have no time to babysit your niece.”
William cursed under his breath, his impatience increasing while my heart started to thump at the mention of The Legacy.
“Then marry her and leave her to The Legacy until your business is done.” He gestured to me. “She might not be as young as you were hoping for in a wife and she’s no great beauty but she’s attractive and she’s not without her uses. How long has it been since you’ve had a woman?”
Some days I wished for small conveniences like quilted toilet paper.
On days like this I wished for the old laws that would prevent this from happening to me. On days like this I wished for the one thing that wasn’t in my nature to care about—power. “You’re a real bastard, you know that.”
This time Wilde smirked, his dark eyes glittering in the candlelight of the lit barn. “She has a look that will draw attention. Those eyes for a start.” His gaze raked over me and I shuddered. “Attractiveness is a problem not a selling point. I don’t want to spend the trek to The Legacy fighting Wanderers who want a taste of her.”
“You don’t take her you don’t get the boy,” My uncle said, calm but final.
The stranger stared impassively at William, giving nothing away. Still, I sensed the restless energy in him. Would he really take on my uncle and all his men for a boy that wasn’t even his own?
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and saw Ben, one of the more cruel members of William’s guard, touch the gun in the holster strapped around his hips. My pulse started to race. I didn’t want to see Wilde come to harm when all he was trying to do was save a boy.
“You don’t have to marry me.” I stepped forward, ignoring my uncle’s warning glare. “Just take me to The Legacy. I’ll cover my hair, do whatever it takes to look less feminine.”
Wilde’s gaze drifted over me again. “Not possible.”
“Please.” It was a word I hadn’t uttered in a long time but I knew what kind of life awaited me staying with my uncle. One of mental and physical abuse. Somehow William thought protecting me from sexual abuse meant he was fulfilling his promise to my father. My uncle was a sick individual. It was stay here, where a woman had no voice, no control over her existence, or take a chance on the unknown. The Legacy was said to be a kind of utopia among the chaos. It had to be better than this, right?
“You heard her,” William said. “Agree to take her safely to The Legacy and the boy goes free.”
“For all you know I could agree to that and then leave her to die somewhere on the way.”
“That’s a chance I’ll take,” I said before my uncle could say it for me.
The big hunter studied me and my uncle. Finally he glowered at William. “Show me the boy first and then we’ll talk.”
William nodded to one of his men, Brett, who disappeared out of the barn.
Wilde looked at me. “How do you know life at The Legacy will be any better?”
“It has to be,” I replied quietly.
God, it had to be.
“Ungrateful bitch,” Ben snarled from behind me.
I never took my eyes off Wilde, never even flinched, so used to the insults. I thought I saw something like curiosity in this stranger’s expression. “I’m supposed to be grateful for having my independence, my freedom, my equal rights stripped of me?” I asked Ben without looking at him.
“You’re supposed to be grateful that your uncle keeps you fed and protected. If it had been up to me you would be paying off your debt to us men on your back like the rest of the women here.”
My uncle’s community, ladies and gentleman. Run by ignorant scum and rapists.
“Enough.” William raised a hand to quieten Ben.
He glared at my uncle.
To be fair Ben was one of the other reasons I was dying to leave the ranch. He’d been showing a severe lack of respect toward William lately and I sensed a change in management on the horizon. Ben would take leadership by force once he reckoned he had enough support from the other men. And if I thought life was bad here now, it would be hell with my uncle out of the way.
Footsteps sounded and Brett returned with the boy Wilde had come for. My face slackened with surprise when I realized it was Dove. Dove was an eleven-year-old my uncle said he’d found wandering just outside our territory.
He’d lied.
His men had taken Dove from his family.
The cruel bastard.
Dove didn’t look like a typical eleven-year-old. He was so tall and strong he could pass for fifteen easily. When he told me his age I’d honestly thought he was lying. But once I started to converse with him, his youth became obvious. A strong child, he’d work the ranch for my uncle. I knew he missed his family, I knew he was holding revenge to his heart, but there were moments when I could get him to laugh and joke with me. Once, he’d been a soft-hearted child. I could see it in the way he treated what little animals we had left on the ranch—like they were precious. And he was also very protective of me and his friend, Isla. Isla was only twelve years old and already showing signs of great beauty. In a few years’ time, they’d move her out of slavery and give her to one of the men as a wife.
Dove had promised her he wouldn’t let that happen and my heart had warmed at the fierceness of his promise, and then immediately broken when I realized he’d never be able to keep it.
Dove’s eyes moved around the barn as he walked in. When his gaze settled on me his body tensed and his eyes narrowed. I gave him a soft smile to reassure him and his attention finally moved to Wilde.
His jaw fell open in shock and then I saw something I hadn’t ever seen on Dove’s face before.
Relief. Hope.
Wilde’s expression hardened and he made as if to take a step toward Dove but Brett stepped in front of the slave.
“As you can see the boy has been well-treated. You want him, you take my niece with you.”
Wilde’s upper lip curled and I actually thought I heard him emit a growl. Then he grunted out, “Fine.”
Relief flooded me and my gaze flew to Dove as Brett stepped out of the way.
“Jake,” Dove said, his plump, youthful cheeks stretching into a smile as he gazed up at the approaching Wilde.
A gunshot rang in my ears and suddenly Dove was on the ground. Horrified I looked away from the bloody mess the bullet had made of his head and turned to Ben as panic ensued. My uncle’s people yelled and screamed, some ducking for cover, other trying to push past my uncle’s men who held them back with their own guns.
Ben stood, gun pointed in Dove’s direction as my uncle yelled at him to stand down.
“Dove,” I whispered, tears stinging my nose as I looked back toward him.
Wilde now stood in front of the boy’s body, Brett clutched in his grip as he used him as a shield against Ben. The blade of his axe dug into Brett’s neck as Wilde’s dark eyes bore into Ben with utter hatred.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” William raged at Ben.
“What you should be doing old man!” Ben spat, still aiming his smoking gun at Jake Wilde. “No man waltzes into our community and makes demands that we freely give into. We don’t negotiate. This is our land and our fucking rule. We let word get out that we’re a bunch of pussies the gangs will come for us first.”
“That isn’t up to you, you little prick!”
Ben sneered. “I know what I’m doing.”
Realizing he had no intention of letting Wilde walk out of here alive, instinct drove me. Wilde was my only chance outside the ranch. I grabbed the gun holstered on my uncle’s hip and pressed the barrel to Ben’s temple.
He froze against the gun as I cocked it.
I heard guns unholstering all around me but I ignored them as my uncle yelled out a command for them to hold their fire.
“Ben’s aiming to take you out, William,” I said, trembling with my hatred for this man and for what he’d just done to Dove. “I’ve heard the talk. And this proves he has no respect for your authority. He’s jumped the gun, so to speak, because he hasn’t convinced enough men yet. Have you, Benny Boy? But so impatient. And you killed an innocent boy. A hard worker. Someone who was liked.” I quickly glanced around at the men to see them frowning at my words. “You just fucked yourself.” I raised my voice. “We all know what the punishment is for treachery. We all know what the punishment is for killing in this community without a direct order from William. That punishment is death. Say the word, William, I’ll execute this traitorous murderer and then you let me and Mr. Wilde walk out of here unharmed.”
Silence reigned around the barn.
Ben looked at me out of the corner of his eye, his own arm wavering. “These men will kill you if you kill me, you little bitch.”
“These men will abide by my uncle’s orders, you murdering piece of scum.”
I glanced at my uncle.
His expression was blank. Then he nodded.
I pulled the trigger before I could think.
Not even hours later that moment would come back to haunt me but right then the act of killing a man felt surreal and necessary. All that I cared about was justice for Dove and getting the hell out of this Godforsaken place for good.
I handed the gun back to my uncle, grabbed the small bag he’d made me pack earlier, and strode toward Wilde. He still had Brett by the throat.
“You can let him go,” William said. “You have my word that you and my niece will leave here unharmed.”
“If it’s all the same to you I’m not sure I trust your people.” Wilde looked at me. “You got your shit?”
I nodded.
He turned back to my uncle. “I’m going to keep your man as a shield. I’ll let him go once me and the girl are outside your gates.”
“Fair enough,” William agreed.
We left the barn, not giving my uncle and his men our backs. William ordered his men to stay where they were and he followed us out onto the yard in front of his house. He walked slowly with us as we walked backward, Wilde holding fast to Brett with a calm steadiness that impressed me.
My heart thudded in my chest as I kept pace with this man. This stranger I was putting all my hope in. How had it come to this? That I’d choose a strange man, who could hurt me a million times over for all I knew, over my uncle? Over my flesh and blood.
I’d grown up with a mother and father who adored me. When my mother died of cancer when I was twelve the world as I knew it ended. Her loss changed me irrevocably. It cut a piece of me from myself, a piece I’d never been able to restore. And then at fifteen the world as we all knew it ended and my father brought me to the middle of nowhere to an uncle I’d never met. We’d only been at the ranch three days when my father collapsed. A day later he was eliciting promises from both me and William on his deathbed.
I lost another piece of myself that day.
And in the days and weeks and months and years after, William tried to chip at the remaining parts of my soul. Why? I didn’t know. It was a mystery that had haunted me for so long. Eventually I realized that in order to survive I would have to let go of the hurt and hold he had over me. The burning need to know why he treated me so badly had been carefully buried. Actually, I thought I’d rid myself of it.
But watching him stalk us off the ranch, the question suddenly hovered on my tongue and then forced itself out.
“Why have you always hated me?” At least I managed to ask it with no emotion. A flat, cool question in a tone that bordered on bored.
William’s eyes sharpened on me.
We kept walking but he didn’t speak.
“Well?” I pushed. “A grown man doesn’t decide to take a dislike to a child for nothing.”
“You were a burden,” he answered.
I shook my head. “It was more than that.”
I’d always suspected how William felt about me was complicated. Sometimes, I’d turn to find he’d been watching me, a look of pain and something akin to longing in his expression that puzzled me. As soon as he realized I was watching him back, darkness crept into his expression suffocating the pain, the tenderness.
“Don’t I deserve to know now that we’re finally going to be free of each other?”
We reached the twenty-foot gate and wall William had erected around his ranch. Some said the wall would hold back the gangs if they came but the truth was a rash of illness among the cattle and a number of setbacks in the greenhouses made a future at the ranch for this many people uncertain. It was stay behind and eventually starve or travel west in hopes for a better life.
William nodded to the guard posted at the gate and I watched as it was slowly unlocked and pushed open. Wilde let go of Brett and together we stepped over the threshold.
“Rebecca.”
At the sound of my name, I looked over my shoulder at my uncle.
“You look like your mother.”
I froze.
William’s expression hardened. “You look exactly like your mother. You have her eyes.”
My eyes. The ones Wilde was afraid would attract attention on the road. I had long since stopped paying attention to my appearance. What I knew was that I was of average height, slender from rations but strong from hard physical labor. My hair was shoulder-length and a dark brown that turned auburn in the light. The sun had long since darkened my skin to a golden tan. There was nothing exceptional about any of that. But for my eyes.
They were a clear, pure, startling spring green.
Some said they were beautiful. Others that they were unsettling.
I cared for no one else’s opinion of my eyes. What I knew was that they were the only thing I had left of my mother.
“And?”
The hatred I saw in my uncle’s gaze was familiar. “She was mine first. Did your father ever tell you that?”
Stunned I could only give him a slight shake of my head.
“Well she was. Until your father came back from college and stole her from me. That’s why we didn’t talk before… I never forgave either of them.”
Bitterness swelled in my throat making it thick and my voice hoarse as I replied, “So you took it out on me? An innocent child?”
“You’re the daughter of a whore and a traitor. You were never innocent.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Wilde suddenly cut in, reminding me he was there. His eyes were flat. “You’re either coming or going.”
I nodded despite the rushing speed of my heart rate. For years I’d been plagued by my uncle because of the sins of my parents. I wouldn’t respond to his insults though I wanted to defend my mother and father. Instead I did the only thing I thought might piss William off more than anything.
I gave him nothing.
Nothing except my back.
To my shock he didn’t take a hit at it. Instead I determinedly kept pace with Wilde’s long strides as we marched down the overgrown road of my uncle’s ranch and disappeared into the woods beyond.
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