Read Online No Man's Land by Debra Dunbar - Free Book Online

truck.
    He looked at her, a flash of sympathy in his eyes as he took in her bruised and battered face.
    “That soon better be by nightfall, cause that’s when I’m telling the Alpha you’re here. Got it? And if so much as one human shows up with something bigger than a mosquito bite on em, I’m comin after you myself. Got it? ”
    Yes, she “got it”. Kelly nodded and hastily headed back down the road toward Briar Lane. Things were going from bad to worse. All she needed now was a demon waiting at her trailer door and she’d know she was truly cursed.

7
    I t wasn’t a demon, but Jaq sitting on the step outside her trailer. The tall woman had a shotgun with her, held like it was permanently attached to her arm. She stood and followed Kelly into the trailer without saying a word. Inside, there was a large roll of what looked like sausage on the table and a bottle of blackberry wine.
    “I brought you more food,” the woman said, still holding the shotgun. Kelly wondered what on earth she planned to shoot. Hopefully not her. In her current state, it would probably take her weeks to recover from a gunshot wound. “That’s some deer bologna from this fall.” Jaq indicated the sausage–like roll. “I also put some venison and beef in the fridge. It’s fresh, not the frozen stuff. I thought maybe it would help you heal quicker to have fresh.”
    “Thanks.” Kelly looked intently at the woman, wishing she could read her mind. Jaq had been an odd combination of wary and kind from the moment she’d met her. Why was she being so generous? Was the endless supply of food to keep Kelly from attacking the neighbors, or something more altruistic?
    Jaq shifted her weight, her expression closed as she held the shotgun against her thigh. “Do you like liver? I gave you some liver, and a heart. A lot of people don’t like that stuff nowadays, but I thought maybe you might. Everyone thinks I’m weird for eating it, but it reminds me of when I was a kid.”
    Kelly stared. That was oddly personal, given their mutual state of distrust. Should she make some small confession from her childhood in return?
    “Ran into a werewolf at that bar down the road — Dale’s. I take it this is their territory?” So much for offering a personal revelation. Oh well, she’d never been one for polite chit–chat or dancing around the issue, especially now that she felt the edge of starvation gnawing at her.
    The blond woman sucked in a sharp breath. “Yes.” Her tone was resigned. “Our pack holds the entire state. I’m surprised he didn’t kill you.”
    Kelly couldn’t help a sniff of contempt. A vampire killed by a werewolf. That would be the day. Although she was in no condition to take on a werewolf in a truck. Or a woman holding a shotgun , she thought, eyeing the weapon.
    “He said he was going to tell the Alpha and that I should be gone by nightfall if I wanted to remain among the living.”
    Now it was the other woman’s turn to sniff, her gray eyes turning to steel. “Not if I have anything to do with it,” she snarled. “How long do you need to heal–up? How long before you can go?”
    “I don’t know.” Kelly stared at the woman, bemused. She’d said their pack. But Jaq didn’t smell at all like a werewolf. Could humans possibly be honorary members? Even so, she couldn’t imagine how this human was planning on defending her, a vampire, against a pack of werewolves — even with a shotgun.
    Jaq sighed, rubbing a hand along her cheek and across the back of her neck, as if soothing a tense muscle. “Great. How about a ballpark? Days? A week? Never?”
    Never. The thought chilled Kelly and she felt the empty fang sockets with a tentative tongue. Never might be about right.
    “A month?” That might give her enough time to prove of service to her family and actually have somewhere to go. Of course, she’d need to live long enough to do that. An unlikely prospect with werewolves and this annoying woman breathing