DADDY

HOLIDAY REMIXES

LIZ SHIPTON

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination.

DADDY

June 1, 2024.

Copyright © 2024 Liz Shipton

Written by Liz Shipton

Tyrannosaurus Yes Media

CONTENT WARNING

This guy has claws, and big teeth, and a tail.

There is discussion of physical abuse, but no abuse on the page.

It’s slightly less humorous than some of the others.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

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More by Liz Shipton

Acknowledgments

Social Media and Stuff

About the Author

CHAPTER 1

DADDY WAS A MONSTER.

The monster that killed my Pop, to be precise. And when I say ‘was’, I really mean ‘is’. Cause he’s still out there. At large. Huntin. Killin. Bein a monster.

I’ve spent the better part of a year thinking bout the day that bastard took my Poppa’s life. And if I ever see that son’bitch again, you’d best be sure he’s gettin the business end of my sidearm.

“So how’s it going?”

Ma’s stirrin her coffee with the wrong end of her spoon. Ma’s always stirrin her damn coffee with the wrong end of her damn spoon. She just finished dumping about six scoops of sugar into the stuff, which I don’t blame her for—Betty Lin’s coffee is about as palatable as black tar.

“Fine, Ma. And you?”

She sets the spoon on the table and picks up her mug. “Oh Loretta Lee, you know how it’s going.”

I don’t know. Not for her. I know how it’s goin for me. I know that I’ve spent the year since Pop died about ready to bust heads wherever I go. But Ma’s quiet. Biddable. A small woman now, gray and shriveled by years. Don’t wanna bother no one. Never has. Sometimes I wonder if she’d raise a fuss if the devil himself showed up on her porch.

“What can I get y’all?” Betty Lin appears at the table, notebook in-hand. Mid-morning sun slanting through dust beams into her dirty-blonde top-knot. Red neckerchief. Redder face.

“Just eggs and coffee for me,” says Ma.

“Same.”

Betty traipses back behind the bar, petticoats rustling. We’re the first people up and the saloon is empty this morning—a few tables and barstools turned over from whatever brawl happened here last night. Bullet holes in the ceiling. Bloodstains on the floor.

“You know, it’s Father’s Day,” says Ma. “So that’s hard. But it’s been a year. I’m not too troubled these days.”

“You need to get yourself back out there. Find you a new man. Summer Festival’s coming up.”

She sips her coffee and looks past me through the swinging doors. “Sure, Loretta. Maybe.”

On my way to the sheriff station thirty minutes later, Cowboy and I are about mown down in the muddy street when a skinny little kid plows right into Cowboy’s withers, shoving a scrap of paper up at me in the saddle.

“Miss Loretta, Miss Loretta! Ms. Gypsum says you’re to come right now!”

“Come where right now?” On the paper is an address. Willard Ranch. Gypsum’s handwriting. Willard is out there. Way out where the town ends and the rocky red desert begins. “What’s she doin all the way out there?”

But the kid is halfway down the street already, tripping over his feet to deliver the next message.

Willard Ranch is a sprawling farm at the mouth of Skull Rock canyon. A big, rough-hewn wooden ranch gate at the bottom of the drive. The long, dusty ride up to the main house takes almost as long as it did to get here across town, and the sun is well up by the time I hitch up Cowboy next to Gypsum’s horse out front. The front door is ajar and I take off my hat as I push it open and step into the cool dark.

“Gyp?”

“In here.”

Following Gyp’s voice I make my way back to the kitchen. Spurs clinking and chaps creaking in the quiet. A warm, sickly kinda smell like a butcher shop is coming down the hall.

The kitchen is a scene. A man on his back on the floor, knife in the side of his neck. Blood sprayed like a fountain up the walls and on the ceiling, like whoever stuck him got him right in the juggler. Gyp stands with her thick hands on her square hips in the middle of everything, surveying.

“Someone done this feller in a treat.”

I post up next to her, pulling up my bandana. “Wife, you reckon?”

“Naw. Mrs. Willard ain’t got the stones for that. ‘Sides, she’s outta town.”

“Convenient.”

“Sure is.” Gyp pushes the dead man’s jacket open with the toe of her boot. “And look here: clawed his shirt up something fierce.”

The man’s shirt hangs in ribbons around his ribs, and three wide, bloody gashes are visible through the shredded fabric. I squat to get a closer look. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Looks like.” She toes the jacket closed. “Varmint.”

Varmint.

The word alone raises my hackles. I stand and meet her gaze. “You think it was him?”

She shrugs. “Could be any one of ‘em. Haven’t heard much these last six months but it’s mating season and you know they get riled. Plus, we’re close to the canyon here. Easy pickings for them. They wouldn’t even have to come into town.”

“I’ll bet you my Big Fifty it was him. Dollars to dumplings this is Daddy’s work.”

Daddy’s been terrorizing this town for God knows how long. We used to call ‘im Big Daddy, on account of he was the biggest Varmint out of all of ‘em. Then we figured out he was the oldest too: the rest of them was just his offspring. He was the progenitor, if you will. Prolific at both killing and procreating. So now we just call ‘im Daddy.

“Could be.” She nods, looking down at the dead man. “Could be.”

“Should we take it to the Marshal?”

She puts her hat back on. “I don’t know what else we would do.”

CHAPTER 2

THE STATION IS cold this morning. Breath curling in the air. Marshal Johnson’s hands are white and papery around a metal whiskey flask as he watches Rose take down Gyp’s and my report. Rose is the schoolteacher. But as the only literate adult in town she comes around when the Marshal needs something written down proper.

“And what were you doing at the scene?” she says, licking the end of her pencil and setting it against the pad.

“Figured I’d swing by before work today. I was hopin to get a valuation on my horse,” says Gypsum. “You know old Willard has a sense for those things. Had.”

“Sure did,” confirms the Marshal.

I watch him pouring whiskey from his flask into his coffee. “Little early, isn’t it Marshal?”

“Little outside your business, ain’t it Lee?”

Rose finishes writing and hands him the pad. He gives it a cursory glance, but we all know he can’t read it. He tears off the top paper and sets it on the desk Rose is sitting behind, next to a stack of others.

“I’ll get the boys out there this morning. See what we can’t start turning up.”

“Gyp and I can take it, Marsh. We already did a preliminary on the scene.”

He glares. “A preliminary on the scene? Do you even know what you’re talking about Lee? I’m not payin you ladies to run around doing preliminaries on the scene. I appreciate y’all bringing this in, but you need to stick to your beat out in the fields.”

“But Marsh—”

“That’s an order, Lee. Don’t worry your pretty heads about it. Whatever sorry son of a bitch did this is going to get exactly what’s coming to him.”

“But we know who did it,” I growl. “It wasn’t no man. It was Daddy.”

“Daddy?” He swigs from the flask. “That yellow-bellied Varmint ain’t coming back around here any time soon, Lee.”

“You don’t know that, Sir. It’s mating season—”

“I don’t wanna hear it, Lee. Now I know you’ve got your vendetta against the Varmint, but that does not mean you get to go around mucking up my murder investigation. Get back out to your beat and do your jobs! Or we’ll tell the Attorney General that his experiment ain’t working, and you’ll be back out on your asses. That ain’t what you want, Lee. Is it?”

I shove my hat back on and glare at the floor. “No, Sir. It ain’t.”

Gypsum and I ride out to the south end of town, where the cowpokes take their herds to graze the foothills. Some of the herders have been complaining that wolves are attacking the livestock, so Gyp and I are assigned to patrol the foothills and protect the herds. I get it. It’s important to make sure the cattle are safe. But it don’t feel good to be doing a job normally reserved for a dog.

“He’s just sidelining us cause we’re women,” I say to Gyp. She’s hunched down in the saddle and chewing on a stalk.

“Course he’s sidelining us cause we’re women,” she says. “Ain’t never been no women lawmen before. It’s right there in the name: lawman.”

“Well I think it’s bullshit.”

She sighs. “You just gotta go along with it, Loretta. We gotta play the game. Show the Attorney General his idea works: ladies can be lawmen. Play it right and you’ll be a Marshal eventually, sure ‘nuff. Besides, you don’t wanna go gettin mixed up in all this murder. That’s a nasty business. No thank you. I’m happy to be out here on my horse, with my dog, patrolling the cowpokes.”

“Patrolling the cows,” I correct her.

“Nuh uh.” She nods toward the ridge. “The cowpokes. There’s one now.”

A horse and rider have just come over the ridge. The rider tall and rangy, with his hat pulled low against the sun slanting across the field, and his shirt unbuttoned at the top. He tips his hat to Gyp and me as we ride past him, and offers a gravelly, “Ladies.”

Gyp lifts her eyebrows at me. “See?”

“I’m starting to think you might just be out here to find you a cowpoke. You don’t care about the job at all.”

She nods. “Now you’re gettin it.”

Somewhere on the other side of the field, a dog starts barking. Really barking. Trying to raise hell kinda barking. Gyp swears.

“Shit. Is that Bullseye?”

We kick the horses into a canter and come over the ridge and down into a small valley on the other side. At the bottom of it is a crick, and on the other side of the crick, Bullseye is barking his head off at some lump on the ground. When we splash the horses through the stream and come up the bank on the other side, we see it’s a cow. Dead. Slashed open, with its inside bits hanging out.

“Hully Gee!” Gyp pulls her bandana up over her nose. “That stinks to high Hanner.” She hops down from her mount and wrangles Bullseye into a headlock, while I slip down behind her and squat by the mess of cow guts. The incision is clean. Like someone opened up the beast with a knife, and I’m no veterinarian, but I can’t help but think some of the entrails are missing. Like they were cut clean out and taken away.

I push my hat off my brow with my thumb. “What do you think, Gyp? Because I gotta tell you, it sure as shit don’t look like no wolf did this to me.”

Shoving Bullseye under her arm, she gets to her feet and plants herself beside me. “No, Loretta,” she says, “it sure don’t.”

That night, I load up my belt with every pistol and rifle I have—stuff Pop left behind after he died. I’m so weighed down by the time I mount up on Cowboy that I’m worried he’s gonna buckle under the weight. But he don’t. He’s a good, strong hoss.

I ride out toward Willard Ranch. I don’t tell Gyp where I’m going. This is directly against Marshal’s orders, and I don’t wanna drag her into trouble if I don’t have to. But I got a hunch like a monkey on my back that won’t let up, and I gotta see if I’m right about it.

Just past Willard’s is the mouth of Skull Rock canyon. The Varmint live up in the caves in the canyon walls. Cowboy is slow but sure-footed as he picks his way around rocks and scree on the canyon floor. I light my oil lamp and hang it from the saddle pommel so I can see the ground, and about a hundred yards from the canyon entrance, I see ‘em: Varmint tracks.

They look like any man’s bare footprint—only bigger, and you can see marks where the claws come out the end of the toes. They lead away up ahead for a hundred more yards, then turn and stop at the steep canyon wall. I pull up Cowboy and hitch him to a tree. Then I start to climb.

It’s a long, hard, difficult climb. I scramble over boulders and cling to the shrubby trees sticking out from the rock. My fingers are numb from the cold by the time I get to a ledge big enough to sit on, and when I pull myself over the lip, I realize it ain’t just a ledge. This is the entrance to a cave. A Varmint cave. I flatten myself to the rock and peek inside.

It’s a long, dark tunnel, with the faint, flickering glow of firelight way down at the end of it. Laying my hand on the butt of my pistol, I step around the corner and creep toward the light. My boots crunch the gravel of the cave floor and I wish I had worn softer shoes. But it’s too late to worry about that now.

At the end of the tunnel, I stop and listen.

I can hear something moving around the corner, in a larger chamber of the cave, where the fire is lit. Something big is scuffing around in there. Bare feet, claws clicking. I hear something dragging through the gravel. Must be the tail. Gently slipping my pistol from its holster, I steal around the corner.

The Varmint hears me as I step into the cave and raise my gun, and as his head comes up and he snaps upright, all the air goes out of me. He’s huge. Two big horns as thick as my arm twist out of his brow and brush the cave ceiling. His hair is thick and black, falling around shoulders as wide as Cowboy’s withers, and his skin is dark, iridescent green in the firelight. Fangs—he’s got fangs like a sabertooth tiger curling from under his lip. He’s got a cross-section of scars all over his broad chest and abs, which are so cut you could whet a knife on ‘em. A thick vee of muscle disappears into the only thing he’s wearing: a fur around his waist. Down his back is a ridge of spines that run from the nape of his neck all the way to the tip of his thick, long tail. He flicks that tail like a switch, and we stare at each other.

This is him. This is Daddy.

Then he lunges.

Flinging up my arm, I pull the trigger, but the shot goes wide and I hear it ricochet off the cave ceiling. I try to aim and pull the trigger again as I stumble backward, but he’s already on me. He catches my gun hand in his massive, clawed fist and sweeps his other arm in a backhand, catching me upside the head, and making everything go quiet.

When I wake, I’m sitting up against the cave wall with my hands pulled tight behind my back. My head is pounding. My shoulders ache. I try to move, but my wrists are bound.

The Varmint is kneeling on the other side of the fire, working on something on the floor. As my eyes adjust, I can see he’s cutting at something with a big bowie knife. The cave smells of blood.

He must hear me shifting around, because he looks up. His face is stern, brow ridged with thick bone, and his eyes beneath it are black and deep, with nothing behind them. He looks at me a moment, then goes back to his knife.

“What are you doing here?” His voice is low and as dark as his eyes.

“One of your kind has been killing livestock. And maybe worse. I came to bring him in.”

“I see.” He cuts away a long sliver of something from whatever it is he’s working on and holds it up to inspect it in the firelight. It’s meat. He’s cutting up a calf. A small one—too small maybe to have even been born—and I realize with a sick feeling that it came out of the belly of that cow Gyp and I found.

“Is it you?” I demand. “You’re the one that’s been killing our cattle.”

He slides the knife longways up the center of the strip, cutting it in two, then lays the two halves down beside the rest of the kill. “Man’s gotta eat.”

“You ain’t no man. You’re a monster.”

Ignoring me, he goes to work cutting out another chunk, and I look around the cave. My faculties are coming back, and fear is coming with them. I need to get out of here. No telling how long it’ll be before he takes that knife to my belly. I twist my hands against the rope. My guns are piled in the corner on the other side of the cave, but there’s a teeny tiny knife in my back pocket that I don’t think he found, and if I can get to it, I can get myself free.

“You been killing people too?” I ask, to cover the sound of me shifting my weight to one hip.

He keeps his gaze on his work. “We don’t do that.”

“Bullshit. You killed my Pop. I know you did.”

He says nothing.

“You’re him, right?” I say, as I get the tip of one finger onto my knife and start to wiggle it out of my pocket. “You’re the one they call Daddy.” I get the knife between my hands and the blade against the rope.

“I’m a man who minds his own business and wants to be left alone.” He looks at me. “And you’re the one they call Loretta Lee.”

“How do you know my name?”

He turns back to his work. “I have my sources.”

Sawing the blade against the rope, I stay quiet and keep my eye on him. He works methodically, cutting strip after strip out of the calf’s carcass and laying them carefully in a line alongside the fire. I feel one of the cords around my wrists snap.

“You gonna eat me too?” I ask, as he sits back on his haunches and wipes the bloody blade on his bare thigh.

“I told you, we don’t do that.”

Another cord snaps. “And I told you bullshit.”

Suddenly, he’s lunging across the fire at me. Right through the middle of the fire, like he don’t even feel it. He grabs me around the throat and hoists me up against the cave wall, slamming my shoulders so hard against the stone that I almost drop my knife. I clutch it and keep sawing at the last cord binding my wrists as he pins me. My throat is closed and I can’t get a breath as his eyes rake over me, furious.

“You got a mouth on you.”

“Sure do,” I gasp.

There’s a sound like a knife scraping stone as his claws come out. The tips of them are suddenly sharp in the side of my neck. I can feel him trembling, like he’s holding himself back from laying into me with those claws and tearing me apart. And for a split second, I wonder why. Why hasn’t he killed me?

Then he shoves his face into the crook of my shoulder and his chest heaves as he pulls in a hungry, hoggish breath. He drags his nose roughly up the side of my neck, then buries it in my hair. He smells me all the way to the top of my head, then pulls away.

My whole body goes tight as our eyes meet. I know why he hasn’t killed me: mating season.

His eyes are ravenous. Like a mad dog in heat. All that wild, uncontrollable instinct narrowing on me like I’m a bone at the end of his leash. I can smell him too—the tang of sweat and something sweet like a spice Ma used to bake with. Is that him? Does he smell like that? It’s overwhelming. It’s makin me dizzy. Some kind of pheromone or something that’s sweating out of him, and I can’t think straight anymore.

A long, long minute goes by while we stare at each other.

Then the last cord around my wrists snaps.

I wrench my hands free and jam the knife into his thigh. He roars and drops me, and I throw my shoulder into his bare, rock-hard gut as I scramble to my feet and bolt for the cave entrance. Boots pounding through the gravel in the tunnel. I make it out and onto the ledge, shimmy over it, and about fall down the whole fucking cliff as I scrabble toward Cowboy on the canyon floor. Daddy isn’t following me, but I can hear him: roaring and slamming around in the cave like a tiger that got poked in its cage. I get into the saddle and kick Cowboy into a gallop.

I don’t look back as we tear out of the canyon.

CHAPTER 3

TWO DAYS LATER, there’s been another murder. Marshal’s boys are all over the station, swaggering around in their too-big hats, with their too-big guns standing in for their too-little cocks. Marshal is telling them where to go: out to Beckett’s farm this time. Mrs. Beckett found her husband Joseph all clawed up and stabbed in the neck, just like Willard.

I hang by the desk as the boys don their hats and saunter out to their horses. “Send me, Marsh. I know who did this. I can help.”

“You don’t know shit, Lee,” says Marsh. “And I don’t wanna hear no more about this. Get your ass out to the field and check up on them cowpokes.”

“But Marsh, I do know. It was Daddy. I saw him; he’s been killin the cattle. I think he did this too.”

“You saw him? What the hell you mean you saw him? Didn’t I tell you I ain’t paying you to run around mucking up my murder investigation? Now get the hell out to the field and do your damn job!”

“Gypsum ain’t even here today. She’s out sick. Why don’t you just—”

The door bursts open and one of those skinny little message-carrying kids tumbles in.

“Marshal! Marshal! I got a message from River Hill. They found a body just like ours! A man all tore up and stabbed with a knife.”

“River Hill?” Marshal takes off his hat and rubs his face with one hand. “Alright boy. Thank you.” He puts his hat back on and puts his hands on his hips, staring grimly out the window.

River Hill is next town over. About a half-a-day’s ride from here. All Marshal’s boys are already riding out the other way, to Beckett’s farm.

“Marsh, maybe you could send me—”

“Goddammit, Lee, I said no! Gypsum ain’t here, so I need you to take care of the field. That is an order. I ain’t gon tell you again.”

I stalk back out to where Cowboy is hitched up in the street. Madder than a wet hen. I ain’t going back to that field. I already made up my mind: I’m going to River Hill, whether Marsh likes it or not. I check my saddle pack. I’m down to one pistol—the rest of my guns are still up in that cave in Skull Rock canyon, but there’s no time to fetch ‘em now. One’ll have to do. I unhitch Cowboy and climb up into the saddle.

The wind is up as I ride across the plain toward River Hill. Cowboy’s hooves heavy and rhythmic in the red dirt. Sun beating down. Sweat trickling down the center of my chest. I come to a crick and pull up to let Cowboy get some water. Take off my hat and wipe my face on the back of my arm.

And off in the distance, just coming over a ridge up ahead, I see him. He’s running fast, away from River Hill, heading this way.

Daddy.

There’s no mistaking him. The shape of him, the height and width. Long black hair streaming behind him. The tail. He’s running on all fours, taking big strides the length of a horse, and he’s limping where I stabbed him in the thigh. As he starts to come down toward me, I pick up Cowboy’s reins.

He dodges left as I kick the horse into a canter, and I spin Cowboy around and take off after him. I’m working the pistol out of its holster with one hand as Cowboy’s hooves kick up rocks and dust. Daddy’s fast. Faster than a damn horse. I get the pistol free and sit up in the saddle, laying it across my arm and squinting down the barrel.

He roars and grabs his arm when I fire, but keeps running. Blood is dotting the red sand and grass as I follow him along the crick. Boulders and scrubby trees are coming up on either side now, and I lose him as he scrambles over one up ahead, tail switching as it disappears over the top. The rock completely blocks my path and I have to pull up Cowboy and dismount to continue on foot. Scrambling over the boulder, I come down the other side and follow the trail of blood. Around a bend in the crick, Daddy is standing waist deep in the water, washing blood from his shoulder. He looks up as I come around the corner.

I raise the pistol and take slow, careful steps. He stands very still, his eyes tracking me like an animal. When I reach the bank, he says, “Stay back.”

“I don’t think so.” I put one foot in the creek.

“You need to stay back.”

“Oh yeah?” I double my grip around the gun and take another step. “Why’s that?”

“Because an injured, cornered Varmint is a dangerous thing.” His eyes are tracking my every move. “Especially during mating season.”

“You don’t scare me. I’m the one with the gun.” Both my boots are in the water now, the chill of it spilling over the tops and pouring down my calves.

“Yeah?” His black eyes narrow. “How’d that go for you last time?”

“Last time wasn’t a fair fight. I was tied up.” I take another step. And another. Until the freezing water is up to my waist.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says.

“Bullshit. You hurt people all the time. You killed my Pop. My Mama saw you do it.”

As I take another step, he moves. Hully Gee, but he’s fast. He dives to the right, splashing under the water as I fire, too late. Those spires on his spine curve and glisten as he slips below the surface like a sea monster and disappears. I strafe my gun across the water. It’s only waist-high, but it’s so cloudy I can’t see him.

Then he grabs me around the knees.

I scream like a little girl as he stands up, flipping me onto my back. I glimpse his head, shoulders and chest shooting out of the crick above me as I splash into it, water sheeting off his hair and down his slick, green shoulders. His hand plunges in after me as I sink below the surface, grabbing the neck of my shirt. I burst out of the water, gasping, as he hauls me up and lifts me by my shirtfront with both hands.

“I told you to stay back,” he growls.

Sputtering and choking, I spit back, “Well I never was one to do what I was told.”

He starts to wade out of the crick. I scissor my legs, trying to get my boot in his gut, but he holds me at arms’ length and my feet just swing uselessly through the air. When we get to the bank, he throws me down in the mud, and I scramble to my feet and stare him down.

His ears are pointed. I never noticed that before. Water is streaming from his horns and running down his scarred green chest in rivulets as he glares at me.

But it isn’t murder that’s in his eyes.

Now that the water only comes to his knees, I can see what’s happening under his loincloth.

Hully Gee.

There’s a monster poking out from under that thing that’s bigger’n any cock I ever seen before. Thick as my arm and so dark green and swollen with blood that it’s black. There’s big, wide ridges all the way down it, and at the base, on the top, just above the shaft is a smooth, hard bump. It’s pointing straight up at me like a divining rod, and when he sees me lookin down at it, Daddy grunts and the thing throbs.

A wave of that sweet, musky cinnamon pheromone smell washes over me, and my core goes slick and starts to ache. I can feel my heart beating fast, the blood pushing against my veins, making me swell and heat all over.

Oh no. This isn’t happening, is it? I’m not about to let this happen?

He wades out of the crick and throws me down in the mud on the bank and I scramble onto my back and scrabble on my elbows away from him as he rips off the fur around his waist. The sight of him standing over me, that monster cock sticking straight out above me, the water still running down his abs and the muscles in his thighs, sends every thought flying from my head. He drops to his knees in the mud and flips me onto my stomach by the ankle, and as he grabs my hips and yanks me closer, dammit if I ain’t arching my back, sticking my ass in the air and waving it at him like a cat in heat.

What the hell is happening to me?

He growls and I feel his hands sliding all over me, then he jerks my britches down around my knees and the head of that massive cock is rubbing right down my slick, aching center in a long, slow push that makes my eyes roll back in my head. I need it. I need it now.

His hand plants in the mud beside mine and he shoves the other into my hair and as he pulls my head back I feel his face in the back of my neck, his chest heaving against my back as he huffs in great, greedy breaths of my scent.

He snarls, real low and deep like an animal. “You always this wet, Loretta? Or is that just for me?”

I arch, rolling my hips against him, sliding my center down the length of his shaft so that he makes that sound again. I can feel the scrape of his fangs on my shoulders.

“How you gonna kiss me with them big old fangs?” I purr.

“There ain’t gonna be any kissing, Loretta. This isn’t love-making.”

“Oh yeah? Then what is it?”

“Mating.”

He lets go of my hair and I feel him positioning the fat head of that cock right up against me, and the feel of it makes the need so intense that I moan before he’s even inside. I push back as he sinks into me, every ridge of his cock stretching me and stroking me, and we both groan as he hits the deepest point and I feel his balls against my clit.

“Fuck,” he growls, and his hand wraps around my hip to hold me still while he pulls out and does it again. “Fuck.”

This time, when he reaches the bottom, he keeps pushing, so my knees slip and I go down flat on my stomach in the mud with him on top of me, his forearm braced by my head, his other hand still holding onto my hip, claws digging into my flesh.

“I told you to stay back,” he groans against my neck.

I just reach behind me and grab a handful of his thick, black hair, pulling his face in closer.

He starts to move in me and I can’t do anything but moan and grind against him, totally lost in a flood of his smell and his pheromones. The slick mud underneath me and the weight of him on top. The feel of each ribbed ridge of that cock sliding in and out of my needy, desperate pussy. His breath coming in hot, hard pants against my skin.

Animals. We are fucking animals.

I clench around him and he groans, taking his hand off my hip and pinning both my hands to the ground, using them as leverage to go deeper, faster. His breath comes harder; great, hot drafts of air against my neck, like a boar or a train or something. I can feel him already getting close, and the realization that I’m about to feel that mighty cock swell and bust and squirt inside me pushes me right to the edge.

He lets go of my hand to grab my hair again and I shove my hand under my hips and rub hard, tight circles against my swollen clit. As he buries himself in me again I feel him come, a massive throb that stretches me so tight that pleasure blows through me and I howl too, louder than he even did, my orgasm tearing into me like a wolf at a carcass, ravaging me.

He thrusts once, twice, three more times, pulsing, spilling, and I squeeze and milk him, greedy for it, until he collapses. We lie facedown in the mud, spent and gasping.

Then he pushes himself up and I moan as each ridge of that cock bumps its way out of me, and before I even know what’s happening, he staggers to his feet, snatches up his loincloth, and runs.

I make it to my elbows just in time to see his naked ass disappearing between the trees.

I bet that tail isn’t just for show.

CHAPTER 4

I CAN’T BELIEVE I let him get away.

Scratch that: I can’t believe I let him fuck me and get away. I didn’t even get to see what the little bump at the bottom of his cock feels like.

It’s been two days since I cornered Daddy in the crick. Two days I been walking bow-legged, sorer than a stuck pig. Well it ain’t gonna happen again. He’s not getting away with that and the murders. He’s not getting away with that, and the murders, and killing my Pop. No sir.

It’s late in the evening. Gypsum and I spent the day patrolling cowpokes out in the field. Marshal and his boys made no headway on the murders, and Marshal reminded me he don’t wanna hear no more about me sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong. But what Marshal don’t know won’t hurt him. I’m going to have a word with Daddy.

I load up my pistol and put it in the holster. Put on my soft, quiet shoes this time. Better for creepin. I dab the inside of my bandana with lavender oil and tie it around my face. Lavender oil is calming. It’ll help me keep my head on straight when I start smelling those cinnamon pheromones. Can’t let myself get overpowered again. Got to stay focused.

By the time I ride Cowboy into Skull Rock canyon, the sun is down and long shadows are stretching from every nook and bump in the dirt. The sky is red and the desert is gray. The air is starting to chill.

I hitch Cowboy to the same tree at the bottom of the canyon that I did last time I came, and begin the climb. It’s easier this time. I know the terrain. I’m quieter too, in my soft shoes. I reach the ledge and hop over it like a cat. Pull out my pistol and creep down the tunnel toward the firelight coming around the corner at the end.

Daddy is sitting in front of the fire with his back to me as I pad silently into the cave and sweep up behind him like a shadow. He must hear me at the last second, because his ears twitch as I kneel behind him—but I’m already getting one arm around his throat and pushing the barrel of my gun up under his chin.

He goes dead still, his chin shoved up toward the ceiling. “I thought I told you to stay away.”

“And I thought I told you I would make you pay for what you done to my Pop,” I say, right in his ear.

He growls a real long, low rumble in his throat and I feel it against my arm. “You need to let this go.”

“I ain’t never gonna do that.” I push the gun harder against his chin. “Say it. Say you killed my Pop.”

He only growls into my arm again.

“Say you killed my Pop and maybe I’ll let you live. Say it!”

“Alright!” He tries to shake me off, but I tighten my arm around his throat and don’t let him. “Alright. I did. I killed your Pop.”

“I knew it! I knew it, you sonofabitch—”

“But listen.” He grabs my arm with both hands. He could easily throw me off if he wanted to. He could flip me over his head and fling me into the cave wall and snap my spine in two and be done with it. But he doesn’t. “Listen,” he says again, “because it ain’t what you think.”

I dig the gun into his throat again. “How ain’t it what I think?”

“Your Pop was a bad man, Loretta Lee. I only did what needed to be done.”

“What do you mean? What needed to be done?”

“He was hittin your Momma, Loretta. He was treatin her real bad.”

My stomach turns over and I feel like the floor drops away. I almost let go of him, but I catch myself and tighten my arm around his neck instead. “That’s a lie.”

“I promise it ain’t. I saw him do it.”

“You did not.”

“I was in town one night last year. Picking off cattle—I will admit to that. And I saw him come out of Betty Lin’s, drunker than a fiddler’s bitch, and he went straight to your Momma’s house, and started whalin on her like he was goin for some kind of medal. And after he did that, you know what he did? He went straight back to Betty Lin’s to pick up a lady of sin.”

“No he didn’t. My Poppa didn’t do that.”

“He sure did. So next night I came back. And I saw him comin out of Betty Lin’s again, so I followed him back to your Momma’s house. And I caught him out front and I killed him. And she saw me, and I think it scared the bejesus out of her, which I do regret. But I would do it again.”

“My Momma would have told me if he was doin that. Why didn’t she tell me?”

“That I don’t know. You’d have to ask her.”

I’m staring at him now, still holding the gun to his neck. “Even if it’s true, it don’t change the fact that you kill people. You may have done it for good, but that just proves you got a taste for blood. And now you’re back at it. You killed two people in our town and one in the next town over.”

“That weren’t me, Loretta.”

“Then why were you runnin back from River Hill?”

“Because I was over there stealin cattle and they caught me.”

“Why should I believe anything you say?”

He grumbles again, and I feel it through his shoulders in my chest. “I guess there ain’t no reason you should.”

It has to be a lie. He’s a Varmint. A cruel, savage, bloodthirsty monster. A killer. A born predator. I should pull the trigger and bury lead in his neck.

But one thing keeps nigglin at me: he hasn’t killed me.

His claws are pricking the skin of my arm where he’s still holding onto it with both hands. He’s very still—only the rise and fall of his chest as he takes slow, steady breaths. He swallows, his Adam’s apple moving against the tip of my pistol.

“Are you gonna kill me, or what, Loretta?”

Gritting my teeth, I lower the pistol. He loosens his grip around my arm and exhales. I start to unloop my arm from around his throat.

But he stops me. One hand catches my wrist. He lifts it to his face and nuzzles his nose into the palm of my hand.

I go still. “What are you doing?”

“I been thinking about you.”

Oh no. Pheromones. I can feel them coming over me. And they must be coming over him too, because when I look down over his shoulder, I can see that monster cock unrolling out from under his fur.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he mumbles into my palm, grazing his nose along the inside of my wrist. “I can’t stop smelling you.”

He begins to drag his nose up the inside of my arm, but I pull it free and stumble to my feet. He jumps to his feet too, and turns around, eyes devouring me like I’m a piece of meat he just tore off some cow and he ain’t eaten in a week. Mad dog eyes. I can hear the breath sawing in and out of him. I can see the need written in every rigid, trembling inch of him.

“You need to leave,” he says.

But I don’t know if I want to.

He clenches his hands into fists, like he’s trying to hold himself back. “You need to leave now, and stay away. I don’t want to do this.”

“Why not?”

“Because it isn’t me, Loretta. I’m not in control.”

I hold my ground as he takes a step, firelight flickering on his chest. That massive, ridged cock nearly at full mast now, sticking straight out from under his fur, pointed right at me. This lavender oil is doing jack shit. Every part of me feels inflamed. My breasts strain against my shirt. My core tightens and starts to ache, and I see his nostrils flare as he scents my arousal.

“Please,” he croaks. “I can’t stop it.”

Something in his voice snaps me out of it. What am I doing? This is a Varmint. A Varmint in heat. Just a horned-up animal with no control over his basest instincts. A bloodthirsty, lustful monster. A monster who may or may not be tellin the truth about my Pop. I need to get out of here. I need air. I need air and a cold bath.

As he steps toward me again, I step back. He lunges, his claws coming out as he grabs at me, but I dodge him, trip around the corner, and run.

The next day I sit at a table in Betty Lin’s with Ma, sippin terrible black coffee and eating a plate of rubber eggs. Ma’s sittin with her fork halfway to her mouth, starin at me.

“What did you just say?” she whispers.

I hold her gaze while I finish chewing. “I asked if it’s true what I heard about Pop. What he was doin to you.”

She stares at me with wide, afeared eyes. Then she swallows and lays down her fork. “Yes.” She picks up her napkin and dabs her mouth. Sets it down and looks around the table like she’s looking for something else to distract her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She touches her hair. “Well, Loretta, you know. I don’t like to make a fuss. And I was afraid that if you knew, you would try to go after him, and he would do something even worse to you. I know you. You’re not like me. I’m not bold. You got that from him.”

I stare at her in disbelief. My Momma is quiet. Biddable. Don’t wanna bother no one. Sometimes I wonder if she’d raise a fuss if the devil himself showed up at her doorstep. Even if that devil was her own husband.

“But after Pop was dead, you still didn’t tell me.”

“Oh I know.” She waves a hand like this is all a big, silly fuss. “I suppose I just wanted to move on.” She sips her coffee again, sets it down, and picks up her fork. I watch her eat in silence.

“I wish you would’ve told me.”

“Well, I’ve told you now. Let’s not get hung up on this, shall we? It’s over and I want it to stay over. It is where it belongs: in the past.” She looks up with a bright, thin smile. “How are you?”

I scoff and shake my head. “Oh, fine.”

“How’s work? That Marshal treatin you alright?”

I pick up my coffee and sip bitterly. “I s’pose that depends on your definition of alright.”

“Well, I’m proud of you, Loretta. You’re workin hard.”

“Yeah. Right. How about you, Momma? You thought any more about that Summer Festival. You found anyone to take you?”

“I told you, don’t you worry about me, Loretta. I’m doin just fine.”

She goes red in the face and looks at her plate again and I narrow my eyes. “Wait. Are you seein someone? Already?”

Blushing, she picks up her coffee again. “Oh, now, Loretta—”

“You are! Momma, you dog.”

“Loretta!”

“Who is he? Can I meet him?”

“You will meet him when I am good and ready, Miss Lee!” She waves her fork at my plate. “Now hush up and eat your eggs.”

I can’t sleep that night.

The air is warm and close. Must be a storm coming. Or is it just me? The blanket on my cot is itchy. Chafing my skin. The cot squeaks and creaks as I toss and turn. Every movement making my aching body burn hotter.

My own mother is getting more action than me.

I never put too much stock in finding myself a man. Never cared much about finding action, but after that conversation, and after staring down Daddy’s cock in that cave last night, I’m about as riled up as if someone dumped a jug of fire ants in my britches.

When I’ve tossed and turned long enough that I’m about to go out of my mind, I get up. I pull on my britches and my chaps and my shirt, welcoming the snap of cold air against my flushed skin as I step out to the stable and saddle up Cowboy. We ride out to the canyon, and I hitch him to the tree, and before I know it I’ve climbed to the ledge, walked down the tunnel, and I’m staring Daddy down across the fire.

His eyes are black in the flickering orange light.

“You’re back,” he says.

“Uh huh.”

“I told you to stay away.”

“And I told you I was never one to do what I was told.”

The air is totally still between us. Just me and him and the fire. I can smell the pheromones coming off him already. Like just seeing me walk in was all it took.

Then he lunges across the fire and grabs me by the wrist. Spins me round and slams me into the cave wall, his breath already hot on the back of my neck, his other hand already grabbing at my pants, pulling them down.

“No!” I shove him backwards with my hips and turn around. As he comes at me again I slam my hand flat into his sternum to hold him back. He snarls and goes still, his chest heaving under my hand.

“Not like that.”

His eyes narrow as I trail my hand down his chest, feeling the velvety smoothness of his thick, green skin. The hard planes of his abs. He steps toward me as I find the strap of leather that keeps the fur around his waist and pull it loose. The fur slips down as he closes the gap between us, crushing me against the wall with his whole body, his hands sliding to my waistband again, trying to shove it down.

“No.” I catch his hands and push them away and he pulls back, glaring at me. His cock is already swelling between us, pushing against my thigh. I hold his gaze while I reach toward his ear. “This time we’re doing it my way. I want to see what all these bits and pieces do.”

As my fingers brush the tip of his pointed ear, his eyes flutter closed and his whole body shudders like a chill just went through him. He tilts his head into my hand as I stroke all the way down the rim and squeeze his hair at the bottom.

“Mm.” I smile. “You like that.”

He nods, his eyes still closed, pushing his face into my hand like he wants me to do it again.

“And what about this?” I stand up on tiptoe, my breasts dragging torturously against his chest, and blow gently in his other ear. He shivers again and his cock strains against my thigh in answer. “Oh. So we really like that.”

“Yes.” His voice is rough and very quiet as he rubs his face all around my hand, trying to get me to touch more of him.

“And what about this?” I sneak my other hand behind him and stroke one finger down the base of his tail.

At that, he snarls, and his hips jolt forward, slamming mine into the wall, knocking the wind out of me. He snatches my hands away from him and pins them by my head, glaring at me.

“You don’t get to touch that.”

“Oh.” I can’t help but smile as I lift my eyebrows. “I see.”

Something tickles my thigh and I look down to see the tip of that tail snaking up the inside of my leg. My eyes go wide as I watch it trail up over my hips, my belly, skate over my breast, and then slide up the center of my chest and curl around my neck. Once around. Twice around. He squeezes gently. The inside is velvety soft, but the outside of it is ridged with lethal spines. I look back up into his eyes.

“So I don’t get to touch it, but you can do that?”

“That’s right.” He lets go of my hands, but I leave them up by my head and don’t move as he starts to unbutton my shirt because his tail is still wrapped around my neck, holding me still. I just stare at his face as he tugs my shirt open to free my swollen breasts, my nipples already hard and aching to be touched. He inhales deeply as he looks at them, and as he breathes out, a long, low rumble snakes out of him.

“Do you like what you see?” I whisper.

He doesn’t answer. Just unwinds his tail from around my neck sinks to his knees in front of me as he pulls down my britches. I step out of them and then my eyes flutter closed as that tail snakes up the inside of my thigh again. He brushes the velvety tip across my clit and as my back arches at the burst of pleasure and my hips come away from the wall, he grabs my ass in both hands and buries his face between my legs.

A cry rips out of me as his tongue goes straight down the center in a long, wet, undulating lick, the bony ridge of his nose pushing against my clit. I can feel the tips of his long fangs grazing the insides of my thighs. I barely have time to get another breath in before he does it again, and again, licking and nuzzling like a bear getting honey from a beehive.

“Oh my God. Oh fuck. Stop!” I grab his hair with both hands and try to pull his face away. “You gotta stop or I’m gonna come.”

But he doesn’t, and I’m not strong enough to make him. He plunges his tongue all the way into me, deep inside me, and I realize he’s got oddly-shaped bits and pieces that I didn’t even know about. Like a long, thick, ridged tongue. He curves it back against my inner wall and I fist both hands into his hair and hold on as an orgasm snaps through me. He wraps his hands around the backs of my thighs, claws so deep in my flesh I wonder if he’ll make me bleed, snarling as he thrusts his tongue in and out until I’m shaking and moaning and sagging against the wall. Then he pulls his tongue out, licking all around his nose and mouth to clean up everything I drenched him with, and stands.

“Is that doing it your way?”

I just stare up at him, panting and shaking, my body still shivering with the aftershocks. Then I grab him by the back of the neck and heave him to me. He snarls like a dog that’s just been let off to chase a hare, and grabs me under the ass, hoisting me against the wall. I wrap my legs around him as he pushes up against the first tight inch of me, and I haven’t even finished coming before he’s inside again.

The hard knot at the base of his dick presses against me and I moan, grinding into it harder, grabbing hold of those two long fangs like handles and angling my hips to get the pressure just right. No wonder he’s so damn prolific. It’s like he was built for fucking.

His tail snakes up around me again, flicking across my nipple, and I cry out and arch. He lets out a half-laugh, half-growl, and does it again.

“Is that doing it your way?”

He slides it up, up the side of my neck, around my ear, through my hair, while his hands grip my ass and he sinks into me, over and over again. The shivers he’s creating dragging that soft, velvet tail all over me spiral with the feeling of his cock ridge against my clit, and sends me barreling into another orgasm so fast it makes my head spin.

He echoes my startled moan with a groan of satisfaction, but I can tell this slow approach isn’t enough for him. I reach behind his neck again and pull his ear down to my mouth.

“You don’t have to fuck me slow. I wanna see you roar.”

He makes a low noise that’s half need and half sigh of relief, and spins away from the wall, wrapping his arms all the way around me as he carries me right through the fire, all the way across the cave to where a slab of rock jutting out from the wall at his waist height is covered with a pile of furs. He lays me down on my back, grabs my ankle and pushes my knee up into my chest as he leans over me, bracing one hand by my head and staring down into my eyes.

His eyes are different now. It’s like every notion of doing it my way has gone out of his head and he is consumed by his instinct. He thrusts into me savagely, hard and fast, and I squeeze him tight and brace my hands on the wall behind me to give him leverage.

He groans as I squeeze him, and when I tilt my hips to let him go deeper, he cusses and says my name. But it isn’t until I reach up one hand and stroke the soft rim of his ear again that he comes apart.

A mighty shudder goes all the way through him, right from where my fingertip touches his ear, all the way to the tip of his tail. Every spine on his back trembles like a leaf clinging to its branch, and he throws his head back and roars.

The sound of it fills the cave and probably echoes all the way down the canyon and back into town. It’s like standing under a waterfall. Like feeling the ground shaking beneath your feet during a rock slide.

Grabbing me by the hips to pull me closer he plunges into me as his cock spurts and shudders and drains, his whole body given over to the earthquake that’s shaking him from the inside out. And as he sinks into me one final time, I stretch up to reach around his neck and pull him into my arms.

He sprawls on top of me like a big, exhausted puppy, panting. And I don’t know why I do it, but I can’t resist:

I boop him on the nose.

“Good boy.”

CHAPTER 5

I WAKE up in a pile of furs. The fire is dwindling beside me and the cool chill of early morning is creeping through the cave. As I get to one elbow, something grabs me around the middle and pulls me back down. I feel big arms wrapping all the way around me. The firm press of Daddy’s massive chest against my back. The even firmer press of his massive cock against my ass. He nuzzles his nose into my hair.

“I have to go,” I say.

“Why?”

“Because if you didn’t kill all those people, then I need to find out who did.”

“They don’t have anyone else who can do that?”

“Yeah, but they’re all a bunch of arrogant pricks with big guns and little dicks.”

He squeezes his arms tighter, dragging his nose all around the nape of my neck, sniffing. I feel a strange kind of vibratin feeling happening against my back. A deep rumble like distant rolling thunder.

“Are you…purring?”

His tail snakes around my waist, tickling the sensitive skin on the inside of my hip as it descends between my legs. “Is it a problem?”

I shove his arms open and wriggle free, roll out of the fur pile, and get to my feet. “I have to go.”

He rolls onto his back and bends one arm behind his head. The fur pile slips away, revealing his chest, the planes of his torso, and the vee of muscles pointing like an arrow to his enormous, fully inflated cock. “Are you sure?”

Dang my melt if this sonofabitch isn’t always ready to go. Is it just the rut, or is he always like this? I take a breath to fortify my knees, which have gone wobbly at the sight of him, laid out like that. “Yes. I’m sure.”

He stretches, yawning and extending his claws. “Fine.”

I hunt around the cave for my shirt, chaps, boots, and britches, hopping into them while he watches, looking amused. I pick up my guns too, which are still in a corner by the fire. When I’m dressed and ready to go I hesitate at the entrance, looking at him.

“Hey, so listen…this is a silly question maybe, but…there ain’t no way—I mean, well there’s no way to put this delicately, but…there ain’t gonna be no little Baby Daddies growing in me from what we been doing, is there? Cause rumor has it, you’re prolific.”

“Humans can’t breed with Varmint.”

I breathe out a sigh of relief, nodding. Then I squint one eye at him. “Then I guess what we been doing ain’t technically mating, is it?”

He narrows his eyes. “Guess not.”

“Then what is it? Cause it sure ain’t love-making.”

He lifts one shoulder, his eyes still roving over me like he isn’t sure he’s gonna let me leave after all. “Guess there ain’t nothin wrong with calling it good ol’ fashioned fucking.”

By the time I make it out of there, the sun is well up. Cowboy is not pleased that I left him hitched to a tree all night, so I make up for it by letting him graze on Willard’s Ranch at the edge of town before we head in. We’re riding down the road toward town on our way to the station when I hear a scream.

Cowboy spooks. Grabbing up the reins, I manage to control him, and swing my head around, looking for the source of the noise. It was a man’s scream. Somehow that makes it more blood-chilling.

When it goes up again, I pinpoint it—a barn on the other side of the road. I spur Cowboy over and slide out of the saddle as we pull up outside. I kick the door open, pulling out my pistol, and I don’t even know who I’m yelling at as I tell whoever’s in there to “Get yer hands where I can see ‘em!” My eyes haven’t adjusted to the dark, dusty barn interior. When they do, I’m so stunned I can’t fully comprehend what I’m seeing.

A man is lying on his back with a knife in his neck. Blood sprayed like a fountain on the wood panel wall and bales of straw behind him.

And standing over him is Gypsum.

“Gyp?” I lower the gun. “What in the hell—”

Before I can even get the words out, she runs. She leaps over the dead man, making for a door on the other side of the barn. Swearing, I run after her. She bangs the door open and dives through it, and I follow her out into a field, where her horse is hitched. She gets it unhitched and leaps into the saddle as it bolts. Cowboy is all the way in the road on the other side of the barn, and I curse under my breath as I run back to get him. By the time I’m mounted and we’ve ridden back around to the field, Gypsum is a speck on the other side of it, riding fast toward Skull Rock canyon.

I spur Cowboy into a gallop and take off after her.

Clouds of red dust are flying up as we barrel into the mouth of the canyon. Steep, red rock rises up either side of us, and I catch glimpses of Varmint scuttling away up the canyon walls as our horses stampede down the valley floor. We’re coming up to the tree I hitched Cowboy to last night, and Gypsum is way ahead—she had a good lead on me, and her horse is nimbler than Cowboy, better at picking its way through the rock and rubble.

As she passes the tree, something jumps down from the canyon wall. A huge, clawed beast with long black hair and a thick tail, ridged with spines.

He takes down Gyp and the horse as he lands, grabbing Gyp around the shoulders and rolling with her as the horse stumbles. They roll head over heels across the canyon floor as the horse scrambles back to its feet and bolts back the way it came, whipping past me and Cowboy, riderless, stirrups flapping.

Cowboy and I skid to a halt and I slide down from the saddle as Daddy staggers to his feet. He’s got Gyp in a headlock, one massive arm all the way around her neck, and she’s beating at him with her fists and hollerin fit to raise Jesus himself.

“Wait!” I gasp, putting up my hand to stop him. “Don’t hurt her!”

He looks at me, and it’s like he’s only just registering who I am. His big, bony brow knits.

“Keep her still!” I yell.

“What are you doing? Why are you chasin her?”

“Because I think she killed someone. But I don’t know why. And she’s my friend. So don’t hurt her.”

Gyp is still struggling under his arm as he processes this. Then he lets her go and she staggers out of his arms, choking. She catches her breath and straightens up and glares at me.

I stare back, dumbfounded. “Gyp…what are you doin?”

She roughly adjusts her shirt where Daddy rucked it up with his headlock. “That should be pretty obvious, shouldn’t it Loretta?”

“Did you kill those men? All of ‘em?”

“Damn right I did.”

That day she was out sick. The day she didn’t come in. That’s where she was. And who was the first one to discover Willard? Gypsum.

“And River Hill? Do you kill that man in River Hill?”

“Sure did.”

“Why? I don’t understand.”

“Oh come off it, Loretta. It ain’t that hard to figure out. You said it yourself: it’s bullshit. Ain’t it? Being a woman in this town.” She tosses her hair. “Being sidelined to the cowpoke field? Not being allowed to be a lawwoman? Gettin told what to do. Where to go.”

“I thought you didn’t care about bein sidelined to the cowpoke field.”

“Of course I care! But I gotta say I don’t because I gotta play the game. Well I’m tired of playin the game. I’m playin my own game now. The men in this town are dogshit, and I’m done with ‘em.”

I stare at her, my mouth ajar. “You can’t just…go around killin people.”

Gypsum glares. “Why not?”

“Because—because those men didn’t do anything. They were just livin their lives. What are you gonna kill every man in town? Just cause Marsh put you in the cowpoke field?”

“If I have to.” She puts her hands on her hips.

“I don’t know about that, Gyp…”

“No one’s gonna find out. I’m making it look like Varmint did it. It’s the perfect cover.”

At that, Daddy tenses.

“Now Gyp…” I put up my hand, my voice very low. I’m not sure if I’m trying to keep her calm, or keep Daddy calm. I’m sure he’s not happy to hear his kind are being framed for murder. “You can’t just go around doin murder and blaming it on other people.”

“People?” She scoffs and shoots a derisive look at Daddy. “He ain’t people. He’s a monster.”

I hear Daddy’s claws come out.

“Gyp, you need to be careful about what you’re sayin—”

“Oh, horseshit. Who cares if some mangy Varmint gets blamed for something he didn’t do? They’re all a bunch of savages. They’re just creatures, Loretta. They don’t matter—”

Daddy moves fast, but this time, I move faster. I jump in front of Gypsum as he slashes at her with his claws, bringing up my hands to block his arm. I grab him around the forearm, nearly buckling under the strength of his blow, pushing with all my might to keep him back.

“Daddy! Don’t!”

He glares at Gyp over the top of my head. “Give me a good reason.”

“Because if you do, they’ll come for you. Marsh and his boys’ll be out here tearing the canyon apart. Killing Varmint.”

For a moment, it feels like he might just sweep me aside and go right back at her. But he puts his claws away. “I agree with her assessment of the men in your town,” he spits. “But if she’s anything to go on, I’m inclined to believe the women aren’t so great either.”

I meet his gaze. “Some of them aren’t. Some of us are just fine.” Shaking his head, he steps back. I turn to Gyp. “I can’t just let you go, Gyp. You know I can’t do that.”

She looks like she might run again, but as she takes a step, I hear Daddy move behind me. She stops short, glaring at him over my shoulder. “I guess it won’t do me no good tryin to outrun all that.”

“Sure won’t,” I agree.

CHAPTER 6

MA HUGS me as I step across the threshold to her kitchen. I accept a kiss on both cheeks, then hand her the plate I’m carrying, which holds my contribution to dinner: a batch of burnt rolls. She gets to work fussing around the kitchen, deciding where to put ‘em until it’s time to eat.

“I’m just so proud of you!”

“Thanks, Ma.”

It’s a week since I dragged Gyp into the station, tied up like a Christmas present with a bow and everything, and delivered her to the Marshal. He didn’t believe me at first when I told him she was the killer. But she about confessed everything in interrogation—turns out she was just bustin to tell someone how clever she’d been.

I didn’t feel great about it, to be honest. She was right about the men in this town. But what she said about Daddy and the Varmint really irked me. She didn’t pipe down about that either, calling them all sorts of vicious names as they carted her away and locked her up in the jail.

Marshal had to tell the Attorney General who made the collar, even though he didn’t want to, and I was promoted to assistant deputy. First woman in the state.

“Promoted!” says Ma, fussin with a kitchen towel. “Solved a murder. Hully Gee!” I start to slip into a seat at the kitchen table, but she waves me up. “No no! We’re eatin in the dining room tonight. We got company.”

“Company? What company?” Then it twigs. “Ma. Did you invite your boyfriend?”

“Now hush!” She flaps the kitchen towel. “Yes I did. And I would appreciate it if you would be on your best behavior. Go on through to the dining room and say hello. I’ll be in soon.”

I see myself out of the kitchen and down the hall to the dining room. Boots scuffing on the polished wood floor. The place looks nice. Tidy. A few books and nicknacks on the shelves. I get to the dining room and push open the door.

Daddy is standing at the table in a fucking suit.

I stand on the threshold with my mouth all the way open. “What the fuck are you doin here?”

“Loretta…”

“Are you—are you…” I can’t even get the words out, I’m so furious. “Are you—banging my mother?”

“Now—just listen—”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Please!” He puts up his enormous hands and looks over my shoulder, like he’s worried Ma’ll hear us. “Just come in and let me explain.” He beckons me into the room. I don’t move. “Please?”

Keeping my eye on him like he’s a snake that might suddenly lunge and bite me, I sidle through the door.

“Close it?”

Glaring, I do. “Explain yourself.”

“Listen…I did not mean for this to happen.”

“How long have you been fucking my Ma.”

“I am not fucking your Ma, Loretta. If you can keep that mouth from running for one minute, I can explain. Last year, not long after I killed your Pa, your Ma came out to Skull Rock to…thank me.”

“Thank you? Thank you how?”

He shifts. “We probably don’t need to go into the details…”

“Oh my God.” I feel sick.

“And we’ve been seeing each other since then.”

“So you are fucking her. Or is it mating?”

“It is neither. It’s bigger than that.”

I scoff. “Sure. And how many other women have you slept with in that time? How many other people have you cheated on her with?”

“None.”

“A likely story.”

His eyes flash. “Why do you think I’m hidin out there in the caves, Loretta? Why do you think I’m holed up, away from everyone, especially at this time of year? I didn’t want this to happen. But you kept comin back. I told you to stay away and you kept comin back.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“I’m a monster, Loretta. I’m a creature. Your rude little friend was right. I have base, vile instincts that I am not fully in control of. I told you I was a man who just wanted to be left alone. I told you I didn’t want to do it. You came to my cave that night. You chased me down outside River Hill. You put a gun to my throat. You came back and told me you wanted me.”

“You could’ve said no.”

“I literally could not.” He spreads his palms. “I tried to tell you: it ain’t me, Loretta.”

“If it ain’t you, then what is it?”

“Pheromones.”

I want to scoff, but I can’t deny he has a point. Those pheromones got me pretty good too.

I take in the details of his monstrous appearance, not quite hidden by the suit. The ridges down his spine poking uncomfortably at the back of the jacket. The tail, protruding out of a hole in the back of his pants. He’s not wearing shoes—I doubt he could find any that fit. His horns are nearly brushing the ceiling. His pointed ears—so sensitive and responsive—are downturned, like the weight of what he’s done is pulling them down.

“Do you love her?” I ask.

“With all my heart.”

“Then this,” I gesture between myself and him, “never happens again.”

He holds my gaze. “Nothing would make me happier.”

“Oh, Loretta! Why would you ask me somethin like that?”

Ma is flustered. Stirrin her coffee with the wrong end of her damn spoon again. Six spoonfuls of sugar deep. Betty Lin sets a plate of eggs in front of me.

“I just wanna know if you’re sure about this guy. He lives in a cave, Ma.”

“Well, and what’s wrong with that? I don’t live in a cave.”

“I just don’t—he’s got…instincts.”

She flushes. “Oh yes, welI I know all about that. Don’t you worry. I know all about his,” she touches her hair, “instincts.”

“So, what, are you gonna marry this guy?”

“Oh, Loretta, don’t be ridiculous! I been married once, and believe me, I do not want to go through all that again! Daddy is just—a good time.”

“He’s a monster.”

“No.” She looks at me sharply. “Your father was a monster. Daddy is…” She waves her hand, flustered again, blushing while she looks for the word. “Well, he’s just a big sexy beast, isn’t he? That’s what he is, Loretta. A big, sexy beast.”

“Ma!”

“Oh don’t look so outraged. I have instincts too, you know. I have needs that don’t involve bein married, or livin with some man. I’m not lookin for some happily ever after. I’m just happy enough for now.”

“And he treats you well?”

“Of course.”

She picks up her coffee and I watch her sip it.

I sigh. “Well, fine. You’re a big girl, Ma. I can’t tell you what to do. I’m glad you’re happy. Just…maybe put a leash on him during mating season.” I pick up my fork and contemplate my plate of eggs. “So what am I supposed to call him? Stepdad? Father? Dad?”

She chuckles and sets down her mug. “You can call him whatever you like, Loretta. But I think he’s partial to Daddy.”

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Ain’t nothin wrong with a good ol’ fashioned probing.

Bobby and Nadine are in a rut. The thrill is gone. The spark has died. Their bedroom is as dead as a doornail.

So when they’re abducted by aliens on the Fourth of July, it turns out to be just what the doctor ordered. Captain Alpharex and his crew of little blue men (who aren’t so little, it turns out, and aren’t actually men either) are curious, excitable, and pretty much down to clown.

But what are these aliens really doing on planet Earth? And why are they so interested in buttholes?

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THE THALASSIC SERIES

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What do you do with a drunken sailor when the world is underwater?

My name is Bird Howsley, and I’m a beautiful disaster. Okay, “beautiful” is probably being generous. But the “disaster” part is right.

In a brutal, dystopian waterworld, where survival depends on skill and smarts, I’m pretty much always one bad decision away from watching my life go completely down the drain.

Luckily, I have a lifeline: my cute, level-headed sailing teacher, Sargo Paz. Did I say cute? I didn’t mean cute. He’s just a friend. I definitely don’t have weird sex dreams about him.

Anyway, three days ago, I got a message from a dead guy. That’s odd, right? I had a plan to go find him, but it went pretty badly sideways, and Sargo and I ended up in the crosshairs of a very sketchy underground organization that now wants us dead.

We didn’t know what else to do except flee into the Salt. Now we’re stuck together on Sargo’s tiny sailboat, facing down pirates and harrowing seas, and things are getting, uh—tense between us.

Oh, and did I mention I’ve been blacking out? Like…a lot?

An Excerpt

I climb down the companionway to the galley, expecting to find Sargo making a cup of tea, but he isn’t there. I squint through the cabin to the bunk in the bow. He’s kneeling on it, facing away from me with his head down. I take a few steps closer and hear him breathing hard. A shaft of fear goes through me. Is he sick? If he’s sick, I don’t know how I’m going to sail Panga on my own.

Then I see what he’s doing, and freeze. My view of his hands is blocked by the angle of his body, but I know immediately by the sound. The rhythmic sound of his fist, beating against his hips. The ragged breaths he is trying to take quietly.

He’s jerking off.

My whole body ignites. I feel like I just stepped over the edge of the world and am free-falling into nothing. I should turn around and go back to the cockpit. I should pretend I haven’t seen this.

Instead, I take a step closer.

“Crack. That’s what this is.” - Goodreads Review

“Dystopian like I’ve never read.” - Amazon Review

“There is so much to love about this book! The characters are beautiful and broken. The setting is unique, dangerous, and fun…Seriously, if you haven’t read this book, read it now! It’s so good!”

Starr Z. Davies, award-winning dystopian author

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’m not actually a huge reader of monster romance or monster smut, so I had some input from some folks on this story regarding the “bits and pieces.” Specifically: how to navigate long fangs, prehensile tails, long tongues, purring, and booping the snoot.

In no particular order, those people are

MICAH ANGEL , SMANDREWS, SAM, JOANNA C, AND CORA

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PART-TIME AUTHOR 🪶⚓ FULL-TIME PIRATE.

HI! I’M LIZ. I’m a freelance writer, indie author, and full-time, off-grid, live-aboard sailor. I’m currently sailing around the world with my boyfriend and my dog, turning my real-life adventures into speculative fiction.

I feel incredibly grateful to be able to explore the world as I do, and I love incorporating the incredible experiences, beautiful places, and wonderful people I encounter on my travels into my work.

I also use my books as a means to explore themes of mental health, addiction, technology, climate change, and the looming collapse of society (but, like…in a fun way.)

When I’m not penning novels about the impending apocalypse, I work as a freelance content writer specializing in articles about code, music theory, and off-grid living. On the rare occasion I’m not writing, you can find me swimming, hiking, telling my dog I love her for the bazillionth time today, or watching Taskmaster.