Hope(less) (37 page)

Author’s Note

I hope you enjoyed Gabby’s story.  Continue reading for a
sneak peek of Michelle’s story, the second book in the Series.

For more information regarding other titles, please visit my
website
http://melissahaag.com
.  I’d love
to hear from you!

Sneak peek of
(Mis)fortune

Judgment of the Six:
Book 2

By Melissa Haag

Available April 2013

Clotted potatoes stuck in my throat when I tried to
swallow.  I tried again and they went down.  The overladen plate of food mocked
me.  I didn’t want to eat.  I wanted to go hide in my room, away from our
dinner guests.  I almost blanched just thinking the word guest.  It didn’t
describe the men sitting at the table with us at all.

Blake asked my stepfather, Richard, a question about their
latest stock investment and I looked up dutifully as if I cared.  Just as
quickly, I looked back down at my plate like the meek little mouse Blake wanted
me to be.  I didn’t mind playing a meek part when sitting with these men. 
Blake didn’t give me trouble, but the other ten men with him often did. 
Dinners went smoother if I kept my eyes on my plate.

Blake sat at one end of the table with my stepfather at the
opposite end.  I, unfortunately, always took the middle seat on the side with
five chairs.  It gave me more room than sitting on the side with six chairs.  I
would have rather sat next to Richard.

The six men opposite me stared at me through the entire
meal.  Every dinner, different men to stare at me.  How many business
associates did Blake really have?  These dinners had been happening since my
mother died four years ago.  Once a month, every month.  I hated them.  I felt
like a freak on display. 
Hey, come on in!  Have dinner with the freaky girl
who predicts the market and made us all rich.  Don’t worry, she doesn’t bite. 
She’ll do exactly as I say.

I thought of my brothers sleeping in their beds, and forked
another bite of potatoes into my mouth.  Yep, I would do as Blake said.  He’d
made it painfully clear who he would punish if I didn’t.

One of the men across from me nudged my foot under the
table.  I didn’t look up.  It would just play into whatever he planned. 
Probably, some lewd gesture.  For business associates, as Blake usually
introduced them, they dressed more like mill workers, wearing torn stained
jeans, ragged shirts… sometimes unwashed too.  I didn’t judge them by their
appearance though.  Their actions told me what I needed to know about them.

The man kicked me again, harder.  I tucked my feet under my
chair trying to avoid his long reach as Blake asked me a direct question.

“Are you trying to withhold your latest premonition, dear?” 
He sipped his wine watching me.

“You know I haven’t,” I said in a quiet, biddable voice
meeting his gaze.  If I tried keeping a premonition to myself, I got sick. 
First with just a niggling headache, but the longer I held the information
inside, the worse the ache grew.  Until finally, I broke down and started
babbling the information with pain-filled tears.

“Sorry, Blake,” Richard said from down the table.  “She gave
me the information yesterday.  When I went in today, I just invested what we
discussed last night.  I didn’t think you wanted me to bother you with it.”

I lowered my gaze to my plate again.  A puppet, that’s all I
was.  Just then, the man across the table kicked me again.  I looked up, eyes
blazing with hate and whispered two words that sealed my fate - not, ‘thank you’
though it rhymed.

In a blur, Blake shot from his chair sailing toward me over
the table.  His hand curled around my throat and the momentum of his move
carried me backward, lifting me up.  My long skirt tore when it caught briefly
on my tipping chair.  Before I could blink, Blake slammed me against the wall,
pinning me by my throat.  My feet no longer touched the ground.

My stunned mind couldn’t comprehend what just happened. 
No
one should be able to move that fast.

Barely breathing, I panicked, and fought to pry away his
hands, forgetting to be meek.  He laughed and squeezed a little harder.  Behind
him, Richard stood, but said nothing.

The calculated look in Blake’s eye reminded me of his
expectation.  Swearing at his “associate” hadn’t been a bright move.  Still
trying to wheeze in air, I stopped clawing at his hands and instead wrapped my
hands around his forearm for support.  His hold loosened and I gasped.  The air
burned, but I didn’t stop pulling it in.

All the men at the dinner table watched us, and the one who
had kicked me, smirked.

“The time for niceties is at an end.  We’ve amassed our
fortune.  It’s time for the next step.  You will choose one of us and evolve
your abilities as you were born to do.”

I barely heard his words.  His teeth claimed my attention. 
As he spoke, they grew.  Elongating.  Already panicked because of the hand at
my throat, my racing heart kicked into overdrive at the sight of his canines.  
His face changed slightly, his jaws expanding to accommodate his teeth.

He can’t be human.  What is he?

He tightened his grip with his next words.

“You will allow each male here, and every male I bring from this
night forward, to scent you.  If we decide you are his mate, you WILL bite him
and establish your claim.”

His hold loosened.  Still gasping for air, I didn’t
immediately register my feet again touched the ground. 
Bite one of them?
 
He moved away from me, dropping his hand.  His piercing gaze held me in place.

“Frank, since she offended you, you can go first.”

Frank quickly leapt over the table, his teeth also
abnormally long and pointy.  Swaggering toward me, he leaned in close and
licked my neck.  A shiver of revulsion ran through me.

“You’re mine,” he whispered before moving and allowing the
next man close to me.

I turned my face from them and pressed myself against the
wall.  Despairing, I closed my eyes letting the tears fall from the scrunched
corners.  I couldn’t escape.

After the last man leaned in close to my neck and inhaled
deeply, Blake commanded me to leave.  I fled to my room and locked the door
behind me. 

*    *    *    *

When I woke, I found a manila envelope shoved under my
bedroom door.  A Post-it decorated the front of it.  I easily read Richard’s
scrawl.

Run as fast as you can.  Everything is in your name
.

I gazed at those words with a sinking feeling of dread. 
Somewhere in the house, a phone rang.  I quickly stashed the envelope in my
pillowcase without looking at the contents and made my bed.  Before I finished,
a key rattled outside my door.  David lingered in the doorway, eyeing me
standing next to the bed tugging the quilt in place.  I still wore my pajamas.

Since Blake needed Richard in the office and didn’t trust me
home alone, he’d brought in David as my keeper.  Well paid, David did as Blake
said.  I wondered if David knew about Blake’s teeth.

“You’re not supposed to be in here until I knock,” I
repeated Blake’s rule.

“Today is an exception.  Blake’s on the phone,” he said
handing me a cell phone.

I stared at him a moment before I approached him to take
it.  What game did they play now?

“Yes?” I asked putting the phone up to my ear.

“Richard’s dead.  This changes nothing.  We’ll be back
tonight.”  The line went dead and Richard’s scrawled message ran through my
head.

David walked further into my room a suspicious look on his
face.  He moved past me and pulled back the quilt.  I looked at my shelf where
my softball participation trophy from middle school sat.  When he lifted my
pillow, I quietly lifted the trophy.  I could hear my brothers’ muffled voices
on the other side of the wall, still locked in their own room.  David never
heard the envelope crinkle.