Homestead Harem Read online

  I watched the girl, who moved so lithely I could hardly see her in the darkness. She reminded me of a barn cat stalking mice in the night.

  As we approached the front entrance, guarded by a large metal gate and illuminated by the spinning red light, I could make out the threat more clearly.

  Six men were sloppily cutting through the thick fence with their hedge clippers, all wearing thick gloves, heavy trousers that looked like snow pants to me, and strange, rough-looking canvas shirts. They all sported scraggly beards and mustaches, as if they had no access to razors…or mirrors. I was about to ask the girl why the hell they looked so ugly, but she was already gone.

  When had she disappeared? And to where?

  Meanwhile, the men had finally made a big enough hole in the, I was now realizing, electric fence. I shuddered, a bolt of lightning echoing up my spine from the memory of my electrocution.

  Before I could even figure out which direction the girl had gone in, she emerged at a sprint from the darkness, launching herself into the air and taking down the first man to emerge through the fence—wrapping her legs around his head and throwing him to the ground. She somersaulted out of the attack, breaking his neck. A gun went off.

  The girl avoided the shot, rolling again through the grass and now attacking the man with the rifle. His gun fell onto the grass as she crawled onto his back and got her hands around his throat. Her long fingernails clawed into his face as he struggled, and his comrades seemed to be more than willing to leave him behind.

  “C’mon!” one of them shouted. “Move before the fucking mutant gets her claws on the rest of ya!”

  I was as lost as a pig at a Fourth of July parade, but I knew I hated that man for talking about this girl like that. I hadn’t known her for more than a minute, but already, I felt a strange urge to protect her. Rage pushed me forward blindly as I ran into the aftermath by the fence, grabbing the rifle from the ground next to the two men who were now dead.

  The girl had taken out the owner of the rifle, and she was sprinting through the darkness to her next victim. The men were quickly approaching the house, and they were only about fifty feet out when cat-girl launched herself at the rear-most runner, slamming his head into the ground.

  I jogged forward, watching the fight and trying to place myself in range to engage.

  “Kill that monster bitch!” the same angry man shouted again.

  White hot rage poured through me again, and I planted myself at a safe distance, trying to line up my shot with the rifle.

  Before I could pull the trigger, however, the loud man, who I assumed was their leader, had ripped Cat-girl off the guy from the ground and thrown her into the grass. He tried to pin her, but she was too quick, rolling out at the last moment and jumping lithely onto his back.

  Another man pulled her off the leader’s back, and she struggled in the air for a moment with her legs kicking like an overturned bug. Then, using some maneuver I could barely see because she executed it so fast, she managed to plant her feet and flip the man over her back, throwing him to the ground and clawing at his face with her nails. He screamed as she clawed at his eyes, and I realized with horror she was trying to carve out his eyeballs.

  This girl was vicious. But I had to admit—it was effective.

  With another man taken out, she only had three left to face. They had stopped their pursuit towards the house, instead focusing all their energy on taking her out.

  “You’re a real pain in my ass, monster girl,” the leader said. “If you weren’t so damn crazy, I’d take you back home and play with you for a while.”

  The girl released a primal snarl then, launching herself at him once more. They struggled on the ground for a moment, and I lined up my shot at the man’s head—but he was moving too much, and I ran the risk of hitting the girl on accident. I’d been hunting since I was a kid, and I knew a dirty shot when I saw it. It was too risky.

  Meanwhile, the other two men had gotten their hands on the girl and were trying to pull her off their leader. I watched in shock as she bit one of them in the finger, and he howled in pain. Out of his grasp, she turned and faced the two men in her signature crouch. Behind her, something moved in the darkness, but I couldn’t make it out.

  One of the men launched at her with the hedge trimmers, but she grabbed hold of his wrist and twisted—hard. He dropped the weapon, and she picked it up, somersaulting towards the bitten one and stabbing the points of the metal trimmers into his stomach. He doubled over in pain, clutching his abdomen, and she left the hedge trimmers jutting out of him as he collapsed on the ground.

  “Jesus, Ransom, get this bitch!” the leader shouted.

  Ransom launched himself at the girl, and she was quick to avoid him—but not quick enough. He managed to grab one of her ankles and she was wrenched to the ground. I watched her try to crawl away from him, kicking and writhing in his grasp. Having just had his wrist broken, I was guessing he was channeling a lot of his anger into his left hand.

  “Bring her to me, quick-like!” the leader demanded.

  Ransom dragged the girl by her ankle across the grass, and she struggled desperately against it. The leader, with an ugly snarl on his lips, walked over to the man bleeding out and moaning on the ground and ripped the hedge trimmers from his stomach with a disgusting squelch. The dying man groaned in agony, but his leader didn’t seem to care.

  When Ransom pinned the cat-like girl to the ground with his knee, I waited for her to flip out of it, but she couldn’t—the man was huge, and his weight seemed to be too much for her. The leader walked slowly to the two, brandishing the bloody hedge clippers and pausing in front of them.

  “Pity you’re such a spitfire,” he drawled. “I coulda had a lot of fun with you.”

  He raised the hedge clippers in the air above her neck.

  I cocked my gun.

  He began to bring them down towards her.

  I fired.

  My bullet went straight through his right eye—just like I always shot the deer I hunted.

  I thought it would feel different—killing a real human being—but it didn’t. This man was disgusting, rude, and full of all sorts of horrifying intentions when it came to the cat-girl, who only seemed to be protecting the farm.

  I had no doubt in my mind he deserved to die.

  What I hadn’t considered, however, was how shooting someone might alert everyone to my presence in this fight.

  Before, I had just been a voyeur. Now, I was being sprinted at by a giant henchman in snow pants named Ransom. And my gun was out of bullets.

  I braced myself for his impact—he had the terrain advantage as the whole property sloped upwards to the house, and even though I had a large frame too, I wasn’t sure I was ready for such a hard blow. But ten feet from me, the thunk of something hitting his back slowed him down.

  Well—someone.

  Cat-girl had launched her body onto his, and she was doing her best to get her nails in his eyeballs while he ran blindly at me. I moved out of the way, but stuck my leg in front of him at the last second, tripping him. Unfortunately, Cat-girl didn’t seem to anticipate my participation, and she was thrown off him like a bucking horse, rolling down the hill with the momentum of his run. By the time Ransom stood back up, Cat-girl was fifteen feet away, now at a disadvantage.

  So much for helping out.

  The girl, however, was smart enough to change her angle to adjust to the terrain. Instead of her usual attack-first approach, she waited for him to come to her.

  Fearing letting her be in control, the man fell right into her trap, running down the hill straight at her and allowing her to skirt out of his way at the last second with her razor sharp agility. As he missed her, she threw herself onto his back and snapped his neck with one quick motion. The snap sent a chill down my spine.

  He dropped to the ground, dead. She stepped off of him, wiping her hands.

  And it was in that moment that I noticed it.

  She had a tail.
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  The motion I’d noticed behind her before was the swish of a long, shiny black cat’s tail. And on her head, buried in her thick, lustrous hair, were two unmistakable black cat ears.

  Okay, so I was definitely dreaming. Or dead.

  Right?

  My eyes were wide as I took in this girl, who moved like a cat because she was a cat. At least, partially. Her beautiful face, long hair, shapely body, and large, heaving breasts definitely pointed to her being at least partially human too.

  I had no idea what to say.

  Luckily, she spoke first.

  “Thanks for the help back there,” she said, panting slightly.

  Her eyes, now that I could really study them up close, were not only cat-like—they were cat eyes, bright green and sloped upward at the edges. I wondered if she could see in the dark like a cat.

  I wondered how any of this could possibly be real.

  What I said was: “No problem.”

  She stared at me, studying me just as intensely as I’m sure I was studying her.

  “We need to move these bodies off the property,” she stated.

  I blinked, processing what she said. Then she turned around and got to work moving corpses, and I, for lack of a better plan, joined in.

  Three

  After all the mens’ bodies had been removed from the property, the strange cat-girl ushered me back towards the barn. Why she continued to think I had any interest in going back there, I couldn’t understand.

  “I’m not sleeping in the barn on my own farm,” I told her.

  Her arms were scratched and bruised from combat, her tight black top’s sleeves ending just below her elbow. She looked exhausted. But still, I couldn’t help but feel offended when she stared at me like I was the one with cat ears and a tail.

  “Your farm?” she repeated. “Look around. What kind of joke are you trying to tell?”

  “The kind that, hopefully, has a punchline at the end!” I burst, throwing my hands in the air.

  We were still covered by the darkness of the moonless night, but I kept moving us closer to the house—and the yellow light now emanating from within it. If there were answers to be found, they would surely be there.

  Suddenly, the girl’s hand closed around my wrist, her razor sharp nails digging into my skin. She wrenched me back to stare into her green cat eyes.

  “I don’t know who you are, or what your angle is, but you helped me back there. So let me help you now. If you waltz into Duncan’s house, he will kill you.”

  “Duncan?” I questioned. “Who the hell is Duncan?”

  “Wow, you really are lost,” the girl said, not unkindly. “Duncan Pyper owns this place, and if he catches you out here, we’ll both be screwed.” She looked me up and down for a moment, her dark brows furrowing as she took in my clothing. “Where did you come from anyway? You look kind of…strange.”

  I couldn’t help it—I burst into a short laugh. My mother taught me never to comment negatively on a woman’s appearance, but I just couldn’t help it.

  “Me?” I coughed. “I’m the one who looks strange?”

  Her bright green cat-eyes narrowed at me and her tail twitched, like she couldn’t tell if I was in on a joke. Before she could respond, though, a voice boomed through the darkness.

  “Charlotte!”

  Another jolt of lightning went up my spine—this man’s voice brought back residual memories of my electrocution. I shuddered.

  “You need to hide. Now,” the girl demanded in a whisper.

  Charlotte, I supposed, was her name.

  My heart raced. I still didn’t know if I could trust this girl. But after everything I’d seen, it was clear that if she wanted me dead, I’d be eating dirt by now.

  So I hid.

  As I wedged myself behind a pallet leaning against the barn, thoughts dashed across my vision like cows panicking before a storm. How could this Duncan Pyper own my farm when I’d woken up in my bed in that house only this morning? My parents, John and Melissa Ryder, had owned this farm my whole life. My grandparents, Paul and Ethyl Ryder, had owned it before them. This land, these animals, this property—it had been passed down from generation to generation, and I didn’t remember signing any property agreements.

  This was my farm—always had been, always would be.

  So why the hell was I suddenly a fugitive in my own home?

  “Charlotte, there you are!” the voice boomed again.

  I saw him descending the hill, his tall, lean frame silhouetted against the yellow light of the house. He looked like a massive, terrifying scarecrow come to life—wrinkled skin and the hardened jaw of an old man who’d seen too much.

  “Duncan!” Charlotte called back. “I was just returning to the house.”

  “Good,” he replied, planting himself before her. The way he stared at her—like an animal that had gotten out of its pen—sent disgust running down my spine. “Did you handle the security breach?”

  “Absolutely,” she replied, an edge of fear in her voice. “All handled, sir.”

  “Good,” Duncan said, surveying the property. “How did they get in?”

  Charlotte picked up the bloody hedge trimmers from the ground, handing them to Duncan. He smiled, but there was no humor in his eyes.

  “Idiots,” he commented. “For once, I wish our assailants would at least honor us with a half decent plan of attack.”

  Charlotte said nothing. I wondered how many raids she had been expected to handle all by herself—and how often she got hurt in the process. I kept waiting for him to ask her if she was okay, but he didn’t.

  “The girls are restless. Say they won’t go back to sleep until they know you’re okay,” Duncan said with annoyance, as if this was completely ridiculous.

  “I’ll go ease their minds,” Charlotte replied. All of her earlier bite was gone, replaced with submission to this boorish man.

  She tried to walk past him, but he grabbed her arm, wrenching her towards him. A flash of red went through my vision.

  “I don’t like you wandering around alone out here at night,” he growled. I had to strain to hear him talking through his teeth. “That’s how girls go missing. And we wouldn’t want any more girls to go missing, would we?”

  “No, of course not,” Charlotte replied coolly.

  The two of them stared at each other for an intense moment, Charlotte’s eyes glinting in the darkness. Her tail curved up behind her, rigid with anxiety.

  “Good,” Duncan replied.

  He released her arm, but kept his gaze on her. For a second, I thought he might strike her—and I was ready to sprint directly onto the scene if he did. Fuck being careful, fuck confusion and wondering if this is a dream—this guy was worse news than a tornado on Christmas. I suddenly feared for Charlotte in his care.

  “Make sure the girls get back to bed, and quickly,” he told her, his voice casual again. “It’s late. We’ve got work to do tomorrow.”

  “Don’t we always?” Charlotte asked, her voice musical and light again. But I could tell she was straining to sound casual.

  She then ran gracefully up the hill to the house, her cat-like movements and dark hair making her blend into the shadows as she moved. I blinked, and she was gone.

  Duncan didn’t watch her go. Instead, he stood there holding the bloody hedge clippers, staring out at the property line. For a brief moment, he reminded me of myself—of hopping off of my tractor and surveying my fields at the end of a long day of chores. Looking out at my home with pride.

  Watching another man stand tall and stare at my property like he owned it made me sick with anger. But I knew running uphill from the darkness at a large man brandishing bloody hedge clippers was a bad idea—even in my state of rage. I needed answers—and I needed them now.

  I could only hope Charlotte would come back to give them to me.

  Four

  I stayed out of the barn for as long as I could. But without the adrenaline of the fight, the cold quickly set
in, and I knew I wasn’t doing myself any good by stubbornly remaining just outside the door. I didn’t have to sleep there. But I did need to get warm.

  Huddled in the darkness of the barn, I found myself wondering—if I just fell asleep right where I’d woken up only an hour ago, would I awaken back in my regular life? Dostoevsky and coffee on a Tuesday night? My biggest problems being a new neighbor’s ugly fence and ladies from the town knitting circle trying to set me up with their granddaughters?

  Right now, it all seemed so far away. And in the back of my head I knew.

  This was my new reality. As upsetting as it was, I wouldn’t be waking up from it any time soon.

  After a while of sitting in the darkness of my own barn, letting the blackness drive me slowly insane, I heard my father’s voice in my head. “When you find yourself in the valley of the shadow of death, you walk. Ain’t no point in setting up camp there.”

  That’s when I decided to choose my easiest problem and solve it.

  One foot in front of the other, that’s how I would get through this. Even if I couldn’t see where the hell I was going.

  Charlotte had said they never went in this barn, so maybe it still stored the boxes of supplies I used to keep in it. I stood up, put my hands in front of me, and felt around.

  The beams were in the same place, and the stall doors were still familiar enough to guide me to the area I was looking for. I ran my hands along the splintering wood, occasionally banging my shin into an unexpected hunk of metal. Maneuvering around every obstacle with slow, careful steps, I finally reached the back wall of the barn, where the work bench my grandfather had installed sixty years ago still stood.

  I ran my hands along the countertop, pushing through a thick layer of dust. Good. It had hardly been touched.

  Shuffling slowly to the right, I reached up to the shelves that had been there my whole life. At first, I felt only air…but after moving slightly further to the right, I felt it.