To Be Continued...with Robin Renee Ray

When the Night Falls

By

Robin Renee Ray

 

Part Six

         

          Sitting back in his homemade wooden chair on his front porch, Ed Kenney savored the aroma coming from the house and knew his meal would be ready soon. He lit his pipe and leaned back, looking out over his land, land he would and had killed for to keep safe. His grandfather had been given permission to make the land his own as long as no one trespassed on the sacred grounds that lay across the running waters of the creek. Ed’s father was the first to try and stop the small town from being built, but he died the year the settlers moved their wagon train in.

          “Supper’s ready, Paw,” Sarah stepped out the door. “Weren’t able to make no bread though. When ya figure we’ll be makin’ a run to the tradin’ post?”

          “I speck we’ll have to make due, sister. It’s gonna be snowing real soon and gettin’ over the back side of the mountain wouldn’t be too easy.”

          “Couldn’t Jake and Teddy make it like they did last year? Coffee’s dern near gone and you have about a half a bag of pipe tobacco.”

          “Need Teddy here, I think we all know that those town folk are gonna be startin’ some kind of trouble. Won’t be long till they know we snagged that Baxter boy.” Ed tapped his pipe on the arm of his chair and stuck in his pocket. He stood and stretched his back. “We best get on in before your aunt comes in hollerin’ she’s been workin’ on the meal for a few hours.”

          Ed’s youngest son, Billy, was putting wood on the fireplace in the main family room. His other sons were already sitting at the oblong, oak, handmade table that sat ten. Teddy was standing by the wood burning stove watching his wife dip out ladles full of the chunky meat that was mixed with chopped up carrots and potatoes. Milly was filling glasses with milk from one of several milk cows they had raised on the lush greenery that grew on their land.

          Ed took his seat at the head of the table. When Teddy heard the chair slide on the floor he turned around and quickly took his seat at the opposite end. “Get on in here Billy and wash your hands for supper,” Ed called out, picking up his tin cup and taking a drink of his warm milk.

          “Not really hungry, Paw.”

          “We done been through this, boy.”

          “I know, Paw, but it just don’t feel right and I can’t help but to get sick to my stomach.”

          “Don’t bother me none,” Milly interjected as she took her seat to her father right. “Meat is meat if’n ya ask me.”

          “I don’t recall anyone askin’ ya,” Billy said as he turned to go back to the fireplace.

          “Boy!” Ed spoke harshly. “I’ll not be tellin’ you again.”

          Billy stopped and stood with his back to the room for a few seconds, then slowly turned and made his way to the table and took the seat as far from his father as he could get and sat by his Uncle Teddy. “I think we should all bow our heads and give thanks.” Billy cringed at his Aunt Edna’s words as she set his bowl of human stew in front of him. He couldn’t tell by looking that it wasn’t beef, it didn’t have a different smell than any other stew she had made which brought another question to his mind. “Why can’t we just butcher one of the cows? We have a bull and three cows.”

          “They’ll be breading soon and we can hope for a good take. But son if we butcher even one we may not survive if what’s left don’t take to the matin’. We butcher that old bull when he still has some use in him and we might as well pack up and move on right now.”

          “Billy, just eat what’s be given and stop the complainin’.”

          “You ain’t my paw, Dex and if you want it so damn bad you eat it,” Billy slid the bowl over sloshing the liquid over the edge.

          “Boy, you don’t close that mouth and eat your supper, you’ll be the one sleeping in the barn tonight. After I tan your hide,” Ed threatened then picked up his wooden carved spoon.

          “Ed, we haven’t said grace yet,” Aunt Edna reprimanded.

          She stood as Ed set the spoon back down and all lowered their heads. After a few words of thanks were said everyone around the table began filling their mouths and eating without thought or care, everyone except Billy who was sipping the broth and eating just the vegetables.

          Meanwhile, John was lying on the table, waking from the drugs that the woman who was called ‘Aunt Edna’, had given him. He had no way of knowing how much time had passed, but knew it was night due to the darkness, he just didn’t know how late. Raising his head and looking down at his stomach he could see the tube sticking out, that’s when he noticed that the restraints around his wrist seem to be moving more than they had when he had been hanging upside down. He remembered seeing Sam’s hands free as he lay on the ground while the woman took his life, so he could only imagine that they had redone his bindings as well.

          While trying to pull his hands free, John heard the smaller door on the barn creak and froze hoping he wasn’t seen and could pretend to still be under the influence of the drugs.

 

To be Continued…

 

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Arrival of the Prophecy!

Shape-shifters have lived in chaos...for centuries, fighting clan against clan and breed killing breed. All Were-beings knew of the prophecy that spoke of the ‘ones’ who would come and bring peace to those who lived among the humans in secrecy and to those who lived under the thumb of an overbearing ruler.

Werewolf and clan leader Anthony Michelle meets the beautiful Sky Delaney and quickly realizes that she carries the other half of his soul, his one true mate and the ‘one’ that can set the prophecy on its foretold path, only to find that she is a frail, pure...human.

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And be sure to watch at the end of the month for the release of

BLOODBREEDERS: SEEKING OTHERS,

the third book in the Bloodbreeders series by Robin Renee Ray

Read how it all began…

Not once in her life did farm girl Renee Crocker, imagine she would encounter a world found only in the minds of myth-seeking men. Although the things they sought were not always unheard of in the 1930’s in other parts of the world, life was just too harsh in the small Texas community, to pay mind to anything other than raising a healthy crop to ensure the survival of one’s family. But late one evening during supper, a stranger comes knocking on the door of the Crocker family farm house and is invited inside.

It doesn’t take long for Renee to discover a great number of things that people in her neck of the woods couldn’t even contemplate. The dark of night takes on a whole new meaning, and the once vulnerable young country woman finds herself struggling to survive in a world that demands she live forever in darkness.

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Renee thought she had gone through the worse nightmare that any being could possibly dream up; little did she know that her adventure had just begun. Her intentions were to go back to Cuba and fulfill a promise made to the two that helped her escape the unbelievable hell that had become her life from the days of loving care back on the farm.

What she finds changes her destiny and places her path on one that was only found in the mind and tales of the ancient profits. Of course, the question remains, will she be able to fulfill the needs that have taken hold of what little heart she had left? Can the faith of a country girl with the help of those who would follow her into hell itself be enough, or will they find themselves in a situation that they cannot get out of?

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