Page 27 of Prospect’s Curvy Beekeeper

Now I have one.

"Get some sleep," I tell her. My voice is a low, rough scrape in the quiet house.

She watches me from the kitchen archway. The single overhead bulb casts warm yellow light over her face. She doesn't ask where I’m going. She doesn't tell me to be careful. She understands the violent hum vibrating under my skin. She accepts it.

"The back door is locked," she says quietly. "The windows are latched."

"Good." I adjust the combat knife in my boot sheath. The leather sheath creaks. "Keep the shotgun on the nightstand. If anyone tries the handle, you don't ask who it is. You shoot through the wood."

She nods. A single, sharp dip of her chin. Complete trust.

I turn the deadbolt. I step out onto the front porch. The mountain wind hits me instantly. It’s freezing, sharp with the scent of high-altitude pine and coming frost. The door clicks shut behind me. I wait until I hear the throw of the lock sliding into place. She’s secure inside the perimeter.

I walk down the steps. The dirt crunches under my boots. The moon is a thin, pale sliver hanging over the jagged peaks of the eastern ridge. It casts just enough silver light to outline the white wooden boxes of her hive line. The windbreak I built stands tall, a dark barricade against the downdraft. The farm is silent. The aggressive Russian hybrids in Colony D are asleep. The mountain is asleep.

I’m wide awake.

The energy in my blood demands motion. It demands destruction. The county clerk's office in town holds a piece of paper. A legal easement. A right-of-passage. The unnamed Syndicate lieutenant operating out of Crimson Hollow thinks he can weaponize civil law to steal my woman's land. He thinks a laminated notice and a few neon markers turn her south trail into his personal highway.

He’s going to learn a very hard lesson about the difference between paper and violence.

I cut across the wild meadow. The tall, frost-deadened grass whips against my jeans. The tree line looms ahead, a wall of black pine and underbrush. This is the edge of her property. This is the start of the dense pine corridor that stretches eight miles down the mountain toward the rival territory. The south trail.

I step into the trees.

The darkness swallows the moonlight. The temperature drops ten degrees instantly. The smell of decaying pine needles, damp earth, and frozen sap fills my lungs. The terrain pitches downward, rutted and steep. There’s no cell signal here. There are no witnesses. It’s a blind spot on the map.

I stop. I let my eyes adjust to the pitch black. The predatory stillness takes over. The same lack of motion that keeps the bees from stinging my bare hands now turns me into a ghost in the woods. My breathing slows. The frantic, chaotic static in my head disappears. The bond did this. It took the unanchored madness of my life and forged it into a single, lethal weapon.

I belong to her. This trail belongs to her. Therefore, this trail belongs to me.

I move forward.

My boots find the solid edges of the rutted dirt track. I track the surveyor's logic. If I wanted to run armored SUVs up this mountain under the cover of darkness, how would I mark the path? The Syndicate used a local surveying crew to establish their legal fiction. They drove stakes. They tied ribbons. They mapped a route for their soldiers.

A flash of unnatural color catches the faint ambient light.

Neon orange.

I step off the dirt track and approach the low-hanging branch of a Douglas fir. A strip of neon orange plastic ribbon flutters in the mountain breeze. It’s a garish, arrogant violation of the dark woods. A flag planted by an enemy.

My hand shoots out. I wrap my fingers around the plastic. The texture is slick, out of place against the rough bark. I yank it down. The knot snaps. The violent motion floods my arm with satisfaction. I crush the neon plastic into a tight ball and shove it deep into the left pocket of my canvas jacket.

One.

I keep moving. The trail twists sharply to the left, navigating around a boulder field. The Syndicate needs this path clear for their chop shop runners. I scan the darkness. Another ribbon. Ten yards down, another. They tied them at eye level. Careless. Confident. They assumed the legal paperwork would keep the MC off the trail. They assumed the President's order to hold back would apply to an unpatched prospect who answers only to a beekeeper.

They calculated wrong.

I pull down the second ribbon. Then the third. My movements become a methodical, punishing rhythm. Walk. Spot the orange. Tear it down. Crush it. Move. I don't use a flashlight. A beam of light is a target. I operate by moonlight and instinct. The mountain guides me. I know the shape of the land because I spent the last two nights outside her door, memorizing the contours of the ridge against the stars.

Fifty yards down the trail, my boot hits something hard. Wood.

I crouch low. The frozen dirt is disturbed. A wooden surveyor's stake is driven deep into the ground. The top is painted the same arrogant neon orange. They used a sledgehammer to sink it. They wanted it permanent.

I wrap both of my bare hands around the rough, splintered top of the stake. The wood bites into the calluses on my palms. I brace my boots against the frozen earth. I pull.

The stake doesn't move. It’s wedged tight in the frozen mud and rocks.