Bitter Heat Read online

  Finally, after ringing the bell once more to no avail, Janus left his bags by the doorway to investigate the noises that had come from the side of the house. Perhaps the owner was outside doing some necessary labor—in the garden, for example—and hadn’t heard the bell ring or his call of greeting. Betas were known for being hard workers, and the man probably hadn’t wanted to sit around waiting for Janus’s arrival.

  Peeking his head around the corner, he caught a glimpse of a plain, wooden rocking chair, and a figure ensconced in it. The man had a cozy-looking, gray blanket over him, and his long, dark, wavy hair flew in the breeze, dancing in loose, snaky tendrils. The swirling wind drifted up from the next interesting sight to catch Janus’s eye—a spotless sparkle of the wide, green-blue lake. Hud’s Basin was known for its soul-repairing loveliness and had been touted as one of the more appealing features of this particular boarding house. Though, being the only boarding house in the area, Janus couldn’t claim that had been the true deciding factor.

  Still, it was a beautiful lake. Hud’s Basin stretched away between the evergreen trees, separated from the house by a patch of thick woods. His mouth watered just looking at the brilliant, enticing circle of water, and Janus could just imagine the pleasure of diving into it on a hot summer’s day. Dusty and sweaty from travel, the thought appealed to him even now.

  A scent like summer-ripe berries drifted to Janus on the breeze, along with a shocking, raw musk. That was an omega in the rocking chair, then. His pheromones were strong and seemed to shimmer in the air between them. A shiver shot up Janus’s spine, and he leaned into the scent, inhaling again. A sudden hooking sensation hit him in his gut, and an arousing tingle began throughout his body as though every cell was responding to this man. It was nearly strong enough to make him groan. The chair rocked again, and the creak of wood-on-wood sounded plaintive.

  Janus cleared his throat to form a greeting but was interrupted before he could.

  “Can I help you?” The sharp voice came from behind him, and Janus jerked around again. His heart was beating extraordinarily fast, as though he’d been caught doing something wrong. His tongue felt frozen, and he blinked in confusion.

  The formerly unforthcoming front door was now open wide, and a gray-haired beta who could only be the boarding house’s owner stood at the threshold.

  “Ah, hello!” Janus said, gathering his wits with a wide smile. He turned his back on the mysterious figure in the rocking chair, and hastily stepped toward the front entrance. The kind-looking man before him wore common brown pants, and a clean, if plain, white button-up shirt. He held a broom in one hand and wore a flour-dusted, brown apron.

  Putting out his hand, Janus began the introductions, “I’m Janus Heelies and—”

  “And you’ll be staying with us a spell,” the beta interrupted with a wide grin, gray eyes crinkling at the sides. He put the broom aside and held the front door open a bit wider. “Yes, we’ve been expecting you.

  He smiled at Janus, ushering him forward. “Well, let’s grab your things. I’ll get you up to the room we’ve readied. I’m sure you’re tired.”

  As they entered the house together, Janus assessed the physical state of his host. The beta had gray hair, yes, but he wasn’t elderly so much as solidly middle-aged. He was thin, pale, and didn’t appear in the best health, but didn’t seem actively ill either. He had a bustling energy about him that spoke to a kind of determined personality that Janus admired in any man, but particularly in betas. If he was a little pale, and a bit worn around the edges, then so be it.

  Given the recent bout of pneumonia Janus was recovering from, he didn’t have any room to be particularly proud of his own health or looks. His appearance had taken quite the beating with each successive winter of sickness, and he was only just gaining weight back. He hoped that Hud’s Basin’s distance from the cesspool of germs in the city would give him some reprieve from being infected again with the worst of the wintertime maladies.

  Regardless, he was hardly the outrageously handsome young man he’d once been. He’d flashed his hazel eyes and charming smile at plenty of omegas over the years—and some betas, too—and ended up in some terribly scandalous situations. But after the toll of his sicknesses, he’d scarcely be able to attract a scandalous affair, even if he still wanted to partake in any.

  “I take it you’re the proprietor?” Janus asked, clutching his bags as the man removed his floury apron and hung it on a rack by the door.

  “Yes, indeed. Apologies.” The beta wiped his hands off on the front of his soft, brown pants, and then put out a hand. “Zeke Monkburn. Welcome to Monk’s House at Hud’s Basin. We’re glad to have you.”

  Zeke took one of Janus’s bags off his hands, and the two of them muscled past the furniture crowding the downstairs entryway—a sideboard, the coatrack, three chairs, and a full bookshelf—and past a living room on the right. They passed three closed-off boarding rooms on the left and then headed up the dark, wooden stairs to the second story.

  “I’ll give you the house tour whenever you’d like,” Zeke said with a smile over his shoulder. “But the kitchen is easy to suss out, and the livin’ room, too. Feel free to use both at your discretion. What brings you up to Hud’s Basin?”

  Janus shifted his bag from one arm to the other, feeling annoyingly out of breath after only a few of the oddly steep steps. He wished Zeke would move faster so that he didn’t have to keep carrying the luggage. His arm muscles already ached. “Dr. Crescent mainly. I’ll be studying under him.”

  “Ah. I’d wondered why you’d taken on a place boarding here for such a long spell. Most of our patrons come up for a season at most.” As he reached the top of the stairs, Zeke looked over his shoulder, down to Janus still trudging up. “You plan to be a doctor?”

  “A nurse for now.” Janus smiled, hefting his bag a bit higher. “I’ve had some health scares in recent years, and they’ve taught me the value of good medical care. I’d like to share that forward.” And he hoped to make something good of his life now that it’d been saved again. Too many had died in the recent flu epidemics. He owed it to those who’d lost their lives not to waste his in gambling, fighting, and pushing the boundaries by sleeping with contracted omegas. Or so Caleb had insisted when they’d last talked. And Janus had reluctantly believed him because he was too tired to believe anything else. “I’m looking forward to working with Dr. Crescent and learning all he has to teach me, but I’m also eager for a chance to live a slower life up here in the mountains.”

  “Slower, eh? Well, I guess that depends on how you look at it. Still in need of some recuperating?” Zeke asked as Janus met him on the second-floor landing.

  Together, they started down the hall. The wooden planks looked freshly swept and polished, gleaming in the light from the window at the end of the hall.

  Paper that must be as old as Janus himself covered the walls, decorated all over by images of happy-looking stags, evergreen trees, and the occasional fawn. The paper was old-fashioned, out of date, but somehow homey in a way Janus wanted to crawl into. It made him dream of becoming a boy again and traipsing among those copses of painted trees.

  “Been sick of late, have you?” Zeke asked again.

  Shaking free of fanciful thoughts that were more common than ever after his various illnesses, he replied, “Yes. I’ve had a rough time of it these last few years.”

  “The flu, I imagine.” Zeke shook his head, side-stepping a narrow table pressed up against the wall along the length of the hall.

  “Indeed. I just recently recovered from a third bout resulting in pneumonia. My lungs haven’t been the same since I nearly died during the epidemic four years ago.”

  Zeke tutted gently. “Each winter now we get a goodly number of folks in from the city trying to avoid being infected. Last year’s epidemic was almost as bad as that big one four years back.” Zeke paused outside a thick, dark bedroom door and put Janus’s bag on the floor, turning to him with his hands on his hips. “I was sick myself for that one. Quite sick.” His eyes took on a distant look for a moment, but then he went on. “At the first sign of contagion these days, those who can afford it hightail it out of the city, and many of them come up to these mountains as fast as their wallets can carry them.” A comfortable mountain accent and phrasing marked Zeke’s speech.

  Janus found it charming, and that pleased him. The old Janus would have given into ingrained snobbery and decided the man lacked brains along with any semblance of education. The new Janus was done with that ego-driven, us-versus-them mindset. Zeke was clearly an intelligent, kind man with much to offer—including, hopefully, some sort of tea soon—and the new Janus would be happy to learn a thing or two from him.

  Yes, the new Janus wanted to learn and to help however he could.

  Zeke opened the door with a key from his pocket. He went on, “We have three rooms for boarders downstairs, and four of the six upstairs are for boarders, too. We can host up to fourteen men in the house if they all share beds. But we just lost the last of our lingering boarders from this past winter’s influx. They packed up and moved on last week.”

  “It’ll be just me in the house then?” Janus asked as Zeke led him into a well-appointed bedroom facing out over the back of the house.

  Janus stopped in the doorway, arrested by the view out the window of the shimmering lake, and the shadowy rise of mountains beyond. The sashes were open, and the breeze sailed into the room, offering fresh, cool air. Again, he detected the delicious scent of ripe berries and musk coming from the omega in the rocking chair. The porch where the omega sat must be just beneath his window.

  “Yes. Well, no…” Zeke frowned, a slump rounding his shoulders. “My son is staying for some time, as well. He is…” Zeke seemed conf
used about how to describe the situation. He smiled distractedly and finished with, “Also on the mend.”

  “Your son?” Janus cocked his head, confused. Betas couldn’t have children. He thought of the dark-haired figure he’d scented on the side porch and fought an irrational shiver.

  “My nephew technically,” Zeke clarified. “But I’ve raised him since his pater died trying to birth a brother for ’im. So, he’s mine as much as anyone’s, I suppose.”

  It would be complicated sharing space with Zeke’s son. He’d smelled … unique. Not like Janus’s Érosgápe mate would smell (not that he even knew what that scent would be, having never found the mate promised by wolf-god to alphas), but he had an intriguingly distinct scent.

  “He calls me pater, and I call him son. There’s naught but love between us.”

  Janus smiled, stepping deeper into the well-furnished if somewhat modest room. It held a bed with thick layers of quilts and two big pillows, a wooden writing desk by the window, a chest of drawers, a nightstand, and a cream-colored rug next to the bed. On the walls were four common-looking landscape paintings showing the mountains in each season. “Family is based on love. I understand. My uncle also had a hand in raising me.”

  Zeke threw open the closet and bathroom doors. “You’ll find everything in good order—a closet for your things, a bathroom dedicated to your sole use. The fireplace won’t be wanted this summer, but it’ll be a comfort in the winter months. And there’s a view more pleasant than any other in the house if I do say so myself.” Zeke gave a wide smile as he gestured toward the windows. “I opened the sashes earlier to air out any musty scent from where the room’s been closed off, but you can close them back up or keep them open as you see fit.”

  “The view is spectacular,” Janus agreed. He put the bag he carried down on the soft, quilt-covered bed as his gaze drifted back to the scene outside. As he traced the lines of mountains and the curve of the lake, he wondered briefly about Zeke’s sudden turn away from discussion of family. If his “son’s” pater had died, where was the alpha father in the scheme of things? Had he been too heartbroken at the loss of his omega to care for the child? Or had there even been a contract at all?

  Things were different in the mountains. Everyone knew that. In the city, an unbonded and uncontracted omega finding himself pregnant was looked down on in ways that he wouldn’t be here. The more puritanical dictates of the Holy Book of Wolf were often scorned here in the mountains in favor of more traditional ways. Old styles of breeding—including the occasional alpha free-for-all over a single omega in heat—were still permitted. Much to the horror of city tourists when they stumbled upon the villagers in the throes of such brutish behavior.

  For all he knew, this son could be born of those old traditions. He wondered why he cared about the omega’s pedigree. It wasn’t as though he was going to pursue the man. He was done with that sort of business.

  The lake wavered with the breeze, and the tossing waters reflected the sky, blue as a robin’s egg, and the verdant green of the trees. The lake became a shimmering mirror of the immediate world around them, not a single brutal thing about it. The scent of berry and musk only added to the loveliness. Janus’s shoulders relaxed. He could almost feel the peace of the view seeping into him, healing the places that still hurt, body and soul. He smiled softly.

  “Yes, this will do,” he murmured loudly enough that Zeke must have heard because when he turned around again the man was grinning.

  “Glad to hear it. One last thing, the candles are in the drawer by the bed along with matches to light them. We have electricity in the house during the summer months until nine at night, but then it’s out until the dawn.”

  “Why’s that?” Janus asked. He knew a lot of places in the mountains had no electricity at all, and he’d half expected to suffer the use of candles exclusively, but why would they have electricity only part of the time?

  “Expensive to run,” Zeke said with the smallest of bristles. “There’s one charging station on the mountain and the alpha who owns it has a love of profit. We pay him monthly, and he gives us our allotment according to his rules. So, we’re shut off after nine. We used to have a few battery-powered lamps, but the batteries ran out faster than we liked and are more expensive to replace than candles. Most boarders don’t mind any.”

  “I don’t mind either,” Janus said, surprised. He wondered if he could ask Caleb to send him a battery-powered lamp or two from the city, and some extra batteries, too. Then he thought better of that. “Provided there are plenty of candles.”

  Zeke gave him a long look. “You’ll be up late often, you reckon?”

  “I might. I’ll have studying to do.”

  “That you may, but I expect Doc would rather have you rested once you begin the rounds with him.”

  “I expect so,” Janus equivocated, subconsciously mimicking the man’s mountain phrasing. “Is it the same with the water?” Janus asked. “Limited amounts or times for use? Any need for special heating when it comes to a bath or shower?”

  “No, we’ve got plenty of running water from the creeks that feed the lake, and the newest tanks to warm it, too. Our guests never have to worry about bathing.” Zeke sounded proud of that. “How about I put together some nice warm tea and cake to break your traveling fast? The weather is cool enough to warrant hot tea, don’t you agree? Or do you prefer it cold?”

  The breeze up from the lake coming through the window held a nice chill that felt good after the dusty, hot travel, but it could indicate a cold night ahead. “Hot,” Janus said, nodding at the man. “Hot tea would be perfect.”

  “Yes, I agree.” He winked. “Until it gets around midsummer, and then it’s got to be cool tea.”

  Janus tilted his head and queried, “I understand the true heat of summer isn’t for another month or so?”

  “Indeed. If we get much heat at all.” The man motioned toward the hills behind the lake. “The mountains protect us a might, and we’ve been known to wear light sweaters even into the thick of the summer season. It’s hotter down in the city, I hear—no place for the air to escape. Not enough trees to help it breathe. Trees are wolf-god’s lungs, you see. And through them, he exhales life into all of us.”

  Such statements were to be expected in these parts. The mountain people were different from city folk. They held old-fashioned beliefs that even the Holy Church of Wolf hadn’t been able to stamp out—ideas about the inherent magic of the earth, trees, sun, sky, and water. They believed that each natural element lived in essential harmony with wolf-god’s children. The mountain folk scorned science as much as the conservative beliefs of the old Church. They had their own ways of being, living, healing, and birthing. These were beliefs Janus wanted to learn more about, if only so he could help the mountain people embrace the scientific discoveries of modern health care.

  “Now, unless you have questions, I’ll leave you to settle in. There’ll be tea ready for you in a jiffy. Just pop down. And dinner tonight will be pot pies at six, which isn’t long from now. The sun’s almost gone, isn’t it? Anyway, I expect we’ll have more to plan as far as a meal routine goes, especially once you’re deeper into your work with Dr. Crescent. But for now, you should settle in and relax.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  It didn’t take long to unpack his things. He hadn’t brought much. Janus chuckled under his breath remembering his personal beta servant, Wallace, begging him to please take another bag. “Surely, you’ll need your tuxedo, Mr. Heelies? And a good hunting jacket?”

  He’d told him that he didn’t imagine he’d require a tuxedo ever again with his new station in life. Nor would he be hunting much more than squirrel out this way, but even a more organized hunt for deer or wild turkeys wouldn’t be formal. No, in the mountains, they’d be more likely to wear threadbare dungarees and shirts that had long seen better days. Not that he’d been able to bring himself to actually buy dungarees despite knowing the mountains would undoubtedly ruin his current wardrobe in no time flat.