Mariette And The Cowboy (Western Night Series 2)

by Rosie Harper

  Visibly pleased, the man decided to give even more, pulling out almost completely, before jamming himself right back into her. Again and again he did this, faster, deeper, and more powerful than before, until all that the girl could perceive were the two of them, joined in one primal, glorious act of unity.

  With each thrust, the electric buzzing originating from Anya’s abdomen incrementally spread itself over and through her body, and in doing so, choked any traces of rationality that still ruled over her. Like an animal in heat, the girl growled as the shifter ravaged her mercilessly, asking for more in a way that spoke louder than words ever could.

  Reacting to the changes in her attitude, her silver-haired partner’s approach changed as well. The look of controlled passion he had up to that point soon gave way to another expression, more akin to that of a predator than a lover. Eyes wide and displaying an overly sharp row of white teeth, the man looked like he wanted to eat her as much as have his way with her.

  Perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad, Anya’s rational side managed to sneak another thought into her head, before the tide of sensation drowned it out again. Moment by moment, thud by thud, the pleasures she experienced grew more and more intense, until finally, everything faded to white, consumed by an orgasm most women only dream of.

  For a good while she floated like that, immersed in an unending tide of sensation, with only the vague shade of her lover to keep her company. Then, as the images and sounds became clear again, so did the person she made love with, only this time, he did not resemble a human being anymore.

  Hunched over her body, holding Anya by the waist, was now a massive, white-haired humanoid creature that resembled something halfway between man and bear. While obviously inhuman, the thing still appeared somewhat attractive, with its mostly human face, and fine, silvery hairs strewn over its muscled body.

  Speaking of muscles, they still contorted and strained, showing no signs of stopping or slowing down, as the beast still thrust and pumped its fully erect phallus in and out of Anya’s body. Shocked and awed as she was, the girl was in no shape to reach climax under these conditions, but the Great Bear Spirit apparently had no such problem. Within seconds of being sighted in this state, he exploded into her abdomen, roaring all the while.

  For a short moment, the bear-man grew larger, assuming a shape almost identical to the one he wore when they first met, before quickly shifting back into his human form. For a little while, the man seemed tired, but, having noticed the terrified expression of the girl’s face, he immediately resumed his pace.

  Initially unable to enjoy this second round, Anya’s instincts soon took over again, her attraction to this man overpowering all other emotions that vied for control over her. Over the course of seconds, her pleasure grew again, until it matched what she felt right before her previous orgasm.

  Hearing his Offering moan again, the Great Bear Spirit sped up even more, pummeling the girl’s insides like the merciless beast he was. You are mine, his body language spoke, and what is mine deserves a whole lot of this.

  Now shaking with every move, Anya could feel the coming of another climax, by the looks of things even more intense than the previous one. Like a shrieking snowstorm, it came without warning, leaving nothing behind but a pair of barely moving, exhausted bodies.

  “You,” he tried to say something else, but the sudden shortness of breath he was experiencing cut that sentence short. Forcefully, the man pulled out of her, causing yet another moan to escape the girl’s opened lips. “You can have this every day, you know,” he finally said, still gasping for air between every couple of words. “All you need to do is stay here with me.”

  Instead of answering, Anya merely smiled, displaying her own distinctly predatory grin.

  ***

  Serenely, Anya sat on the ledge of the open wall from the mountain palace’s main room. For well over three months now, every other evening began with a distinct ritual of hers: she would sit here and observe the villages, taigas, and everything between them. It offered a new perspective on place she grew up in, and with it came a distinct realization of how little she used to know.

  But now everything is so much different, the girl thought, letting her gaze fly over everything, from left to right. Medvedevo was somewhere to the far right, she knew, but locating it precisely was difficult from here. Everything appears so insignificant from up here, she pondered, as she did every day. Indeed, when she was up here, it appeared as if the only people in the world were her and Yegor. It was the two of them, the prey animals, and the endless white that surrounded them.

  Ah, Yegor, how you’ve changed my life, Anya mused, still trying to discern the exact place where she managed to best he so-called Great Bear Spirit in his own game. It was fun in its own way, running for my life like that, trying to bait him into that one place… the memories rushed into her head, exaggerated as always. The distance she had to traverse seemed greater, the wolves appeared more numerous... the bear more ferocious.

  Speaking of Yegor’s beast form, the girl had finally managed to get used to it. It took a good while, but at the very least, she stopped freaking out whenever he’d shift.

  “And I thought I’d never get over it,” she spoke aloud, enjoying the rippling effect the place lent to her voice. “In fact,” Anya continued, “I think I might be starting to enjoy it somewhat.”

  Turning around, the girl hoped to find her lover behind her, ready to pounce, as he sometimes did when he’d hear her talk to herself. Sadly, this time he was still out. It was his turn to hunt today, an event she abhorred but accepted as a necessity.

  “We both have to remain who we were before moving to the mountain palace,” she remembered him say to her a good while ago. “If we lose sight of what is, then what will be cannot possibly turn out well,” he would often comment as well. Although it sometimes led to less than amusing things, such as her spending every sundown alone and bored, it also made her amused in its own unique way.

  A wild bear and a philosopher, she chuckled while analyzing her partner. And he is all mine. The area between her legs started leaking at the very thought of the things he did to her, of the things he will do to her once he gets back. The village she was from was full of virile young men, but Yegor was on a whole other level. The endurance, the power, the raw sexual appetite of that wild beast… it was all overwhelming, but in the best possible way.

  There was also something else, Anya knew. A different kind of urge started growing inside of her, something similar to what she called her hunter’s instinct, but stronger and less rational. It was pure in a way, encouraging the actions that helped her survive, while discouraging those that were unnecessary. Along with all the skills she acquired earlier in life, it made hunting her prey laughably easy.

  With it, however, came a whole new set of complications. More and more often, the girl found herself waking in the middle of the night, restless and in need of something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. A long and hard pounding from Yegor would relieve that pressure, but it would always surface again, stronger and more persistent than before.

  It was only last night that the man who called himself the Great Bear Spirit decided to talk to her about it, having seen her bring down a brown bear with a well-executed combination of traps and spear thrusts.

  “I think you and I need to have a talk, he opened up the conversation the very second she showed up at the entrance, dragging her kill along on an improvised set of sleds. It always amazed her how well he could see from this high up, although she has been getting progressively better at it herself.

  “By all means, lover,” Anya responded with a smile, proudly displaying her bloodstained hands for the bear-man to see.

  Lured by the sight and smell of blood, the man approached her almost instantly, pressing his body to hers the way he always did when they met after a hunt. Even through the thick furs she wore outside, the girl could feel the bulging erection that he pressed against her body. That sensatio
n always evoked a smile, and today was not any different in that regard.

  Knowing what to expect, Anya planted a passionate kiss onto Yegor’s lips, signaling that it was time for a different kind of main course. His reaction, however, was something she did not expect. Slowly, the man distanced himself from her, giving her a clear but perplexing signal to follow him to the main room. Very confused, she cooperated, still not sure what it was that she did wrong.

  A bit less than a minute later, the pair was seated on their large, furry rug, facing and holding each other’s hands.

  “You are changing, Anya,” Yegor spoke, almost immediately after they took their positions.

  What the…? Is he growing bored of me?

  “Not in a bad way, mind you,” the silver-haired man replied before she had the chance to voice her protest, as if he knew exactly what was going on in her head. “I’ve seen what’s happening to you, and this is the only answer that makes sense. You are becoming like me. It is only a matter of time before you change.”

  Now more confused than worried, Anya merely stared into his eyes in disbelief, before finally collecting herself enough to form a coherent question. “Wait a minute, Yegor. Didn’t you say it was hereditary? We’re not related, are we?”

  “I don’t think so, my love,” slowly, he separated one of his hands from her own in order to run his fingers through her hair, before laying it back where it originally was. “Remember, the shifters that came here interbred with your ancestors. Not all of those Gifted people were related. It stands to reason that you descend from some of them. And now that you’re back in touch with your nature, your blood is pushing the change on you.”

  Anya was silent. Deep inside, she knew that he was telling her the truth.

  “But don’t worry,” Yegor interrupted her silence, “the first change is a marvelous thing. A whole new world opens up for you after you shift for the first time.” Now grabbing her hands tighter, the man practically exploded with joy “Love of my life, how happy you’ve made me!”

  It was nice, Anya mused, having mentally returned to her spot in the main room of the palace. Making him feel like that, giving him the hope of getting the kind of companionship he desired. Raising a child is one thing, she knew, but having a life partner who shares the same unique gift and curse that you do is probably an incredible feeling. I’ll have plenty of time to put that claim to the test, she told herself, barely able to contain her smile, but there was no need to rush toward anything. The change might come soon, or it might arrive later. It made no difference to her.

  Why strive for change when what you’ve got already feels perfect? The answer eluded her, but she did not care.

  THE END

  WESTERN/MAIL ORDER BRIDE BOOKS

  Forever With A Cowboy

  Mail Order Bride

  By: Avril Adams

  Forever With A Cowboy

  Lucy Granger, age five, smoothed down her best dress and watched with glee as Uncle Harlan married Aunt Daisy. To Lucy, there was nothing as fascinating as a wedding, and she thought that they had taken an extremely long time to get around to doing it.

  Everyone told her that she looked just like her father, which made her confused given the fact that she was a girl, but she never asked for an explanation. Sure, she had his hair, which often turned yellow in the sun, and his nose, if anyone paid attention to that, but she had her mother’s eyes, the same shade of green, so she thought that maybe her mommy should have some of the credit too.

  Mommy had told her that Uncle Harlan had used the newspaper to find Daisy, and they had spent a long time writing letters back and forth before they had decided to meet. Lucy thought that it was romantic, even if she didn’t really understand what romantic meant.

  She sat on her father’s shoulder during the ceremony and cheered happily when Uncle Harlan and Aunt Daisy kissed, and was finally quiet when her mother shushed her.

  Afterwards there was cake and dancing, and Lucy had all the cake she wanted, and danced happily with her father, mother, and of course Uncle Harlan and Aunt Daisy. Her eyes grew heavy as she allowed herself to be carried by her father; she rested her head on his shoulder and listened to the sound of the fiddle in the background, whilst the laughter of the bride and groom made her smile. Aunt Daisy had looked beautiful in her white dress, and it was then that Lucy made up her mind.

  “Mommy, Daddy,” she told them solemnly as they walked back to the newly constructed house on ranch property. “I think I’m going to find my husband in the newspaper, just like you did.”

  Lilah and Kyle exchanged looks. “Well, sweetheart, we didn’t exactly find each other in the newspaper,” Kyle said.

  “Although I do admit if it weren’t for the newspaper, we never would have met.”

  The two of them exchanged looks that made Lucy want to stick out her tongue at all the mushy feelings.

  “I don’t care, Mommy, Uncle Harlan did it to find Aunt Daisy, you found Daddy, and I’m going to find my husband.”

  She grinned at the idea of it. “I’m going to find so many husbands!”

  Kyle sighed as they entered their house, turning back to look at the festivities going on in the distance. He looked at Lilah who was trying very hard not to laugh.

  “She’s certainly going to be a handful when she gets older,” he said.

  “Yes I am!” Lucy replied.

  ****Thirteen Years Later****

  There were few things of which Lucy Granger was completely certain. One: her parents loved each other more than anything in the world. Two: her parents had met thanks to her mother answering a newspaper classified ad looking for a bride, and three: if she was going to find a love like theirs, the best way to do it would be to try her own advertisement.

  Her mother was not very enthusiastic about it.

  “You’re being ridiculous,” she told Lucy, who was perched on the edge of her kitchen chair, leaning over the morning paper with a pen in her hand and a look of determination on her face. She was eighteen then, old enough to be seriously searching for her husband, at least in her opinion.

  Lucy’s mother put her hands on her hips and frowned about the entire situation. Lucy personally didn’t understand why it bothered her so much, given that was how she had met Lucy’s father.

  “It wasn’t exactly like that,” Lucy’s mother would always insist. She wasn’t listening, however, instead she turned to her best friend, Mary Gibson. When her parents and her had moved to town several years earlier, Lucy had been devastated to leave the ranch where she had been born and raised, but the hustle and bustle of the town had been so exciting for a girl of seven, that she realized that she deserved to live in a town such as this. She deserved the excitement.

  Moving to the town also gave Lucy the opportunity to go to college, something that she had never actually considered; she had always taken the fact that her mother would teach her for granted. The idea of schooling terrified her, that is, until she walked to the small schoolhouse and took the only empty seat available: the one next to Mary. They had been best friends ever since.

  Lucy’s mother lingered in the kitchen while Lucy and Mary poured over the classified section, looking seriously for the man that she was going to stay with for the rest of her life. Mary, of course, was not so secretly of the same opinion as Lucy’s mother, but being Lucy’s best friend also meant taking Lucy seriously in matters of the heart, so she was along for the ride for better or for worse.

  Mary was lucky; of course she was already practically married to Jed Bunting, the son of a rancher several miles out of town. They made a handsome couple with Mary’s strawberry blonde hair, clear blue eyes, and Jed’s all-American handsome blond looks. They were the couple that everyone wanted to be and because of that, Lucy knew that Mary would never understand. Mary was clearly in love so how could she know what it was like to be Lucy, a girl who was already eighteen years old and had never kissed a boy? She had seen Mary and Jed holding hands and taking long strolls just out
side of town. She had seen Mary’s face when Jed would leave to go back to the ranch, the longing that was there. Everyone was expecting a wedding before the end of the summer, and in spite of her on-going loneliness, Lucy was happy for her friend.

  She, of course, had given it a fighting chance when she was younger; trying to dance with boys at holiday socials, but had never found a single one that she would have liked to kiss. It just didn’t seem to be working out for her very well. She liked to blame her parents for this, their obvious happiness had always cast a shadow over her potential romances, and often bitterly wished that her parents hadn’t lived such a fairy tale.

  It was not that she didn’t appreciate the love that her parents, she just wished it were a little easier to come by.

  With renewed vigor, she focused hard on the paper in front of her. Mary pointed at a classified ad in the paper and grinned.

  “What about him? He seems nice.”

  Lucy studied words of the advertisement and then turned to her friend.

  “Are you kidding? He’s old! He has children!”

  Lucy’s mother looked up from the bread she was baking with a stern expression.

  “There’s nothing wrong with a man with children, Lucy. It means he’s a good provider who wants to find a mother figure for his children.”

  Lucy stared at her mother in disbelief. “You think I would be a good mother for children?”

  Her mother laughed. “I suppose we’d see when you’re older.”

  Well, for Lucy, she didn’t like that at all. How could she be a mother when she was still a child herself? She didn’t want some older man who had already experienced love and marriage; but wanted a nice man, closer to her age, willing to experience everything new.