Animal Heart (Beast & Beauty)

by M, Jessie

My God, I really do have the power of command...

  She was coming to realise just how powerful her shifter abilities were.

  That was her gift.

  The gift of control. Of saving lives.

  If she'd known this, she could have made them all sleep in their beds at the ranch. This needn't have happened. None of it. She turned away from the bloodied body of Philomena and the grieving Mayor, and started to walk back to the truck, hoping to find and gather up some more of the others. A deep male scream and a loud snarling noise behind her caught her attention, and she turned. Shane had the Mayor by the leg. He'd dragged him off his wife's body and along the floor. The Mayor was shouting obscenities at him as he kicked at him wildly with his free leg. His fangs had already sunk deeply into his flesh, gnawing at him, blood appearing on his light colored pants.

  Fuck... He'd bitten the Mayor... Oh no, no, no... This was bad...

  “Go hide and sit,” she commanded, in panic. Shane dropped and abandoned his bloody feast very reluctantly. Judging by the vicious snarling look he gave her, as he shot away from the scene of blood and carnage, running fast along the shadows of the street. Her ears pricked up as another scream sounded into the night... Voices were shouting and a gun was fired...

  She had a last desperate idea, before any other human fell victim to the pack of ravenous werewolves, and her family were shot and destroyed. She had no idea how many were already dead... human or wolf... Her stomach churned with fear and worry.

  She looked around her. She could see no one. She stood mid street human and naked and shouted as loudly as she could, holding her arms up to the heavens, like Moses parting the waves of the Red Sea.

  “All wolves, follow me, in the shadows, quietly and unseen.” To her shock, the whole pack of werewolves revealed themselves, gathering from all directions in front and behind her onto the road. With a quick, unpleasant, and very angry look at her, they made themselves scarce behind her, obediently, and without a sound.

  She shifted and led them back, out of town, to the truck. She stood guard while they all piled inside it, one after the other. She counted them. All twelve were present. She shifted back to her human state and gathered up her ripped clothes, dressing as best she could.

  “We must go. Drive us home, girl,” she ordered to herself. She got into the truck, in the driver's seat, her shaky hands on the steering wheel. She turned the engine on and drove them all home, slowly. She breathed a huge sigh of relief when she delivered them all safely to the ranch and she got out.

  “Wolves inside and off to your beds, sleep until dawn,” she said loudly. They all trailed inside and she opened their doors. They jumped up, one by one, on their beds and fell instantly asleep.

  She returned to the reception desk and took out a sheet of paper and a pen and wrote down the all important words she had heard that night.

  “Cross of fire, water and earth, a holy union will end the moon's curse.”

  Then, finally exhausted, she went to his room. The Alpha lair. She was curious about something.

  “Change back to human form,” she said to his sleeping wolf. Nothing happened. That was one thing she couldn't control, their transformation was too ingrained in them. It was a physical part of their being. It seemed she could influence and control their actions and behavior only.

  But thank God for that. She lay down next to the sleeping Aden and gave in to her tiredness, sleep overcoming her like a drug.

  “All sleep until dawn...” she said once more with a final sleepy yawn. She didn't care who he was at that moment. She snuggled up, her small female human form against his sleeping inner raging beast. He was her raging beast anyhow, and seemingly, completely under her control.

  Aden awoke with a start, the pale glimmer of dawn beginning to shine through his window. He closed his eyes and concentrated as he began his transformation back into becoming human again. Once that was complete, he turned over and found Maddy lying next to him, watching him silently.

  “'Morning baby...” he said, dropping a soft and tender kiss on her mouth. “Did we all make it?” he asked her hesitantly, almost fearfully.

  “We're all present and safely home, tucked up in our beds,” she replied with a beautiful smile. Then a deep sadness crossed her face.

  “What...? What happened?” he asked her, his chest heaving, not really wanting to know, but desperately curious at the same time. He could be a mass murderer now. Any one of them could.

  Maddy took a deep breath and began, “Sergeant Stevens is dead… And the Mayor was bitten, quite badly. Other people may have been hurt.”

  “Oh fuck no... How did she die Maddy, was it you?” he asked her, feeling so badly for her as he remembered Cal's warning the morning before.

  “What? No! I was the one who managed to stop it all... Oh my God Aden, if only... if only I'd known what I could do earlier...” Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at him, obviously overcome with emotion at the memory of the horrific trauma she'd witnessed the night before.

  “Tell me everything, from the beginning... Everything you remember, no matter how bad, you must tell me,” he implored and coaxed her gently.

  He sat listening in awe as her tale spilled forth. How she'd watched them transform and swarm off together. Her blind attempts to stop the murder spree in Heart and gather them all up again. How she had accidentally stumbled upon her gift. He was overjoyed for her, for them, and for the ability she possessed, but also saddened by the death of the Sergeant, which she had to bear witness to, and so very violently it would seem. She wouldn't tell him who it was... Who had killed and who had bitten. That was her secret, she said. They were all to blame for it in a sense. No one member of their pack should carry that burden alone.

  “Jesus, Maddy... Mayor Stevens is going to be in a double state of shock,” he said slowly. And it didn't fill him with any kind of joy. The Mayor himself had been responsible for unleashing them on the people of Heart, through his unknowing, mindless determination to persecute them. But his punishment had definitely exceeded his crime, and he had a momentary sense of pity for him. That vanished as soon as it came, as the complications and future hate war became clear in his mind.

  Once Bill Stevens realised what he was, and everything fell into place, he would be facing a much darker and potentially very violent and evil enemy. A werewolf with a deep need for revenge. For his wife, for his townsfolk, and for himself. They'd turned him into a monster. And he'd know they were to blame. You could see others of your kind so easily, once you became. There was no hiding from him anymore. Their secret was out. It would have been better if the Mayor had died last night. Because before long, he might be wishing that on himself.

  “We need to get him alone, talk to him...” she said. “Maybe I can?”

  “Well there's not much else we can do, other than abandoning our ranch and leaving town.”

  “No, this is your home. Our home. He's not going to win this war. If he hadn't been so pig-headed about the ranch, none of this would have happened. He started the whole fucking thing to begin with,” she said, her voice growing louder with righteous anger. “I'll go to town and speak to him tomorrow. Let's give him a day to grieve and for his changes to begin. Then perhaps, I can reason with him. Take advantage of his fear and grief, somehow. I can explain to him what I am. That I'm different, and that I've learnt I can help. Because he's gonna need help. He's got no one to turn to, has he?”

  “Maddy, I don't think he'll want our help. We killed his wife, horribly.”

  “No Aden. He does. I just have to make him understand that.”

  “Well good luck. I don't think he'll be easy to persuade.”

  “For once in his life the damn stupid idiot's going to listen. To me,” she said, crossing her arms and adopting a steely-eyed, determined look, directed at him. As if to say, 'just you try and stop me'...

  “Sweetheart, come here... I'm all overcome with love and lust. What a wonderful bossy little shifter you are.”
<
br />   “Excuse me... I'm not bossy!” she objected.

  “Yes you are and thank God...” He pulled her towards him and kissed her thoroughly. Lust took them over. A desperate need for physical love and affection. He pulled off her torn clothes and kissed her heated body all over in a frenzy of wild desire.

  “Have I told you you're completely gorgeous?”

  “Aha...”

  “Let me tell you again anyway... you're gorgeous and edible and lickable...”

  “Mmmm, so are you, and very suckable too,” she sighed, sucking at his neck and ear.

  “And loveable... very loveable, right now in fact,” he murmured as he opened her legs and moved across her. His eyes held hers as he entered her wetness, and she squeezed at his hard cock, buried so deeply inside her, in pleasure. She let out an adorable, long, chest swelling, and breathy sigh of delight.

  “Boy, do I need a lot of your love. Life's been hard on me the last few days,” she whispered, taking his hands in hers.

  As he moved slowly inside her, kissing her face and soft warm lips, and she responded so beautifully to his every touch and thrust, his heart was lost forever. No one on this whole earth could make him feel this way. He loved her beyond love. It was a meeting of soul mates, destined to go on after death, he was certain of it. He'd never been one for feeling particularly religious before. But he suddenly did. She was a divine angel. His guardian angel.

  He flopped down on the bed, at her side, the both of them drowsy, satisfied, and warm. She turned her head to look at him, eyeing up his far too sexy and scruffy bed hair and overgrown stubble.

  “We should get up, the others will be wondering what went on last night.”

  “Let them wonder for a while longer, I feel some more love coming up,” he said, casting a glance at his rapidly growing erection.

  “Mmmm, honey you are completely amazing. How d'you do it so fast?” Her eyes glazed with renewed desire and she grasped at him with her hand, stroking him up and down with a very pleased grin plastered on her face.

  “It must be you. I've never had this fast a reaction before. It just won't behave itself when miss bossy boots is around,” he laughed.

  She pushed herself up, sitting astride him, and lowered herself onto his long length with a moan of satisfaction.

  “So, I'm miss bossy boots, am I?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye.

  “You'll pussy whip me into shape, I'm sure,” he grinned, flashing her with his eyes, sexily.

  She put her finger on his lips. “But you need a strong mate, don't you? And I never realised just how strong I was until I met you.” She bent and kissed him, her silky hair falling across his chest and shoulders and he grabbed handfuls of it. “One thing I'll never do is pussy whip you. Besides, you're an alpha male. You wouldn't let me dominate you like that.” She kissed his nose and his eyes and moved on him slowly... squeezing him tightly as she slid up and down his aching cock. Her hand slid around, caressing his tight balls softly as she rose and fell.

  “Ahhh baby, this is the kind of pussy whipping I like...”

  “Me too... Want some more...?”

  “Yeah, and keep it real slow like that... make it last a long old while,” he growled in her ear, releasing her hair and groaning with pleasure at the sight above him and the growing sensations he was feeling as he slipped deep inside her velvet softness.

  The pack gathered in the reception area and sat around them as Aden and Maddy explained what had gone down the night before. They asked lots of questions and she tried to answer them as best she could.

  After a while, she suddenly remembered the words Verity had spoken to her, which she'd written down the night before.

  “Just a moment,” she said, and left the room to collect them, returning a few seconds later.

  “One of you spoke to me at some stage. It was a weird thing... This is what was said. She repeated the rhyme out loud.

  “Cross of fire, water and earth, a holy union will end the moon's curse.”

  “Our curse can be lifted?” Sammy asked open mouthed.

  “I don't think it means the werewolf curse, just the full moon curse,” Aden added with a note of caution. “That's the initial impression I get, but then again, I could be wrong.”

  “What does it mean? Anyone got any ideas?” Maddy asked, looking around at the members of the pack, who were pondering what she had just said.

  “Well a holy union is a marriage, a wedding, a coming together in the eyes of God, and the other things are elements. Fire, water, earth... A flaming cross would be the fire element I suppose, but how this is combined with water and earth, I don't know,” Aden rambled, thinking aloud.

  “It's a ceremony. We flame a cross, douse it with holy water and then bury it in the hallowed ground of the church...” Charlene ventured.

  “It could be... Yes, it could be!” Aden replied, his eyes lighting up with a broad smile.

  “It doesn't sound all that holy to me... flaming crosses in the churchyard sounds just a touch satanic in my opinion," Maddy objected.

  “That's exactly the point. We are driving the bad side of ourselves away. Not welcoming it. Don't you see?” Aden said thoughtfully.

  “Perhaps. I'm not sure anyone else outside our pack will see it like that, but I'm willing to take a chance,” she pointed out. “So when do we do this?”

  “I'd say on the eve of a full moon. Tonight's the night. Who's up for a date in the churchyard at dusk?” Lucas asked with a touch of humor.

  “We're all going,” Aden replied, with a note of authority. “Apart from you Cal. It's your call man, I can't make you go.”

  “Jeez, are you fucking kiddin'? I wouldn't miss this for the world. Gettin' rid of any part of my curse is a big 10-4 in my mind. Although I would miss my wolf, I gotta say. He's a beast I've grown kinda fond of.”

  “Yeah,” Aden agreed. “But the full moon wolf, he's not something I'd miss for a minute.” They all laughed at this very obvious statement of fact.

  They discussed their intentions between them and came up with a plan. Thirteen small crosses were to be made from straw, dry tinder that would flame quickly. Verity and Jamie set about collecting the straw from the stable and making those. The holy water was a problem. How to get enough of it.

  “We should ask Reverend Porter to bless some bottles from the store,” Shane suggested.

  “Would he do that for us, being as we've never set a single foot in the door of his church for over five years?” Sammy rightfully pointed out.

  “Why not? Repentant sinners are always welcome,” Shane said encouragingly.

  “He might be just a little suspicious when we repent and hand him thirteen bottles of water though,” Maddy added.

  “Suspicious of what? We'll say it's for a holy pool or something, to bless the house and horses...” Shane continued.

  “We have to try, somehow. It's the only part we need any help with,” Aden concluded.

  Maddy spent the rest of the day making her dreaded phone calls and bursting into floods of tears each and every time. She spoke to her sister and her aunt, explaining what she'd done, and then cried again with the both of them as well. She'd finally had enough of crying by three in the afternoon. Her cheeks and eyes had been permanently wet for hours, and her chest shuddered with her overspent emotions.

  Shane made them a late lunch, cum early dinner, and they all sat down to eat together. To her surprise, Mia sat at her side and gave her hand a squeeze under the table.

  “Sorry I was such a bitch,” she said very quietly. She obviously wasn't into public apologies.

  “Let's forget all that stuff shall we?”

  “And I'm so sorry about your parents. Really I am.” She gave Maddy a deep understanding look. Maddy welled up again, and a tear broke free, dripping down her cheek.

  “Jeeezz, will it never end?” she snuffled, wiping it away with the back of her hand.

  “And I'm sorry I made you cry too,” she said in distress, her eyes
welling up in response.

  “Just stop being sorry for things and I'll be fine,” Maddy blubbered, taking hold of herself with a loud clearing of her throat.

  “I'm done with being sorry for now,” she agreed, and patted her hand.

  “How's things going with you anyways?” Maddy asked pointedly.

  “More than okay.” Mia smiled as she took a big mouthful of her chicken casserole and flicked her eyes up to Cal sitting across the table with a big grin on his face, watching her eat.

  “Keeping you fit is he?” Maddy giggled quietly in her ear.

  “That and other things... He's a bad, bad boy...” she whispered back and then smiled at him.

  “He is? As in how...?”

  “I couldn't possibly utter the words...”

  “Now I'm really interested...” Maddy looked at her with wide eyes.

  “Let's just say I've never been more thoroughly explored...”

  “Oh...” Maddy replied softly, a touch embarrassed at their sudden very intimate level of conversation.

  They drove to town that afternoon, at five. Sammy and Maddy went to the store to buy the water they needed, some other supplies for the kitchen, and a big box of matches. They stopped to chat with the storekeeper, the ancient, all knowing, and all seeing Miss Boyle. Apparently, Maddy had learned, Georgina Boyle would be able to throw some light on last night's death and destruction, if anyone could.

  “How are you Miss Boyle?” Sammy asked respectfully, with a cute and innocent little smile.

  “Keeping fine. Unlike some... Dreadful news, eh?”

  “I'm sorry, I don't understand? What's dreadful? We don't hear a thing being stuck out there on the ranch in the wilderness.” Samantha was such a good actress at times, Maddy thought to herself.

  “Just as well ya' don't... Not when the news is as bad as this. It ain't good, oh no... not at all. That'll be twenty two dollars exactly, Samantha my love.”

  “I'm quite alarmed... Miss Boyle, please tell us. What happened to 'some', that was so dreadful?” Samantha carried on, with a shocked look on her face. She was playing Miss Boyle's game perfectly. She obviously loved being the font of all knowledge and enjoyed making the townsfolk drag it all out of her, almost on their knees...