She took an unsteady step back. Her legs trembled. Afraid she would fall if she turned to run, she continued her slow, steady retreat. The creature matched her step for step and soon, she backed up against the base of a gnarled old oak.
Oxygen burned her lungs as she took a deep breath. “What do you want?”
A low growl rumbled out in response. Molly gulped. Nervous perspiration rolled down her spine. The heat in the garden was unbearable. She wiped her hands on her shorts but her palms were damp again a moment later.
“I know what you are. You’re not allowed to come after me like this. I didn’t break any rules or take any power that didn’t rightfully belong to me. I’m not like my mother.”
Molly was proud of the strength in her voice. Hearing herself speak seemed to ground her. The muscles in her legs stopped shaking. Carefully, she slipped her feet from her sandals. The rich, warm earth was moist from a thunderstorm that had passed through the night before and her toes curled in the soil. Grounded, she drew herself to her full height.
“I don’t give you permission to be here.” She shoved away from the tree and made a run for her trailer.
The pop culture of the late twentieth century had it half right. Some creatures could be forbidden access on the grounds of a simple statement of unwelcome, but it was demons, not vampires, who were subject to the power of an individual’s will.
And it depended on the person’s strength of conviction. As Molly raced through the garden, past the thorny berry bushes that scratched her arms and legs, she could hear the thing panting behind her and knew she’d failed to banish it. The image of its rough maleness lingered in her mind’s eye and, Fate help her, some dark part of her wanted.
The wanting was why she didn’t mess with blood magic. Her mother had succumbed to the demons that delivered it, and she knew she was just as weak as the woman who’d borne her. As she sprinted for the sliding glass doors at the back of her trailer, she cursing Ian North and the night he’d come to her, the night he’d broken the seal around her soul and, by making her want, had opened the door to let the demon in.
She felt its breath on her neck as she flew up the steps. Her feet pounded across the porch. She never locked the sliding doors but the screen always stuck on its tracks. Sobbing, she wrenched it open with muscle and willpower. The porch rocked with the impact of the creature’s weight. Its reflection loomed in the glass and then it barreled into her back with the force of a steam train. They crashed through the door, shattered glass spraying out like a cloud burst.
Molly screamed and threw up one arm to protect her face while thrusting out the other to break her fall. The creature didn’t let her hit the floor. It grabbed her wrist and whipped her around. As it did, she saw the blood.
Rivulets of it ran down her arms to pool in the crooks of her elbows, but it wasn’t only hers. The crimson river that flowed through her mind was all his. Gasping, she tried to separate reality from magic but it was no use. She was numb, insensible to everything but the backlash of blood magic severed before its time. Its resonance vibrated inside him.
But she wasn’t completely out of it. She could still hear just fine, both the echo of anguished howl in her mind and the hungry, angry growl of the creature who held her shackled with his huge, misshapen hands. His claws punctured her wrists like spikes. It must have been painful, should have torn screams from her throat, but the numbness. Thank Fate for the numbness.
“Need you,” he snarled, the first word that hadn’t come out garbled and gravelly. They shook her loose from the shock. An ache started to throb through her arms as she dragged her gaze from the blood and up the broad, furred expanse of chest.
He was heavily muscled. Roped with it, more monster than man, and even though his form was bent and twisted, he loomed over her. Up and up, she processed his appearance with a growing sense of horror that peaked when she reached his eyes. They should have been something hellish, red-hot chips of coal or empty black hollows or anything.
Anything but the gray-blue gaze she remembered as pained but steady. His eyes weren’t calm anymore but they were still human.
So very heart-breakingly human.
“North?” She whispered.
He shook her arms. The dull throb escalated to burning pain. She bit back a cry.
Calm. Someone had to remain calm. Sucking a deep breath, and then several more, she reached into her center, searching for something to steady herself. She didn’t find the anchor until she met his gaze again. “Okay.” She swallowed. “It’s going to be okay. Just tell me what you need.”
His massive hands flexed, pushing his claws deeper into her flesh. This time, she couldn’t swallow a shriek. He met her pain with a truly terrifying growl but then he slowly retracted his claws.
As his grip eased, her blood pumped faster. It dripped onto her glass-littered kitchen floor. They both looked down at the blood. North groaned. She jerked her eyes back to find him clutching her arm, his face centimeters from her slick flesh. His lips peeled back to reveal the needle-like fangs of a vampire, not the elongated canines of a werewolf.
Her mouth fell open. At her shocked sound, he whipped his head up. Wild eyes searched the room behind her. Stiffening, he jerked her close and let out a low snarl. A moment later, she heard the rumble of a car’s engine.
Isabelle.
“You can’t be here.” Isabelle would light North up like a Christmas tree.
“Hide,” he ground out.
“I don’t think hiding will be good enough. You have to go. Come back when…what are you doing? North?”
Dropping her arms, he caught her around the waist and dumped her over his hard shoulder. The impact knocked the wind from her lungs.
Breathless and nauseous, all she managed was a wheeze as he spun, ducked through her splintered door frame, and took off at a lope. The black ground sped past. In this form, he might look like a lumbering ox but he was as fast as the wolf that had wrongfully claimed him. A few miles from her trailer, there was a river that cut through the county. It originated with a larger tidal river and ran through the marsh before continuing its path south. Molly guessed he was heading for the river but didn’t know which direction he’d take from there. The marsh was werewolf country but the tidal river flowed through several towns and saw heavy boat traffic.
It didn’t make any difference where he was going. He had her and the way his fingers dug into her bottom, he wasn’t letting her go. At first, it was all she could do to keep her stomach under control. She was still bleeding, dizzy with motion and pain and even though he held her securely, she couldn’t shake visions of a broken neck.
Worry for her neck became terror of drowning when he splashed knee-deep into choppy water. Something whitish bobbed with the tide. Sea nettles. Their sting should have been the least of her concerns but she hated the damn things. Closing her eyes to block them out, she dug her hands into his fur and swallowed bile.
Maybe she blacked out. One moment she was working herself into a panic over drowning in a stinging mass of tentacles and the next, she sprawled on her back in the deepest dark she’d ever experienced. North pressed her down against hard, damp earth. She couldn’t breathe.
She coughed and brought her hands up between them. His fur was coarse between her fingers, his body hard beneath the deep pile. “This…madness. Suffocating me…off. Get. Off.”
His harsh, panting breath slowed.
“North,” she repeated.
He lifted his weight off her chest but continued to pin her with his lower body. “Hide. Spell. Hide me. I hunt.”
“I…okay.” She of all people knew about hiding. She took a deep breath of the air. It smelled like blood and animal. “I’ll help you, but you have to let me up.”
He lifted his weight. After a moment to fill her lungs, she rolled onto her side and then her knees, using her arms as little as possible. North moved away, but that only made her feel like she was alone. Reaching out, she felt along his arm to his
hand. His claws scraped her skin but she held tight.
“Okay,” she said again. “Can you change? I’m going to need more than single words to figure out what’s going on and how to help you. Bandages, too. I definitely need those. Don’t suppose you have a first aid kit squirreled away in this hidey hole?”
“No change. Stuck.”
“Stuck…in this form? Stuck stuck?”
“Stuck,” he confirmed.
“What happened?”
“You.”
She frowned. “Me? What did I do?”
“Stuck...you…” His garbled voice twisted into a vicious snarl that could have been a repeat of stuck or could have been something else.
Molly swallowed, dread twisting her belly. “I saw your teeth…they’re not werewolf fangs. How?”
“Bit,” he spat.
Her mouth went dry. She couldn’t even wrap her mind around the biological changes of a werewolf’s system blending with a vampire’s. “So it was you with the Jeffers’ cow. You were feeding.”
“Tried...starve. Turned into animal. Beast.”
Yes, he would have tried to starve the vampire he’d become. With her assistance, he’d done similar to the wolf.
“Kind of like now?” She ventured.
His silence said plenty. She sagged against the cave wall. “You need to feed. Your wolf and vampire are probably fighting each other but can’t work out which one is dominant.”
“No.”
Molly blew out a frustrated breath. “Why not?”
“No,” he snarled.
“A vampire heals its victim’s wounds,” she ventured, trying something different. “I’m bleeding. I don’t have an endless supply. Pretty sure you didn’t hit an artery, by some miracle, but, still bleeding. It doesn’t feel like its clotting. Can you take care of it?”
She thought he would refuse, so it was a shock when he uttered one of those groan-curses, grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her close. Off-balance, she fell against him.
Surprisingly light, his touch coasted down to her elbows. He lifted her arms at an awkward angle. Something coarse and then velvet touched her skin.
“Are you licking me?” She squeaked.
“Nnnn.”
Nnnn? What was that? A no? A yes? Molly gulped. “North?”
Pressure at her wrists, warm and wet. Definitely his tongue, right up until it was more than that. He closed his mouth over her flesh and sucked.
Heat flared from the flame inside her. She gave an instinctive jerk. He held firm. The rhythmic pull of his mouth weighed her down, felt like being wrapped in thick chocolate—sweet, dark, sinful but at the same time, too good to stop.
With a rough sound, he transferred his strange kiss to her other wrist. Through the entire harrowing ride over his shoulder, she hadn’t reached the level of lightheadedness that claimed her now. Phenomenally rich chocolate or not, he had to stop. She pulled at his hold. North growled and cinched his grip. The air in the cramped cave grew thick, almost too thick to breathe. He was changing. She didn’t need her eyes to understand that.
Werewolves weren’t magic in the strictest definition maintained by her kind but Molly had seen enough in her twenty-four years to know witches didn’t have the market cornered. Whatever it was that grew and fed a were’s animal, whatever it was that gave a vampire life outside of death was more than science. As the energy of North’s change wrapped around her, writhing and squeezing, her certainty grew.
She opened herself to his mysterious essence, took it in and tried to memorize the dark music in case she never had the opportunity to hear it again.
By the time the savage notes drifted away, she felt depleted, raw. She sagged against an earthen wall, panting right along with him.
Time passed while their breathing slowed. Trying to see him in the pitch dark was futile so she closed her eyes and pictured him as he was on a hot, muggy night three summers before. It wasn’t hard. That night had smelled of earth, blood and animal too, although back then, the sensual perfume of roses in June had lent an otherworldly softness to the situation.
He broke the silence with a ragged groan. “This is the first time I’ve been in my human body in…”
“A week,” she supplied when he trailed off. “At least that’s my guess. I felt the magic shatter.”
“A week exactly?”
She shrugged. “Eight days, I guess. Or eight nights. I didn’t expect to see you again, you know.” She hugged her knees as she recalled him down on his. A man then, but no less twisted. Then, the damage was all on the inside. All of it except the raw, bloody bite that had torn his flesh and opened the way for a wolf.
“You wouldn’t have.” His voice was still rough, as uneven as the scar he must have now.
“Except?”
“It took me two years to find my creator. I was finally close, I could smell him and it wasn’t all in my head. I could feel his heart beating between my teeth. But then…” He trailed off on a snarl of fury.
Molly licked her lips. She’d known about his intention to find the werewolf who’d bitten him and destroy the guy so he could become human again. What had become of that plan? “Tell me.”
“I got into a bad hunt and I lost. The vampire bit me and the fucking wolf busted out. It must’ve swallowed blood while tearing into the vamp.”
“Do you think that’s what caused the…” She gestured at him, unable to come up with a word that wasn’t insulting.
“The beast form?” He supplied. “Yes. They’re fighting each other, neither of them strong enough to gain complete control.”
“But you’re human now. Because you fed?”
“When I satisfy the vampire’s hunger, it takes over, but the wolf burns energy faster than the vamp and then it wants to eat. I didn’t take enough from you to make a difference for long.” Frustration made his words sharp. “The wolf’s out. I can’t lock it down for long. I’m taking down a deer nearly every night. Last night, I couldn’t find one.”
“The Jeffers’ cow?”
“Yes. Can you lock the wolf up again? The alternative is I start feeding on people in order to keep the vampire strong enough to control the wolf. I don’t know I’ll be able to stop before I kill a human, Molly. You have to help me with the wolf.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it again. The wolf will know what’s coming. It knows my tricks.” She spread her hands helplessly. “I don’t know if I can help you. Even if I can corral the wolf I don’t think it’ll be permanent.”
“Idon’t need permanent. I’ll take as long as you can get me. But, that isn’t all I need.”
Her thoughts strayed back to the sensation of his mouth on her skin and desire thrilled through her, followed quickly be fear. She swallowed. “I’ll keep you…the vampire satisfied, if that will help—”
“No. I’ll manage the monster myself if you can’t put it behind bars again. That isn’t the only reason I grabbed you. I saw that trick you pulled earlier. You weren’t there one minute, and the next, you were. Give me that. Make me invisible.”
She bit her lip. “Invisible isn’t really the right word.”
“What is? I know you were hiding somehow. I was staring right at the spot you were standing. I saw it empty, and then I saw you.”
“It’s a form of shadow manipulation combined with herbal repellant. I’ve never tried to create the effect on anybody else. I don’t know if I can here. I could make do without my tools, but I need my garden.”
“You don’t have those. Figure out another way. I need this, Molly. The werewolf that bit me is within my grasp. If I can catch him, I can kill him.”
“And you’d be free of your wolf.” She closed her eyes. He would do whatever it took to liberate himself. “We need to go back to my house.”
“Try here first. There’s an entire wilderness at your disposal. If you need plants, you’ll find them here.”
“It doesn’t really work that way,” she muttered, but didn’t ar
gue further. What was the point?
“I believe in you.” North took her hand and drew her to her feet.
Her chest warmed and tightened at the simple declaration and she found that she believed in him, too. If he claimed he had a way to free himself, she couldn’t doubt him. Neither could she stand between him and his goal. He hadn’t earned the werewolf curse. His soul wasn’t meant for an animal’s savagery.
“What happens after the wolf is gone?” She asked. “You were bitten by a vampire and turned. You won’t be free.”
“I don’t know.” He guided her hands to a ladder.
Unable to bear the torment in his voice, she changed the subject. “What is this place? I thought it was a cave.” The wood slats of the ladder were rough beneath her palms.
“It’s a root cellar. I’m going up to check things out. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to follow.” He started to climb.
“When it’s safe?” She reached out to grab him and caught his thick, muscular calf. The hair was both silky and rough against her fingers. Touching him sent a zing of awareness through her. She quickly drew her hand back. “North. What exactly are we running from?”
“I’m not running,” he growled. “I’m hunting.”
“Fine, you’re hunting. But your prey is hunting you right back,” she guessed.
“Yes. Wait for me.”
She didn’t have much choice because he pushed through a hatch door and then immediately dropped it back into place. She scrambled up the ladder after him and tried to shove the door open but it didn’t budge. He’d locked her in. Molly started to shake. It wasn’t the dark. She didn’t fear the dark, she used it. Small, tight spaces, though. Her heart started to pound as her thoughts spiraled free.
There was a reason she’d mistaken North for a demon back in her garden. She’d faced down demons before, knew what they were capable of and what doors ushered them into the mortal world…and she wasn’t sure she’d really gotten away with employing blood magic to help North contain his wolf. Nothing had come for her so far, but she didn’t for a second forget what could come of tapping into the dark energy. How could she, after the price her mother had paid?
Taming the Vampire: Over 25 All New Paranormal Alpha Male Tales of Contemporary, Military, Shifters, Billionaires, Werewolves, Magic, Fae, Witches, Dragons, Demons & More Page 103
