Taming the Night (Creatures of the Night Book 1)

by Tisha Wilson

  This sobered the men some. Suddenly she wasn’t just a fiery little woman that had decked the hard ass cop in town, but a dangerous criminal. A few of the men stepped up as if they might back him up, but Jerry pointed back to the bar. “Get back inside. If you follow me I’ll arrest you too.”

  This served to send every man back into the bar. He noticed in passing that Russ’s black Harley still stood in the parking lot. He didn’t have time to consider it as he hopped in his truck and sped out of the lot. He’d seen the direction she’d gone in and he’d thought that he’d have to haul ass to catch up with her but he had barely gotten started when he’d had to slam on the brakes once again.

  She had barely gone a mile and pulled off into the trees. He could see her bike back in the woods and he pulled off to park near her. He scanned the area and saw no sign of her.

  “What the hell?” he murmured as he looked for her.

  He got out of his truck and reached for the shotgun that occupied the gun rack behind the front seat. He turned to the woods and was suddenly very glad that the cast only covered his forearm and that he could steady the shotgun with little awkwardness. He waited for a moment and listened.

  It was quiet. Unnaturally quiet. The sun had already sunk behind the nearest mountain and there were only faint shafts of sunlight to illuminate the area. The trees made it seem much darker this far in the woods as well. Then he heard it. It was gut wrenching, the screech. It was like an animal and a human mixed up together. He had heard it before, in his dreams. He took aim and headed in the direction of the bar. He nearly ran smack into them as they came bursting out of the woods.

  His finger was a hair from pulling the trigger until he saw who it was. He dropped the weapon almost immediately. “What the hell was that noise?! What happened?” he demanded as he rushed forward.

  The mystery woman had one of Russ’s arms pulled over hers as she drug him out of the woods. Russ’s eyes were glazed over as if he had seen something terrifying. He was bleeding from the nose and mouth. When he saw Jerry he came awake and began to run towards him.

  “There’s something out there in the woods. Don’t go in there,” he screamed as he grasped the front of Jerry’s shirt and pulled him close. “The eyes. It’s their eyes. They’re like blood. It’s their eyes.”

  He was so big that he was nearly dragging Jerry up off the ground by the shirt. Jerry put a calming hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Okay big fella. It’s all right now,” he tried to calm him. He wasn’t afraid of Russ. He recognized that the big man was terrified.

  “No. You don’t understand man… They are out there. Those things… with big teeth… and eyes like humans and red, red like blood, like fire. They smell like death. You have to believe me. They’re out there,” he ranted as he began to shake Jerry a bit.

  “Calm down Russ and get a grip. I don’t want to have to hit you but I will if you don’t let me go.”

  Russ released him and stepped back before his eyes rolled back into his head and he dropped like a ton of bricks. Jerry was at his side instantly. He looked up at the woman who had her back to them, looking out to the trees as if she were prepared for another attack.

  “What happened to him?” he asked.

  “A bear attacked him and I saved him,” she lied. He knew that she was lying.

  “A bear?” he asked as he looked Russ over. He sure looked like he’d been mauled.

  “A bear,” she confirmed.

  “Well we better get him to a hospital,” Jerry said as he sat back on his heals.

  She scanned the woods for a few minutes and then lifted her nose as if she were sniffing the air. She nodded and turned back to them, swiftly descending on Russ. She turned him over on one side and then the other as if he weighed nothing more than a small child. She looked over every inch of him.

  “Generally the wallet is kept in the back pocket,” Jerry said as he watched her.

  She smiled up at him. “I’m not going to rob him shug, though it would serve him right if I did. Isn’t it illegal to hunt so close to town?” she asked.

  “Is that what the story is then? He was hunting and a bear came after him, and you saved his life?” he asked.

  “That sound good to you, no?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “Maybe. But it’s not the truth.”

  She shrugged, a hint of mischief sneaking into the corner of her mouth. “Who says it’s not? If you want to believe it, it will be true.”

  “If I want to believe it,” he confirmed. “Why were you checking him?”

  “I couldn’t have let you take him to the hospital if he had been bitten now could I?” she asked menacingly.

  Jerry’s heart hammered in his chest as he shook his head. “It wasn’t a dream then?”

  She watched him curiously and some shadow passed over her face. “Your life will be much easier if it was.”

  He nodded. He wasn’t stupid. He could read between the lines. He was standing at a threshold. It was a line and she was telling him that it would be better if he didn’t cross over into it. He looked down at Russ. How could he do that though? What if this happened to someone else when she left town? How could he protect people from this? How could he ever really forget?

  “The dream probably won’t come again if I leave town,” she supplied for him. He looked up at her wondering if she could read minds.

  “How can you be sure? Weren’t they… the dreams… here before you ever came?”

  She shrugged. “Some. But they probably won’t be back for a long time.”

  He thought it over for a minute. “Will you come to the hospital with me? Give me some time to think about it?”

  She stood up and looked towards the hills as if she were thinking hard. “The night time… it is the time for bad dreams to come to life. You run a certain risk having someone like me around. It would be better if I were gone but… I could probably wait a few hours at least.”

  “That should be enough time.”

  She nodded before she looked down at Russ. “It’s a shame the people they bite and the people they don’t… the bears I mean.”

  Jerry looked down and a shiver ran through him. What a fearsome monster Russ would have made. What am I thinking? That there are actually werewolves?

  Chapter Four

  Jerry was surprised to find his Uncle and another Officer waiting for them near his truck when they left the woods. They looked like they meant business. It had taken a hell of a lot of convincing for them not to take the female into custody right away. Jerry reminded his Uncle that she had been the one to help patch him up before she left the scene of the accident a week ago. He also mentioned the fact that she had saved Russ from a bear attack and he was still lying over in the woods. His uncle had looked her up and down, and she had stood resolute under his gaze, as if it didn’t phase her a bit.

  “Well. Aren’t you just Miss ‘in the right place at the right time’,” his uncle had commented.

  “I am just a model citizen,” she had shot back.

  She couldn’t have said anything more wrong unless she’d started talking about Victor Hernandez’s mother. He’d growled in disapproval and then sent a glare towards his nephew. “Do you want to press charges on her? In that case it wouldn’t matter what I’d said.”

  “No. You were right before. She did help me when she didn’t have to.”

  His uncle looked over at her again looking at the bare length of her long legs instead of her face. “I see. Now that you see her up close and personal, you have a sudden change of heart,” Victor said in disgust.

  “Uncle Vic. No need to be rude,” Jerry teased. “What would my mother say?”

  This cooled his uncle’s temper quickly. “You’re right. Ma’am,” he said as pleasantly as he could muster. He tipped his hat and stalked off angrily in the direction they had indicated Russ’s body laid. The ambulance arrived in short order. Jerry offered to go to the hospital and sit with the patient so that the officer could ge
t back on the road. His Uncle said that he would call DNR about the alleged bear and take the woman in for questioning.

  At her refusal of this Jerry had had to do some more fast talking. He knew there was a limit to controlling his uncle’s temper. He’d promised on pain of death to thoroughly question her. She smiled slyly at his phrasing of those words and he’d blushed a bit.

  “I’m sure you’ll do something thoroughly son, but the after conversation better contain some form of the words ‘accident’ ‘hit and run’ or ‘fleeing the scene of a crime,” his Uncle had growled before they’d driven off after the ambulance.

  Now, Jerry had her in the front seat of his truck, and couldn’t seem to string two words together. It was hard for him to think with her sitting so close. Needless to say he’d had more than one dream about the beautiful vixen. It seemed that every time he closed his eyes, she was there. He’d dreamed about her standing on the hood of his car in that skin tight leather suit, legs spread wide. He’d dreamed about her powerful thighs gripping that motorcycle. He’d actually dreamed of those thighs gripping more than her motorcycle.

  He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He needed time to think, to wrap his head around what had actually happened out there that night. He needed to separate reality from fiction. There was no way it could be real, yet here she sat. Living proof of what had happened. He snuck a glance at her and felt ice enter his overheated veins. Her eyes.

  They were the crystal brown of whiskey, yet he had seen them turn violet in the bar. People with hazel eyes sometimes had eyes that could change color with their mood, but there was no color that could look brown one moment and violet the next. Maybe he hadn’t really seen it. Maybe it had been the lighting in the bar.

  “So your uncle is a real hard ass, eh?”

  It took him a moment to process that she had spoken to him. “You just rubbed him the wrong way. He likes people who talk straight. He especially hates it when people who’ve done wrong are flippant about it.”

  “Did I do you wrong cher?”

  She crossed her legs and the motion almost seemed like a seduction. Her legs in those shorts… he forced his eyes back to the road. There wasn’t ice in his blood now. Now there was fire. All it took was her crossing her legs for him to stiffen? He hadn’t been like this since high school. Even then he didn’t remember any woman that could get him hard with the simple cross of her legs. He shook his head trying to clear it.

  “I could take you somewhere and make it up to you,” she said with a lick of her lips.

  “Stop it,” he growled.

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop that. You’re not going to distract me. I have some things to ask you and I can’t think straight with you doing that.”

  “Oh. I haven’t even begun to distract you yet, honey,” she said. One of her hands brushed down the length of his arm. His body tensed. She tsked.

  “Now who needs to calm down? Try to relax. I won’t hurt you… unless you want me to.”

  “I said stop that,” he growled at her again. She laughed.

  “Apparently your uncle ain’t the only one with a fowl temper mon cher.”

  “How do you know he’s my uncle?”

  “The threat you made about telling your mother on him. He’s too old to be your brother and you probably wouldn’t talk that way to your father. The way you regarded him made him an Uncle or a Cousin. You would have corrected me immediately if he wasn’t your uncle the first time I said it.”

  “So you’re a detective? With the FBI or the military or something?” he asked.

  “And what would make you ask that darlin’?”

  “I mean… I want to know what you’re doing here. I want to know what happened out there the other night, or if the other night was all in my dreams. If it was a dream, then how is it I know you, remember you? It was you I was chasing when that whole nightmare started.”

  “Oh. It was a nightmare, honey. You can be sure of that and I can also tell you that you were chasing me. Something did crash into your car and give you a concussion. I did patch you up and call an ambulance to tell them where you were. Your life will be much easier if that’s how you look at it.”

  “But the other… The animals… Are they real?”

  She sighed and sat back in her seat. He almost held his breath as he waited for her to confirm or deny it. He didn’t know how he’d feel if she denied it. Perhaps he could go on and pretend that it was just a dream if she’d just say that it was one.

  She finally spoke, but she didn’t say what he wanted to hear. “They are a nightmare too. And like a nightmare, they’ll probably sneak up on you in your dreams when you least expect it, especially if I stick around.”

  He was silent for a moment. That didn’t confirm or deny anything and he didn’t know if he could ask it again. “And what are you?” he asked instead.

  She looked over at him and he saw something in her eyes. Exhaustion. Maybe wariness. “Honey. I’m a nightmare too. And it would be best if you forget all about me.”

  He watched her. Was she saying she was one of them? Did she turn into one of them at night? But he had seen her at night, hell it was officially night time right now and she wasn’t one. If he recalled the dream correctly, she had rescued him. She had killed the creatures. He reached out and touched her arm. She felt real enough. The guard came back up over her face and she smiled at him.

  “Don’t start anything you aren’t going to finish, shug,” she said sweetly.

  He pulled his hand away in anger. He was tired of her throwing up her innuendoes to keep him at arms length. Even that kiss in the bar had been meant to keep him away from the truth. She wasn’t really interested in him and that was a real shame. She only wanted to distract him from the truth. Nothing more.

  They pulled into the parking lot of the hospital and found a space. He put the truck in park and turned to her. “What is your name?”

  “Al.”

  “Al…” he said and stretched it out, waiting for the rest.

  “Al… is short for Alicia. But I prefer Al,” she said before she opened the truck door and got out. He followed.

  Her bike was in the bed of the truck. He had pretended to help her lift it into the bed of the truck earlier, but in reality she had picked it up nearly by herself. It weighed down the bed of his truck. She plucked it out and sat it on the ground now as easily as if it were a bicycle. It had to weigh a few hundred pounds.

  He sucked in a calming breath as he watched one of her long legs swing over the tank and straddled the bike that should have been too heavy for her to hold up. She was going to kick the beast to life and ride off but he quickly went to her side and took her arm. She looked up at him with something dangerous on her face and he released her. “I need to talk to you. You said you’d wait.”

  She looked as if she were considering him. “I think you know everything that you can safely know,” she responded softly.

  “Is that a threat?”

  Her shoulders looked weighed down suddenly. “You don’t know… Sometimes the burden of knowing is more than we can bear. It isn’t safe for you to know what I know so I would say… forget about it.”

  “What if… I mean if they are real… what if they come back?”

  “They shouldn’t. Not for a very long time and if they did, someone like me will be back.”

  “Someone like you? You mean there are more like you?”

  “You better thank your lucky stars, mon ami. Why don’t you do this? You seem to need some time to think. Go check on the meat head, then come to The Blue Moon, room 301.”

  “The Blue Moon? Trying to catch a pet cockroach?”

  The weight lifted from her shoulders and she laughed out loud. Her smile was like a million watt bulb lighting up the darkness. A small dimple appeared in the right side of her face. “I think I could catch more than one pet cockroach out there. Take your time. Make up your mind about weather you really want to open this can of worms, because th
ere is no going back. I’ll wait until morning and then I’m gone. If I don’t see you… it’s been interesting.”

  She kicked the beast to life and sped off into the night. He would have to talk to her about driving the speed limit, at least while she was in Taming. He walked to the hospital and went up to see Russ. He filled out the proper paperwork for a bear attack and returned it to the station. He talked with his uncle about what she’d said with a bit of embellishment. Basically he said that she didn’t see who’d hit him.

  All the while he waited for some magic answer to come to him on weather he should go see her or leave it alone. After Russ’s family arrived, he even went to his house where it was quiet to try and think it out. What was he going to say? What would he ask that she hadn’t already answered? He knew what he should ask; he just didn’t want to acknowledge it. It came to a point where he had to either go to bed or get back in his truck.

  He went to the window in his kitchen and looked out into the woods. Images of those red glowing eyes flashed back at him. Without another thought he walked over and pulled the curtain shut. Would he ever be able to sit out there on his shift during the night and not fear what was in the woods? Could he pretend that he didn’t know what was out there? Most anything that he found out there in the night could be escaped by getting back in his cruiser or taking out his shot gun, but if he believed the dream…

  None of that would protect him. Nothing, not steal, not bullets, at least not any bullets he had… Could he take that risk? What if it came to trying to protect some kids who were out there in those woods having a bon fire or something? He wouldn’t be able to do a single thing to protect them. Jerry went to the door and grabbed his jacket from the hook. He was glad he didn’t have a cat or anything because he wasn’t sure that he’d ever be back. He gave one last look to his father’s house before he shut the door and locked it.