Taming the Heart (Creatures of the Night Book 2)

by Tisha Wilson

  This time he responded in kind with threats of bodily harm, telling the other hunters that this was not a game. He explained the situation and then got no replies for a long while. He waited. Finally Rajah Manikin from the Iraqi providence responded.

  Tiger Hunter: Your mentor in training, that Stone woman, has been here for a few months following some human. She has checked in with me a few times, but not your other mentor.

  Norse Hunter: Thanks. Tell her that I need her or Bateman here in the North Eastern territory on the North American continent. I will owe you.

  He left the computer on. Rajah was two hundred years old and a lot more mature than some of the others. He would take the matter seriously, especially when there was an innocent in pain.

  He stood up and went to the refrigerator in the little kitchen in the corner. He took out a bag of blood he stored here in case of emergency. It was stale and disgusting compared to the real thing, but up here in these woods it could be a long time before he saw a human. That plus people might start to put things together if he fed on the local population. He was one of the few hunters that actually set up a residence for that reason.

  After a thousand years, living rootless and on the road had very little appeal for him. He liked to enjoy the comforts of a home now and again. He went to the record player that sat on a shelf built into the wall and set Chopin to playing. He then went to the couch and sat in front of his lap top. He punctured the bag with his fangs before retracting them and sucking at the fluid.

  He made an ugly face before he hurried to finish it off. Setting the bag aside he exhaled and sat back, sinking into the couch. If the woman moved again he would hear it, but it had taken a lot of energy to collect his face… twice, and fix his broken shoulder blade. She was bound to be much rougher once the fever set in so he might as well rest while he could.

  * * *

  Miranda rolled over and took a moment to focus. It was daylight outside. It was hard to tell from the little bit of light streaming through the window. She took a deep breath as she threw the covers back. It was warm in the room and… Something, some scent, filled her nose and hammered her in the chest. It had woken her from a deep sleep.

  She pulled at the robe’s belt and allowed it to fall open. Her skin was on fire. She needed something. She wanted something. Pulling her arms free she began to writhe in the center of the huge mattress. Some part of her brain acknowledged that she should be concerned about her arm or the fact that she could move her legs, but she wasn’t concerned at all. She needed something. She needed it so badly.

  She touched her breast and ran a hand over her midsection down between her legs. What was happening to her? She had felt desire before, but never like this. The door slammed open and she looked that way. He filled the door frame once again but she had no fear this time. It was a wicked realization. He was the something she needed.

  *

  Braden woke suddenly from a deep sleep. The female was awake. Her heart rhythm was different. Something was happening. Without meaning to at all he rose from the couch. It was as if he was in some sort of a trance. He acknowledged the fact that he was leaving his weapon on the floor next to the couch where he had fallen asleep, but he couldn’t make himself go back for it. He was sleep-walking.

  “Stop this,” he said to himself, but his body continued to move.

  His own heart sped to a deafening pace. Blood rushed to his head and to other regions of his anatomy. The sound was like a freight train in his ears. He reached the door and pushed it open almost savagely.

  “I said stop this,” he commanded his body yet again. He stood in the doorway and looked towards the bed. His blood ran cold for a second before it ran hotter than ever.

  The woman was lying in the center of his bed. She had pulled open his robe and was writhing in all her naked glory. Her body was small yet athletic. She was grabbing one perky breast with one hand and her other hand was working between her thighs. He grew so hard it was nearly painful. He grabbed the door frame and dug his heels in, fighting the urge to go to her.

  She watched him with a hooded gaze before she opened her legs further. He saw the blond curls that resided in the junction of her legs. They were moist and wet and ready. Her legs were completely open and she looked at him as she stroked herself.

  “I need you,” she said in her soft way.

  He swallowed hard. What the hell was happening? “I… I… can’t.” His mouth was dry as his arms shook with the effort of holding back.

  “You can,” she countered as she allowed one of her fingers to dip inside herself. He could smell her, almost taste her. His mouth wasn’t dry anymore. Now it was watering. Desire slammed through him once again. He was hard pressed to remember why he shouldn’t.

  “You are going to turn, and when you do… you won’t forgive this…”

  “I will. I will give you what you want. Whatever you want if you will just… please,” she pleaded.

  “No,” he objected and held on to the door.

  The wood began to give before he released it. He strode over to her quickly and hovered at the edge of the bed. She held her arms out to him, open and inviting and it was beyond his control to hold back. Something outside of him was pulling him down over her. He pulled off his shirt, boots and pants with barely a thought before he knelt between her legs. His fangs descended as well.

  “What kind of madness is this?” he asked out loud before he lowered himself to her.

  *

  She felt the weight of him settling over her and welcomed it as she lifted her arms to circle his muscular shoulders and then cased his hips with her legs. She lifted herself to him and it seemed at the moment their joining was inevitable.

  He was going to release her, from what she had no idea. She threw back her head and pulled his hips up against her until he was nearly inside her, touching her, pressing at her entrance. Finally… finally reality set in. A moment of doubt. He was so big and she was so tiny. He would hurt her. She released his shoulders and pushed at him. Something in her switched off and all the heat drained from her. She didn’t move, didn’t dare to. He was just a moment away from penetrating her. She could feel his hardness pressed up against her. She was still moist but the fear was overwhelming. Her legs went limp suddenly and shockingly.

  She cried out as she looked down at her legs. She couldn’t feel them anymore. She wasn’t connected to them anymore. They were just… gone. She felt his arms shake as he hovered above her, fighting his own personal battle. What had she done, calling to him like that? Pleading? He had kidnapped her, taken her from the scene of an accident against her will. Now he was going to… she had lost her mind from the stress. That was what had happened. She whimpered as he continued to press against her soft core with his hard flesh.

  Control came back to him swiftly with that small wounded sound she made. He rolled from the bed and pulled his pants on before running a hand through his loosened hair. He looked as if he were shocked and embarrassed that it had gotten free. He grabbed a rubber band from the bed side table and tied it back into a ponytail. He appeared to take a moment to compose himself, to bring his body back under his own control.

  “Put on some clothes and meet me in the kitchen,” he commanded before he picked up the rest of his clothes and headed back towards the kitchen.

  She stared at that beautiful retreating back and was stunned for a moment. He was drop dead gorgeous with golden hair a mile long. What had she expected, that he would just fall on her and ravish her? He could probably pick up any woman in any bar in the US and have his way with her, but then why had he kidnapped her? Why had she called out to him? Why had he come to her? Why had she been able to wrap her legs around him?

  Why why why why why? There were so many questions to be answered. Was she still dreaming? Had the whole damn thing been a dream? She pinched herself and flinched. It wasn’t a dream. She then looked at her arm. It was… healed. There was no sign that she had ever been bitten. There was no s
ign that it had been stitched. In fact she didn’t even feel the pain of it at all.

  She moved the fingers of the formerly broken arm easily. Before she had too much time to dwell on the impossible, like her legs healing, and her having shot the man’s head nearly clean off for it to have healed nearly the next moment, she sat up. It was too much to think about. She grabbed the strap of her overnight bag and drug it up to herself from where it sat on the floor. She pulled on some underwear and jeans with a t-shirt that said I love kittens.

  She combed the many tangles from her hair, shocked at how easily the comb passed through it. Not once had it been this easy for her to comb her wavy sometimes curly hair. She lifted the ends and looked at them. They were not split. They were healthy. They were almost… vibrant. She shook the thought away. It was not possible. So she was having a good hair day for the first time in nearly thirty years. It was about time. She pulled it into a ponytail and then reached for her chair.

  Apparently her kidnapper had left it within reaching distance for her, which was… nice of him. She used her upper body to pull herself in to the chair before she looked down at her legs. They seemed to be… healthier than she remembered. It had been so long since she’d actually walked on them that they had previously been little more than skeletal.

  She went through her therapy and sat in the tub meant to keep circulation flowing into the limbs, but she had been told nine years ago that there was no hope that she would ever walk again. Looking at her legs now, however… they looked like real legs. She stared at them long and hard, willing them to move again. All she felt was the phantom legs which kicked about freely while her real legs stayed still.

  She sighed before she could allow the devastating crush to fall completely on her. If she remembered the dream where she had run free and wild, she might drive herself insane, if she hadn’t already gone off that deep end. But she hadn’t imagined it. She had used her legs to wrap around him this morning. She wheeled herself towards the area of the large living room that was the kitchen. It was a simple table with four chairs, a fridge, and a stove with a few shelves.

  All the appliances were black and the table was an old plank table. She looked around at the room more fully than she had yesterday. There were no pictures on the log walls. There were no flowers on the marble slab that was the coffee table. The marble was a brown color like earth. It was quite beautiful by itself without any adornment. There were heavy plaid drapes on the windows. They were brown and an earthy green. There were a few shelves set into the wall as an entertainment center. He had a flat screen TV and…

  “Is that an old record player?” she asked spying the old fashioned thing.

  It had to be an antique. He grunted in response and she noticed what he was doing at last. He was trying to dislodge some corn beef hash from a can into a waiting skillet. She blinked in surprise. He couldn’t be cooking for her. He must be hungry himself.

  “I can mix us up some eggs if you like.”

  “No,” was his curt reply.

  She rolled over to the table and moved a chair out. She pulled herself up into the chair and leaned on an elbow as she watched him. He worked quickly and methodically, cleaning behind himself as he went. He broke some brown eggs that he had pulled from a hanging basket and broke them into a skillet. She waited. He loaded only one plate with food and her stomach rumbled in protest.

  So this was to be his torture. He was going to eat in front of her and leave her to starve. She could have stayed in the bedroom for that, but she kept quiet. She had no desire to anger him, who knew what he still had in store for her.

  To her shock he sat the plate before her and then sat opposite her. She looked at the pile of food and then back up at him. He gave her a steady gaze before he looked down to her food. “You are not hungry?”

  She shook her head and looked down at the food. What if he was trying to poison her? Her stomach growled loudly. She couldn’t recall the last time she had eaten. A fork appeared beside her plate before she could think to ask for one.

  “You’re not going to eat?” she asked again quietly looking up at him. If he would eat some then she could dig in.

  “I already ate,” he responded evenly.

  She nodded before she grabbed her fork. What choice did she really have? She was starving, besides, if he had meant to kill her, she would already be dead twenty times over. She shrugged and began to eat. She wasn’t going to wait for him to change his mind. She rolled her eyes as the buttery flavor of the eggs hit her tongue. She nodded and ate much faster in appreciation. She was halfway through when she noticed that he still sat watching her.

  “What?” she asked around a mouth full of eggs.

  “You are still human.”

  She swallowed and searched for some type of response to that. He still believed that she had been bitten by a werewolf and was destined to either turn into a wolf or… a hunter, whatever that was.

  “What do you mean by that?” she asked cautiously as she lowered her fork.

  “You haven’t changed yet.” He was beginning to sound like a broken record. Maybe a change of topic would prevent her from pulling her hair out.

  She looked around nervously. “Do you have any coffee?” She thought he grimaced, but it was hard to tell when his face was set into stone the way it was.

  “I have water,” he offered as he rose to get her some. He brought it and set it beside her plate. Great. She would have a caffeine headache all day.

  It hadn’t escaped her attention that he was armed to the teeth. She supposed that his holstered weapons were usually hidden by the big fur coat, but without the coat he looked almost like Rambo, like he was going to battle. The guns she understood. After all, what was a good kidnaper without a few guns, but there were gondoliers filled with bullets and cylinder shaped grenades strapped to his belt. Paranoid much?

  She drank her water and was shocked when she finished it all. He rose to get her more. She thanked him when he set it before her. She watched him as he sat down again. He continued his intense scrutiny of her with those shockingly blue eyes so she looked away. Suddenly her appetite fled as the myriad of questions resurfaced.

  “About this morning-”

  “It will never happen again.” She looked up at him. He had crossed his arms across his massive muscled chest. Not even his flannel shirt could hide his perfect chest. What a thing to notice about your kidnaper.

  “Yes… well I don’t know what came over me. I mean I was just sleeping then I-”

  “What happened to your legs?” he asked interrupting her attempt at an apology again. It ruffled her a little but she decided to pick her battles.

  “What do you want to know? About my accident?”

  “Among other things,” he prompted.

  She thought for a moment. What business of his was it what had happened to her? She could point out to him how rude such a question was to a woman in a wheelchair, but this was the same man that had dumped her in the mud, stepped on her back, and told her to fight him only last night. Just the thought of that caused her to reach out and pull her chair close again. She had the thought that she could just not answer, wait him out, but he seemed to have the patience of an ancient mountain. He could sit there all day immovable and she… she could barely stay still in her seat.

  “I was a cheer leader. We were at a conference. I was at the top of the pyramid. I was catapulted off the top. My spotter was hung-over, got distracted, missed the queue… the rest is history,” she said flatly. She was finished crying over that old wound. She had sulked the entire first year. After that she decided to go on. He harrumphed and nodded as if he had just figured something out.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” she snapped.

  “Ex-cheerleader. It explains the shirt,” he said motioning his chin towards the big kitten on the front. She looked down and smiled a bit before she looked back up at him.

  “I don’t know whether to be offended or to laugh at that. Are you taki
ng a crack at me?” she asked. She didn’t know for sure but she thought the corner of his mouth might have made an attempt at a small smile.

  “You used your legs to fight me last night, and you used your legs to wrap… this morning.”

  She put her fork down and sat back. “So I didn’t imagine it.” The tears flooded her eyes as she looked down at her useless legs.

  “I saw it,” he confirmed in his monotone way.

  “I don’t know… It’s been ten years,” she said as the tears slipped down her face.

  “The change.”

  She looked up to him and wiped her face with the back of her hand. He rose again and went to the counter. He pulled a paper towel off the roll and brought it back to her. She took it before he took his seat again. He looked as if he hadn’t moved an inch. He was just so big and intimidating with his size and his guns but he kept… being nice to her. For the most part.

  “What about this change? You think it has something to do with why my arm healed so fast or why I was able to use my legs to… this morning.”

  She waited and watched him the same way he had watched her. His face was so damn beautiful. His eyes looked like a crystal clear meadow brook. His face was classic. He had a chiseled jaw, straight nose, high eyebrows, and golden blond hair. Oh… his hair. It was to die for. Hell, even she was jealous of his hair; it was so long and healthy. It was what the TV commercials referred to as shimmering. He could be a model if he liked. He could sell anything and every woman in the world would run out to buy it.

  “If you had changed it would be no little thing and… you would still be burning. The burning you experienced last night lingers for a week or so. Usually by the end… something inside you changes… hardens. Then your body would recuperate, and any injuries you had ever experienced would heal. The imperfections of life, like crow’s feet, and broken noses, would disappear from your face. You would be the most beautiful that you have ever been.”