by Tisha Wilson
His fangs slid free and he turned away. He was going to slide out of her and move away but her legs started working again and she held firm.
“I… I want to bite you but I don’t want to hurt you,” he said as she continued to clutch him in ways that were making his mouth water.
“You said it doesn’t hurt,” she breathed easily.
“But… I don’t even know if I can. It might hurt me.”
He pulled himself up and into her again and her head fell back against the pillow. The smell of her blood rushing in her veins was like a seduction. Her blood didn’t smell like a hunter’s. It was human and oh so sweet.
“If you want to try… I won’t stop you,” she panted as he continued to move in her.
It was the only invitation he needed. He made a quick puncture before he pulled at the sticky sweet fluid. It hit his bloodstream like a Mac Truck. His pupils dilated and he could feel them change. He only hoped that she didn’t look at him right now, it would scare her half to death.
“Yes,” she cried out and he felt her begin to tighten around him. He couldn’t breath, couldn’t think.
He was completely lost and it felt so good. He just barely held back. When he took the second pull at her neck he felt it as she went over the edge and began to milk him with her insides. He allowed himself release then and it was like nothing he had ever felt in his life. It was as if the earth stood still and nothing existed in space and time but him and her. His senses hummed with electricity as he lay in her, in the euphoria of their lovemaking.
When he finally began to come back down again, he was laying over her and she was stroking the small hairs at the base of his neck. He was breathing hard and she was completely limp. He tried to push himself up but was unsuccessful. How could he not have realized how tired he had gotten?
“Am I too heavy?” he asked.
“Not at all,” she replied. He laid his head on the pillow beside her and watched her. She really did seem content, as if he weighed nothing, though he knew he had to be crushing her.
He rolled over, taking her with him while staying inside her. She gazed down at him. Her eyes were still a dark purple. It was another strange thing about her. When hunters changed their eyes became a lighter shade than it had been in life. When they were hunting the eyes were a crystal clear violet, but she had profoundly dark purple eyes when she changed. They were becoming normal again. They were that same deep dark bottomless blue as they had been the first time he had seen her. Her eyes just filled her face and made his heart turn over in his chest.
“That wasn’t so bad now was it?” she said as she toyed with the small hairs on his chest.
He lifted her face and kissed her again. He knew it was too soon. She would need time to heal before they made love again, but he could feel himself getting hard at her stroking. He was about to pull from her but her legs held to him again as her eyes returned to purple.
“You should rest,” he said evenly.
“I am not tired,” she said eagerly as she let her mouth devour his. He meant to push her away, he really did, but when she started to ride him, he was consumed yet again by passion. He grabbed her hips, meaning to slow her down, but found himself pulling up and into her as she threw her head back in ecstasy. She was so wet and getting looser the more he worked in her, he may as well take advantage of it.
He rose up and in one motion flipped her to her stomach while he pressed into her from behind. She made a sound of satisfaction deep in her throat as he held on to the back of her neck and pushed into her again and again. This time there was nothing gentle or slow about it, start to finish, and by the end they were both tucked in and fast asleep. He pulled her close with a contented sigh. A hometown cheerleader and an international wolf hunter. Who would have ever thought it?
Chapter Ten
Miranda sat up when she felt the bed shift. She clutched the comforter to her chest as she watched him pull on his pants. She waited with breath held. Would he pretend that it hadn’t happened? Would they go on today as if what had happened this morning meant nothing? After he buttoned up he turned to her and her soul smiled with her mouth.
He smiled at her as he leaned forward. He gave her a passionate kiss before he stood again and bent to scoop up his shirt. He looked rumpled and flushed and she loved it.
“Stop looking at me like that. You need food if we are to go on.”
Despite the bit of soreness, she felt her muscles tighten in anticipation. “Alright, but don’t dally. We have a lot of ground to cover,” she teased and laughed out loud at the look of shock on his face.
“You aren’t feeling sore?” he asked.
“As a matter of fact-” she was about to tell him that she had never felt so good when she felt something drill her in the back. It hit so hard that the breath was knocked from her. She looked to Braden questioningly before she looked down at the red blossom on her chest that was spilling red liquid all over the comforter. She slumped forward.
*
Braden blinked a moment before he realized what had happened. He climbed up on the bed and crouched over her in a defensive position as a fierce roar erupted from his chest. He saw the small hole in the curtain for the first time before he ripped it down. He heard and smelled the animal as it ran away. It was a day walker. Braden took a deep breath to be sure the man would have a reckoning for what he had just done.
When he was sure there was no one else nearby, he looked to Miranda. He scooped her up gently and carried her into the bathroom. She was losing blood quickly. She needed to change or she would die.
“Miranda,” he screamed in her face. There was no response as the color began to drain from her face. She was fading fast. She would be dead in mere moments if he didn’t do something, but what?
Why had the day walker shot her? They didn’t like hunters to be sure, but they would rather consume the flesh of a hunter. There was that plus the fact that a gunshot should not be able to kill a hunter. They obviously knew something about Miranda and how she was special that he didn’t know.
He spread towels on the floor as he held her with one hand. He then laid her to the floor. This was a secure place for now. There were no windows for a sniper to get another shot off. He listened as her heart slowed. Blood saturated the towel he tried to hold to it and blood began to fill the towels beneath her as it pumped out with each beat of her heart. The sniper had hit her brachial artery. It was almost over.
She was going to die in front of him. He turned her over. There was no time to heat a knife to solder the wound. Towels would only soak up the blood. Stitches would be too little, too late. There was only one hope. He slapped her across the face… hard. Her eyelids stirred. He picked her up again and went to the shower. The wound bled all the harder. He turned on the cold water and drug her underneath it with him.
He shook her hard as her head lolled. Her lids fluttered and he bore his fangs. He roared in her face again. “Hey you stupid bitch. Open your eyes,” he growled.
Her lids slowly lifted. “Braden,” she cried softly in alarm. His face was in hunter mode now and he stilled himself.
“Wake up you stupid little slut.”
“What?” she asked as her eyes came more fully open. He registered the hurt in her eyes and it was like a bullet to his chest, but he couldn’t stop now.
“You heard what I said you little hussy. I want you to get up, get your stuff and get out of my house. I’m finished with you. You have forced yourself on me for the last time.”
“What?!”
He felt it when her legs began to come under her. Tears flooded her eyes but relief flooded his heart as she gripped his arms hard.
“You heard what I said. Why would you think someone like me would want someone like you? I’m sick of the way you cling to me and your human ways! Get your legs under you, get your stuff and get out of my house,” he said with anger.
He could see the skin begin to pucker where the wound had been. The bleeding stopped.
Her eyes were purple now as she stared at him with malice. She pushed him so hard that he fell back and hit the tile. A few tiles fell to the ground but he stepped away from them easily. She was already pulling on her clothes when he entered the room.
“Stay here,” he instructed her. She threw him an ugly look.
“I’m not stupid,” she snapped as she began to pack her things.
“Don’t go anywhere. I only said that to-”
“Up yours! I know why you said it. Go. I’ll be here when you get back,” she growled as she continued to pack her things.
He eyed her skeptically for a moment more. Surely she hadn’t taken his words to heart. He had needed her to change in order to get her to heal. That was all. He wanted to say something else but didn’t have time. He pointed towards the living room.
“Get my cell. Saul is on speed dial. The third number. He should still be near. I will find you if he decides to take you.”
With that he left her. He jumped out of the bedroom window without opening it first. Glass shattered and cut his face but the cuts healed almost instantly he was so angry. He didn’t see the heart break written on her face. He didn’t see her legs crumple beneath her. He may have stayed if he had seen that look, but he was more focused on vengeance for the moment.
* * *
Miranda rode in the helicopter in silence. They were taking her to their compound. Saul had explained that she would only be here until Braden came for her or they could find a new location for her, but she couldn’t manage to care much. She had known that this would happen from the start. She had known that he would break her heart.
She had told herself that someone like him would never be interested in her. She had done her best to prepare herself, but she hadn’t been prepared. Of course he had said those things to make her angry enough to change, but in some ways she knew that he meant them. Why else would the words come so easily?
There were things a person said to someone they loved, and there were things they did not say. Who was she fooling? He hadn’t loved her. He could never love her. And here she sat. The fool who had begun to believe that… What? Did she believe that the prince had fallen for the ugly duckling and she was going to be forever changed into a princess? Stupid.
She didn’t care if he was coming or not coming. Hunter boot camp was over for her. The first chance she got she would run somewhere far away from all this craziness. Braden had said that hunters put off the scent that drew those ugly dog things. She would just avoid changing and they wouldn’t come after her, and she could go on like before, pretending that there was nothing out there running around in the night biting and taking people’s loved ones.
She would use the cash Saul had given her to get set up in some big city somewhere and live off that until she got herself a job. There were plenty of Kinko’s and Staples that needed good copyists. The chopper landed in the middle of a desert. She could see the neon buildings off in the distance that told her this was Vegas. A few people ran forward when the blades stopped spinning. Her chair was handed off and opened. Saul reached up and set her down in her chair. She wheeled herself behind him as others followed with her few possessions.
She was hard pressed to keep up with Saul’s long strides and to take in her surroundings at the same time. The building looked plain enough. It was a large concrete building surrounded by high fences and miles and miles of desert. It was a good spot to be in. You could see anyone coming a long time before they got here. They entered the building and headed down a ramp that led to a large sub level.
They had to wait to be buzzed into the area encased in glass. She looked around at all the weapons being developed. There was a large lab area off to the left with beakers over burners. They were filled with some type of tubes that had luminescent fluids inside them. There were also a few other experiments being conducted with light bulbs and bright spot lights. She had to squint just to look that way.
She turned her attention to her right. There were different types of guns and grenades being worked on. There were vehicles and boats being decked out. There were some other mechanical things being worked on straight ahead that she knew nothing about. She couldn’t tell what they were or what they were for. Well, she could guess what all this was for. Killing wolves.
Finally they came to an elevator. She boarded with the others as Saul pressed the button for the top floor. It would not be easy to leave this place without notice. When the elevator doors slid open she was amazed for a moment. This place didn’t look that big from the outside but this was like stepping into a Ritz. The ceiling was high and painted to look like the morning sky. There was a fountain and some palm trees in the lobby and a few levels of rooms.
She stopped for a moment to looked up at a giant sculpture that was at least three stories high. Saul waited for her as the others went forward.
“I am taking you to Braden’s suites.”
“Suites?”
“Yes. We usually separate the hunters from each other when they come here, but not Braden and a few of the others. The older hunters can stay closer to one another than the younger. The younger hunters have there own quarters separate from the compound.”
“How does that work? I thought they had the urge to rip each other apart? How are they able to be together in one compound?”
“It doesn’t work that well. We only bring them together once a year and they are pretty much prepped on all the new weapons we have before they get here. Then we set them loose outside and let them… practice with each other.”
She could well imagine what it would look like. Normally the thought of such violence would make her cringe but with all the strange things she’d been through lately, she thought it might be sort of fun to break something on someone other than Braden for a change. She could even practice her routines on moving targets.
“There must be body parts everywhere.”
Saul scoffed mockingly before he turned to lead the way again. She followed him. He led her to the main room of Braden’s suites and she nearly laughed out loud. There was a large leather couch with a small kitchen off to the left. There were plaid curtains that had green in them instead of blue or burgundy. There was a marble slab coffee table.
“Let me guess. There is a big bedroom down that hall way with a big black bed set in the middle and a single bathroom in it?”
Saul smiled. “Senorita. How did you ever guess? You are psychic I think.” She giggled again. “There are two adjoining suites to this one to the right and left but they don’t look much different than this one. I could have them remake one of the other rooms if this is not-“
“No. It’s all right. I don’t mind it.”
The unspoken words hung heavy in the air. She liked to see this place the way Braden liked it. It felt like home. For now. It made the thought of leaving him that much harder, but she would be happy to be surrounded by his essence for a few more hours at least.
Saul handed her a set of keys. “What are these for?”
“Your suites and the remote to the armory.”
Her heart nearly stopped as she looked the keys over. There was a key-chain that looked like a skull and cross bones with a spike sticking out of the bottom. It was the key-chain the baby had been holding in her dream. “What is this,” she asked holding the charm up.
“Most hunters carry them on their key-chains. It is made of pure silver. It is good if you find yourself short a weapon and you need to make a kill. Try to hit the jugular of the creature if you have to use it. That way you decapitate the creature instead of just slowing it down. Braden has one. You never saw his?”
“I guess I… must have. I just wasn’t paying attention.” She shook the thought off as she pocketed the keys. She had to have seen his and that was why she had seen it in her dream.
“So…” Saul rubbed the back of his neck before he went on. “He made you pretty mad?”
She slumped back in her chair forgetting about the key-chain and the dream. “Am
I that obvious?”
“Si.”
“What gave me away?”
“You didn’t say more than a handful of words the whole way here. When a woman is silent for more than an hour, I know something is wrong. I have sisters.” She couldn’t help but smile at that. “What did he do?” Saul asked as he took a seat on the leather couch.
She shook her head and made her way over to the kitchen. Her ramp was missing. “I’ll need a lower counter or a ramp if I’m going to feed myself.”
“I will have them bring your food up to you. I will have them bring you hot coffee as well when I leave. Come tell me what old hard ass has done to make you so angry.”
She sighed and made her way over to the couch.
“I just made a stupid mistake. I believed that I…”
“You love him”
She let her head sink forward. “Stupid, huh?”
“Love is rarely smart.”
She looked up at him. He had deep black eyes that were full of compassion. No wonder people trusted him when the worst things possible were happening. He made people want to trust him and lean on him in times of trouble. He would have been a great cop.
“Well. It was probably for the best things happened the way they did. It was time for me to make a clean break.”
Saul shook his head. “Mida. You can’t think like that. You are not finished with your training. He will be back for you tomorrow at the latest. I know that he acts cold and uncaring sometimes but he’s been a hunter a long time. He doesn’t know much better.”
“Yes well… I don’t know who I was fooling anyhow. I’m small time and he’s this world traveled hunter. We don’t belong together.”
“The way I seen him look at you, he has never looked that way with anyone else. I’ve known him at least fifteen years and have seen him smile maybe three times, and two of those times where when he was with you. Don’t sell yourself short.
