Taming the Heart (Creatures of the Night Book 2)

by Tisha Wilson

  “He’s not as big time as you seem to think. He’s more at home up in that cabin alone than when he is out on some mission. He acts tough but everyone needs someone or something that makes them feel like this life is worth living.”

  “Maybe,” she said but didn’t go on. Maybe he did need someone, but the question was weather or not she was that someone. She looked down at her useless legs. How could that someone ever be her?

  She looked towards the window. The sun was going down. If she was going to find a way out of here it would have to be soon. He would be coming for her tomorrow. She wanted to be gone by then.

  * * *

  Braden stopped and sniffed the air. He was in Alaric’s territory already. The other hunter would be drawn to him and they would have to fight if Braden didn’t leave his territory. The temperature up here was more like the weather he was used to.

  He caught a hint of the day walker even farther north. The day walker had gone up into the arctic glaciers. Braden could go on but the day walker was just as determined not to be caught as Braden was to catch him. Braden felt a blast of anger come from Alaric’s direction. The man was out for blood. Braden didn’t want to fight Alaric, at least not really. He would love to shed some blood, but that would have to wait. He needed to get back to Miranda and get her away from the humans before her magnetism drew any wolves to them.

  He looked off towards the north. There was something strange going on. Day walkers rarely traveled into cold places. They migrated to warm places. The bulk of them resided in the Middle East at the moment. He sniffed the air again. The trail was a trail but it somehow smelled, deceptive. How was that possible?

  He took a moment to think. If the day walkers knew about Miranda’s differences, they had to know that there was a possibility that she could change into a hunter and heal herself. Had there intent been to kill Miranda or… to separate them from each other? He lifted his nose yet again and smelled something to the south, and then to the east, and then to the west. He cursed.

  They had a witch. She had put a spell on him. It had to be. He turned quickly and began to run as fast as he could towards his house. He wanted to rip his own stupid heart out for not bringing his cell. If they hurt her… if she was lost to him, then he would do just that. He would bury his heart some where out in the forest before he killed every day walker that ever lived.

  * * *

  Miranda looked up and down the corridor that led to the elevator. Saul had left her room not long ago. After the food he had ordered for her had arrived, she had immediately set to putting together one pack that would hold everything she wanted to take. It was funny how just a few weeks ago everything in her house had seemed so essential. But right now, at this moment, her entire world could fit into one little pink and purple duffel bag.

  She had pulled on her pink parka and white ear muffs with the dangling white powder puffs to ward off the chill of the night. She also wore her jeans and fur lined boots. It might be over kill for the Las Vegas desert, but she could always pull her jacket off if she needed to. Plus, she had daggers sheathed in every pocket, crease, or otherwise convenient hiding place where she could comfortably fit them.

  She didn’t like guns, but she needed to be armed so she settled for the knives Braden had in his hidden armory. The armory here almost seemed better stocked than the one back home if such a thing were possible. She wheeled herself to the elevator and pressed the button. She looked around nervously.

  There was no other way for her to go besides down the elevator. It wasn’t like she could take the stairs. Why couldn’t her freaky hunter powers kick in when she wanted them to? When the elevator dinged and the doors slid open she sighed before turning herself around. She headed back to Braden’s suite, Saul in tow. He shut the door behind him.

  “What? Are you guys like watching me or something?” she asked crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Of course I am watching you. It is what Braden would have me do and I would hate to have to be the one to tell him that you ran away on my watch.”

  She felt really irked by this. Who gave a flying leap about what Braden wanted? “Am I a prisoner here?”

  “No. It is just not safe for you to be out and about when you have not completed your training, especially at night. If you wouldn’t mind, let’s just take our time, stay relaxed. I wouldn’t want you getting angry. Braden said anger triggers the change in you. They will put this place on lock down should that happen.”

  “Lock down?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “The glass is already bullet proof and shatter proof but we would also lower a sort of steal cage in the walls and over the windows. It is just a precaution we have in case the hunters get too… excited about their training and keep going after each other when it is time to stop.”

  “So I would be locked in here… with you,” she blinked a few times at those implications. She didn’t yet know enough about herself when she changed to know what she might do to him. He couldn’t heal a broken arm like Braden could. What if she hurt him?

  “Si. It is part of my job. If you won’t stay in the suite, then I will sit with you. Maybe you bite my head off for it. These are the risks I signed on for.”

  She shook her head and backed away from him. “I don’t want that to happen. I want you to go.”

  He sat on the couch and threw his feet up on the table. “I’ll wait for Braden I think. You want to run. Run from him.”

  Miranda turned her head towards the window suddenly. She tuned out Saul’s chatter and listened to… something was out there. It was creeping ever closer. There was more than one. She put up a silencing hand as she smelled… death.

  “Saul. Get out,” she said before she burst free from her wheel chair and turned to the window crouching.

  An alarm started blaring and the bars slid down. It was pitch black outside before blaring lights burst on. She heard them howl, could smell them as they sizzled and fell back away from the piercing light. It hurt her eyes too, but not as badly as it had theirs. She could hear them crying and screaming. They were wounded and they wanted… her.

  They wanted her with a mad craving and all the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She unzipped her jacket to reveal the many knives in her pants, belt, tucked in the seams of her shirt, inside coat pocket, back pockets and front.

  “Where did you get all those knives? Braden is going to kill me! I should have waited til he got here to give you that damned remote!”

  She heard Saul’s words but couldn’t manage to respond. She sniffed at the cage. There was no spot that was less dense then at others. The floor and ceilings were steal plated. This place would be a death trap in a fire, but then she supposed that hunters didn’t worry too much about burning since they couldn’t die that way. She sniffed along the window and finally pulled back her fist.

  “Mira-”

  Saul didn’t get to finish before she smashed the window. So much for shatter proof. She took a moment to heal her broken hand before she began to pull back the bars. They wouldn’t give much, but it was enough for her tiny body to just squeeze through. Saul tried to catch her, but she was too fast. She was free and they were just beyond the blinding light. Her claws descended and something in her was released at the thought of the fight to come.

  “Miranda,” she heard Saul yell, but again she was beyond caring.

  *

  “She is coming.”

  Albion looked to the red haired woman with mist gray eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I increased her lure and the power within her. She is coming out to meet the wolves and he will follow. Now. You will do as you promised. You will release-“

  Her words were silenced as he slapped her hard across the face. She fell back and was restrained by a few nearby day walkers.

  “Should we join the fight?” Tristan, his second in command asked.

  “There should not be much of a fight. She is untrained and the cr
eatures have been instructed to bring her to me after they weaken her, perhaps take a few limbs. He will follow and you will do as I instructed you.”

  “But the balance doesn’t yet know who they are, or what they mean.”

  “The balance doesn’t know a lot of things.”

  “We should just kill them-”

  Albion hissed in his face. “If I wanted to know what you were thinking I would have opened up your skull, scooped out your brains, and had them on crackers with cheese. Be careful about too much thinking it will get you roasted on a spit like the pig you are.”

  Albion punched him hard in the face for good measure. Tristan shrunk at that and stayed in an obedient slouch. It was this alone that kept Albion from tearing out the little maggots jugular. It was so hard to find good help. He turned back to the problem at hand. Braden was a thousand years old. He would not be an easy man to manipulate. A hunter with that many years…

  But even Braden had a weakness. The woman. Albion supposed he could have just eaten them both, ended this saga before it began, instead of drawing it out in this great game of cat and mouse, but where was the fun in that. Besides, there was no guarantee that the balance would not procreate and bare the chosen one. Getting rid of the protectors before he was sure there would be a need for them might defeat the purpose of this game. Not that it mattered much to him anymore.

  The balance had taken Albion’s mate. Now he would take everything from him and his mate. He would take their protectors, he would take their protectors mates, he would take their hunters, he would take their mentors, and then he would finally take the balance and his mate as well, but he didn’t see the harm in torturing the hunters a bit first. He wanted the pain to be excruciating for them. He wanted tragedy, heart break.

  What else did they deserve? He had been with Cherish for eight hundred years. Now he had to know what life was without her and every day was a lonely void. He would join her soon, but he wanted these weaklings to suffer first. He didn’t want Tristan or anyone else interceding for a while. Let the wolves have at her for a bit first.

  *

  The lights were blinding, but Miranda made it past them and out into the deep dark desert with little effort on her part. She was in control, but not in control. She finally stopped running, chest heaving as she looked out into the darkness. With her eyes the way they were she could see as clearly as if it were day time. Part of her wanted to scream and run, but the part of her that was in control stood her ground.

  There were at least a dozen of them, and they all stood erect and salivated in preparation. They wanted to harm her. They wanted to maim her, to eat her. She was food to them. She could feel their desire pouring off them in waves. They smelled the way they looked. Slime oozed from their fur making it look wet and full of decaying brown mold. The smell of rotting flesh was so overwhelming that it made her want to gag.

  A big slightly hunchbacked looking one stepped forward and grinned that manic grin, his eyes red and glowing, his teeth born and slick, his claws as long as blades. She barely came to its waist making her look like a toddler before a full grown man. She produced three blades in each hand and without any other thought launched them. Wolves were over running her then.

  She hit a few, saw them burst into flame, and heard their blood curdling screams. It felt satisfying before one of them actually got a hold of her arm. She felt tendons and cartilage tear as the creature launched her out into the desert. She tumbled and rolled a few times, but she ignored the pain in her arm as she produced and threw more knives.

  The part of her that wanted to run tried to remind her of the routines she had worked out to better hit her mark, but the part of her that was fighting the creatures was out of control. Blades went every which way, striking the creatures only because there were so many of them. You couldn’t toss a stone without hitting one.

  She felt pain slice clean through her as a set of teeth clamped down on her shoulder hard. She cried out and temporarily lost focus as she clawed at the creature who had wrapped its talon like claws around her upper arm to get a better hold of her. She went straight for the eyes and felt her fingers press into its skull.

  The creature released her with a howl of pain as it swung around wildly. Before she could gain her feet, another one was on her leg biting down. She heard and felt bone crunching beneath its jaws. There was another one on her arm now and they were pulling in opposite directions. The pressure was so unbearable and they were so strong.

  “Braden,” she cried out. Why had he left her? If he had been here none of this would have been happening. They would all be sorry once Braden found out what had happened to her, but by then it would be too late for her.

  She felt something vital inside of her begin to rend and pain seared her like a hot poker, taking her breath away. She kicked out with her free leg but it did no good. They had her where they wanted her and they were going to eat her. Just as fear began to overwhelm her she heard some scuffling noises from the direction of the compound. Were the humans going to try and come to help her? They would be slaughtered if the wolves got a hold of them.

  She looked up through a haze of pain, recognizing that the wolf at her leg was eating something, but refusing to make the connection that it was her leg. She looked past the creatures and the others who were about to pounce on her midsection once it was busted open like a piñata by the two thugs holding her down. Her eyes widened and if she had felt fear before, it was now terror.

  She smelled him more than saw him. It was Saul. He was running away from the compound, away from the safety of the lights, and towards her. No! Saul was the last person she wanted to risk his neck for her, not after all he’d already done.

  “Get back!” she screamed as she flipped her leg over, catching the wolf at her leg off guard and breaking his nose so badly that he had to drop her and clutch his face.

  The wolf that had been pulling her arm while the other pulled at her leg to try and split her in two went flying back like a sling shot when the leg man released her. She landed on top of him and easily snapped his neck like a twig. Saul’s appearance suddenly gave her the control that she had been lacking.

  “Here,” Saul shouted as he flung a gun in her direction. He began to blast a path clear to her and she picked the gun up where it had landed. She had to hop as she stood since… not much leg to speak of. She took aim and fired at a wolf that was making its way towards Saul.

  Without her other leg, the blast knocked her to the ground. She cursed as she dropped the heavy gun to the packed dirt. She pulled more knives and counted out the steps of the routine she had set to the wonderful classic ‘Donkey Butt’ back in high school. Soon she was hitting her marks with deadly accuracy.

  Her knives were as effective as Saul’s guns as he made his way to her and put his back up against hers. She leaned back on him grateful for the support. When there were only a few of them left the wolves began to hightail it back through the desert, comprehending suddenly that they would not be having her for a midnight snack after all. Someone stepped out of the shadows and both Saul and Miranda took aim. The man put his hands up in surrender.

  “Please. Don’t shoot me. I simply bare a message for you.”

  The man was deceptively slender and tall. The way he moved spoke of the strength that lay beneath his laid back exterior. He was not really noteworthy other than his height. He had a receding hair line and unnaturally bright brown eyes. His teeth were a stained shade of Yellow and his trench coat was black. His skin was yellowed as if he smoked and his skin looked sort of leathery. He looked like a man that might be sitting out front of a section eight block house having a drink after a long day’s work.

  “Who are you and what do you want?” Saul barked.

  The man sniffed the air as if he smelled something tasty as he looked at Saul. “Human. Weakling. If I had it my way you would be nothing more than a tasty little morsel between my teeth at this very moment. But this ain’t my show. So. For now. We play
this game. You let me sample your blood, I leave you both alone. We lick our wounds, and go on to fight another day.”

  “Who are you and what do you want?” Saul demanded again.

  The man tsked. “My sweet. You must focus. I am giving you the game rules. You let me sample your blood, nothing happens to you, to that compound full of humans back there. I am a day walker and I could stroll right past those stupid lights of yours.”

  Miranda heard Saul suck in his breath behind her. “Take me. I’m what you’re here for right, to eat me so you can be stronger.”

  The man rolled his eyes and looked at her. “You are still too human. You let your emotions rule you. I can tell you that I was only letting the wolves test you. No. We have other things planned for you that don’t involve dying… at least not right away.”

  “What the hell do you want?” Saul demanded again.

  The balding man in front of them suddenly became hideous to look at as his face and nothing else became like the creatures. He looked ready to come forward and rip Saul’s head off. She braced herself. Blood stopped dripping from her leg so suddenly that she had to look down quickly. Thank God it had begun to heal some without her having to focus on the healing. The loss of blood was making her weak. She looked back up ready to defend Saul with her dying breath.

  The creature stopped and looked over his shoulder as if someone were speaking to him. He stood, straightened his coat, and almost instantly his face returned to normal. Watching his face change was like watching a ripple in a pond it was so smooth. He cleared his throat.

  “I want a taste of your blood. I am not going to kill you, I just need to see-”

  “No. He’ll turn into one of you if you bite him,” she snapped ending the stupid argument.

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” was his off handed reply.

  Saul’s eyes narrowed and he looked to be considering. “Saul. Come on. What are the chances you’d turn hunter? It is a trick. They are trying to bring you to their side. I need you to have my back right now,” she pleaded.