She turned her gaze, cold and more than a little reptilian, to Tara, who shrank back in her chair.
“You, you're Tara Roth. You are unlucky in your family, unlucky in love, convinced that your cleverness will save you, uncertain of your heart, uncertain of your courage, and oh so afraid.”
The table creaked when Mads slammed his fist down on it and it was a miracle that it did not break.
“You will not speak to her like this,” he roared. “Call me what you like, but this woman has done nothing to you!”
“Do you think you impress me with your growls, little pup?” the suddenly strange woman laughed. “I am older than all of your kind, and I do not fear you.”
“Stop!” Tara cried, standing up herself.
Her outburst made both Mads and their host draw up short. They stared at her, and she felt her own anger and her own fear hot in her heart.
“You're right,” she said, more quiet now. “I'm afraid. I've been afraid my whole life, and I've been unlucky in my family and my love. But now? Now I don't care.”
She glanced at Mads, who looked both furious and concerned at once.
“I'm fighting for something now, and it does not matter that I am frightened or that I am unlucky. There is something that needs to happen, and I cannot stop, do you understand? It does not matter who you are, or what you think of us.”
Tara watched nervously as the woman rose and stalked toward her.
“Do you know who I am, Tara?” she said almost gently.
“No, I don't,” Tara said softly. “I don't care.”
There was a long moment where Tara refused to drop her eyes. She could sense Mads' temper fray, but before he could do something they would all regret, the woman stepped back.
“A test,” she said, her voice still hoarse and strange. “Yes? To prove that you are worthy. To show me that you are both strong.”
“Yes,” Tara said, agreeing before Mads could refuse them. “Test us however you like as long as you help us.”
There was a sly and malicious smile on her face, and she nodded.
“Test me instead,” Mads said insistently. “I asked her to do this.”
“Are you going to be alone as you move forward, Magnussen? No matter how much you want to, can you carry all of the risk for her?”
“He can't,” Tara said. “Test us both.”
The words were barely out of her mouth before her eyes started to droop. She felt her body droop heavily toward the ground, and she was aware that Mads had rushed to her side. She felt his strong arms wrap around her and she tried to reach for him, but her arms were so heavy.
“Witch, what have you done to her?” she heard Mads shout, and she heard the other woman's laugh.
“What she asked me to do,” the woman responded, and there was a real bitterness there. “She has asked to be tested, for you both to be tested. When this is finished, she will be wiser, no matter what happens.”
“What am I to do, then?” Mads demanded.
“Decide if you would follow her,” was the response, and then Tara heard no more.
***
Tara stretched, blinking as she woke up to bright sunlight.
She sat up, and to her shock, she was in her bedroom. Tara could see the bright blue sky out the window, and she could distantly hear birdsong. It was a beautiful late spring day, and a playful breeze coming through the window.
“Mads?” she called hesitantly, and the name of the man she had fallen in with spoken in the innocent sunlight of her own bedroom felt strange and wrong. She remembered so clearly what they had done with one another, and what they had begun together, but there was something strange and false about it.
She looked around her room, where there was not a single thing out of place, and she got carefully to her feet. She noted that she was wearing her pajamas, and something about the red flannel grounded her further. Stories about werewolves and magic books didn't happen to people who wore flannel after all, and she shook her head slowly.
When she wandered out to the front of the house, the door was whole, as was the window that she remembered being shattered the night before.
“Mads?” she called uncertainly, and now she knew that there were pieces of her memory that were missing. It seemed like just a few moments she could have recognized his face among a thousand, she could feel his arms around her, and now there was nothing. There was a fading sensation, as if from a dream, and she shook her head.
She was ready to rush out, to find Mads no matter where he was, but then her phone rang. She nearly laughed at how familiar, homey and real it sounded, and automatically, she picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Tara-dara, how are you?”
Tara made a face. “Hey, Rose, just fine.”
On the other end of the line, she could almost imagine her older sister pursing her lips and frowning, the way she had always looked when worried about her younger sibling.
“Come on, hon, tell me the truth.”
“I am,” Tara retorted, already feeling defensive. “I'm fine, I'm totally fine, Rose.”
“Look, sweetie, I'm worried, okay? Everyone's worried.”
“Who's everyone?” Tara asked sharply. “Mom, who hasn't talked to me in five years, or Grandma, who still thinks we're both terrible, terrible daughters?”
That was usually enough to start a fight with her sister, who was the last member of the family she still spoke to, but instead of getting Rose into a shouting match, her sister was quiet.
“Rose...?”
“Tara, honey, don't push me away. It's okay to talk to me, okay?”
“What am I supposed to be talking about?” Tara snapped, her nerves already a little frayed. She knew that this wasn't right, wasn't sure why it wasn't right, but it was hard to argue with the solid phone in her hands, her sister's soft voice, and the utterly real way her home looked, the way she had made it look herself.
“Well, when my baby sister disappears for two months and gets sucked into some kind of cult with a guy who ended up on an FBI most-wanted list, I get worried, okay?” Rose's voice was frayed now, and Tara could tell that her sister was on the verge of shouting herself. “Jesus, Tara, you just got out of the hospital last night! I wanted you to come stay with me, but you're always so goddamn stubborn...”
Tara started to retort that of course that wasn't what happened, but then she looked down at her wrist.
There was a white medical bracelet on it, and she could see her name on it, typed in a brutally simple font, along with a doctor's name and the name of the local hospital. She felt herself get dizzy, and with a thump, she sat on the ground.
“Rose?”
“Honey, I was worried sick,” Rose said, her voice breaking. “You run away, you ditch your career, the police have to pull you out of a goddamn compound in Illinois, and you're still saying you love this guy?”
“No, I, listen, Rose...”
“No, you listen,” her sister spat. “You ran away, didn't you? Things got tough, things got difficult at work or something, and then some asshole with a wild story comes along and you just ran, didn't you?”
“Rose!”
“Tell me it was any different!” Rose cried. “Tell me that you weren't feeling overwhelmed and that some guy didn't come to you with a cock and bull story about—”
“It wasn't like that all!” Tara shouted. “An angel burst down my door! Mads saved me, we ran from the angel, and he told me... he told me...”
“Told you what, Tara?” Rose's voice was cutting and desperate, and she could imagine her sister curled up on the ground just like she was. They were both survivors of a childhood that had more dark points than it did bright ones, and Rose's devotion had kept her going on her darkest days.
“Did he tell you that you were the only one who could save you? Did he tell you some fairytale about family and the end of the world?”
“Yes,” Tara whispered, and even as she admitted it, a deep yawning pit
opened up inside her.
She thought of what she had known what felt like just a few short minutes ago, of what she had seen and Mads had told her, and it sounded insane. It sounded like the delusion of a woman who always ran away, who was always looking for a way to feel wanted.
“Oh god,” Tara whimpered, hugging herself. Now that she looked more carefully, she could see that she wasn't in her own home at all, and that she wasn't wearing pajamas. She was in a cold white room with padded walls, and she was dressed in white scrubs that didn't keep out the chill. There was no phone in her hand, and through the glass window, she could see shadowy figures wandering back and forth. She could faintly hear the sounds of a busy hospital and voices calling to one another in a world that she had finally proven herself too weak and too flighty to deal with.
“Please, please, Mads,” she found herself whispering, and she could picture him so clearly. She could see his face, feel his arms around her, smell his scent, but he wasn't real. There were no werewolves, no angels, nothing except her own mind and these four white walls, and she felt hot tears trickle down her face.
This was where she belonged. She wasn't clever or strong; she was frail and fragile, too slow and too weak to do anything for anyone. She had spent her whole life trying to prove that she was smart enough, and strong enough, and now, finally, once and for all, she was forced to realize what kind of lie that was.
The black tide of despair was about to close over her head, and then her ears caught the sound of a struggle far away. At first she was inclined to ignore it, but then it became louder. Now she could hear shouts, and though her first instincts were to turn away, she ventured closer to the door instead.
There were the sounds of a struggle, of bodies hitting the ground and of glass shattering, and now that she was listening for it, she could hear words as well.
“Tara! Tara, where are you? Tara!”
It was her name, and it was being shouted with so much panic and fear that she felt herself wake up.
She looked around at the white room, bewildered, because that wasn't right either, was it? She had had dark days, and she had fallen and picked herself up more times than she could remember, but she wasn't someone who needed to be thrown aside and forgotten.
In that single moment, she remembered what had happened, how she had fallen asleep in the home of the woman known as Three in One, and her memories came back to her with a rush of almost painful clarity.
“Mads!” she screamed. “I'm in here, Mads!”
Tara pounded on the door that refused to budge an inch, and she stood on tiptoe to press her face against the glass. She could just barely see furniture being thrown and people that she could now see were faceless and gray attacking someone who was throwing them aside as easily as the chairs.
“Mads! I'm here, I'm here!”
The words were choked out of her when she was pulled back violently, and when she spun around, she saw something so dark it seemed made out of her very nightmares. It had no form, but it spun out a dozen tentacles to wrap around her, sliding intimately against her body even as it spoke to her in the voice of her mother, the voice that rang through her head when she knew she would fail, and when she was at her weakest.
“Foolish little girl,” the voice hissed. “Don't you understand, no one is coming to save you. No one cares, and there will never be any safety for you, just this, just the locked room and the darkness.”
For a moment, Tara froze in fear, but then a healing wash of anger broke over her. “No,” she whispered, and then she shouted it. She struggled with all of her might, and when she felt the thing draw back, as if it was hesitating, she struggled all the harder.
“You are not going to tell me that,” she snarled, straining against it. “You will not tell me that I am lesser, or that I am crazy or that I don't understand. I left behind everyone who hurt me, and I helped everyone I could. I am smart, and I know that I'm loved, and I am strong, and you will not take that away from me...”
Despite her resolve, the thing was powerful, and though she had diminished it, made it weaker, it was still stronger than she had thought. It threatened to wash over her, and then an iron-hard grip clamped around her wrist.
“Tara, Tara, hold on!”
With nothing more than that, the darkness was ripped away, and she stood in a dim grayish light with Mads next to her.
For a long moment, she could do nothing but shiver and shake, and Mads held her tightly, crooning soft, soothing words into her ear.
“Tara, Tara, beautiful Tara, it's okay. I'm here. It's okay.”
“I'm strong,” she whispered, tears rolling down her face. “I'm strong, and I won't let anyone hurt me.”
“I won't let anyone hurt you,” Mads promised. “Tara, sweetheart, please look at me...”
She forced herself to meet his gaze, and instead of seeing disgust or pity there, she saw only love.
“Mads?”
“Never, ever think that you are alone,” he said firmly. “Never think that you are lost. If you're lost, I'll be lost with you, do you understand?”
She nodded hesitantly, but apparently, he did not trust the answer. Instead, Mads lowered his face to hers, and if his kisses the night before had been passionate, now they were tender. He brushed his mouth over hers again and again, reassuring her that he was there, soothing nerves that had been held taut with fear and sorrow, and making her heart swell with love for him.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself to him. She realized that she had never felt safer than when she was in his arms, and more than feeling safe, she felt loved. She felt perfect. Tara could have kissed him forever, but then she felt his body flinch. She looked up just as Mads laughed in amazement, and she realized they were no longer in the formless void.
Instead, they were in a room roofed with bare timbers and made of stone, and though it had a few things in common with the cabin where they had spent the night, it was far grander. There was a huge fireplace that stretched across one wall, and there was a bed that seemed miles wide that was draped with furs.
“Where are we?” asked Tara in wonder.
Mads tipped a rueful grin at her. “I know I'm meant to be telling the truth and nothing but these days, but what happens if the truth is a little embarrassing?”
Tara quirked an eyebrow at him. “Then you tell it to me anyway, and let me have a good laugh after the terrible day that I have been having.”
“It's home,” Mads admitted. “It's my home, and more importantly, it's my bed.”
Her eyes stole to the enormous bed, thinking about everything that she could do in it with him, and then she made another important revelation. “Mads, does your room at home have a door?”
“It does. This one... lacks one.”
They looked around for a few moments, and while Tara was wondering what they were going to do, Mads scooped her up in his arms.
“Mads!”
“We're here, and though nothing is getting out, nothing is getting in, either. Love, we're safe for a little while.”
She started to argue, but then she saw the smile on his face, light and more boyish than she had ever seen him. Tara suddenly realized how little real safety he had ever had, how little time there had been when he wasn’t battling for his life and defending those he loved. She realized that she couldn't deny him this safety, not even a little, and with a small sigh, she melted in his arms.
“My strong, clever girl,” he muttered, nuzzling her ear. “Do you know that I've thought about taking you home with me? Of bringing you to this very bed?”
She nodded hesitantly, and he lay her down on the feather mattress. She sunk in the softness, of it, and he loomed over her, bending down so that their faces almost touched. She expected a passionate kiss like the ones they had shared the night before, but instead he only kissed her gently. He took his time, drawing soft shivers of pleasure from her body.
The kiss was almost chaste, but the sensations trickled t
hrough her body, arousing her slowly but surely. Gently, she reached up to run her fingers through his dark hair, and when he made a soft sound of approval, she closed her hand and pulled a little, making him groan.
“Careful,” he said, drawing back for a moment. “I might mistake you for one of my packmates and treat you like one.”
“Oh?” Tara smiled daringly. “And how would you treat a werewolf girl who pulled your hair, hmm?”
Her answer was a sharp, toothy smile before she found her hands pinned to the bed, and those same sharp teeth nipping gently at her shoulder. She wasn't wearing the flannel pajamas anymore or the white scrubs; instead she was in the clothes that she had put on at the cabin. Mads nuzzled aside the too-big collar of the sweater and his teeth found warm skin.
“You pull my hair, and I'll bite you,” he said softly, but when he latched his teeth gently in her flesh, she only wanted him to do more. She tried to reach him, but his hands on her wrists were like stone. She struggled a little just to test him, and when he did not move at all, she whimpered with delight and heat.
“You like that?” he whispered. “You like being pinned down?”
“Sometimes,” she admitted, and then she gasped when he pulled her up.
“You tell me to stop, and I will,” he said, “but somehow, I do not think you are going to tell me to stop.”
In a few efficient motions, he stripped her bare, throwing her clothes over the side of her bed, and then he pressed her to the head of the bed. There was a barred wooden headboard there, and he wrapped her fingers around the bars.
“There,” he said. “Don't make me tie you.”
She shivered at the idea of being lashed to the headboard, of having her naked body even more vulnerable to this man. There were no doubts in her mind, just a feeling of tight longing throughout her body. She was flat on her belly, with her arms stretched toward the head of the bed, and when she turned her face, she could see Mads stripping down as well.
Tara's eyes widened at how hard he was already, and he grinned slightly at her.
Hunting Hearts (Trilogy Bundle) (Werewolf Romance - Paranormal Romance) Page 4
