Hearts Unleashed: A Limited Edition Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

by C. D. Gorri

  “The way he looked at me made me feel like a monster. Like I was the one thing on earth he despised the most.”

  Val rubbed Iris back as she cried. “There, there my friend. At least you had your first orgasm for free. We thought we were going to have to hire someone to come in and do the job for you.”

  Both friends laughed.

  “That’s not funny, Val,” Iris said. It was a little funny.

  “I know. I know.” Val ushered Iris into the cottage and closed the door behind them.

  Val said a quick protection spell over the home then she and Iris sat down on Val’s white couch. Every piece of furniture in Val’s home was white. Iris was sure there was a reason for that. No matter how many times she asked, the witches would never tell her the reason.

  “Did he say anything to you after he saw your change?” Val asked.

  “No. He just stared at me. I teleported home to get away from the disappointed look in his eyes.” Iris started crying again.

  Val looked worried.

  Iris wiped her eyes. “I knew I should have left the moment he came into the clearing and saw me in the lake. But the moon was out and my body was humming. I felt like I would die if I didn’t touch him. Is this transitional period ever going to end?”

  “Well,” Val said. “The few wolves that I know always said that sex made it easier on them. Those who had lots of sex said the change usually lasted about a few days. A week tops. Those who didn’t have much sex claimed it was the most uncomfortable two months of their lives.”

  “Months?” Iris yelled. “This shit could last for two months?”

  Val shrugged. “Change takes time. I don’t know what else to tell you, hon.”

  Iris flopped back onto the couch and rested her head against the soft cushion.

  “At least your skin is returning to its normal color,” Val pointed out. “Your eyes are no longer red.”

  The vamp out period never lasted more than an hour after she was first exposed to the sun. Well, it could last longer if she was weak and hadn’t eaten. It could last all day, even days, if that was the case. But as long as she ate properly, it never lasted long. The vamp out phase? Why didn’t she just call it what it really was? The curse.

  “I fucking hate this curse.”

  “Your curse isn’t that bad,” Val told her. “The witch who cursed you wanted to make sure your enemies could tell that you were different. She knew as a hybrid, you’d be able to walk in the sun. Her goal was to give your enemies time to notice that you weren’t a normal shifter. Luckily, the effects of the curse don’t last long as long as you feed on animals only and don’t kill humans.”

  “Thanks for figuring that out for us. Not that we would’ve killed humans anyway.”

  “You’re welcome. See, you have one good thing going for you today. You’re back to normal in less than an hour.”

  Iris chuckled sarcastically. “There’s nothing good about today. I mean, what had I expected, huh? Did I really think a girl like me would be able to find a mate that easily? What wolf would want to be mated to a vampire? And what vampire would want to be mated to a wolf? I’m the worst of both worlds. And I’m cursed to look like a freak in the sun. Fuck my life.”

  Iris closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She felt Val’s hand on hers and opened her eyes.

  Val smiled at her. “I see happiness in your future, Iris. I don’t know yet if it’s with this wolf. And I don’t know if it’s soon or if it’s coming later. But I do know that it’s coming. In my vision, I see you smiling and being held by someone you call your own. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more, my friend.”

  “That’s ok, Val. You’ve told me enough. Thank you. It just sucks that it couldn’t have been this particular wolf. I kinda liked his growl.” Iris blushed.

  Val jumped off the couch and clapped her hands.

  Startled, Iris asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “My sisters aren’t awake for me to tell them that you’ve found a wolf whose growl you like. They don’t even know you’ve had your first big O.”

  Iris rolled her eyes. “Haven’t you done enough snitching? Erin told me that you called her.”

  “Did she say I called or that a witch called? Because I’m not the only witch in these parts, you know?”

  “Yeah, yeah. It’s time for my nap.” Iris stood up and stretched. She could no longer fight it. She had to go to sleep or else she’d pass out soon and no one would be able to wake her until the death nap ended.

  “I’m leaving.”

  “Same time, same club, tonight?” Val asked.

  “Uh, you must want to see that wolf kill me. Count me out. I think I’m staying in tonight. Bye.”

  Iris teleported home. However, she could have sworn she heard Val say, “Staying in? That’s not what my vision showed me.”

  *.*.*.*

  Yung sat at the breakfast table staring at the empty bowl in front of him. He should have been thinking about filling his bowl with cereal. Instead, his mind was on his mate. His mate? He was no longer certain she belonged to him. Maybe she was Jihun’s mate. Maybe the mating scents got crossed or something.

  Yung lowered his head to the table and bumped it twice. What was he thinking? The mating scents didn’t get crossed. Iris was his mate. His beast had responded to hers. That only happened between mated couples. Besides, the thought of her being with someone else made his chest ache.

  And he didn’t want anyone else either. Now that he’d finally touched her and kissed her, he knew he wouldn’t be able to be without her. The next full moon was in two nights. That didn’t give him much time to figure out exactly what she was. Once the moon was full, his inner beast would take over.

  The decision of whether or not he wanted to be mated to a vampire would no longer be up to him. When his wolf took over, it would go looking for her. Yung would have little control of himself then. Now that he’d scented his mate, his beast wouldn’t rest until she was marked as his.

  Yung pushed the empty bowl away from him. He couldn’t mate with a vampire. His family despised leeches. They had every right to hate the blood suckers. A few years ago, his uncle was murdered when his home was attacked by vamps.

  His aunt had been in the home also. She’d been bled dry by her attackers; her head ripped from her body. Yung’s dad and other uncles had gone on the hunt, killing all vampires they came across after the incident. The old man had been devastated.

  He’d already lost too many family members in the vamp-wolf war that had been going on for centuries. The most devastating lost was that of his mate, Yung’s mother, Yuki. Yung and Jihun had been in elementary school when their mother died.

  After much convincing from their mother, their father had decided to let them go to school with humans so that they could fit in better with them. Their pack lived in a secluded village away from humans. They had a school that young pack members attended. However, Yuki had wanted her children to one day go to college. She’d wanted them to be more than just shifters.

  She’d wanted them to see the world and experience all the things they couldn’t experience due to their pack’s rules. To do that, she’d known they would need to learn how to control themselves around human while they were young. The morning that she died was like any other.

  She got the boys ready for school and their father dropped them off in his old pick-up truck. According to his father, on his way home, he’d felt his beast becoming restless. The only time a wolf’s beast took over outside of a full moon or during a couples’ initial mating, was when a shifter was extremely angry or if the beast sensed its mate was in danger.

  His dad stopped his truck in the middle of the dirt road that led to their village. He’d gotten out, shifted into his wolf form then raced home. His mate hadn’t been home. And there’d been nothing out of place inside their home. Following her scent, he’d searched the woods for her.

  He’d found her body by the creek outside their village. She sometimes went there
to pick flowers, which she used to decorate their home. Her body was covered in puncture wounds as if multiple vamps had fed off her. His father had become enraged.

  His beast had completely taken over as the man retreated and mourned for his wife. The beast had hunted. He’d caught the vamps’ scent on his mate’s flesh. He’d known exactly who’d done that to her. In fact, his father had firsthand experience with the vamps who’d killed his mate.

  They were a den of vampires that most creatures feared. They went by the name, the ancient ones. No one knew exactly how long they’d roamed the earth. But his father and his uncles had come across them years before and they had battled.

  The wolves had defeated them and his father had pierced the heart of an ancient one’s bride. The attack on Yung’s mother had been an act of revenge. And his father had blamed himself for her death. His dad had followed the stench of the ancient ones and hunted them down to a cave where they’d slept inside.

  His father would never tell him how many vamps he killed that horrible day. He would never tell him if there were any young vamps in that cave. His father rarely talked about that day at all. When Yung and his brother had gotten out of school that day, their dad hadn’t been there to pick them up.

  Instead, their uncle Rory was there. It was their uncle who broke the news to Yung and his brother of their mother’s death. They’d called their uncle a liar and raced away from him, heading to the woods. Once in the woods, they’d changed into their wolf forms and ran all the way home.

  Their dad had locked himself in the room he once shared with their mother and refused to see even them. The boys had grieved for their dead mother and their heartbroken father. It was months before their father returned to a fraction of the man they’d once knew.

  Even now, he was still just a shell of the man he once was. He’d always despised vampire. Now, his father hated them with every fiber of his being. Because of that day, because of their father’s teachings, Yung had developed the same hatred for leeches.

  And whenever he caught whiff of some near his territory, he and his pack members hunted them down and destroyed them before they could do the same to his pack members. His father taught him to never allow a vamp to escape. Doing so wasn’t an act of mercy, it was an act of stupidity.

  Because vamps always returned to scents they knew. If they got hungry enough, they’d follow the scent of someone who’d saved them to their home and kill everyone in it. Never suffer a vamp to live, that was their pack’s motto. If Yung found out that Iris was a vampire, there was no way he could mate with her.

  If she was a vampire, he would have no choice but either end her or have her imprisoned. If he didn’t, his father would. Yung shook off the feeling of guilt that came over him. There was no need to think along those lines. His mate was a wolf. He would prove it to himself in just a few hours.

  He would return to her secret village in the woods. He would search every damn cabin in that village until he found her. And when he did, he’d confirm that she was like him, a wolf shifter. With his thoughts now on a more positive note, he poured his cereal.

  Yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. After breakfast Yung met his brother and cousin at the training site where they trained young wolves. It was only nine in the morning. The young members of the pack wouldn’t be down to the training site for another thirty minutes.

  The three teachers usually met up and went over their agenda for the day. But today, as Hyun and Jihun stated their concerns for certain headstrong and stubborn young pack members, Yung stared off into the distance. Ironically, it was in the direction of his mate’s secret village.

  “Earth to Yung! Dude, have you heard a word I’ve said?” Hyun asked as he wrote something down on his notepad and passed it to Jihun. Jihun laughed then wrote something on the pad. As Jihun went to pass the pad back to Hyun, Yung jumped between the two and snatched the pad.

  The notes read…

  “Do you smell something funny going on with Yung?”

  “Yeah. I smell her on him. I guess he hung out with her at some point!”

  Yung threw the pad down. “Remind me why I hang out with the two of you, because right now, I don’t know.”

  He could hear them laughing as he walked away. Yung strode up to the edge of the pond. Today, he would be teaching the young ones to track and retrieve. Tracking was very important to wolves. Bad tracking could lead to death. Good tracking could save lives and let you know who or what you were dealing with.

  Yung squatted down and dipped his fingers in the water. Thanks to his mate, he would never be able to look at water the same. Laughter drifted his way. The kids were coming. He took a deep breath and released it slowly. It was time to focus on the task at hand. He would deal with his mate later. Right now, he had to teach his young pack members how to track down vampires.

  *.*.*.*

  Iris sat up in bed. The dark curtains in her room kept the sun out; but her body knew that it was still high in the sky. She felt sluggish but she couldn’t sleep. Her mind was too active with thoughts of her mate. Rising out of bed, she stretched and walked to her dresser to find a t shirt and jeans to put on.

  Iris walked to the bathroom where she bathed and then showered. Once she was done, she threw on her t-shirt, undies and jeans and walked barefoot out her room and downstairs to the kitchen. Her mother was frying eggs.

  Without turning to look at Iris, her mother asked, “So, who is he?”

  Iris stopped mid-stride and stared at the back of her mother’s head. Iris sniffed. She didn’t smell Yung on her still. She’d soaked for an hour this morning to make sure Erin didn’t smell him on her.

  “Stop smelling yourself,” her mother laughed and faced her. Auna put some eggs on the empty plate and gestured for Iris to have a seat. “Don’t worry. Erin won’t be able to smell him on you. She hasn’t even noticed that you were going through the change.”

  Iris blushed. This was the conversation she’d been trying to avoid having with her mother.

  “So, my baby is not a baby anymore.” Auna said.

  “Ma!” Embarrassed, Iris shoveled a fork full of eggs into her mouth.

  Auna cradled her coffee cup in her hand and stared at her.

  “What?” Iris asked.

  “Nothing. It’s just that you and Erin teleport around this house trying to hide things from me. Well, I hope you know it doesn’t work. I know more than what you girls think I do. No point in blushing. Going through the change happens to all female shifters. I admit that I thought your vampire side would suppress it. It seems to be doing so in Erin, but not in you.”

  Iris felt uncomfortable talking about this with her mom. Usually, when she had questions like this, she went to her friends. Right now, she needed her mother’s advice.

  “Ma, why do wolves hate vampires so much and vice versa?”

  Auna stopped drinking her coffee and stared at her daughter. “Has someone done something to you?” Her mother asked. “Who was it?”

  Iris could feel the anger rising from her mother. “No mom. No one has done anything. It’s just that, I know wolves and vamps don’t get along. Erin and I look and smell like wolves, so we are accepted without question. I just wanted to know how much would people hate us if they found out we were half vampire?”

  Her mother calmed down a little. Her mother had lost her mate to the wolf-vamp war. Iris knew she was determined to make sure they didn’t get caught up in that hatred.

  “It depends on who found out, honey. Your friends here in the village know you. They know how kind and loving you and Erin are. They wouldn’t hurt you. But, honestly, you never know what outsiders will do. It’s hard for me to truly answer your question.”

  Iris sighed. Her mother took another sip of her coffee. She must’ve sensed that Iris was disappointed in her answer.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie. Even though I go out and teach others about the vamp and wolf war, and even though I work with both vampires an
d shifters from other areas, it’s still hard for me to talk about the war with you and Erin.”

  “I know, mom.”

  Iris ate her breakfast in silence. She knew that her mother did not like her discussing the wolf-vamp war because it brought back too many painful memories. Half of which Iris had managed to block from her mind. But how could she know what she was up against if she didn’t know what to expect.

  She knew wolves had killed her father because he was a vampire. She knew the wolf who’d ordered the hit had been her grandfather. He hadn’t wanted her mother to be mated to a vampire. For years, her family had lived in hiding. They’d moved from town to town, careful not to stay in one spot too long.

  Erin and Iris had only been allowed to go outside when it was dark because they couldn’t risk others seeing them. Their father had taken on night jobs to provide for the family. He’d endured a lot of cruelty trying to live in the human world. In the end, all of his efforts had gotten him nowhere.

  Iris’s grandfather had still hunted them down and killed him. He couldn’t bring himself to kill Iris and Erin directly. So, he hired a witch to do it for them. Her mother had defeated the witch. But the woman had uttered their curse before she died. And now they were the cursed hybrids.

  For this reason, Erin should hate wolves, not vampires. Her own grandfather, a wolf, was the one who’d killed their dad. But Erin blamed their father’s side for starting the problem. If their uncle hadn’t kidnapped their grandmother and killed her, their grandfather wouldn’t have ever gone after their father.

  Erin had loved their grandmother dearly. Her death was what started her sister’s hatred of vampires. Losing their vampire father only made her blame vampires more. Their father would be alive if their uncle hadn’t done what he’d done.

  On both sides, there was so much hurt and despair. Would when it ever end? How could it end, when neither side was willing to forgive and move on? Not forget. The ones lost on either side should not be forgotten. But they had to forgive and move on if any of them ever wanted to heal.