by Helena Shaw
It’s a wolf, she realized, but her feet were stuck in place. She could only watch, terrified, as the animal began to move toward her.
Fear kept her rooted in place, but her mind pleaded with her to run. Her feet refused to obey, but as the wolf let out a low, guttural growl, somehow the spell was broken. Her feet were her own again, and they began to move.
Deep inside, she knew she couldn’t outrun the animal. Behind her, she could already hear its large paws as they raced across the road, its claws clicking with every step. Still, she ran. She ran just as hard as she had that night in Central Park, but this time it wasn’t an overweight man in his pajamas chasing her. It was a wolf, and it was out for blood.
It was steps behind her now. She knew that without looking. One leap and it would be on her, but she didn’t give up. She’d been running for years, and she began to wonder if she would die running.
It was sick, but she couldn’t help herself. The image was so ironic, so stupid, that a choked laugh that was half a sob left her lips, but it was cut short when a second figure came into view not fifty feet ahead.
No, her mind groaned. One wolf, maybe she had a chance against, but a second? She was doomed, she knew that now, but she kept running all the same.
“Dawn,” a familiar voice called to her from up ahead. “Dawn, get down! Now!”
It wasn’t another wolf come to attack her. It was Agent Nash, come to save her. She saw him raise his gun, and though her instincts told her the last thing she should do was stop and let herself drop to the ground as easy prey for the wolf, her mind finally took control and she did as he commanded.
She dropped hard to the gravel street. She’d been running so fast that simply stopping wasn’t an option, instead she skidded and fell, her plaid jacket providing very little protection from the hard and stony ground beneath her.
Her own pain and fear shattered as she heard Nash fire a shot. From behind her, she could hear the animal as it screamed in pain, but she couldn’t see it. She was on her belly and too scared to look back. The wolf might still be there, prowling over her and ready to gobble her up if she dared look upon it.
Another shot rang out, but Dawn heard it hit the ground as the wolf’s paws pounded the street. She only looked up in time to see Agent Nash rushing toward her, gun still drawn.
“Did it bite you?” he asked her, his intense gaze boring into her.
“No.” She shook her head as she struggled to right herself. “No, I don’t think it touched me.”
“Good,” he said as he helped her to her feet.
He moved to leave, but her fingers caught his green jacket and forced him to stop.
“Please,” she said, her panic and fear making her eyes glassy with tears. “Don’t leave me. You can’t... I can’t...”
“I have to put it down,” Nash said as he looked off in the distance, but her short delay was enough to give the wolf time to flee into the darkness. “I only winged it. It’ll still be out there, but it’ll be slow. I can track it.”
“Please,” Dawn repeated. “I... I...”
His eyes caught hers again, and she watched as they softened. “Okay,” he said as he looped a strong arm around her waist to steady her. “Let’s get you home and cleaned up.”
“What was that thing?” she asked as they made their way toward her house.
“A wolf,” the agent said, but Dawn refused to believe that. She wanted to question him then, but more than that, she wanted to be in the safety of her own home.
“Okay, here we go,” he said as he helped her up the steps of her porch. Dawn fished in her pocket for her keys and handed them to Nash. Her fingers were shaking too much to be of any use, and again, she let the federal agent into her home.
Gently, he helped her to the couch where she sat and pulled off her plaid jacket to reveal two long scrapes down her left arm where she broke her fall. While she watched, Nash moved to her kitchen and opened the cupboard with the whiskey bottle and retrieved it. He knew exactly what he was doing and where to look for the glasses before he poured two drinks and brought them back over to where Dawn waited on the couch.
“That wasn’t a wolf.” Dawn shook her head as she accepted the drink. “Not really. Was it?”
Nash didn’t answer her right away. He only tossed back his drink before he went and grabbed the bottle from the kitchen, along with a cloth from the counter.
“Please,” she said. “Kevin, what was that thing?”
“Take off your shirt,” he said, his voice low and flat.
She startled, spilling her own cup a little. “What?”
“You need to take off your shirt,” he said again. “I need to make sure you weren’t bit. Sometimes shock makes you block stuff out.”
“Kevin?” she questioned as she shuffled back on the couch.
“Please,” he said. “Just do as I ask and I’ll explain everything.
“Fine,” she relented. Meekly, she turned away from him to maintain some of her modesty while she pulled her shirt over her head. She was left wearing only her now ripped jeans and her black bra, but somehow, she didn’t feel as exposed as she expected.
The agent’s hands went to her blonde hair and lifted it just enough to ensure her back was free of cuts or bites. He was gentle as he looked her arms over, his eyes resting on the scrapes before he moved on.
“Jeans, too?” she asked, knowing what he needed of her.
He nodded, and Dawn undid her jeans and let them fall to the floor. More scrapes from the fall could be found there, but nothing more than that.
When she was certain he was satisfied with his inspection, Dawn reached for her shirt again, but he stopped her.
“Kevin?” she asked again, unsure what he was doing.
“You’re hurt,” he said. “Those scrapes need to be disinfected. And my name isn’t Kevin.”
Somehow, she knew that bombshell was coming. With everything that had happened that night, it was the least of her surprises, and she didn’t fight him on it. Instead, she only sat and watched as he poured some of the whiskey onto the cloth.
“My name isn’t Kevin Nash,” he told her as he worked. “You almost had me with the comment about the wrestler when we first met. My real name is Jason Byrnes.”
“You aren’t FBI, are you?” she asked him, but her question was cut off with a hiss as he pressed the damp cloth to the smaller scrape on her knee.
“No,” he confirmed.
“I knew you weren’t like other cops,” she mused to herself as the sting subsided.
“I’m not a cop,” he said as he put more whiskey on the cloth. “I’m a hunter.”
“You’re nothing like any of the hunters I’ve ever met,” Dawn said and bit down as he pressed more whiskey into her wounds.
“Not that kind,” he said. “Not really. The bedtime stories you heard as a kid, the ones about wicked witches, vampires, werewolves? It’s all true. Not entirely like the fairy tales, of course, but they’re a good place to start.”
“Werewolves, vampires, monsters?” Dawn remarked. “And here I thought people were bad enough on their own.”
The man she had known as Kevin Nash nodded as he gently wiped away the alcohol dripping down her pale skin. “They can be.”
“So it’s a werewolf,” Dawn said, not sure she wanted to believe it, but she’d seen the creature change with her own eyes. Somehow, it just seemed too crazy not to be true.
“That was my hunch,” he answered. “That, or given the location, a wendigo.”
“Jason...” Dawn said, his name foreign on her tongue.
“Please,” he stopped her. “Call me Jase. Everyone does.”
“Jase,” she corrected herself, and somehow it felt right. “How did you get started? With all this, I mean.”
“It was about six years ago,” he said. “I was twenty-three and just finishing up my degree. I was walking home from a bar one night and saw this gorgeous woman getting beat up by what I thought were two guys. I
stepped in and got my ass handed to me. That was my first encounter with vampires, and with Addy.”
“Addy?” Dawn asked, clenching her teeth as the whiskey touched her cuts again.
“Adelaide,” Jase said. “My old partner. Here I was, twenty-three and thinking I was going to step in, save her from a couple of douchebags, and she’d beg me to take her home. Turns out she saved my life and fixed me up. She must have seen some potential in me, since she taught me to hunt.”
“And did you...?” Dawn struggled to ask, but she didn’t want to seem jealous over a dead woman.
“Sleep together?” Jase said with a laugh. “No, Addy’s a lesbian. Was, I guess. Really, it was the perfect partnership. No jealousy, just two friends traveling and hunting. I thought it would stay like that forever. I wanted it to.
“She was actually about to give it up, though,” he continued. “Was tired of it. She’d met a nice girl, and we were going to go our separate ways after our last hunt. We were on the trail of a wolf pack, and we’d taken down the alpha. Too bad we didn’t see his mate. She got the drop on us. Addy didn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry,” Dawn said, too uncertain to say anything else.
“Well, it is what it is,” Jase said, though the hurt was obvious in his voice. “I have to say, most people, they hear about monsters and ghouls and go running for the hills or think I should be locked up, not that we tell many people. You seem relatively cool with all this.”
“I’ve seen a lot of bad,” Dawn said with a shrug, but it only made her scrapes hurt all over again. “Maybe it’s better if some of that bad is really monsters. Or,” she laughed, “maybe I’m in shock, and tomorrow I’ll wake up screaming.”
“I doubt that,” Jase said as he put the cap back on the whiskey. Dawn watched over her shoulder as he set the bottle at his feet. She thought he was about to leave, but instead, his hands found her shoulders again. Gently, he slid his rough palms down her bare arms, and she let herself shiver at his touch.
She thought it would end there, a gentle caress to reassure her that everything would be all right, but then his lips met the skin of her shoulder and kissed her there.
Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was the adrenaline, she couldn’t be sure, but Dawn turned to face him. For a moment, Jase’s eyes searched hers for a sign of resistance, but there was none to find. Instead, she leaned into him, and let her lips meet his.
For everything that had happened, or in spite of it, she let herself kiss him. In that moment, she didn’t care that he’d given her a fake name, that he’d posed as an FBI agent and deceived her. He’d saved her, and no man had ever done that for her before.
His lips were softer than she expected, yet his fingers were scratchy and rough on her skin. She let herself surrender to his embrace, and she parted her lips for his tongue as he began to explore her mouth. Every ounce of her body demanded more, and she wove her fingers through his soft, sandy hair as their kiss deepened.
As if driven by sudden uncertainty, Jase pulled himself back from her. “Dawn, I...” he said, but stopped himself. “Fuck it,” he growled as he pulled her into his arms and ignited their kiss once more.
From there, Jase’s lips trailed down her neck and across the bare skin of her chest. His kisses were full of need, and Dawn’s moans urged him to continue with every caress of his fingers.
“Please,” she moaned. “I need you.”
That was all it took for Jase to pull her up in his strong, muscular arms. Easily, he carried her toward the bedroom, their kisses only intensifying until he tossed her onto the bed.
Dawn watched as Jase began to undress himself. He was still wearing that faded green jacket, and she waited with anticipation coursing through her veins as he removed it. She’d already seen him once without his shirt, but it had been innocent and completely platonic. This time was different. This time was filled with passion, need, and desire, and she didn’t want to wait any longer.
Finally, he pulled off the plain white t-shirt he’d been wearing and cast it aside. The muscles of his chest, arms, and abs were flexed as he stood over her, and Dawn drank him in with her eyes.
He didn’t make her wait long for him to join her on the bed. His lips were on hers once more, and she never wanted them to part. Dawn didn’t know what part of him she wanted to explore first, and instead, she ran her delicate fingers all over him as he began to kiss down between her breasts.
“This has to go,” he purred at her. His fingers looped under her arched back and found the clasp of her bra. Easily, he unhooked it and pulled it down her slender arms, revealing more of her body to him.
Something in Dawn’s mind preached modesty, but she didn’t want to hear it. She wanted Jase, and when his lips met the bud of her nipple, she was beyond caring about anything else. He seemed to know exactly what her body needed, and he gave it to her in spades.
Between her legs, Dawn could feel the stiffening of Jase’s cock through his jeans. It only served to stoke the fire building up inside her, and soon Dawn was begging for more.
“I want you inside me,” she whispered in Jase’s ear, and for a flash, his eyes met hers. They seemed an impossibly bright green, but there was a smile on his lips as he moved his kisses down lower and lower until his lips and fingers were at the top of her cotton panties.
There was no words needed then. Dawn simply lifted her hips and let him slide off the last remaining bit of her clothing. She was totally exposed to him, and too excited to think about anything else. All she needed now was for him to be as naked as her.
For a moment, his kisses stopped and she wondered if he was starting to have second thoughts, but she saw him fish his wallet out of his back pocket, and from there, he removed a single foil packet before he discarded his wallet on the floor.
With the silver wrapper waiting on the bed, Jase shimmied backwards until his feet were on the floor. His eyes caught hers, and there was a devilish glint to be found in them while his fingers moved to the button on his jeans.
With wide eyes, Dawn watched as he began to slowly unbutton his jeans. The only sounds she heard were that of his zipper and her own breath in her throat while her heart beat faster and faster. She wanted him so badly, but he was taking his time in teasing her until she leaned up and lowered his zipper for him.
“Now,” she moaned as she gazed up at him. Need was consuming her, and she couldn’t wait any longer. Mercifully, Jase ended his torment and lowered his jeans and boxers in one swift move.
Once freed, Jase’s cock was stiff and exposed for Dawn to see. It was larger than she expected, and giddiness coursed through her as Jase crawled over her, easily pushing her back down as he went. She only had to wait a moment longer for him to slip on the condom, but it felt like an eternity.
Finally, graciously, Jase pressed the tip of his cock to her waiting sex. Dawn had never known she could want a man so badly, and her body completely gave in to her desires. With her legs spread, she accepted him readily as he entered her in one smooth thrust.
“Oh,” she managed to moan as he buried himself to the hilt inside of her. He was thicker than she realized, and her body stretched to adapt to him, but his girth was wonderfully filling.
“I’ve wanted this so badly,” he moaned into her ear as his hips began to move in a rhythmic dance. “Ever since that moment in the street, I’ve wanted you.”
Somewhere deep inside, Dawn knew that feeling was completely mutual. It was how he looked at her, how he moved, everything about him seemed to fit her perfectly, and now that she had him, she never wanted to let go.
He might have been stronger than her, but she easily rolled him onto his back while they made love. She wanted to claim him as her own, and she wanted to feel him deeply inside her. She wanted to ride him like a stallion, and he was in no position to protest.
On top of him, it was easy for Dawn to control her own pleasure. Bliss filled her body as Jase’s hands found her breasts and massaged them gently.
When her orgasm came, it was unlike anything she had ever felt before. Stars exploded behind her eyelids and her body quivered around his. She tried to hold on to the feeling as long as possible, but as it faded, it was Jase’s turn to find his pleasure.
He hadn’t been far behind her in his release, and in her post-orgasmic state, it was easy for him to toss her back on to the bed and take her anew. He was gentle with her raw and pleasure-wracked body as he found his own orgasm deep inside her.
“Wow,” Dawn managed to moan as Jase lifted himself off her. “Just... wow.”
“I know,” Jase said as he pulled her into his arms.
He said something else then, but between the adrenaline crash, her lack of sleep, and the all-consuming pleasure she’d just experienced, Dawn didn’t hear it. Sleep was what had claimed her then, and she didn’t have it in her to fight it any longer.
Chapter Ten
It wasn’t chainsaws or the calls of songbirds that roused Dawn from her deep slumber, but rather the sound of trucks as they rumbled through town. Country music blared through their open windows and excited hollers flowed with the twangs of the songs.
Dawn lifted her arms over her head and stretched slowly. Her body was the most wonderful kind of sore, a tenderness that only came from passion and lust. It was a feeling she’d gone without for a long time, and she let herself sink into it before she turned to gaze upon the man she’d shared her bed with.
But when she rolled over, he was gone. She was alone, and though she’d wanted to curl up into his arms again, she only shrugged.
The last time he’d stayed over, as platonic as that had been, he had gotten up long before her and brewed coffee for the both of them. It was a sweet gesture that Dawn couldn’t deny looking forward to sharing again.