Her Werewolf Hero

by Michele Hauf

  “None of your damn business.”

  “Doesn’t smell like lunch, that’s for sure. It’s from the soul bringer. I can smell him on it. He means business.”

  “Then why doesn’t he come talk to me face-to-face? Why not rip Kizzy’s heart out himself?”

  Kizzy shivered and clutched her arms across her chest.

  The cat smirked. “He can’t touch the heart. Soul bringers deal with Above and Beneath. Purgatory is forbidden to them. If he wants to get in, he’ll need a guide to operate the portal.”

  “The portal being my heart?” Kizzy asked.

  “Exactly. Apparently harpies are not sufficient means to take out hearts. But they provide a good scare, eh?”

  “Why does he want her heart?” Bron asked. “I know it gets him into Purgatory. But if he is forbidden, why does he want to go there?”

  The cat shrugged. “You got me. Maybe he sent a soul there by mistake and needs to get it back?”

  Bron stepped back and rubbed his jaw. The cat eyed the doorway. Kizzy stepped closer and blocked his path to a quick escape. Would he really run off in the buff?

  “What do you think?” she asked Bron.

  “I think the cat is better off dead.”

  “No! I’ll stop Tweeting. Promise. But then I’ve got to go under to save my furry ass from the soul bringer’s vengeance. He’s a mean bastard.”

  “You have his name?” Bron asked.

  “Blackthorn Regis,” the cat provided.

  “That’ll help.” Bron clasped Kizzy’s hand and tugged her away from the cat. “Go,” he said to the familiar. “Best of luck on staying away from the soul bringer.”

  The cat stood, cupping his privates. “You got a coat or something I can borrow, man?”

  “Nope.”

  The man sighed and wandered toward the warehouse entrance. Kizzy glanced away from the sight of his naked backside. In the glow of the moonlight he shifted down to the black cat and scampered off.

  “If I see one more Tweet,” Bron called after him, “you will die!”

  An angry meow faded with the cat’s retreat.

  “And how will we find him to kill him?” Kizzy asked as Bron turned to her.

  “I’ve his scent in my nose now. I could track that feline anywhere within a twenty-mile range. I’ll know where he is. Now, to get to the witch.” He grabbed the box, then took her hand and strode out of the building.

  “What do we need a witch for?”

  “To put up a protective shield so the soul bringer can’t track us. Including his minions. You cool with that?”

  “Is there another option?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then I’m cool.”

  Outside the building, she tugged him to a halt and pulled him into a hug. Kissing him, she lingered on the warmth of his lips. All that mattered to her was that she lived. Because then she could kiss him again. And have sex with him again. And, simply have him again.

  “We make a good team,” she said.

  “Don’t dream for things that can never happen, Kizzy.”

  “Why not? That’s what makes dreams so wonderful.”

  And with a shrug and a forced smile, she strode ahead of him, her heart falling because he didn’t believe in them. She should not. But it was too late. The werewolf from her nightmares had slipped into her dreams.

  Chapter 17

  Kizzy drove by virtue of the fact that Bron had simply climbed into the passenger side and quietly handed her the keys. While Siri directed her down a dark country road toward the witch’s home, she couldn’t help but feel her heart break for Bron. He held the black box on his lap. Eyes closed and head bowed, his silence gripped at her empathy.

  She couldn’t imagine what he must feel. And then she could relate, in a manner. She had lost a boyfriend. No matter how she’d felt about Keith on the night of the accident, she had once cared for him, and losing any soul before its time was a tragedy. Though relating to losing someone you hadn’t seen for over a hundred and fifty years, such as was Bron’s case, was a little difficult. And he’d had an affair, which had resulted in a child.

  No one was perfect. And she wouldn’t judge him. He was holding his wife’s heart in a box on his lap! But she suddenly had an idea. She knew this road. And just ahead...

  Kizzy turned left, contrary to Siri’s monotonous demands to make a corrective U-turn.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’ve been in this area a few times. High school keg parties. Used to have to hide them in the woods. There’s a special spot close by, if I recall my midnight excursions well enough.” She pulled over beside the ditch and turned the engine off. “Trust me?”

  “I don’t know why you need to go tramping through the woods in the middle of the night. Is this about your closure thing?”

  “Nope. It’s yours.” She tapped the box. “I thought maybe you’d like to give her a proper burial.”

  He opened his mouth to say something but then did not. Instead he nodded and got out, box clutched in his hands. He reached into the truck bed, where a utility box stored stuff such as his extra clothing and boots, and pulled out a small, foldable camp shovel.

  He followed her down the dry ditch, stomping tall grasses, and hiked through a short stretch of knee-high milkweed and into the woods. Less than five minutes in, Kizzy was rewarded for her night navigational skills. A stream burbled crisply. Moonlight beamed through the tree canopy. The air smelled fresh and untainted by society. Whimsy abounded. If she squinted and looked through her lashes, she could see the faery dust in the air.

  “This is—” Bron stopped at her side and took in the scene with a long glance in all directions “—wondrous.”

  She clasped his free hand. “And magical. I have some amazing pictures of the stream that I took in high school. I also used to come here when I was not partying. I think the trips here were what really got me interested in photography.” She tapped her camera. “I’m going that way to take some pictures with the moonlight beaming on the stream. I’ll leave you to yourself.”

  He slid a hand along her cheek and pulled her in for a kiss. It was slow and sweet, and she couldn’t help but feel like a damsel standing beneath the moonlight with her hero. Her werewolf hero. A man who had been punished for something he had done so long ago and was still being punished today. She wanted to free him. Bringing him here was a small first step.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Take your time.” She stroked his beard. “I’ll be just that way. Catching faeries.”

  “If you catch them they’ll harass you and your loved ones forever after. Just take pictures, okay?”

  “Deal.” She wandered along the stream’s edge, not turning back when she heard the shovel hit the rocky earth.

  Faeries? Maybe. Well, most certainly. Though she’d never seen one, she had felt their presence.

  Once she’d walked about three hundred yards away from where Bron was digging, she found the perfect cove. Verdant moss frosted the rolling earth, and even the tree roots that pushed up from the ground were mounded in lush moss. Delicate white flowers dotted the emerald carpet and red-capped amanita muscaria mushrooms sprouted at the base of an oak. Possibly Faery did exist here.

  Kizzy squatted and began to snap pictures. She had sensed faeries most of her life but only ever thought to have seen them out of the corner of her eye. Whether that was because it was in keeping with the mythology she’d read, or truth, didn’t matter. She believed. And those beliefs were currently being proven every second she breathed.

  Losing her balance, she caught a hand in the moss, and her fingers sank into the plush green. Surrendering to the fantastical moment, she lay down and pressed her cheek to the moss, inhaling deeply and exhaling with a smiling sigh.


  “It smells so good out here. I could have been a faery,” she said and then laughed. “Though I’m not sure what I’d do with my wings. Bron must know so much about all the varied creatures that live on this planet.” She sat up on the moss and leaned against the tree trunk, cradling the camera in her hand. “I’d love to pick his brain. Get to know him much better.”

  Even better than skin on skin? While sex was awesome, learning a man’s mind was the real turn-on. Kizzy was attracted to intelligence and honor. A man who was not satisfied to stand still and exist, but who was drawn to explore and learn. To help others.

  Was Bron that man? Traveling because of his job also implied a quest for knowledge, but it did appeal to her hunger for movement.

  “A wanderlust,” she said. With Bron by her side.

  And he was helping others by taking dangerous magical objects out of circulation to lock them away. Maybe? So long as he didn’t rip out her heart, she was good with that definition. And she’d still keep him by her side.

  Date a werewolf? It was not a ridiculous notion. They would make a perfect pair. She, a believer who did not question his otherness. And he, a powerful and honorable protector who had only her best interests in mind.

  He’d been sent to claim her heart. Instead he’d become a part of it.

  And who was she, getting all romance and roses on her crazy self? She wasn’t in the market for a boyfriend. She hadn’t considered dating since the accident. Hookups worked just fine for now. For some reason, mourning Keith had meant not going out with friends when they invited along that “extra” guy and certainly not making eye contact with the sexy stranger in the Starbucks as she used to once do.

  Of course, she did believe that love found the person. It wasn’t the other way around. If it happened into a person’s life, it was meant to be.

  One day you’ll turn around, and he’ll be standing there.

  The fact she couldn’t get that long-ago whispered prediction from her brain now had to mean something. And Bron had been there when she had turned around in the park. How cool was that?

  Bron’s footsteps neared, and she patted the moss beside her. He accepted her offer and sat down, legs bent. He stabbed the shovel into the loamy moss beside him. His fingers were darkened with dirt, which he rubbed at, then gave up. He tilted back his head and took in the moonlight.

  Kizzy wasn’t sure how to ask if all had gone well with burying the box. She knew he would offer information if he felt inclined. Inhaling, she drew in his masculine scent, the dirt from his hands and the warmth of his body. She leaned against him, shoulder to shoulder. She wanted to kiss him but, again, decided to let him make the first move. This moment was too perfect to spoil with words. And when he clasped her hand, she felt sure the glint of moonlight above them was speckled with faery dust.

  After a while he said, “Tomorrow is the night before the full moon.”

  “Yep.” Okay, completely off subject. Nothing wrong with that. She did want to get this important topic out there and explained. “Do you, uh...think you might need some help with that sex thing you told me about?”

  He smirked. “Are you offering?”

  “I am.”

  He kissed the back of her hand, then clasped it loosely against his chest as he gazed over the stream. A lazy ribbon of silvery water glistened with moonshine. “Find any faeries?”

  “Maybe. I won’t know until I review the pictures later. They have a sneaky way of flittering in and out of view. Whether or not they get captured on film is entirely up to them.” She nuzzled her nose into his hair and kissed the base of his neck. “And how are you?”

  He shrugged. “I just buried my wife’s heart. She was an innocent. She died for no reason other than some bastard’s means to goad me. And it worked.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I will kill the soul bringer.”

  She was about to protest, but it didn’t feel fair. He’d been wounded directly in the heart. She didn’t know the way of his kind or of any paranormals. Perhaps such extreme vengeance was the norm for them. Did they not have laws? Courts? A justice system?

  “Claire deserves vengeance,” he said. “God knows I was not a good husband by seeking love away from her arms. We were an arranged marriage, you know?”

  “Really? So you didn’t pick one another? Did you know one another before you married?”

  “Only met once. Our respective packs wanted to join forces. We were chosen to marry and seal the bond between the packs. I was made leader. We thrived, the new pack. It was a good thing.”

  “What’s it like being the leader of a pack? How many wolves are in it?”

  “There were an average of thirty at any given time. I was the alpha, chosen because, after our former leader had been killed by demons, I’d slayed them all—eight powerful corporeal demons who had escaped from Daemonia. I won the principal position, and I’d not let any others defy my authority. You might say I was power mad. I liked being in charge. In having others look up to me. I’ve learned since, that was ego, and ego can be a stupid distraction for what the soul desires.”

  “Your soul desired being a lone wolf and traveling the world?”

  “I didn’t know it at the time, but, yes, I believe my actions, the affair, were a direct catalyst to putting me on the path I now walk.”

  “Lone wolf Retriever. Are all the Retrievers werewolves?”

  “No. Acquisitions hires myriad species for the Retrieval team. Comes in handy when a specific species may be needed to finesse a retrieval or deal with the locals. I’ve met all sorts, both human and paranormal, in my travels. I’ve learned a lot.”

  “I bet your wife would have been proud to see the man you’ve become.”

  He exhaled. “She would not have. Claire preferred me growling and in control. Stepping on others for the good of the pack. Her idea of a man was the ultimate alpha. A chest beater who would take a man down just for looking at him the wrong way. I imagine she may have hooked up with the new pack leader after I was banished.”

  “You never once looked into her welfare? Tried to learn what had happened to her?”

  “I figured I owed her the respect of never contacting her after what I’d done. And I was angry over Isabelle’s death. The pack could have prevented it. They could have kept her safe until I was released.”

  “I’m sorry.” Kizzy squeezed his hand. “You’ve lost much.”

  “It is my past.”

  “A past that’s been resurrected.”

  “For reasons I can’t begin to grasp. I don’t understand why the soul bringer believes I would be amenable to his threat. A suggestion to a trade after he killed my wife? What reason do I now have to hand you over to him? If anything, I am even more determined to protect you to ensure that yet another woman doesn’t fall to his brutal treatment.”

  She spread a hand across his chest, resting it against the hard, steely muscle. His heartbeat was strong, solid. “I would have liked to have seen you as the alpha wolf standing at the head of your pack. I saw a glimpse of your animal nature that night the wraith demon was after me.”

  “I am not that wolf anymore, Kizzy. I am kinder, gentler. More thoughtful.”

  “And you wield a stake and crossbow just for the fun of it? Surely your travels must land you on some amazing adventures. Are you faced with life-and-death situations?”

  “All the time,” he said with a smile. “Just because I have mellowed doesn’t mean I don’t seek the adrenaline and excitement. And sometimes weapons are very necessary. I am still a wild creature. I need the freedom. It is my nature.”

  “Your penchant to seek adventure excites me.”

  He waggled his brows at her.

  “Not that way. Well, maybe a little. Okay, a lot. I like your wildness in bed. I like to think of myself a
s adventurous, as well. But snapping pictures probably isn’t quite what you consider excitement.”

  “The photos you could take on my adventures would capture gorgeous scenery. I confess I checked out your blog. I’m impressed.”

  “Why, thank you. That means a lot coming from a real werewolf.”

  “So long as I don’t see any pics from my fight with the wraith demon up on your blog I’ll continue to be impressed.”

  She crossed her heart with a fingertip. “Promise.”

  “I should have already destroyed that camera by now. It wasn’t a direct command, but I consider it a mark against my service history with Acquisitions.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble. But this camera cost a lot. What if you watch me erase all the pictures?”

  He eyed her carefully. “Have you downloaded any to your laptop?”

  “Maybe—” She pressed fingers to her mouth at the escaped confession. “Bron, you’ve got to let me keep the interesting ones. I will swear on my heart I will never publish any of them.” She crossed a finger over her heart.

  “Not good enough. But we’ll have this conversation again. After the threat has been eliminated.”

  She’d take that. For now. She was just thankful he hadn’t already destroyed her camera.

  “You think we should head to a motel and try for the witch in the morning? It’s getting late.”

  “No. She’ll be up.” He checked his cell phone. “It’s only eleven. I know this witch. She never sleeps.”

  “How do you know her?”

  He shrugged. “Do I have to say?”

  “Oh? So she’s a lover?”

  “Former,” he corrected. “I was in this neck of the woods a long time ago. Decades, surely. Looking for a chronomancy totem, if I recall correctly. Witches can be very useful.”

  “Oh, I bet. Should I be jealous?”

  “Jealousy would imply you’ve made a claim to me.”

  “Oh.” But she had. He didn’t think she had, or he didn’t want her to? Hmm...

  “Have you?” he asked with a side glance to her. “Claimed me?”