Her heart thudded as she followed him out, as he pulled her into the centre of the cabin and then sniffed the air around her, then closer, her hair, her torso, lower.
“My clothes…”
He turned to her with a snarl on his lips, then wordlessly picked up a small fur from the large bed in the corner of the cabin and threw it to her. She caught it clumsily and wrapped it around her body like a bath towel, feeling a small amount of relief before an unbidden shard of shame sliced through her. For what, she wasn’t sure.
She waited, her stance awkward, not sure what to do. He stood a foot from her, staring at her intensely, eyes sliding over her, again and again. She swallowed. “My name is – ”
“I know your name,” he said, his deep voice like the beat of a war drum.
“Oh,” she responded in a small voice. “What’s yours?”
He didn’t answer.
She tried a different tact. “Thank you for saving my life.”
He snorted his laughter. “I didn’t save your life. I took what’s mine.”
Grace gaped at him as ice slipped up her spine. She evaded almost certain death last night and now she had another threat to contend with. “I don’t understand.”
But he said nothing. Just circled her, eyes roaming over her, nose sniffing. Then he stopped suddenly, his head turning towards the door. Silence. Grace strained her ears, heard nothing but a bird call, the rustle of trees in the breeze. Still he stood rigidly, dark, watchful eyes on the door. Then she heard approaching footstep, the door opened and an older man stepped inside. Grey hair, grey beard, eyes that laughed even when he wasn’t. Looking at Grace, then a smile as he nodded his greeting and said, “Hawes.”
Hawes inclined his head. His eyes flicked back to Grace.
“Is she?”
“Yes. My mate.”
Mate? Grace shook her head slightly and tried to step back but Hawes’ arm shot out and his hand clamped around her wrist. “Don’t move.” He growled. “Mersin is here to make sure you are fit to be mated.”
Grace ignored his command as she wrenched her arm from his grasp and stumbled back a few paces. She gazed around the cabin, looking for a means to escape, but both Mersin and Hawes blocked her path to the exit. “Mated? Are you insane?”
The man called Mersin took a step towards her. “Settle yourself, girl. You’re in no danger from us. Hawes is your mate. It’s destined.”
Grace looked from the old man to Hawes, who stood solid and unmoving, arms crossed. “That’s ridiculous,” she snapped, trying to draw on her single psychology class, trying to remember the lecture on shared delusion.
“It’s not. You’ve had a shock and you’re shaken. I’m here to make sure you’re not injured, that you are intact.”
Grace took another step back. “They didn’t rape me if that’s what you mean. They… the wolf…” her eyes flicked to Hawes as she stammered. “It killed them before…” and then because her legs would no longer hold her, she dropped to her knees, her breath catching in her chest. She couldn’t draw air into her lungs. Mersin knelt next to her, put his hand to her neck and bent her head forward, telling her to take slow shallow breaths. His touch infused a warmth through her, and her stomach settled, her breathing normalized. She pushed his hand away.
“I’d like to go home, please,” she said in a small voice. “I need to call the police. They killed my…” she heard Hawes growl and she looked into his stormy face.
“Your what?” His deep, menacing voice echoed in the room.
Grace breathed. “My friend.” She started weeping then, as she said it. He was all of that and to her heart, more. She thought this research trip, tracking these werewolves in northern BC, was going to be the penultimate step in their relationship. He was older, mature, brilliant. Everything she could have wanted. And he singled her out, invited her here. It was going to be her chance at happiness, the reason she saved herself all these years. It was going to be her every fantasy come true.
“Your lover?” Hawes asked, a hard set to his jaw, a frown splitting his rugged face.
She shook her head. She couldn’t talk.
“Why not?” Hawes crouched in front of her, pinching her chin between his fingers, forcing her head up, her eyes to his. “Why hasn’t he fucked you?”
Grace shuddered and tried to pull out of his grip, but he tightened it.
“No one has fucked you, Grace. You can’t give yourself to a man who isn’t your mate, even your sexy professor.” He added a bitter twist to the last two words.
Grace didn’t know what to say. She’d stepped from one nightmare to another. “That’s not true,” her words were too soft, she needed to dig deeper, she needed her spirit now. If this was to be life or death, she needed to fight for life even if she died in battle. “I’m 23-years-old. And a party girl. You think I haven’t had sex before? You think I’m a nun?” Perhaps she could bullshit her way out of this. Sex was the final frontier for her and even with all the offers she had, she could never consummate. Each time kisses with boys led to petting and intimate touches, she would become repelled, forced to stop before it could go further. After this happened several times, she decided she was gay. Turned out not as the same thing happened with women, although she could never get past the kisses. Women just didn’t turn her on at all.
Hawes’ face was stony, his eyes hard. “You’re lying, Grace, I can smell your innocence. You have not even orgasmed.” Grace felt her face grow warm at these truths. “Your first blood is mine. You are mine.” Then he laughed derisively as he rose. “Tell her, Mersin,” he said as he sauntered out of the cabin like he was a king.
As soon as he left, Grace scrambled to her feet and rounded on Mersin. “He’s insane, Mersin! Can’t you tell? Please, please help me leave. I can’t be his mate.” She couldn’t figure out how Hawes knew she was a virgin. She had no idea how he knew she had never been able to bring herself to orgasm. She thought she was frigid, that something was wrong with her, but she’d never had the courage to seek help. Now Hawes was offering her an irrational reason for her inability to fuck another man, her inability to come.
Mersin shook his head. “Hawes is my adopted son. He’s destined to lead, here on this earth and below, in the depths of what you might think of as hell. And you, dear Grace, are destined to be his mate.”
Grace shuddered. “That’s crazy. You know that, right? You know how mad that sounds?”
Mersin laughed sardonically. “It’s only crazy if you’re a non-believer. You know what Hawes is? You know he’s not a man.”
Grace pursed her lips and looked towards the door, eyes roaming the cabin, looking anywhere but at Mersin. “Yes. I know. It’s why I came here, why Eric came. To study these wolves, not wolves, not men.”
“Say it,” Mersin urged her. “You know what he is. What he did for you last night.”
Grace swallowed. She didn’t want to say it out loud as if saying the words would make it true. But they fell out of her mouth anyway. “He’s a wolf, werewolf. He killed those men.”
“Yes. Those men were sent by his father. Sent to defile you.”
“This doesn’t make sense. Why would his father want me…?” she couldn’t finish the sentence as her stomach knotted, her throat closed at the memories.
Mersin sighed impatiently, “Has no one explained your legacy to you?” He paced away from her. “Obviously not,” he muttered to himself. He turned back to her. “Hawes is the offspring male of a hellhound and werewolf. You are the female offspring of a werewolf and human. On the twenty-fourth night, Hunter’s Blood Moon… “
“What?” Grace sputtered, his words jarring her back to the present. “I’m not a werewolf.”
“No, you’re not. Your wolf is latent. Do you know how rare that is?”
Grace was starting to feel less afraid as her anger grew. “I don’t know… this is ridiculous. Please, get me some clothes and let me go. Or at the very least, call the police.”
Hawes stood in
the doorway, agitated. “She’s not listening to you.”
Mersin turned to the towering man. “Give me more time.”
“No.” Hawes strode to the middle of the room, stopping in front of Mersin. “Is she healthy enough?”
Mersin turned his attention back to Grace, his eyes roving over her. He nodded. “She seems so.”
“Then leave. I’ll explain it to her.”
Mersin shook his head. “Give us more time. I can help with her healing.”
Hawes seem to grow taller, his teeth sharper, his eyes darker. “Later, leave now,” he growled. Mersin hesitated then stepped past Hawes.
As he closed the door behind him, she heard Mersin say, “Be gentle with her, Hawes.”
A tremor swept through Grace as she backed away from Hawes, but then her thighs bumped up on the bed, and she sat down with a thump. Her hand clutched at the fur covering her. “What are you going to do?” she whispered as his eyes stroked her.
“Show you,” his tone was as brittle as his strides as he paced toward her, then pulled her up by her arms and into his embrace. He brought his mouth to her ear, “I cannot claim you, Grace, not until the night of the Hunter’s Blood Moon.” He raked a nail down the side of her bruised face, down her neck to the furs. “But you cannot say no to me. I will be the only man you will ever bed willingly.”
She felt a shiver slide up her spine as he bent his face to hers, brought his lips to hers, but fuck if he was going to show her anything. Anger ripped through her at his nerve. She reared back and hit his face with her forehead, slammed it hard enough to send him reeling. A bolt of pain lanced through her head, but she didn’t stop to consider it. She ran by him as his knees buckled, out the door and into the forest. Running blindly again, naked again except for the skimpy little fur-dress she was wearing. She knew she’d dropped him for only a few seconds and her running wasn’t going to get her very far, but she’d be damned if she didn’t at least try.
Chapter 3
Grace couldn’t hear his pursuit and thought she should head downhill towards water. Did water kill the scent? That’s what she’d read about werewolves, what she’d studied. But who knew for sure? No one had ever done a field study. It was all speculation. The day was still, small breezes behind her, fueling her flight. If she could just find water. She bolted through the trees and almost ran off a cliff but managed to skid to a stop at the edge. Water below, about 20 feet down. If it was deep enough, she could jump and swim across. But only if it was deep enough. Did she dare?
Her ears strained to hear Hawes behind her, but there was nothing but birdcalls in the air. Maybe he wouldn’t think her so brave – or so stupid – maybe he was circling around to cut her off. Maybe she knocked him out, or even killed him. A slice of despair clawed through her, not sure why the thought of him dead ripped at her heart, or perhaps it was more the thought of her dead. Gathering her courage, she leapt off the cliff and plummeted feet first into the water. Down, down, down, 15 or more feet. It was bottomless, the water murky and freezing. What did she expect up north – palms trees and blue lagoons?
She clawed her way to the surface, afraid again. Afraid of the water, which was stupid. It was saving her. She started swimming, thanking her father for the all the childhood swimming lessons he insisted she take, her heart knotting again at how much she missed him. Dead now, three years. Like she would be soon if she didn’t get to the other side.
She was a sitting duck in the water, easy to spot if Hawes made it to the cliff edge. One stroke in front of the other, the river, water, lake, lagoon – she didn’t know what the fuck it was. But the shoreline seemed closer when she had been on the ledge looking down. The icy temperature of the water and her fear of Hawes soaked into her – she was getting disoriented. She stopped and bobbed, looking around, spying the cliff’s edge, then turning her back to it. Seeing the trees on the opposite shoreline, not far, 100 metres. She could do that in her sleep, except she was terrified, panicky and exhausted. She took a dozen more strokes before a pain in her side bloomed, then slid down her right leg, to her foot. She was cramping. She stopped her strokes, took deep shuddering breaths, tried to work the cramp out, but the cold was winning. If she didn’t get to the shore soon, she’d die of hypothermia. She gathered her strength, her resolve and started forward, breaststroke, slower but easier on her leaden arms. She was almost to the shore when the bottom reared up fast and she thudded into it. Her stomach and thighs bruising against the jagged rock. She didn’t let this slow her down as she staggered to her feet and wobbled out of the water. The fur was gone, she was naked, wet, hypothermic.
She launched herself into the forest, her shivers increasing. She needed shelter, but it couldn’t be just any shelter. It had to be both warm and safe. She ran blindly for a minute then stopped, looked up into the sky, the sun to her left. She kept it there as she moved forward, but it didn’t help. The trees were endless, there was no where to go, no path to follow. She was drying, still freezing but maybe not hypothermic anymore. The shivering didn’t stop, neither did the goosebumps, the hardness of her nipples. Then she tripped over deadfall, falling hard, scraping her hands and knees, twisting her ankle.
She tried to get to her feet and faltered, fell back down. She wanted to scream, wail, slam her fist into a tree, but she swallowed her frustration down. Falling apart wouldn’t save her, neither would laying in the dirt feeling pitiful and broken. As she got to her knees, her ears caught the faint sound of leaves crunching to her left, forcing her panic. She launched to her feet, her ankle protesting, her heart hammering in her chest. Then she stopped, swallowed her fear. She needed to think, be smart. She was a prey animal, cornered by a predator. She needed to think like one – but what did they do? They stayed in herds, they ran away, they died when they were injured. She sobbed.
Then she saw them, two men, both barrel-chested, bearded, tall – brothers or maybe even twins. They’d been talking to each other, one animated, the other listening and nodding, arms crossed over his chest. As soon as she was in their line of sight, their conversation ceased, heads swivelled. She stopped dead, kept her distance, watched them warily. When one of the men stepped forward, she stepped back. He grinned and said, his voice a baritone, “This is a first. A naked she-wolf in the forest. Are you alone, pretty baby?”
Grace took another step backward, and both men laughed. The one who had spoken to her, the one who was doing all the talking said, “You should stop running. It will only get us excited if we have to chase you. Then we can’t be accountable for our actions.”
Grace stopped. He was right about the running. “I need help.” That was an understatement. She had a twisted ankle, was broken and bruised, pursued by a mad wolf, and at risk of freezing to death.
The other man, the one who had not yet spoken, took off his jacket. It was red, plaid and lined and felt like heaven as he helped Grace pull it on. Her fingers were too stiff from cold to work and so he patiently buttoned the front. He looked down at her, his eyes stroking her with wonder. It was strangely worshipful. “I’m Edon,” he said respectfully. “This is my brother, Macon.”
Her eyes flicked to the other man, Macon, who was watching her with interest, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Who are you running from, fair maiden?”
Grace filtered through the possible answers. She couldn’t tell them she was running from Hawes because it didn’t make sense that they were out here in the forest, two men, looking like lumberjacks, at home in this isolated piece of the world. Nothing made sense. There shouldn’t be murderous, crazed bikers this far north. There shouldn’t be a crazy werewolf claiming her as his mate, claiming she was part-wolf. There shouldn’t be these men in this forest. But they weren’t men, she realized, they were wolves. Were they loyal to Hawes or his enemies? She swallowed. “I need help please. I need to get to a phone.”
“You’re not wearing shoes,” Macon observed. “Why don’t you switch to your wolf?”
“I am not a wolf.” She re
gretted the words as they slipped from her lips. Both men narrowed their eyes and flared their nostrils. She could almost see their wolf-forms, their ears flattening, the hair on the back of their necks standing up.
“You’re deceitful. Who do you belong to?” Macon again, his words hard, edgy. His eyes were darting around, behind her, beside her, looking for what?
He got his answer as Hawes strolled through the trees towards them like he had been out for a picnic in the countryside. “She belongs to me.” He was still bare-chested, his broadness blocking the sun. His grey eyes seared her with his fury.
Both men turned. “Hawes,” Edon crossed his arms to his chest. “Your mate?”
“Yes.” He walked by the men, clutching Grace’s bicep and dragging her in the direction he came. She stumbled after him, she had no choice. His grip was iron, she wouldn’t be able to wrench herself from it even if she had the strength to try.
“She’s hurt, Hawes. She can’t walk.” Edon again.
Hawes turned towards the man and snarled, literally, hackles up, nose wrinkling, eyes narrowed, snarling. Edon stepped back and lowered his eyes. Grace watched in horrified wonder. Hawes was the Alpha of these men. They were his pack. She thought of Eric, thought how thrilled he would have been to witness such a scene, felt the wetness in her eyes. Dammit, not now, but the tears came anyway.
He dropped her arm and took a menacing step towards Edon. “Have you touched her?” Hawes was taller than Edon, mightier, broader, standing in Edon’s space, snarling over him.
Edon kept his eyes lowered. “I offered her my jacket and helped her into it. That’s all. That’s what you smell, Hawes. She was wet, freezing, she needed warmth.”
The Horror of our Love: A Twisted Tales Anthology Page 2