“I should kill you,” he growled. Grace looked to Macon, but he stood to the side, watching as the scene unfolded, not glancing her way, no intent to intervene. As Hawes raised his fist to Edon, Grace pushed herself between the men.
“What’s wrong with you?” she implored him. “He was trying to help me.”
He flicked the back of his hand toward her, a careless gesture that made contact with her face, the force flinging her from him, pitching her to the ground like she was ash off a cigarette. He didn’t look at her, but his words were addressed to her. “Take his fucking coat off, Grace. Do it fast and I might let him live.”
Grace scrambled to her feet, her cheek burning, her eyes tearing, her fingers fumbling at the buttons on the jacket. She tore it from her, dropped it to the ground and then turned from the scene, plunging into the trees again. If nothing else, it would distract Hawes from murdering a man who simply tried to help her. She gained barely 10 feet before he was on her, snagging her up in his large hands, carrying her under one arm to the water’s edge, then in, not caring that the water was soaking him through. Once deep enough, he tossed her into the water, watching as she went under. When she emerged, splashing and sputtering, he pulled her too him, sniffing her.
“You still stink like him.” And he threw her again.
This time when she came up, she was yelling, “You sonofabitch! You animal! You’re no better than the assholes trying to rape me last night!”
He grabbed her by the hair, pulling her towards him, shoving her body against his chest. She was shivering and cold again, thought she might die if he didn’t pull her from the water soon. “I never said I was better.” He sniffed her again, threw her back in the water and held her head under as seconds ticked by. She struggled, her hands around his wrist, trying to get his grip to loosen, kicking her legs. She couldn’t breathe, she needed air. Then he brought her up, gasping and sputtering, flailing at him. It made no difference to him. He brought his nose to her, sniffing her hair, her neck, her breasts. Satisfied, he hauled her over his shoulder and carried her out of the river.
Chapter 4
Hawes didn’t stop until they were at his house again. By then Grace was turning blue. The wind had picked up, it was howling through the trees, the blast of cold gusts, relentless. He had to walk at least a mile downstream before a bridge presented itself and he could cross the river. Was this why it took him so long to get to her? Her research on werewolves suggested that wolf packs had wide territories and were ruled by an Alpha. She was still in his territory, she realized. She couldn’t escape him and if she did, that might serve to put her in another pack’s territory.
As he entered the house, he threw her on the bed with little care. She was bruised, scraped, savaged. He stood for a moment in front of her, his hands at his sides, clenching and unclenching, his eyes dark and brooding, piercing her.
Grace sucked in a breath as he stripped his wet pants off. He was magnificent and under any other circumstance she would have been in awe. Tall with hair that flowed down his back, a face with angular features showing his beauty and his beast, granite muscles glistening from the water still clinging to his chest, his legs long and strong and his penis, erect and jutting. Large like him, a well-forged weapon.
Then he dropped over her, her shoulders between his stiff arms, hands curling into the bedding to support him. His right leg knelt on the mattress next to her thigh, the other foot firm on the floor. His dark eyes traced her face, then her shoulders and her breasts. He dipped down with his head and pulled a nipple between his lips, sucking at it, then biting it savagely. Grace cried out, and then whimpered as he released it. The pain fused with pleasure as it rippled through her.
He brought his eyes to her face again. “You’re my mate. I’m your alpha. I could kill you for what you did this morning.”
Grace dropped her eyes. She was never going to wake from this nightmare. “I won’t run again,” she whispered. It was not a lie. She had no where to run to, at least not now.
He snarled. “No you won’t run again. But that is not the death promise. You allowed another wolf to wrap you in his clothing, allowed his smell to permeate you. You should both be dead.” He brought his nose to her neck and sniffed, stroked it with his tongue, bit it.
“No!” Grace said breathlessly. She was feeling dizzy being this close to him. She couldn’t find her way to being repelled. What was wrong with her? “How can you say such a thing? I might have died if not for his coat. He kept me safe!”
He shifted off her and gripped her upper arms, pulling her into a seating position. He knelt on the floor, shoving her thighs open, shoving his nose to her pussy and inhaling. “You would have died because you ran from me, you fool. If you were not my mate…” He didn’t finish. He stood abruptly, strode from her to a corner, bringing back a fur and throwing it to her. “Wrap it around you.” He paced away. “This is my territory. I am the alpha. There are almost 200 wolves in my pack,” he snarled. “Do you know why it’s so large?”
Grace sat frozen on the edge of bed, holding the fur against her, afraid to move, afraid to talk.
He leaned over her again, his features menacing as his face got so close she felt the warmth of his breath invade her mouth. “Because I am no ordinary alpha. My father is a hellhound.” Then he stepped back and waited for her to deny this, disagree with him.
“Please,” Grace said softly. She needed to know, but she also needed him to stop being so terrifying. She wished she had a dog biscuit and then almost laughed out loud at the absurd thought. “Please just tell me so I can understand. This is not how it should be.”
He stopped his pacing and swung towards her. “Yes, it is. It’s exactly how it should be. The fact that you were attacked in a remote forest this far north is far more implausible than me being birthed as a hellhound. You don’t think leather-clad bikers would just show up here by serendipity, do you? My father sent them. To take your first blood and then wipe you from the earth.”
“Why?” A shudder ripped through Grace at the memory of the bikers.
He walked away from her and pulled on a pair of loose linen pants. Then he sat in a chair, several feet from her, his forearm on the tabletop, his long thick fingers splayed. “Because when we mate, I will become the ruler of three realms.”
Grace leaned her head to one side and stared at him trying to decide if he was insane or serious - or both. “I don’t understand.”
“My father is a demon, a hellhound. Obsessed with my mother. He seduced her, took her, savaged her – she fled when she became pregnant. She had no choice – the spawn of a demon and werewolf is unprecedented. He found her though, four years after my birth. He destroyed her in front of me, then took me to his underworld and raised me there.”
Grace frowned. She knew about werewolves. It was her thesis project for her anthropological studies. But hellhounds! No such thing! That implied that there was organized evil in this world and her rational mind rejected the concept. “What makes you different from a full-blooded werewolf?”
He laughed bitterly from the shadows. “So my mate disbelieves me? Wants proof, does she?” He stood and stalked back to the bed. Grace regretted that she hadn’t taken advantage of his distance to move away from the bed, move further from him.
He towered over her and she craned her neck to see his face. “Just tell me. I don’t need you to show me.”
His eyes raked over her, his nostrils flared. He growled, “You are tempting my restraint, mate. I might not be able to wait until the Hunter’s Blood Moon.”
Grace’s heart thumped, but oddly, her terror had receded. Her reaction was physiological. “My name is Grace. Not mate. I’ll call you Hawes, not psycho werewolf. It’s respectful.”
He narrowed his eyes, his lips quirking, but his voice contradicted any amusement. “You should tread softly around me, mate. I will not kill you, but there is nothing stopping me from savaging you.”
Grace took a little breath. She needed
to control the situation. “You don’t need to keep threatening me. I get it – I’m in no position to defy you. Just tell me what I need to know so I can understand what the fuck is going on.”
His nostrils flared, but he sat on the bed next to her. She could sense that he wanted to touch her. “Hell is a realm. Like earth. My father rules it and he would like nothing better than to possess other realms, earth included. His desire is to become the Alpha of all wolves. He intended to do it through me and my mate, claiming our first-born as his own, then killing us and raising the child as he desired. He might have succeeded if he hadn’t killed my mother in front of me.”
He frowned and the grey in his eyes faded as a memory swamped him. “I can stop him by mating you, a woman with the blood of both werewolf and human. That will give me his kingdom and mine and because you are part human, yours. The worlds will bow down to me.”
“Hawes,” she said, picking her words carefully. “It… I… how could this be?”
“It’s been prophesied – when the blood of three beasts is consummated, the Alpha will become the guardian of all kingdoms. Its first male offspring will own these kingdoms into perpetuity. He will become immortal. He will be a God.”
Grace shuddered internally at the implication of this. Nostradamus foretold that the end of the world would occur July 1999. Obviously, it did not. In the 16th century, the father of Presbyterianism, Thomas Brightman, erroneously predicted the conversion of Jews and the destruction of the Papacy. On March 31, 1998 at 10am, God was supposed to come to earth in a flying saucer, according to Chen, leader of a Taiwanese cult. God didn’t show. None of it happened. Prophesies were bullshit. She said as much to Hawes. She expected him to swipe at her, push back, but he grinned savagely.
“You’re a smart one, aren’t you? Foretelling may or may not be bullshit. You wish to find out? The alternative to me taking power from my father is for you to be fucked by another before we are mated. My father sent those bikers to spill your first blood.”
Tremors coursed through Grace as the horror of the night before assaulted her senses. He saved her, Hawes, arriving on scene in time to take her as his.
Hawes was watching her, his eyes intense and unyielding. “Tell me the truth, Grace.” Her name on his lips lulled her. “You’ve never been fucked, never even had an orgasm, have you?” Grace’s face grew warm. He shifted closer to her on the bed, his hand creeping up her leg. “Every time you get close to someone, man or woman, too close, you can’t consummate.” His fingers grazed the bottom of the fur she had wrapped around her, slid under it, cradling her thigh, gripping it as he stared into her eyes. He was magnetic, a man who bent the world to his will. She let out a shallow breath as he moved his face closer to hers. “And you imagined it would be different with this man you were with, this doctor. Except it was fate leading you here, not your heart, not your lust. You have no control over your life events.”
“I do,” Grace whispered. Then he stroked her, a single stroke the length of her vulva, invading her folds, lighting a trail of fire that seared through her. Her eyelids drooped and she cried out as her body jerked towards his hand. A sudden craving coursed through her. Something new, deep, savage, wanting. He could have her, he could do anything he wished to her. She wouldn’t say no. She couldn’t.
Then he removed his hand, sat back. Distanced himself from her, his lips quirking as he watched her crumble in on herself, gasping for air, trying to regain her sense. “What did you do?” Outraged, suspicious, betrayed.
“I showed you.” His grin broadened at her loss of composure.
Grace shuddered. Her alternatives were no alternatives at all. She either mated with a crazed werewolf that she was inexplicably drawn to or she was raped and killed by his father. “Do you hear what you’re saying? A male child born to us will be given eternal power. Even if this prophecy is true, it’s dangerous to give that kind of power to a single man. It’ll corrupt him.”
Hawes scowled. “He will be raised to be a good man, to rule benevolently. That’s the difference between my father and me.”
“Impossible.” Grace started, but then stopped. Everything about this situation was impossible. Why was she arguing? He seared her with his touch, so what? Maybe she was part wolf. Also, so what? Her mother died when she was a toddler, and Grace knew only her father’s family. She had always been interested in werewolves, always wanted to study them, know them. So little information about them because they were reclusive, lived apart from humans. She’d been arrogant, she realized. She thought she’d be the one to befriend them, study them, tell their story. Now she was one of them. Maybe.
Hawes stood and walked to the small, battered dresser pushed up against a wall. He pulled some clothes from a drawer and threw them to her. “Put them on. The mid-day meal is on its way. I wish to eat.”
Grace caught the clothes in her arms and started towards the bathroom, but he stopped her.
“Dress here.”
Grace glared at him but then had the thought that it was a little late for modesty. He’d seen her naked more often than dressed. She slid a T-shirt over her head, his T-shirt, the size of it swamping her, reinforcing how truly big he was. The pants were also too big, but she rolled up the hems and he passed her a rope to thread through the loops and cinch it to her waist.
He grinned as he watched her. One of amusement. A smile that warmed his face and made her heart stutter. It was unsettling.
His eyes lingered at her feet, clouding, then up to her face. “You have no shoes. There’ll be some in the village. One of the women can give you a set.”
A soft rap at the door and as it opened a pretty, young blonde woman entered carrying a basket. She smiled at Hawes, her face lighting up, then her eyes shuttered as they settled on Grace. “That’s her?” the woman asked, her voice demanding, a little angry, disbelieving.
“Mel,” Hawes said, “This is Grace. My mate.”
Mel stared at her openly and Grace ventured a hello.
Mel turned to Hawes. “Did you beat her?” Grace thought her voice was a little too hopeful.
“No,” Hawes replied, his eyes narrowing as he grazed Mel with a heated look.
Mel put the basket on the table and turned toward the door. She paused at the threshold and looked back at Hawes. “There’s still one day until the Hunter’s Blood Moon and I’m alone tonight. I miss you.”
Grace sucked in a breath as a wave of unbidden jealously rippled through her. She might not be ready for any of this to happen, but if she was his mate, if she were the Alpha’s mate, then he bloody well wasn’t going to fuck another woman the day before their ceremony.
“Get out,” she said to Mel, her voice flat and ugly.
Hawes turned to her in surprise.
Grace threw him a withering glare. “You fuck around on me, ever, Hawes and I’ll make you regret the day you mated with me.” She limped over to the table and opened the basket. All at once, she was starving.
She heard Mel huff and storm out, then Mersin’s voice as he entered. “Mel’s pissed. What’d you say, Hawes?”
“Not a fucking thing.” But he grinned.
Mersin smiled at Grace as he caught her eyes, then flicked his attention to Hawes. “I hear there was an adventure this morning.”
Hawes growled. “Nothing important.”
“You should be careful not to alienate the twins, my son. They’re well-respected.”
“You should be careful not to lecture me, father,” Hawes replied, his eyelids half-lowered, a frown creasing his face. “Her ankle’s injured.” He turned to Grace. “Sit down. Mersin’s a healer.”
Grace sat on a chair at the table as Mersin knelt in front of her, throwing her a ghost of a smile before he wrapped his hands around her swollen ankle and closed his eyes. She felt the warmth from his hands filter into her, weaving its way through her pain, soaking it up and scattering it. “What are you doing?” she asked in wonder.
Mersin opened his eyes and stood. “He
aling you,” he said simply and watched as Grace stretched her ankle in a circle, the pain gone.
Another thought tore at her. If Mersin were someone who could heal with touch, then the other bits of information were not so far-fetched. The anthropologist in her reared up. “Is that a werewolf thing?”
Mersin smiled as he headed for the door. “Some werewolves are born healers. So are some humans. It’s often generational. Genetic. It’s like any trait – useless if not nurtured.” His eyes flicked over her. “Eat and drink some water. I’ll return later to help heal your bruises.” To Hawes he said, “We have to take her to the village and leave her with the women until the mating ceremony.”
Hawes nodded but his face was discordant. “She can stay here.”
“No,” Mersin replied. “She can’t, and you know it. I see the change in both of you. The Hunter’s Blood Moon is one day from now. If you truly want to lead, you must show your restraint to your people.”
Mersin left without waiting for Hawes to respond.
Chapter 5
Lunch was a quiet affair. Grace was ravenous and as long as she put her mind in neutral, she was able to enjoy the buffet of freshly-baked bread, roasted chicken and sliced apples, which she washed down with water. When they were finished, she broke the silence.
“Have you slept with Mel?” She was past her jealousy now, truly interested in this species. Wanting to know.
Hawes narrowed his eyes. “I’ve slept with many women.”
His words made her angry. “A genetic double-standard then? Women are repelled by a man who’s not her mate, but men can fuck anyone?”
“Women can fuck anyone too, until they’re mated. It is you, human fur-ball that cannot.”
She ignored his little taunt although she simmered inside. “Then once we’re mated, you must be faithful?”
He grinned ferally. “No. As Alpha I can fuck any woman I want, even if she’s mated. Even if her mate is sleeping in the room next to her.”
The Horror of our Love: A Twisted Tales Anthology Page 3