The Big, Bad…

by Nina S. Gooden

  Reaching for the knob, I shoved the offending thing open and fell into a chaos of dark furniture and paper.

  The cottage wasn’t a great big place. It had three overall rooms consisting of a bedroom, bathroom, and an “everything else” room. Still, it was usually a tidy space.

  Not anymore.

  Chaos had erupted in the small space. Shattered lamps threw glittering shards of glass across the floor. Flour from the kitchen dusted unsuspecting surfaces of battered wood and scratched stone. Chairs slumped in corners, missing vital limbs. The entire place smelled of dust kicked up from the exposed depths usually hidden by heavy furniture.

  “Grandma? Are you…doing some cleaning?” I adjusted the basket on my shoulder, swallowing my unease. An answering shiver down my spine was all I got in response. The room I stood in was completely trashed. The dishes in the kitchen were mostly broken. It looked like someone was looking for something. And to say I was worried would have been a terrible understatement.

  “Grandma, are you in the bathroom?” My voice cracked. I knew how dangerous slipping could be for the elderly, and despite the mess, I wasn’t convinced anything truly criminal had happened here. After all, nothing violent ever happened in Harmony. It was a city called Harmony for good reason!

  My hands trembled as I reached for the door separating the “other room” and the bathroom. I gasped as the hum of an unnerving energy pushed against the door and seeped into my skin, causing goose bumps to bloom. Every ounce of intuition I possessed told me not to open the door.

  “Come on, Roux. You can do it. What if Granny is hurt back there?”

  The barrier of fear crumbled as I pushed the door open, only to be replaced with a head filled with sickness.

  The smell of heated iron hung in the air, thick and metallic. Ruby-red liquid painted every surface in the small white room. Stark and ugly, it resembled violent words scribbled on beautiful crisp paper.

  Blood.

  My scream stuck in my throat and refused to budge. The wild thud of my heart slammed against my rib cage and forced my trembling body to jerk violently. I took an uncontrolled step forward and slipped in a large puddle, before bracing my weight against the wall beside me. I stood shakily, smearing a slash of blood on the wall and staining one of my hands as well as my shirt sleeve.

  Slamming the door shut against the red-painted room, I forced myself to try to breathe and thus think. Unfortunately, my fight-or-flight response was stuck squarely in whimper-on-the-ground-rocking-back-and-forth.

  “So much blood. There’s so much blood. Oh my, so much blood.”

  I don’t know how long I stayed in that pool of tears and shock, but eventually I managed to convince myself to get up. “Have to get up, Roux,” I whispered to myself, the sound of my voice faint and strained compared to the rush of blood in my ears. “Have to get to the phone.” The only phone Grandma owned was in the bedroom. I was so deep in the fog of sickness and terror I couldn't remember walking into the quaint little bedroom.

  I do, however, remember my next two thoughts as if they were etched in stone. First, the logical side of my brain took note of the fact the room was untouched by the storm that had blown through the rest of the house. My second thought was a tad bit less clear, but it still managed to dominate a good portion of my brain.

  “Oh my,” I breathed. There, in the middle of an embarrassingly large four-post bed, lay a naked god, sleeping on his side. Bronze skin was held taunt and captive over the hard planes of a strong male back. His shoulders shouldn’t have been visible under the thick curtain of long, purple-grey hair flowing down to his hips, but they spanned such a wide berth that they did.

  Somewhere deep within my mind, I knew I was forgetting something important. Something horrible. Still, I couldn't force myself to sway my attention back to it. Given the options between a nightmare and a fantasy, my brain made a clear choice and I decided to let it, if only for a few moments to cope.

  I stared at his back, completely enthralled by the way his muscles coiled and bunched as he lay dreaming, and I wasn’t the least bit ashamed. Any other women who suddenly found themselves in my shoes would have done the same. The man was perfection. Naked, vulnerable perfection. Yes, I probably should have been thinking about calling the police but…but…butt.

  My mouth went dry drinking in the smooth, tantalizing skin of his tush. Now, I’m not normally into butts, but this one…it was like a brilliantly shiny red apple, begging me to take a bite. But seductive apples belong in another story.

  I made my way around the monstrous bed, never taking my eyes off him. A sudden wave of voyeuristic shame had my gaze locked squarely on his chest, but when I looked upward, my breath caught in my throat.

  If his body was a work of art, his face was a damned masterpiece. Full jaw, a hard-set mouth that managed to seem inviting and disapproving, a straight, unyielding nose…the man looked like he could kill with a glare. I found myself wishing I could see what color his eyes were, even if I had to die for the glimpse.

  My inspection of his face made me curious about his…other attributes. Sure, it wasn’t about size (cough), but it would be a shame for such a beautiful canvas to be ruined by an inadequate…paint brush.

  Allowing my eyes to travel south, I again found myself in a state of mind which lacked a pesky thing called air. Though I did manage to make note the light purple was indeed his natural shade.

  The brush in question twitched, and I couldn’t help myself. “Oh my,” I whispered aloud without realizing it. “What an impressive tool you’ve got there.”

  “The better to please you with, my dear.”

  The deep bass of voice would doubtlessly have scared me into a stupor if my fight-or-flight response hadn’t decided to get going. At least this time it decided to go toward flight. On reflex, I swung with all my might the basket of food I had all but forgotten I held, right toward his deliciously seductive face.

  It happened so quickly I barely had time to register the movement, let alone to react. Before I knew what happened, my basket was on the ground across the room, and I was pinned beneath an immobile wall of man.

  The shock wore off quickly. “Get off of me!” His chest held me still even as I tried to struggle.

  “Now why would I want to do such a thing? So you can hit me again?” His thick, velvet voice rolled over my skin like a bath of invisible melted chocolate. Everywhere he touched me, whether with his skin or his breath, warmed.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to swing at you. I was taken by surprise.”

  He laughed, and the rusty sound was enough to take my insides from a state of melting…to liquefied. I continued to fight him, rocking my chest from side to side until he was forced to wrench my arms up above my head to keep me still.

  “No, little girl, I mean the first time you hit me.” He lifted off me a little, just enough for his chest to go from full-out crushing my breasts to lightly skimming across my treacherously hard nipples. While he took in the room with a slow turn of his head, he bathed me with his scent. I whimpered in appreciation and prayed he would mistake the small sound for fear. “Though, if you had told me why you wanted me, I would have come willingly, no knocking me out required.”

  I'll admit my body sizzled, and I felt quite a bit of evidence he was just as heated up. In fact, if the straining muscle pressed against my thigh was any indication, he may have been close to igniting. Passion clouded my mind, which was why it took me so long to grasp what he was saying. "Huh?"

  He smiled at my vastly intelligent response and forced my head to the side. The moment those parted lips touched my neck, I was shattered. My eyes drifted closed and my back arched toward him. My ability to think rationally faded, and I was left with nothing more than the way he made me feel.

  Breath and soft, warm tongue skittered across my pulse, working it into a higher frenzy.

  He was just as good put into practice as he was in fantasy. I rubbed my thighs together, silently begging him to do
what I knew he most desired.

  He released one of my arms, and I forgot I wanted to fight him…that I wanted him to get off…well, I didn’t forget that. My definition for “off” had just been altered.

  He dragged his gloriously eager mouth along my jaw until he found my lips. And when his big, rough hand lifted upward and cupped my breast, he swallowed my moan of desperate pleasure.

  The heat between us spiraled and shifted into an inferno, and I heard the sound of shredding cloth as if from a distance. I felt like he was trying to devour me, and I wanted him to. Needed him to. He overwhelmed me: his scent, his feel, the sound of his fevered breath mimicking the pace of mine. For a moment, I felt completely connected to him. His mind opened to me, and I knew his thoughts were as muddled as my own. Something deep and primal pushed us forward.

  I reached between us, finding my skin blessedly bare and didn't bother to wonder why. Wrapping my fingers around his thick, pulsing shaft, I lifted my hips, trying to guide him to the entrance weeping for his penetration.

  Pressing him against my slick, puffy folds, it was his turn to swallow a moan. I felt his lungs expand to the bursting limit and a guttural sound exploded from his throat. He held his body still, denying me, and no amount of pulling I did could force him to move.

  “Mine,” he rasped, his voice huskier than before…with lust and something else. His chest took in more air, expanding to almost dangerous proportions, but still I tried to guide him into me.

  “Mine,” he said again.

  I whimpered, nothing more than a writhing mass of sensitive tissue and hormones at this point. I kept lifting my hips trying to draw him in, but he held me back. Tears of frustration began to sting the backs of my closed eyelids. I wanted him more than I ever wanted anything else and was desperate for him to be inside of me. So the next time he said “Mine,” I answered him in kind.

  “Yours.”

  The roar of satisfaction he let loose would have made me open my eyes if he hadn’t decided to reward me for my agreement. That big mushroom head of his pressed against the part of me that throbbed and begged for attention, the pearl of my womanly being, and I lost the ability to do anything but moan as waves of vibrating pleasure began to pulse through my body.

  He rocked his hips and, slippery with my juice, played my instrument like a pro. My body vibrated every time he dragged his skin over my swollen bud, and I clung to him, matching his movement awkwardly with my own.

  I didn’t know his name, so I shouted to the gods when my mind finally shut down, and I was engulfed with the feeling of being strung to a bow and plucked as a string. “So close, so close.”

  He didn’t stop, pushing my body forward, telling me he wanted more. My body tightened, and I moved up to the next level, every fiber of my body focused on what he was doing. I whined softly, tortured when he still refused to fill me up. Desperate to encourage him, I wound my arms around his neck and my fingertips moved over something familiar. Just like that, the train of my climaxing arousal came to a grinding halt.

  He bore the Mark of a Wolf.

  He must have felt the change in me because he immediately stopped, and I could feel his eyes searching for mine. “What’s wrong?” An inhuman voice asked me.

  I shook my head, slowly unweaving my hands from his neck. A growl permeated the air again, but this time it sounded of displeasure. This time I recognized it as what it was: a wolf's claim.

  “Open your eyes, little girl.”

  I bristled at…well, at this point, I bristled at a lot of things, but I still couldn’t open my eyes. The fire cooled in me, and I felt it steadily draining out of him, but he didn’t move. Which must have meant he was still…

  “Look at me!” The bark was so forceful my eyes popped open. Two different-colored eyes stared down at me, one silver, one black, and both vastly annoyed. Elongated pupils shifted and shone, growing and stretching as I watched sharpened fangs slide back into his gums. I swallowed, realizing how close to being bitten I’d been. “Oh my…what long teeth you have.”

  Chapter 2

  The wolf on top of me huffed in disgust, repositioning himself away from the sticky mess I had made of the both of us. For several seconds he just stared at me, strange eyes seeming perfectly content to just watch me watching him watch me. “You didn’t know.”

  I shook my head, dumbly unable to speak against my naked embarrassment. It wasn’t as if I had anything against Wolves. It was just the fact that I didn’t know. A huge thing like him not being human, and I didn’t know. I still didn’t know his name, but I'd felt his mark.

  “If you didn’t know, why did you abduct me?”

  Again I shook my head.

  “Then again…You wouldn’t have been able to carry me, so you couldn’t have attacked me anyway.”

  I was mildly impressed. It wasn’t a challenging observation to make with my tiny body pressed so neatly under his huge form, but still. He was able to think clearly without the pint of blood that had to be pumping his rather incessant…package…so he definitely won some brownie points in my book. “Oh my…this isn’t going well.”

  The soft breath of air he let out might have been confused for a laugh had I not been aware of the situation. As it were, he grumbled. “If you don’t stop saying that, someone is going to write it down.”

  I clamped my mouth shut and silently vowed never to say “Oh my” again. That is, if I lived through this.

  He leaned down and buried his face in my hair, breathing deeply. It took me a moment to recognize the little snuffling noise for what it was.

  “Are you smelling me?” Suddenly self-conscious, I tried to push him away again, of course to no avail.

  “You reek,” he began, his voice dangerously low.

  I wish I had let him finish before I reacted. The little outraged squeal I let loose must have taken him by surprise because I was able to lift a knee and connect with his strained family jewels. He rolled to one side, and I wasted no time. I was up and half way across the “other room” before I realized I was just about naked and headed for the front door. The only thing the brute hadn’t cut off my body was the cloak Grandma had given me.

  Growling, I turned back toward the door to march right back in there and kick him again, but he was already in the doorway and clothed.

  “Where did you get those clothes?” I shouted. “And how did you get dressed so fast?”

  The only thing he did in response to my obvious anger was hold up a hand. He wasn’t looking at me. Instead, his head cocked to the right, and he seemed to be listening to something I couldn’t hear. I was angry, but his comment pushed me to furious. I opened my mouth to let him have a piece of my mind when one of his ears twitched.

  “What is it?” Some instinct told me to whisper.

  His eyes settled on me again. “Hunters.”

  My jaw may have hit the floor. I can’t remember, but I do recall the taste of carpet. “Impossible. Hunters don’t exist anymore. Not since the Harmony.”

  My mysterious wolf friend shrugged and vanished into Grandma’s room. When he came back, he tossed me a bundle of cloth. “Put this on, we have to go.”

  “Go? Why? There’s no reason for us to run. We haven’t done anything wrong.” I blushed while I said it and he noticed. “Besides, I can’t wear this with nothing under it.”

  “You don’t really have a choice, and besides, no one will see you but me. Now, if you had waited two seconds before attacking me again,” he paused, rubbing his crouch, which only caused me to blush harder. “You would have heard me say ‘of blood.’”

  Once again, my mouth was flooded with the taste of carpet. I’d been so distracted by the hot wolf man I’d completely forgotten about the situation. I suddenly felt lower than sludge. Lust: 1. Human Decency: 0.

  “At any rate, I can tell the blood isn’t yours, and standing out here, the smell is a lot stronger and more abundant. I seriously doubt the blood and Hunters are a coincidence, and unless you called them before
ogling me, it’s just not likely they showed up by chance. Either way, we’re not sticking around to find out.”

  “We? What’s this ‘we’ business?”

  Wolf Boy sauntered up to me and wrapped an arm around my waist. Now, if anyone were to ask, I'd tell them he was way too strong or fast for me to dodge. The truth was, I just liked being in his arms.

  “We, little one, must escape. We are both here with a large amount of blood, and I don’t imagine the situation will go over well with the Hunters. I protect what’s mine, amicus animae. And you are definitely mine.”

  I took a step back, hearing the shoddy engine of good old fight-or-flight trying to kick up again. I could say one thing: I might have been a late bloomer, but once my instincts kicked in, they were pretty much golden.

  The way he looked at me said it all, those mismatched eyes narrowed on mine with stark possession. He meant what he said and had every intention of acting on it.

  A warped, slow motion thundered in my head. It was a low song, humming to the distorted beat of my heart.

  The sickening pop and crunch of bones breaking and realigning themselves hit my ears seconds before the smell of crisp, clean fur. As I watched, he changed into something half man and half beast. Terrifyingly powerful with the strength and savagery of a wolf, he stood on two legs with the cunning eyes of a human.

  “Don’t,” growled the harsh voice I remembered from before, just as I swung around and put a hand on the front doorknob, preparing to flee. “The Hunters.”

  Somehow, I convinced myself anything the Hunters had for me would doubtlessly be better than facing the merciless claim in Wolf Boy’s expression or his heart-wrenchingly scary form. “I think I’ll take my chances.”

  Throwing the door open didn’t correct the painfully slow passage of time for me. It took everything happening and slammed it into double time. Night had fallen while I had been in the cottage. Darkness hung in the air, whispering of danger, but I got the message a little too late.

  I stood stone-still and stupid as something small and fast whizzed by my face and thunked into the frame of the front door. Wood splinters splattered through the air like fireworks. It wasn’t until I heard the dying echoes of the gunshot that my mind registered what happened.