by T. J. Quinn
She seemed to like it when he ran his hands over her. He could tell by the way her womanly body responded to his touch. He drew her to him and gently kissed her and ran his hand over her back. She took him by the hand and pulled him from the shower. He began to worry that she was less interested in being with him after seeing him without clothing. He needn’t have been concerned about that. She gently dried him off with a towel and then dried herself. She led him to a large bed with crisp white linen. He realized it was, in fact, his crisp white linen. She slid between his sheets and opened the sheets for him. He immediately slid into the bed beside her and began to ask if this was really what she wanted, but again the look on her face told him to quit talking.
She laid back and pulled him on top of her. His need to make love to her intensified to the point that his hands and lips were on automatic pilot. He moved on her, taking her in his arms, kissing her passionately and running his hand up and down her beautiful body. He trailed kisses down to her large breasts and teased her womanly form with his tongue. Her response to his touch was fantastic. She ran her fingers through his short hair, and the sounds of pleasure that escaped from her lips sent strong messages of lust to his manhood.
She opened her legs to him and gently pulled him up to kiss her lips. She laid a trail of kisses from his lips to his ear and whispered, “Love me and feed. I need to feel that.”
He gently pressed himself into her beautiful, voluptuous body and enjoyed the firm, warm feeling of her feminine flesh wrapping around him. He whispered, “No biting, your poor neck has been through enough.”
She tilted his head up and looked him in the eye saying, “If you bite me then the scars will finally heal. Will you do that for me?” He blinked, nodded his head and very gently bit her neck.
The combination of the blood flowing into his mouth and his manhood caressing her body immediately brought the blood lust out in him. He hated her seeing him that way and turned his head away.
She turned his face to hers and said, “You are beautiful when your eyes turn yellow, can you even fathom that?” and kissed him with such a passion as he made love to her that he felt like his blood was on fire for her.
He could feel her beautiful body shaking with an orgasm, and he slowed his pace to give her time to recover. She pressed him back, got on top of him and the change of position renewed her vigor because she moved on him hard and fast until he came harder than he could ever remember. She fell exhausted onto him, and he wrapped his arms around her. He never once suspected she could or would be so lusty. He loved her for that as well. He could see a small trickle of blood on her neck and gently licked the wound.
He said, “Thank you for allowing me to be here with you tonight.”
She smiled and said, “Don’t ever thank me for making love to you. You are a good looking hunter and women should be thanking you for the privilege.”
He smiled and asked “So what do I need to do to make this arrangement with you more permanent? Ask me anything, and I will gladly do it.”
He was disappointed when she moved off him. She cuddled on his chest, and the satisfied smile slid back onto his face. Her voice was light and teasing as she said, “My sweet love, you really shouldn’t negotiate to get what you can have for free.”
He immediately realized she was saying he was welcome to stay with her if he wanted. That is what he had initially thought when he saw his stuff mingled with hers, but then he started second guessing himself. Why did he always do that with women?
He said, “I like the not talking, making love and then giving each other compliments. We should just do that from now on. Maybe I can keep myself out of trouble with you for a little bit that way.”
His voice was light and playful. She sighed and replied, “Well if you stick your foot in your mouth you can always write me a nice love letter, and I’m sure all will be forgiven.”
He replied with fake pain in his voice, “Don’t make fun of me woman. I am barely literate, but I wanted you to know how I felt about you. I knew I did not dare to say all those things to you in person, so I just wrote them down for you to read.”
She sat up on one elbow, ran one hand over his cheek and said, “Well you are eventually going to have to get your nerve up to actually say the words.”
He smiled, leaned over and whispered, “I love you more than I have ever loved a woman, Miss. Lona.” He kissed her gently, and she returned his kisses with enough enthusiasm for him to believe that she loved him as well.
She looked adoringly into his eyes and said, “I want you to know that I absolutely loved the letter you wrote to me. I read it over three times in a row, and it brought tears to my eyes. No one has ever said things like that to me before. All this time, I just thought I was nursing an epic crush, and you just wanted some sexing. After I read your letter, I realized that maybe you do care for me in exactly the same way I care for you. It was such a relief. After that, it was just endless hours of longing while I waited for you to come back from the hunt. Then the moment I saw you all I wanted to do was make love to you and feed you. I’m glad you were accommodating in that regard.” She ran her fingers over his muscular chest and arms as she spoke.
He looked at her, and she could hear the concern in her voice as he cautioned, “I am concerned about your neck. You have a lot of scar tissue. I feel terrible biting you over and over there.”
She reached into the drawer of her bedside table withdrew a small sharp razor blade and said, “You know what to do.”
He looked at her in shock and shook his head. “Don’t ask me to do something like that to you.”
She replied, “There is no one else that I would want to do that FOR me.” He loved her for trusting him like that. She knew he would take more care and be gentler than any doctor ever could.
He slowly leaned over and licked her neck leaving a generous amount of saliva behind to blunt the pain of the cut. He made a short cut along the outside of the long strand of scar tissue. He was surprised that she did not even move. He knew it hurt because he could feel her hands tighten on his back to the point her nails were digging into him, then relax as he finished the cut. He drew the small razor gently back up the other side of the scar gently releasing the ugly scar. The wound bled profusely.
He leaned over and gently ran his tongue up and down the wound. Lona’s blood was sweet, but he was more concerned with fitting the wound back together and leaving enough of his healing saliva behind to ensure there would be no scar. He gently licked the wound over and over again as he held the flesh together. The soothing touch of his tongue on her abused flesh immediately eased the pain. He kissed her and said loving things to her for a couple of hours. When he released the wound, he could tell it was knitting together nicely.
He continued to nurse the wound on and off the rest of the night, and sure enough, when she woke the next morning, there was no ugly scar marring the beauty of her neck.
For the first time in years, she wore a beautiful low cut shirt that showed her cleavage as well as her neck and the lovely locket that he had given her. She was thrilled. She realized that she had never felt more beautiful in her life or more sexually satisfied.
Garan had never felt so proud of himself. He felt that dealing with the physical and emotional abuse of the woman he loved and seeing her happy again was by far the most significant accomplishment of his entire life.
Chapter 10
Rangers in Training
He noticed she was packing her automobile for a day trip again. This is something she did every other weekend. She was typically gone all day long on Saturday and either returned on Saturday night or early Sunday morning.
This time he walked out to her and asked, “Can I know where it is you go every other Saturday?”
She glanced up at him and replied, “You are welcome to join me however I think you will be very bored.”
He took one of her hands in his and said, “I don’t think you understand how much I care for you. No matte
r what in this world you are doing I would like to spend the day with you.”
She smiled and said, “Suit yourself.”
He climbed into the passenger seat, and they made small talk as she drove to the nearest national forest and to a ranger’s station. There was a large number of men there, some human and some vampire. They were all wearing ranger’s uniforms. Each had a small leather pouch around their waist just like Lona wore. He always wondered what was in the pouch.
She took out a laser rifle and an extra battery pack which she slipped into her pouch. The rifle she wore on her back like a hunter. She reached into her trunk and offered him a rifle, a pouch, and an extra battery pack. He put the pouch on his hunting leathers and slid the battery pack in the pouch like she had done.
She turned and addressed the assembled men saying, “So what are we doing this weekend? Do we have anything at all going on or we just hiking?”
A ranger in a slightly different outfit came forward and said, “An older bear, grizzly we think attacked a couple of hikers yesterday. We have been looking and can’t seem to locate him. If we could locate him, we could trank him and relocate him to a large game preserve.”
Lona thought for a brief moment and replied, “It’s spring time. You are probably not looking for a male. You are probably looking for a female, and she was probably protecting cubs. You need to get your head around perhaps relocating several animals at once.”
They headed for the ranger’s shuttle and landed at the site of the attack in a matter of minutes. Lona jumped out first and walked the scene alone.
She came back and said, “Have at it boys.”
The men poured out and walked the scene including Garan. They came back, and Lona asked, “Male?” Three men raised their hands. She asked, “Female.” Nine hands shot up.
Lona asked, “What direction?” Hands were pretty much pointing everywhere, but Garan was the only one who had it right.
She glanced at him and said, “You don’t get to answer any more questions. This is a beginner’s class, and you are a professional tracker.”
He smiled his understanding, and she walked out to the freshest set of tracks and pointed to the track, “It’s a female, probably about 900 pounds, she left north by northwest towards the mountains.”
Garan was surprised she was such an excellent tracker. She asked, “What would you take from this site?”
The men began to wander around looking at vegetation. They seemed confused. She walked up to a plant with long thin leaves and said, “When I was growing up we called this Baco Weed. If you strip out the small strands running up the plant, you can use to sew together a wound. It has strong healing powers and will almost never leave an infection behind.”
The men all cut off long strands of the weed, wrapped it in a small tight circle and put it in their pouches. Garan did as well. Living for as long as he did in the jungles of South America he could tell how helpful that kind of information would be to someone caught in the wild for any amount of time.
She led them in the direction the tracks went. Within an hour and a half, they were walking a thin flat piece of ground between a small stream and a ridge.
Lona said, “We are looking for a cave. Be careful because the bear will see you before you see her. If you see her, don’t fire until I give the word or until I am incapacitated.”
Garan did not think he would be waiting quite that long to respond to a dangerous situation.
She continued, “If you do fire you will drop to one knee, take a deep breath, aim and direct all your fire at the animal. I don’t want a bunch of you shooting off in different directions or over the top of each other.”
She stooped down and picked back up the trail. She pointed to the tracks and said, “This is a fresh track you can tell because the moist mud has not hardened yet. It was probably made in the last hour or so.”
He noticed that some of the men looked spooked.
She smiled slightly, shook her head and said, “Don’t worry there are enough rifles in play to take down a half dozen such animals. I guess I should also mention that where there are a mother and cubs, there may be a male. Even when you are eyes on with the female, we will need a couple of people to turn their backs on the situation and scan for any other possible predators. Often when there is a bear who hunts there are also wolves waiting to eat from the carcass after the bear is finished. Wolves travel in packs and can be dangerous to humans.”
“Also be aware of your footing. A common mistake made by humans in this situation is not paying attention to where you are putting your feet when dealing with a large predator leading to a stumble or a fall. On the ground in front of a predator is not a place you ever want to find yourself.”
Garan was impressed. She was giving useful information, and thankfully the men were paying very close attention to her words. Some were actually taking notes in little notebooks they pulled from their pouches.
Suddenly she held up one hand, and he immediately noticed movement from the ridgeline. It was a small bear cub walking the ridgeline…then another behind that one. The second one jumped playfully at first, and they rolled over each other and down a small embankment almost in front of them. Behind the cubs was the female and as soon as she saw the group of people around her cubs, she reared on her hind legs and began to growl.
Lona said quietly, “Slowly back away from the cubs. Give her time to get down the ridge line. If she falls, it will be difficult to treat her injuries, and we don’t want to risk injuring ourselves trying to pull her off an embankment.”
Everyone slowly backed away and the mother fell down on all fours and began to move down the ridgeline towards them.
Garan dropped to one knee at the same time Lona did, and both fired on the large animal at once as soon as it hit the bottom of the ridgeline. The animal kept coming, and they shot again in unison. The animal was stunned but still kept coming toward them. They both fired again, and the animal fell to the ground about twelve feet in front of them.
Lona explained, “When you approach a stunned animal, be aware that they can still be quite dangerous. You must use extreme caution.”
The two cubs ran up to the mother and began licking her face. Lona slung her rifle over her shoulder, walked over and picked up one tiny cub in each arm, and they began licking her face. She turned to the assembled men and explained, “You have about five hours of daylight left. It will take you at least an hour to get your vehicle sorted and another hour to get the animal loaded without harming it, and we still have to search the cave for additional cubs and make sure we aren’t leaving a large male prowling for his mate and cubs. Gentlemen, we have a day’s work and five hours of daylight to do it.”
The male with the different uniform smiled, got on his cell phone and called for a truck, a vet, and some additional tranquilizers. She broke the men into two groups and assigned Garan to one group and herself to the other group. She appointed them to safely move the animal once the vehicle came. She took the rest of the men up the ridgeline looking for the cave.
Garan decided he did not like her choice of weekend activities. It was dangerous, and he did not like her being out there alone. She had good control of the men. They respected her and followed her directions to the letter. What she did not have control of was the weather, hostile terrain, predators and the general unpredictability of the wild. He reluctantly did as he was told out of respect. He was a visitor in her weekend world, and if he wanted to be invited back, he had to play by her rules.
They moved gracefully up the ridgeline and within a mile or so they saw an opening in the cliff. Lona held up one hand and thought about the situation. She took a small flashing light the size of her thumb from her pouch, set it to emit a light flash at random intervals and threw it right in front of the mouth of the cave. She got down on her stomach approximately twenty feet from the entrance and set her sights on the mouth of the cave. She was using the scope on her weapon as binoculars. Several other males did th
e same thing.
They scanned the area for close to half an hour then noticed movement. It was a huge grizzly male.
Lona held up her hand and whispered, “Do not fire. If he goes back into the cave, we will have a hell of a time getting him back out again.”
The men knew that to be true. Some of the caves went on for miles through the ridgeline. Lona slowly stood up and moved toward the animal waving the others back down. He saw her and came barreling toward her. She stood her ground shooting her weapon over and over again.
She glanced over her shoulder and said in a loud, clear voice, “Delaney and Branson, fire at will.”
Both men stood, fell onto one knee and fired at the animal. It took multiple shots from the three of them to bring the animal down.
Lona assigned four men to monitor, and she moved forward with the remaining men. They entered the mouth of the cave and shined their flashlights into the cave. One small bear cub was limping, and when she pulled him out, she noticed his paw was full of BB shots. She was irritated when she realized that the humans tormenting the little cub was probably what got them attacked. She took the small cub and walked back down the ridgeline. By that time they had already loaded the female and where working their way up to the male. She walked the little bear cub down to the stream and washed the wound on his paw.
She waved Garan over and had him hold the cub while she worked on his paw. She opened her pouch and took out a small medical kit. She grabbed tweezers and pulled out several BB’s. The cub's little paw bled. She washed it in the stream. She held out her hand, and Garan shook his head and spit into it several times. She rubbed the saliva into the cub's paw and wrapped a gauze bandage around it. She then pulled a small piece of her canvas pants away and wrapped it over the bandage. Garan realized immediately that the cub was going to chew his way through it, but she was making it harder. He smiled because she was kind of clever.