“You can’t see the dead bastards. You have to smell ‘em, and they don’t smell like anything you’ve ever caught whiff of. They smell like rotting garbage, like poison. You ever catch the scent of something you know would kill you if you ate it? You’ve probably picked up a bloodsucker’s trail.”
“I can’t smell anything except frogs.” The boy was sixteen and his voice hadn’t finished changing. It cracked on the last word.
North clenched his jaw and pushed through a stand of stubby shrubs. Kolt had taken the boy too young. He’d altered a kid’s life forever. Familiar rage simmered in his gut. The marsh might erase the jungle but it wouldn’t take the scent of the man who’d changed North, robbing him of the life he’d worked for. A beast constantly on the edge of a killing rage had no place in the world of humans.
“The vamp’s going to be on top of you and you won’t hear it coming,” North said.
“Kid has to learn. A werewolf hunts.”
Grunting, North pushed ahead of the pack. Kolt wasn’t wrong. A werewolf did hunt. Food, justice, revenge, territorial protection…they hunted. And after this hunt, he was going after more personal prey.
Soon, he put enough distance between himself and the rest of the group that all he heard was the static of mosquitos swarming around his head. They owned the tangle of high grass, short trees and thin water ways. They lived the damn smell. If they could detect the blood that pumped beneath his skin, he could find vampire. Blood had a way of transcending everything else and where there was a vampire, there was blood.
The mosquitos grew bolder the deeper he prowled into the marsh. One of his other pack mates caught up with him.
“We’re going to change,” the man said.
North glanced at Don, another of Kolt’s get. The man had mean eyes and a hard mouth. He wasn’t as young as the kid but he was a pretty accurate mirror of what the young one would become under Kolt’s training. Arrogant, bullish, blood thirsty, and wearing fresh scars from Kolt’s claws.
North didn’t give a shit what he did, what any of them did. They wouldn’t be his problem much longer. Still—“Put your nose that low to the ground and all you’ll get is a snort of brackish water.”
Don grunted and fell back to do whatever he was going to do. North ignored him. An uneasy feeling itched the space between his shoulders and it spread down his spine. He swung his head from side to side, sniffing, peeling through the marsh’s layers. His wolf was locked up tight behind magic-forged bars, but it still possessed its senses, and North would be a fool not to heed them.
Nervous energy vibrated behind him as the pack realized something was on the horizon. They started to change. For a moment, the crack of changing bones muffled the mosquitos’ hungry song.
As the wolves fell into the hunt, North’s itch started to burn. A rare breeze stirred the humid air and brought the decaying odor of his prey. The stench grew stronger. Deep in the locked up recesses of his mind, his wolf bared its teeth and took a stand to protect its territory.
Signaling the wolves to split and go around, North dropped to a crouch among the wet grasses. Teeth bared, heart pounding, he listened.
The animal inside him strained against its cage. North had paid a witch well for the magical prison bonded to his psyche. Nothing could get to the beast inside him and the wolf couldn’t escape without the key only North and the witch possessed.
Yet the prison’s bars creaked and stretched. He tasted blood as the wolf’s sharp teeth pierced his gums.
“Back, you son of a bitch,” he snarled, shaking his head to clear it.
The wolf battered its cage, growling, gnashing its teeth. Unbalanced by the force of the animal’s aggression, North dropped his hands and sank up to his elbows in mosquito shit. As his fingers spread in the slime, a heavy weight landed on his back and rolled him until it sat on his chest.
North spat a mouthful of marsh mud at the pale, naked figure crouched on top of him. It was female, its bushy crotch inches from his mouth, tiny breasts pointing at his face as the vampire bent.
“There you are, puppy,” she crooned, and stroked his face. Her fangs gleamed as she opened her mouth and hissed.
The display of intimidation worked. With a mind-numbing howl, North’s wolf smashed its prison. Free for the first time in nearly three years, the wolf attacked its jailor first. Claws shredded North’s face from the inside and bent his bones until they snapped. He tasted his own blood before the sweet, rotten flavor of a vampire’s ichor flooded his mouth.
One week later
Molly Ward was admiring the ruby hue of a jar of cranberry honey when she realized she was being watched—a feat that should have been impossible. Among her assorted talents, she excelled at obfuscation and diversion magic. The spell she’d woven before her weekly trip to the farmer’s market should have hidden her in a crowd by redirecting the eye to someone else nearby, and on the off chance she couldn’t find a crowd, the twilight shadows would do just as well.
When she’d arrived, there were plenty of people milling between vendor tables. Most were bargain hunters out to take advantage of mark downs on produce the farmers didn’t want to haul back home, but a few couples strolled through the square on their way to the free evening concert.
It was a breezy, comfortable night, a rare summer occurrence on the mid-Atlantic. After anxiously huddling in her trailer for the past week, she’d ventured out for a reminder that humanity still existed. She’d even planned on heading up to the outdoor amphitheater after she finished her shopping. But if the disguise charm she wore had failed, the only place she was going was home.
Uneasy, she put the jar of honey down and turned to assess her situation.
While she’d shopped, the evening crowd had thinned. Farmers across the way were breaking down their tents and tables and representatives from a nearby creamery loaded their refrigeration units into a van. Nobody was paying any attention to her.
Except, there was one problem. If nobody was paying attention, why did her skin feel like it wanted to crawl right off her body?
When one last visual sweep of the rapidly emptying parking lot didn’t give any insight into the source of her itchy skin, she turned toward the exit. As she did, she came up against another person. The suddenness startled a scream from her throat.
“Woah!” The other person jumped back and threw up her hands, aiming a pair of tattooed flames at Molly’s face. Fire sparked from the center of the woman’s palms. Molly only knew one witch with those markings and she had the sense to dodge.
Isabelle Waverly, her cousin, shut down the fire by making fists but Molly hung back anyway, breathing hard.
Isabelle glared at her. “For the love…you scared the hell out of me. What was that?”
“I—” People were staring at them. Molly lowered her voice to whisper-shout, “I scared you? I’m wearing an obfuscation charm but I felt someone watching me so I. Scared. You? I was two seconds away from hundred yard dashing to my car! I do not run, Isi, and you had me ready to run.”
Isabelle rubbed her hands on her hips and glanced at the pendant Molly wore. She wrinkled her nose. “I wondered what that smell was. Why are you hiding?”
Self-consciously tucking the charm into her bra where Isabelle wouldn’t see it, even if she could smell the weed extracts, Molly asked, “Why aren’t you?”
She knew the answer, though. She and Isabelle couldn’t access the same kinds of magic. The flames inked on Isabelle’s palms signified the blood and fire that burned inside the younger witch. Even if Isabelle had wanted to learn the ways of the earth, as Molly had, her nature stood in the way. When her magic was open, Isabelle burned everything she touched. She had no reason to fear.
Conversely, Molly could access earth, blood and fire but wouldn’t allow herself to delve into the darker, aggressive arts. She didn’t trust herself to be strong in the face of temptation.
No, given a choice between hiding and fighting, she preferred to hide. Not that she had a c
hoice with Isabelle beside her. Her cousin’s magnetic presence and dramatic, classic ivory-and-crimson “witch” look forced people to sit up and take notice.
Keenly aware of the interest they’d drawn, Molly shooed Isabelle toward the parking lot. “I was on my way out.”
“Good. I was hoping you’d help me with a problem.”
On edge, Molly kept an eye on the shadows. “Of course. What do you need?”
“In a minute.” Isabelle looked over her shoulder a few times as they walked but didn’t speak again until they reached Molly’s car.
When they were far from ears and eyes, Isabelle let out a breath and met Molly’s gaze. “It’s a werewolf.”
A shiver slid down Molly’s spine. Tensing, she dodged Isabelle’s eyes and stashed her purchases in the back seat of her car. “What is?”
“Some people have been losing livestock for the past week. It wasn’t that big of a deal and didn’t get much talk, but this morning Clay Jeffers found one of his cows dead with its rear end on the front seat of his pick-up and its front end on the hood.”
Molly straightened, blinking. “I can’t even form a mental picture of that. What?”
With a shrug, Isabelle went on. “The only explanation for the kind of hunger that tears into a cow and the kind of strength that can launch it through a windshield is a werewolf.”
“A vampire could do that, too. It doesn’t have to be a werewolf.” Please don’t let it be a werewolf. Molly hugged herself and rubbed her arms. Neither of the dark creatures were topics she wanted to discuss in the middle of a parking lot at night. Not that she wanted to discuss them any other time, either. Words held power. Names, too. Shuddering at that thought, she held up her hand. “No names. Don’t want to hear them.”
“Well, I don’t have a name, so you’re in luck. Except not, because I need a name. It’s not a vampire. I wouldn’t need you if it was.”
Sighing, Molly said, “This isn’t our problem, Isi.”
That wasn’t really true, though, and she knew it. That was more than half the reason she lived most of her life on the fringes, avoiding notice where she could and manufacturing cover where she couldn’t. Humans didn’t much differentiate between supernatural groups and in moments of anger and fear, the blood of a witch was just as satisfying as the blood of a vamp or were.
“What do you want me to do?”
Isabelle gave her an apologetic look. “Just find a scent for me. I wouldn’t involve you if weres weren’t beyond my area of expertise.”
“Don’t. We are what we are.”
Isabelle only nodded. Molly grimaced and silently cursed the town’s vampires for controlling themselves so well. If one of theirs had gone wild, Isabelle would have taken care of it before anybody knew something had happened. Whereas Molly hid from trouble, Isabelle mounted head-on attacks at anything that would disrupt the uneasy truce between the normal and abnormal citizens of their town.
Another uneasy shiver came over her. “How long ago was the first incident?”
“A week is what I heard. I don’t know about anything else but you know how the farmers can be.”
Isolated, insular. Yes, Molly knew all about that. “I can probably do something for you.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah. Give me a few hours.”
Relief crossed Isabelle’s face. “Thank you.”
Molly waved it away. “We do what we have to do, right? Survival first.”
Witches, vamps, weres or something else—that was the one motto they all shared. Survival first.
Besides, if there was a werewolf problem, she was probably responsible.
Barely in control of himself, North stood in the shadow of the hill that led to the amphitheater, unable to smell or hear Molly Ward through the scent and sound of the summer night concert. He’d lost his prey’s trail but that didn’t matter because he’d caught hers.
She’d come out of nowhere, like a magician emerging from a puff of smoke. Hunger, dormant only moments earlier, clawed to the surface and held on. He’d satisfied the feral beast before the last sunrise—had glutted the blood lust and rage on a full damn cow—but one swish of the witch’s mahogany braid had left him feeling hollow, like he’d never eaten in his entire life.
How had he ever believed revenge was a need? Justice? Vindication?
Oxygen, sustenance, fucking?
Those weren’t needs. Need had never existed before her. It ground his internal organs to dust while she walked away with the other woman. North stared at her lusciously rounded hips. Her waist wasn’t tiny but looked it in comparison to her hips and ass. From the front, her full breasts almost balanced the curves. Maybe they would if they were allowed to bounce free of the sturdy bra outlined by her tank top.
His groin tightened. The desire that surged through him was every bit as visceral as the blood hunger that had consumed him since the night in the marsh.
The damn blood hunger. He’d slaughtered the vampire and when he’d discovered Kolt and the pack had deliberately led him to the vamp, he’d torn out their throats, too. Every one of them except the kid, who’d succumbed to a water moccasin’s bite. North had found him face down in the marsh, bleeding from puncture wounds at the side of his neck. They’d looked just like a vampire’s mark. The only difference was the scent of the poison.
With a snarl that sounded too close to the wolf’s voice, North wrenched his eyes from Molly’s retreating back. He could fuck any time but if he didn’t find the werewolf that had turned him, he would never be rid of his new, gruesome thirst.
Luckily, the male’s scent had resurfaced. The timing, the vampire’s words before she bit him, led North to believe his creator’s return was no coincidence. Neither was its continued evasion. North was younger, stronger, motivated by a need for revenge that wouldn’t quit. He should’ve had the bastard by now. Something stood between him and the other wolf, a shield that flexed just enough to refresh the trail…
You son of a bitch. North stopped walking. You’re hunting me.
Chapter 2
Molly lived in the middle of nowhere, twenty miles down a narrow country road lined by fields of soybeans and corn. Deer were more plentiful than neighbors. She wasn’t even sure the neighbors actually knew about her little trailer tucked back away on the rear of a wooded piece of property she’d bought for a song. The isolation suited her fine most days but tonight the deep dark of farm country filled her with unease.
“Not just tonight,” she said beneath her breath as she turned onto the narrow dirt road mostly hidden by a particular arrangement of curve and brush.
It had been one week exactly since the last time she’d really been at ease with her place in the dark. Isabelle’s estimated timeline for the werewolf’s activity was spot on.
Molly followed the single lane road to its end at the foot of the porch she’d built with her own hands courtesy of instructions from an internet tutorial. A light burned beside the door, illuminating the tiny violets blooming in the kitchen window box. Cutting the engine and headlights, she sat in her car for several minutes, letting her eyes adjust and her body dial into the night.
The familiar peaceful rhythm of home didn’t come. Her thoughts bounced disjointedly as she tried to reconcile what she’d done with what she now needed to do. And in the middle of it all—
What had happened to him?
What had gone wrong?
She’d broken her own personal rules and dirtied her hands with blood magic in order to lock up the monster. Why hadn’t she done something, anything, when she’d felt the chains break?
Because it wasn’t right to lock up that wolf. You never believed it was right.
“Yes I did,” she whispered.
And that was the dark heart of the problem. When Ian North came to her one summer night three years ago, she’d looked into his compellingly human eyes and she’d known, she’d just known, that being a werewolf wasn’t part of the universe’s plan for him. Now she wondered wh
ether she’d confused knowledge with pride, whether she’d made a grave mistake.
But right or wrong didn’t matter now. The only thing left to do was clean up the mess she’d made.
Steeling herself against the hostile darkness, she grabbed her flashlight from the glove compartment, got out of the car and marched into the sprawling greenery that nearly swallowed her trailer during the height of summer.
A garden could be many things. Food source, stress relief, creative outlet, medicinal resource. Molly’s garden served each of those roles and more. What someone else probably saw as an overgrown mess, she saw as a live, beating heart with moonflowers at the very center, calling the most elemental power down to her.
Tonight, she didn’t feel powerful and the garden didn’t welcome her. The winter squash sent out tendrils of vine meant to trap her, and the spindly, reaching arms of tomato plants parted to let her pass, only to close again, barring the exit. It was like the living essence couldn’t decide whether she was safer inside or out…or whether she was caretaker or threat.
The flashlight was the problem. It removed her eyes from her instincts and took the parts from the whole. She rubbed her arms, which sent the flashlight beam bouncing. The light glanced over clay pots she’d set out to control mint, skittered past clusters of wild flowers that attracted pollinating bees, and hitched on the solid, large shape of a thing, a man.
Her heart skipped a beat and she jerked the light back to the intruder.
It wasn’t a man, it was a demon, a dwarf giant with furred tree trunks for legs and heavy, long maleness that jutted toward her. Her skin flushed and burned. She looked away, only to find its ridged abdomen, which tracked up to the broadest, most muscular chest she’d ever seen. She froze there, unable to make herself look it in the eye, fearful of what she’d see, but more afraid of what it would see.
Her trembling fingers felt numb. She dropped the light, but the shape of its body lingered in her mind, flattening her between layers of bone-deep terror and inexplicable lust.
Taming the Vampire: Over 25 All New Paranormal Alpha Male Tales of Contemporary, Military, Shifters, Billionaires, Werewolves, Magic, Fae, Witches, Dragons, Demons & More Page 102