The Abduction

by Nichole Allen

  “Hey, we have an email about the accident,” Jake said pulling his laptop over towards them.

  “It was no accident,” Ben corrected him.

  “I know, they have the thugs in custody and if the evidence sticks they will be de-fanged,” he said.

  “Good,” Louisa said wiping a pink tear from her cheek.

  “What is it?” Jake asked.

  “That one, he was my maker,” she replied. “He was always cruel. I’m glad they caught him.”

  “You’re safe now,” Jake said pushing the laptop aside.

  “You have a tough biker vamp to protect you and a cute vamp from the world of advertising who has no skills,” Ben laughed.

  “Forget the client. I’m gonna show just how useless my skills are,” Jake said whipping his shirt over his head.

  “Aren’t you saving yourself for the princess?” Louisa said laughing.

  “Nope, I’m shy which means I’m all yours,” Jake replied.

  “And mine,” Ben growled through his fangs.

  Life wasn’t so bad anymore. She could cope with the lack of personal space and silence was overrated, anyway. She loved her men, and she knew they loved her back. Her undead life was looking pretty good and she had never been happier.

  THE END

  See the next bonus story at the next page!

  9 of 25 Bonus Stories

  Passion in the Prairies

  Lucy found herself staring at the gun belt of the outlaw. His gun hung in the holster on his side and she found her eyes fixated on it. It was silver in color and she was not sure whether to be terrified or not. Lucy had taken refuge in an abandoned house along the way when the rain had begun pouring. She had been on her way to the ranch where she lived with her mother and father.

  They had been living there for years, ever since her father had retired from the army and used his severance pay to purchase the piece of land. They had moved to Ohio only to find that the land that her father had purchased was not the prize catch that they had thought it was when Brevin Weatherfield purchased it. It had been a struggle trying to get it up and running, and especially since her father was the only one that did all the work, having no money to hire people.

  When they had moved to Ohio, it had been her father, Brevin, her mother, Karen, and her brother who was almost ten years younger than her. They did not have any other family in these parts, most her father’s brothers having moved to Texas after the war. Life had been tough for them, but their father’s determination had kept them going.

  When Lucy had turned 18, her father had begun putting pressure on her to become friendly with the boys in town whenever they went to the store. He was eager to marry her off, even though she was yet to find the right person for herself.

  “You know that your ma has been sickly ever since we moved here, due to the change of the weather, and your brother is way too young to help me around the ranch. If you can get me a nice young man to help around, it would be the best thing,” her dad said to her one day at the dinner table.

  “I will dad, every time that I'm at the dry food store in town,” she had said to him.

  Lucy was yet to find the perfect man to be her suitor. Her dad had suggested that she try and befriend the boy whose dad owned a huge parcel of land in the area, but Lucy found him to be a very repulsive fellow. Whenever she went into town, he leered at her rudely, and then there was the fact that he smelled of sweat. She did, however, have these funny dreams every night, where she was with two men, and they always left her with that funny feeling in between her thighs. The only man that she could say actually took notice of her was the sheriff’s son, Eugene Keller. He always greeted her whenever she was in town, and he also smelled very good.

  He had come back from pursuing a degree but he was not the sort of guy that she could tell her dad about, since he called him a learned dreamer that was no rancher. Lucy did find him sort of attractive in a strange way that she did not understand. There were also a couple of guys that had also shown some interest in her, but she was not into them. One had even offered to buy her some candy at one time in town, but she had politely turned him down, and she had never saw him again. Lucy remembered one day when she brought up Eugene's name at the dinner table.

  “That son of a bitch never does anything constructive with his life. The only thing that he knows to do is to spend time talking to his friends about his dreams,” her father had not even let her complete her sentence.

  That had been the last time that she had ever thought of mentioning the name again, even though she felt this mild attraction towards him. All of the men that her father recommended to her just did not fit her bill, and she wondered if his dream of marrying her would ever come true.

  *****

  “Ethan Blake is said to be missing and we do not know if he will be coming to these parts. He is wanted in more than five states,” the sheriff was telling a group of people that had gathered outside his office, which was right next to the dry food store from which she had just come. “And that means that we are all going to have to be very vigilant.”

  “If he was riding in this direction, then I'm sure that someone would already have spotted him,” one of the men in the crowd.

  “Yeah, and I think that he might have preferred to go into hiding in Texas since out there he has more hiding options,” another man shouted.

  “What else did the letter say?” the first man asked.

  “Well, that he might be travelling with the Branson twins,” the sheriff continued.

  Lucy stood by the store listening as they talked about the most wanted outlaw out in the west, and it was then that she realized that she was so far away from home, and yet she was alone. Her father would never have let her go out for the weekly shopping to the store, but today he had been too busy, while her mother had been sickly. Brevin had reluctantly let her take the journey alone, although she knew that it was something that she could do perfectly well since she knew how to take care of herself. Right now though, hearing about the outlaw on the loose, she was not so sure about that anymore.

  Lucy gathered up her shopping and began hurrying towards her buggy. She needed to get home before dusk, and besides, in the prairies you never knew when a storm could appear. As she rounded a corner, she went crashing head on into Eugene, who seemed to be coming in the direction where she was coming from.

  “I'm really sorry, are you hurt?” he said, helping her to pick up her things from the ground.

  “No, I think that I'm the one that was not looking where I was going,” she said taking the things from him, and as she put them onto the wagon, she felt his body pressing into hers from behind. “Ethan Blake might be coming to town, and I was hoping to get home by that time.”

  “Is that what the meeting is about?” he did make an attempt to move away from her and it was not hard to notice the heat that quickly spread through her body like quick fire. “I think that all the men in this town are pussies.”

  “Why would you say that?” she tried to think straight, wondering why Eugene was so different from the other men in the town.

  “They are all scared of Ethan Blake and yet he is just a man like them, even though none of them can admit it,” he said, not sure about the heat that was quickly spreading through her thighs the way that it did every morning after she had been dreaming of the two men. “You know what I think about him, he is a real man because he gets what he wants, whether it is money, jewelry and even women.”

  He stressed the word women, pressing himself harder into her back, and she was shocked to feel something hard in his crotch pressing against her back. He smelled fresh, almost as if he had just taken a bath, and she could not understand why that also had such an effect on her.

  “I'm sure that you like real men, want real men, just the way that you want me right now, isn't that right?” he said into her ear, his hot breath making her body feel hot all over in arousing ways. “I'm sure that right now you are wondering what it would be
like to have someone like me deep inside your virgin walls giving you the sort of pleasure that nobody else ever has.”

  And how right he was, because right now she wanted him to do just that more than ever. She looked around to see if there was anyone watching them, and as she put the last of her things onto the wagon, she pushed him back and slapped him as hard as she could across his face. She then hastily climbed onto the wagon and took the reins of the horse. He looked at her with astonishment as she rode off.

  *****

  “I think that it is better if we split up here,” Ethan Blake said to Bernie and Benny Branson as he brought his horse to a halt at the junction. “It would be safer for us to travel solo to avoid being caught. You guys can move on down in the Texas direction, but I still have some unfinished business in Ohio before I leave.”

  “Are you sure about that, Ethan, I mean, word is all around that you are on the loose in these parts, and this time if you are caught, I don’t know if you'll be able to escape,” Bernie said to him as he lowered the brim of his Stetson, staring across the prairies.

  He did not want to get the Branson twins into any more trouble than they already were. He had to get back to Ohio so that he could recover a stash of cash that he had hidden somewhere there before he had been caught and sent to jail. He, Bernie and Benny had broken out of jail after managing to trick one of the sheriff’s attendants there to open up for one of them so that he could use the washrooms. They had caught the attendant off guard, knocking the air out of his lungs before tossing him into the jail and escaping. This had all happened almost a week ago at night and now they had to get as far away as possible. Texas was their best bet if they were to remain under the radar for some time to give the public time to forget and focus on something else.

  “Yes, I'm sure. You guys go on down, and I will catch up with you later. Just remember to go straight to where I told you, and stay put until I come,” he said to them, lighting up a cigarette and puffing the smoke into the air.

  “Okay boss, I guess we’ll see you in the west when you get there,” Benny said as he and Bernie steered their horses in the other direction.

  “Take care,” he said to them, turning his horse in the direction of Ohio.

  He could tell that there was a storm brewing, but he was hoping to make it to the place where he had hidden his money. It was in an old abandoned shack that the local cowboys in the area believed was haunted, and so steered clear of. If they only knew that he had money stashed in there that was enough to feed the whole county for a year. He chose to take the short route there, branching off the road and into the grassy prairies. He pushed the horse a little faster, glad that it was his horse. Before he had been caught, he had left it with a friend, and the moment that he had escaped, he had gone back for his horse and was now on his way. He had stashed close to half a million dollars somewhere in the basement of the worn down shack and he kept his fingers crossed, hoping that the money was still there.

  The first drops of rainfall began pelting down on him, but he did not stop, instead pulling the brim of his hat lower over his eyes. Dusk was fast approaching but at least he would spend the night in the shack once he got there. It was almost two hours away from the point where he was, and he did not want to push the horse too hard. He avoided fields where there were cattle and horses grazing, since there was a possibility that they were being guarded by cowboys, who could easily sound an alarm and have the whole county looking for him. At that rate, he would only be able to hide for a couple of hours. It was better to keep the people guessing his whereabouts, not knowing whether he was in the state or not.

  The sky turned gray as the rain storm became heavier. He was soaked within no time, but at least he knew that he had some fresh clothes in the shack. It had been one of his hideouts for a long time, and he had turned it into a home whenever he was in the town on a mission. Most of his missions here had been to loot the local bank. He reasoned that the Banks had insurance and so even if he robbed them, their money would eventually be returned, and it would be a win, win situation. He finally got to the shack, approaching it from the backside like he always had, so that he could leave his horse to graze in a hidden grassy plain.

  *****

  Lucy was now genuinely worried and the storm was becoming worse. If she had known, she would have spent the night in the tavern in town and then gone home in the morning. She urged on the two horses that were tugging her wagon as the huge drops of rain spattered against her face. Her hat had been blown off by the wind some distance ago and she knew that she would not be able to retrieve it with the wagon. She would have to make a point of getting herself a new one the next time that she was in town. She was still a couple of hours away from home, and she knew that right now she would have to look for somewhere to shelter until the rain calmed down, although it was already dusk. Her father would be fuming if she did not get home soon, but it was not her fault. If she could control the weather, she would have already arrived home by now.

  There was a shack somewhere ahead and even though it had always looked deserted, it looked like it would have to make as her place of shelter. She did not know why she had the strange feeling that she was being followed, and she was glad that she had taken her father’s rifle without his knowledge, because she was going to kill whoever tried to harm her. Whenever she looked back, there was nothing, but as she went along she felt the strange presence. Maybe it was just her conscience playing tricks with her and especially since she had heard the sheriff and the other men talking about the outlaws on the run.

  She finally got to the shack, turning in and bringing the horses to a stop. It was a good thing that her shopping had been packaged well in water resistant tins, which meant that she could leave it on the wagon. Tethering the horses, she dashed towards the cabin, pushing the creaky door open and stopping in just in time to come face to face with the barrel of a gun.

  “Not another step,” a cold voice said as she struggled to adjust her eyes to the darkness in the house.

  “I'm sorry, I didn’t know that anybody lived here and thought that I could shelter from the storm,” she said with sudden fear.

  Her eyes adjusted soon enough, and in the darkness stood a man. He had the sexiest blue eyes that she had ever seen, but that was not all. He was not wearing a shirt and one could think that his body had been sculptured. He had muscles all over, even donning a six pack down on his belly. She tried to stop herself but still found her eyes moving further down his body, and she realized that he was wearing pants that were soaked. She felt a familiar warmth passing through her body as she realized the outline of his manhood was outlined in the wet pants, her whole body beginning to ooze with lust. He slowly lowered the gun, putting the silver pistol back into the holster tied around his waist.

  She had seen photos of the outlaw being circulated in the town, and she realized that he was the one that she was staring at. Her eyes went back to his gun belt, where she couldn’t stop staring at the silver revolver.

  “It’s alright, I'm not going to hurt you, come on in,” he said, moving aside as she stepped into the house, not sure whether to be afraid or not.

  “Aren’t you the outlaw that everyone is talking about?” she said, almost to herself as he shut the door.

  “Yes, but I'm not as bad as they think I am,” he said, walking past her, and she found herself staring at his back muscles and the way that they moved. “We will have to light up a fire or something to keep us warm and possibly dry our clothes.”

  As he said that is when Lucy realized that her clothes were completely drenched, water dripping onto the floor. As she looked down at herself, she realized that the frock she was wearing had clung to her wet body, and being that it was a white one, he could even see her flesh plastered against it in the most explicit way. She was shocked to see that even her red lingerie showed through the attire, and she tried to hide it with her hands, although that did not really do a thing.

  “Come on, I have a feeli
ng that I can trust you on this one. We can build a fire in the living room, where there is a fireplace,” he said to her, and she found herself following him into another room blindly, almost as if he had somehow hypnotized her.

  “Why do I get the feeling that you know this house very well?” she asked.

  Lucy knew that she was not supposed to trust this outlaw, but somehow, she had the feeling that he would not bring her any harm. She felt a bond between them that she could not understand, and it filled her with certain cravings that her father would forbid with men like him.

  “Well, you never know, maybe this just happens to be one of my dens,” he said to her off handedly as she followed him down some stairs that led into some sort of basement.

  Inside the basement, there was a kerosene lantern alight and she realized that this guy probably lived here. Things were arranged neatly, books piled on a shelf and a few clothes folded on a bed. He reached for a towel and handed it to her.

  “Here, you can cover yourself with these while your clothes dry,” he said to her as she took the towel away from him.

  “Thanks,” she said, but he made no move to leave the room, and having never been naked in front of a man before, she felt a little nervous. “Well, thank you for the towel, but aren’t you at least going to excuse me so that I can undress?”

  “I guess, I'm not really used to trusting anyone, but I think I can trust you. I'll be right outside the door,” he said, walking out of the den and closing the door behind him.

  Lucy quickly removed her clothes, glad for the new cover even if it was just a towel. She had already began feeling the effects of the cold. She did not remove her bra and panty since there was no way that she could do that with this handsome outlaw here, who knows what he could do to her, but who could tell if she would mind! Once she had the towel safely secured around her body, Lucy made her way back to the door and he opened it before she could push if, her body bumping into his.