by Tisha Wilson
She was so small. He felt certain that she would be too small for him, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. It had been so long. He took her lips in a passionate kiss as he pressed himself to her opening. She was so wet with need and she lifted her hips to him as if she were ready to take him. Unable to wait, to prepare her some, he slowly began to push into her and saw stars for a moment.
She was so tiny and tight. She gripped him in a way that made him lose his breath and mind. She was so small, soft inviting. Her cry of alarm brought him back to himself. Her legs had gone limp and she was pushing at him instead of pulling him towards her now. It took a real physical effort for him to pull out of her. He ground his teeth as the near pain racked him.
“I’m sorry,” he heard her murmur as she began to cry.
“Don’t,” he warned.
He hated it when she cried like a frightened animal. He rolled off of her and lay on his back panting. She was trying to kill him. That was the only explanation. She was shivering beside him and he moved to pull the comforter up over them. He needed a moment before he went into the bathroom and took a cold shower. Why the hell was this happening to them and why did she keep pulling him in only to push him away? If she would just let it happen…
“I don’t know why it keeps happening like this. I don’t know why I keep calling out to you. I mean you have been nice to me through all this, and you are handsome but I’ve never… I’ve never… you know.”
He tilted his head to look her in the eye. “You are a virgin,” he asked. She nodded quickly. He sat up right and looked down at her. He hadn’t expected that at all.
“I thought you were twenty nine years old. While that is young to me, isn’t that kind of… old in human years to be a virgin?”
Tears crowded her eyes again. He wanted to shake her and make her stop crying so much. “I only just turned twenty nine. I was only eighteen when… the accident happened and I had never… and since I’ve been in the chair… It’s not like I was ever any great beauty in the first place and who wants to sleep with a woman in a wheel chair?”
He looked over her clear face and her multicolored blond hair as it was spread out over the pillow. Her small size and dainty ways alone were enough to pull a man in. “You ARE beautiful,” he said before he threw back the covers and left the bed. He slammed the bathroom door shut and turned on the cold water.
She was a virgin. She had saved herself all this time and he was not going to let her throw that away on him. She would somehow convince herself that she loved him when she couldn’t possibly. He was a thousand years old and she was so young and beautiful. He didn’t know how, but he would control himself better tomorrow morning. She deserved better than him.
Miranda watched the door as it slammed on his gorgeous backside. Despite his words, he couldn’t possibly think she was beautiful. He was just saying that to make a crippled virgin feel better. She smacked her forehead before she sat up and pulled herself into the chair. She had been there. They were about to finish the deed when she had flaked out.
She couldn’t help it. He was just so… big. It had hurt to feel him entering her and it had scared her a little. She rummaged through her suitcase and pulled out kakis and a long sleeve white undershirt followed by a pink and white striped polo. She pulled on her underwear and the clothes quickly just as she heard the shower going off.
She wheeled herself out to the living room. She was shocked to find the ramp she had intended to build already finished. He must have stayed up all night working on it and he’d done a better job than she would have ever thought of doing. She used the little rope handle to pull it over to the stove. Saul had left the pot on the stove so she picked it up and filled it with water. She needed coffee.
He came out and began to pull out eggs and things to fix breakfast like nothing had happened. Again. She wanted to scream at him. She moved off towards the coffee table instead. She picked up the remote and turned on the news. Anything to not have to look at him. She noticed a piece of paper on the table with passwords. All anger fled her in that instant.
She looked over and beamed her best smile at him. He caught sight of the look and shifted uncomfortably. “What?”
“Kitten Hunter?”
He sighed and went back to his work. “You can use it now if you like,” he said.
She clapped her hands in excitement as she pulled his new lap top into her lap. He came over and typed in his pass code and got her onto the sight.
“I am going to have to buy another laptop I see,” he commented as he went back to work.
“I can buy my own lap top thank you very much,” she said teasingly as she made a salutation.
Kitten Hunter: Hello.
Wave Hunter: You that new hunter up there with the Viking?
Kitten Hunter: Yes.
Mandarin Hunter: That explains the name.
Kitten Hunter: What have you heard about me?
Highland Hunter: That you like to wear t-shirts that say ‘I love kittens’.
Miranda eyed Braden suspiciously. Sometimes she wondered if he liked her at all, but it seemed that he had been talking about her to his friends.
Kitten Hunter: I also wear gloves that say ‘Smiles make me happy.’
Wave Hunter: Slap me with an iron skillet and bury me in the yard.
Seminole Hunter: I think I can handle that for you California.
Wave Hunter: You couldn’t even handle your own mother Arizona.
“These guys are funny,” Miranda said out loud.
“It makes up for their ugliness.” She laughed as she began typing again.
Kitten Hunter: Braden says that you all are so funny because it makes up for how ugly you are.
She laughed again at some of the responses. “I told them what you said. I got so many hits I can’t even write a response. There are several death threats and a few choice words about your mother,” she said with a blush.
“Good to know. I’ll respond in kind later,” he said as he set an omelet on the coffee table before her. He also set down a cup of coffee and when she took a drink she was surprised to find that he had made it just the way she liked. He must have been watching her the night before. He really seemed to go out of his way for her.
He turned his attention to the news as she read more of the responses as they flashed up. They had jumped from Braden, to the Californian’s mother and lack of proper education, to the new mentor and her kick ass body, to several other random topics in the span of thirty minutes. She had finished her breakfast and still couldn’t interrupt.
“They will go on like that for hours. Sign off. We have training to get to,” he said as he turned the T.V. off and rose.
She felt like she should say something to him about this morning, but what was there to say? She had called him to her and pushed him away again. He had not pushed himself on her when he could have and for now that was enough. Perhaps tomorrow she could… She snapped the lap top closed and moved so he could open the armory. They began again with the weaponry lesson and she absorbed as much as she could.
* * *
Miranda held the gun in her hand and the weight almost seemed too much. They were outside in a field behind the cabin. He had fired a few rounds into a target he’d set up and she had nearly jumped out of her skin. Guns were louder than they sounded on T.V. She didn’t like guns. Her sister had attempted so many times to get her out to the range but she had never been interested. That had been more of her father and Katie’s thing. She wished now that she had gone.
She knew enough about them to know how to load them and how to avoid shooting herself, but that was the extent of it. Her hand shook as she held out the gun. She closed her eyes and began to squeeze the trigger.
“What are you doing?”
She opened her eyes and looked up at Braden. “I was going to shoot.”
“With your eyes closed?”
“You don’t expect me to hit the target on the first try do you?”
“You hit me on the first try! I expect you to hit the target the first time and every time. Innocents are at risk depending on your skill, now focus and stop being ridiculous!”
She threw the gun into the field and made to turn. He used his foot to tip the chair and she went sprawling out into the dirt. That was it! That was the last straw. He had been snapping at her all day. It was time for her to snap back. She stood up and her claws descended.
“Try that again asshole!”
The look of triumph that came over his face made her want to scream all the more. This was what he wanted. He didn’t want her as she was. He wanted the hunter to come out of her. That was the only time he seemed to look at her with any respect.
“Pick up your weapon and fire.”
“I’ll fire my weapon,” she said as she walked over, scooped it up, and pointed the metallic silver gun at him. It looked ridiculously large in her tiny hand, but it felt like it weighed nothing when she was like this. He stood firm as if waiting for her to shoot him.
Something caught her attention though and she looked towards the sky. Was that a… she could see a bird flying high overhead as if it were no more than a hands length from her face. Something else caught her attention and she turned towards a nearby tree. A small squirrel stared down at her. It looked as large as a mountain lion. She heard something moving beneath the foliage of the forest floor and she turned that way. She could hear every rock move beneath her feet, feel every molecule of dirt. The whole world was suddenly alive and so was she. She smelled the air. The scent of pine was the first and most obvious. Then the dirt, the grass, dead leaves, small animals scurrying about and then… death.
“What is that,” she asked as she started walking out towards the woods lifting her nose to the air. He came around and blocked her path.
“The creatures. You will have the urge to hunt them. You will have the urge to kill them, but first you must learn control.”
The gun dropped from her hand as she continued to move forward. The pull was so strong. Her legs yearned to run like they did in her dreams. “Are they very far away?”
He put up a hand to stop her. “They are in Canada on another hunters turf mostly. It is our time to rest a while.”
“If I could just-“
She was off and running before she could stop herself. She dodged him easily and nearly flew through the woods. She was glad for her choice in pants today because she was headless of the underbrush ripping at her legs. She could feel him chasing her so she increased her speed. He was not happy but she couldn’t seem to care. She couldn’t stop herself. Adrenaline burst free in her and it was like a euphoria she had never known before.
The only thing that halted her progress was coming to a very sudden and very steep drop. She barely had time to stop. He had said that they were far off but something… it was close. She sniffed the air and was deciding weather she should go left or right when he picked her up and pinned her beneath him. Her fangs descended and before she knew what she would do she had clamped down on his arm. He made a noise of discomfort but would not release her.
She kicked out and without meaning to, snapped his kneecap backwards. This time he fell back in pain. The fight left her to see him in so much pain. Her legs went out from under her and the adrenaline drained from her body. She pulled her way to him but he pushed her aside gently. He gritted his teeth as he popped his leg back into place. The sound was sickening.
“You are quick. Faster than any I’ve ever seen,” he said when he finally caught his breath.
“Really?”
“Yes. But you are very wild. You have to learn to control it.”
“I don’t know if I can. I mean… so far it only happens when I’m past mad and when I am that mad its hard to control even my normal self. And the pull… the adrenaline. I don’t know if I can do it.”
“You can do it. I will show you how. I will show you if it kills the both of us. A hunter who is out of control is not a hunter at all. A hunter who is out of control is a liability and must be destroyed for the sake of the innocent.”
“I thought you said we cannot be destroyed.”
“There is one way, and I would rather a hunter be fed to the wolves and run with the darkness than to cause harm to innocents.”
“You would feed me to the wolves?” she asked in horror.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” he said as he dusted himself off. “I don’t think it will be necessary. I think you have more fire inside of you than you know. You will learn control.”
She sighed as he stood up and then pulled her into his arms to carry her.
“I’m glad one of us is sure of that,” she said as she clung to him, glad that he was so patient with her. They would both need patients to get through this.
Chapter Eight
Bateman yelled in frustration as he smashed another beaker up against a wall. It had been weeks since he’d locked himself in this dungeon. He had sent his team home hours ago. How many years had he been doing this, looking for the answers? Fifty, maybe sixty years? Ever since he had passed that mark where he should have started ageing and realized that there was something different about himself. Still, after all these years, immortality was as illusive and distant from him as it had ever been.
He leaned against the edge of the steel table that contained a few necessary lab items. The room felt dank and damp despite the heat outside. He let his head fall between his shoulder blades. He had done so much good since he’d become the head mentor. He had taken their organization from a small nearly non-existent budget to a government funded agency that was capable of supporting its hunters and the necessary discretionary measures associated with the hunters. Namely clean ups.
His efforts alone may have helped make the hunters and wolves an unrealistic superstition to the public at large. In the last fifty years the number of instances where the public was made aware of paranormal activities and having people actually believe it had been uncommonly low. People of old were so easy to get in an uproar when they believed evil was lurking in the shadows.
He had taken over in the sixties and had shown the government how the paranormal group could be a cash cow. They had inserted themselves in the media and taken the word vampire and werewolf out of the arena of horror alone. They had made them into rock stars and by the eighties people were seeing vampires and werewolves as more and more acceptable and as silly.
Soon, things that went bump in the night were no longer real in the eyes of the major populous. He had made the government tons of money from movies, advertisements, under the table business dealings. He had firmly set their footing and created a model for other mentors around the world.
Then he had created a serum that would help those who insisted on believing in and destroying the hunters to forget certain things they may or may not have seen. At the best these humans only lost a few weeks, at worst they lost a few years. But at least they would move on with their lives and not get too close to the hunters or the creatures. The worst thing that could happen at this point in time was to have some fundamentalist group trying to take on the wolves themselves. They would be bitten and then they would have to be destroyed.
“I can do all that to further our cause, but I can’t figure out how to extract immortality from you,” he yelled pointing a finger at a silver cage set in the corner.
A creature stood in the middle and eyed him wearily. The creatures weren’t that smart, but they could learn what was a threat and what was not. It usually only took one touch for the wolves to figure out that the bars were plated with silver and would burn them if they tried to escape. That didn’t stop the beast from snarling and flexing his muscles.
Bateman was tempted to pick up his gun and shoot the thing to watch it burn, but he endangered his team every time he tried to catch one and bring it in without the hunters knowing. Humans weren’t meant to deal with the creatures and could be turned by one nick from one tooth. He left the lab and headed down a long corr
idor towards the room he had been bunking in. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen daylight. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d showered or shaved. Hell. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had eaten or slept at all. He laid on the tiny cot and looked up at the ceiling.
The phantom in his brain flitted across his mind again. Karen Stone. She was what all men dreamed of and knew they couldn’t have. She was super model hot with long legs, long blond hair, big blue eyes, hour glass figure. She was perfect. And for some reason she seemed to like him. From the very beginning it was as if she were a magnet and he were a metal rod.
He was tall, wiry, and wore glasses. He thought himself the very definition of a nerd, though he dressed well and worked out for hours. Muscles were an illusive dream that his skeletal build would never produce no matter how he tried. Most mentors looked like nerds or at least very common people. They were meant to blend in, to never stand out. Mentor’s often looked like they belonged at librarian’s conventions. They had all been shocked when the beacon honed in on this babe in high heels who looked more like a hunter than a mentor.
She was every man’s fantasy and for some reason she wanted him. He shook his head. She thought he didn’t see the longing looks. The way she looked at him as if he could take on the whole world. When he had thought her human he had thought they would make a perfect match. Then it had been revealed that she was a mentor, and not just any mentor. The mentor meant to take over this region. Her adoration for him had only seemed to grow firmer the more he attempted to push her away. It was more than the fact that she would precede him when he was gone. It was like she thought he could move mountains. She admired him even when he had grown weary and begun to give up.
Now, here he was, more frustrated than ever. He could not be with her. She was his replacement. A very real reminder that he had an appointment with death. Every mentor did. A mentor only lived a hundred and fifty years max. If they made it to their hundred and fiftieth birthday without being eaten by a wolf, they died. Just like that. That day, no questions asked. He had seen it happen and it was always a shock. Because they didn’t age, they all looked to be in their late twenties and to see someone just drop dead like that…