Taming the Heart
Book Two of The Creatures of the Night Series
By: Tisha Wilson
Chapter One~
Miranda looked at herself in the reflection of the van. She tucked a strand of loose blonde hair behind one ear and straightened her suit jacket. She wore a rose colored pants suit with a white silk shirt and pearl necklace. Tiny gold earrings peeked from beneath dirty blonde curls that kept escaping from a swept up style. She could never make her hair obey. If only she could afford to go to a hairdresser regularly.
She needed a haircut in the worst way. Her ends were split from bottle dye jobs and hair gel could only do so much for the frizz. There was little that could be done for the scraggly mess. Wrapping it in silk before bed and blow drying it after she washed was all she had to offer really. She took her time and brushed it a hundred strokes on each side like her mother had once taught her to do. Some days it helped. Some days it left her looking like a bad Dianna Ross impersonator.
“Mira,” she heard a familiar voice sing.
She grabbed the wheels of her chair to turn towards her sister. Throwing her arms open wide, her little sister fell on her. Miranda accepted the kisses that rained on her face. She laughed when her sister finally finished with the kisses and sat in her lap, throwing her legs over the arm of the wheelchair the way she’d been doing for the last ten years.
“You’re too big for this you know,” Miranda said as she struggled to turn and wheel them towards the car.
“Never too big to ride with you. What are you complaining about? You’re the one who gets to ride around all day while the rest of us have to walk.”
Miranda shook her head and smiled a smile straight from her soul. Ever since the accident, Katie simply adored Miranda’s wheelchair. At first they thought she was only humoring Miranda. When Katie had begun stealing the chair to take a spin up the block, her father had to do something. He’d finally gone to Good Will to find a used chair and bought it for her. Katie would race around in that chair, challenging her sister to catch her, until the wheel had literally fallen off.
There were very few times since the accident that Miranda didn’t feel like a total freak, but when she was with her sister she just felt normal. Of course, Katie had that effect on everyone. She set everyone at ease. Everything she touched turned to solid gold. Miranda managed to get them around to the driver’s side before Katie got off her lap and opened the door.
Katie reached down and scooped Miranda up in her arms as if she weighed nothing at all.
“Mira. You have to start eating more,” Katie admonished.
“It’s not me. It’s all those push ups you do G.I. Jane,” she retorted.
She allowed her sister to situate her legs beneath the steering wheel. Katie was the only one she allowed to do this. Every other day of the year, she managed the transfer just fine without anyone’s help. Katie stuck out her tongue and crossed her eyes before she sat in the chair and took it for a spin around the parking lot.
Her perfect straight teeth showed white as she smiled and turned wheelies in the chair. She crashed into a few classmates who tumbled and laughed with her. She ducked a few fake punches as she continued to dash around. Katie was graduating from West Point today. Miranda wished their father was still alive to see at least one of his children become a success.
Their mother had been ‘ill’ as long as she could remember. Their father had taken care of them all. His heart attack took him from them so suddenly that Miranda still felt the stab of it in her heart, even two years later. After letting a few of her guy friend’s take the chair for a spin, Katie finally folded it and stuffed it in its place between the driver and passenger seat. Miranda reached over and snatched the cap from her sister’s head to reveal her short cropped golden blond hair.
Katie wrestled it away from her with much laughter. She was three times bigger than her older sister, but she still pretended it was a struggle to get the cap back.
“Mom still not feeling well?” Katie asked.
Their laughter faded and she tossed the hat in the back towards her duffle bag. Her diploma and awards were also in the back seat with the flowers Miranda bought at a local store before she’d arrived.
“Did you find out when they want you on Paris Island?''
She answered the question with a question. Miranda didn’t feel the need to answer her sister’s question. They both knew the answer well enough. Their mother never felt well enough for things like this. Still, Katie sometimes made pretenses.
“I’ve got two whole weeks of leave my friend,” her sister replied.
She leaned back and put her hands behind her head as if she hadn’t noticed the subject change. Miranda reached behind her seat and pulled out a paper bag. She held the bag out to her sister who snatched it excitedly.
“No way!”
She opened the bag and squealed in delight.
“How did you get her to make this?” she asked, pulling out hand pulled pear flavored taffy.
“Mom woke up yesterday and said she thought you’d like some taffy when you got home from school.”
Of course her mother meant home from elementary school, but she wouldn’t split hairs when the gift obviously pleased Katie so much. Sometimes Katie liked to pretend that their mother really was just ‘ill’ and not...
She watched her little sister’s eyes roll into the back of her head as she took her first bite. Good. It should be the best of days for her. At least one of them had realized their dreams. Miranda started the van and pulled out of the parking lot. She had to drive through some boys playing football in their dress uniforms and families loaded down with balloons, flowers, and stuffed animals.
Miranda wanted to scoff. Soon these kids would go through boot camp and be sent overseas as sergeants and lieutenants. Graduating from West Point pretty much guaranteed speedy rising through the ranks and speedy appointments to the most dangerous battlefields in the world. She sighed and shook her head.
“Don’t,” her sister warned as she ate her taffy.
“Don’t what?” Miranda snapped.
She whipped out into traffic and hit the gas. They were nearly to the freeway when Katie spoke again.
“Don’t make that face. Just because you don’t like the idea of me being in the military doesn’t mean it’s the military’s fault or the fault of any of those guys that want to go in.”
“Guys? You mean those kids?”
“Mira… please. Do we have to fight about this now?”
Miranda felt her heart speed up and the words fly to the tip of her tongue. She wanted to refrain but her mouth had a way of racing ahead of her brain sometimes.
“I just don’t understand why you have to go overseas to protect the United States. We need plenty of good Cops in Madison.”
“I don’t want to be a Cop in Wisconsin. I want to have a military career. I want to be in charge of a unit. I want to be a General one day,” she said.
Katie turned and grabbed her arm with a pleading look.
“Please, Mira. Please. I promise. I’ll take care of myself. I’ll come home one day when I’m old and you're old. We’ll open up a bed and breakfast and have cats together. It’s our destiny. Let’s not begin that promising future with a fight.”
Miranda tried to keep the smile off her face but when her sister turned those dazzling blue eyes on her it was impossible. If only her eyes were bright and her hair was that golden.
“I plan on having a husband and a few kids,” Miranda shot back with a grin.
Katie waved this off as she went back to her taffy.
“Kids grow up and move out and women live longer than men. You have to have a post husband plan.”
Miranda laughed out loud this time.
“I don’t even have him yet and you’re already planning his death.”
They were on the freeway and moving at a good clip.
“I’m just that cynical. You know. You’d make one hell of a truck driver.”
Miranda laughed again.
“Now that would be something to see. I’d have to install an elevator just to get up in the driver’s seat.”
“Aww come on sis. After all those years with the chair, you have some real upper body strength. I’m glad you’re not wearing your gloves today. You always look like you’ve just come from pumping iron with those fingerless gloves on.”
Miranda laughed hard and out loud.
“The only thing I pump is my wheels.”
“Don’t deny it. You look like you could kick ass with those gloves on, even with the pink embroidery you did on them. Maybe you should go around without them more often. When men think you can kick their ass they become intimidated. You might have already scared your future dead husband off with those things.”
Miranda socked her sister in the arm and Katie laughed in response. Her straight white teeth were so beautiful in her smiling tanned face and Miranda felt her heart swell.
“I missed you. Everything is so drab at The Copy Shop without you.”
Her father wouldn’t win any prizes in originality, but at least everyone knew what the shop was intended for, if the banks of copying machines didn’t give it away.
“You want my opinion, you should set it on fire for the insurance money.”
“Don’t say that. Dad loved that shop,” Miranda reprimanded.
Plus, she hadn’t been able to pay the insurance last month with her mother’s medical bills on the rise. If she burned it to the ground all she would have was a small mound of ash and a mountain of debt. Katie’s face became serious.
“I miss him today,” she said softly.
Miranda’s eyes misted.
“He would’ve been so proud of you. I know I am.”
Katie leaned over and put her head on her sister’s shoulder. Miranda placed a kiss on her golden head and leaned her face against her soft curls. What was she going to do without her? Her world would be darker without the golden child.
* * *
Braden sat in the woods and listened to the night as he breathed deeply. The air was crisp. It was going to be cold tonight. He relished the thought. He missed Norway, hated being reassigned to this fledgling Nation. They thought they were the answer to the world’s problems. He sighed. They’d go the way of the Romans and the English. They would play some part in the world order, but they too would recognize eventually they were not all powerful.
He’d seen worlds come and go, nations rise and fall. He’d seen ten decades of change and it felt old. The only place he’d felt any peace was his home country. He’d been one with the hills, mountains and streams. He was nearly as old as some of those streams and hills. If life taught him anything, however, it was that things never stayed the same. It was always changing.
He ran a hand over the cold steel in his hand and smiled. Some things did change for the better. Not that he disliked his long sword. The gun just required so much less… effort, loss of limbs, limb regeneration. He put the gun away and continued to crouch in the tree. He watched the woods and listened to the night. They were coming, would be here soon. He pulled back his trench length fur coat to expose the arsenal he kept strapped on at all times.
There were few thrills left for him in this world. Soon it would be time for him to give up and join those whom he fought. He was tired of living. He was tired of the so-called innocents that beat up and maimed each other in the name of greed, religion, or power. People could be heartless and ruthless and he’d long ago forgotten the ties he had to this human world. He didn’t even remember his mother or father’s names.
He only remembered the land and the country. If not happy, he’d at least been content. Then, out of the blue, this newest group of mentors began to reassign people to new areas. They said that a change of scenery would help some of the older ones get ‘re-acclimated’ with life.
As if after living a thousand years such a thing was possible. He knew the downsides of giving himself to the wolves. Knew it would make the wolves stronger, but really, there were plenty of hunters. If they killed the wolves who ate him… he would eventually be free.
The thought thrilled him to no end. He would finally be freed of a life that had lost color for him. It had lost its flavor. They were coming and he’d relish this fight. Maybe tonight would be the night. What else was there if he couldn’t even go back to his country?
* * *
Her sister stirred in her sleep and Miranda turned the radio down a bit. Katie loved listening to speed metal at outrageous volumes whenever there was a lull in conversation. She’d finally dozed off with Miranda’s pink down stuffed jacket curled under her cheek.
Her sister was strong physically, and tall. If there was a woman that was well suited to the military, it was her, but Miranda couldn’t help but look at her at times like this. When her soft golden lashes rested gently against her cheeks. The little girl with the scraped knee who came crying to her for a band-aid was still there. She smiled at that thought. Katie used to love band-aids.
She’d wear them like a badge of courage and knew if she cried the right way, she’d get more than one. How she’d missed her while she’d been away at school. Phone calls and text messages just weren’t enough. It would have to be enough now that she was preparing to go overseas.
Miranda was turning her attention back to the road when she saw something flash across it. She just barely wondered what it was when a similar looking something smashed into the driver’s side door. Her head snapped to the side and her hands flew off the steering wheel. She lost control of the van, not that it mattered anyhow. The impact tilted the van off the pavement. The world turned upside down once or twice before it finally came to a rest.
Something was blaring and a white cloud flooded her face. It took a disorientated moment to realize the airbag had deployed. She fought against the bag before it deflated and released her so she could breathe again. Her head spun and she had the odd sensation that she was dangling.
Not upside down but to the side. Something was tight on her chest, holding her in place. The seat belt. She struggled with it but it was locked into place. Katie lay completely still against the passenger door in the dirt. Apparently the van had landed up on its side.
“Katie,” she croaked.
She tried to loosen the seat belt again with no results. Tears flooded her eyes. How was she going to get down to Katie? Her wheelchair had landed on top of her sister and they were both far out of reach. Relief flooded her as her sister began to move.
“What happened?” Katie asked as she sat up and looked up at her sister where she dangled from her seat belt. She hadn’t been buckled in and Miranda felt a fresh wash of relief that her sister hadn’t been thrown from the van.
“I think we had an accident,” Miranda said as she continued to strain against the suffocating belt.
“So much for your big dream of being a truck driver,” her sister said as she pulled herself up.
Shoving the wheelchair aside, she took a lethal looking knife from her pocket. Miranda sometimes forgot her sister was perpetually armed.
“Always the comedian,” Miranda teased back in a raspy voice as her sister cut the belt from her.
Katie caught her as she began to fall. She set her to the ground as she took the wheelchair and tossed it up and out of the driver’s side window which had been smashed out.
“Put your arms around my neck,” Katie instructed.
Miranda grabbed on to Katie’s neck as she reached for her. Miranda held on as Katie began to climb. They were about to climb out of the driver’s window when an angry snarl rent the air. Katie froze.
“What the hell was that?” she whispered.
“It sounded like a bear or something,” Miranda replied.
“A really big bear,” Katie replied in a whisper.
Katie lowered them back to the passenger side door and looked out the splintered windshield. There was nothing there. She pulled out her knife again and motioned for Miranda to release her neck. Miranda did and watched as her sister began to climb up and out of the window, the knife clutched between her teeth.
“Be careful,” Miranda whispered.
Katie held on to the steering wheel as she looked down at her. She pulled the knife from her teeth smiling. Not even the trickle of blood that ran down the side of her face could detract from her strength and beauty.
“I thought I told you that we were going to grow old together and I-“
Her words were cut short as something reached inside the driver’s side window and drug her out. Miranda heard an unnatural scream before there was silence.
“Katie! Katie,” she screamed as she pulled herself up the seats.
She had to use all the upper body strength she had, which was considerable. She’d always insisted on moving her own chair and not having one of those automatic deals. She didn’t ever want to fall and not be able to pick herself back up. She was sweating hard but finally pulled herself up and out of the window.
“Katie,” she cried out as tears burst free.
There was blood all over the side of the door. Where had she gone? What was that thing? Something moved in the trees behind her and her head snapped that way. Her heart was pounding and it felt like her collarbone might be broken.
“Katie,” she screamed yet again as she began to tremble.
Something moved near the woods. She focused on what she saw and terror seized her. There was something. It looked like a giant dog with red glowing eyes. When it stood on two legs and began to walk towards her she had to control the urge to faint.
It came right up to her. It was as tall as the van, even though it had been turned on its side. She smelled something that smelled like rotten flesh. It smiled a macabre smile full of ugly decaying teeth.
Slowly it moved forward and she put an arm of protection up. It seemed for a moment that the thing wouldn’t bite her and she stayed completely still. It sniffed her arm and without warning bit down. She cried out and tried to pull away. She heard bones snap and lost the fight for consciousness.
* * *
Braden blasted the animal just after it bit the innocent. He cursed viciously. It was not like them to attack a moving vehicle. He supposed they hadn’t intended to. They’d been coming to him and the innocents got in their way. He watched as the woman and the animal fell to the ground beside the vehicle. The animal was flaming from the silver plated bullets that passed through its head.
He looked at the small woman lying next to a pastel pink wheelchair. She was so tiny that if it weren’t for the lines around her eyes and mouth, she’d appear no more than a child. Something stirred inside him without provocation. He touched his chest and looked at it. His heart was beating fast. When was the last time something had caused his heart to speed so? He shrugged. It didn’t matter. She’d turn now that she’d been bitten. It would be necessary to end her life at that time.
He took aim and waited. When nothing happened he kicked her leg with his boot. Her legs were so small and puny. The wheelchair had to be hers. She was probably paralyzed. That wouldn’t matter in a moment.
When she turned into a wolf, her legs would work again. He kept the gun trained on her as he moved up to her arm. His senses were still tuned to the woods, listening for any other sounds to indicate more creatures approaching.
He kicked her arm and her eyes fluttered for a moment. Her eyes finally fluttered open. She grabbed her bleeding arm and clutched it to her chest as tears flooded her big midnight blue eyes.
“Please. Please don’t hurt me.”
He felt the unfamiliar flutter in his chest again. This wasn’t right. She should be turning already. The disease invaded the bloodstream quickly and completely. A thought came to him but he pushed it aside. He quickly put his gun away and knelt to her side.
“The creature bit you?” he asked.
He thought he’d seen it bite her, but perhaps he was mistaken. She wailed as she looked around them.
“Where’s my sister?” she cried as she sat up holding her arm.
“They took her off before I could get to her,” he replied.
“What! You have to do something, call someone! Those dog things will bite her! I don’t hear her screaming. What if they…. What if they…” She began hyperventilating. He reached out and grabbed the back of her neck to push her head between her knees. What he ended up doing, however, was pushing her face in the dirt. She cried even harder as she fell to her side and he took his hands from her.
She lay there crying and blubbering in a way he hadn’t heard in some years. He didn’t know what to do. Usually by now he’d either determined that the bitten innocent was going to turn and shoot them, or they turned out to be only injured and not bitten. At which point Braden would leave them to go after the remaining creatures. This was something new.
“Listen. You must stop your blubbering,” he said as gently as he could.
“Then why don’t you do something! Open up my chair and put me in it and call the police! My arm is broken and I have to find my sister,” she shouted hysterically through her tears.
She was beginning to bother him with all her incessant crying. He eyed the folded up chair and approached it. He drug it over closer to her without even attempting to open it. He’d never had cause to operate them, though he’d seen a few innocents with them. He was fairly certain they hadn’t had them when he was still human. If they had, he wouldn’t recall it anyway.
She took initiative and grabbed the chair. Despite her continuing to wail like a hurt animal, she opened the chair and pulled herself up with her one good arm. He made to help her but she snapped him a sharp look through her tear streaked face.
“If you want to help me, pull out your cell phone and call the police. If you don’t have a phone, climb up in the van, get my phone, and I’ll call them,” she yelled before she continued crying out loud.
“Katie,” she called out to the tree line again.
Hadn’t he just told her the girl was gone? He pulled the phone from his pocket and strode off a distance from her so he couldn’t hear her wails and desperate pleas any longer. He found Bateman in his contacts and pressed call. A female answered.
“Where is Bateman?” he asked gruffly.
“He’s out of the country,” the woman replied in a clipped, efficient tone.
She was probably someone at the compound that answered Bateman’s line. Braden loved and hated technology. Routing calls from your cell phone to an answering service was the definition of impersonal.
“Listen. There is something weird going on here. I have an innocent who…” he stopped as he looked over at the woman who was weeping openly into her hands. “I just need him to come right away. I’m not sure exactly what’s going on here. I also need a clean up team.”
“We’ll have someone out within the hour. Please be out of the area for their safety,” she said before she hung up.
He’d have to wait for Bateman’s call. In the meantime, he had to go with what he knew for a certainty. She’d been bitten and hadn’t turned. That left only one alternative. He strode back to the woman and went around behind her chair. He picked up the chair and dumped her out unceremoniously.
Miranda fell to the cold wet ground with a thud and it took her a moment to realize what happened. She flipped over to her back and glared up at him, pain shooting through her arm.
“What is your problem! You think it’s funny to abuse a cripple?” she screamed up at him as tears continued to fall from her eyes.
She pulled her arm closer to her body just barely holding herself together. The pain was hot and searing and she wanted to pass out again, but she needed to stay awake for Katie. She used her sleeve to quickly wipe the run off from her nose. Her beautiful suit was already ruined, why not.
“You were bitten,” he said in that deep monosyllabic way that was beginning to work her nerves.
It was creepy to have this mountain of a man looming over her and she wanted to run and scream. She couldn’t do that so she’d use her words instead.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious. What in the world has that got to do with you shoving a handicap woman out of her wheelchair?”
He continued to stand over her, his fists balled as if he expected her to jump up and begin fighting him or something. She’d have told him to be at ease, she couldn’t attack him if she wanted to, but he seemed to be having some sort of internal debate. She waited to hear what reason he could possibly have for pushing her out of her chair, after having brought it over to her in the first place. When he continued on with his creepy silence she screamed at him again.
“Well?!”
He knelt down to get in her face so swiftly it stole her breath away. His crystal blue eyes were icy and cold. He looked like a Viking with his strong features and blond hair. His broad shoulders and powerful build further added to that impression. He could probably do curls with her on one of those massive arms of his. It was intimidating and impressive at the same time.
“Listen to me well,” he began. “There are things in this world that you have never had to encounter in your sheltered little life. Things that stalk the night and when one of those things bites you, one of two things happen. You become one of them, or you become one of me. The chances of you becoming one of me are one in eight billion. If you were turning into one of me, I would be ready to rip your head off. Outside of annoyance with your silly wailing, I have no other feeling towards you whatsoever.”
She blinked up at him and shook her head. Where had this guy come from? Had he stepped out of the past to ruin her sanity? Was she dreaming? Was she stuck inside the van, hanging upside down, waiting for someone to come save her? This man, who’d appeared to be a savior just a few minutes ago, was suddenly seeming more like a lunatic.
“I just want my sister back,” she croaked.
“Your sister is dead,” he replied without any emotion in his voice.
Miranda wailed out loud as she turned to begin pulling herself towards the woods. This man was not here to help her. Katie was not dead. She was out there and would come racing back soon. She’d have her commando knife clenched between her teeth, a bear head for a hat. Noone knew outdoors and hunting better than her sister.
Miranda’s progress towards the trees was stopped as the man put a booted foot in the center of her back. She cried out to feel the weight of his boot pushing her down into the mud. Her ruined arm was pinned beneath her. It felt like someone was stabbing her hard.
What could she do against him? He was bigger and certainly stronger than her. Most people respected her status as a handicapped person and never did things like this to her. Her only defense was to cry out. She laid her face in the mud and cried gut wrenching sobs. She wanted her sister here with her.
“Katie,” she wailed.
Katie would kick this guy's ass!
“Fight me,” the man growled at her.
“What?” she squeaked.
“Stop acting so weak and fight me. Curse me. Do something. Don’t you have any sense of self preservation?” he asked and she heard anger in his voice.
“I… I don’t know how,” she said as she did her best to stifle her sobs.
She was losing it a bit, but couldn’t help it. She wanted to wake up from this nightmare right away.
“My sister…”
“Fight for her then,” he replied.
She shook her head. Her sister was the one to do the fighting. Her sister was the one that could do the get down in the mud and fight thing, not her.
“I don’t know how. Please, don’t hurt me anymore,” she cried.
Braden lifted his boot off the tiny woman. He was perplexed. She was bitten but wasn’t turning. If she was becoming a hunter, he’d have the urge to rip her little blond head off her delicate shoulders. Hunters could only be in close proximity to each other so long before it turned into a death match. He felt no anger. He felt no animosity. He felt nothing.
Well, there was this strange twinge that kept eating at his insides. It was a foreign sensation to him. How did one make this feeling go away? He thought about it for a moment before he went back to retrieve her chair. He reached down and picked her up, setting her down in the chair again.
She was now covered in mud and the feeling persisted. She was shivering and tears left tracks in her dirty face. He’d done something wrong. What did people do when they did something wrong?
“I’m… sorry. I just had to make sure,” he explained at last.
She sniffled a few times as she looked at him with injured eyes that were still swimming in tears.
“Whatever. Did you call the police?” she asked, watching him warily.
He nodded before he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it out to her. It was a paltry offering in the face of the amount of mud covering her. She looked at it like it was an unfamiliar object before she snatched it away from him and wiped her face.
They stood there looking at each other for a moment. She was small for a grown woman. He’d seen small women before but… and she was so lite. To pick her up in his arms had been like lifting air.
He clenched his jaw. She had to be the tiniest woman he’d come across. The women in his country were usually tall and full of curves. Supermodels came from the women of his country. Women that could be gorgeous and still get out there and chop wood with the best of them. This teacup sized woman seemed entirely too fragile to be real.
Miranda looked up at him. She looked up and up and up at him. Even had she not been sitting in the chair he would’ve been tall, intimidating, and so damn handsome she could nearly drool. If her nerves weren’t so frayed she could’ve possibly been doing that very thing at this moment.
He had long blond hair tied back in a ponytail and his crystal blue eyes were clear and sharp. They were dazzling to look at, yet his clothes looked so grungy. He wore a white and gray fur coat like an old school trapper might. His boots were of the quality that miners might wear. Where had he come from that they dressed like that?
He looked like he’d grown out of the side of the mountain, or perhaps walked out of the pages of a history book on Vikings. Was he prepared for a blizzard or what? These were questions she might ask if she planned on spending any time with him beyond waiting for an ambulance, but she did not. It was a shame to waste such extreme hotness on such an extreme asshole. Her main concern was not his attitude though. Her main concern was Katie and where she’d gone to.
Nearly an hour later, after she had several near meltdowns, attempting futilely to run from him into the woods after her sister, a few cars pulled up and began to set up tape in the area. The little woman looked visibly relieved to see them. He shook his head. What it would be like to be that innocent again, he’d never know.
A few men approached, shot guns in hand. Saul Munoz stepped forward with a smile and extended a hand. Braden didn’t return the smile but gripped his friend's hand and gave it a good squeeze. Saul was okay, for a human. They’d met officially at the most recent hunter training and hit it off instantly, one warrior recognizing another. Braden grabbed the shirt of a nearby agent and whispered something in his ear. The man scurried off quickly to obey his command.
“I thought you were told to clear the area,” Saul said brusquely.
He was feisty for a human.
“I don’t need you to tell me my job, human. The woman needs medical attention.”
Saul looked to the woman in the chair who was holding her bloody arm cradled to her chest.
“An innocent? Why didn’t you just leave her here?” he asked in an irritated voice.
Braden gave him a deadly stare. Saul took a step away.
“Okay…”
“Where the hell is Bateman?” Braden asked.
“He had an important mission overseas. I’m not sure when he’ll be back.”
“Well you’re going to have to take her back to the compound with you then,” Braden instructed.
“Excuse me. Is someone going to go out and find my sister?” the woman asked as she looked around at the men with guns.
Saul turned a genial inviting smile on the woman and began to approach. Braden grabbed his arm. He stopped and looked at the restraining hand. He then turned a megawatt smile on the tiny woman.
“We have men out searching for her already, ma’am. I will be with you in just a moment. The ambulance should be here shortly. If you’ll wait but one more moment, I am going to talk with this gentleman here,” Saul said before Braden drug him back again.
“What! You called us in for a clean up,” Saul hissed in a whisper. “I’ll give her the shot to wipe her memory and we’ll plant another story with the local police. All you had to do was-“
“She’s been bitten,” Braden interrupted.
“Bitten?” Saul asked a little louder than was prudent.
Every agent there cocked their guns and pointed them at Miranda. She put up her good hand and made a frightened whimpering noise in her throat. Braden strode over to stand in front of her and faced the men.
“Stand down,” he growled.
They complied almost immediately. Saul came to stand before him.
“She’s going to go through the change and you think I can take her back to our compound? Not even Bateman would do something that stupid. She’d rip the place apart.”
“Well I can’t keep her. Once she turns we are going to rip each other apart.”
Braden didn’t know why but as soon as he said those words a shock of excitement went straight through him.
“You’re going to have to control yourself muchacho, because I don’t grow back limbs after a hunter’s ripped it off. She can not come with us.”
“What about that new mentor, that Stone woman?”
“She’s on another assignment for a time to be undetermined as well.”
“What is the point of having Mentors if they’re not around when you need them?”
“Ahh… Hello. What’s going on? Who’s going through what change and what is a Mentor?”
They both turned to see the wheelchair bound woman looking up at them with round deep blue eyes. Saul knelt before her and took her un-injured hand.
“I am sorry, Mija. Your whole life is about to change.” He stood up and faced Braden. “Get her out of here before she harms anyone.”
Braden sighed heavily. He bent down and hoisted the woman out of her chair and over his shoulder. He turned and began to walk away from the crash sight as she cried and beat at his back with her good arm.
“No! I have to see my sister! I can’t leave my chair! What about my van! Where are you taking me! I don’t want to go with you. Help! Help! I want my sister, I want my sister, I want my sister!”
The mantra went on and on but he ignored her. She stopped for a moment to sob a little more before she pleaded again.
“You can’t do this. I need to see a doctor. My arm hurts, and you can’t leave my chair,” she murmured in a wounded whisper.
She was shaking like a leaf now. He stopped as the unfamiliar sensation came into his chest again. Reluctantly he turned and strode back across the distance quickly. He snatched the chair up with a growl. He sent a look to Saul that dared him to say anything. The bronzed man threw his hands up in the air and backed away slowly.
“You’re going to have to learn to stop wailing like a wounded creature to get your way! I won’t put up with it,” he commanded her before he strode off once again through the woods.
He got to his truck and dumped her in on the driver’s side, following her up, pushing her across the couch seat and snapping her into her seatbelt. She finally pummeled his face and arms and he was glad for it. He could handle a fight. It was the wailing and hopeless despair that he couldn’t take.
Book Two of The Creatures of the Night Series
By: Tisha Wilson
Chapter One~
Miranda looked at herself in the reflection of the van. She tucked a strand of loose blonde hair behind one ear and straightened her suit jacket. She wore a rose colored pants suit with a white silk shirt and pearl necklace. Tiny gold earrings peeked from beneath dirty blonde curls that kept escaping from a swept up style. She could never make her hair obey. If only she could afford to go to a hairdresser regularly.
She needed a haircut in the worst way. Her ends were split from bottle dye jobs and hair gel could only do so much for the frizz. There was little that could be done for the scraggly mess. Wrapping it in silk before bed and blow drying it after she washed was all she had to offer really. She took her time and brushed it a hundred strokes on each side like her mother had once taught her to do. Some days it helped. Some days it left her looking like a bad Dianna Ross impersonator.
“Mira,” she heard a familiar voice sing.
She grabbed the wheels of her chair to turn towards her sister. Throwing her arms open wide, her little sister fell on her. Miranda accepted the kisses that rained on her face. She laughed when her sister finally finished with the kisses and sat in her lap, throwing her legs over the arm of the wheelchair the way she’d been doing for the last ten years.
“You’re too big for this you know,” Miranda said as she struggled to turn and wheel them towards the car.
“Never too big to ride with you. What are you complaining about? You’re the one who gets to ride around all day while the rest of us have to walk.”
Miranda shook her head and smiled a smile straight from her soul. Ever since the accident, Katie simply adored Miranda’s wheelchair. At first they thought she was only humoring Miranda. When Katie had begun stealing the chair to take a spin up the block, her father had to do something. He’d finally gone to Good Will to find a used chair and bought it for her. Katie would race around in that chair, challenging her sister to catch her, until the wheel had literally fallen off.
There were very few times since the accident that Miranda didn’t feel like a total freak, but when she was with her sister she just felt normal. Of course, Katie had that effect on everyone. She set everyone at ease. Everything she touched turned to solid gold. Miranda managed to get them around to the driver’s side before Katie got off her lap and opened the door.
Katie reached down and scooped Miranda up in her arms as if she weighed nothing at all.
“Mira. You have to start eating more,” Katie admonished.
“It’s not me. It’s all those push ups you do G.I. Jane,” she retorted.
She allowed her sister to situate her legs beneath the steering wheel. Katie was the only one she allowed to do this. Every other day of the year, she managed the transfer just fine without anyone’s help. Katie stuck out her tongue and crossed her eyes before she sat in the chair and took it for a spin around the parking lot.
Her perfect straight teeth showed white as she smiled and turned wheelies in the chair. She crashed into a few classmates who tumbled and laughed with her. She ducked a few fake punches as she continued to dash around. Katie was graduating from West Point today. Miranda wished their father was still alive to see at least one of his children become a success.
Their mother had been ‘ill’ as long as she could remember. Their father had taken care of them all. His heart attack took him from them so suddenly that Miranda still felt the stab of it in her heart, even two years later. After letting a few of her guy friend’s take the chair for a spin, Katie finally folded it and stuffed it in its place between the driver and passenger seat. Miranda reached over and snatched the cap from her sister’s head to reveal her short cropped golden blond hair.
Katie wrestled it away from her with much laughter. She was three times bigger than her older sister, but she still pretended it was a struggle to get the cap back.
“Mom still not feeling well?” Katie asked.
Their laughter faded and she tossed the hat in the back towards her duffle bag. Her diploma and awards were also in the back seat with the flowers Miranda bought at a local store before she’d arrived.
“Did you find out when they want you on Paris Island?''
She answered the question with a question. Miranda didn’t feel the need to answer her sister’s question. They both knew the answer well enough. Their mother never felt well enough for things like this. Still, Katie sometimes made pretenses.
“I’ve got two whole weeks of leave my friend,” her sister replied.
She leaned back and put her hands behind her head as if she hadn’t noticed the subject change. Miranda reached behind her seat and pulled out a paper bag. She held the bag out to her sister who snatched it excitedly.
“No way!”
She opened the bag and squealed in delight.
“How did you get her to make this?” she asked, pulling out hand pulled pear flavored taffy.
“Mom woke up yesterday and said she thought you’d like some taffy when you got home from school.”
Of course her mother meant home from elementary school, but she wouldn’t split hairs when the gift obviously pleased Katie so much. Sometimes Katie liked to pretend that their mother really was just ‘ill’ and not...
She watched her little sister’s eyes roll into the back of her head as she took her first bite. Good. It should be the best of days for her. At least one of them had realized their dreams. Miranda started the van and pulled out of the parking lot. She had to drive through some boys playing football in their dress uniforms and families loaded down with balloons, flowers, and stuffed animals.
Miranda wanted to scoff. Soon these kids would go through boot camp and be sent overseas as sergeants and lieutenants. Graduating from West Point pretty much guaranteed speedy rising through the ranks and speedy appointments to the most dangerous battlefields in the world. She sighed and shook her head.
“Don’t,” her sister warned as she ate her taffy.
“Don’t what?” Miranda snapped.
She whipped out into traffic and hit the gas. They were nearly to the freeway when Katie spoke again.
“Don’t make that face. Just because you don’t like the idea of me being in the military doesn’t mean it’s the military’s fault or the fault of any of those guys that want to go in.”
“Guys? You mean those kids?”
“Mira… please. Do we have to fight about this now?”
Miranda felt her heart speed up and the words fly to the tip of her tongue. She wanted to refrain but her mouth had a way of racing ahead of her brain sometimes.
“I just don’t understand why you have to go overseas to protect the United States. We need plenty of good Cops in Madison.”
“I don’t want to be a Cop in Wisconsin. I want to have a military career. I want to be in charge of a unit. I want to be a General one day,” she said.
Katie turned and grabbed her arm with a pleading look.
“Please, Mira. Please. I promise. I’ll take care of myself. I’ll come home one day when I’m old and you're old. We’ll open up a bed and breakfast and have cats together. It’s our destiny. Let’s not begin that promising future with a fight.”
Miranda tried to keep the smile off her face but when her sister turned those dazzling blue eyes on her it was impossible. If only her eyes were bright and her hair was that golden.
“I plan on having a husband and a few kids,” Miranda shot back with a grin.
Katie waved this off as she went back to her taffy.
“Kids grow up and move out and women live longer than men. You have to have a post husband plan.”
Miranda laughed out loud this time.
“I don’t even have him yet and you’re already planning his death.”
They were on the freeway and moving at a good clip.
“I’m just that cynical. You know. You’d make one hell of a truck driver.”
Miranda laughed again.
“Now that would be something to see. I’d have to install an elevator just to get up in the driver’s seat.”
“Aww come on sis. After all those years with the chair, you have some real upper body strength. I’m glad you’re not wearing your gloves today. You always look like you’ve just come from pumping iron with those fingerless gloves on.”
Miranda laughed hard and out loud.
“The only thing I pump is my wheels.”
“Don’t deny it. You look like you could kick ass with those gloves on, even with the pink embroidery you did on them. Maybe you should go around without them more often. When men think you can kick their ass they become intimidated. You might have already scared your future dead husband off with those things.”
Miranda socked her sister in the arm and Katie laughed in response. Her straight white teeth were so beautiful in her smiling tanned face and Miranda felt her heart swell.
“I missed you. Everything is so drab at The Copy Shop without you.”
Her father wouldn’t win any prizes in originality, but at least everyone knew what the shop was intended for, if the banks of copying machines didn’t give it away.
“You want my opinion, you should set it on fire for the insurance money.”
“Don’t say that. Dad loved that shop,” Miranda reprimanded.
Plus, she hadn’t been able to pay the insurance last month with her mother’s medical bills on the rise. If she burned it to the ground all she would have was a small mound of ash and a mountain of debt. Katie’s face became serious.
“I miss him today,” she said softly.
Miranda’s eyes misted.
“He would’ve been so proud of you. I know I am.”
Katie leaned over and put her head on her sister’s shoulder. Miranda placed a kiss on her golden head and leaned her face against her soft curls. What was she going to do without her? Her world would be darker without the golden child.
* * *
Braden sat in the woods and listened to the night as he breathed deeply. The air was crisp. It was going to be cold tonight. He relished the thought. He missed Norway, hated being reassigned to this fledgling Nation. They thought they were the answer to the world’s problems. He sighed. They’d go the way of the Romans and the English. They would play some part in the world order, but they too would recognize eventually they were not all powerful.
He’d seen worlds come and go, nations rise and fall. He’d seen ten decades of change and it felt old. The only place he’d felt any peace was his home country. He’d been one with the hills, mountains and streams. He was nearly as old as some of those streams and hills. If life taught him anything, however, it was that things never stayed the same. It was always changing.
He ran a hand over the cold steel in his hand and smiled. Some things did change for the better. Not that he disliked his long sword. The gun just required so much less… effort, loss of limbs, limb regeneration. He put the gun away and continued to crouch in the tree. He watched the woods and listened to the night. They were coming, would be here soon. He pulled back his trench length fur coat to expose the arsenal he kept strapped on at all times.
There were few thrills left for him in this world. Soon it would be time for him to give up and join those whom he fought. He was tired of living. He was tired of the so-called innocents that beat up and maimed each other in the name of greed, religion, or power. People could be heartless and ruthless and he’d long ago forgotten the ties he had to this human world. He didn’t even remember his mother or father’s names.
He only remembered the land and the country. If not happy, he’d at least been content. Then, out of the blue, this newest group of mentors began to reassign people to new areas. They said that a change of scenery would help some of the older ones get ‘re-acclimated’ with life.
As if after living a thousand years such a thing was possible. He knew the downsides of giving himself to the wolves. Knew it would make the wolves stronger, but really, there were plenty of hunters. If they killed the wolves who ate him… he would eventually be free.
The thought thrilled him to no end. He would finally be freed of a life that had lost color for him. It had lost its flavor. They were coming and he’d relish this fight. Maybe tonight would be the night. What else was there if he couldn’t even go back to his country?
* * *
Her sister stirred in her sleep and Miranda turned the radio down a bit. Katie loved listening to speed metal at outrageous volumes whenever there was a lull in conversation. She’d finally dozed off with Miranda’s pink down stuffed jacket curled under her cheek.
Her sister was strong physically, and tall. If there was a woman that was well suited to the military, it was her, but Miranda couldn’t help but look at her at times like this. When her soft golden lashes rested gently against her cheeks. The little girl with the scraped knee who came crying to her for a band-aid was still there. She smiled at that thought. Katie used to love band-aids.
She’d wear them like a badge of courage and knew if she cried the right way, she’d get more than one. How she’d missed her while she’d been away at school. Phone calls and text messages just weren’t enough. It would have to be enough now that she was preparing to go overseas.
Miranda was turning her attention back to the road when she saw something flash across it. She just barely wondered what it was when a similar looking something smashed into the driver’s side door. Her head snapped to the side and her hands flew off the steering wheel. She lost control of the van, not that it mattered anyhow. The impact tilted the van off the pavement. The world turned upside down once or twice before it finally came to a rest.
Something was blaring and a white cloud flooded her face. It took a disorientated moment to realize the airbag had deployed. She fought against the bag before it deflated and released her so she could breathe again. Her head spun and she had the odd sensation that she was dangling.
Not upside down but to the side. Something was tight on her chest, holding her in place. The seat belt. She struggled with it but it was locked into place. Katie lay completely still against the passenger door in the dirt. Apparently the van had landed up on its side.
“Katie,” she croaked.
She tried to loosen the seat belt again with no results. Tears flooded her eyes. How was she going to get down to Katie? Her wheelchair had landed on top of her sister and they were both far out of reach. Relief flooded her as her sister began to move.
“What happened?” Katie asked as she sat up and looked up at her sister where she dangled from her seat belt. She hadn’t been buckled in and Miranda felt a fresh wash of relief that her sister hadn’t been thrown from the van.
“I think we had an accident,” Miranda said as she continued to strain against the suffocating belt.
“So much for your big dream of being a truck driver,” her sister said as she pulled herself up.
Shoving the wheelchair aside, she took a lethal looking knife from her pocket. Miranda sometimes forgot her sister was perpetually armed.
“Always the comedian,” Miranda teased back in a raspy voice as her sister cut the belt from her.
Katie caught her as she began to fall. She set her to the ground as she took the wheelchair and tossed it up and out of the driver’s side window which had been smashed out.
“Put your arms around my neck,” Katie instructed.
Miranda grabbed on to Katie’s neck as she reached for her. Miranda held on as Katie began to climb. They were about to climb out of the driver’s window when an angry snarl rent the air. Katie froze.
“What the hell was that?” she whispered.
“It sounded like a bear or something,” Miranda replied.
“A really big bear,” Katie replied in a whisper.
Katie lowered them back to the passenger side door and looked out the splintered windshield. There was nothing there. She pulled out her knife again and motioned for Miranda to release her neck. Miranda did and watched as her sister began to climb up and out of the window, the knife clutched between her teeth.
“Be careful,” Miranda whispered.
Katie held on to the steering wheel as she looked down at her. She pulled the knife from her teeth smiling. Not even the trickle of blood that ran down the side of her face could detract from her strength and beauty.
“I thought I told you that we were going to grow old together and I-“
Her words were cut short as something reached inside the driver’s side window and drug her out. Miranda heard an unnatural scream before there was silence.
“Katie! Katie,” she screamed as she pulled herself up the seats.
She had to use all the upper body strength she had, which was considerable. She’d always insisted on moving her own chair and not having one of those automatic deals. She didn’t ever want to fall and not be able to pick herself back up. She was sweating hard but finally pulled herself up and out of the window.
“Katie,” she cried out as tears burst free.
There was blood all over the side of the door. Where had she gone? What was that thing? Something moved in the trees behind her and her head snapped that way. Her heart was pounding and it felt like her collarbone might be broken.
“Katie,” she screamed yet again as she began to tremble.
Something moved near the woods. She focused on what she saw and terror seized her. There was something. It looked like a giant dog with red glowing eyes. When it stood on two legs and began to walk towards her she had to control the urge to faint.
It came right up to her. It was as tall as the van, even though it had been turned on its side. She smelled something that smelled like rotten flesh. It smiled a macabre smile full of ugly decaying teeth.
Slowly it moved forward and she put an arm of protection up. It seemed for a moment that the thing wouldn’t bite her and she stayed completely still. It sniffed her arm and without warning bit down. She cried out and tried to pull away. She heard bones snap and lost the fight for consciousness.
* * *
Braden blasted the animal just after it bit the innocent. He cursed viciously. It was not like them to attack a moving vehicle. He supposed they hadn’t intended to. They’d been coming to him and the innocents got in their way. He watched as the woman and the animal fell to the ground beside the vehicle. The animal was flaming from the silver plated bullets that passed through its head.
He looked at the small woman lying next to a pastel pink wheelchair. She was so tiny that if it weren’t for the lines around her eyes and mouth, she’d appear no more than a child. Something stirred inside him without provocation. He touched his chest and looked at it. His heart was beating fast. When was the last time something had caused his heart to speed so? He shrugged. It didn’t matter. She’d turn now that she’d been bitten. It would be necessary to end her life at that time.
He took aim and waited. When nothing happened he kicked her leg with his boot. Her legs were so small and puny. The wheelchair had to be hers. She was probably paralyzed. That wouldn’t matter in a moment.
When she turned into a wolf, her legs would work again. He kept the gun trained on her as he moved up to her arm. His senses were still tuned to the woods, listening for any other sounds to indicate more creatures approaching.
He kicked her arm and her eyes fluttered for a moment. Her eyes finally fluttered open. She grabbed her bleeding arm and clutched it to her chest as tears flooded her big midnight blue eyes.
“Please. Please don’t hurt me.”
He felt the unfamiliar flutter in his chest again. This wasn’t right. She should be turning already. The disease invaded the bloodstream quickly and completely. A thought came to him but he pushed it aside. He quickly put his gun away and knelt to her side.
“The creature bit you?” he asked.
He thought he’d seen it bite her, but perhaps he was mistaken. She wailed as she looked around them.
“Where’s my sister?” she cried as she sat up holding her arm.
“They took her off before I could get to her,” he replied.
“What! You have to do something, call someone! Those dog things will bite her! I don’t hear her screaming. What if they…. What if they…” She began hyperventilating. He reached out and grabbed the back of her neck to push her head between her knees. What he ended up doing, however, was pushing her face in the dirt. She cried even harder as she fell to her side and he took his hands from her.
She lay there crying and blubbering in a way he hadn’t heard in some years. He didn’t know what to do. Usually by now he’d either determined that the bitten innocent was going to turn and shoot them, or they turned out to be only injured and not bitten. At which point Braden would leave them to go after the remaining creatures. This was something new.
“Listen. You must stop your blubbering,” he said as gently as he could.
“Then why don’t you do something! Open up my chair and put me in it and call the police! My arm is broken and I have to find my sister,” she shouted hysterically through her tears.
She was beginning to bother him with all her incessant crying. He eyed the folded up chair and approached it. He drug it over closer to her without even attempting to open it. He’d never had cause to operate them, though he’d seen a few innocents with them. He was fairly certain they hadn’t had them when he was still human. If they had, he wouldn’t recall it anyway.
She took initiative and grabbed the chair. Despite her continuing to wail like a hurt animal, she opened the chair and pulled herself up with her one good arm. He made to help her but she snapped him a sharp look through her tear streaked face.
“If you want to help me, pull out your cell phone and call the police. If you don’t have a phone, climb up in the van, get my phone, and I’ll call them,” she yelled before she continued crying out loud.
“Katie,” she called out to the tree line again.
Hadn’t he just told her the girl was gone? He pulled the phone from his pocket and strode off a distance from her so he couldn’t hear her wails and desperate pleas any longer. He found Bateman in his contacts and pressed call. A female answered.
“Where is Bateman?” he asked gruffly.
“He’s out of the country,” the woman replied in a clipped, efficient tone.
She was probably someone at the compound that answered Bateman’s line. Braden loved and hated technology. Routing calls from your cell phone to an answering service was the definition of impersonal.
“Listen. There is something weird going on here. I have an innocent who…” he stopped as he looked over at the woman who was weeping openly into her hands. “I just need him to come right away. I’m not sure exactly what’s going on here. I also need a clean up team.”
“We’ll have someone out within the hour. Please be out of the area for their safety,” she said before she hung up.
He’d have to wait for Bateman’s call. In the meantime, he had to go with what he knew for a certainty. She’d been bitten and hadn’t turned. That left only one alternative. He strode back to the woman and went around behind her chair. He picked up the chair and dumped her out unceremoniously.
Miranda fell to the cold wet ground with a thud and it took her a moment to realize what happened. She flipped over to her back and glared up at him, pain shooting through her arm.
“What is your problem! You think it’s funny to abuse a cripple?” she screamed up at him as tears continued to fall from her eyes.
She pulled her arm closer to her body just barely holding herself together. The pain was hot and searing and she wanted to pass out again, but she needed to stay awake for Katie. She used her sleeve to quickly wipe the run off from her nose. Her beautiful suit was already ruined, why not.
“You were bitten,” he said in that deep monosyllabic way that was beginning to work her nerves.
It was creepy to have this mountain of a man looming over her and she wanted to run and scream. She couldn’t do that so she’d use her words instead.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious. What in the world has that got to do with you shoving a handicap woman out of her wheelchair?”
He continued to stand over her, his fists balled as if he expected her to jump up and begin fighting him or something. She’d have told him to be at ease, she couldn’t attack him if she wanted to, but he seemed to be having some sort of internal debate. She waited to hear what reason he could possibly have for pushing her out of her chair, after having brought it over to her in the first place. When he continued on with his creepy silence she screamed at him again.
“Well?!”
He knelt down to get in her face so swiftly it stole her breath away. His crystal blue eyes were icy and cold. He looked like a Viking with his strong features and blond hair. His broad shoulders and powerful build further added to that impression. He could probably do curls with her on one of those massive arms of his. It was intimidating and impressive at the same time.
“Listen to me well,” he began. “There are things in this world that you have never had to encounter in your sheltered little life. Things that stalk the night and when one of those things bites you, one of two things happen. You become one of them, or you become one of me. The chances of you becoming one of me are one in eight billion. If you were turning into one of me, I would be ready to rip your head off. Outside of annoyance with your silly wailing, I have no other feeling towards you whatsoever.”
She blinked up at him and shook her head. Where had this guy come from? Had he stepped out of the past to ruin her sanity? Was she dreaming? Was she stuck inside the van, hanging upside down, waiting for someone to come save her? This man, who’d appeared to be a savior just a few minutes ago, was suddenly seeming more like a lunatic.
“I just want my sister back,” she croaked.
“Your sister is dead,” he replied without any emotion in his voice.
Miranda wailed out loud as she turned to begin pulling herself towards the woods. This man was not here to help her. Katie was not dead. She was out there and would come racing back soon. She’d have her commando knife clenched between her teeth, a bear head for a hat. Noone knew outdoors and hunting better than her sister.
Miranda’s progress towards the trees was stopped as the man put a booted foot in the center of her back. She cried out to feel the weight of his boot pushing her down into the mud. Her ruined arm was pinned beneath her. It felt like someone was stabbing her hard.
What could she do against him? He was bigger and certainly stronger than her. Most people respected her status as a handicapped person and never did things like this to her. Her only defense was to cry out. She laid her face in the mud and cried gut wrenching sobs. She wanted her sister here with her.
“Katie,” she wailed.
Katie would kick this guy's ass!
“Fight me,” the man growled at her.
“What?” she squeaked.
“Stop acting so weak and fight me. Curse me. Do something. Don’t you have any sense of self preservation?” he asked and she heard anger in his voice.
“I… I don’t know how,” she said as she did her best to stifle her sobs.
She was losing it a bit, but couldn’t help it. She wanted to wake up from this nightmare right away.
“My sister…”
“Fight for her then,” he replied.
She shook her head. Her sister was the one to do the fighting. Her sister was the one that could do the get down in the mud and fight thing, not her.
“I don’t know how. Please, don’t hurt me anymore,” she cried.
Braden lifted his boot off the tiny woman. He was perplexed. She was bitten but wasn’t turning. If she was becoming a hunter, he’d have the urge to rip her little blond head off her delicate shoulders. Hunters could only be in close proximity to each other so long before it turned into a death match. He felt no anger. He felt no animosity. He felt nothing.
Well, there was this strange twinge that kept eating at his insides. It was a foreign sensation to him. How did one make this feeling go away? He thought about it for a moment before he went back to retrieve her chair. He reached down and picked her up, setting her down in the chair again.
She was now covered in mud and the feeling persisted. She was shivering and tears left tracks in her dirty face. He’d done something wrong. What did people do when they did something wrong?
“I’m… sorry. I just had to make sure,” he explained at last.
She sniffled a few times as she looked at him with injured eyes that were still swimming in tears.
“Whatever. Did you call the police?” she asked, watching him warily.
He nodded before he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it out to her. It was a paltry offering in the face of the amount of mud covering her. She looked at it like it was an unfamiliar object before she snatched it away from him and wiped her face.
They stood there looking at each other for a moment. She was small for a grown woman. He’d seen small women before but… and she was so lite. To pick her up in his arms had been like lifting air.
He clenched his jaw. She had to be the tiniest woman he’d come across. The women in his country were usually tall and full of curves. Supermodels came from the women of his country. Women that could be gorgeous and still get out there and chop wood with the best of them. This teacup sized woman seemed entirely too fragile to be real.
Miranda looked up at him. She looked up and up and up at him. Even had she not been sitting in the chair he would’ve been tall, intimidating, and so damn handsome she could nearly drool. If her nerves weren’t so frayed she could’ve possibly been doing that very thing at this moment.
He had long blond hair tied back in a ponytail and his crystal blue eyes were clear and sharp. They were dazzling to look at, yet his clothes looked so grungy. He wore a white and gray fur coat like an old school trapper might. His boots were of the quality that miners might wear. Where had he come from that they dressed like that?
He looked like he’d grown out of the side of the mountain, or perhaps walked out of the pages of a history book on Vikings. Was he prepared for a blizzard or what? These were questions she might ask if she planned on spending any time with him beyond waiting for an ambulance, but she did not. It was a shame to waste such extreme hotness on such an extreme asshole. Her main concern was not his attitude though. Her main concern was Katie and where she’d gone to.
Nearly an hour later, after she had several near meltdowns, attempting futilely to run from him into the woods after her sister, a few cars pulled up and began to set up tape in the area. The little woman looked visibly relieved to see them. He shook his head. What it would be like to be that innocent again, he’d never know.
A few men approached, shot guns in hand. Saul Munoz stepped forward with a smile and extended a hand. Braden didn’t return the smile but gripped his friend's hand and gave it a good squeeze. Saul was okay, for a human. They’d met officially at the most recent hunter training and hit it off instantly, one warrior recognizing another. Braden grabbed the shirt of a nearby agent and whispered something in his ear. The man scurried off quickly to obey his command.
“I thought you were told to clear the area,” Saul said brusquely.
He was feisty for a human.
“I don’t need you to tell me my job, human. The woman needs medical attention.”
Saul looked to the woman in the chair who was holding her bloody arm cradled to her chest.
“An innocent? Why didn’t you just leave her here?” he asked in an irritated voice.
Braden gave him a deadly stare. Saul took a step away.
“Okay…”
“Where the hell is Bateman?” Braden asked.
“He had an important mission overseas. I’m not sure when he’ll be back.”
“Well you’re going to have to take her back to the compound with you then,” Braden instructed.
“Excuse me. Is someone going to go out and find my sister?” the woman asked as she looked around at the men with guns.
Saul turned a genial inviting smile on the woman and began to approach. Braden grabbed his arm. He stopped and looked at the restraining hand. He then turned a megawatt smile on the tiny woman.
“We have men out searching for her already, ma’am. I will be with you in just a moment. The ambulance should be here shortly. If you’ll wait but one more moment, I am going to talk with this gentleman here,” Saul said before Braden drug him back again.
“What! You called us in for a clean up,” Saul hissed in a whisper. “I’ll give her the shot to wipe her memory and we’ll plant another story with the local police. All you had to do was-“
“She’s been bitten,” Braden interrupted.
“Bitten?” Saul asked a little louder than was prudent.
Every agent there cocked their guns and pointed them at Miranda. She put up her good hand and made a frightened whimpering noise in her throat. Braden strode over to stand in front of her and faced the men.
“Stand down,” he growled.
They complied almost immediately. Saul came to stand before him.
“She’s going to go through the change and you think I can take her back to our compound? Not even Bateman would do something that stupid. She’d rip the place apart.”
“Well I can’t keep her. Once she turns we are going to rip each other apart.”
Braden didn’t know why but as soon as he said those words a shock of excitement went straight through him.
“You’re going to have to control yourself muchacho, because I don’t grow back limbs after a hunter’s ripped it off. She can not come with us.”
“What about that new mentor, that Stone woman?”
“She’s on another assignment for a time to be undetermined as well.”
“What is the point of having Mentors if they’re not around when you need them?”
“Ahh… Hello. What’s going on? Who’s going through what change and what is a Mentor?”
They both turned to see the wheelchair bound woman looking up at them with round deep blue eyes. Saul knelt before her and took her un-injured hand.
“I am sorry, Mija. Your whole life is about to change.” He stood up and faced Braden. “Get her out of here before she harms anyone.”
Braden sighed heavily. He bent down and hoisted the woman out of her chair and over his shoulder. He turned and began to walk away from the crash sight as she cried and beat at his back with her good arm.
“No! I have to see my sister! I can’t leave my chair! What about my van! Where are you taking me! I don’t want to go with you. Help! Help! I want my sister, I want my sister, I want my sister!”
The mantra went on and on but he ignored her. She stopped for a moment to sob a little more before she pleaded again.
“You can’t do this. I need to see a doctor. My arm hurts, and you can’t leave my chair,” she murmured in a wounded whisper.
She was shaking like a leaf now. He stopped as the unfamiliar sensation came into his chest again. Reluctantly he turned and strode back across the distance quickly. He snatched the chair up with a growl. He sent a look to Saul that dared him to say anything. The bronzed man threw his hands up in the air and backed away slowly.
“You’re going to have to learn to stop wailing like a wounded creature to get your way! I won’t put up with it,” he commanded her before he strode off once again through the woods.
He got to his truck and dumped her in on the driver’s side, following her up, pushing her across the couch seat and snapping her into her seatbelt. She finally pummeled his face and arms and he was glad for it. He could handle a fight. It was the wailing and hopeless despair that he couldn’t take.