Taming the Moon
Book Three of the Creatures of the Night Series
By: Tisha Wilson
Chapter One~
Saul gripped the ceramic basin which was rimmed with an ugly brown stain. The stain looked as if it had been scrubbed repeatedly with little chance of success at actually getting it clean. Locks of midnight black hair littered the bowl, the dingy countertop, and the floor. He breathed hard and the hand clutching the scissors shook badly. Taking another deep breath, he grabbed the last shoulder length lock of hair and sheared it off.
He screamed as pain lanced from the tips of his hair to the roots at his scalp. He fell to the floor and took deep breaths as he concentrated on his breathing and controlling the pain that pounded at him. Growling, he threw the scissors away. They embedded themselves deep within the drywall and he cursed profusely. Lucinda would charge him an arm and a leg once she saw the damage he’d done to her precious hotel.
He was doing his best to get used to his new strength. Pulling himself up off the floor, he waited for his legs to become steady beneath him. Because his hair was now alive, cutting it was like taking a pair of scissors to his fingers and cutting them clean off. If his hair could bleed, it would look like a bloodbath in here right now.
He waited a few more long moments before he could look at himself in the mirror. The eyes that looked back at him were that of a stranger. The eyes that had once been black as coal with a laughing twinkle in them were now as gray as mist and lethal. If there had been any laughter in him, if there had ever been any life in him, he couldn’t remember it. He wanted to. Needed to or else he might just end it all.
Albion had stolen everything from him. His girlfriend, his cousin, his job, his position, his very life. The porcelain basin he was gripping split in two and he cursed yet again. The broken piece of the bowl fell to the floor as he stepped back with a shake of his head. He sighed before looking in the mirror again. Grabbing the contact case from the countertop, he popped in the contacts that would make his eyes black again.
He surveyed the damage and shook his head. What was he doing here? Cutting his hair everyday would be the end of him but his father would never be satisfied if he let his hair grow out long. He could hear him calling him a woman right now.
It had been at least two years since he’d seen his family and as out of sorts as he’d been since escaping… he wasn’t ready to jump right back into the other side of reality. That’s why he was staying at the hotel. Still, he wanted to spend a few days being Saul again.
He thought of the tortures he’d endured for the last six months and closed his eyes. He was tired of seeing nothing but death and chaos. If he didn’t remember why he should be fighting for humanity then he was bound to be lost. A Hunter should not feel this way, but he didn’t want to be a Hunter. He wanted his old life back.
Bateman would slap him across the face and force him to accept his calling, but at the moment he thought that Bateman and every other Mentor could just go to hell. He’d been a soldier for nearly twenty years. Had been a soldier more years than he wasn’t. He’d given them everything! His youth, his time, his talent. Everything! And what had he gotten in return.
“Death,” he growled out loud.
He turned and pulled open the bathroom door. The knob broke free in his hand and he had to take a deep breath to keep from throwing it through the window. He sat the knob gently on the small card table that was set up in the room as part of the dinning area. Two green padded kitchen chairs completed the mismatched set along with dusty plastic flowers.
He shook the excess water from his hair before he whipped the towel off his hips and reached for his clothes. He paused a moment to look at himself in the floor length mirror glued to the wall next to the bed. There were a lot of things he hated about being a Hunter, but this wasn’t one of them. He’d worked hard his entire life to maintain a lean figure and defined muscle but now.
It looked like his muscles had given birth to muscles. His barely visible six pack had become a sharply defined eight pack. He flexed one arm and whistled. He’d never been able to get arms like this, no matter how he worked out. Even his shoulders had exploded.
He wasn’t ripped like Arnold or anything, but he could probably stand bare chested next to Ryan Reynolds and win a few awards. He turned from the mirror and pulled on some jeans and a black T-shirt. He pulled on his combat boots and grabbed his leather coat before he stepped out into the cold mountain air of his homeland. Sterling, Alaska. Making his way out to the lake that bordered the cheap hotel he sat on a fallen tree, then pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.
He lit up and looked at the night sky. He was stalling and he knew it. Dinner at his family’s house would almost be over. Not that it mattered much. It was reunion time. When the Munoz clan got together they’d be partying for a week straight.
The first night of the party was usually the wildest and many of his uncles, cousins, sisters, and possibly his mother and father would be drunk off their asses. If he waited long enough, he could show up when they were at the height of their drunkenness. They’d all believe he had been the life of the party. They wouldn’t even notice that no matter how he drank, he couldn’t get drunk anymore.
He discovered that the hard way. A smell wafted to him on the night air and he turned his head sharply towards it. His heightened sense of smell picked up on the single wolf. He had no idea how it had gotten separated from the rest of the pack which was moving off towards the east. He shook his head.
It would eventually be drawn to him and he’d quickly be finished with it, just like he would be finished with Albion as soon as he could control these damned new powers. For the time being he needed to make sure none of them came after his family. He needed to figure out how to control himself without alerting the Mentors to the fact that he’d turned Hunter.
* * *
Cenora Moon pushed the little Geo as hard as it would go up the mountain road. She hated delivering pizzas in the little car. Her fiancé and his friends had taken off on a hunting trip slash bachelor party two days ago. Sony, Tim’s best friend, had been thoughtful enough to leave the paltry offering in replacement of the big F-150 that she and Tim shared.
A Geo with snow chains was hardly a suitable replacement. She cursed as the car nearly stalled again. Thanking God above when she finally reached Lucky’s road, she pulled into the driveway. She would get the farthest delivery in the heart of the woods the one night she didn’t have the truck.
Pulling her five foot seven frame out of the car she wondered, not for the first time, how Sonny fit his nearly six foot height into the little car. Of course, Sonny didn’t have a job, so he didn’t use the little car for much besides heading to the unemployment office. It wasn’t a rare story for this part of Alaska.
If it weren’t for Figaro’s Pizza, she wouldn’t have a job either. She reached across the front seat and grabbed the hot bag that held a single anchovy and jalapeno pizza. Lucky always ordered the worst pizza combinations she could think of. If she ordered a pizza like his she’d be stuck on the porcelain pot for a week.
She looked over at the dog house sitting in the center of a snow covered yard. The thaw season was here but many places up here in these mountains were still a few feet under snow. She waited and listened quietly for a few minutes. The chain that usually held a big pit bull was looped in the snow, the end disappearing deep into the dark interior of the tiny doghouse.
She wasn’t fooled. Taking a deep fortifying breath, she stepped away from the car. Only a few feet from the front door she heard the rattle of the chain. The dog snapped to the end of its leash with a vicious snarl. She screamed and made a beeline to the door.
The dog wasn’t even close to reaching her. Still, she turned on him with an ugly curse.
“Damn it, Bruno,” she snapped at the red pit bull.
He wagged his tail and continued to bark as if he were laughing at her. The front door opened and old Lucky stepped outside laughing with a toothless grin. He was laughing so hard he had to hold his sides. She put one hand up on her generous hip.
“Lucky! You can’t chain that damn mutt a little closer to his house when you know I’m coming, or, God forbid, lock him up inside your bedroom?”
“Girl. If I was ta bring that old monster in here, he would tear up my house for sure. What are you complainin’ for? He can’t reach you no way.”
“Listen up you old Eskimo-“
“Cena! Haven’t you heard? Eskimo is a derogatory term now. My mother was from up Noatak way so I’d be a Yupik to you.”
“I thought it was Inuit,” she shot back with a grin.
“Do I look Canadian to you,” he asked incredulously.
She laughed out loud as she pulled the pizza from the bag. “Give me my twenty three dollars and hurry it up. I’m freezing my good parts off out here.”
“Twenty three? I thought it was seventeen?”
“It’s eighteen ninety five and you better give me at least a four dollar tip for driving all the way up this mountain in that death trap and letting that ugly dog of yours chase me around the yard.”
The old man laughed again as he spied the old car.
“Sonny drag your husband off to the woods again?”
“He’s not my husband yet. At least not for two more days.”
The old man fished twenty five dollars out of his pocket.
“I still say you could do better than Tim Calora for a husband. He’s a drunk you know.”
“And I could do a lot worse. He’s a nice drunk, and you callin’ Tim a drunk is like the fire pit callin’ a shinny new pot black.”
He shoved the money into her hand and took the pizza before steppin’ back inside.
“That may be so, but you don’t see me runnin’ off in your shiny new truck and leavin’ you behind with that piece of junk to deliver pizza in. I know for a fact ole Sonny ain’t got no heat.”
The old man shut the door and quickly turned off the porch light. She heard him laughing his butt off once again. She cursed and turned to face the dark yard where Bruno continued to bark threateningly. The full moon was so bright she had no trouble seeing the red pit-bull straining at the end of his chain.
She skirted around the yard and quickly got into the car. Slamming the door and turning the key of the Geo a few times she waited for it to sputter to life. If Lucky weren’t such a good tipper she’d refuse to come up here at all. He had the worst sense of humor on the face of the planet.
She shivered and huddled down into her thick shiny black jacket. At present there was a patch sewn over the breast that said Figaro’s Pizza. She felt slightly miffed at Lucky’s deep barb. So Tim was known to drink sometimes, what man in Alaska didn’t drink on occasion? Plus, it would be very difficult to be a bartender that didn’t drink.
Sure, he spent a lot of his time off at the bar as well as his work day but really. At least his weekly paycheck made it home if his tips didn’t. There were a lot of women in the area that did worse. She shivered hard, her teeth chattering.
Damn Sony for never having his heat fixed. Laying on the horn three times sending Bruno into a barking frenzy caused Lucky to flash the porch light on and off several times. She threw the car into reverse and stepped on the gas. Just as she backed out onto the narrow dirt lane she felt the car lurch and her head jerk backwards indicating she’d hit something… again. The brakes in the Geo took a lot of hard mashing to completely comply.
Cursing and slamming the car into drive before stopping and putting the car in park, she had to make sure not to park on top of the thing like last time. She was so tired of hitting deer and caribou up here on this mountain. It was a real pain. Hitching her thick black rimmed glasses up higher on her face.
Reaching into the back seat for her rifle and a flashlight. She got out of her car and looked up towards the house. Lucky had turned on the porch light and stepped out again, this time wearing his boots.
“It’s okay. I think I hit a caribou or something,” she called out.
“In that tiny car, you couldn’t have done much damage.”
She shook her head as she heard him laugh.
“I’m gonna look now,” she called back.
She turned towards the back of the car and clicked on the flashlight.
“If’n it dies on my property that meat is mine,” she heard him call over her shoulder.
Like she needed more caribou meat in her deep freeze. The way Tim hunted during hunting season, and sometimes out of it, left them thigh deep in caribou and moose meat. She looked around the muddy ruts in the road for the animal. She didn’t see it on the road.
The beam of light reached the edge of the woods. She found what she was looking for over that way. Her heart ratcheted up a bit at the size of the animal lying beneath a tree on top of the snow. Her combat boots crunched the snow as she neared the bear sized creature. Bears shouldn’t have left hibernation yet.
And what was up with this bear? Its fur was all matted and slimy and stunk to high heaven. It smelled as if it had made its den in a garbage heap that had been set on fire. She moved the gun in her hand so her finger was on the trigger. Bears who woke up from hibernation were usually thin and ready for food. Though most bears up here preferred Salmon, she wasn’t taking any chances.
The animal made a mewling sound as if it were in pain and she got closer. The beast was moving its head and nothing else. Poor dear. It had a broken neck. She walked right up to it and pressed the barrel of the rifle to the back of its head. Just when she would’ve pulled the trigger it roared furiously and turned on her. It grabbed her leg with one strong hand and pulled her footing out from under her. She went down hard and felt a sharp pain cutting through her heavy canvas pants.
Her glasses were tossed off into the snow somewhere and she stared up at the bear. At this moment it looked more like… a wolf? Or was it a man? She felt panic at her loss of vision and at her imminent death. Two days away from her wedding and she was going to be mauled to death.
The bear was on her then and she felt its teeth penetrate her jacket and scrape her skin. She was no match for the biggest bear she’d ever seen in her life. The report of a double barrel shotgun ripped through the night. She felt blood and matter slap her in the face before the animal turned away from her and took off running into the woods.
Devoid of the huge mountain of a bear above her, she noticed again how much of a clear night it was. The stars twinkled in her fuzzy vision. The world came back into sharp focus as her glasses were plopped unceremoniously onto her face.
Lucky spit tobacco juice off to the left before he bent over her. With quick jerky motions he helped her to her feet and began to dust the snow off of her. His hands dusted more than snow, however. She pushed at him and finished the job for herself.
“Just cause you saved my life doesn’t mean you get to cop a feel old man,” she snapped.
Lucky laughed out loud, revealing his missing front teeth.
“Darlin’ if savin’ you from that big old bear don’t earn me at least that much, I don’t know what this world has come to.”
She reached out and hugged him close before she laid a kiss on his weathered cheek. He was a small man and folding him up in her arms was an easy task. He blushed and she could see it even in the dark. He tried his hardest not to be sweet, but he didn’t quite manage it all the time.
“You’re shaken like a leaf. You wanna come in for a cup afore you head down the mountain? I could help you clean up that leg and arm,” he offered.
“Naw. It’s not deep. I better get back. We had about three more deliveries up. That was some ugly bear.”
“Probably fresh outta hibernation,” the old man said as he finally stepped away from her. “I coulda swore I shot his face off. Maybe I’ll find him layin’ out there when I go out in the mornin’.”
He walked her to the car. He pulled a tobacco stained cloth from his pocket and offered it to her. “You can use this to at least wipe your face.”
She eyed the brown stained towel and shook her head.
“Thanks a bunch but I’d use Bruno’s sleepin’ blanket before I’d put that thing near any part a my anatomy.”
Lucky laughed again and then ran into the yard. The pit bull wagged his tail and chased his owner around in a silly circle.
“Ya hear that there Bruno. It’s your lucky day. She wants to share yer blanket with ya.”
She laughed out loud as she lowered herself into the freezing cold car and shut the door. She rolled down the window as a thought came to her.
“You better not go hunting that bear. The game warden’ll be after ya if he hears about a bunch a shootin’ up here.”
“It was self defense,” the old man said with a twinkle in his eye.
He ran back up to his house and slammed out the cold night. He was awful spry for an old drunk. It wasn’t a doubt in her mind he’d be out in the morning after that bear. She reached across the front seat and grabbed a few Figaro’s Pizza Napkins, pumping some sanitizer into them. She took off her glasses, placing them in her lap, as she scrubbed the animal’s blood off her face.
After cleaning and replacing her glasses she inspected the rip in her jacket. The animal’s mouth had been humongous if the size of the indention in her jacket was any indication. Damn! She ‘d have to come up with the money for a new winter coat. She’d only had this one two years.
There wasn’t much blood from the scratch on her arm but the bear had left plenty behind. She tried to clean it up as best she could. Her leg would need a little more attention. She might have to quit for the night and care for her leg. If she made it to the Emergency Room before her friend Lenette’s shift ended then she could get it cleaned up for free.
She hurried down the mountain and made it back to the pizzeria. Grabbing her pizza bag, she ran inside to find the two men inside pumping out pizza’s like mad men. She looked up at the board. They’d picked up a few more deliveries and were running thirty minutes late. She cursed again as she slung her hot bag on the stack before making her way to the back bathroom.
Grabbing a clean cleaning rag on her way, she closed and locked the door. She removed her jacket and pants. The heat inside the restaurant was heavenly. Her winter white legs needed a good shaving to be rid of the deep black hairs on them. She’d take care of all that before the wedding.
Maybe she’d buy one of those fancy cans of spray on tan to apply. Not that it would matter. No one but Tim would be seeing her legs anyway. Tim wanted an outdoors wedding which meant they’d be getting married in their snow suits.
He thought it would be funny for all the women to wear white snowsuits and all the men to wear black snow suits. The suits had been the most costly item of their wedding expenses since they were going to get married at the bar. Everyone would be paying for their own drinks.
Her mother agreed to fry up some chicken and her grandma agreed to decorate with her homemade plastic flowers and bouquets. It promised to be some turnout. She looked at herself in the mirror in the dim fluorescent light that hung from a nail beside the mirror. She was getting married in two days in the backyard of a bar.
The reception would be at the bar with fried chicken as the main course. She shook her head and set to washing out her wounds with soap and water. It might sound crude to some women but having a good time was the name of the game. There was no doubt everyone would at least have a good time.
She could remember the day Tim asked her to marry him. He’d combed his wild black hair back for once and got down on one knee with a rose clutched in one hand. He was wearing a t-shirt that said I love flapjacks, but she’d been willing to look past that. He was not the most good looking man in the area, but he was steady in a way a lot of the unemployed men couldn’t be. The fact that he’d had the same job for more than a year put him miles ahead of the rest.
He was also fairly loyal. He’d only cheated on her once in their six year relationship, and had been faithful ever since. He was at least as tall as her. While he wouldn’t win any body building contests, neither did he have the big bulging bellies of the men that hung around town. He was pretty straight up and down, plain, and in two days, he was going to be all hers.
She felt a rush inside. Whether it was fear or excitement she couldn’t tell. She wrapped her leg up in the towel and tied it tight before pulling her heavy pants and jacket back on. Stitches didn’t seem to be necessary and there was money to be made delivering pizzas. She hurried out of the bathroom.
“Oye! What’s goin’ on over there, you gonna take a century to get those pizzas out or what! Let’s go.”
She put a hand up on her hip and looked at Tony Figaro. He was not the man. He was the grandson of the man and the way he ran this place, there wouldn’t be a place left much longer.
“I’m fine thanks,” she snapped.
“What happened to your leg?” Roy Figaro, Tony’s son, asked in a timid way as he continued to make pizzas.
Tony stopped topping the pizzas to look her over.
“What the fuck happened to your leg?” he asked in that New York Italian accent of his.
“I ran over a bear on my way down the mountain. I thought it was dead when I stepped up to it, but it wasn’t. Lucky shot his face off before he could do more than scratch me,” she said
She turned to grab the two hot bags that were ready to go.
“Don’t go thinkin’ you’re gonna skip out on me cause a some fuckin’ scratch on your leg,” Tony bellowed at her.
He was one of the men that hung around town with a gut that could swallow a small child. Hell, that belly might swallow a mid-sized child. Hell, that belly might swallow her.
“I’m here to make money Tony,” she zinged back as she made her way towards the door, grabbing a two-liter of sprite on her way there.
She heard Roy mumble something to his father.
“What the fuck are you talkin’ boy? She says she’s fine,” Tony said aloud.
Roy’s mumble was more insistent and Tony made an annoyed sound. She was in the lobby when he rumbled over to the front counter.
“Stop by the hotel and see my motha sos she can clean that up on your way back, and don’t take all fuckin’ night,” he bellowed and went back to making pizzas without any further comment.
“It’s good to know someone cares,” she shouted from the door and saw Roy blush before she pushed her way out into the bitter cold.
* * *
Saul was watching the moon overhead. The lake was still and so was the air. Sitting here was the first chance he’d had for rest in as long a time as he could recall. The sounds of his own screams echoed through his mind from the recent past and forced him to drag on the cigarette again.
The relief the smoke offered was only momentary and fleeting for his body healed itself almost immediately from any vise. He looked at the smoking cigarette in his hand. He’d given them up because his mother was always harping that they’d kill him.
“If only she knew,” he muttered.
She was the one who encouraged him to enter the military to get out of Alaska. She always hated Alaska but their father was a fisherman. He followed the fish up the coast of California. When he’d heard of the money they were making on the Crab boats, he’d moved them up here.
He’d been right. As a result of his crabbing they’d become one of the most prosperous families in Sterling. His father rarely crabbed anymore since his son-in-law, Clay, had taken over the spot he once occupied. For the most part he was now retired.
Saul had taken bets with his sisters on how long it would take their mother to wear their father down and get him to move back down to California. Now that his father wasn’t crabbing, his mother had started nagging him as a full time job.
“Saul Munoz.”
Saul turned his head. He had heard the woman approaching. With his new hearing he could hear a mouse sneaking up on him. He had also smelled her blood from a mile away. He controlled his urge to salivate as the smell hit his nostrils.
It rolled over his senses doing miles more than the cigarette could have ever done. His eyes met generous curves covered by canvas pants and a bulky jacket topped by a dark wool scarf. When his eyes settled on the face, recognition hit like lightning.
“Cenora?”
Cenora’s heart leapt wildly at the sound of her name coming off that Spanish tongue. The sight of her best friend’s older brother always made her knees weak. He was the best looking man she’d ever met in person and right now was no exception. His silky black curls were wild on top of his head and his black eyes seemed to reflect the moonlight.
His shoulders were broad. The t-shirt beneath his leather jacket was pulled tight across a ripped chest that tapered down to a lean waist. The thighs beneath his jeans looked rock hard. He shifted on the fallen tree to make room for her. She stepped over the tree and sat down.
“I can only hang for a minute. Still deliverin’ pizzas over ta Figaro’s. We’re real backed up.”
“What happened to your leg?” he asked.
She sat back and looked up into his crushingly handsome face.
“Hit a bear. Thought it was dead. It wasn’t though.”
Saul honed in on the words she spoke.
“A bear? Bears usually hibernate now, no?”
“You been off the reserve that long bro? You know they are. Best I can figure is it came outa hibernatin’ early. Biggest damn bear I ever saw.”
Saul casually put his hand in his pocket and wrapped it around the handle of a silver bladed pocket knife.
“So it bit you?”
“Naw. It grabbed my leg and pulled my feet out from under me with one paw. He got on topa me and almost had a Cenora burger when old Lucky came runnin’ and shot his face off. He took off runnin’ in the woods bleedin’ all over the place. Ole Lucky saved my life. He can be spry when he’s not drunk or on the hunt.”
Saul relaxed and pulled his hand out of his pocket.
“So it got a few claws in your leg. Old lady Figaro clean you up?”
“Yeah. I’m surprised ta see ya here. It’s not like Lucinda to be so closed mouth about who’s stayin’ in her hotel.”
“Yeah well I just pulled in tonight.”
He took another moment to look her over. Her shiny jet black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, her bone straight bangs nearly reaching the rim of her thick black framed eyeglasses. The eyeglasses just barely hid the fact that she’d finally grown into her huge black eyes. Her eyes were rimmed by some of the longest lashes he’d ever seen and were almond shaped.
She’d grown into a spectacular woman, but one could hardly tell it the way she hid behind those clothes. If she’d try a little she could walk around looking as much of a knock out as his little sister, Maria. In fact he wished this girl would rub off on his long legged sister a little bit.
“Yer not stayin’ up with the Munoz clan this time?” she asked sweetly.
Why was his heart beating so fast at her nearness? Why did she smell so damn good? He had to shake it off.
“Bunkin’ between Uncle Jeff and Cousin Tito hardly sounds like a good time to me, or a very hygienic one,” he replied with a shrug.
Cenora chuckled, her bow shaped mouth curving in an appealing way.
“You Munoz’s know how to do it up good inside that triple wide.”
His family was one of the few in town that had been able to afford a new triple wide modular home. Saul chuckled in return.
“So I hear you’re going to be getting married at Oscar’s soon.”
He heard her heart beat increase as she rubbed her hands over her pants and plastered a less than genuine smile on her pretty little face.
“Two days,” she said with a nod.
His eyebrows rose as he watched her. If he didn’t know any better he’d think she wasn’t so happy about that.
“How does he treat you?”
“Who Tim?”
“Tim? Tim Calora? You mean your name is going to be…”
She rolled her eyes and threw her head back shaking her ponytail back and forth. The shampoo she used in her hair broke through the pizza smell and wafted up to entice his nose. The white skin at her throat peeked out from beneath the burgundy wool scarf she wore. He felt the pain in his gums that told him how bad he needed fresh blood.
Bagged blood was no substitute for the real thing. He had to wonder how the other Hunters made this look so easy. He’d never felt need like this before and didn’t know how he kept from reaching out and wrapping his hand around her creamy neck to pull her to him.
“Cenora Calora. Yes. I will rhyme for the rest of my time.”
She laughed her husky laugh again. When did her laugh stop sounding like a little girl’s and start sounding like a woman’s? He took a deep breath to try and get a hold of himself. That was a mistake.
The scent of her blood was thick around them now and heady. He found himself leaning in to her without meaning to.
“So. Shouldn’t you be out having a Bachelorette party right now or something?”
She shook her head.
“Naw. Can you see my sister Candice or my friend Lenette throwing me a Bachelorette party?”
“What about Maria?”
She made a scoffing noise.
“Your sister? The only people that would come to a party your sister would throw would be your family. She’s way too spicy for this little town. She’s fueling your mother’s latest campaign for going back to California with a vengeance.”
It was no secret that Maria Munoz had been chafing at the restraints of small town living. Ever since she was old enough to watch television and really understand the difference between that world and the snow bound one she lived in.
“So you’re just going to jump into married life with both feet?”
She looked up at the moon with a shrug and a sigh.
“I think that’s as good as I can expect.”
The answer in and of itself was sort of… depressing.
“Where is Tim?”
“Sonny and Todd drug him off hunting.”
“So he gets to go off drinking and carousing in the woods and you get stuck delivering pizzas? That hardly seems fair. Why don’t you go on up with me to the house and at least eat some roasted meats. You know there’s plenty.”
She looked uncertain.
“My idea of a good time doesn’t much include watching your father and uncles argue over who won at dominoes while your cousin Tito tries to grab my ass.”
“Whoa. Listen to you using big girl words. Last time I saw you you were still wearing braces.”
She groaned and buried her face in her hand.
“Worst three years of my life. But these are straight,” she said, lifting her face and pointing at her perfectly straight startling white teeth.
“You’re the only kid I know that asks to skip family vacations and class pictures so you can have your teeth straightened,” he teased.
Cenora had always been something of a curiosity to him. A curiosity that he always did his best to avoid thinking too much on. She was his little sister’s best friend after all.
“Did you see my teeth?” she pleaded.
He pulled up an image of a girl clad in pigtails, a huge gap in her front teeth, and thick black rimmed glasses. He tried to hold it but the chuckle escaped anyway. It felt good to laugh for real. It had been too long. She pushed him and crossed her arms over her chest.
When he burst into full out laughter she got up and scurried over the tree and stomped off towards the parking lot. He did his best to pull himself together as he followed after her.
“Cenora. Wait,” he pleaded as he brought himself under control.
He grabbed her and pulled her into his arms.
“Okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
It took a moment, but she finally eased up and hugged him back. When he released her she stepped back with a faint smile curling her lips. When had her lips blossomed into full pouty lips? He shook his head and took another step back.
“I’ll keep Tito away from your ass. In fact I’ll protect your ass from all members of my family. Will you come?”
“Only if you make that a promise.”
“I do,” he promised.
“I have a few more pizzas to clear off the board. I’ll meet you back here in about an hour, hour and a half.”
“You delivering pizzas in that?” he asked looking towards the Geo.
She got into the small car and rolled down the window.
“My fiancé and his friends took off in my new truck. What can you do?”
He watched her as the small Geo sputtered out of the parking lot and into the deserted street. He couldn’t explain why he didn’t want to see her go. He thought of the little girl he’d watched running around the house with his little sister. She’d certainly changed a lot.
He was nothing but a sad old man if he looked at her as anything other than the flat chested awkward little girl with great big eyes he’d known. He took the last drag of his cigarette and crushed it beneath one boot heel.
“I’m a lecherous old man,” he said with a grin as he headed back to the lake to wait for her.
Book Three of the Creatures of the Night Series
By: Tisha Wilson
Chapter One~
Saul gripped the ceramic basin which was rimmed with an ugly brown stain. The stain looked as if it had been scrubbed repeatedly with little chance of success at actually getting it clean. Locks of midnight black hair littered the bowl, the dingy countertop, and the floor. He breathed hard and the hand clutching the scissors shook badly. Taking another deep breath, he grabbed the last shoulder length lock of hair and sheared it off.
He screamed as pain lanced from the tips of his hair to the roots at his scalp. He fell to the floor and took deep breaths as he concentrated on his breathing and controlling the pain that pounded at him. Growling, he threw the scissors away. They embedded themselves deep within the drywall and he cursed profusely. Lucinda would charge him an arm and a leg once she saw the damage he’d done to her precious hotel.
He was doing his best to get used to his new strength. Pulling himself up off the floor, he waited for his legs to become steady beneath him. Because his hair was now alive, cutting it was like taking a pair of scissors to his fingers and cutting them clean off. If his hair could bleed, it would look like a bloodbath in here right now.
He waited a few more long moments before he could look at himself in the mirror. The eyes that looked back at him were that of a stranger. The eyes that had once been black as coal with a laughing twinkle in them were now as gray as mist and lethal. If there had been any laughter in him, if there had ever been any life in him, he couldn’t remember it. He wanted to. Needed to or else he might just end it all.
Albion had stolen everything from him. His girlfriend, his cousin, his job, his position, his very life. The porcelain basin he was gripping split in two and he cursed yet again. The broken piece of the bowl fell to the floor as he stepped back with a shake of his head. He sighed before looking in the mirror again. Grabbing the contact case from the countertop, he popped in the contacts that would make his eyes black again.
He surveyed the damage and shook his head. What was he doing here? Cutting his hair everyday would be the end of him but his father would never be satisfied if he let his hair grow out long. He could hear him calling him a woman right now.
It had been at least two years since he’d seen his family and as out of sorts as he’d been since escaping… he wasn’t ready to jump right back into the other side of reality. That’s why he was staying at the hotel. Still, he wanted to spend a few days being Saul again.
He thought of the tortures he’d endured for the last six months and closed his eyes. He was tired of seeing nothing but death and chaos. If he didn’t remember why he should be fighting for humanity then he was bound to be lost. A Hunter should not feel this way, but he didn’t want to be a Hunter. He wanted his old life back.
Bateman would slap him across the face and force him to accept his calling, but at the moment he thought that Bateman and every other Mentor could just go to hell. He’d been a soldier for nearly twenty years. Had been a soldier more years than he wasn’t. He’d given them everything! His youth, his time, his talent. Everything! And what had he gotten in return.
“Death,” he growled out loud.
He turned and pulled open the bathroom door. The knob broke free in his hand and he had to take a deep breath to keep from throwing it through the window. He sat the knob gently on the small card table that was set up in the room as part of the dinning area. Two green padded kitchen chairs completed the mismatched set along with dusty plastic flowers.
He shook the excess water from his hair before he whipped the towel off his hips and reached for his clothes. He paused a moment to look at himself in the floor length mirror glued to the wall next to the bed. There were a lot of things he hated about being a Hunter, but this wasn’t one of them. He’d worked hard his entire life to maintain a lean figure and defined muscle but now.
It looked like his muscles had given birth to muscles. His barely visible six pack had become a sharply defined eight pack. He flexed one arm and whistled. He’d never been able to get arms like this, no matter how he worked out. Even his shoulders had exploded.
He wasn’t ripped like Arnold or anything, but he could probably stand bare chested next to Ryan Reynolds and win a few awards. He turned from the mirror and pulled on some jeans and a black T-shirt. He pulled on his combat boots and grabbed his leather coat before he stepped out into the cold mountain air of his homeland. Sterling, Alaska. Making his way out to the lake that bordered the cheap hotel he sat on a fallen tree, then pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.
He lit up and looked at the night sky. He was stalling and he knew it. Dinner at his family’s house would almost be over. Not that it mattered much. It was reunion time. When the Munoz clan got together they’d be partying for a week straight.
The first night of the party was usually the wildest and many of his uncles, cousins, sisters, and possibly his mother and father would be drunk off their asses. If he waited long enough, he could show up when they were at the height of their drunkenness. They’d all believe he had been the life of the party. They wouldn’t even notice that no matter how he drank, he couldn’t get drunk anymore.
He discovered that the hard way. A smell wafted to him on the night air and he turned his head sharply towards it. His heightened sense of smell picked up on the single wolf. He had no idea how it had gotten separated from the rest of the pack which was moving off towards the east. He shook his head.
It would eventually be drawn to him and he’d quickly be finished with it, just like he would be finished with Albion as soon as he could control these damned new powers. For the time being he needed to make sure none of them came after his family. He needed to figure out how to control himself without alerting the Mentors to the fact that he’d turned Hunter.
* * *
Cenora Moon pushed the little Geo as hard as it would go up the mountain road. She hated delivering pizzas in the little car. Her fiancé and his friends had taken off on a hunting trip slash bachelor party two days ago. Sony, Tim’s best friend, had been thoughtful enough to leave the paltry offering in replacement of the big F-150 that she and Tim shared.
A Geo with snow chains was hardly a suitable replacement. She cursed as the car nearly stalled again. Thanking God above when she finally reached Lucky’s road, she pulled into the driveway. She would get the farthest delivery in the heart of the woods the one night she didn’t have the truck.
Pulling her five foot seven frame out of the car she wondered, not for the first time, how Sonny fit his nearly six foot height into the little car. Of course, Sonny didn’t have a job, so he didn’t use the little car for much besides heading to the unemployment office. It wasn’t a rare story for this part of Alaska.
If it weren’t for Figaro’s Pizza, she wouldn’t have a job either. She reached across the front seat and grabbed the hot bag that held a single anchovy and jalapeno pizza. Lucky always ordered the worst pizza combinations she could think of. If she ordered a pizza like his she’d be stuck on the porcelain pot for a week.
She looked over at the dog house sitting in the center of a snow covered yard. The thaw season was here but many places up here in these mountains were still a few feet under snow. She waited and listened quietly for a few minutes. The chain that usually held a big pit bull was looped in the snow, the end disappearing deep into the dark interior of the tiny doghouse.
She wasn’t fooled. Taking a deep fortifying breath, she stepped away from the car. Only a few feet from the front door she heard the rattle of the chain. The dog snapped to the end of its leash with a vicious snarl. She screamed and made a beeline to the door.
The dog wasn’t even close to reaching her. Still, she turned on him with an ugly curse.
“Damn it, Bruno,” she snapped at the red pit bull.
He wagged his tail and continued to bark as if he were laughing at her. The front door opened and old Lucky stepped outside laughing with a toothless grin. He was laughing so hard he had to hold his sides. She put one hand up on her generous hip.
“Lucky! You can’t chain that damn mutt a little closer to his house when you know I’m coming, or, God forbid, lock him up inside your bedroom?”
“Girl. If I was ta bring that old monster in here, he would tear up my house for sure. What are you complainin’ for? He can’t reach you no way.”
“Listen up you old Eskimo-“
“Cena! Haven’t you heard? Eskimo is a derogatory term now. My mother was from up Noatak way so I’d be a Yupik to you.”
“I thought it was Inuit,” she shot back with a grin.
“Do I look Canadian to you,” he asked incredulously.
She laughed out loud as she pulled the pizza from the bag. “Give me my twenty three dollars and hurry it up. I’m freezing my good parts off out here.”
“Twenty three? I thought it was seventeen?”
“It’s eighteen ninety five and you better give me at least a four dollar tip for driving all the way up this mountain in that death trap and letting that ugly dog of yours chase me around the yard.”
The old man laughed again as he spied the old car.
“Sonny drag your husband off to the woods again?”
“He’s not my husband yet. At least not for two more days.”
The old man fished twenty five dollars out of his pocket.
“I still say you could do better than Tim Calora for a husband. He’s a drunk you know.”
“And I could do a lot worse. He’s a nice drunk, and you callin’ Tim a drunk is like the fire pit callin’ a shinny new pot black.”
He shoved the money into her hand and took the pizza before steppin’ back inside.
“That may be so, but you don’t see me runnin’ off in your shiny new truck and leavin’ you behind with that piece of junk to deliver pizza in. I know for a fact ole Sonny ain’t got no heat.”
The old man shut the door and quickly turned off the porch light. She heard him laughing his butt off once again. She cursed and turned to face the dark yard where Bruno continued to bark threateningly. The full moon was so bright she had no trouble seeing the red pit-bull straining at the end of his chain.
She skirted around the yard and quickly got into the car. Slamming the door and turning the key of the Geo a few times she waited for it to sputter to life. If Lucky weren’t such a good tipper she’d refuse to come up here at all. He had the worst sense of humor on the face of the planet.
She shivered and huddled down into her thick shiny black jacket. At present there was a patch sewn over the breast that said Figaro’s Pizza. She felt slightly miffed at Lucky’s deep barb. So Tim was known to drink sometimes, what man in Alaska didn’t drink on occasion? Plus, it would be very difficult to be a bartender that didn’t drink.
Sure, he spent a lot of his time off at the bar as well as his work day but really. At least his weekly paycheck made it home if his tips didn’t. There were a lot of women in the area that did worse. She shivered hard, her teeth chattering.
Damn Sony for never having his heat fixed. Laying on the horn three times sending Bruno into a barking frenzy caused Lucky to flash the porch light on and off several times. She threw the car into reverse and stepped on the gas. Just as she backed out onto the narrow dirt lane she felt the car lurch and her head jerk backwards indicating she’d hit something… again. The brakes in the Geo took a lot of hard mashing to completely comply.
Cursing and slamming the car into drive before stopping and putting the car in park, she had to make sure not to park on top of the thing like last time. She was so tired of hitting deer and caribou up here on this mountain. It was a real pain. Hitching her thick black rimmed glasses up higher on her face.
Reaching into the back seat for her rifle and a flashlight. She got out of her car and looked up towards the house. Lucky had turned on the porch light and stepped out again, this time wearing his boots.
“It’s okay. I think I hit a caribou or something,” she called out.
“In that tiny car, you couldn’t have done much damage.”
She shook her head as she heard him laugh.
“I’m gonna look now,” she called back.
She turned towards the back of the car and clicked on the flashlight.
“If’n it dies on my property that meat is mine,” she heard him call over her shoulder.
Like she needed more caribou meat in her deep freeze. The way Tim hunted during hunting season, and sometimes out of it, left them thigh deep in caribou and moose meat. She looked around the muddy ruts in the road for the animal. She didn’t see it on the road.
The beam of light reached the edge of the woods. She found what she was looking for over that way. Her heart ratcheted up a bit at the size of the animal lying beneath a tree on top of the snow. Her combat boots crunched the snow as she neared the bear sized creature. Bears shouldn’t have left hibernation yet.
And what was up with this bear? Its fur was all matted and slimy and stunk to high heaven. It smelled as if it had made its den in a garbage heap that had been set on fire. She moved the gun in her hand so her finger was on the trigger. Bears who woke up from hibernation were usually thin and ready for food. Though most bears up here preferred Salmon, she wasn’t taking any chances.
The animal made a mewling sound as if it were in pain and she got closer. The beast was moving its head and nothing else. Poor dear. It had a broken neck. She walked right up to it and pressed the barrel of the rifle to the back of its head. Just when she would’ve pulled the trigger it roared furiously and turned on her. It grabbed her leg with one strong hand and pulled her footing out from under her. She went down hard and felt a sharp pain cutting through her heavy canvas pants.
Her glasses were tossed off into the snow somewhere and she stared up at the bear. At this moment it looked more like… a wolf? Or was it a man? She felt panic at her loss of vision and at her imminent death. Two days away from her wedding and she was going to be mauled to death.
The bear was on her then and she felt its teeth penetrate her jacket and scrape her skin. She was no match for the biggest bear she’d ever seen in her life. The report of a double barrel shotgun ripped through the night. She felt blood and matter slap her in the face before the animal turned away from her and took off running into the woods.
Devoid of the huge mountain of a bear above her, she noticed again how much of a clear night it was. The stars twinkled in her fuzzy vision. The world came back into sharp focus as her glasses were plopped unceremoniously onto her face.
Lucky spit tobacco juice off to the left before he bent over her. With quick jerky motions he helped her to her feet and began to dust the snow off of her. His hands dusted more than snow, however. She pushed at him and finished the job for herself.
“Just cause you saved my life doesn’t mean you get to cop a feel old man,” she snapped.
Lucky laughed out loud, revealing his missing front teeth.
“Darlin’ if savin’ you from that big old bear don’t earn me at least that much, I don’t know what this world has come to.”
She reached out and hugged him close before she laid a kiss on his weathered cheek. He was a small man and folding him up in her arms was an easy task. He blushed and she could see it even in the dark. He tried his hardest not to be sweet, but he didn’t quite manage it all the time.
“You’re shaken like a leaf. You wanna come in for a cup afore you head down the mountain? I could help you clean up that leg and arm,” he offered.
“Naw. It’s not deep. I better get back. We had about three more deliveries up. That was some ugly bear.”
“Probably fresh outta hibernation,” the old man said as he finally stepped away from her. “I coulda swore I shot his face off. Maybe I’ll find him layin’ out there when I go out in the mornin’.”
He walked her to the car. He pulled a tobacco stained cloth from his pocket and offered it to her. “You can use this to at least wipe your face.”
She eyed the brown stained towel and shook her head.
“Thanks a bunch but I’d use Bruno’s sleepin’ blanket before I’d put that thing near any part a my anatomy.”
Lucky laughed again and then ran into the yard. The pit bull wagged his tail and chased his owner around in a silly circle.
“Ya hear that there Bruno. It’s your lucky day. She wants to share yer blanket with ya.”
She laughed out loud as she lowered herself into the freezing cold car and shut the door. She rolled down the window as a thought came to her.
“You better not go hunting that bear. The game warden’ll be after ya if he hears about a bunch a shootin’ up here.”
“It was self defense,” the old man said with a twinkle in his eye.
He ran back up to his house and slammed out the cold night. He was awful spry for an old drunk. It wasn’t a doubt in her mind he’d be out in the morning after that bear. She reached across the front seat and grabbed a few Figaro’s Pizza Napkins, pumping some sanitizer into them. She took off her glasses, placing them in her lap, as she scrubbed the animal’s blood off her face.
After cleaning and replacing her glasses she inspected the rip in her jacket. The animal’s mouth had been humongous if the size of the indention in her jacket was any indication. Damn! She ‘d have to come up with the money for a new winter coat. She’d only had this one two years.
There wasn’t much blood from the scratch on her arm but the bear had left plenty behind. She tried to clean it up as best she could. Her leg would need a little more attention. She might have to quit for the night and care for her leg. If she made it to the Emergency Room before her friend Lenette’s shift ended then she could get it cleaned up for free.
She hurried down the mountain and made it back to the pizzeria. Grabbing her pizza bag, she ran inside to find the two men inside pumping out pizza’s like mad men. She looked up at the board. They’d picked up a few more deliveries and were running thirty minutes late. She cursed again as she slung her hot bag on the stack before making her way to the back bathroom.
Grabbing a clean cleaning rag on her way, she closed and locked the door. She removed her jacket and pants. The heat inside the restaurant was heavenly. Her winter white legs needed a good shaving to be rid of the deep black hairs on them. She’d take care of all that before the wedding.
Maybe she’d buy one of those fancy cans of spray on tan to apply. Not that it would matter. No one but Tim would be seeing her legs anyway. Tim wanted an outdoors wedding which meant they’d be getting married in their snow suits.
He thought it would be funny for all the women to wear white snowsuits and all the men to wear black snow suits. The suits had been the most costly item of their wedding expenses since they were going to get married at the bar. Everyone would be paying for their own drinks.
Her mother agreed to fry up some chicken and her grandma agreed to decorate with her homemade plastic flowers and bouquets. It promised to be some turnout. She looked at herself in the mirror in the dim fluorescent light that hung from a nail beside the mirror. She was getting married in two days in the backyard of a bar.
The reception would be at the bar with fried chicken as the main course. She shook her head and set to washing out her wounds with soap and water. It might sound crude to some women but having a good time was the name of the game. There was no doubt everyone would at least have a good time.
She could remember the day Tim asked her to marry him. He’d combed his wild black hair back for once and got down on one knee with a rose clutched in one hand. He was wearing a t-shirt that said I love flapjacks, but she’d been willing to look past that. He was not the most good looking man in the area, but he was steady in a way a lot of the unemployed men couldn’t be. The fact that he’d had the same job for more than a year put him miles ahead of the rest.
He was also fairly loyal. He’d only cheated on her once in their six year relationship, and had been faithful ever since. He was at least as tall as her. While he wouldn’t win any body building contests, neither did he have the big bulging bellies of the men that hung around town. He was pretty straight up and down, plain, and in two days, he was going to be all hers.
She felt a rush inside. Whether it was fear or excitement she couldn’t tell. She wrapped her leg up in the towel and tied it tight before pulling her heavy pants and jacket back on. Stitches didn’t seem to be necessary and there was money to be made delivering pizzas. She hurried out of the bathroom.
“Oye! What’s goin’ on over there, you gonna take a century to get those pizzas out or what! Let’s go.”
She put a hand up on her hip and looked at Tony Figaro. He was not the man. He was the grandson of the man and the way he ran this place, there wouldn’t be a place left much longer.
“I’m fine thanks,” she snapped.
“What happened to your leg?” Roy Figaro, Tony’s son, asked in a timid way as he continued to make pizzas.
Tony stopped topping the pizzas to look her over.
“What the fuck happened to your leg?” he asked in that New York Italian accent of his.
“I ran over a bear on my way down the mountain. I thought it was dead when I stepped up to it, but it wasn’t. Lucky shot his face off before he could do more than scratch me,” she said
She turned to grab the two hot bags that were ready to go.
“Don’t go thinkin’ you’re gonna skip out on me cause a some fuckin’ scratch on your leg,” Tony bellowed at her.
He was one of the men that hung around town with a gut that could swallow a small child. Hell, that belly might swallow a mid-sized child. Hell, that belly might swallow her.
“I’m here to make money Tony,” she zinged back as she made her way towards the door, grabbing a two-liter of sprite on her way there.
She heard Roy mumble something to his father.
“What the fuck are you talkin’ boy? She says she’s fine,” Tony said aloud.
Roy’s mumble was more insistent and Tony made an annoyed sound. She was in the lobby when he rumbled over to the front counter.
“Stop by the hotel and see my motha sos she can clean that up on your way back, and don’t take all fuckin’ night,” he bellowed and went back to making pizzas without any further comment.
“It’s good to know someone cares,” she shouted from the door and saw Roy blush before she pushed her way out into the bitter cold.
* * *
Saul was watching the moon overhead. The lake was still and so was the air. Sitting here was the first chance he’d had for rest in as long a time as he could recall. The sounds of his own screams echoed through his mind from the recent past and forced him to drag on the cigarette again.
The relief the smoke offered was only momentary and fleeting for his body healed itself almost immediately from any vise. He looked at the smoking cigarette in his hand. He’d given them up because his mother was always harping that they’d kill him.
“If only she knew,” he muttered.
She was the one who encouraged him to enter the military to get out of Alaska. She always hated Alaska but their father was a fisherman. He followed the fish up the coast of California. When he’d heard of the money they were making on the Crab boats, he’d moved them up here.
He’d been right. As a result of his crabbing they’d become one of the most prosperous families in Sterling. His father rarely crabbed anymore since his son-in-law, Clay, had taken over the spot he once occupied. For the most part he was now retired.
Saul had taken bets with his sisters on how long it would take their mother to wear their father down and get him to move back down to California. Now that his father wasn’t crabbing, his mother had started nagging him as a full time job.
“Saul Munoz.”
Saul turned his head. He had heard the woman approaching. With his new hearing he could hear a mouse sneaking up on him. He had also smelled her blood from a mile away. He controlled his urge to salivate as the smell hit his nostrils.
It rolled over his senses doing miles more than the cigarette could have ever done. His eyes met generous curves covered by canvas pants and a bulky jacket topped by a dark wool scarf. When his eyes settled on the face, recognition hit like lightning.
“Cenora?”
Cenora’s heart leapt wildly at the sound of her name coming off that Spanish tongue. The sight of her best friend’s older brother always made her knees weak. He was the best looking man she’d ever met in person and right now was no exception. His silky black curls were wild on top of his head and his black eyes seemed to reflect the moonlight.
His shoulders were broad. The t-shirt beneath his leather jacket was pulled tight across a ripped chest that tapered down to a lean waist. The thighs beneath his jeans looked rock hard. He shifted on the fallen tree to make room for her. She stepped over the tree and sat down.
“I can only hang for a minute. Still deliverin’ pizzas over ta Figaro’s. We’re real backed up.”
“What happened to your leg?” he asked.
She sat back and looked up into his crushingly handsome face.
“Hit a bear. Thought it was dead. It wasn’t though.”
Saul honed in on the words she spoke.
“A bear? Bears usually hibernate now, no?”
“You been off the reserve that long bro? You know they are. Best I can figure is it came outa hibernatin’ early. Biggest damn bear I ever saw.”
Saul casually put his hand in his pocket and wrapped it around the handle of a silver bladed pocket knife.
“So it bit you?”
“Naw. It grabbed my leg and pulled my feet out from under me with one paw. He got on topa me and almost had a Cenora burger when old Lucky came runnin’ and shot his face off. He took off runnin’ in the woods bleedin’ all over the place. Ole Lucky saved my life. He can be spry when he’s not drunk or on the hunt.”
Saul relaxed and pulled his hand out of his pocket.
“So it got a few claws in your leg. Old lady Figaro clean you up?”
“Yeah. I’m surprised ta see ya here. It’s not like Lucinda to be so closed mouth about who’s stayin’ in her hotel.”
“Yeah well I just pulled in tonight.”
He took another moment to look her over. Her shiny jet black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, her bone straight bangs nearly reaching the rim of her thick black framed eyeglasses. The eyeglasses just barely hid the fact that she’d finally grown into her huge black eyes. Her eyes were rimmed by some of the longest lashes he’d ever seen and were almond shaped.
She’d grown into a spectacular woman, but one could hardly tell it the way she hid behind those clothes. If she’d try a little she could walk around looking as much of a knock out as his little sister, Maria. In fact he wished this girl would rub off on his long legged sister a little bit.
“Yer not stayin’ up with the Munoz clan this time?” she asked sweetly.
Why was his heart beating so fast at her nearness? Why did she smell so damn good? He had to shake it off.
“Bunkin’ between Uncle Jeff and Cousin Tito hardly sounds like a good time to me, or a very hygienic one,” he replied with a shrug.
Cenora chuckled, her bow shaped mouth curving in an appealing way.
“You Munoz’s know how to do it up good inside that triple wide.”
His family was one of the few in town that had been able to afford a new triple wide modular home. Saul chuckled in return.
“So I hear you’re going to be getting married at Oscar’s soon.”
He heard her heart beat increase as she rubbed her hands over her pants and plastered a less than genuine smile on her pretty little face.
“Two days,” she said with a nod.
His eyebrows rose as he watched her. If he didn’t know any better he’d think she wasn’t so happy about that.
“How does he treat you?”
“Who Tim?”
“Tim? Tim Calora? You mean your name is going to be…”
She rolled her eyes and threw her head back shaking her ponytail back and forth. The shampoo she used in her hair broke through the pizza smell and wafted up to entice his nose. The white skin at her throat peeked out from beneath the burgundy wool scarf she wore. He felt the pain in his gums that told him how bad he needed fresh blood.
Bagged blood was no substitute for the real thing. He had to wonder how the other Hunters made this look so easy. He’d never felt need like this before and didn’t know how he kept from reaching out and wrapping his hand around her creamy neck to pull her to him.
“Cenora Calora. Yes. I will rhyme for the rest of my time.”
She laughed her husky laugh again. When did her laugh stop sounding like a little girl’s and start sounding like a woman’s? He took a deep breath to try and get a hold of himself. That was a mistake.
The scent of her blood was thick around them now and heady. He found himself leaning in to her without meaning to.
“So. Shouldn’t you be out having a Bachelorette party right now or something?”
She shook her head.
“Naw. Can you see my sister Candice or my friend Lenette throwing me a Bachelorette party?”
“What about Maria?”
She made a scoffing noise.
“Your sister? The only people that would come to a party your sister would throw would be your family. She’s way too spicy for this little town. She’s fueling your mother’s latest campaign for going back to California with a vengeance.”
It was no secret that Maria Munoz had been chafing at the restraints of small town living. Ever since she was old enough to watch television and really understand the difference between that world and the snow bound one she lived in.
“So you’re just going to jump into married life with both feet?”
She looked up at the moon with a shrug and a sigh.
“I think that’s as good as I can expect.”
The answer in and of itself was sort of… depressing.
“Where is Tim?”
“Sonny and Todd drug him off hunting.”
“So he gets to go off drinking and carousing in the woods and you get stuck delivering pizzas? That hardly seems fair. Why don’t you go on up with me to the house and at least eat some roasted meats. You know there’s plenty.”
She looked uncertain.
“My idea of a good time doesn’t much include watching your father and uncles argue over who won at dominoes while your cousin Tito tries to grab my ass.”
“Whoa. Listen to you using big girl words. Last time I saw you you were still wearing braces.”
She groaned and buried her face in her hand.
“Worst three years of my life. But these are straight,” she said, lifting her face and pointing at her perfectly straight startling white teeth.
“You’re the only kid I know that asks to skip family vacations and class pictures so you can have your teeth straightened,” he teased.
Cenora had always been something of a curiosity to him. A curiosity that he always did his best to avoid thinking too much on. She was his little sister’s best friend after all.
“Did you see my teeth?” she pleaded.
He pulled up an image of a girl clad in pigtails, a huge gap in her front teeth, and thick black rimmed glasses. He tried to hold it but the chuckle escaped anyway. It felt good to laugh for real. It had been too long. She pushed him and crossed her arms over her chest.
When he burst into full out laughter she got up and scurried over the tree and stomped off towards the parking lot. He did his best to pull himself together as he followed after her.
“Cenora. Wait,” he pleaded as he brought himself under control.
He grabbed her and pulled her into his arms.
“Okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
It took a moment, but she finally eased up and hugged him back. When he released her she stepped back with a faint smile curling her lips. When had her lips blossomed into full pouty lips? He shook his head and took another step back.
“I’ll keep Tito away from your ass. In fact I’ll protect your ass from all members of my family. Will you come?”
“Only if you make that a promise.”
“I do,” he promised.
“I have a few more pizzas to clear off the board. I’ll meet you back here in about an hour, hour and a half.”
“You delivering pizzas in that?” he asked looking towards the Geo.
She got into the small car and rolled down the window.
“My fiancé and his friends took off in my new truck. What can you do?”
He watched her as the small Geo sputtered out of the parking lot and into the deserted street. He couldn’t explain why he didn’t want to see her go. He thought of the little girl he’d watched running around the house with his little sister. She’d certainly changed a lot.
He was nothing but a sad old man if he looked at her as anything other than the flat chested awkward little girl with great big eyes he’d known. He took the last drag of his cigarette and crushed it beneath one boot heel.
“I’m a lecherous old man,” he said with a grin as he headed back to the lake to wait for her.