part0007

G race thought she was dead even as she woke up. There was no mercy from her brain as every vivid detail of her attack rushed at her from behind her closed eyelids. She whimpered and tried to move, but her body protested, broken, bleeding, bruised. It wasn’t heaven then, so still a version of hell. She stayed still for a minute, breathing shallowly, then forced her eyelids open a sliver, assessing her surroundings. There was light enough to see shadows and dim shapes, the air warm enough that perhaps she was inside. No noise though, not a whisper, not a breeze. She moved one of her hands to the blanket below her, a course weave, dirty and worn. It was the only thing that shielded her body from the rough wooden floor boards.

She moaned as she shifted slightly and then realized she was still naked. She froze again, listening for a nearby presence. Silence. As she inched herself up to a sitting position, dizziness washed over her and her stomach lurched. She embraced it with a note of gratitude that she was still alive, that she could move, feel, breathe. She reached a hand to her head to rub at her temple and grazed her hair, matted in places. She swallowed as she opened her eyes more widely and looked at it, at herself. She was still wearing the blood of her attackers. She didn’t know whether to be sick or thankful that her body hadn’t been further molested.

Then she remembered the wolf, nosing between her thighs before she fainted. What had it been doing? She dropped a hand to her stomach, rubbing it across the welts left there by the belting, then lower. A deep hard voice penetrated the shadows, “If you are going to give me a show, my preference is that you wash the stink of the males off first.”

Grace let out a small shriek as she pushed herself away from the direction of the voice, crawled on the floor until her back was at a wall. Her entire body protested the abruptness of her movements, blood rushed to her head and her sanity tried to flee. She wrapped her arms around her legs and hugged them tightly, willing the trembling to stop. Willing her fragile courage not to unravel. “Where am I?” she asked, her voice reedy and weak, her words hesitant.

“Am I safe?” Grace thought she could endure everything else that would come her way if she knew that she wouldn’t be harmed.

A chair scraped and then a form materialized out of the shadows. A man, massive in height, leanly muscled, long brown untidy hair, eyes unnaturally grey. He was bare-chested and footed, wearing pants that settled low on his hips. His presence was startling – it dwarfed the room they were in, blocked the light, diminished her. In any other circumstance, Grace would be awestruck at his magnificence. But instead, his profile induced terror and she sucked in her fear as she shuddered.

“A wolf… a wolf…” she stuttered.

“My wolf.” His voice was deep without inflection, without empathy.

He crouched in front of her, legs bent at the knees and splayed, forearms resting on his massive thighs, long, fearsome hands dangling between them. “My wolf.”

“I… I don’t understand. It killed… I was… I thought it would kill me.”

“Looks like it didn’t.” He sniffed the air and grimaced. “You stink.”

“My clothes…” Tears slipped from her eyes.

Grace shrank as he gripped her arms, hauling her to her feet without a care for the painful bruising over her body. She tried to stand, but her knees were shaky and she faltered. He seemed not to notice as he tightened his grip and pulled her along behind him. She stumbled but he didn’t slow his gait. He shoved her into a small bathroom, only a shower, a dripping faucet in a yellowing sink, a toilet with no lid, and a cracked mirror.

“I can’t stand the smell of them,” he grunted as he handed her a bar of lye soap. “Wash it off. Make sure you get it all or I’ll scrub you myself.”

He slammed the door behind him and sobs spilled from Grace’s mouth as she gazed in dismay at the bathroom. A small towel hung on a nail and she pulled it to her. It was worn through but relatively clean, enough that she could shower and then dry herself. But it was too small to save her modesty, what shreds she had left. She showered in tepid water, but it didn’t matter. It washed off the horror of last night, at least the physical horror. There was little chance that her brain would forget the brutal death not only of a man she loved, but of her three attackers. If she’d had anything in her stomach, she would have vomited again.

After the shower, she assessed herself in the dirty cracked mirror. Her brown hair hung in limp wet strands clinging to her sallow cheeks. One of her eyes was black, livid bruises across her cheek and a puffy split lip. A scrape on her forehead and nail marks on her neck and chest. She shuddered. A creak behind her caused her heart to flare and she turned to the door. It was opening. He stood there, broad-chested, arms folded across it. “Come out.”

Her heart thudded as she followed him out, as he pulled her into the centre of the cabin and then sniffed the air around her, then closer, her hair, her torso, lower.

He turned to her with a snarl on his lips, then wordlessly picked up a small fur from the large bed in the corner of the cabin and threw it to her. She caught it clumsily and wrapped it around her body like a bath towel, feeling a small amount of relief before an unbidden shard of shame sliced through her. For what, she wasn’t sure.

She waited, her stance awkward, not sure what to do. He stood a foot from her, staring at her intensely, eyes sliding over her, again and again. She swallowed. “My name is – ”

“I know your name,” he said, his deep voice like the beat of a war drum.

“Oh,” she responded in a small voice. “What’s yours?”

She tried a different tact. “Thank you for saving my life.”

He snorted his laughter. “I didn’t save your life. I took what’s mine.”

Grace gaped at him as ice slipped up her spine. She evaded almost certain death last night and now she had another threat to contend with. “I don’t understand.”

But he said nothing. Just circled her, eyes roaming over her, nose sniffing. Then he stopped suddenly, his head turning towards the door. Silence. Grace strained her ears, heard nothing but a bird call, the rustle of trees in the breeze. Still he stood rigidly, dark, watchful eyes on the door. Then she heard approaching footstep, the door opened and an older man stepped inside. Grey hair, grey beard, eyes that laughed even when he wasn’t. Looking at Grace, then a smile as he nodded his greeting and said, “Hawes.”

Hawes inclined his head. His eyes flicked back to Grace.

Mate? Grace shook her head slightly and tried to step back but Hawes’ arm shot out and his hand clamped around her wrist. “Don’t move.” He growled. “Mersin is here to make sure you are fit to be mated.”

Grace ignored his command as she wrenched her arm from his grasp and stumbled back a few paces. She gazed around the cabin, looking for a means to escape, but both Mersin and Hawes blocked her path to the exit. “Mated? Are you insane?”

The man called Mersin took a step towards her. “Settle yourself, girl. You’re in no danger from us. Hawes is your mate. It’s destined.”

Grace looked from the old man to Hawes, who stood solid and unmoving, arms crossed. “That’s ridiculous,” she snapped, trying to draw on her single psychology class, trying to remember the lecture on shared delusion.

“It’s not. You’ve had a shock and you’re shaken. I’m here to make sure you’re not injured, that you are intact.”

Grace took another step back. “They didn’t rape me if that’s what you mean. They… the wolf…” her eyes flicked to Hawes as she stammered. “It killed them before…” and then because her legs would no longer hold her, she dropped to her knees, her breath catching in her chest. She couldn’t draw air into her lungs. Mersin knelt next to her, put his hand to her neck and bent her head forward, telling her to take slow shallow breaths. His touch infused a warmth through her, and her stomach settled, her breathing normalized. She pushed his hand away.

“I’d like to go home, please,” she said in a small voice. “I need to call the police. They killed my…” she heard Hawes growl and she looked into his stormy face.

“Your what?” His deep, menacing voice echoed in the room.

Grace breathed. “My friend.” She started weeping then, as she said it. He was all of that and to her heart, more. She thought this research trip, tracking these werewolves in northern BC, was going to be the penultimate step in their relationship. He was older, mature, brilliant. Everything she could have wanted. And he singled her out, invited her here. It was going to be her chance at happiness, the reason she saved herself all these years. It was going to be her every fantasy come true.

“Your lover?” Hawes asked, a hard set to his jaw, a frown splitting his rugged face.

She shook her head. She couldn’t talk.

“Why not?” Hawes crouched in front of her, pinching her chin between his fingers, forcing her head up, her eyes to his. “Why hasn’t he fucked you?”

Grace shuddered and tried to pull out of his grip, but he tightened it.

“No one has fucked you, Grace. You can’t give yourself to a man who isn’t your mate, even your sexy professor.” He added a bitter twist to the last two words.

Grace didn’t know what to say. She’d stepped from one nightmare to another. “That’s not true,” her words were too soft, she needed to dig deeper, she needed her spirit now. If this was to be life or death, she needed to fight for life even if she died in battle. “I’m 23-years-old. And a party girl. You think I haven’t had sex before? You think I’m a nun?” Perhaps she could bullshit her way out of this. Sex was the final frontier for her and even with all the offers she had, she could never consummate. Each time kisses with boys led to petting and intimate touches, she would become repelled, forced to stop before it could go further. After this happened several times, she decided she was gay. Turned out not as the same thing happened with women, although she could never get past the kisses. Women just didn’t turn her on at all.

Hawes’ face was stony, his eyes hard. “You’re lying, Grace, I can smell your innocence. You have not even orgasmed.” Grace felt her face grow warm at these truths. “Your first blood is mine. You are mine.” Then he laughed derisively as he rose. “Tell her, Mersin,” he said as he sauntered out of the cabin like he was a king.

As soon as he left, Grace scrambled to her feet and rounded on Mersin. “He’s insane, Mersin! Can’t you tell? Please, please help me leave. I can’t be his mate.” She couldn’t figure out how Hawes knew she was a virgin. She had no idea how he knew she had never been able to bring herself to orgasm. She thought she was frigid, that something was wrong with her, but she’d never had the courage to seek help. Now Hawes was offering her an irrational reason for her inability to fuck another man, her inability to come.

Mersin shook his head. “Hawes is my adopted son. He’s destined to lead, here on this earth and below, in the depths of what you might think of as hell. And you, dear Grace, are destined to be his mate.”

Grace shuddered. “That’s crazy. You know that, right? You know how mad that sounds?”

Mersin laughed sardonically. “It’s only crazy if you’re a non-believer. You know what Hawes is? You know he’s not a man.”

Grace pursed her lips and looked towards the door, eyes roaming the cabin, looking anywhere but at Mersin. “Yes. I know. It’s why I came here, why Eric came. To study these wolves, not wolves, not men.”

“Say it,” Mersin urged her. “You know what he is. What he did for you last night.”

Grace swallowed. She didn’t want to say it out loud as if saying the words would make it true. But they fell out of her mouth anyway. “He’s a wolf, werewolf. He killed those men.”

“Yes. Those men were sent by his father. Sent to defile you.”

“This doesn’t make sense. Why would his father want me…?” she couldn’t finish the sentence as her stomach knotted, her throat closed at the memories.

Mersin sighed impatiently, “Has no one explained your legacy to you?” He paced away from her. “Obviously not,” he muttered to himself. He turned back to her. “Hawes is the offspring male of a hellhound and werewolf. You are the female offspring of a werewolf and human. On the twenty-fourth night, Hunter’s Blood Moon… “

“What?” Grace sputtered, his words jarring her back to the present. “I’m not a werewolf.”

“No, you’re not. Your wolf is latent. Do you know how rare that is?”

Grace was starting to feel less afraid as her anger grew. “I don’t know… this is ridiculous. Please, get me some clothes and let me go. Or at the very least, call the police.”

Hawes stood in the doorway, agitated. “She’s not listening to you.”

Mersin turned to the towering man. “Give me more time.”

“No.” Hawes strode to the middle of the room, stopping in front of Mersin. “Is she healthy enough?”

Mersin turned his attention back to Grace, his eyes roving over her. He nodded. “She seems so.”

“Then leave. I’ll explain it to her.”

Mersin shook his head. “Give us more time. I can help with her healing.”

Hawes seem to grow taller, his teeth sharper, his eyes darker. “Later, leave now,” he growled. Mersin hesitated then stepped past Hawes.

As he closed the door behind him, she heard Mersin say, “Be gentle with her, Hawes.”

A tremor swept through Grace as she backed away from Hawes, but then her thighs bumped up on the bed, and she sat down with a thump. Her hand clutched at the fur covering her. “What are you going to do?” she whispered as his eyes stroked her.

“Show you,” his tone was as brittle as his strides as he paced toward her, then pulled her up by her arms and into his embrace. He brought his mouth to her ear, “I cannot claim you, Grace, not until the night of the Hunter’s Blood Moon.” He raked a nail down the side of her bruised face, down her neck to the furs. “But you cannot say no to me. I will be the only man you will ever bed willingly.”

She felt a shiver slide up her spine as he bent his face to hers, brought his lips to hers, but fuck if he was going to show her anything. Anger ripped through her at his nerve. She reared back and hit his face with her forehead, slammed it hard enough to send him reeling. A bolt of pain lanced through her head, but she didn’t stop to consider it. She ran by him as his knees buckled, out the door and into the forest. Running blindly again, naked again except for the skimpy little fur-dress she was wearing. She knew she’d dropped him for only a few seconds and her running wasn’t going to get her very far, but she’d be damned if she didn’t at least try.