Animal Heart (Beast & Beauty) (17 page)

“For God's sake, just go to sleep or something...” she growled in pointless desperation, and he closed his eyes and immediately sunk to the ground and slumbered at her feet. Her mind swam for a moment. How could this be? But she didn't have time to think about it, there were a lot more of them out there. One sleeping werewolf was not a victory by any stretch of the imagination.

She took off as quickly as she could, looking for the others. She felt it was a hopeless task. How could she ever hope to track down and stop eleven other werewolves before they ravaged Heart? She stayed central, in the main part of town, hiding behind cars, in the shadows. It was quiet, only a few vehicles were coming down the main street. She saw a set of orange eyes approaching her from a side alleyway. She moved towards them, it was Mia.

Maddy growled at her. 'Sit'. And she sat. She walked around Mia in amazement as she growled at her threateningly. How could she do this? Make a full moon killer werewolf obey her against their will? 'Lay on your back', she commanded with a snarl. Mia flipped on her back, her claws slashing wildly in the air. 'Hide and sit quietly', she ordered, and Mia scampered off, back up the alleyway, growling in complaint at being denied her murdering pleasures.

So many left to find...

She trailed up and down the street, hiding her form from the few people she saw and looking desperately for any sign of another werewolf.  She heard a scream, far off, and then another close by. A very loud, piercing scream. She made towards the source of it quickly. He ears picking up the signs of a fierce struggle. As she rounded the corner, a large house stood before her and there she found Verity, her small white nose identifying her quickly.  She had their favorite sergeant beneath her on the driveway, and before Maddy could utter a word to stop her, she ripped her throat out, violently. Philomena's eyes dimmed and she died almost instantly, as blood spurted from the massive, gaping wound in her neck. She shifted into her human form and rushed naked to her side.

“Verity, no... No more killing. Oh God... Tell me how to stop all this?” she screamed in horror, holding the poor woman's hand. The wild little she-wolf looked at her with devil-made eyes. To her amazement, she spoke human words, guttural and deep...

“Cross of fire, water and earth, a holy union will end the moon's curse.”

“Go hide, sit quietly somewhere,” she ordered. She was sickened, overwhelmed, and also confused by the brutal and strange events that had just occurred.

Talking werewolves? Am I losing my fucking mind?

Verity bounded off growling and snarling against her will, up the path behind the house, which Maddy assumed was the Stevens' home.

Maddy sat at the dead sergeant's side in miserable defeat.

“I'm so sorry...” she said to her lifeless body as tears flowed down her face. “She didn't know. She would never have done this.”

A minute or two later the mayor's large and expensive Cadillac Escalade turned up the driveway. She shifted and slunk away into the darkness nearby. His headlights shone on his wife, lying on the ground, lifeless in a pool a blood. She wanted to speak, to console him. But how could she, what the fuck could she say? Not that she would, having no clothes to wear in her human form. He approached with a wail of horror and disbelief, throwing himself on his dead wife's body. “Philly... Oh no, not my Philly... Who would have done this...? No, no, no... Not my lovely wife...”

Being at a violent murder scene wasn't a particularly good idea. Wolf or human... she needed to go.

She turned and sidled off quickly, leaving the scene, saddened and distraught. At that moment, Aden's wolf approached the mayor from across the street, stalking him from the rear. His snarling, drooling, angry jaws about to rip him to pieces.

'Go hide and sit,' she commanded with a glare, and he turned with a deep growl of resentment, leaving the scene quickly, and pounding away down the side street opposite with his long-legged strides.

My God, I really do have the power of command...

She was coming to realise just how powerful her shifter abilities were.

That was her gift.

The gift of control. Of saving lives.

If she'd known this, she could have made them all sleep in their beds at the ranch. This needn't have happened. None of it. She turned away from the bloodied body of Philomena and the grieving Mayor, and started to walk back to the truck, hoping to find and gather up some more of the others. A deep male scream and a loud snarling noise behind her caught her attention, and she turned. Shane had the Mayor by the leg. He'd dragged him off his wife's body and along the floor. The Mayor was shouting obscenities at him as he kicked at him wildly with his free leg. His fangs had already sunk deeply into his flesh, gnawing at him, blood appearing on his light colored pants.

Fuck... He'd bitten the Mayor... Oh no, no, no... This was bad...

“Go hide and sit,” she commanded, in panic. Shane dropped and abandoned his bloody feast very reluctantly. Judging by the vicious snarling look he gave her, as he shot away from the scene of blood and carnage, running fast along the shadows of the street. Her ears pricked up as another scream sounded into the night... Voices were shouting and a gun was fired...

She had a last desperate idea, before any other human fell victim to the pack of ravenous werewolves, and her family were shot and destroyed. She had no idea how many were already dead... human or wolf... Her stomach churned with fear and worry.

She looked around her. She could see no one. She stood mid street human and naked and shouted as loudly as she could, holding her arms up to the heavens, like Moses parting the waves of the Red Sea.

“All wolves, follow me, in the shadows, quietly and unseen.” To her shock, the whole pack of werewolves revealed themselves, gathering from all directions in front and behind her onto the road. With a quick, unpleasant, and very angry look at her, they made themselves scarce behind her, obediently, and without a sound.

She shifted and led them back, out of town, to the truck. She stood guard while they all piled inside it, one after the other. She counted them. All twelve were present. She shifted back to her human state and gathered up her ripped clothes, dressing as best she could.

“We must go. Drive us home, girl,” she ordered to herself. She got into the truck, in the driver's seat, her shaky hands on the steering wheel. She turned the engine on and drove them all home, slowly. She breathed a huge sigh of relief when she delivered them all safely to the ranch and she got out.

“Wolves inside and off to your beds, sleep until dawn,” she said loudly. They all trailed inside and she opened their doors. They jumped up, one by one, on their beds and fell instantly asleep.

She returned to the reception desk and took out a sheet of paper and a pen and wrote down the all important words she had heard that night.

“
Cross of fire, water and earth, a holy union will end the moon's curse.”

Then, finally exhausted, she went to his room. The Alpha lair. She was curious about something.

“Change back to human form,” she said to his sleeping wolf. Nothing happened. That was one thing she couldn't control, their transformation was too ingrained in them. It was a physical part of their being. It seemed she could influence and control their actions and behavior only.

But thank God for that. She lay down next to the sleeping Aden and gave in to her tiredness, sleep overcoming her like a drug.

“All sleep until dawn...” she said once more with a final sleepy yawn. She didn't care who he was at that moment. She snuggled up, her small female human form against his sleeping inner raging beast. He was her raging beast anyhow, and seemingly, completely under her control.

Aden awoke with a start, the pale glimmer of dawn beginning to shine through his window. He closed his eyes and concentrated as he began his transformation back into becoming human again. Once that was complete, he turned over and found Maddy lying next to him, watching him silently.

“'Morning baby...” he said, dropping a soft and tender kiss on her mouth. “Did we all make it?” he asked her hesitantly, almost fearfully.

“We're all present and safely home, tucked up in our beds,” she replied with a beautiful smile. Then a deep sadness crossed her face.

“What...? What happened?” he asked her, his chest heaving, not really wanting to know, but desperately curious at the same time. He could be a mass murderer now. Any one of them could.

Maddy took a deep breath and began, “Sergeant Stevens is dead… And the Mayor was bitten, quite badly. Other people may have been hurt.”

“Oh fuck no... How did she die Maddy, was it you?” he asked her, feeling so badly for her as he remembered Cal's warning the morning before.

“What? No! I was the one who managed to stop it all... Oh my God Aden, if only... if only I'd known what I could do earlier...” Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at him, obviously overcome with emotion at the memory of the horrific trauma she'd witnessed the night before.

“Tell me everything, from the beginning... Everything you remember, no matter how bad, you must tell me,” he implored and coaxed her gently.

He sat listening in awe as her tale spilled forth. How she'd watched them transform and swarm off together. Her blind attempts to stop the murder spree in Heart and gather them all up again.  How she had accidentally stumbled upon her gift. He was overjoyed for her, for them, and for the ability she possessed, but also saddened by the death of the Sergeant, which she had to bear witness to, and so very violently it would seem. She wouldn't tell him who it was... Who had killed and who had bitten. That was her secret, she said. They were all to blame for it in a sense. No one member of their pack should carry that burden alone.

“Jesus, Maddy... Mayor Stevens is going to be in a double state of shock,” he said slowly. And it didn't fill him with any kind of joy. The Mayor himself had been responsible for unleashing them on the people of Heart, through his unknowing, mindless determination to persecute them. But his punishment had definitely exceeded his crime, and he had a momentary sense of pity for him. That vanished as soon as it came, as the complications and future hate war became clear in his mind.

Once Bill Stevens realised what he was, and everything fell into place, he would be facing a much darker and potentially very violent and evil enemy. A werewolf with a deep need for revenge. For his wife, for his townsfolk, and for himself. They'd turned him into a monster. And he'd know they were to blame. You could see others of your kind so easily, once you became. There was no hiding from him anymore. Their secret was out. It would have been better if the Mayor had died last night. Because before long, he might be wishing that on himself.

“We need to get him alone, talk to him...” she said. “Maybe I can?”

“Well there's not much else we can do, other than abandoning our ranch and leaving town.”

“No, this is your home. Our home. He's not going to win this war. If he hadn't been so pig-headed about the ranch, none of this would have happened. He started the whole fucking thing to begin with,” she said, her voice growing louder with righteous anger. “I'll go to town and speak to him tomorrow. Let's give him a day to grieve and for his changes to begin. Then perhaps, I can reason with him. Take advantage of his fear and grief, somehow. I can explain to him what I am. That I'm different, and that I've learnt I can help. Because he's gonna need help. He's got no one to turn to, has he?”

“Maddy, I don't think he'll want our help. We killed his wife, horribly.”

“No Aden. He does. I just have to make him understand that.”

“Well good luck. I don't think he'll be easy to persuade.”

“For once in his life the damn stupid idiot's going to listen. To me,” she said, crossing her arms and adopting a steely-eyed, determined look, directed at him. As if to say, 'just you try and stop me'...

“Sweetheart, come here... I'm all overcome with love and lust. What a wonderful bossy little shifter you are.”

“Excuse me... I'm not bossy!” she objected.

“Yes you are and thank God...” He pulled her towards him and kissed her thoroughly. Lust took them over. A desperate need for physical love and affection. He pulled off her torn clothes and kissed her heated body all over in a frenzy of wild desire.

“Have I told you you're completely gorgeous?”

“Aha...”

“Let me tell you again anyway... you're gorgeous and edible and lickable...”

“Mmmm, so are you, and very suckable too,” she sighed, sucking at his neck and ear.

“And loveable... very loveable, right now in fact,” he murmured as he opened her legs and moved across her. His eyes held hers as he entered her wetness, and she squeezed at his hard cock, buried so deeply inside her, in pleasure. She let out an adorable, long, chest swelling, and breathy sigh of delight.

“Boy, do I need a lot of your love. Life's been hard on me the last few days,” she whispered, taking his hands in hers.

As he moved slowly inside her, kissing her face and soft warm lips, and she responded so beautifully to his every touch and thrust, his heart was lost forever.  No one on this whole earth could make him feel this way. He loved her beyond love. It was a meeting of soul mates, destined to go on after death, he was certain of it. He'd never been one for feeling particularly religious before. But he suddenly did. She was a divine angel. His guardian angel.