Don't Forget Me (16 page)

“No one had me, Vuk,” she exclaimed in fright, catching her breath in gasps. She wrapped her hands Vuk’s collar and tried in vain to push him away. He could only feel his jealousy consuming him and his excitement pressing against his jeans.

“You’re lying. Stop being a baby.” He reached down to grab between her thighs. Stella instinctively leaned forward towards him, and he penetrated her mouth with his tongue.

“Don’t behave like that.” She grabbed his arm and tried to move his hand from between her legs. She could feel its heat through the fabric of her jeans and the silk of her underwear.

“It’s like you have an orgasm every time you see him!” He rubbed her on the seam of her jeans, and Stella felt his caresses as if they were on her bare skin. She tried to push him back against the wall.

“Get away from me,” she said. In response, Vuk somehow managed to lift her and put her on his erection, catching her completely by surprise.

“It’s not right that you’re the only one who gets to have fun.” Stella felt his desire throbbing between her thighs and squirmed to try to wriggle out of his embrace, but every effort proved futile.

“Vuk, please stop!” All she could think about was getting away from him. She knew that if she did not escape, the inevitable would happen.

Vuk looked at her with a hint of a mischievous smile, and then threw himself toward her lips, squeezing her breast and pumping her body up and down. Stella scratched at his neck with her nails and saw blood drip from the cuts, but the werewolf just gave her an evil grin, shrugging off her efforts to hurt him.

“Nice try, but not enough,” he taunted. In that moment, not even a cold shower would have been enough to damp his desire.

“Vuk, I don’t want to be hard on you, but you’re going too far!” But forcefully unbuttoned her jeans, lowered the zipper and threw her to the ground.

“Something else is getting hard here, babe!” gasped Vuk. Then he dropped his own pants and was about to get on top of her when Stella struck him with all her strength in the testicles. He fell to the side, and she sprang up, moved away and buttoned her jeans.

Vuk reared up to hurl himself at her, stretching the cables almost to breaking point. Then he fell to the ground and started to launch himself repeatedly at her, yanking the chains in fury.

“Stella, run, get out of here…,” he shouted, suddenly ceasing his attempts to hurl himself at her, and realizing with horror what he had almost done. A second later, however, he resumed his savage battle with the cables and the wall rings, trying to break free, but not managing to break them or detach them from the wall.

Stella cracked the back door open, letting a sliver of moonlight enter the room. As the white beam fell on Vuk, he transformed instantly into his werewolf persona, growing taller, more muscular and stronger, while a dark gray mantle covered his body in silky fur. Still a man, but with a wolf’s appearance and a wolf’s predatory instincts.

His mesmeric gaze was breathtakingly fiery. He had the power to use his magnificent beauty to both entice a person and strike terror in them. His eyes acquired an irresistible luminosity that tempted the victim to sink into them until they were irredeemably lost.

Fuelled by a terrifying brute force, possessed by the relentless rapacity of a predator, he felt the blood in his veins turn to pure adrenalin and his breathing deepen and quicken. His lips curled to reveal razor sharp canines, his fingernails became sharp retractable talons, and his body acquired the speed, grace and agility of a creature from the realm of the supernatural.

Thirteen nights a year, Vuk was dominated by his primal instincts and made the forest his habitat, craving only the thrill of the hunt. And Stella had just been marked as his prey.

Angels of the Night

S
tella closed the
factory door behind her, chained it and snapped shut the padlock. Frightened at what she had just glimpsed out of the corner of her eye, she backed away from the door only to feel shrouded in the eerie silence of the night’s opaque darkness. Vuk’s nostrils flared and caught her scent. He sensed she was still close by, just outside the factory walls.

He summoned his immense strength and managed to break the snap hooks free of the steel cables, almost succeeding in casting off the chains that kept him from her. Silence once again descended. A small, insignificant voice deep inside him was telling him to let her go but his eyes still saw her as prey, a quarry silhouetted glowing in the moonlight.

Stella heard the ripping sounds of plaster and steel cables crashing to the cement floor. He had wrenched them out of the wall; she understood that Vuk was shrugging the harness off. She could hear the tearing metallic screech of the collar and manacles as he dealt with them. Then she saw the door of the factory quake. She could hear its groans as he tried to force it open, first pulling then pushing. Enraged with fury, he threw his powerful werewolf’s body at it.

Terrified, she retreated to the pickup, staring at the last links of a chain now in shreds still clinging to the door handle. Only a few more attempts to batter the door down and Vuk would have broken out into the moon-filled sky to seize her.

Suddenly, hearing one of the factory’s upper windows shatter, she got the hell out of there, hitting the pickup running, diving in and sparking the engine and headlights. She knew Vuk would stop at nothing and instinctively glanced in the rearview mirror as she felt someone’s eyes on her and saw the flitting of a shadow. Stunned with disbelief, she panicked and spun back round, only to catch a fleeting glimpse of him.

Startled, she heard strange noises under the truck and realized he was probably ripping a hole to let the gas out and foil her escape. Jumping with fright, she felt a paralyzing clutch of fear but reacted in a nanosecond by pressing her foot hard on the accelerator and speeding off towards the state highway.

She saw him suddenly appear in her headlights a little further ahead and, swerving crazily, missed running him over by the breadth of a hair. Her eyes shifted to the rearview mirror and saw him motionless in the middle of the road staring after her.

Then she was hit by a strong smell of gasoline and her eyes shifted to the fuel gauge to see it verge on the red line of empty. Now she understood why he had let her leave so easily, why he had made no move at all to stop her that second time. He knew the loss of gas would force her to stop at the next gas station, or better yet in the middle of nowhere. The hunt was on.

She stopped at an all-night gas station and switched off the engine. Unlocking the doors, she gathered her courage and opened the car door, climbing slowly down, startled by the persistent beep of the car telling her she’d forgotten to switch the headlights off. She looked around cautiously, expecting to see Vuk come rushing out of the trees that lined the service area, but all she saw was a black paper sky broken only by the moon’s albescent glow. She exhaled deeply, relieved to find she was alone. Or so she thought.

After a last scope of the area, she turned back to the truck to look for something to plug the hole in the tank and found one of Vuk’s t-shirts. Peering between the wheels to see if Vuk was approaching from the street or the woods, she slid under the pickup and slithered to the tank, the shirt clasped in her fist. She saw the gaping hole and packed the tee-shirt into it tightly. Lying there a moment to check that the rag held and no gas was coming out, although she knew she was only buying time, that it was only a stopgap, she pulled herself out from under the truck, straightened up and took a few hesitant steps toward the gas pump.

She slid her credit card from the pocket of her jeans and into the pay machine, jammed the nozzle into the tank and squeezed the trigger. Drained, she leaned her arm on the side of the pickup, frantically urging the numbers on the display to click faster as gallons of gas gushed into the tank. A sudden noise made her jump. and she saw Vuk cross the road toward her and approach menacingly.
My God
, she thought, her terror resurfacing. But even if she moved as fast as she could, she’d never be able to get back into the car and flee. He’d easily reach her even before she pull the door closed. So she decided to confront him.

She opened the driver’s door and took a steel Zippo from the side pocket. She ignited it with her left hand while her right hand reached for the gas nozzle, making threatening gestures to intimate that she’d set him on fire if he came any closer. But he only paused by the next island of gas pumps in front of her before his rage erupted and he lunged toward her. But then the strong smell of fuel entered his nostrils and he recoiled instantly.

Stella continued to move toward him, holding the nozzle down to let the fuel drip to the ground to form a highly flammable boundary between them. Walking away from the pickup, stretching the hose to its full length, she directed a jet of gas between him and the vehicle, forcing him back into the trees.

“Vuk, I know you can hear me! Please go, it’s dangerous for you here, understand? Don’t make me do it!” she yelled, despairing at the mere thought of hurting him.

“You think I won’t? You think you know me, but you’re making a big mistake. It’s inevitable now,” Stella sighed, her lips twisting bitterly into a tight smile.

“Your life or mine? I choose both… or neither,” she said, her voice a thread, her eyes filled with bittersweet sadness as she loosened her grip on the Zippo.

Suddenly, she heard the loud rumble of two motorbikes speeding toward them, causing her to tighten her grip again.

It was Jason and Aaron. Seeing her, they slammed on the brakes and screeched into the gas station, leaping from their bikes to let them slide along the ground toward Vuk, trying to protect her. They looked incredulously at the Zippo and the line of fuel on the ground. Impressed, they exchanged a quick glance of astonishment. Aaron turned to the girl:

“I heard you talking from the road. You’re wasting your breath trying to talk him out of it. He’s beyond hearing you now. He’s driven purely by his instincts, nothing else touches him.”

“I’ve seen you guys before, I know you… I recognize your bikes from when I exited the university parking lot,” she said in confusion, seeing them exchange another swift glance. They were standing in front of her. They were both wearing jeans, bikers jackets, their heads and faces shielded by their helmets and tinted visors.

Jason started to walk toward her.

“Stella, I realize you’re scared and that yesterday was a bad day for you, but now you’re safe with us.”.

“Stay where you are! How do you know my name?” she asked anxiously, backing away warily and pointing the gas nozzle and the Zippo at them.

“Stella. We don’t want to hurt you, the opposite in fact, it’s the wolf you have to watch out for,” Jason said fervently, trying to calm her down as he pointed at Vuk.

“What’s your name?” she asked, suddenly tense.

“J.” he replied, tilting his head slightly.

“Just J.?” she asked, puzzled.

“For the moment, yes.” He turned abruptly toward Vuk, who had pushed Aaron’s motorcycle aside and never ceased grunting irritably, maddened by the smell of gas that filled the air.

“Do you think he’s pissed at our arrival?” Jason asked Aaron, a cheeky smile on his face.

“Maybe a touch…” Aaron replied, as Stella kept staring at J.

“You’re a pretty strange and mysterious guy, “Mr. Just J.” I remember you. Your face and voice might still escape me but I haven’t forgotten that I mistook you for a guy with the same initial… And now you are wearing that helmet. Show me your face.” He began to undo the strap of his helmet hesitantly but suddenly stopped.

“I can’t,” he confessed.

“But I can,” Aaron said, starting to remove his helmet but Vuk started to move threateningly toward Stella.

“Vuk, no!” cried Stella in alarm and, without thinking, pumped the gas twice sending a jet of fuel through the flame of the Zippo creating a ball of fire that blazed through the gap between J. and Aaron, who leaped out of the way. Flames forced Vuk to make a hasty retreat.Jason came closer to Stella.

“Now do you believe me, Stella? It’s him, not us, you have to fear,” Jason insisted.

“I’m warning you, J., not one more step.” Cautiously she stepped back and brought the gas nozzle close to the lighter, the gas on the ground slowly spreading.

“Stella, let me come to you,” Jason exclaimed impatiently.

“Do everyone a favor and don’t bother,” Stella said, pressing the gas again to dispatch another blazing spurt of fire, in warning to Vuk, who she’d noticed creeping up on her again.

“You’d be doing yourself the favor, actually,” said Jason as he slowly moved in on Stella, leaving her momentarily stunned and speechless.

Aaron interjected in alarm.

“Stella, there’s always an alternative. The decision you have taken now is certainly not the best one

“It may not be the best but at least it’s mine,” she retorted, letting the lighter fall from her fingers to the ground now dark and wet with a spreading pool of petrol, igniting it into a fireball, the flames spreading like lightning ready to turn into a raging inferno.

“Get away, Stella! Get out of here!” cried Jason protectively, leaping to scoop her into his arms.