Taming the Night (Creatures of the Night Book 1) (5 page)

“Did that happen in the accident?” the bartender asked as he placed a cup in front of him and filled it with steaming coffee. He was referring to the bruising and scratches on Jerry’s face.

“I didn’t cut myself shaving,” he replied wit
h a good natured smile. Dell seemed to relax visibly with this. Jerry knew that he could be standoffish sometimes and a few people in town were afraid of him. It didn’t used to be that way, at least not before…

“You gonna
give me my money?”

He looked over his shoulder to see the vixen. She had crossed her arms in front of her and had lost a bit of her easy going attitude.

“I’m going to give you your money,” he said as he turned back to his coffee and blew on it. He heard her sigh in resignation as she took the stool beside his.

“It’s getting late you know.”

He looked towards the front window. The sun was just barely setting. “Are you an old woman? You can’t stay up past eight or something?” he teased.

“There are easier ways to get a woman to have a drink with you than holding her money hostage
sugar,” she snapped back as she signaled the bartender. She ordered a Jack Daniels which caused him to look at her.

“You drink
Jack?” he asked looking her over. She could define the word gorgeous with her perfectly tan skin and beautifully shining black hair.

“Am I supposed to be drinking something
with an umbrella in it Officer? Is it against the law for a woman to own a motorcycle shop and drink hard liquor?”

“Okay.
Don’t loose your cool. I was just commenting. I don’t even do Jack. I’m a Crown man myself. It’s smoother.”

She relaxed some with that comment. He couldn’t tell if it was an act, but ag
ain the transition was so flawless that he was left feeling a little unsure about her. “Well I don’t like smooth. I like hard.”

This made him look back to his steaming mug. Was she flirting with him? “I just want to talk to you is all,” he finally replied, his mouth a little dry.

She glanced at the setting sun nervously. “I would love to but it’s really time for me to go.”

“Who is Thomas Sierra?
” he asked suddenly. This caused all the color to drain from her pretty face as she looked at him.

“What?”

“The tattoo on your back. There’s a little poem and a name at the edge of the angel wings.”

“Thomas was my husband,” she said quickly as she do
wned the drink in one pull. “He’s dead. Can I have my money now?”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah. Me too. Tell you what,” she said as she stood up. “You pay for the drinks with that money. I’ve gotta go.”

Before he could stop her she was striding towards the door.
He was out of the stool in seconds and grasping her arm. He immediately released her when she turned her eyes on him. Eyes that had been a clear whiskey colored brown just a few moments ago were now a clear violet color just like…

“You,” he said with as much accusation as he could muster.

*

She looked around swiftly to see who was watching. Everyone was watching. They had been watching since she’d walked in the door. He was going to out her in front of these people. If it had been a drunk she could have called him crazy, but this was their star, their king, the royalty of this little town. She knew it by the way they looked at him, as if what he said was golden. He left her no choice.

She wrapped her hands in his shirt front, pulled him to her, tipped up and kissed him hard on the mouth. He resisted her first but soon his arms were wrapped around her, pulling her closer. Suddenly the room fell away. The people fell away. There was nothing but his soft lips and his tasty scent wrapping itself around her. She deepened the kiss and he took her tongue into his mouth as he thrust his own tongue into hers. Her breathing became labored as she pressed herself up into his muscular chest. All she could think of was getting him back to her hotel room.

In fact she couldn’t think of a better thing in the world. She was already in knee deep with Bateman. She couldn’t get any deeper. She was about to pull away to suggest it when a tingling sensation stole over the nape of her neck and up over her head. She felt her nails lengthen and her pupils
dilate. She pulled away and spun to look outside.

“What the hell,” she whispered as she breathed hard.

There, at the edge of the woods. There shouldn’t have been another creature around for miles, at least not for months. Her heart nearly beat out of her chest when she saw what was about to happen. Russell, fool that he was, was striding towards the woods, toward the creature, with a shotgun up on his shoulder aimed at the creature. Damn it. She had drawn it here and now an innocent was going to die. She should have been long gone, especially this close to sundown. She knew better than to be around humans at sun down.

She turned to see Officer Cayman standing there dazed, touching his lips. She rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue. “That’s all the action you’re going to get out of me
lover,” she snapped at him as she pulled the door open and left in a mock furry.

She knew that shooting him do
wn would leave him confused. It would cause the men in the room to give him some good natured prodding as they tried to bring him back in the fold so he could lick his wounds. She prayed that the door would stay closed behind her and that he wouldn’t follow her. She was hoping for too much. She should have known better. God had abandoned her long ago. Why would he do her any favors now?

*

Jerry looked after her for a moment, barely able to believe what had just happened. Most of the thoughts fled from his head at the memory of the touch of her lips against his own. He tried to bring himself out of the stupor but the press of her taught little body against his... She had allowed herself to be flush against him and she smelled of vanilla and lavender, and night air, and delicious things, and she tasted of danger as well. It wasn’t until the patron’s of the bar started to rib him and offer to buy him a drink that he came out of it.

He went after her.

“She said you aint gettin’ nothin’ else tonight Tiger,” someone teased behind him and the others laughed. He didn’t pay any attention to them. He was beginning to come back to himself now. He grabbed at the buried memories as they surfaced. What was it that had made him go after her in the first place? What had he been about to say when he saw the strange color of her eyes?

Wolves, forest, and… her eyes. Suddenly it snapped into focus and all he saw was her ahead of him striding towards her motorcycle. He picked up his own pace until he was nearly on top of her.

“What the hell was that bullshit kiss all about! Who the hell are you?” he yelled at her back.

Without warning she turned an
d he was laid flat out before he knew what was happening to him. With one punch she had cleaned his clock. Put him straight on his back. He had to wonder if the birds he saw over head were real or a result of the punch she had laid on him. People came running out to the bar and some knelt by him while others stood back laughing their asses off.

He heard her bike roar to life and speed off before he was able to sit up. Unsteadily he got to his feet and began to run for his truck. Someone stopped him and his head spun nearly off of his shoulders.

“She said she don’t want no more company Jer. Maybe it be best that you just-”

“
Dell. I think she has something to do with the accident that left me with this broken arm,” he said to the bartender who had come out with a well used baseball bat.

“Then wh
y the hell were you kissing her?” the bartender asked looking confused.

“I didn’t kiss her. She kissed me,” Jerry replied.

“That’s not the way I saw it. She may have started it but you sure finished it. I mean not that I blame you but-”

“I don’t give a shit what it looked like to you Dell,” Jerry said as he pushed his friend out of the way to make his way to the truck. He realized then that he’d left his cell phone at the office. He turned back. “Call the station and tell them that I am going to be in pursuit of the suspect in my personal vehicle and get the rest of these people back inside. She’s to be believed armed and dangerous.”

This sobered the men some. Suddenly she wasn’t just a fiery little woman that had decked the hard ass cop in town, but a dangerous criminal. A few of the men stepped up as if they might back him up, but Jerry pointed back to the bar. “Get back inside. If you follow me I’ll arrest you too.”

This served to send every man back into the bar. He noticed in passing that Russ’s black Harley still stood in the parking lot. He didn’t have time to consider it as he hopped in hi
s truck and sped out of the lot. He’d seen the direction she’d gone in and he’d thought that he’d have to haul ass to catch up with her but he had barely gotten started when he’d had to slam on the brakes once again.

She had barely gone a mile and pulled off into the trees. He could see her bike back in the woods and he pulled off to park near her. He scanned the area and saw no sign of her.

“What the hell?” he murmured as he looked for her.

He got out of his truck and reached for the shotgun that occupied the
gun rack behind the front seat. He turned to the woods and was suddenly very glad that the cast only covered his forearm and that he could steady the shotgun with little awkwardness. He waited for a moment and listened.

It was quiet. Unnaturally quiet. The sun had already sunk behind the nearest mountain and there were only faint shafts of sunlight to illuminate the area. The trees made it seem much darker this far in the woods as well. Then he heard it. It was gut wrenching, the screech. It was like an animal and a human mixed up together. He had heard it before, in his dreams. He took aim and headed in the direction of the bar. He nearly ran smack into them as they came bursting out of the woods.

His finger was a hair from pulling the trigger until he saw who it was. He dropped the weapon almost immediately. “What the hell was that noise?! What happened?” he demanded as he rushed forward.

The mystery woman had one of Russ’s arms pulled over hers as she drug him out of the woods. Russ’s eyes were glazed over as if he had seen something terrifying. He was bleeding from the nose and mouth. When he saw Jerry he came awake and began to run towards him.

“There’s something out there in the woods. Don’t go in there,” he screamed as he grasped the front of Jerry’s shirt and pulled him close. “The eyes. It’s their eyes. They’re like blood. It’s their eyes.”

He was so big that he was nearly dragging Jerry up off the ground by the shirt. Jerry put a calming hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Okay big fella. It’s all right now,” he tried to calm him. He wasn’t afraid of Russ. He recognized that the big man was terrified.

“No. You don’t understand man… They are out there. Those things… with big teeth… and eyes like humans and red, red like blood, like fire. They smell like death. You have to believe me. They’re out there,” he ranted as he began to shake Jerry a bit.

“Calm down Russ and get a grip. I don’t want to have to hit you but I will if you don’t let me go.”

Russ released him and stepped back before his eyes rolled back into his head and he dropped like a ton of bricks. Jerry was at his side instantly. He looked up at the woman who had her back to them, looking out to the trees as if she were prepared for another attack.

“What happened to him?
” he asked.

“A bear attacked him and I saved him,” she lied. He knew that she was lying.

“A bear?” he asked as he looked Russ over. He sure looked like he’d been mauled.

“A bear,” she confirmed.

“Well we better get him to a hospital,” Jerry said as he sat back on his heals.

She scanned the woods for a few minutes and then lifted her nose as if she were s
niffing the air. She nodded and turned back to them, swiftly descending on Russ. She turned him over on one side and then the other as if he weighed nothing more than a small child. She looked over every inch of him.

“Generally the wallet is kept in the back pocket,” Jerry said as he watched her.

She smiled up at him. “I’m not going to rob him shug, though it would serve him right if I did. Isn’t it illegal to hunt so close to town?” she asked.

“Is that what the story is then? He was hunting and a bear came af
ter him, and you saved his life?” he asked.

“T
hat sound good to you, no?”

He sighed and shook his head. “Maybe. But it’s not the truth.”

She shrugged, a hint of mischief sneaking into the corner of her mouth. “Who says it’s not? If you want to believe it, it will be true.”

“If I want to believe it,” he confirmed. “Why were you checking him?”

“I couldn’t have let you take him to the hospital if he had been bitten now could I?” she asked menacingly.

Jerry’s heart hammered in his chest as he sho
ok his head. “It wasn’t a dream then?”

She watched him curiously and some shadow passed over her face. “Your life will be much easier if it was.”