Cherishing Destiny (A Dangerous Destiny) (15 page)

She asked Sara to trust her as she moved around to unzip
Sara’s dress.  She saw a few bruises in the shape of bite marks around Sara’s
shoulders and upper back.  She maneuvered Sara’s dress all the way off,
slipping it under her hips and all the way down over her feet.   Sara sat on
the blanket in only her panties, but she was far from cold as Aurora had her blood
heated and flowing.

Aurora extended her fangs and punctured her wrist holding
the wound open for a moment to keep it from closing.  She let a small amount of
blood pool on her arm and used her fingers to paint the blood onto Sara’s
damaged skin.  After a moment, she began to, slowly and methodically, lick the blood
back off.  Leaving Sara’s skin smooth and creamy where the blood had healed her
marks. 

She lowered Sara to the blanket on her back and proceeded
to finger-paint Sara’s breasts, especially her red, swollen nipples.   She let
the healing properties of her Vampire blood work its magic on Sara, noting that
it seemed to be taking a little longer than it should have for minor bruises
and scraped skin to heal.  But the injuries weren’t serious, and it wasn’t a
long wait before Aurora was lapping the blood from Sara’s firm, pretty
breasts.  She sucked the hard little nipples, happy to see that they were back
to a healthy pink and puckering at the pleasure of Aurora’s suckling mouth and delicate
tongue.  By the time Aurora had rolled Sara over, removed her panties, and
repeated the healing process with Sara’s sore and tender buttocks, Sara was moist
and squirming under Aurora’s attentions.  Aurora was kneeling between Sara’s
legs, licking the last of the blood from Sara’s round bottom and she slid her
fingers underneath Sara, cupping Sara’s hot sex in her hand.  She pulled back
until she could feel the little rosebud between Sara’s soft, wet folds, hard
against her finger.  She flicked across it, then rubbed it with her fingertips
until Sara was pushing against her hand and crying out in a trembling climax. 

Aurora let her fingers slide along the crevice that opened
into Sara’s tight wet depths.  She was only teasing a little because she was
done firing up the little woman for the time being.  She smiled.  She had her
own small cruelties, and one was to leave Sara wanting more every time she
touched her.  Sara moaned her disappointment and reluctantly pulled her cloths back
on.  Aurora had noted and healed rub marks on Sara’s inner thighs from riding
her horse in a dress. 
We need to find her some pants before we leave
,
she thought. 

Sara let her head rest in Aurora’s lap while they looked
out over the water and talked some more.  Sara talked about Ryan and her anger
at him for hiding so much of himself from her.  “I don’t understand why he felt
that he couldn’t confide in me. We were so close when we were younger.”

Aurora was unsure if she should interfere, but in the end
she felt compelled to pass on the story of Ryan’s disappearance to Sara.  She
hoped it would help Sara to see that Ryan, in his way, was trying to protect
her and in the early years did not have many options that could have included
Sara. 

“I guess I can understand that part, but what about later
after he came home? Why couldn’t he tell me then?” she wanted to know.

“Little dove, he loves you and is worried that you think
he’s a monster,” Aurora soothed. 

“I love him too, but he can’t lie to me about something as
important as this.”

“He will do whatever he thinks he needs to in order to
protect you, even if it means keeping things from you.  That’s what big
brother’s do,” Aurora said ruffling Sara’s hair and trying to lighten the mood.

Aurora figured that it must be around 10:30 AM.  She was
already getting skilled at telling the time of day from the position of the
sun.  She checked her accuracy with Ryan as they rode yesterday before they ran
into trouble.  He was the only one that was wearing a watch that didn’t run on
batteries.  Now she wondered how accurate she was since he was not there to confirm
it.

Just then she heard someone clear his throat loudly, and
both women spun to witness a scruffy-faced man holding what looked like a silver
short sword to the back of Alex’s neck, against his spine. His other hand was
firmly gripping a mass of tawny hair on top of Alex’s head.  Alex looked
furious, and Aurora was afraid he might try something stupid.  She leapt to her
feet, eyes flashing red and fangs springing into place.  The scruffy man just
Ahem’d again and indicated to his right with his head. 

Aurora looked to where he gestured and saw five more men
smiling broadly at her and Sara.  Two of them had crossbows pointed at Aurora. 
One of them lifted his bow so that she could get a look at the shiny silver
head on his quarrel before he lowered it back down to aim at her.  Of the other
three, one was cleaning his fingernails with a vicious looking hunting knife,
and another held an enormous silver knife that looked almost like a machete.  It
was clear that these men already knew that firearms were not working in the new
world, and they had armed themselves more appropriately than Greasy Hair and
his pals.  She started thinking of the new lead asshole as Scruffy and Scruffy
finally spoke up. 

“I figure that taking a Vampire’s head off still works
these days, so that’s just what I’m gonna do if you don’t do exactly what I
say.”  He leered at Aurora up and down, stripping her with his eyes when he
said it.

Aurora approved of this attitude. This might be a lot
easier than I thought, she was thinking when Scruffy motioned for her to
approach.

“Slowly,” he said. “You too, Girl,” he yelled at Sara.

She got up and followed, and when she was close enough,
Aurora reached out and shoved Sara directly behind her, putting herself between
Sara and the weapons. She slowly walked toward Scruffy and Alex.  All the years
of unspoken communication between Aurora and Alex paid off in spades at that
moment.  Alex’s look and posture told Aurora that he was about to make a move
and that she should be ready to back him.  She blinked at him almost
imperceptibly to show him that she understood.  Somehow in the shift of expression
in his eyes and a glance toward Sara, he was able to impart regret that Sara
was about to be put in danger.  Aurora’s fierce look in return told Alex that
she had no intention of letting Sara be harmed if she could help it. 

Alex used his eyes to signal Aurora and then he blurred
into motion, yanking his head forward, losing some of his hair in the process,
and rolled in a somersault that spun at the end to leave him facing his
opponent.  Scruffy’s reflexes were fantastic, and he lunged at Alex with the
blade, faster than Alex could regain his feet.  He continued rolling in the direction
of his momentum, but this time on his back.  He grabbed Scruffy, pulling the
man over with him and using his feet to help throw Scruffy to the ground. 

Scruffy was ferocious and nearly as strong as Alex.  Alex
was baffled until Scruffy began to morph while they struggled.  Black stripes
began to appear through Scruffy’s gold facial hair.  His teeth were growing,
long, thick and pointed and his ears were tufting.  His eyes glowed greenish,
and Alex could feel sharp claws starting to dig into the flesh of his arm where
Scruffy was gripping him as they grappled. 
A Were of the Tiger Clan!
 
Alex was stunned. 
How could a Were be in league with the humans trying to
kill them?
  He didn’t have time to think about it as he was truly
struggling for his life.

Aurora reacted the instant Alex moved.  She shoved Sara to
the ground and flew toward the five men with Vampire speed.  The crossbows let
loose, and a quarrel grazed Aurora’s ear as it passed. The silver stung like mad,
but since the quarrel was not imbedded, the wound began healing with the same
speed as any other.  The other bolt missed entirely. She reached the two men on
the end closest to her, one had the hunting knife, and one had the crossbow
that had just missed.  Her fangs were so long that she couldn’t close her mouth,
and she hissed her fury at them as she ran up the center between them,
snatching the throats of the man on either side and slamming them both to the ground
on their backs.  The man with the knife reacted fast enough to cut her beneath
the arm, across her ribs, even as she tore his throat out with claws she had
produced just for the occasion.  The other never even knew what hit him. 

As Aurora hit the two men at full speed from the front, she
saw a giant black beast hit the other three from the back.  They flew past each
other in opposite directions like passing freight trains.  By the time Aurora
stood with the blood of the two dripping from her fingers and her own blood
soaking her side, the beast had dispatched the other men.  The man who shot her
with the silver had no head.  It had been ripped from his shoulders and had
rolled several feet away.  The two others had kept their heads but not their
limbs.  In the split second she spared to glance at them, she could not
distinguish which body parts went with whom.   Her own wound was already
closing, and the bleeding stopped.

Aurora turned toward Alex, who was now fighting a half
transformed
Were
-tiger.  The tiger was clearly not as practiced as Ryan
and was still in the process of trying to change while fighting at the same
time.  The rest had been human, and she and the beast had dealt with them in
seconds.  She hadn’t realized any more than Alex had that he was dealing with a
Were
.  Alex was holding his own, and as Aurora watched, he rolled and
threw the tiger-man over himself again.  By that time, they were well outside
the shelter and half way down toward the shore.  Sara lay on the ground nearby
trying to stay low and out of the way.  As Alex tossed the
Were
, he used
Alex’s trick and continued to roll in a somersault until he was on top of
Sara.  He snatched her from the ground and held the blade to her throat. 

Aurora hissed again in pure fury as the
Were
-tiger
stepped backwards with Sara trapped against him.  An enormous black shape rose
up behind him and snatched him by the back of the neck.  Aurora heard the snap
and crunch of bone, and the blade fell to the grass in front of Sara.  The body
of the
Were
-tiger collapsed in a heap, and Sara turned to find herself
staring into the face of a gigantic black wolf, with blood dripping from his ferocious
display of sharp teeth.  She fell backwards on her butt in her fear and
surprise.  She was sure it was Ryan, but the beast stalked over her splayed
legs and brought his face within an inch of hers.  Suddenly, the snarling
muzzle of the beast shrank back in its head, and the fur retracted into skin
that was obviously human. In seconds, Sara was face to face with her brother,
Ryan.  She cried out her relief and threw her arms around his neck. 

Twenty

They packed up quickly, and no one said much.  They were
all lost in their own thoughts.  Both Ryan and Alex were trying to work out the
how, and why of a
Were
-tiger leading a small group of humans that were
hunting Vampires and other
Were
.   Not that
Weres
and Vampires really
cared much for each other, most of the time, but certainly those humans were a
common enemy. 

Aurora was cleaning the blood from her hands and side, her
wound closing, but as the case had been lately, it was knitting more slowly
than was normal for her.  The evidence that something was wrong with her and
Alex was getting hard to ignore, but she wasn’t sure where she would even begin
trying to develop any theories.

Sara was packing in a daze.  She was feeling overwhelmed by
the last couple of days.  Her head was spinning with the images of the
earthquakes, the Vampires, the sex, the blood and the killing.  Her own brother
was a beast that she barely believed existed before yesterday, and he was
responsible for much of the horrifying violence that had surrounded her the
last day or two.  It was hard to reconcile the brother she loved with the beast
that had ripped out a man’s spine just a few minutes ago.  She was certain,
however, that a large part of his motivation was her protection, and she
wondered, uncomfortably, if that made her partially responsible for the
deaths.  Her thoughts grew morbid and pensive until Aurora touched her shoulder
and she nearly jumped out of her skin.  Aurora handed her some jeans she had
obviously taken from one of the bodies.  They were going to be way too big, but
Aurora had found her a belt, as well.  Sara shuddered at the idea of wearing a
dead man’s clothes, but she remembered the pain of riding in her dress and took
the pants with gratitude. 

Alex and Ryan were packing the horses, and as Ryan fastened
the crossbow, he had left with Alex, to his saddle, he gave the brooding
Vampire a look of censure.  Alex didn’t feel he could argue with the young
Were
as he was feeling the guilt of near failure.  He knew Ryan was angry that he
had not protected Sara better, and he felt the same about Aurora, as well. 

He felt inadequate and bewildered.  He should have easily
been able to handle the
Were
that attacked him, but they had been very
evenly matched and he had struggled to stay out of the reach of the silver
blade.  He cringed when he thought about how he had allowed Sara to be taken. 
If
Ryan hadn’t been able to surprise him from behind, what would have happened to
Sara?
He didn’t understand what was happening to his body. He had never heard
of or experienced anything like this weakness in the past.  He knew that after
their safety was secured, he was going to have to seek answers.