Taming the Heart (Creatures of the Night Book 2) (24 page)

“Braden, no,” she cried out, but he had heard enough.

Albion had ruined her life when she had committed no other infraction other than being destined to mate with him. Albion changed forms and then threw off his robe to reveal that the disfiguring boils consumed his flesh with random hairs growing out of the boils. His eyes were freakish in his grotesque face.

“Do you really want to do this? I was going to let you live so that I could play with you a while longer, but I can move on to the other protectors if you are finished playing games.” His voice was deeper, more menacing, coming from his k-9 shaped snout.

“The only thing you will be moving on to is the grave,” Braden countered.

*

How things had gone so wrong so quickly, Miranda did not know. One moment she had been winning against the creatures, the next she had lost her legs and was watching Braden run into the fray alone. She had to get her legs back. She closed her eyes to concentrate but for some reason she just kept on seeing Katie’s shocked look as she was snatched out of the van that night. She looked off to the edge of the woods to find a flame haired woman there in a tattered dress. Her arms were raised up and she was chanting something. Her eyes were rolled up into her head making it appear that her eyes had no pupils and were just purely white… and creepy.

“Please,” Miranda begged as she looked at the woman.

A few day walkers went down and she turned to see Braden brandishing one of the big silver blades that the men had strapped to their sides. He was beautifully graceful as he sliced easily through two more necks decapitating the men completely. They went down in a blazing heap but more replaced them and she heard more than saw Braden being bitten repeatedly.

Albion freed himself from the fray and looked towards her with a menacing grin. The same that that wolf had had the day it had bitten her. Miranda had the feeling that the day walker was going to do more to her than bite her arm. She turned and began to pull herself towards the chanting woman.

“Please,” she begged yet again as tears streaked the dirt on her face. “I’m pregnant. They are going to kill my baby.”

A tear slid free from the white eyes but the woman went on without hesitation. Miranda turned as a shadow fell across her. Albion loomed large over her. He reached down and drug her up by her lapels as if she weighed nothing. He tilted his head as he released one hand from her jacket and let it roam down over her ripening body. She cried out as his fingernails tore at the fabric and bit into her stomach.

He was going to reach into her and snatch her baby right out of her womb. Her air began to come short as she tried yet again to change. Just when he would have put his hand right inside of her a thundering roar came to her ears. It was not human or animal but it sounded like… a motorcycle?

A sleek deadly looking Harley erupted from the trees to her left and several circular blades went flying as a mocha skinned woman with long wild braids launched herself from her motorcycle. The circular blades decapitated a few men and she took aim at the witch with a big gun she had produced from her leather jacket after doing an impressive tuck and roll.

“Innocent,” she heard Braden scream from where he still fought the group of men.

Miranda saw the woman’s aim move by a slight degree and the blast hit the witch’s arm. The witch screamed as she went down and in that instant Miranda felt her legs come under her again. She reached up and grabbed the arm that restrained her. It broke beneath her grip and the beast cried out as he threw her away from him. She landed with a heavy thud and lay on her side for a long while as the world went in and out of focus.

“Miranda,” she heard Braden scream. There was a bit more fighting before he was at her side lifting her up. She felt pain lancing through her whole body, originating in her womb. “Are you all right?”

She clutched her stomach and looked up at him with fear. “Our baby,” she managed before she passed out cold.

Chapter Fifteen

Braden had had little cause to be found in an emergency room over the years and now he remembered why he was so wary of them. They smelled unnaturally clean and felt so very bright. His eyes were tired of the florescence and the sick people that came here who almost certainly infected each other without even meaning to. Alicia sat stoically in the chair she had been sitting in ever since Braden had revealed what he had learned from Albion about the pregnancy and the role of the protectors. She had been stunned to say the least, but it was hard to tell what she was thinking.

He was normally a hard man to read, but Al was like stone. It disturbed him the way she only moved every once in a while to pop a piece of bite sized red liquorish in her mouth. What was the deal with the red liquorish? And what was the deal with her? He had seen some terrible things in his life, Albion being chief among them, but the way she had looked after Albion had tossed Miranda aside… it was truly a thing of nightmares.

She was as big as Albion when she changed, but where he looked like a shark ready to devour in one bite, she looked like a shark, lion, bear, nightmare, all rolled into one. She was truly the scariest thing he had ever come across in all his time and she had nearly decapitated Albion with one swipe of her massive claws. Lucky for Albion that he decided to use his last bit of strength to run as far and as fast as he possibly could, and that Alicia hadn’t given chase.

Braden had seen the woman in action before but he never remembered her looking like that. She shouldn’t look like that either, at least not until she had been a hunter for a few thousand years. If what Albion said had any merit then that could be explained by her super hunter status. When he had told her that she was supposed to have a baby by the balance was when she had gone deathly silent.

No matter how he paced or looked over at her, she just sat there popping those stupid liquorish. He wanted to snatch the bag out of her pretty fingers and jump up and down on them. She put her liquorish away and stood beside him when a doctor came out to meet them. She smiled sweetly.

“She is going to be fine, but you should have had her see an OBGYN long before now. She’s well into her second trimester. I put her right at five months pregnant. I’m going to give her a prescription for prenatal vitamins, but be sure that you get her in to see a gynecologist. She’s going to need a lot of rest to recover from her fall but she will be all right. It happens all the time but be sure she isn’t getting up on any ladders again Mr. Rolling.”

He nodded in consent before she winked and moved away. He saw a slight grin curl one side of Alicia’s mouth. He shrugged. “They’d already seen her ID and I saw no point in showing them mine. They just assumed her last name was my last name.”

“Well, cher. I think the two of you are going to be safe from old Albion for a little while. Is there anything I can do to help yall more?”

“I need to get a hold of Bateman. She is only maybe two weeks pregnant… The way this is going that baby is going to be here next week. It’s drawing the life out of her.”

“Well I don’t think anyone is gonna be gettin’ hold of anyone for a little while so you just hold tight sugar. I will hang round til I’m sure that yall are safe.”

Braden looked at her and shook his head. He had been around her before and every time they had both come away wounded. Not now, however. There wasn’t even a tingle of anger. “I suppose this whole protector thing means we are not going to be pulling each other’s heads off anytime soon.”

“Though it is a shame, I must admit I am feeling rather fond of you at the moment, mon petite.”

He smiled and opened his arms wide. She rolled her eyes and put her shades on. “From a distance,” she amended as she turned on her heels and began to stalk out of the hospital, her mile long legs filling out her leather pants in a way that reeked havoc in her wake. She stopped at the entrance and looked over her shoulder at him. “I like that haircut by the way. Makes you look younger,” she tossed her long black braid over her shoulder, and then was gone.

Braden turned to head towards Miranda’s room. He didn’t know where the hell Bateman was, but he resigned himself to the fact that no one was going to help them through the rest of this. That meant he and Miranda had some time… alone. He grinned and stopped by the nurse’s station to ask when they would be releasing his ‘wife’.

*                            *                            *

Miranda was never so glad to see anything as she was Braden’s cabin. She had slept through the trip but once they arrived home she felt an overwhelming sense of homecoming. Braden carried her effortlessly to the couch and set her up so she could easily reach the lap top. He then went over and began to put the groceries he had bought some time during the trip away. He brought her back a stack of sandwiches and a half gallon of orange juice. She laughed when she saw him struggling with the tiny lid on a pill bottle.

He cursed a blue streak when the lid finally popped off and sent pills flying across the carpet. He sent her a long suffering glance as she continued to laugh at him. She put a hand to her lips to stifle the flow of laughter, but she couldn’t manage to fully get rid of her lingering smile. He came over and sat four horse sized pills in the palm of her hand.

“The prescription says I’m only supposed to take one a day,” she said softly.

“The way you’re growing you’re lucky I don’t have you take the whole bottle right this minute. You’ll be taking four more before you fall asleep again too.”

He turned and went to the kitchen and put butter in a heated skillet. “I think this will be enough,” she objected.

“You think that is enough for now, but you need to eat a lot more before you fall asleep again. You’ve been asleep since we left the hospital yesterday morning. I don’t know how long you’ll sleep next time and the baby needs the nourishment.”

She picked up a sandwich and sat back on the couch. She rested a hand on her belly and felt like this had to be some type of dream. It was like she had gone to sleep last night single and lonely and had woken up this morning with a great guy to cook for her and a baby in her tummy. A delicious feeling spread from her fingers to her toes. She was having a baby. Her family might be lost to her but the bloodline would be carried on through this little baby who would be born a grandchild and a nephew to a family that was mostly looking on it from a distant place.

A boy. She had been wary of going to the emergency room when Alicia had insisted that she go, but now she was glad she had gone. They had been able to tell her that the baby had survived the fall and that it was a boy. Somehow knowing the sex of the baby made all of this very real. She was going to have a son. She was going to be the mother of a little boy. If he looked anything like his father then he would have her wrapped around his little finger with just one look.

She began to hum softly as she wrapped her arms around her middle and rocked back and forth. As she looked down she noticed the newest addition to her motherly state. She released her stomach and grabbed her breasts. They had gone from C’s to D’s over night. She was almost bursting out of the low cut maternity shirt Alicia had purchased for her. If Miranda had anything to say about it she wouldn’t have bought anything quite so… sexy.

What could she expect though? The woman was sex on legs. She was the very definition of sexual. She was the type of woman that should have been on Braden’s arm. Miranda might have been jealous if it weren’t for the fact that Braden doted on her like there was not another woman on the planet. Miranda caught the scent of something burning and looked up to see what was happening. Braden was watching her intently and it was then she realized that she was still fondling her breasts.

“You must think I like Cajun food,” she said in a teasing way.

Her words snapped him back to his task and he cursed again as he removed the skillet from the heat and doused it under the running water. He quickly cleaned out the skillet and flipped another piece of fish into it. She loved any pan seared fish he made. Chef. One more thing he could add to the long list of careers waiting for him if he should give up this hunting thing.

“Why can’t I feel the wolves?” she asked as she leaned over to open the laptop on the table.

“Alicia is on patrol until this whole thing dies down.”

“What about her area?” She pulled up the website and felt let down that the page still read under construction.

“She will follow them down there if she must. I dare say she doesn’t mind the extra days filled with chasing the creatures. She is… different.”

Miranda looked up at him. She had thought she had been the only one to feel it, but apparently she wasn’t. “You felt it too?”

He plated the fish and stir fried veggies before he turned to her. He brought the plate to sit beside her plate of sandwiches. “I felt it,” he confirmed.

The smell of the fish stirred her appetite greatly and she barely managed to eat it one bite at a time. Before she realized what had happened, the fish, the veggies, the sandwiches, and the orange juice were gone. The baby rolled over as if he were reveling in the good food.

“It was like she made everything… calm. If I were a man I think I would be in love with her.”

Braden made a grunting sound as he pulled her up to his side and pulled the blanket from the back of the couch. He tucked her in securely beside him. She slipped her hand up to tangle her fingers in his hair as she now loved to do. It was nearly to his collar and he left it free more often now that it wasn’t so long. She could tell he missed his long hair, but that he also liked the way she petted it now. He almost purred as he put his head back to allow her better access. The baby rubbed against the side where his father touched her and she almost laughed. It tickled. Braden stiffened as she took his hand and pressed it against the baby.

“It’s okay. Your son wants to touch you. Maybe if you rub my belly he’ll be inclined to stop kicking my insides to pieces.”

“Is that what he’s doing to you?”

“That’s what all baby’s do, just not all of them have as much strength as Braden Jr.”

He stiffened even more at this assertion. She turned so she could look up into his face. His face was unreadable, but the tension in his body said more than his face would. “Are you all right?”

“I’m… it’s just going to be hard for me to… I mean I don’t want to get too attached if…” He cleared his throat and rearranged his coat.

She was at a loss as to what his problem was. “Are you nervous about the baby? Alicia said she would call me with the number of a midwife who-”

“No. I just don’t know how long… to stay?”

This not being able to read his face was getting on her last nerve. She grabbed his face and pulled it towards her.

“What do you mean? I thought you said you would never leave me again?”

The snow melted in his eyes as he looked down at her. She could see the fear and desperation he’d been trying to hide and it did something to her heart. “I told you that I wouldn’t force you to stay with me. I would watch you from a distance if you wanted.”

She melted into his eyes and knew that she was lost. “No. I don’t want you watching from a distance.”

He pushed off the couch and the steal returned to his spine as he paced before her. “Now look. I won’t force you to be with me, but I am going to watch over you and my child if only from a distance so you can-”

“I want you to stay with me… forever.”

He stopped speaking as he paused to look at her. He was the most handsome and selfless man she had ever met. He was as ageless and as beautiful as a Norwegian mountain could be. And he was hers.

He came back to her and before she could say anything else he scooped her up and made his way toward the bedroom. He kicked the door to the bedroom open and she laughed out loud.

“Now don’t go doing damage to the house again. I don’t want to have to pay for the damage done.”

“You haven’t paid for anything yet,” he said with a bark of laughter as he gently laid her down. “So does this mean that you will marry me?”

He lay beside her and stroked her face before he swept feather light kisses over her face. She cleared her throat and shook her head.

“That depends.”

“On what,” he asked as he kissed her mouth, setting her body on fire instantly.

“Do you love me?” she whispered softly against his lips. He pulled back and gazed down at her adoringly. She felt silly for asking but he had never really said it. He took one of her hands into his larger one and held it to his chest.

“Do you feel that?” he asked her. His heart beat was strong and steady. She nodded. “It only does that for you. As long as this heart is beating it will beat only for you. I love you like my own heart.”

Tears sprang to her eyes and he growled as he rolled his eyes. “What did I tell you about all that crying?”

“Will you feed me to the wolves for crying because I love you so much general?” she asked with a grin.

“It depends,” he replied quickly.

“On what?”

“Weather or not you beat me at chess again.”

She laughed out loud before she pulled his head down to hers and ended their teasing with a deep kiss. The whole world might have gone crazy, but this was good and right here in his arms, and there was no place she would rather be.