Taming the Night (Creatures of the Night Book 1) (22 page)

She finished pumping gas and replaced the nozzle before recapping and getting in the car. He followed suit. “
I can eat small amounts if I like. It just doesn’t sit right in my stomach, and it’s uncomfortable to pass it because it comes out the same way it went in.” He made a face and she laughed.

“You can’t digest it?”

“No. I can taste it but I don’t get hungry for it. I don’t crave it and it doesn’t satisfy me. Every once in a while I have a bit of chocolate or a hard drink. Something in the chocolate and liquor still has an effect on me that I like. I never did like liquorish though,” she said as they got out on the highway.

“How could you not like liquorish? Every person on the planet likes liquorish,” he said as he bit into the sweet cherry flavored twizzler again.

“I had a rule with candy,” she said. This got his curiosity going.

“Okay. This should be good. The queen of the whole rebel without a cause thing had a rule. What was the rule? Please tell me, inquiring minds want to know.”

If he didn’t know any better he would say that she was blushing when she turned her face away from him.

“I can beg all night you know.”

There was a twinkle in her eye when she looked back to him. He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Okay. I walked right into that one. Let me say it for you. ‘I know some other things you could do all night long, cher,’” he mocked her in his best Creole which sounded like a cross between a hairy woman and a German man.

“I do not sound like that,” she stated with a laugh.

“No, ma patite,” he mocked again in a prissy voice. She laughed even harder.

“You don’t sound like the
Creole, cher. You sound like a drowned duck. When you say it it should sound fluid like making love, like water. You say non ma petite not NO MA PATITE. You sound like you are wearing combat boots to speak the language.”

He laughed as well. “You’re just mad cause that’s how you sound.”

“S'il vous plait, non. Never. Not once in my life does my accent sound like this.”

He liked the way French seemed to color her language the more she talked about herself and what she used to do. He wondered if she noticed she was talking about her past, but he wasn’t going to be the one that brought it to her attention.

“Okay. So what’s the rule?”

She shook her h
ead. “Look at you. You are like a school girl waiting to hear a juicy gossip,” she said flatly to him. He must have looked just that way facing her with a twizzler hanging off his lip but he didn’t care. A little normal was called for right now since he was surely racing off towards whatever diabolical thing Cherish had waiting for him. The thought of Cherish made his gut turn just a bit.

“No candy that sticks in your teeth,” she said as if sensing the downward spiral of his thoughts.

“What?! That leaves out over half the candies in the world, maybe even two thirds! That is outrageous!”

She was laughing again. “I liked milk chocolate and milk shakes and ice cream.”

“What about gummi bears.”

“I was the queen of gummi bears. Once when I was a little girl. My mama
n-”

Jerry watched her as she seemed to hit some mental brick wall. “What?”

She shook her head as she hit the gas. “Get down Jerry.” They were the only words she was able to get in before they hit what felt like a mountain. The car flipped end over end until he was lying on the roof of the car and the world went dark.

Chapter Twelve

Al ripped the seatbelt from her shoulder with one clean yank. She was tired of this. These wolves were out of control. She hadn’t even seen that attack coming until it was too late. They had been piled up in the middle of the road like sandbags. Didn’t they know that they could kill Jerry? If their purpose was to have Jerry to themselves
, didn’t they know they could have killed him with a stunt like that? He wasn’t even wearing his seat belt. He had been so busy teasing her he must have forgotten.

Apparently the wolves
weren’t that much smarter than before, but they kept catching her unaware. She reached into the backseat and pulled her satchel forward. She had just grabbed her biggest gun when Jerry began to move. She thought that he was moving on his own until she looked at his face. He was completely out, a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth. He was moving because something outside had reached in and grabbed his leg. She grabbed his arm and allowed them to pull her with him. When she emerged she fired on everything moving. The wolves cleared a circle around her but refused to move back. More came forward to replace the ones that had been taken out.

She stood over Jerry, waiting for one of them to make their move, but it seemed like they were waiting for her instead. Headlights passed and the driver honked loudly. The driver had to have seen what appeared to be wild animals surrounding and attacking innocent victims. She cursed and prayed that they would just keep on driving but once the truck got a safe distance away she saw the brake lights.

A few shotgun shells escaped the cab of the pickup before it was overrun by wolves. Two bodies were drug off into the woods and she wondered if they would be food or reinforcement. Jerry stirred beneath her and for just a moment her attention was taken off the creatures. In that moment they were mobbed and she lost her gun. Her hair was ripped out, her body was clawed, and one of them bit down on her half healed shoulder. She cried out in pain.

“Stop it!” Jerry’s voice broke through the commotion. To her shock the creatures stopped.

“Put her down!” She was passed over the head of a few wolves to be deposited at Jerry’s feet. She sat up and held her torn bustier up with one arm. He pulled her to her feet to stand at his side.

“Okay,” he said
, facing the creatures who were breathing hard and looking at him with those crazy manic grins on their faces. “We’ll go with you, just don’t hurt her any more.”

Two wolves stepped forward and she was shocked when one put his hand out to Jerry and one put his hand out to her. Jerry reached out first
and placed his hand in the wolf’s. He was quickly pulled up on to the wolf’s back and it began running through the woods. It went against every fiber of her being to do it, but she wasn’t going to let them run off with Jerry without her. She picked up her gun from the asphalt, stuffed it in her pants and took the creatures hand. It slung her on its back and they were suddenly speeding through the night. She didn’t have to ask to know where they were headed.

*
                            *                            *

Al looked at the coating of slim that
saturated the front of her with disgust. She slung her arms and saliva flew every which way.

“Okay. That was a
great idea,” she said as she looked over at Jerry. He was similarly covered and similarly disgusted. She laughed and pointed at him. “So much for the clothes of your choice. You look like you just had a baby seal throw up on you, cher.”

He sent her an angry glare. “Gee. Tell me how you really feel.”

She used her hands to slide most of the sludge from her leather pants. It slid off easily enough and she was glad again that she was wearing leather.

“See. That’s why I hate cars. It’s too easy to get crunched like a soda can.”

“Where do you think we are?” he asked as he looked up at the lightening sky rubbing the back of his neck. He probably had a concussion from the car accident. She looked around the area. They were somewhere in the middle of the woods. She looked up at the low hanging clouds.

“I would say we’re back in the Smokies.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. It was covered in ooze. She tossed it away in anger. Jerry jogged over and picked it up, wiping it on his pants.

“It’s fried,” she said.

“I might be able to get it to work once it dries out.” She gave him a disagreeable look but kept any comment on his probable ability to fix the phone to her self.

She reached into her other pocket and brightened considerably. She took out
a pack of dry cigarettes. She pulled one out and then pulled out her skull and cross bones lighter. She lit a cigarette before she managed a glance at her shoulder. It was oozing blood. Jerry had given her a lot of blood before, a months worth, but after having most of her skin flayed, her arm ripped off, and a car accident, she was running low again.

A plaid shirt appeared in her line of sight and she looked up. She hadn’t even noticed he w
as getting near. He looked serious as he used his button up shirt as a bandage for her bleeding arm.

“Why are you a
lways tryin’ to take care of me?” she asked quietly.

“That
’s what people do when they love each other,” he said as he concentrated on the arm. “Besides. I didn’t use my excellent surgical skills to sew this arm back on just to have it fall off again.”

She smiled and shook her head
as she stubbed her cigarette on the bottom of her shoe. He had said it out loud. He had said that he loved her and while she wanted to fight against it in her heart, she wanted to kick the emotions back out of her world, she couldn’t. She realized with a start that she loved him just as much as she had ever loved anyone including… She swallowed and shook her head. She dabbed at the blood at the corner of his mouth with the shirt he had used to bandage her up, attempting to ignore the emotions rising within her.

“All right. Don’t let your throat close. I don’t exp
ect you to say it back. I just-”

“I love you too.”
She stopped dabbing. She hadn’t meant to say it, but looking up into his handsome face and knowing that one or both of them might not make it through the day…

“Well,” he said but didn’t say anyt
hing else. He seemed to be at a loss for words. His white t-shirt gleamed in the morning sunlight and she felt the love swell in her soul as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close.

“If we make it through this we are headed straight to the nearest hotel and please… one hotel room will do, chivalry be damned.”

She devoured his lips. There was no holding anything back. He grasped her hips and pulled her closer and she thought she just might melt into the ground. Damn but the man could kiss. His tongue delved into her mouth and his muscled chest felt like heaven pressed right up against her. If only there was some way that she could keep him, hold on to him forever. Too soon a voice broke into their secluded little interlude.

“Well. Isn’t this cozy?
”

Al growled as she parted from Jerry and turned on the intruder. She blinked in shocked surprise but managed to keep up a lethal gaze.
Cherish Imam was in a word, gorgeous. She was very exotic, her Middle Eastern heritage evident in her green eyes and flawless tanned skin. Her hair was long and curly, and she dressed like an avenging angel in a white sleeveless turtle neck and white slacks.

She looked like the type of woman that
could be just as comfortable being a swim suit model or a politician’s wife. She was international and classy and everything that Al was not. Who would ever divorce a woman like this? Then the things she had done to Jerry came back to mind and Al had the urge to rip that sedate smile right off her perfectly made up face. Still, it was hard to reconcile this woman with the callous woman Jerry had described. Al didn’t know what she’d expected but not this.

“Jerry. I see you’re still dressing like a child.”

“Yep. That’s me. Love to play in the mud, ride on the backs of hairy monsters sent after you by your ex-wife, go fishing. You know me. Regular outdoorsman.”

Cherish made a
n appalled face and then strode off. Al had to wonder how she kept her spike stiletto boots from sinking in the forest floor. It was almost as if she glided across the top of the foliage. She just moved her feet for their benefit. Al looked to Jerry but he was already following Cherish. He grabbed her hand on the way past and she allowed it as she stepped up to walk beside him.

They walked until th
ey reached a clearing. There were no wolves, but there were several men of intimidating size standing around two bound and gagged people. Al recognized the Chief right away. The woman that sat tied behind him bore a striking resemblance to both Jerry and Chief Hernandez. She wore a similar scowl as well. She was no little old lady with graying hair. Her midnight black hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her body looked lean and athletic, as if she were a runner. For a woman that had to be in her fifties she looked damn good. She looked like the type that might peel your skin with her sharp tongue.

They came to a halt as Cherish turned to face them. She looked at Jerry and he looked back at h
er. “So… How about those Lakers?” he said breaking the silence.

She scoffed. “You are such a child. The powers that be must have been laughing their heads off at giving such a ridiculous person such extraordinary power.”

Al saw all teasing flee from Jerry’s face as a muscle tightened in his jaw. He stood straighter. She stepped in front of him. “Maybe you just don’t make his nature rise
feme fatal,
because I can guarantee you that he is no little boy.”

Cherish reached out and wrapped a hand around Al’s throat. Al attempted to swat her hand away but with a suddenness that was shocking the other woman crushed her windpipe. She felt the delicate tube collapse under the other woman’s effortless squeeze.
She couldn’t breath or speak. She lashed out at the other woman, striking her several times in the face with blows that should have shattered the delicate looking bones in her cheek and nose, but each time the woman’s face simply rearranged to present a perfect mask once again. She was like a snake with shifting scales.

“Put her down.”

Al saw from the corner of her eye that Jerry had pulled a gun and was aiming it at Cherish. The men standing around the prisoners then withdrew long swords and pointed them down at the prisoners in the center of them.

“If you move one muscle they will look like a chopped salad my darling,” Cherish hissed.

*

Jerry felt his heart pounding hard. He was between a rock and a hard place. He had a feeling that it didn’t matter what he did, they were all going to die, after Cherish had her way with him. He took a deep breath to steal his nerves. It would break his heart to loose his mother and Uncle, but he wouldn’t let Cherish just kill Al.

“Let her go,” he said as he turned the gun to his own head. “If you don’t let them go then you are going to need to wait another thousand years for your next sperm donor.”

Everyone froze then. Cherish’s eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t dare,” she challenged.

He took a deep breath as he thought it through. Everyone he loved would be better off without him. Al shook her head and reached for him as his finger tightened a bit on the trigger. It would be over fast. Cherish wouldn’t get her sperm and they could all be together on the other side. He didn’t care what Al said. She wouldn’t be in this world forever, not at the end of the world. It would be like the blink of an eye and they’d be together again. His finger tightened ever so slightly more.

“Release them,” Cherish said with authority and the swords were withdrawn and
sheathed. Al was dropped to the ground.

“And you will leave them alone when we are gone,” he asked without alleviating an o
unce of pressure from the trigger.

“I will leave them as long as no one follows me,” she promised. “If she comes I will destroy her.”

Al sat up holding her throat shaking her head. Her vocal cord must have been crushed completely. He knew she was trying her best to curse but not even a squeak passed her lips. Jerry looked to her. “Take care of my family,” he said.

*

Swifter than her eye could comprehend, Jerry and the others were gone from sight like a phantom that had never been there.
Only the shifting of the trees indicated their passing. These were old world wolves. They were strong and fast and she knew with a certainty that she would never catch them. She crawled over to the bound people. She pulled at their bounds until they loosened enough for the two to get free. Once they were free she fell to her back and allowed tears to flood her eyes.

She looked up at the blue sky and the clouds over head. She closed her eyes and
concentrated on her injuries. She felt them begin to heal before a hand touched her arm. She flinched as she opened her eyes.

“Are you all right?
” asked a surprisingly husky female voice. Al stuck out her hand.

“My name is
Alicia,” she said and the words rasped over her bruised vocal cords like hot coals.