Annie And The Cowboy (Western Night Series 3) (65 page)

“Because it has to be, Giddens,” Daniel responded, his voice now giving off a distinct sense of irritation. “Nothing less could have resulted in what we have here.”

He knows me too well for me to try to bluff.
Closing her eyes and taking a moment to calm herself down, Charlotte knew that she had only one more option. She had to rely on the good and trustworthy nature of the man she just met.

“Michael,” she spoke to her dragon, but he was too busy staring death-threats into the eyes of her partner. “Michael, look at me right now!”

Slowly, the man she used to call Cinder moved his eyes and nothing else toward her general location. It appeared that this was the first time he ever found himself in a truly life-threatening situation, and almost refused to believe it, standing in place and waiting for it to pass.

“Listen, I know all you can think about right now is killing Dan here, but just compose yourself and think about it for a minute, all right?” From the way his expression did not change, she could conclude that what she said did not have that much of an effect, so she decided to keep going. “My dragon, my lover… Please believe me, the only reason that my partner has his gun in front of your face is because he’s scared of you. Scared that you’ll lash out at him as soon as he relents. But you won’t, right?”

Still silent, Michael kept staring into her eyes as intensely as he could from his angle.
This doesn’t seem to be working.

“Try to calm down, okay? Try to look at it this way: at the moment he lowers his pistol, he will no longer be a threat to you. You lose nothing by exercising restraint this time. I know Dan. He won’t rat you out after he leaves if you don’t give him a reason.”

Still nothing. Oh, come on, Michael, don’t be a big dumb lizard!
There was no way around it. She had to go all in.

“Michael, if you do kill Dan after he decides to spare your life, I won’t leave town with you. Not only that, but you will have proven that you’re nothing more than what we thought you were: a psycho with a thing for large fires. I couldn’t feel any affection or loyalty toward someone like that. Understand?”

Still angry, but visibly shaken by what Charlotte just told him, Michael’s gaze slowly floated back toward Daniel. For an indeterminate amount of time, the two men stared each other down, seemingly with no end in sight. The former policewoman almost thought that her speech had been counterproductive. Then, out of the blue, Daniel, the man who never botched a case, lowered his pistol, turned around and started walking away.

Michael merely stood in place, both of his fists clenched so hard they were shaking.

Thanks, Dan. I owe you big time.
At first, Charlotte considered running up to her partner and hugging him one last time, but she quickly remembered that it would probably be the last thing he wanted, right now or ever.

Besides,
she thought, turning her stare toward the man whose life she just saved,
the man I’d rather hold right now is standing right here.
Grabbing Michael as hard as she could, the former policewoman expected to get grabbed in return. Instead, all she got was some slow breathing and a blank expression. He was in shock.

Not saying a word, Charlotte embraced her lover. At first, he didn’t react, but after an indeterminate amount of time, the man slowly lifted his arms before wrapping them around her soft frame.

The dragon was human after all.

                                                                                    ***

On a remote tropical beach, somewhere far, far away, Charlotte lied in the sun, enjoying the chance to display her generous curves. Next to her lay her husband, a shining example of everything she liked in a man. And he was all hers.

Life was good. Michael had used some of his money to acquire a nearby hotel, taking care of all their living and financial needs for the foreseeable future. The slayers didn’t appear yet. Hopefully they never will.

Content, Charlotte took another sip of her chocolate flavored milkshake. Left and right, people played ball, swam, or merely laid out in the open, enjoying the day. This life was completely different from the one she used to lead as what she now jokingly referred to as a “waste remover”. 
God, I got used to this quickly, didn’t I?

The pressures of policing the slums of New York City behind her, the former detective relished this chance to finally let herself go. With no need to run around, chase anyone, or skip the occasional meal, Charlotte has become larger than ever, all to the pleasure of a very supportive Michael.

“I think you might have gotten a little bit bigger, honey,” he commented, unable to avert his eyes from her voluptuous bosom. “Just look at those babies,” he continued, slapping one them with the palm of his hot hand, producing a juicy thud.

Charlotte loved the way her man displayed his affections. She loved what he was. Most importantly, she loved him for
who
he was, unconditionally and without reserve, and he responded in kind.

“Want us to put them to use again? Along with a few of the other parts you like?” she purred, pouting her lips just the way liked them. “Somewhere private, I mean.”

Smiling, and with fire in his eyes, Michael leapt to his feet, extending one hand to help his lover rise. “Charlotte, my dear,” he spoke, right at the moment she was upright “There is no part of you that I don’t like.”

Always such a romantic,
the former detective thought, wrapping another hand around her shape-shifting lover as she engulfed his hard, burning frame with her curvy, soft one. In throes of passion, she stuck her tongue down his throat as they shared a kiss that was hot enough to melt the poles.

“Come here, you,” she finally spoke after their mouth separated, pulling his hand and taking the first step toward the hotel. “We don’t want you to get full before the main course, right?”

“Honey,” her dragon answered, “You know that there’s no way for me to get too much of
this
,” walking next to her, he ended his sentence by firmly grabbing her right ass cheek, sending ripples of pleasantly jiggling flesh over her body.

Feeling that electric sensation of arousal spread up and down her spine, Charlotte bit her lip while picking up the pace.
When some things are concerned, patience is definitely not a virtue,
she concluded, traversing the sand with a speed few would expect from a woman of her size.

It might be warm out here on the beach… But our office is about to get infinitely hotter.

THE END

BONUS BOOK 5

Mythical Lust

Shifter Romance

By: Jodie Springer

Mythical Lust

On a sunny beach, close to the great city of Knossos, an introspective figure stared off into the horizon above the Aegean Sea.

It’s all the same,
she thought, as she did every other day, before turning around to take another look at the area around her. People of all ages and backgrounds frolicked around the coast, relishing their time in the sun as if it was a gift from the gods themselves.

Perhaps it is,
Adrasteia mused for a short moment. As if by command, her thoughts instantly refocused themselves toward what inevitably came next.
If the gods granted us the day, then who gave us the night?
For a while she stood like that, considering the implications of what would inevitably come next.

And why,
she finally found the courage to ask herself,
do we avoid it like the plague?

Indeed, Knossos was the jewel of the civilized world. Every man, woman and child knew that there was no better place to live or spend the day. After sunset, however, the city-state and its surroundings would inevitably turn into the most silent place in the world, as everyone hastily retreated into the safety of their own home or the closest inn.

The nights weren’t safe, the people of Knossos knew. It was an established fact as much as it was known that the Boatman demanded payment to row you into the Underworld. Something like that was to be expected of course, knowing that brigands, slavers, and various other unsavory characters roamed around great cities in the dark.

The island of Crete, however, had practically no crime to speak of. Those with the gall to stalk the night in search of victims would quickly disappear, never to be seen again. It had been like that for decades. “Go outside when it’s dark and you’re as good as dead,” the elderly would say.

“For that’s when the Minotaur roams,” Adrasteia finished the sentence aloud, being noticed by absolutely no one.

The bull man,
the woman spoke again, this time only in her thoughts.
The eater of men.The terror of Crete.
She turned toward the sea again, letting her gaze fall downward in order to take a look at her own reflection. A beautiful, raven haired woman, dressed in a white linen dress, stared back at her.

Conjuring the image of a much younger girl that stood in that same place ages ago, the woman merely remained like that for a while, before finally speaking again. “Savior of Adrasteia,” she said, adding a new title to the already impressive list that the Minotaur already possessed.

It happened so long ago,
she remembered,
but it remains so vivid it might as well have taken place yesterday.
She remembered everything, especially the way she was as a young girl: energetic, passionate, and full or resentment toward rules and authority.

Not much has changed in that regard,
she thought, chuckling for a second. But then, the rest of the memories came pouring in, wiping anything that resembled a smile off her face almost immediately.

She remembered having ignored her family’s orders to remain at home after sunset. Barely ten at the time, Adrasteia sneaked out on her own, intent on spending the night at her favorite location: the beach. Crete was not as crime free at the time, though, and the little girl was quickly found by a band of particularly ruthless slavers.

Unkempt, full of scars, and reeking of bad hygiene, the men would have been terrifying even if they were not armed to the teeth. Cackling as he spat the words out, their leader, a freakishly large man of darker skin, beckoned the girl to come quietly, lest they have to scar her face and thus diminish the profits they were about to reap from the sale.

To this day, the men’s faces remain seared in Adrasteia’s memory. She could recall every mark, every little hair. Every disgusting hole where a tooth was supposed to be. What happened soon after, though, thought, overshadowed her recollection of them by far.

The man on the far right was the first to go, something having hit him in the torso with a force that no human being was capable of. The others were still in the process of turning around when his body was lifted off the ground, limbs rocking erratically and blood spraying everywhere. Whatever it was that still held the corpse up wasted no time, immediately hitting the next slaver right between the eyes, causing the man’s head to burst open like a smashed watermelon.

Finally, someone managed to turn a torch toward the attacker’s general direction, revealing a sight no one should ever witness: near an almost headless body that sprayed brain matter onto the beach, stood a massive, eight foot tall figure, hairy and bulging with muscle, the other man impaled on top of the large pair of horns that adorned its head.

As if provoked by the light, the creature darted forward, showing no sign of being slowed down by its gruesome new head ornament. Reacting fast, the leader of the slavers leapt right in front of the thing, attempting to intercept its oversized fist with the brunt of his shield – and regretting it immediately. A gruesome sound of bone snapping followed, overpowering even the panicked screams of the remaining men.

Tossing the leader to the side like an empty water skin, the creature immediately turned toward its remaining prey. Now pale and sweating from shock, the slavers attempted to form a coherent fighting formation, but the beast’s next maneuver broke their morale completely, as well as adding insult to injury.

With a quick motion, the monster tilted its head forward, causing the carcass impaled on its head to fly toward the men. By the time they’ve regained their footing, the unfortunates found themselves up close with the creature’s monstrous visage: That of a monstrous, rabid bull.

What happened next was a blur of scarlet and pink that Adrasteia’s memory refused to contain. All she could recall was the resulting pile of beaten and shredded flesh that used to belong to the slavers, and the gargantuan figure of the Minotaur standing on top of it, howling at the sky in triumph.

Then, as if it came to a realization, the monster’s head turned toward the little girl, allowing their eyes to meet.
Those eyes didn’t belong to some animal,
Adrasteia recalled clearly.
They were as human as anyone else’s.

Slowly, the figure dismounted the little red mountain it had just made, right before it proceeded to advance toward the little girl. Carefully, one step at a time, the thing strode, as if a human being would approach a frightened cat they were about to befriend.
Or so it appeared to me,
the woman allowed herself to interrupt her memory.
Regardless of the Minotaur’s intentions,
she concluded,
the end result was the same.

Again, the beach took the form it had more than ten years ago, the moon replacing the sun up in the sky, and the little girl taking the place of the woman. Shaking with fear, the child managed to stay in place for little more than a couple of seconds before turning around and running toward the city.

Immediately, a monstrous shriek echoed across the sands of Knossos’ beach. Still dashing as fast as she was capable of, the little girl expected the creature to hunt her down as it did the men. However, absolutely no sound of footsteps could be heard. By the time she was out of breath and dared to turn around, there was no sign of the monster, the torn up pieces of the slavers apparently left alone on the coast.

And my life has not been the same since.

Back in the moment, Adrasteia turned toward the shore again. With apathy, the woman took another look at her fellow Cretans. She could almost feel how happy they were. For them, life was clearly split between joy and fear, pleasure and pain.
Day and night.

I am not like that,
she came to the conclusion she already knew in advance. For Adrasteia, the world was not as cleanly split between light and darkness.
I don’t need to live by someone else’s rules.
Then, the realization came upon her: she couldn’t be like them if she wanted to. She never was. Her world forever lay beyond theirs.
Is it the same with the Minotaur? It probably is.

Suddenly, the woman felt her undergarments become moist, as they always did whenever she would remember the story.
I guess I wish to repay my savior,
she would inevitably tell herself, in a futile attempt to rationalize what she already knew: The beast’s power aroused her to no end.

For years now, she has tried, unsuccessfully, to change the people’s views about her savior.
After all,
Adrasteia would say,
he didn’t chase after me that night, so he must at least have some control over who he kills.

“Hogwash!” was their usual answer. “Tell that to all the young men who found their ends at the horns of that monster!” would often follow.

“But those men were trained soldiers! Killers! All of them went for the Minotaur’s own head. How do you know that he was not simply defending himself?”

This argument would often send the person into a frenzy of profanities directed toward Adrasteia, her savior, and the night in general. Eventually, she stopped trying and caring.

These days I rarely do anything at all,
the woman thought, still observing the beach and all the people who enjoyed its simple pleasures.
What’s the point of it all?
She asked herself.
Am I supposed to ape everyone else’s routine from dusk ‘till dawn?

“Be a good girl and do as you’re told,” Adrasteia could hear the words of her father, a major figure in Knossos, echo within another corner of her memory, “and life will always be good to you.”

Be a puppet,
she translated the words for herself.
Smile all the time. Learn how to make quality fabric.
Again, she swept her gaze over the entirety of the beach, trying to find someone, anyone, who wasn’t completely caught up in looking like an ass. Expectedly, there was no one of the sort.

Stop saying that nonsense about the monster,
she kept ranting inside her own head with the voice of her father,
don’t go out in the night.
Finally, she let her inner voice fall silent for a moment before finally letting it speak once more:
Stop doing everything that keeps driving your suitors away.

“After all,” her father’s voice spoke to her again, right out of the past, “you don’t want your family to die out because of your whims, do you?”

By the looks of thing, papa, it seems like that’s exactly the way it’s going to be.
She remembered the faces of young men when she would pass by. Somehow, they would all inevitably manage to say “freak” without opening their mouths o
r making a sound.
Somehow, Adrasteia’s breeding, family, and money made no difference. No one wanted to court a disobedient girl with no womanly skills, who was also likely to be insane.

The years passed by quicker and quicker since then, and before the girl knew it, she was well into womanhood, and finding suitors had become even more difficult. Then, by the time she turned 25, they seemed to have disappeared altogether. Her father stopped talking to her, sending her money through servants instead of having any direct contact with the source of his shame.

I bet you’re not too happy that mother passed on in order to produce something as disappointing as me, right?
Adrasteia imagined talking to her father for a second, the way she never had the courage to.

Then, an idea sprung into her mind, as insane and reckless that only someone with no other option would consider it. She would wait until it was dusk, when everyone would go home like good little slaves. Then, like she did so long ago, she would blatantly disobey the rules and go out again.

Only this time,
the woman thought,
I’m not going to frolic on the beach, oh no.

“Tonight,” Adrasteia spoke aloud, getting goose bumps after who knows how long, “I will go directly to my savior!”

Out of sheer curiosity, the woman looked around again. If anyone heard a single word she said, they most certainly didn’t show it.

                                                                                    ***

In a hurried pace, and mindful of the possibility that she might have been followed, Adrasteia raced across the moon-lit field as fast as her legs could take her. Evading the guards was as easy as always; their job was to keep threats out, not people in.

Well, good riddance,
the woman thought, looking back toward the great city of Knossos for what she was certain to be the last time. Whether she was right or wrong, Adrasteia knew that after this there would be no going back.

If I’m wrong, which I sincerely doubt,
she considered as she turned forward, resuming her pace again.
Then this will be the end of me and that will be that.
As grisly as it sounded, a part of her considered it a preferable alternative to her old life.
Solitude is solitude, regardless of whether it’s in life or death.

Almost immediately, Adrasteia forced herself to excise the thought. There was no need for whatsoever. She was
right
. She knew it with every part of her being.