Chapter 17: 15

Aurora stared blankly at the food in the cart. She and Stanton had gone into Aspen on his day off to pick up some groceries. It had been three days since her nightmare, and she was having trouble getting over it. It had really messed with her head. “Which one did you want again, rosemary or thyme?” Stanton asked, holding up two bags of dried herbs he had picked up from the spice aisle.

She looked up at him, and it took a second for her to understand the question he had just asked.

“Um… it was basil.”

“Damn it. I knew it was something green. I’ll go back and get the right one.”

“It’s fine. I’ll go get it. I know what I’m looking for,” she said, moving past him.

Stanton reached out and took her by the arm, stopping her and turning her back to face him. “Are you alright, Hummingbird?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You seem different lately… withdrawn… quiet. Is something bothering you? Have I done something wrong?”

Oh, bless his heart. She smiled and caressed his face lovingly. “It’s not you. I just haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Do I snore?”

She giggled. “No. I’ll be fine. Why don’t you go to the frozen food aisle and get us some ice cream while I go get the basil, and I’ll meet up with you at the cash register.”

“Ok,” she watched as he took the cart and walked away.

Aurora made her way to the spice aisle, where she browsed through the packets looking for dried basil.

She would have preferred fresh, but the store didn’t have any. She looked for a few minutes but didn’t find what she was looking for. It would seem the store had no basil in stock, fresh nor dry. Rethinking the spices she would use in the soup. She wanted to make Aurora made her way to the checkouts.

She didn’t see Stanton, which surprised her because she was sure he would have been here by now.

She decided to go meet him by the ice cream. As she came around the corner, she paused when she saw a middle-aged man walk over to Stanton and ask if he knew where the frozen fries would be. “I don’t know,” Stanton said, grabbing a tub of ice cream and putting it in his cart.

“Wow,” the man said, not sounding as surprised as he was pretending to be. “Look at those eyes,”

Stanton tensed. “Interesting. You live nearby?”

Stanton looked uncomfortable. Aurora was sure he thought the same thing she was. This man was a hunter. He was trying to find out where the rest of the pack was. “Try the next aisle,” Stanton said, “I think you’ll find fries at the endcap.”

The man smiled, but it was a knowing eerie kind of smile. “Thanks,” Stanton then turned and headed her way.

Aurora darted out of sight, hoping the hunter had not noticed her. As Stanton came around the corner, he saw Aurora. “We need to get the fuck out of here,” he said, pushing the full cart aside. Stanton took her by the arm, ushering her quickly to the doors, leaving their unpaid groceries behind.

“What about the food?”

“Fuck the food. You can’t eat it dead.”

“He was a hunter, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, he is. We need to tell Gordon. The pack must be warned.”

***

They had gone straight to Gordon’s tattoo shop, where they found Gordon working diligently on some large fat biker’s forearm. As a middle-aged biker himself, Gordon appealed to the jeans and leather crowd, which made up a fair bit of his clientele. He was working on a piece with the grim reaper riding a motorcycle leaving a trail of frames. Aurora had to admit it was very good. Gordon had serious talent.

Aurora looked up from the unfinished tattoo to see the fat filthy biker grinning idiotically at her. He winked, and Aurora cringed. She knew what he was thinking. It was the same thing every man thought about when they looked at her. A few months ago, she would have slept with him for the price of a warm place to sleep for the night. She was grateful she would no longer have to sell herself to any more filthy slobs. No man would ever touch her again unless she desired him. She was putting that part of her past behind her.

“You eyeing my girl?” Stanton growled at him.

“Your girl?” The biker laughed and looked at Aurora. “Are you blind, Honey? You should come home with me.”

“You don’t have a chance,” Aurora told him flatly.

“If you are fucking this Neanderthal, you mustn’t be that picky.”

Aurora smiled at him sweetly as she batted her long dark lashes. “Maybe, but at least with him, I don’t require a magnifying glass to find his cock,” she leaned in closer to him. “I have a feeling I can’t say the same for you.”

Gordon choked as he did his best to hid his amusement. Stanton was grinning ear to ear, which made him look like a rabid monster. The fat biker growled in outrage. “Listen here, bitch…” Suddenly, the biker yelped loudly in pain as Gordon drug the tattoo needle deep into his skin, drawing a lot more blood than usual as he scared the skin. “What the fuck, man?”

Gordon grinned at him, which made him look dangerous. “I don’t like the way you talk to my friend. You are going to apologize, or you are going to need one hell of a coverup.”

“I’m not apologizing to this stupid slut.”

He yelped louder and tried to pull his arm from Gordon’s grasp as he started to dig black ink into his arm, spelling out micro-dick across the whole tattoo he had been working on, ruining it beyond repair.

Being a Lycan, Gordon was stronger than the human biker and was able to keep him in his seat with one hand. “You sure are a stupid fuck, aren’t you?” Gordon laughed. “Hasn’t anyone told you it is a bad idea to piss off your tattoo artist?” Once his vengeance was satisfied, Gordon let him go, and the man jumped up, cradling his bloody arm. “Let’s see… six hours of work at $160/hour… you own me $960 for my work, and since you annoy me, let’s make it an even grand, including gratuity.”

“I’m not fucking paying you,” he snarled.

Stanton smacked the biker in the back of his head as hard as he could, and the biker hit the floor, slamming his head against the tattoo chair on his way down. Stanton them bent over and took his wallet out of his back pocket. Stanton cleaned out all the cash in the wallet and handed it to Gordon, who proceeded to count it. “Pleasure doing business with you,” Gordon said as the man began to stand up.

“I’m coming back with the cops,” the biker threatened.

Gordon’s eyes lit up like flames in the dark, and he bared his fangs. “That would be a bad idea,” the man panicked and rushed out of the studio.

Once he was gone, Gordon reverted back and smiled smugly as he continued to count his earnings, unconcerned about that man had seen him wolf out. “Are you sure that was a good idea?” Aurora asked. “He’s going to tell people what he saw.”

Gordon snickered confidently. “No one is going to believe him. We’ve been drinking all damn day,” he said, nodding his head to the nearby counter littered with empty beer bottles. “The man wreaks of booze. They will write him off as a drunk.”

“You tattoo that well drunk?” She asked, surprised.

“Drunk. Stoned. Juggling Chainsaws. I could, and practically have done this job in my sleep.”

“Do you make good money?”

“I do well enough.”

“Hummingbird,” Stanton spoke softly to her.

“What?”

“I think we have more important things to talk about than the economy of the tattoo business,” he reminded her of their reason for coming.

“Oh!” She gasped as she remembered. “Sorry.”

Gordon was now eyeing them inquisitively. “Is there something I should know?”

Stanton didn’t know like he knew how to tell Gordon. “There is a Hunter in town,” Aurora answered Gordon.

“Are you sure?” Gordon asked with a very serious expression.

Stanton sighed and nodded. “He couldn’t have been anything else.”

“Is he just fishing, or does he know we are here?”

“He knows. There is no mistake about that. I got the feeling he knows there is more than one of us. He is defiantly searching for the pack,” Stanton explained.

“Shit!” Gordon growled as he dropped down into his client chair. “And now with that dick head, I just drove out of here. He’s going to know where to find us by morning.”

“So, we go hunting?” Stanton asked.

Gordon took a moment to think. “Gather the pack. We hunt tonight before any more pick up his trail.

We got to keep this one quiet, though, no more stories on the six o’clock news. This guy disappears…

no trace.”

“Understood,” Stanton said.

Aurora understood too. They were going to kill this hunter, dismantle his body and hide it. She worried.

With Stanton’s reduced vision, how good would he be in a fight against someone trained to kill their kind? He could be hurt or, worse, killed. She didn’t want him to get hurt like he did the last time. She couldn’t let him fight the hunter. She couldn’t watch him die.

***

Stanton stood on the porch, watching the sun go down over the trees. They would have to go hunting soon. All he could think was he didn’t want Aurora to be there. He worried for her safety. He heard the door open as Aurora came out onto the porch beside him. She hugged his arm and gazed up at him.

“Come on, Big Daddy, come back inside.”

“We have to go soon,” he said, taking her into his arms and lifting her off her feet, seating Aurora on the rail of the wooden banister in front of him. Stanton wrapped both bulky arms around her as her legs straddled his waist. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and nuzzled her face into his neck as he hugged her.

“Are you worried?” She purred against his collarbone, and the sinful vibration against his skin made him shudder.

“Terrified.”

He felt her smile against his neck. “You scared? You are the scariest thing in this town.”

He chuckled. “You know it, Hummingbird.”

She pulled back enough to look him in the face with that sexy grin of hers. “Do you know why I love you?” She asked as both their hand and came up, mirroring each other and lacing their fingers. Her hand looked so dainty in his beefy calloused mitt.

“Because you have an unusual liking for big dumb animals?” He said as he brushed his lips over hers.

Aurora giggled as she teasingly slid the tip of her tongue along his bottom lip. Her right hand moved down his chest and slipped between Stanton’s legs groping him firmly the way she knew he liked it, making him groan with pleasure. “You were right about the big part. How about a little loving before we hunt?” She enticed as she gently tugged his bottom lip with her sterling white teeth.

He could never tell her no, and he never wanted to. He loved playing with Aurora. He loved that she had a wild dominant side. He knew a man like him intimidated, and it was thrilling to be with a woman he couldn’t intimidate. He was all power and strength, and it was exciting beyond belief to give that power over to Aurora and simply submit to her sexual will. He didn’t think other men would understand the rush he got when Aurora took control and got rough with him.

Perhaps it was a twisted fetish. Perhaps he was simply a masochist? But he didn’t care what others thought because Aurora enjoyed it and, as long as it worked for them both, the rest of the world could kiss his ass. Stanton kissed Aurora feverishly. His mouth ate at her sweet lips like a dying man looking for an antidote. Never breaking their kiss, Aurora reached down between them and tugged his belt open so she could get to the zipper and free him from his jeans.

Stanton groaned when Aurora took hold of him, stroking with a firm quick grasp. God, she was so good at this. Eager to feel her wrapped around him, Stanton pushed her skirt up out of his way. Slipping both hands under her bottom, he lifted Aurora off the railing and drove himself deep inside her. She threw back her head and let out a sexy groan that spiked his libido. His hands supporting her weight, Stanton bounced Aurora up and down his feet shoulder-width apart to give himself stability so he didn’t lose his balance.

Aurora clung to Stanton, her arms around his broad shoulders as she kissed him passionately. He loved these moments. Every time with Aurora was wild and untamed. There was no way he would ever grow tired of her.

Stanton took her quick and hard until her eyes lit up, and he was certain she was about to lose control.

As the pleasure mounted, she threw back her head and let out a cry that snapped his control, and they reached climax together.

Stanton gently braced Aurora against the rail one more time as his muscles went limp from the force of his release, which had drained him in more ways than one. As they held one another, enjoying the blissful aftermath. It always surprised him how much just holding this woman pleased him. Holding her was almost as good as the sex. It was as if Aurora was his heart, and all he wanted to do was protect her.

Stanton pulled back slightly to look into her eyes. “I don’t want you to come tonight. It is going to be dangerous.”

“I can hold my own,” she assured him.

“I know, but I still would prefer if you stayed behind. I don’t want to have to worry about it. Drunks and johns are one thing; a bonified Lycan hunter is another thing altogether. They are trained to kill us and believe me. You don’t survive long if you aren’t damn good at it. I don’t want to worry about you getting hurt.”

“Stanton…”

“Aurora…” He snapped, “please, don’t fight me on this.”

She looked up at him with those sad eyes and then offered him a weak grin. “I understand,” wow, he was expecting that to be harder. She urged him back a few steps giving herself space to hop off the rail. She reached up and caressed his face. “Why don’t I get you something to drink, replenish your fluids before you go hunting,” she said, heading inside.

He liked that idea. Stanton followed Aurora inside, where she went to the fridge and took out two cans of beer. She turned to the cupboards to take out two glasses, her back to him. He made his way over to her as she poured them each a cold glass and then turned to face him with a beer in each hand. She offered him one. Stanton smiled as he accepted it, and they both drank. He would have to leave soon.

He had to meet the pack at the tattoo parlour in twenty minutes. He drained his glass in one shot, then handed it back to her and kissed her cheek.

“You are so good to me,” he said contently.

Stanton took a step back as he began to feel strange. He looked at Aurora, who was no longer smiling as she watched him. The world around him began to spin, and Stanton staggered, trying to keep his balance. Things were getting blurry, and he could feel his body weaken. Stanton looked at the empty glass she held and then the unconcerned Expression on Aurora’s face. She had drugged him.