Wild and Free by Kristen Ashley
“Ding, ding, ding!” I yelled. “Wrong answer again!” Then I kept going. “Did I sleep in a bed last night where you fucked other women?”
“It won’t happen again,” he stated.
Oh my God!
“Damn straight it won’t!” I shot back loudly.
“Even if it’s to my peril, I think it’s pertinent to point out at this juncture that you’re in a serious fucking jealous rage and I haven’t even kissed you yet.”
I snapped my mouth shut.
He watched me do this before he grinned.
My stomach flipped over.
Oh yeah, he was beautiful.
“You wake up in a bad mood all the time or just when you think of me bangin’ another bitch?” he asked.
Needles pierced through my brain at his last four words, the pain so severe, I flinched and felt nausea roil up my throat.
“Hey,” his voice came soft at me. Soft and close.
I opened my eyes and saw him in my space, his face dipped to mine.
“What’s the matter with me?” I whispered, my recent uncontrollable and totally irrational behavior filtering through my conscious, freaking me out.
“You get you’re mine?” he asked back instead of giving me an answer.
I was not ready to commit to that verbally so I just stared at him.
He let that go but kept talking.
“If you’re mine, I’m yours. Not even gonna think of another man’s hands on you, much less anything else.” His jaw tensed even as he continued, talking mostly between his teeth. “Tear the room apart if I did.”
“This is freakadelic, Abel, and not in the good way freakadelic can be.”
His head twitched as his brows drew together.
“Freakadelic?” he asked.
I nodded once. “And not in a good way.”
He shook his head, but his features softened, most specifically his mouth.
Oh man.
Definitely.
Unbelievably.
Beautiful.
Uh-oh.
“I’m here,” he stated.
“I can see that,” I replied.
“And you’re here.”
“That I am,” I confirmed unnecessarily.
His face dipped closer. “We’re together, Delilah, nothin’ else matters.”
At that, I pulled in a soft breath, and as I did, his eyes dropped to my mouth as if he could hear it even though it was silent.
They moved back to mine. “Now you got ten minutes. I get time today, I’ll put up a curtain or somethin’, give you some privacy while we’re here. But until then, I’ll give you the room.”
After saying that, he turned, moved to the kitchen, flipped on the light switch that illuminated that space, then he went to the door and out of it, giving me the room.
It was then I realized he was talking about the bathroom area.
I bent to retrieve the toothbrush that caused my first-thing-in-the-morning psycho behavior and hurried to the bathroom area, not about to waste my opportunity for some privacy for my morning business.
I took care of it, including washing my hands, brushing my teeth, and splashing water on my face, before I turned to the room, still drying my face with a clean hand towel I’d grabbed from the shelves.
It was then I spied my purse and my body grew solid.
I stared at my purse over the hand towel I had pressed to my face as all the events of last night washed over me, every freaking whacked-out, impossible-but-they-still-happened one.
He’d saved my life. He might have saved me from getting raped, but he’d definitely saved my life.
He’d protected me, and of an instinct I didn’t know I had, I did what I could to protect him.
We’d both nearly died last night, and the last thing I knew before showering and hitting the sack was that he was out with his friends hunting a fucking werewolf.
But before he came home, he found my purse.
He found my purse.
Something I hadn’t noticed, even if I couldn’t believe for an instant I didn’t, came clear in that moment. It was so enormous, I dropped the towel and stumbled to the armchair, leaning a hand heavily into it, taking my weight in my arm, holding myself up, my eyes never leaving my purse.
It was gone.
“Holy shitoly, it’s gone,” I whispered.
I’d lived with it since I could remember. “It” being what my mother was convinced made me nuts. It convinced her enough to make me go see psychologists, three of them, all of them declaring I was attention seeking and, due to that, had an eating disorder and needed long-term psychological care and medication.
I was of a healthy weight. I didn’t starve myself, didn’t binge, didn’t purge. I also was a good kid. I could be sassy. I could get in trouble, but nothing bad.
I just constantly felt “it,” but didn’t know what “it” was.
When Mom tried to force therapy and drugs on me when I was eleven, Dad stepped in, doing the impossible—an antisocial, antiestablishment biker winning custody of his daughter.
It took him four years and three appeals, but he did it. And while he was doing it, he’d managed to put up court-ordered obstructions to Mom medicating me (but, alas, I was forced into therapy; however, this was an hour a week I didn’t have to put up with my mother, and my therapist was an all right guy, so it didn’t scar me).
“That hunger inside you, little girl, you’ll quench it,” he’d told me when I’d shared it with him. The gnawing pain, the desperation to get it gone, the lifelong struggle to learn to live day to day with it, like someone with a chronic illness learning how to cope and live life even though the debilitating symptoms never went away. “You’ll know it when you find it and I know my Lilah. You’ll get it, fight for it, earn it, beg for it, but in the end, you’ll win it and you’ll be whole.”
Dad had been wrong.
I hadn’t known it when I found it.
Looking at my purse, I knew.
The pain was gone.
I’d found it.
My God, I’d found it.
Moving from the chair to the table, I snatched up my purse, digging inside even as I aimed my ass to a chair and collapsed into it.
I pulled out my phone, activated it, hit the buttons, and made the call.
I put it to my ear.
“Yo, little girl, how’s tricks in the Promised Land?” Dad’s gravelly, slightly sleepy (no doubt I woke him, he usually didn’t get up before ten), two-pack-a-day voice came at me.
“Daddy,” I whispered.
His tone was alert when he instantly responded, “Where are you? I’ll be on my bike in five minutes. Do I need the boys?”
Tears gathered in my eyes and I sucked in breath to control them.
“It’s gone,” I told him.
“What?” he asked sharply.
“The pain.”
He was silent.
I felt a tear slide down my cheek as I slid an arm around my belly, holding myself close, holding the fullness tight to me. “I’m whole, Daddy,” I whispered.
“What’s his name?” Dad asked gruffly.
I closed my eyes and another tear fell.
Dad so totally got it.
“Abel.”
“Kickass name,” Dad muttered.
I smiled and opened my eyes. “He’s got a Sportster.”
“I already like him.”
I felt a giggle slide up my throat but swallowed it down.
“There’s more,” I told him.
“Fuck. The asshole’s married, I’m gonna rip his dick off.”
“He’s not married.”
Well, at least all indications pointed to that fact. That said, I knew absolutely nothing about Abel except he was a heretofore fictional creature walking the earth.
I decided not to share that with Dad just yet.
But I did share, “I…I actually kind of do think I need you to call the boys and come out.”
His gruff was ba
“Abel kind of saved my life last night.”
“What the fuck?” he bit out, and I could actually feel his movement through his words, either getting out of his recliner, where he’d fallen asleep watching something badass on TV (or porn), or rolling out of bed, leaving one of his bitches in it if he’d had company.
It was usually option two. As much as Dad was antisocial (this didn’t include “the boys”), he liked to get himself some enough that he’d put up with a woman, at least long enough for her to take care of his needs and make him breakfast before he got her ass out of his house.
At this point, I heard the door scraping open behind me and I looked that way.
Abel caught my eyes, and half a second later he was bending over me, his face an inch away.
“Why are you crying?” he demanded to know, then didn’t wait for my answer. He ripped the phone out of my hand, straightened, put it to his ear, and clipped, “You made her cry.” There was a pause before, “Yeah, I’m him.” Another pause before his eyes dropped to me and he muttered, “Right. Didn’t know. Just got in, saw tears on her face. Here she is.”
He then offered the phone to me.
I took it, my lips parted, my gaze never leaving him, and put it to my ear.
When I did, Dad must have sensed it with Dad Perception for he declared, “Already fuckin’ love that guy.”
Abel moved toward the kitchen as I said, “I…well, that’s good.”
“Fucker handed off the phone before I could have a word. Give it back to him. Wanna know what’s goin’ down with you and want that from him.”
“We don’t actually know,” I told him. “He and his buds went after one of the, uh…guys who got away, but they didn’t get him. So we’re at a loss.”
“He went after him?” Dad asked.
“Yeah,” I confirmed.
“No cops?”
Oh man.
“Dad—”
“He an outlaw like your old man?”
I didn’t know for sure, but I had a feeling he was.
Or he’d turned into one last night, for certain.
“We’ll just say that the proper authorities were not notified,” I stated, then stared as I watched Abel come out from behind the door of the fridge with one thing in each hand.
The first was a packet of bacon.
The second was a plastic bag filled with blood.
I swallowed.
He tossed the bacon on the counter, opened the microwave, and shoved the bag of blood in.
Gluk.
Through this, Dad hooted.
Then he asked, “You okay?”
“Freaked out but healthy,” I answered.
“Am I gonna lose my motherfucking mind at what happened to you?”
“It wasn’t that bad, Dad. Or, at least, Abel stopped it before it could get that way.”
“Thank fuck,” he muttered, then louder, “You still at the Bay?”
“Yeah.”
“Right. To gather the boys and be there, take at least two days. He got you covered for that?”
Abel was beeping buttons on the microwave as I said, “Yeah. He’s pretty, um…capable.”
“Ha!” Dad snorted. “Good to know. But you tell him one beautiful, shiny hair on my little girl’s head is fucked, I’ll have his throat.”
Dad was forty-eight years old and spent his time taking odd jobs that paid cash so he could avoid paying more taxes than he had to in order to keep his house and land. He drank. He caroused. He rode his bike. He got laid. He communed with his brethren. He frequently did things I never knew about because they’d scare me. And he loved me.
He also worked out. Sure, he sometimes lifted weights with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, but he did it.
Abel could still tear him limb from limb.
“That won’t be a problem. I haven’t known him very long, but so far he’s been pretty good at taking care of me.”
Abel turned and aimed his eyes my way.
I felt the look in them in my nipples, at my clit, and curving around my heart.
When Dad spoke again, I tore my eyes away and looked at my lap.
“All right, precious girl, gotta kick Charlene’s ass out, rally the boys, and get on the road. Hang tight. I’ll call you tonight and let you know when to expect us tomorrow.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
“Love you, Lilah.”
“Love you more.”
“Love you most, baby.”
He did.
I tried, I tried hard, but he definitely loved me most.
“’Bye.”
“Later,” he replied and I heard him hang up.
The microwave sounded and I looked that way.
“You drink bagged blood?” I asked.
Abel pulled out the bag and turned to me. “You gonna be squeamish?”
“I, um…well, probably.”
I mean, it was blood.
“Can drink it in the hall,” he offered.
“It’s your house, Abel,” I pointed out, though it wasn’t a house so much as a room.
“Can drink it in the hall, Delilah,” he repeated.
I didn’t repeat like he did. Instead, I told him, “People I care about call me Lilah.”
He gave me that look again that I felt at certain very good parts of me.
“Drink your blood,” I said, wondering how on earth I was saying that in a serious way when it was total insanity. “I’ll start the bacon.”
I pushed up from the chair, avoiding looking at him and moving to the kitchenette.
I found a frying pan in the cupboard and I already knew where the knives were, so I nabbed one and sawed open the package.
I was laying the strips in when I felt him move, so I looked to the side and watched him use the toe of his boot to open a trash can I hadn’t noticed on the other side of the oven. He dropped the empty bag in.
That didn’t take long.
A shiver slid up my spine.
“Blue is blood, Lilah,” he said quietly, and I focused again on him. “White is regular trash. Yeah?”
I leaned back and saw there were two trash bins, one blue, one white. I righted myself, pressed my lips together, and nodded.
He moved my way and stopped close, looking down at the skillet.
“More,” he declared.
“What?” I asked.
He looked to me. “More bacon. You’ve only got four strips in there and I’ll eat four at least.”
I felt my brows shoot up. “You eat human food?”
He stared into my eyes, then reached to me, took the bacon out of my hand, and tugged more out, placing the strips in the pan, all while talking. “Right. Quick education. I day walk. Got no problem with the sun. Sleep at night, though I’m a night person, not a morning person, but that only means I like to sleep in and stay up late, not that I need the night. And when I sleep, I don’t do it in a coffin.”
“Okay,” I said when he stopped, thinking all that was good news, the coffin part especially, because, well…euw.
He tossed the package on the counter and reached for the drawer by my hip. I slid out of the way as he opened it.
He grabbed a fork, closed the drawer, and looked at me.
“No problem with silver. No problem with holy water. No problem with garlic. Ditto crosses. Don’t need to be invited into anyone’s house. In fact, outside of needing blood to survive, nothin’ you think you might know about vampires or werewolves is true. This includes me not transformin’ to wolf at the full moon. I can do it whenever I want and never do it unless I want to. I also can’t turn people. Not that I’ve tried, but as far as I know, I was born this way.”
“As far as you know?” I asked as he started moving bacon around in the skillet, which was now sizzling.
“Was found in an alley. I was a pup. Had transformed, did it then whenever because I hadn’t learned control. Woman who found me took me in, thinking I was a stray pupp
At this exceedingly sad story, I felt my insides freeze even as my lips whispered, “Oh my God.”
He stopped scooting bacon around and looked at me. “Yeah.”
“What did she do?” I asked.
He shrugged. “She tried to find my folks, and when that failed, she raised me.”
“Just like that?” I pressed.
“Don’t know her thought process. She didn’t share that with me. All I know is all I knew was her. Her love. Her kindness. Her understanding. Her protection. I have no memories of before her. She figured out all I was before I could form a coherent thought, seeing as I’d catch rats and suck them dry and try to latch on to her whenever I got the chance, baring my fangs. She brought me animals to keep me alive until I learned to do what I needed to do, and only then did she let me go out and find humans.”
I could not believe I was hearing this.
But I was hearing it, and I had to admit, it was utterly fascinating and extraordinary even if it was tremendously sad.
I mean, what kind of person would take into their home and then raise a werewolf vampire?
No other answer to that except a really good one.
“Was she Jian-Li?” I asked.
Something profoundly sad moved over his features as he looked back down to the bacon saying, “No.”
Okay, it was not the time to dig deeper with that.
“Learned to do what you needed to do?” I prompted as he flipped bacon.
He looked to me. “Teeth are sharp, Lilah. Fuck you up. Pain, and that pain is bad. But I got it in me to protect against that. Figured it out on a fluke. Somethin’ happens if I lick the skin before I bite. Means no pain to who I’m drawin’ from.”
“Well, that’s good,” I muttered.
“Yeah.” He grinned. “And I hesitate to wake the wildcat in you that tells her tale through your green eyes, but it’s also bad. Somethin’ happens in my mouth when I feed, so if I’m doin’ something else at the same time, means I can numb things.”
I was confused. “Numb things?”
“Numb…” He paused and leaned slightly into me. “Things. Things you don’t want numbed say I take a break from drawing to do other shit with my mouth.”
I felt my eyes get big as I whispered, “Oh.”
“Yeah.” His eyes went to my mouth. “Oh.”