Taming the Beast

The closer I got to the woman, the harder her heart beat in her chest. Without the moonlight casting its usual shadows on the fog, I couldn't make her out nearly as well as I would have on the night of a full moon.

"Are you okay? What in God's name are you doin' out here on your own?"

And suddenly she was there in front of me, tiny compared to my own mass. If I believed in the things, I'd have sworn she was a fairie. She came up to the top of my ribs, her smooth round face gleaming white like a beacon. I'd seen many a bonnie lass up and around these parts ever since I came to live here, but none like her. Her soft, darker eyes reminded me of a doe, and the layers of clothing she had draped around her made me think of a gypsy.

Well, it was certainly possible she was one. You can never be too sure of the gypsy folk.

The dragon inside was skulking about, eyeing her inch by inch with its narrowly slit eyes. It didn’t take it lo

ng to decide that she was perfectly acceptable to mate with, its aggravating pull to her enough to make me want to slap myself just for the sake of pissing it off.

She wiped at her nose, taking me in slowly until she must have come to the conclusion that I wasn't there to harm her. "I got separated from the tour." Her voice was without the usual lilt, marking her as a foreigner. I guessed American, my mind already wanting to crack a joke about city dwellers. Who else would think it wise to get lost in the moors?

I nodded, pursing my lips together out of rising concern for the way her lips seemed to be a shade too pale. Reminding myself I wasn't this woman's keeper, I jutted my thumb to the right. "Very well. Not sure how you could've pulled that one off, but this is the way you're wantin' to go. Follow me."

"I was just distracted. It was much easier to pull off than you'd think."

I ignored her, cutting through the path I usually took without bothering to look back and make sure she was keeping up. If she got herself lost a second time around, then bless her soul on the way to the pearly gates—there'd be no helping her.

"This way then," I mumbled, hearing her heartbeat close behind.

"Is it very far from the town? It didn't seem like I had walked that far.… She stumbled over the rocks until she was nearly walking next to me, pulling her layers of bundles around her even tighter. "Also…what are you doing out here, anyway? This doesn't seem like the kind of place that locals go wandering through at night."

I quirked a brow, still not looking at her. All I wanted to do was to get this woman back to wherever it was she was staying, and to head home. I could almost feel my bed calling my name.

"Well that's a solidly personal question, don't ya think? I'm no’ here because I like being out here. I’m here because it’s quiet," I grumbled, shaking my head.

The woman chuckled to herself. "Sorry. I didn't realize asking you why you were out in the middle of nowhere was a deeply personal question."

And a smart mouth, too? How lovely. "Look, I'm tryin’ to get you where you need to go. If you'd rather me take off and leave you here, I can do that too," I growled, no longer caring about being nice. If she didn’t want to be grateful for the help, then there was nothing more to say.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I was just trying to make conversation. It's what I do when I'm freezing my ass off." She took a few more long strides to completely catch up, puffing along next to me. "That's all there is to do around here, right? Just walk around and enjoy the scenery?"

She groaned as her foot sank deep into mud, her boot coming back up with a loud squelch as she yanked it back out. Fighting the smug grin on my face was a losing battle.

"That's right, laugh it up. Poor little American girl, doesn't like getting dirty. Sorry to disappoint you, sir, but I hardly care. I would just rather not die out here in the middle of nowhere, miles and miles between me and any kind of civilization. Well, with the exception of you of course. Sorry…I'm probably rambling now. I'll just shut up and…"

This time I did laugh, unsure of how such a tiny thing could take in enough air to fill her lungs that full of words. "It's fine. It won't be that much further now. I'm…I'm Bram, by the way."

Maybe it wasn’t necessary to give her my name, but being in the odd situation that we were, I felt compelled to do it anyway. Most people in town didn't even know my real name. What was the point when they rarely saw me? I’d learned a long time ago that humans weren’t fond of anything they couldn’t understand.

"Oh. Well I'm Ella—Ella Daly. It's nice to meet you, Bram." Even in the dim lighting I could see a faint coloring blooming across her cheeks as we kept on moving.

Minutes passed before either one of us spoke back up, the silence something I've always enjoyed about the wilderness of my country, but the presence of a beautiful woman like Ella was a carefully unhinging thing. Even my dragon was having a hard time concentrating on keeping us due south back to the bridge.

For just a brief moment, I was transported back in time, to where a beautiful lass was spinning around in circles just off the same path that led us back. Little bits of wildflowers in her curly blonde hair. A grin that broke me every time I saw it. She went from spinning in lazy circles to standing in front of me with her arms folded, looking colder than murder. Her tan uniform with that ugly red armband—the only real truth I had learned about her.

Trusting anyone after her was damn near impossible. But my dragon ignored my broken memory, and instead envisioned this American woman writhing in bed underneath me, her perfectly round tits heaving as I slammed into her with a bed-shaking thrust.

Desperate not to encourage the bastard, I cleared my throat. "What brings you to Scotland?"

She hesitated, even stopping for a moment before collecting herself and sighing. "Quiet. I'm from New York City, so I don't get a whole lot of it as you can imagine."

"No, I can't imagine that you do. So that's it? You just want silence, then?"

Ella shook her head. "It's more than that, really. I just need to get away from everyone back home. It's the first time I've really been out anywhere on my own, and…I don't know why I'm telling you this. I mean maybe you just rescued me from the moor just to end up being a serial killer or something."

I snorted loudly, something that carried over even when I transformed. "Yep, you're definitely an American."