Knot running from fate m.., p.1
Knot Running From Fate: Monster Between the Sheets, page 1
Knot Running From Fate (Monster Between The Sheets Series) by Ember Davis
Copyright © 2022 Ember Davis
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, organizations or locals is entirely coincidental. The use of actors, artists, movies, TV shows and song titles/lyrics throughout this book are done so for storytelling purposes and should in no way be seen as an advertisement. Trademark names are used editorially with no intention of infringement of the respective owner’s trademark.
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
For permission requests, email Ember.A.Davis@gmail.com
Contains explicit love scenes and adult language. The suggested reading audience is 18 years or older.
Cover Design: Elle Christensen at Clover Book Designs
This book is available exclusively at Amazon.com. If you’ve obtained it anywhere else, you have an illegal copy.
To Kristen because when I text her in need of a douche-y name, she doesn’t hesitate.
To my mom because she’s awesome and always has my back.
And to you, you monster romance lover, I hope you enjoy this one!
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
EPILOGUE
MONSTER BETWEEN THE SHEETS SERIES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OTHER BOOKS BY EMBER
CHAPTER 1
JACE
As I run through the woods, I feel the stress and the worry of what the future holds falling away. I don’t think it can ever truly leave me, not when my future is so unsure. I sometimes forget about becoming a monstrosity, but then I look down or I feel my feral mind brush against my consciousness, and I remember.
As the years have passed since the Halloween party where I was unfortunate enough to drink Dr. Karloff’s special punch, the things I dreamed about are farther away. It’s not like my dreams were a big revelation, I just wanted to live a normal life.
I wanted to be the best park ranger possible and protect Screaming Woods because I loved getting lost there while being surrounded by nature and clean air without the noise of the town. I found solace in the quiet. I still do.
At least my job wasn’t hindered by my change. In fact, I’m probably more suited for the job now than I was before.
The rest of what I hoped for my life? Having a wife and kids? Finding happiness and reasons to smile?
Yeah, I don’t think those things will ever happen. Even with what seems like eternity at my disposal since no one has aged since that night, including myself. I’m not going to hold my breath.
How could I expect a woman to fall in love with me? I’m a fucking wolfman now. Hell, I had my doubts I would find it before one drink changed my life.
It’s not like I didn’t have women in the town interested in me, but I didn’t feel the same. It never felt right, and I’ve never been one to pretend. I sure as fuck wasn’t going to pretend to be attracted to someone or have a connection to get my dick wet.
There were attractive women in town, before that fateful night. I could appreciate them, but they never called to me. There was always a voice in my head that said to wait. I thought I’d feel some kind of pull to the right person.
Now, after a few years in my current state, I’m pretty sure the woods are going to be the only thing which gives me peace.
I’ve accepted my fate. At least I can protect the woods to the best of my ability and the more monstrous side of me loves being outside. I can run for hours without getting tired. My sense of smell is heightened and I’m stronger than I used to be. Anyone who wants to come out here and mess with the sanctuary I share with Mother Nature and a few of my other monstrous townspeople will have a fight on their hands.
I take my job seriously and everyone knows it.
As I run through the woods, I fight the primal need to mark my territory. During the last full moon, I couldn’t stop the instinct and my marks are still very…potent. I should be ashamed of it, but the feral thing inside of me is smugly proud.
I give Gregor’s property a wide berth as I head back toward my small ranger cabin. He’s an ogre and a permanent resident here in the forest. Like me, he’s a grumpy asshole.
It’s hard to be out here alone, as we are, and hold onto our humanity.
I snort at the thought. What fucking humanity? We’re monsters.
The humans of the town fled almost immediately, fear driving them, and I can’t say I blame them. If I hadn’t been unfortunate enough to be turned, I might have left too. I don’t know, these woods have always been my home. I’d like to think I would have stayed.
Maybe that’s why I was destined to drink the punch.
I howl, the noise coming from me unbidden as my feral side tries to cope with the sadness and despair trying to pull me under. It’s a daily struggle. Feeling sorry for myself isn’t going to help anything.
I grit my teeth, my pronounced canines straining my lips as I do. My howls can be heard for miles, and they only serve as a reminder of how much of an animal I’ve become. They do help me feel a release of those emotions, like a pressure valve, but part of me hates it. The part who is still Jace, before the change.
I make fists and run faster, my feet slapping over the ground, leaves and sticks, which litter the forest floor, crunching and snapping under my feet. My nails, which I hate to think of as claws even though that is exactly what they are, dig into my palms and draw blood.
I growl, but the pain grounds me in the now and reminds me that my life as it is, my state as it is, is something I can’t change. At least I have the woods.
When I get to my ranger cabin, I stomp through the door, intent on eating something and then sitting outside to search for peace. The weather is starting to cool slightly, but I run hotter now. I guess that is one perk to my wolfman state. Even the coldest days of winter don’t bother me.
It makes my life out here easier, but it hardly makes up for everything I don’t have.
The night of the party echoes in my head sometimes. We were all having so much fun. Everyone was wearing costumes and celebrating Halloween. It was festive and fun; it was the last night I’ve experienced that.
When Karloff arrived and started passing around the punch he made, it added to the atmosphere. He’d always been the eccentric of the town. Now, I’m pretty sure he’s the most normal of the bunch.
When he passed me my punch, he had a big grin on his face, “I think this is just what you need Jace.”
It’s a moment I relive, but I can’t take it back. Nothing will ever take back what we turned into. Karloff can try to find a cure for the rest of his life, but I’ve given up hope on it happening.
Gregor changed right in front of my eyes. The sounds and screams coming from him still reverberate around me if I think about it too much. It was horrifying and I found myself frozen as I stood there.
The only warning that I got before I changed as well was the feeling of my skin tightening. My limbs elongated and then became covered in fur. The sensation of my canines growing wasn’t nearly as painful as the feeling of my growing fingernails. It was agonizing.
It took me a moment, but I realized my screams turned to howls. I wished for death, but it never came. It still hasn’t and considering my increased healing abilities, I have my doubts it ever will.
When I was able to come back to myself, my senses were heightened and I could see everything clearly, but also muted in other ways. Being able to see as well as I did, considering it was midnight and dark, was jarring. My night vision helps me in my job, but I still resent the hell out of it.
I resent all of it.
I do go by Karloff’s place now and again because his cottage is in the woods, my woods, but I still can’t bring myself to look the man in the eye. He changed so many lives that night and I don’t know if I can ever forgive him.
I never had many friends because I preferred to be alone, which serves me well as a lone wolfman, but the change I went through has forced me to be even more reclusive. We might be a town full of monsters, but there are times when I can’t control my feral nature. The need to hunt, to chase, and to feel the blood pumping in an animal as I take it down sometimes drives me and my actions.
I’m afraid of myself.
It’s gotten worse in the last month or so and I have no explanation. It’s not like there’s a support group for people who have been turned into monsters on the internet. I’ve looked. It’s not there.
When I find nothing worth eating, I sigh and run my clawed fingers through my hair. It’s wild and unkempt. Just like me.
I hate the idea of going into town. I can hear so much and yet feel so disconnected from it all. If I accept the others as the monsters that they were turned into then I’ll have to accept myself. I’m not there and I doubt I ever will be.
It’s easier to stay away. It’s easier to retreat and have the woods as my only safe place.
I hop in my Jeep and drive into town, letting the wind flowing through the open parts of the vehicle remind me I’m still outside, still in nature, and not caged in. It’s one of my biggest fears—being trapped. The beast I’ve become, no matter how much I might try and suppress that side of my nature, would never survive such a thing.
I need the wind. The smell of the fall air. The sky above us.
When I’m at the point where the woods are becoming more town than forest, the scent of home floats to me and I slam on the brakes. I didn’t know what home smells like until right now. It’s blueberry muffins baking and fresh squeezed orange juice in a glass. It reminds me of mornings with my family and lazy days.
A growl comes out of the deepest part of my chest and the hair on my body stands on end. My muscles bulge, threatening to rip the shirt I have on and the thighs of my jeans. I find myself tilting my nose in the air and inhaling deeply, trying to get more of the scent. My mouth is watering, actually fucking watering.
I’ve never had this kind of reaction to a scent before. It calls me home and gives me hope, something I haven’t felt in the years since the fateful night I became a monster. It doesn’t make any damn sense.
I force myself to start driving, but now I’m following the scent, tracking it through the open cab of my Jeep, needing it more than I need my next breath of clean air. I know, without a doubt, I’ll never be able to exist without this scent in my life.
It’s comfort.
Home.
Forever.
What the fuck?
I clench my muscles and try to go a different direction, but I can’t. It’s like the feral part of me is driving my body right now, the part of me I never give into. The part of me I’ve tried to push away since my change, even though it never works.
I stop in front of a small house and take another deep breath. It’s coming from here.
There’s a car in the driveway, one on the older side, but solid looking. It’s not a car I recognize, but there’s been a lot of people moving in recently and I’m not in town enough to know who all the new people are or what they drive. I know it doesn’t belong to one of my fellow monsters. I would have smelled this before if it was a monster.
There isn’t any luggage in the car and the house already has a lived-in feel to it. The scent is too concentrated to be brand new. Part of me wants to climb out of my Jeep and stalk up to the door to find the origins of the scent, but another part of me wants to run deep into the forest and never come out.
Before I can decide, the door swings open revealing a woman.
One I’ve never seen before. The first thing I notice is her hair because with the pastel purple, pink, teal and blue, she almost looks like one of the monsters, a siren, but I know she’s not. She’s petit, at least to me and my 6’7” height. I wasn’t always this tall, but even at the 6’1” I was before the change, I’d tower over her. She has curves in all the right places and my cock goes rock hard as I look her over.
I’ve never had this kind of reaction to a woman. I was pretty sure there was something wrong with me, but now my cock is aching. What is going on?
As the woman approaches the car in the driveway, I’m hit with the blueberry muffin and orange sent again.
Holy shit. It’s her. She’s what smells so fucking good.
When her eyes come up and meet mine, I notice they’re ice blue as they widen. It’s the last thing I see before I take control of my body and peel down the street. I don’t know what the fuck just happened and I’m not sure I want to find out.
Life is strange enough around here. I don’t need to add to it.
It’s not like she would ever want me anyway.
CHAPTER 2
DAKOTA
There’s something calming about Screaming Woods. Trust me, I know it makes no sense considering the number of…unusual people who live here. It’s hard to process the different creatures I’ve seen, but I’m not judging them. Creatures. I fucking hate that word to describe them, but I’m kind of at a loss over what other word to use.
I’ve heard them refer to each other as monsters, but it feels wrong. Sure, they’re not exactly normal, but who the fuck wants to be surrounded by normal? It would be boring as hell if everyone were the same.
I almost got lost in what someone else expected of me and I’m not going to do the same to someone else. I won’t put them into a box when they don’t deserve it. Boxes are so hard to break out of. I should know.
It’s one of the reasons I left Denver. Something was pulling me to Screaming Woods as I started to look for the perfect place to open the first storefront for the business that I run with my best friend Hadley. I can’t explain why, but every time I thought about going somewhere else, I would feel sick.
Not just uneasy or unwell, but I would get nauseous. I can’t explain it, but then again, considering where I am maybe I don’t need to find an explanation. I’ve seen things. Things most people would think only exist in fairytales.
Orcs. A fairy. A vampire. I swear I saw a dragon flying around the other night. I’ve heard a howl from somewhere in the forest that set all the hair on my body on edge.
Not from fear though. It was something else entirely and I’m not sure how to process it.
Which is why I’ve pushed it to the side.
I’ve been here for a few weeks now and I feel safe, even surrounded by all the residents of this little town. People have either accepted that I’m joining the community, or we’ve kept our distance. They’re far more wary of me than I am of them.
I guess it makes sense. They don’t know me. It’s their turf.
I think this is going as well as it would in any new place. The place I chose just happens to have residents who are a little different. I’m okay with different.
I’ve always felt unique, but I spent far too long trying to fit into a certain mold. Hadley spent years trying to get me to be me, but I put that energy into helping our business grow. I’m far more outgoing than Hadley is, but from the few conversations we’ve had since I came to Screaming Woods and she went to the Double Dog Dare Ranch, it sounds like she’s coming out of her shell.
I’m proud of her.
I didn’t even realize all the ways I’ve been suppressing the person I am and most of it was because of my ex-boyfriend, Macneal. He wanted me to be a certain way, so I tried to fit into the box he created for me. I know my need to be loved comes from my own issues of not feeling like I’m enough as I am.
Macneal took things too far. He was always manipulative, but I let it go for the most part, and then I was in too deep. It’s not uncommon and I won’t pretend like it is, but that doesn’t make it easier to heal from it all.
He wanted me to be polite and smile when he wanted to impress others. He didn’t want me to laugh too loudly. He had to approve everything I wore. He didn’t want me to dye my hair.
The last straw was when he put his hands on me violently. It was a wake-up call, and I knew I couldn’t look my family or Hadley in the eyes and stay with him. The longer we were apart, the better I felt in a lot of ways, but I also felt less safe. I knew he was stalking me. After he showed up where I was the third time, I got a feeling in my gut that something wasn’t right and wouldn’t be as long as I stayed in Denver.
That’s when I started to look for a place to go, knowing I could go somewhere new and take the next step in our business plan. Opening a storefront has been something Hadley and I dreamed about for so long. We can ship most of our treats anywhere but opening a store in Denver was going to be too expensive and we had outgrown using Hadley’s van as our base of operations.
The last thing I did before I left Denver was go to Georgia, a friend of some of my customers who are one big family, to get my hair dyed. Now it’s exactly how I’ve wanted it for years. The purple, teal, blue and pink mermaid hair is perfect for me, and I feel like I’m stepping into who I am now. Who I was always meant to be.
Was it a big ‘fuck you’ to Macneal? Sure, and I’m not even a little bit ashamed to admit it.
He doesn’t deserve to make decisions for me. Not after he left bruises on me. Fuck him.
