Taming the Heart (Creatures of the Night Book 2) by Tisha Wilson Page A

pleasant. Her mother held fast to the woman’s hand for a moment before giving her an adoring smile.
    “She’s in Maine,” Miranda said softly. Her mother had grown up in Maine in a little cottage by the sea. The house in the camera image was much larger but it was a similar build and color.
    “I got the call moments before I heard you cry out for me. I was going to show you. Saul had her relocated and settled in a way that would keep her happiest. He’s always good at that. He’s human so he knows a few things about sentiment that I wouldn’t.”
    So her mother wouldn’t grow old in a nursing home. She would grow old in her happy childhood home, at least for as long as she still had memories. Miranda knew with a sinking heart that her mother would never have another thought for her or her sister or her father again. It was good for her mother, heartbreaking for her.
    “You’re right. She’s better off where she is. She probably won’t even miss me.”
    *
    He saw the heartbreak in her eyes and felt that unfamiliar pang inside him again. She was not the huntress right now. The electricity had stopped sparking between them, but he still had the urge to reach out and pull her close, to comfort her. Strange.
    “Maybe not, but there will come a time when she will… return to creation and remember. Your time together, as mother and daughter, will always exist outside of time.”
    She shook her head. “In the end of days right? Because I can’t die, like you. I’ll never see her again until after the last wolf is dead.” A small sob hiccupped from her soul but to her credit she didn’t break completely down. The reality was setting in on her now.
    “I will always be honest with you because lies are a waste of time. You heal like me yes, and in most likely hood you are immortal like me, but… you are still human too. I don’t know what will happen. Your human self might still grow old and return to creation.”
    “You mean go to heaven?”
    “I don’t know that there is a heaven or hell. I only know this existence.”
    “What is that supposed to mean?” She looked so lost and he knew that he wasn’t one to give direction since he had nearly lost himself, but he would give her what he could.
    “I only know that humans are born and then they die but it is not this flesh that makes a human. Humans are more than flesh and like there is the evil force that is darkness, the force that makes up the wolves, there must be light. They balance each other. Do I think there is some city with streets paved in gold like the Christians do? I don’t know. I only know the life force… creation.”
    “So where does that leave us as hunters. We are not part of the darkness and we cannot create life right?”
    He shrugged again. “No. Like the wolves we do not create life, neither were we born of darkness. As I said, all I know is this existence. If not for my journals I wouldn’t even know if I had come from creation. Sometimes I feel like I walked out of the mist.”
    He heard what he was saying and had to wonder why he cared enough to tell her these things. He hadn’t ever told anyone these things. Even with Dawn he had kept some parts to himself. With Miranda Jamison… he just had this overwhelming desire to please her, to see her smile. He hated for her to wail and sob the way she had done. It grated on his nerves. He would move mountains if she would just be at ease.
    “What is your name?” she asked.
    He hadn’t even realized he had not told her. “Braden Saarikoski.”
    “Braden. The name suites you. You were a Viking then?”
    “I may have been a Viking in the time I was born.”
    “I thought so.”
    He blinked as he watched her. Some of her melancholy was fleeing as she watched her mother on the screen. “How do you know? I don’t have an accent. I practiced-”
    “No. The way you dress.”
    He looked down at his fur coat and calfskin pants. His boots were heavy steal toes and his shirt was black