Shifters Hunt: Shifters Hunt Romance Boxset Books 1-4

by Selina Woods

  As we now ambled among people who could potentially hear what we said and report us, I made light conversation about her life and raising her brothers. “How old are they?” I asked.

  “They’re both eleven,” she replied with a glance up at me that made the sun dance in her eyes. “Albert is younger by only a few minutes.”

  “They seem like nice kids.”

  “They are. Under normal circumstances, they wouldn’t steal. What did they try to take?”

  “Candy.”

  Kiana grimaced, then changed it to a grin. “They rarely get sweets, and they’re perpetually hungry. Growing boys and all.”

  “I was young once,” I told her, answering her grin.

  “You have folks here?”

  “Nope.” I gazed around at the passing people, the cars and trucks on the street, mostly driven by enforcers. “I’m an orphan. Don’t have anyone.”

  As usually happened when I thought of my past, and the family I never had, I felt the strange sensation again. As though there were strings on my heart pulling me to the northwest. I never understood why that happened, but acknowledged it as simply a part of me.

  Kiana stayed silent for long moments. “I’d rather have been an orphan,” she said quietly, “than seen my parents die the way they did.”

  Chapter Two

  Not quite sure what to say, I said something that wouldn’t make it better but was the only thing I could muster. “I’m sorry.”

  Kiana gazed around at the mixture of humans and shifters passing by. “It’s a very bad world we live in,” she murmured. “And none of us have the means to make it better.”

  “There are, you know,” I began, then dropped my voice, “safe cities.”

  “Yeah. I’ve heard. But we’d best not talk about those.” Kiana faked a smile. “My work is right there. Thank you for what you did, Logan.”

  “My pleasure,” I replied, taking her hand briefly. “See you.”

  “Bye.”

  I watched her walk into the diner and then turned around to head back to the store. As I did, I wondered, not for the first time, how folks might escape this city and head for one that was ruled by an elected council. Militias kept the peace without preying upon others; they even drove out the night hunters.

  People were safe, prosperous, and happy in those places.

  Permitting myself to dwell on the near impossible, I daydreamed of escaping Miami, taking Derek and his family with me, as well as Kiana and her brothers. But with Duke’s enforcers guarding the roads, and the open areas of land filled with swamps that contained venomous snakes and alligators, leaving this place was difficult, if not a fatal prospect.

  Derek eyed me sourly upon my return to the store. “What took you so long?”

  Unable to halt my grin, I replied, “I met someone.”

  His gaze sharpened on me. “I’m guessing this someone is young and female?”

  “And beautiful. Those kids’ older sister.”

  “Well,” Derek finally said, “maybe it’s time you settled down with a mate.”

  I glanced around the store, seeing only a few shoppers. Like everywhere, business was never good, and we paid Duke’s thugs nearly half of our profits, which in turn, we split. Between Duke and too few with any money to buy our goods, he and I barely eked out a living. Still, we were better off than many.

  “I don’t know,” I said slowly. “This isn’t exactly a place where I want to raise cubs.”

  “Shh.” Derek also glanced around, his brows lowered. “We don’t talk like that here, in the open.”

  “Sorry. I know its doubly hard on you. You’ve got a mate and itty bitty Dereks at home.”

  “Yeah. Even so, having them is worth it. You should reconsider a family.”

  I shrugged and ambled around the counter to join him. “We’ll see if this goes anywhere first. But, damn.” I grinned. “She sure is a nice girl.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Kiana.”

  “With a name like that, she sure better be good looking. If you’ll watch the front, I’ll unload in the back.”

  “You got it.”

  Through the rest of the day, my mind never wandered far from Kiana. Not one to fall in love at first sight, nor become infatuated on sight, I still couldn’t stop thinking about her. Her eyes, her sleek body, her wealth of black hair. I’d had a few flings in my past, nothing serious, and hoped she wasn’t dangling a potential rival from the end of her fingers.

  I suppose I should have asked. A lioness as beautiful as she would have the males lusting after her in droves.

  At closing time, just as the sun faded from the sky and folks hurried to get out of work. They headed home before it became fully dark, and I locked the front doors. As Derek ambled from the rear storeroom, dusty and dirty, I loaded up a box of meat, produce, and some fruit, as well a couple of candy bars.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  I pulled some cash from my pocket and held it up to him. “Put this in the till. I’m taking this to Kiana and her brothers.”

  “Are they that bad off?”

  “I think most of what they eat is the crap no one else wants from the diner.”

  “Shit.” Derek shook his head and took the money. “This is just going back into your pocket, you know.”

  “You do the books,” I replied, picking up the box. “You have some of it coming, too.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  I let myself out the back as Derek would finish counting the day’s take, tally it into the books, and order supplies if we needed them. He was better at that than I was, so he naturally took control of it when we started the business. As I trusted him completely, I never worried about being cheated.

  It was fully dark by the time I returned to the small house, and, as most houses in town, no lights showed behind the tightly drawn curtains. Considering people wouldn’t open their doors after night had fallen, I wondered how I could let them know it was me. As I pondered my dilemma, it was solved for me when I heard the soft scrape of shoes on concrete behind me.

  Though I turned, I saw nothing in the dark. As my instincts for trouble stayed quiet, I assumed Kiana saw the hulking person on her doorstep and had gone to ground.

  “Kiana,” I called softly. “It’s me. Logan.”

  I heard her sharp gust of breath, and her shadow rose from the shrubs to my left. “That’s a good way to get attacked, Logan,” she snapped, stepping toward me. “I’m rather protective of my brothers.”

  “Worth the risk,” I said cheerfully as she came closer. “I brought you stuff.”

  Even in the dark, I saw her eyes widen as she gazed at the box in my hands. “What stuff?” I heard the suspicion in her tone.

  “Look,” I said, my voice quiet. “I want to help out. Your brothers are hungry. I bet you are, too.”

  She held up the bags in her hands, and I scented cold hamburgers and what might be coleslaw. “Is it better than this shit?”

  Chuckling, I said, “Take it and find out.”

  “As long as you’re here, you may as well come in.”

  Kiana opened the door, and we both slipped in quickly, enabling her to lock it again. Tony and Albert sat on a worn couch in the front room, playing an old board game, and looked at us with surprise.

  “We didn’t leave the house, Kiana,” Tony protested, staring at me wide-eyed.

  “Chill out,” Kiana said, dropping the sacks of cold burgers on a table. “Logan brought us what I think might be some real food.”

  “Can you cook?” I asked, setting the box down on the same table.

  Both boys eagerly unpacked the box. “Hamburger, ribs, bread, potatoes, eggs, apples—look!”

  Tony held up the candy, grinning. “You really brought us these?”

  I scowled. “Just as a way to keep you from robbing me blind.”

  “Yes,” Albert hissed with a triumphant fist pump. “Crime does pay.”

  “Hardly,” Kiana snap
ped. “Take it all into the kitchen and put it where it belongs.”

  The two put most of the food back in the box, leaving out the candy and fruit, arguing about what they wanted for dinner that night. Kiana smiled as they went, then up at me. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.”

  She tapped my chest with her finger. “Just as you know, this won’t get you into my pants.”

  I grinned. “Well, the thought did cross my mind.”

  Turning, she followed the kids and spoke over her shoulder. “It’ll get you an invitation to eat with us.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  Tony and Albert had decided that dinner would be fried hamburger and eggs, with boiled potatoes and warmed bread on the side. Kiana gestured for me to seat myself at the tiny table while she directed operations. Yet she left most of the work to the boys, who dove into the act of cooking with enthusiasm.

  “We don’t get fresh meals often these days,” she told me, sitting down at the table while still keeping a watchful eye on her brothers.

  “I suspected as much,” I answered.

  “If you’re not trying to get into my pants,” she asked, “then why?”

  “I know what it is to be hungry,” I murmured. “The orphanage fed us what they could scrounge; much of what we youngsters ate was nearly rotten.”

  “How long were you in there?”

  “I left when I was about their age,” I replied, my eyes on the kids. “Was a street rat for a while, then earned a big wad of cash in a card game. Instead of blowing it, I put it into the store with Derek, my partner.”

  “Very smart.”

  I glanced back at her. “I do only want to help. No strings.”

  I thought I saw the shine of tears in her eyes before she blinked and turned away. “Not many people do that.”

  “No. They may want to but can’t. I’m fortunate enough that I can.”

  The dinner Tony and Albert fixed was far better than I feared it would be: hot and tasty. They ate as only hungry boys could, and talked almost nonstop about their lives, and their hopes of a future in a free city.

  “I want to live where I don’t have to be afraid all the time,” Tony stated, his mouth full. “It’s not fair that only the bad guys get everything.”

  “I hope you will keep that sort of thoughts to yourself,” Kiana said sharply. “Duke and his goons will kill even you, as young as you are, for talk like that.”

  “That’s why we need to get out,” Albert told her. “I bet you can say anything you want in a free city.”

  “Probably,” I told them. “But getting to one can be more dangerous than staying here.”

  “I heard there’s an old trail that leads through the swamps and the alligators,” Tony added.

  Both mine and Kiana’s stares sharpened on him. “Where’d you hear that?” I asked.

  “We overheard some deer shifters talking about it,” he replied. “Other folks have escaped using it.”

  “We think those deer did it,” Albert continued eagerly. “We ain’t seen them since.”

  “They also could have been killed,” Kiana commented, her voice harsher than I thought it should be. She’s scared they might push her into it.

  “We’re lions, Kiana,” Tony told her with a frown. “We can survive out there until we get to a safe city.”

  “Do you know how to hunt?” she snapped, her fear clear. “To take down a wild animal? To fight something you can’t see? You reach the edge of a river to get a drink, and an alligator lunges up to grab a hold of you and drag you under the water?”

  Tony stared at his plate. “There has to be a way,” he muttered.

  “We already lost Mom and Dad,” Kiana said softly. “We can’t lose each other. Not now.”

  Chapter Three

  “We got trouble,” Derek said the next morning.

  I hesitated in the act of closing the rear door I had just come through, staring at him. “What kind?”

  “Kell was found dead not far from here.”

  I finished closing the door and locked it. “We can’t be held accountable for that,” I said slowly. “We didn’t do it.”

  “But word has gotten around that we said harsh things to him yesterday,” Derek replied, heading into the front to start the day’s business. “Rumors are running faster than a panicked gazelle.”

  “He has to have made more enemies than just us,” I protested, following him. “If he’s tried to extort more than he should, maybe Duke had him killed.”

  “Duke would have killed him publicly as an example,” Derek reminded me. “He wouldn’t have left him in an alley with his throat chewed open.”

  “Then maybe a night hunter did it.”

  Derek eyed me bleakly. “Word has it he wasn’t sodomized.”

  “He had no sex appeal.”

  “I wish that were the case, old son,” Derek said, putting a little cash in the till. “But you know as well as I do that if there’s a hole for the night hunters’ peckers, it goes in.”

  I ran my hands through my shaggy black mane. “Even so, there’s not enough to hang his death on us.”

  “Let’s hope Duke sees it that way,” he said as he went to open the front door. “Or doesn’t give a shit.”

  The news made me more nervous than I cared to admit. I jumped whenever the door opened and caught Derek doing the same. Exchanging rueful glances, we worked selling our goods to the neighborhood residents, who seemed just as nervous and harried as we were. If an ordinary citizen got murdered, there might be a half-assed investigation. But when an enforcer got killed, his fellow goons went on a rampage to find his killer.

  Thus, when three goons walked flat-eyed into the market, neither of us were surprised. Worried, yes, but hardly surprised.

  “You heard about Kell?” a goon named Wilson asked.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “We heard.”

  “There was some trouble between you and him?” Wilson and his pals stepped closer to the counter.

  Shoppers wanted no part of what might come. Baskets clattered to the floor as they hustled, skittering aside before escaping into the street. Derek watched them go and scowled.

  “Look, you’re bad for business. We didn’t kill that greedy idiot.”

  Wilson tilted his head. “Greedy idiot?”

  “Yeah,” I snapped, now more annoyed than nervous. “He knew damn well we pay regularly, and tried to hit us up for his own pockets. We called him on it. He left.”

  He nodded. “We’d heard that from others. But even if Duke would have hanged him for it, you know how it is. No one kills Duke’s people except Duke.”

  “Then go hassle someone else,” Derek demanded. “We didn’t do it.”

  “You boys need to convince Duke of that,” Wilson said calmly. “Let’s go.”

  “What about running our business?” I growled. “Duke takes so much of our cut, we need to stay open. He might be unhappy with you if we can’t pay because you forced us to shut down.”

  “Then you come,” Wilson stated, glaring at me, then gestured toward Derek. “He stays to run your store. But if Duke finds one guilty, he finds both of you guilty, and you both die. Understand?”

  “This ain’t right,” I snapped, coming around the counter. “We didn’t kill him.”

  “Then you’ll be back here in a few hours. Let’s go.”

  I sent a sour glance toward Derek, then followed Wilson out of the store and onto the sidewalk. A four-door truck sat at the curb, and one of the goons opened it. I got in as Wilson walked around the front to climb behind the wheel. One goon sat in front while the other got in next to me.

  The drive to Duke’s posh residence took about thirty minutes as he lived in a tall building on the beach. It was in an undamaged high rise among several like it, but I’d heard he permitted no one to live in the others. Too much of a security risk.

  Guards lounged in front with big rifles cradled in their arms, and there were more inside. Though I didn’t know what
species they were, I suspected most were lion or tiger shifters. I knew Duke was a tiger, even though I’d never met him before, as that knowledge was not kept secret. In fact, I’d heard he flaunted being the toughest tiger in the city.

  The guards watched me curiously, and I supposed their non-reaction meant many were brought into Duke’s exalted presence. As Wilson and the other two enforcers escorted me to the elevators, I wondered how many left as corpses. Wilson hit the button for the penthouse, and up we went.

  There were no guards when the elevator doors opened with a faint hiss and a ding. I walked out, and found I walked out alone. His expression neutral, Wilson punched the button again, and the doors hissed closed. The lights above showed the car descending. I reckon Duke feels he needs no guards up here, as he’s the toughest in the city.

  I stepped further into the vast suite, tastefully decorated as far as I could tell. My small apartment had only the basic furnishings: no oil paintings on the walls, and no statues carved from wood. I trod on thick, ice-blue carpeting, and the place smelled faintly of incense. But I saw no sign of my host.

  “Greetings,” came a deep resonate voice from the main room. “Please join me.”

  I followed the voice into what looked like an impressive sitting room, more paintings on the walls and with comfortable furniture, sideboards that I thought might be antiques, and decanters of booze on trays. I felt as though I just walked into the chambers of an ancient movie mogul.

  Duke sat in a huge armchair watching me with pale amber eyes, almost the color of raw honey. He had blond, faintly orange hair, a strong nose and chin, and perfect teeth I witnessed when he smiled. He wore an absurd-looking robe that reminded me of the garb the ancient folks of East Asia wore thousands of years ago.

  “Your name, please?”

  “Logan,” I replied, wondering if he thought I’d bow to him.

  “Care for a drink, Logan?”

  “Sure,” I answered, and his graceful gesture pointed me to the decanters.

  After I poured myself a whiskey, Duke waved me to a short but comfortable sofa opposite him. If his eyes had a warm color, there was nothing truly warm about them. They were icy, calculating, and utterly devoid of mercy or a soul. Now I wished I had concealed a weapon under my clothes, despite the risk of being killed just for having it.