I followed a few steps after him before realizing what he was growling at, and what exactly had flown in our faces.
A vulture was standing in the grass, chomping on James’s pie.
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” James growled.
The vulture made some kind of weird gagging noise, and then lazily spread its wings and took off.
James watched the bird, then returned to the porch shoulders hanging in defeat. “You know, I thought that thing was the demon for a while.”
He sat down beside me.
“Yeah.” I took his hand. “I think I saw it when Buddy made me crash. But if the vulture was connected to Buddy, it would be gone now, too. Maybe it just likes you.”
“I thought it was a demon,” James said. “Now I know for sure that it is. Pure motherfucking evil. Whether or not it’s connected to the Elvis-wannabe demon.”
I squeezed his hand and tried not to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
“This settles it. Gram has to give me her recipe,” he said.
“You can try…”
“I’m family now,” James squeezed my hand back.
“You are,” I agreed. “She’s always had a soft spot for you anyway.”
“Me?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Nah.” Matt took a seat in one of the rockers. “I’m Gram’s favorite.”
I laughed. “I bet Caleb would beg to differ.”
“Caleb’s not here,” Matt said.
“Thank God,” Declan said.
I couldn’t disagree with that.
Everyone piled onto the porch. Finn and Sophie sat near us and passed out pizza. Daphne rolled a cooler full of beer to the center of the group.
Mitchell and his band mates, who I’d nearly forgotten entirely about, came out, too. The O’Malleys all stiffened at the intrusion.
Daphne plastered on her signature smile. “There’s a lasagna on the stove for you.”
Razor shook his head and frowned. Blade hung back, his attention flicking between Mitchel and Razor.
“How did it go?” Mitchell asked. “Did you stake the vamp? Tell us everything.”
Finn leaned back and whispered to Pearl, “I think we’re going to need one more round of memory wipes.”
Pearl nodded.
“There’s no such thing as vampires,” Declan said firmly.
“We’re not stupid,” Mitchell said. “I’m surprised you can’t tell what we really are—supernatural savants.”
“That’s how we came up with the spell,” Razor said. “To summon the vampire queen, who would help inspire our music.”
“Yep, I looked it up,” Mitchell said. “Demon succotash, or something like that.”
Was Buddy supposed to be a demon succubus? I was still having a hard time putting everything together. Buddy used Elvis songs to make people hallucinate and kill themselves, or hallucinate and dance. Whatever suited his fancy, I guessed.
“What about the journal?” I asked. “Was Buddy really here sixty, seventy years ago, as a patient in the asylum? If so, does that mean he was some kind of ghost? And why was he trying to drag me into the woods?”
Everyone exchanged glances.
“Well,” Finn said, looking at Pearl, “you always have the answers...what do you think?”
“He was likely a higher form of a mara demon,” she said. “It’s what the word ‘nightmare’ comes from. As a higher form, he was able to control perception among people who were awake. And he was here many years ago, but he must have gone dormant after the asylum closed. I suspect he was trapped behind that wall. When it came down and the band summoned him, he was able to manifest again, and make people hallucinate.”
“He did indeed cause visions of terror,” James said with a smirk. “Those attack bunnies were terrifying.”
“Shut up,” I said, laughing.
“Wait, you saw bunnies, too?” Matt said, looking at me. “It looked to me like they were all over the diner, dancing with us.”
“Yeah, sounds really creepy,” James said, covering a smile.
I flicked his ear. “None of this explains why he was trying to take me into the woods.”
Pearl looked thoughtful. “I suspect the other attacks were too short-lived for him. Remember, in the past, he lived on the premises, it sounds like, and he fed off the hallucinations of the patients. In attempting to take you away, Anna, he was perhaps trying to manipulate your mind for a longer duration. Unable to get that from you—”
“Because I saved my woman,” James said proudly.
“Yes, yes,” Pearl said. “Unable to get that from Anna because of James’s blatantly heroic actions, he found his way to Hellfire for a feast of hallucinations.”
We all sat quietly for a moment, trying to digest that information.
“All right, all of you inside, now.” Pearl rose from her seat and pointed to the human guests.
Finn and Declan got up, too, and helped her usher them inside. Soon all five humans would have shiny new recollections of their time in Forbidden, minus anything supernatural.
Soon after, Declan stepped back out onto the porch, his face pale.
“What’s wrong?” Daphne popped up from the bench.
“Just got a call.”
“Don’t tell me it’s a greaser vampire demon sighting,” Matt said.
“No.” Declan swallowed hard. “It was the Redemption alpha.”
The town of Redemption was the closest neighbor Forbidden had in the shifter world.
“There’s a criminal on the loose, possibly headed this way,” Declan said.
“Did he say what this guy did?” Matt asked. “Must be bad for the alpha to call.”
“She.”
“What?” Matt asked.
“The criminal’s a woman. She’s accused of witchcraft, and causing a hell of a lot of trouble.”
“What is it about Forbidden that attracts this kind of thing?” Sophie shook her head. “At least it attracts good people, too.” She touched my shoulder and smiled. “If you’re up for it, new O’Malley sister, I’d love to do a collab video with you sometime. Advice on overcoming negativity from a real therapist. My viewers would love you.”
“Not as much as I do.” James’s whisper was so soft beside my ear, I knew no one else could hear him, even with shifter hearing.
I smiled. “I’d love to.”
If you’d have told me a week ago that Daphne, Sophie, and I would make fast friends, I wouldn’t have believed it. I’d felt like the outsider around the pair of them. But that was before the tinfoil hats and fighting demons. I liked their positivity, and I was happy to be a part of the family.
My phone dinged in my pocket. I pulled it out and found it was another email from Lenore. I owed her a Skype call.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
I walked over to my rental and leaned on the hood, just far enough for some privacy. Then I called Lenore. She answered right away.
First, I saw the mustard fabric of her sofa. Then the camera shook and I saw her face. The usual anguish lines weren’t there. She looked lighter, freer.
“Hi, Lenore. How are you?”
“It happened again,” she said.
“Another dream?”
She reached off camera and pulled something. It turned out to be an older gentleman with a thin frame, the widest, most charming grin I’d ever seen, and a cowboy hat on top of his head.
“This is Teddy,” she said.
“Hi.” He waved to me.
“Nice to meet you.” I waved back.
“I took your advice,” Lenore said. Then she got up from the sofa and carried her computer to a different room. She looked back the way she had walked, then turned to me and whispered, “He wears the hat all the time.”
She beamed with excitement.
“I’m so happy it all worked out for you,” I said. “Honesty about our needs can go a long way with our partners.”
“You�
�re so right. And I’ve been having new dreams, too. I’ll talk to you all about them next time. When will you be available for another appointment?”
My stomach dropped. I wouldn’t be able to schedule anything in person, not with moving to Forbidden. I loved my job, but I loved James more. I’d made my choice.
“I’m actually moving,” I said. “I know it’s sudden, but—”
“Honesty about your needs.” Lenore nodded knowingly.
“My life is here,” I said. “If you’d like, I can give you a recommendation of a colleague who—”
“Can we have appointments on the video phone?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Then I’ll stick with you,” she said. Her attention flicked away from the camera. “I have to go now. Teddy’s wearing nothing but his chaps.” Her voice grew quiet and she flashed me a mischievous grin. “The ones with no cloth over the bum.”
She waved goodbye and the screen went black.
I swear, I couldn’t have asked for more. My life was falling into place. All that was left was the actual move. Funny, I hadn’t actually talked to James about where we were going to live. It didn’t matter. We could rebuild the shed behind the B&B for all I cared, as long as we were together.
I could feel him before I saw him. His scent of paints and coffee enveloped me, and my skin lit up by his closeness.
“Anna.”
I turned. Shadows danced across James’s face, hiding his expression.
“There’s something I wanted to ask you,” he said.
He stepped closer, pinning me to the hood of the car.
My voice came out soft and breathy. “Anything.”
With his body over mine, every nerve came to life. I could see his eyes, shadowed yet gentle, almost vulnerable. I wanted to touch his face, to kiss his lips and promise he didn’t have to be afraid. But I waited, to let him speak.
“The townhouse we were going to rent ten years ago—”
A lump formed in my throat.
“What would you think about living there now?”
Tears pooled at the corners of my eyes. “Yes. I can’t imagine a more perfect home to start our lives together.”
James exhaled and a smile played at the corners of his lips. “It’s for sale. I put in a bid, and it’s ours if we want it.”
I grabbed the back of his neck and delved my tongue between his lips, kissing him with everything I had and everything I was. Because that’s what he was to me—everything.
When I let him go, he smiled. “That’s a yes?”
“Yes.”
He kissed me. This time it was soft, and when he pulled away, I was breathless. He pulled his shirt up over his head. I watched the flex of his muscles, the definition highlighted in the moonlight.
“Run with me,” he said, and slowly backed up toward the woods, leaving pieces of his clothing along the way.
“Always.” I couldn’t get naked fast enough. I pulled off my shoes and laughed as I chased after him.
James shifted first, but I was only a few steps behind. Wolf and lion in the woods, we ran side by side, forever mates.
Epilogue
Redemption had been full of power—almost as full of power as Forbidden. The skin-changers walked there, proud as anything.
The entity came to Redemption with two other skin-changers, and it returned to Forbidden with them, as well. Their beasts were wolves; it could sense that much. Unfortunately, they were protected. The charms that could render the entity incapable were few, and yet these skin-changers traveled with just such a charm.
No matter. A skin-changer’s power was strong, but not nearly strong enough to suit the entity’s purposes.
What it needed was to find the witch again. With enough power from the skin-changers, it would finally be able to overcome her.
And then nothing would be able to stop it.
—
The fun continues with Caught in Forbidden, Matt and Cordelia’s story - coming in May!
A Taste of Caught in Forbidden
Cordelia
As I was looking around, the sexiest man on the planet walked into the room.
“Oh good, you’re awake,” he said.
His voice was deep and rippled through me like silk on skin. He had short, neatly trimmed dark hair that made me wonder if he had some kind of military background. The way he carried himself, and those massive shoulders, made me think he’d rock bootcamp. He wore gray sweats and a white t-shirt. His gray eyes creased at the corners as he smiled at me.
Hello, Adonis. I’d been hit by a car, died, and come straight to heaven.
Grab your copy of Caught in Forbidden!
Also by Keira Blackwood and Liza Street
Alphas & Alchemy: Fierce Mates
Claimed in Forbidden
Fated in Forbidden
Bound to Forbidden
Caught in Forbidden
Mated in Forbidden
Alphas & Alchemy: Fierce Mates combines the worlds of Keira’s Alphas & Alchemy and Liza’s Fierce Mates.
You can find more Alphas & Alchemy and all of Keira’s other shifter books HERE.
You can find more of Liza’s Fierce Protectors on all major retailers HERE.
And for more from Keira and Liza together, the best duo since peanut butter met chocolate, check out their reverse harem series Spellbound Shifters—available on all major retailers HERE.
About the Authors
Keyboard ninja, late-blooming bibliophile, proud geek, animal lover, eternal optimist, visual artist.
USA Today Bestselling Author Keira Blackwood writes steamy paranormal romance full of suspense, action, and a dash of humor. No cheating. Always a happily-ever-after.
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Liza likes her heroes packing muscles and her heroines packing agency. She got her start in romance by sneak-reading her grandma's paperbacks. Now she’s a USA Today bestselling author and she spends her time writing about hot shifters with fierce hearts.
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