Unraveled (Dark Khimairans # 2)
A Zodiac Shifters Book: Paranormal Romance: Capricorn
by Decadent Kane
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and places are either the product of the writer’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is coincidental.
Unraveled (Dark Khimairan # 2)
A Zodiac Shifters Novel
Copyright © 2018 Decadent Kane
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Edited by: Patricia Eddy
Cover art: Raven Blackburn
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Khimairan (chimera) Lore
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Thank you for reading this Zodiac Shifters romance. | A shifter’s mate is in the stars... Welcome to Zodiac Shifters, a collection of books with an astrological spin on love. From Aries to Virgo... discover all-new tales of paranormal romance and urban fantasy. Zodiac Shifters features New York Times, USA Today, and other bestselling authors. Each month expect new releases based upon the twelve astrology signs. Happily Ever After... it’s our promise to you. | Learn more at http://zodiacshifters.com/
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Khimairan (chimera) Lore
Doomed from the beginning, Khimaira was born from two powerful divine celestial beings— Typhon whose many heads touched the stars and Echidna, mother of all monsters.
Humans came to believe Bellerophon had slain Khimaira using the winged horse Pegasos as flight and a spear to claim the deadly blow.
But this is the myth of humans, as those who win wars tend to write history in their favor.
The truth, Typhon and Echidna used their divine powers to move their beloved Khimaira with heads of dragon, lion, and goat to the stars so death would not claim her. They left the shell of her body and took her soul and mind, forever to be graced among the stars.
Khimaira grew lonely and heart sick, aching for more than eternity existing in a darkened nether world without contact. She called to Typhon and Echidna's celestial spirits, requesting a way to fill her heart, to be loved.
They granted her request knowing Bellerophon would still be waiting, as he too was granted immortality by gods of his choosing for slaying Khimaira. To keep their child's soul safe, they split her animals apart and scattered them on earth allowing her to be both male and female, human and creature of any kind.
Bellerophon could feel the very presence of his enemy upon the land and vowed to never give her peace, to never stop looking until he owned all of her immortal soul. Primal blades were fashioned, and the great gods, those more powerful than Echidna and Typhon, gave two of the blades to the Khimairan race born of the stars and one to Bellerophon.
But a balance must always be struck within the universe as life cannot go without death so Khimaira could not return without conditions.
One condition of existence for Khimairans had to be met ...
Though they were given humanity, to learn to love, to shapeshift from beast into human...they must find their mate or lose their humanity forever...reverting back to their primal animal form destined to kill others as the great monster humans believed Khimaira to be.
Chapter One
Sadie Giles lay in her claw-foot bathtub.
Hot water surrounding her.
She should have been relaxing—enjoying the way the heat soothed aching muscles.
As if the gods would allow such a thing.
Sadie glared into the sudsy water and at the lower half of her body, naked aside from a blue-green sheen of scales and fins. She hadn't told a single soul, not even Dante, her king, about her body half shifting on its own. She clenched her teeth, angry she couldn’t shift back yet.
How could she tell anyone when she barely understood what had happened to her? As the healer in the southern Rockies’ magical enclave that protected her people on Mount Chapin, she should know why her Khimairan heritage betrayed her. Despite her healing abilities, she couldn't heal her deformity. And now it was worse ever since she had used so much of her healing energy to help Dante and Trevon fight against the Bellers at the portal. All she wanted to do was sleep for an entire season.
Sadie hadn't called upon the change to make her a fish. And she couldn't very well walk around on a sea creature's tail. Her upper half was still human, aside from the ever-present goat horns she'd had since she was a babe. Sadie closed her eyes and willed her human legs to take shape again, hoping this time it would work. She felt the magical presence of the creature inside her like an aura or spiritual thing tucked away in her soul; it hadn't fought for control but seemed as unsure as Sadie. Over the last month, her shifting abilities, when she called upon the change, turned her into two creatures instead of one. Hell, the only time her shift had actually worked semi-correctly was when she’d saved the human—Dante's mate—Bailey, from the mountain lion a few days ago.
What the hell was happening to her? Was the primal coming on sooner than she expected? Is this what others went through when their inner beast fought to consume their humanity? She had yet to find a mate, which was the only way to keep the primal from taking over. But she hadn't felt out of control with her beast forms or any desire to stay in her animal shift either, which were the main signs of turning. Sadie just didn't have control over the actual change into different creatures. It seemed to happen at random.
When Sadie opened her eyes and looked through the suds of the water, her bare human legs emerged. She exhaled a sigh of relief and rubbed her hands along the soft flesh. She had to find a way to make the half shifting stop.
Or the next time it happened she might find herself in very real danger by those who hunted down her kind.
How would she get away if she half shifted into a fish?
No, she wouldn't let this new flaw break her. Sadie would fix whatever was happening to her before she found herself in a position like that. She pushed herself up from the tub. Water cascaded down her bare form. Stepping onto the plush floor mat, she wrapped the cheap towel around her body. Squishing her feet down into the memory foam and wiggling her small toes, Sadie was happy for the small comfort of feet instead of a fish tail.
If she couldn't change properly, would it start affecting her ability to heal her people?
Sadie padded to the mirror and wiped away the steam from her bath. Several strands of her long golden-brown hair stuck to the semi-straight goat horns atop her head. She sighed, pulling the strands off her horns and smoothing the wet hair back. Sadie took her
time getting ready. At the request of Dante, she'd be traveling to the middle Rockies to help out at the Khimairan enclave in Wyoming. They needed a skilled healer.
Sadie truly hated leaving home. Home meant safety. Those she lived near didn't bother her and she didn't bother them. The closest place was Dante's cabin and even that was quite a way from her home set against the mountain.
Wyoming was new. She hardly knew any of the Khimairans there, but on the bright side, they had a top-notch potions expert residing there by the name of Levi, which meant Sadie might find a way to change her genetic code... or maybe get a glamour to help hide her horns until she could fix herself.
Mom and Dad had taken an extensive trip to Europe and were unreachable, probably cliff hoping along the mountains there. They'd been gone for nearly a year with only minimal check-ins. As Khimairans, Sadie hadn't worried directly for their initial safety. Khimairans were, after all, immortal once they reached twenty-one years of age, but humans didn't know that, nor would any Khimairan tell them such a dangerous thing. Khimairans didn’t have kids regularly so it wasn’t like they could replenish the race. A child came once in every 100 years for a female.
Primal blades, forged by the gods using the steel and wood from Bellerophon’s original spear that felled the first Khimaira, were the only weapons that could harm them permanently. The only one Sadie had ever seen was a few months ago and other than it looking like a steel knife with a wooden handle, the tingling feeling of the magic coming from the celestial weapon was the only clue it was the blade forged by gods.
One of the three blades had made an appearance in Wyoming according to Riva, the Khimairan shifter from the area. Bellerophon, an immortal but not Khimairan...more a predestined gift from the Gods, had sent his fanatics to kill Khimairans, stealing their souls. He had it out for her kind, and no one knew how to stop him yet. His Beller fanatics were humans who thrived on consuming Khimairan blood and using dark magic like a drug. They disgusted Sadie. The blood and magic changed the humans into weird misshapen creatures, often with reptilian features. Sadie shivered as she remembered Tony’s snake eyes from a few days ago before Bailey had killed him.
A loud knock startled her from the memories.
Riva's voice filtered through the wooden door, loud and grating on Sadie’s nerves. "Did you die in there?"
Sadie sighed. "I'll be out in five."
Riva's footsteps faded. The female Khimiaran had stayed over with Sadie and was to travel through the portal back to Wyoming with her. By the gods, she hoped Wyoming people weren't as annoying as Riva. The strong-willed female had a mouth on her Sadie wanted to shove a sock in. It was like she had no filter. Her pouty mouth managed to spew whatever she thought up without any seeming filter and in the last couple days, Sadie had imagined all sorts of ways to make the female shut up. Of course, as a healer, she didn't wish Riva any true harm. But Riva's mouth didn't match her nickname of Maiden or all the white she consistently wore.
Sadie slid on a lacey pink bra with matching panties. It wasn't as if anyone saw her naked these days, mainly because she'd secluded herself so far into the mountain, but she loved the look of the special undergarments on her sun-kissed skin. The matching set made her feel pretty and feminine despite her horns. She tugged on her blue jeans and covered her top half with a soft pink blouse, so used to moving material around her horns she didn’t catch them once. She opened the door, letting the cool air from the den drift inside, erasing the foggy heat.
"It's about time. What were you doing in there, getting off?" Riva had settled on the loveseat, her feet hung over the side of the sofa.
Heat rushed to Sadie’s cheeks, and she grabbed her brush to try and tame the waves of her hair as it dried. "Not very maiden like, Riva."
"Just because I was nicknamed maiden and love white doesn't make me a maiden or a lady." Riva glared.
Sadie couldn't argue the statement. "Does the name come from your choice of clothes?" Sadie grabbed her toiletries and stuck them inside her suitcase. She'd had it open on the coffee table already packed with her clothes. When Riva didn't answer, Sadie looked over at her.
Long black locks of hair fell over Riva’s exposed shoulder. She wore one of those peasant style blouses, all white of course, with slits for her shoulders. Sadie hated how good it looked on the Wyoming female. Riva shrugged and pointed at the suitcase.
"Pack. We seriously need to get back. I'm sorry you all had trouble here and I know you are damned tired, but we need your help in Wyoming. The longer I'm here, the worse it will be, I'm sure. Some of our people have been seriously harmed by the primal blade. We've had one death, when they took our portal guardian. I'm not sure how long Lacey will hold out. It's not that she's a wimp, just she's more frail than I'd wish. I'd take her place if I could, but we don't even know where she is. Hence my friend, Bastien, meeting us there. Have you met?" Riva pushed herself up off the love seat.
"The hunter, right?" Sadie zipped up her suitcase. "I'm ready whenever you are."
"If anyone can find our guardian, he can. Did you know he started out in Wyoming before he came here? We've kept in touch, but until the other day, I hadn't seen him in forever. Talk about some tall, dark, and yum."
Sadie rolled her eyes. Bastien was good looking but he wasn't the kind of person Sadie wanted in her life; he seemed reserved and unrelenting. "Tall, dark, and yum doesn't make him perfect." She pictured herself with someone home a lot more than a hunter would be, mostly because she was a homebody so her mate, if she ever had one, would probably be the same.
"We don't need perfect, just stamina behind closed doors."
Sadie smirked and then quickly straightened her lips. Riva gave her the knowing female wink, the kind that men never understand...the kind that make girls giggle. Sadie wasn't a giggle type of person, but it was amusing. "Can we just go to your Carter Mountain already?" Sadie let out a sigh as if all the talking exhausted or bored her; she didn't care which Riva thought it was as long as the maiden shut up for a few minutes. Sadie already missed her peace and quiet and her personal space.
"Don't worry, Sadie, I'll have you out of your little shell in no time. Just wait until you meet some cowboys around Meeteetse, Wyoming!" Riva grinned and headed for the front door.
Sadie followed, wondering what the hell she would do with a cowboy, let alone what would happen when he got a look at her horns.
Chapter Two
The smell of death lingered in the air. Levi cautiously led his horse, Monty, to the edge of his two-thousand-acre parcel of land. Anger simmered at the sight of another carcass collecting flies a few feet ahead in the early morning sunlight. The horse stopped when Levi pulled back on the reins, shifting his tail back and forth. Levi swiveled his leg off the horse, then eased himself to the ground and took slow measured steps toward the dead animal.
He scanned the area.
The body was left in the clearing, nothing hidden among the trees just beyond the dead beast. This would make the tenth animal laid out seemingly for him to find. One or two in a week Levi could believe, ten wasn't normal. And it could ruin hunting on his land as Wyoming required herds to be a certain size for Levi to allow hunters to work his lands. Dread slithered between his shoulder blades as he kneeled down by the dead deer.
A slit through the gut like the others.
Levi raised his head and took a long whiff but other than natural earth, woods, and blood, nothing hung in the air. No Khimairan smell, no human smell. Just an absence where one should be, as if a void were left in the air. Someone—or something—was covering more than its tracks.
Levi rolled up his right sleeve and shoved it inside the torn belly of the deer. He shifted organs cold from the morning temperatures. The heart was gone, just like the others, yet everything else remained. No other scavengers touched the body. Either someone was sending Levi a message or something very bad was about to happen.
His affinity for magic potions wouldn't help him track whatever or whoever had killed th
e animals, but he needed to find the killer. Two ranchers had already called to say they wouldn't be grazing their herd on his land this spring and summer. No grazing meant no money coming in. He had to get a handle on this before the other ranchers and hunters found out or else he'd have nothing. Levi pulled out his hand, clumped blood stuck to his skin. Maybe someone in the enclave would know how to help. He stood and flung the goo off his arm, then pulled a white handkerchief from his flannel pocket to wipe the rest off his hand. He stuck the linen square back and hitched up on Monty. Levi and the stallion understood each other most the time, and the moment Levi grabbed hold of the leather reins, Monty kicked off at a run, heading back to his ranch style home. Levi could have just shifted into a horse or his bull but he liked riding Monty, connecting with another animal.
The wind nearly lifted his cowboy hat from his head, and he grabbed onto the brim. It wasn't long before his log style fence came into view, running the course of his backyard where a large barn stood just beyond his home. The garden plants sprouted up along the backside of his house right before the porch.
Levi didn't relish the thought of going back into the enclave. He avoided it unless he had to. Khimairans might be his people, but he generally didn't get along with them. They came to him for potions in all sorts of matters, hell even the humans did, otherwise everyone left him alone and he left them alone. He hadn't been back in almost a year, when they had the last big meeting with Dante. The alpha had appointed a new portal guardian, Lacey, to the Wyoming territory for the enclave in the mountain. There weren’t many humans who could handle the portal magic. Dante had the horrendous task of finding the guardians.
Levi just wanted to keep to himself. He had some friends, like Riva, and he did have his family in a way. He just wasn’t super close to any of them. Khimairans couldn’t have kids unless they had found their bonding partner, the one who would invoke their internal zodiac symbol. Levi didn’t worry about a bond or kids. He liked his life as is. He had his land, occasionally friends with benefits, and his horse. Anything more meant drama, and he didn’t encourage drama to enter his life. Though bonding should be a very primary concern for him, as it usually was with his kin. Without a bond partner, he could lose his humanity. He’d recently felt the stirrings of his primal beast. A little more aggressive. A desire to actually call upon the change and shift into his beast form frequently. But Levi kept himself in check. Giving into that desire would cause him to turn primal faster, and he was certain he wasn’t going to find his life partner anytime soon. When he had to, he’d go look for her. But not until then. Bringing someone into his bubble wasn’t appealing.
Unraveled: A Zodiac Shifters Paranormal Romance: Capricorn (Dark Khimairans Book 2) Page 1