20 Shades of Shifters_A Paranormal Romance Collection

by Demelza Carlton

  If this new demon threat could exist in the water he’d need a whole new strategy to deal with them.

  The girls led him through a series of tunnels, and they had to backtrack at more than one cave-in. Their home was destroyed, and there were no signs of the rest of their sisters.

  One of the mami wata, with a pearlescent golden tail, and deep black skin swam toward one of the blocked tunnels. “I can hear them. The demons are taking them away.”

  She rammed the fallen rocks, beating at them with the strong muscles of her tail. “We have to break through, get to them. Hurry.”

  “Azynsa, stop, you’re hurting yourself.” Another mami wata grabbed at her sister. A trickle of blood seeped into the water from beneath the pearly golden scales.

  “No, help me get to them.” She swam forward to slam into the rocks again, but Ky snagged her with his tail.

  “Let me, little sister.”

  She nodded and swished her fins to back away. Ky examined the rocks, found a crack where some had come loose. He blew ice into the crack, widening it, and then put all his power into a crack of his tail.

  The cave shook, and debris fell from above them, but so did the boulders blocking their path. Azynsa was the first through the opening, twisting and turning, pushing the stones out of her way. Ky followed scrabbling to move enough of the cave-in to follow.

  “I see them, those beasts, have them bound. The bastards. I’ll kill them all.” Azynsa screeched a mami wata lament that erupted across the water.

  She burst up through the water and into a dry cave hidden underground. Holy cowfish, the girl had some guts.

  But, she wouldn’t for long if the other shapes in the cave were demon dragons. Ky followed, prepared to ice the shit out of anything black and snake-like. He roared when he hit the air, shocking the demon dragons and the mami wata alike.

  Didn’t expect to see me, did you, fuckers?

  Ky slashed the nearest demon dragon into pieces before he even touched down on the ground. The remaining nine or ten divided. Half ran into the tunnels behind them, while five remained to fight. Bad choice.

  Water and ice were his allies now. He pulled a stream up from the pool and directed it toward the enemy. He could hardly wait to hear them sizzle.

  Ky blew out his ice breath, crystalizing the water, trapping the demon dragons in place, but only for a moment. The interior of the cave was scorching, and more heat poured from the tunnels, turning his efforts to steam.

  Dammit, he hated volcanoes, even the ones underwater. Where was a red dragon when you needed one?

  “Azza, get your kin into the water and away from here.”

  The girls were already slipping away as fast as Azynsa could untie them. A few remained, pissed as barracudas, and joined in his efforts to drown their captors. They used their tails to splash jets of water at the bastards. You go, girls.

  The demons didn’t like that one bit. They shrieked and growled, moving their focus from Ky’s attack back to the remaining mami wata.

  Dumbasses.

  He took out the nearest distracted demon dragon with a swipe of his tail and cut its head clean off. The body became a stain on the rock, the head rolled across the cave floor and plopped into the water.

  That got their attention. Two launched into the air at him.

  As fast as he could shoot sea and ice, they broke through. The water hardly phased them, and his icy breath weakened with each go.

  He was spending a week in the polar ice caps after this bullshit. Right after he sent Match and a legion of reds to—

  “Where are we, what volcano or caldera is this?”

  The beasts lashed out with razor-like claws and teeth, tearing through his scales and flesh. The heat seeped into his blood and body, weakening him further.

  He had to end this now.

  Ky called to the sea, willing her to give him the last bit of aid he needed to destroy the demon dragons.

  Moana, whakarongo ki taku karanga.

  The water in the cave gushed in a torrent, sweeping the demons and the mami wata into the pool.

  Now, they were in his domain.

  He swam circles around two flailing demon dragons, slashing them from neck to tail. They evaporated into pools of black goo that quickly dissipated. Only one left.

  It was using its tail to propel itself up through the water. What the actual fuck?

  Demon dragons did not swim, and they definitely couldn’t breathe under water. Except this one was doing exactly that.

  Not for long.

  It might be able to swim, but it wasn’t good at it and Ky caught up to it within a second. He encased it in ice and watched as its frozen form, wide-eyed, drifted down past him.

  Holy shit. It had gills. No fucking way.

  He’d be towing this block of demon ice to Amsterdam. His brothers needed to know about this new threat.

  Then he’d be mobilizing every blue dragon to hunt them to extinction.

  Two of the mami wata swam up and tugged him toward the surface of the cave again. “Ky Puru. Azynsa, he’s taking her.”

  Shit. There had been five demon dragons left. He’d missed one. Ky put on speed and made it back to the cave in time to see the demon dragon dragging Azynsa, shiny new legs and all, into one of the tunnels.

  “Let go of me, you ghetto mutha-fucker. I will cut you.” She kicked and scratched and spewed insults like a hardened criminal. None of which stopped the demon dragon from yanking her hair-first further down the tunnel.

  The heat hit Ky right where it counted, in the everywhere. The temperature had increased and zapped his strength instantly. He pushed water into the tunnel, doing his best to follow the demon dragon.

  Each wave gave him only a second’s respite before it evaporated in the heat. He had to keep going. The demon dragons could not have that half-human woman.

  Ky scraped the sides of the rock wall, marking his path. The faster he could get the girl and get back to the water, the better for both of them.

  This heat was killing him, what would it do to a half human-half mermaid woman?

  “Look cocksucker, if you’re going to kill me do it, eat my worthless heart out, I’m burning to death.” Azynsa’s voice rang through the tunnel, leading Ky to her. Almost there.

  A growl that could not have come from the demon dragon rumbled through the tunnel, shaking rocks of fire from the ceiling. “Your heart is what I’m after, whore. It won’t do me any good to let you die. But, you’ll wish you had.”

  Who in the hell was that?

  Whoever he was roared, sending a wall of fire scorching into the tunnel. If Ky stayed he’d be toast. Literally.

  If he left, the girl would have a fate worse than death. He couldn’t save her if he was dead too. He’d have to come back for her.

  The last of his strength was flagging, and it took all he had to turn and run. He slipped into the water just as the flames burst out into the cave.

  The faces of the mami wata fell when they saw him without their sister.

  He’d failed them. For that he was beyond sorry.

  “My brothers and I will rescue Azynsa or die trying.”

  The nearest girl nodded her head and wrapped her arms around herself. “Azynsa has a powerful will. She gets it from her earth father. Those beasts may have her, but she will make them wish they didn’t.”

  Together, he and the mami wata swam back to the open ocean, the water restoring them all. Ky thanked the sea for her help and her strength.

  A group of mami wata gathered around the entrance of the underwater tunnel. They held each other, searching for comfort after the attack. Two stood guard over Ky’s iced demon.

  “I will be with my kin within the day, and we can dispatch our finest to begin a rescue mission. But, I’m unfamiliar with the land here. Where do we send our warriors?”

  “The humans call it the island of Bioko.”

  They were right in the armpit of Central and West Africa.

  “What’s the
name of the volcano?” Ky knew oceans, lakes, and rivers. Match understood volcanoes. The demon dragons would be holed up in the belly of the volcano and needed to be rooted out and destroyed.

  “We’re in the tunnels below the San Carlos Caldera. This was our home.”

  “I’ll put a call out to my Wyr to help you rebuild. Any blues nearby will be glad to help our sisters of the water.”

  “Thank you, Ky Puru.”

  Ky reinforced the ice around his evidence of the demon dragon’s new talent and prepared to tow it to the AllWyr.

  “Wait, one moment.” One of the mami wata swam up to the encased demon and gave it the finger, shaking her hand and wrinkling her nose. Two other joined her, one wrapping her elbow around her other hand as she flipped off the demon.

  “That is a curse Azynsa taught us. She knows many, but that is the most powerful in the land of her father. I hope it brings that beast much pain.”

  “I’m sure it will.” Ky would be doling out worse, making good on these women’s curse.

  He pushed himself hard to get to Amsterdam, but the battle and the heat of the volcano had left him depleted. The ice had to be continually reformed around the demon dragon, while he fought against the warm Guinea and Azores currents.

  He should have ridden the Atlantic South up to the Gulf Stream and taken it easy, but it would have taken twice as long. The AllWyr was definitely coming to New Zealand next time.

  Cage could fly them all there on his wind and sunshine in no time. If whatever the problem he’d called in the other Wyverns for was resolved by then.

  Ky welcomed the cooler waters of the English Channel. In another few minutes, he dove through the canals of Amsterdam toward Cage’s home outside of the city.

  When he arrived in the marsh around The Lindens he tried to contact Cage.

  “Cage, I have arrived, and I’ve got luggage.”

  No reply. Strange.

  “Jakob, Match, you here yet?”

  Match’s crankiest voice replied. “For hours. What the hell took you so long?”

  “Meet me at the pond, I’ve brought a present.”

  Ky dragged the dripping block of ice from the water then shifted into his human form to examine the demon dragon inside while he waited.

  The damn thing was still alive in there. It should have turned to nothing more than a pool of black ink, frozen in the ice. Every other demon dragon he’d ever encased had disintegrated. Why hadn’t this one?

  Gills, being able to swim, impervious to ice. Maybe they were evolving, or this wasn’t a demon dragon at all.

  Either way, his greatest weapons in the war with evil were about as effective as a dragon youngling with a toy sword.

  “You’ve been dicking around with demon dragons while Cage is dying?” Match and Jakob walked out past the fountain to the edge of the pond.

  Match always did have a way with words. An I’m-an-asshole kind of way.

  “This is no regular—” Wait. What? “Dying?”

  Jakob grabbed Ky’s shoulder. “You’d better come inside.”

  “What about this thing?” They needed to examine it, figure out where it came from or how it got this way.

  They’d had some success interrogating a demon dragon when one of Jakob’s lieutenants, Steele, had been fighting for his mate.

  The two times Ky knew of demon dragons with enhanced abilities had attacked was when Jakob had mated Ciara and Steele had mated Fleur.

  Holy shit.

  This had something to do with a mate. This could be the first real insight they had into both the gifts of true mates for the greens and how the influx of demon dragon attacks was connected.

  The mami wata must be the mate of a green dragon.

  Poor Azynsa.

  A mermaid and a green dragon, a match made in mud.

  But, first they needed to interrogate the prisoner and find out what they could, so they could mount a rescue.

  “The only good demon dragon,” Match blew an intense burst of dragon fire at the beast come ice sculpture, incinerating both instantly, “is a dead one.”

  Fucking hell.

  “Huh huh huh ha,” Cage chuckled in Ky’s head. “Fucking red dragons.”

  Cage’s tone was light, but his voice was weak.

  Ky glared at Match, then said to Jakob, “Take me to Cage.”

  Jakob led the way into the manor’s imposing front hall with the Italian marble stairway. Golden dragons did love to flaunt their treasure right out in the open.

  Cage might have a Victorian fireplace for the reds, a French garden for the greens, and an indoor-outdoor pool for the blues, but they all knew that perfectly temperature-controlled wine cellar was only the façade for the largest treasure hoard among them.

  Ky wouldn’t trade this kind of opulence for his place in Kenepuru Sound. His vineyards supplied half of Cage’s wine cellar, and a cavern hidden in one of the hundreds of inlets in the sound was a better hiding place for treasure than a fancy pants house.

  Jakob pushed open the doors to a bedroom suite with a glass domed ceiling and decorated in so much yellowy gold it practically glowed. Cage, pale as a sparkling vampire, leaned against the wall next to a window overlooking the pond.

  Holy First Dragon, one of the biggest, baddest, toughest warriors Ky had ever known looked like shit had eaten him for breakfast and spit him back out.

  “Damn it, Cage, get back in bed,” Match growled.

  Cage flipped him off, and embraced Ky in a weak, clap on the back man hug.

  “What the fuck, bro?” Ky looked Cage up and down. His brother Wyvern was only two-hundred and a few years old. Barely a half century into his prime, and not that much older than Ky or Jakob. So, why did he look at if he was pushing his wisdom years to the brink of six-hundred?

  “Demons got my soul.”

  Ky glanced to where Cage’s golden soul shard should have been hanging on a cord around his neck. The sight of only a deep wound sent the bottom of his stomach dropping to the floor and bouncing back up into his throat.

  “Bugger me.”

  No dragon in the history of, well, dragons, had ever lost or had their soul shard stolen. They couldn’t be taken, only given. Ky grabbed his own blue shard.

  It was every dragon’s most prized possession. A small piece of the First Dragon’s soul mixed with their own. It gave them the ability to shift from dragon to human.

  Jakob no longer wore his shard around his neck. He’d gifted it to Ciara when he’d claimed her, given it to his woman to protect.

  But, when he’d done that, Jakob’s powers had increased. Cage’s power, his essence, was fading right before Ky’s eyes.

  Cage leaned hard on Ky, trying to stay upright, show he was still a Wyvern. They had to do everything they could to restore Cage’s shard.

  Was this related to the attack on the mami wata? The demon dragon attacks were getting more daring with each new mate found.

  “Tell me what happened. I don’t understand how it could have been taken.”

  Cage finally sat on the bench next to the window. “A succubus, and she didn’t have to take it, I gave it to her.”

  Match huffed, smoke curling out of his nostrils. “What he means is he lost his head over a pretty girl, and in the course of fucking around, lost his god damn soul.”

  Cage shook his head. “She was more than pretty, dickhead.” Then he lowered his voice to speak to Ky only. “We gotta get this bastard laid. He gets grumpier by the day.”

  “I know some mermaids that would be happy to put out his fire.” One of them who needed rescuing. “Match, you need to head down to the San Carlos Caldera. The mami wata are waiting for you.”

  “Jesus, Wyverns are supposed to have control of themselves. Including their libidos. You’re all in your prime. Act like it.”

  Match sounded a hell of a lot like grandma Kiki. Except grumpier.

  “Speak for yourself. Ever since I mated Ciara my sex drive is way beyond when I hit puberty at a hundred.
I’m a walking hard-on around her.”

  Hard on or not, if the green dragons had a new mate, one who was in a shitload of danger, they needed to get to rescuing her. “The demon dragons have kidnapped one of the mami wata who is half human. She’s a dragon’s mate, I’m sure of it.”

  Match let out a string of swear words in his guttural Polish. Then he turned his alpha of alphas voice on. “Jakob and I will go to Africa. If she’s a green dragons mate, we’ll find her and get her home. You’ll recover, Cage’s soul shard. You’re the only one of us that can track it.”

  Cage rolled his head back on his shoulders like it was going to fall off. “I need you to go get it back from her, brother.”

  This was guts for garters. “No worries, cuz. Easy as.”

  Face to Face with Temptation

  Jada had never been more terrified in her entire life. Not when the demon dragons had attacked her. Not even when her mother had died, and Leonard had shown up to initiate her into the coven.

  Tomorrow morning marked the longest she’d ever made it, one week without blood or sex.

  It was also the day she was scheduled for her first busy morning shift serving coffee and donuts at the café below her apartment.

  The woman, or rather, witch, who owned Nine Holes Donuts had mistaken Jada for her new hired help. She wondered if the mysterious man and the woman in white had done that. Until someone else showed up, Jada would take the job and the apartment that went with it, and keep her mouth shut.

  And her teeth to herself.

  But, the cravings were getting worse by the day.

  Chocolate covered, Bavarian cream-filled bismarcks helped. So far.

  She also hadn’t been face to face with temptation. Whatever kind of witch Ninsy was, she was only part human. The other unknown part of her smelled strange. Like a beautiful, but poisonous hemlock flower.

  All she knew was Ninsy wasn’t edible. She was super nice, so it was a relief that Jada didn’t want to suck her blood. It made her training and the slow early afternoon shifts she’d started with a hell of a lot easier to handle.