Beyond Secret Worlds: Ten Stories of Paranormal Fantasy and Romance

by Aimee Easterling

  "But we're not dating. In fact, we have no physical tie what-so-ever—I'd need to see a driver's license before that happens. I'd just like to know who the girl that worked hard for me all day really is. I at least owe you a paycheck."

  Every section of my dark, smoky body crackles with electricity. He's treating me like an employee! "No, you don't owe me anything...um, anything monetary, anyway. But we can change that physical thing in a heartbeat. One of your heartbeats," I say, head spinning as I move closer; the body I'm wearing momentarily forgotten—I'm all doppelganger at the moment. "The closed sign is up. My car is the only one in the parking lot, and I'm assuming you live in the apartment over the diner, so how about we-" When I place my hand against his chest and touch him for the first time, it's like being hit with a lightning bolt. We both jump back.

  "Damn, are you plugged in?" I squeak, but underneath I'm so freaked out I can hardly speak.

  Gaire recovers quicker than I do, although he says nothing. His fingers rub the spot on his chest where I'd touched him, and he immediately brings them to his nose. Thick brows reaching for each other, eyes hooded, he drops his hand and says, "How about, for now, I cook you the breakfast you came in for."

  I watch a perfect ass tucked into tight jeans, move toward the kitchen. Arms and shoulders strain his damp tee shirt, and I can't find my voice, or CeCe's. But inside my cold dead body fire ignites, and I know he's the only one who can put it out.

  Gaire

  Son-of-a-bitch, I can't breathe. Who is she? Better yet, what is she? Something I have never come in contact with that's for sure. I feel spelled, weak. Could it just be that indefinable, and often talked about, fatal attraction to a human? Impossible, stuff like that doesn't happen to my kind. Mates are selected for us, not chosen by us. "You like pancakes?"

  She walks up to the window on the other side of the grill, stares at me through eyes that clearly hold secrets, and licks her lips all pink and puffy. "Sounds yummy," she says while my damn eyes take it upon themselves to search the front of her tee for hardened nipples.

  "Eggs?" The word catches in my throat.

  "Sure."

  "What about meat? Do you like bacon?"

  Her face goes all seductive, sleepy eyes. Teeth hold her bottom lip, and a slight intake of breath flares her nostrils. She holds me with that look for a few seconds. The pheromones she's giving off make me inhale deeply, savor the scent, and try to examine it; my heartbeat accelerates as rapidly as during a hunt. What she's giving off is nothing I've ever scented before. It's intoxicating.

  "You might say I'm more carnivore than an omnivore." Her smile is devilish.

  I feel the heat on my cheeks—don't dare talk, wonder if she knows what I am—and pour out batter for six pancakes. Tossing a dozen strips of bacon on the grill, I make myself busy cracking a shitload of eggs, and then I'm finally capable of saying, "Ah, a girl after my own heart." I certainly hope not.

  Her soft, breathy chuckle sucks the air out of my lungs and holds it. I'm either going to sate my appetite with breakfast, or I'm going to sate it with the biggest mistake of my life, because I want this woman.

  CeCe

  Outside Gaire appears to be calm, unaffected, but as an animal around others, I sense a battle within. It seeps from his pores, a vibrating lust; he's panting with fear contradicted by an uncomfortable hunger. And none of this gives me the rush, the cocky, heady high it usually does when a human veers out of control with desire and need. This is different. This time, I know what he's feeling. I'm right there with him. I'm on the edge of devouring him—screw the food—I need his skin against mine. Right now.

  While one part of me wants to run away, shed this silly body and never look back, the distraction and the physical reaction I'm having coaxes me to hurry into whatever it is that's happening here, head first, full throttle. His short glances, the way he sniffs the air when I move, and the way the beat of his heart resonates with each note it strikes is such a rush. I'm losing control, not thinking clearly and I'm sure as hell not standing outside of the lust looking in.

  He pulls plates onto the shelf of the grill with a clatter that shocks me out of myself and into CeCe. "Smells good," I say, eyes locked on his.

  "Yes it does," he answers, almost growling the words.

  Actually, the smell of human food is always nauseating; the sweet scent of butter, dead chicken fetus frying in a mixture of triglyceride extracted plant matter, smoked meat, and the acidic aroma of coffee coat CeCe's nostrils.

  "Are we eating in the dining area?" I ask while telling myself, Food does keep the body looking healthy, and quench an uncomfortable urge.

  "I thought maybe upstairs," he says.

  And suddenly I have a freaking heartbeat and it's hammering in my chest. "Okay." I cannot believe I squeaked that word. I actually squeaked it. Well, I did use CeCe's voice, but still.

  He chuckles. "You want to grab us the last two cups of coffee in the pot and follow me up?"

  Oh, hell no! "Sure."

  "I take mine black. The cream is in the fridge if you need some."

  I so want to come back with something all nasty-bad-girl, but inside, the doppelganger is quivering. I pour acrid black stuff into two cups that will never feel the touch of CeCe's lips. I pick them up, my thoughts mindlessly churning, and slosh coffee over CeCe's shaking hands. "Crap," I grumble, set them down and take several deep breaths, so deep, I feel them. I actually feel them in a doppelganger that doesn't need oxygen, blood, or a human body to exist. Yet, it is sure acting like it does.

  CeCe and her family will be back in a matter of weeks, and I will not be able to stay dressed in her skin to build something other than a brief sexual relationship with a human, albeit a special human, but still... And I sure as hell can't shed the guise and show him who I really am, now can I? Talk about nightmares. Why did I ever think there could be more?

  Gaire

  Okay, so this is butt-ass stupid even if she does seem to carry an otherworld scent, actions I can't intuitively judge, a mind I can't seem to understand, and an uncontrollable interest, like me.

  "Watch your step," I tell the succulent morsel behind me as we climb the stairs to the apartment. "There are two nails I keep forgetting to hammer back into the wood—step six and the second from the top." In a lust induced trance, I take the steps two at a time and hear the click of CeCe's shoes follow.

  'Where are you going with this, Rogaire?' My mother's words invade my thoughts and make me think of my childhood and the reason I left the family. 'We are not human,' she'd said, 'and if you mount her, you'll bite her. And if you bite her, you'll kill her'.

  I never believed my mother, until it happened. Afterward, I ran. I've been running from my shame and punishment ever since.

  But this one's different, I tell myself. I know it. I can smell it and feel it. If you bed her, you'll bite her. If you bite her... I shake my mother's words off this time. I open the door to my apartment, step in knowing full well, as with any human, I can't just shift and run to keep from biting her. Talk about nightmares. This has gone too far.

  FOUR

  CeCe

  As I walk into Gaire's apartment, all I can think is wow! The open space, twenty-foot ceiling, one big open loft type room creatively sectioned off by stark, dark textures. It's amazing.

  The only window is in front of me, across the room, and covers the whole storefront wall. It's dressed in loose black cheesecloth drapes, letting in a small amount of light at the moment. I think of dark, rainy days, and starlit nights when the moon is high and the curtains open. Those windows would bring the outside in; I long to experience that.

  The ceiling is roughly cut, weathered gray cedar with high rafters that hang over a dark, rich, cherry-wood flooring that reminds me of blood-soaked skin. Studio lighting—long-armed pole lamps—filtered by ash colored lenses, scatter the room.

  All the amenities are visible from the door I stand frozen in. There's a bedroom, kitchen, dining room, and bath. A bed cov
ered with a red comforter is sitting atop a wrought iron platform, accessible by ladder, to my immediate left. The two walls it's cozied up to are black slate. The barn-wood cedar ceiling in that corner of the room is speckled with bright red, giving the impression it was once painted. The bathroom is built below. Through the open door, I see a lot of black and silver, and a bright red shower curtain. The contrast is cold, morose, and dark. It nurtures my nature.

  To my right, another open wrought iron platform is snuggled up to two mirrored walls, and workout equipment is scattered around up there. An open L-shaped kitchen is built along the two walls underneath. It's all cherry wood and black marble with silver appliances and looks like an open wound pouring into the living area.

  The rest of the apartment is T-shaped, and mostly living room: carpeted floors, L-shaped couch facing a huge entertainment center on one side of the window, with its back to a home office, dotted with red equipment along the opposite wall. The couch has red throws and red pillows. I feel like I'm in a cave spattered with blood. My body trembles delightfully while my mind wonders how he can afford all this on a breakfast diner's profits. I wonder who he really is inside after seeing the darkness he surrounds himself in outside. I have never felt fear. The dark-side feeds me. I am indestructible, a demon's blunder, as unique as a human's night fright. But I feel something I've not experienced before, and it's deliciously uncomfortable.

  "You coming in or are we eating in the doorway?" He's wearing a cocky grin and has a plate full of food in each hand hovering over a small, black table with four red chairs outside the kitchen area.

  Damn it, I want to bite a quivering lip he's trying to hold in place. I slam the door shut with my foot, and, with two cups of coffee in my hands, try to muster a sexy saunter over to the table.

  He puts the food on tidy hemp placemats and heads into the kitchen. For the umpteenth time, I want to know just who this man is that he can captivate me so.

  I set the coffee down on the molded, liver-shaped table, and slide into a deep red chair that looks like it dripped off the black slab it's resting under. The seat gives me a good view of Gaire's ass as he digs eating utensils out of an open drawer; it also affords me an easy view of the red satin bed.

  With a clink of silverware that jumps me right out of my daydream, Gaire sets down a fork and knife beside my plate. He acts like he didn't notice my complete and utter fascination with his bedroom, but a twitching cheek gives him away.

  I'm used to being in control—total control—and this silly mortal behavior I'm experiencing is just not working for me. I shake off all the new feelings, whatever the hell they are, grab my fork, and dig in. Not like I enjoy eating. In fact, I abhor it. The facade is all so useless. The functional side of preserving the human body is annoying, not to mention the aftereffects said nourishment has on the body. As I watch Gaire eat mouthfuls of bacon, his eyes sparkle with red dots I hadn't noticed in the diner. I blink, and they're back to the shamrock green they were before. There's a fine sheen of sweat beading on his forehead. He's avoiding eye contact, like a mutt peeing on the grass, almost as though he's ashamed.

  We both slip into silence as we eat.

  How totally disgusting humanity is. Eating, defecating, showering, medical servicing, teeth brushing, hair combing; painting faces, nails, toes, and dressing the rest of the body in an array of ever-changing clothing, and for what?—to die after maintaining a mere world average lifespan of 67.2 years? I munch a piece of bacon and think it's no wonder he's ashamed to look at me as he eats.

  However, if I weigh the human race with mine, his life seems a better alternative. Doppelgangers do not eat, drink, sweat, defecate, breathe, get sick, or procreate. To have a child is to mentor a demon conjured rejection, a mistake. That is the true nature of a Doppelganger, and there is no love involved, no feelings at all. The thing I call Mother would simply walk away on some dead human's legs should the elders deem me a threat and consume my entity. And they will if I bring notice to an otherworld existence.

  While I can do without the daily functionalities of being human, the feelings: love, hate, passion, arousal, and the camaraderie of humanity is like a drug, and certainly very addictive.

  Gaire

  She's watching me, tempting me with her darkness and fleshy perfume. It's been years since I've desired human flesh, tasted the hunger of lust. Damn my father for his blood, and thank the gods for my mother's; she's at least able to somewhat control her urges. Having her blood running through my veins gives me hope.

  CeCe is going to force me to follow her, watch, smell, consider until I figure out what she is before bedding her. And I will bed her, the gods be damned if she forces me to shift.

  I turn to make visual contact, but her eyes roam my lair. The scent that wafts off her, caresses, captivates, fuels, and stokes the beast within me. Her dark hair picks up what little light I allow up here as she leans into a fork laden with pancakes. It flickers on the bangs hanging across her forehead and down her cheek as I watch her chew, lips moist with syrup. My mouth salivates, not for the food, but the taste of her.

  I've long given up on romance. I am my father's son. I'd killed by my mistake; I won't let it get that far ever again. "Are you sure I can't pay you for today?"

  She turns slowly, a smile on her lips but caution in her eyes. "What if I come back tomorrow? I did think about a part-time job for the summer. Unfortunately, that's all I did, and time ran out. I only have a few weeks left to spare. But working here would be perfect for me to make a few bucks, and give you time to find someone more permanent...unless you already have someone else in mind?"

  I'd be an idiot not to lie to her. "Sounds like a plan. I paid my last waitress minimum plus tips and breakfast. That work for you?" Did I just agree to fight this insanity every damn day for weeks, as in several?

  "Yep, I can work until the end of July."

  She's chasing cold eggs around on her plate, probably doesn't even know she's doing it. "What happens in July?"

  "Off to college, Michigan State."

  When she sucks on the end of the fork before laying it on her plate, I almost jump her. It's taking every bit of control I have not to touch her. If I do, I won't be able to stop. I have to clear my throat to say, "In July?"

  "Well, not exactly, but there's a lot to do before I head out."

  CeCe gets up and walks over to the window, pulls the curtain aside. "I bet the view from your bed is killer at night."

  If you only knew, I think.

  As she slowly walks toward me, I can smell desire. Not human desire, a musky, animalistic desire—essential, dark, and demanding. Her blouse comes off first and she tosses it at my feet, steps out of her cutoffs, and stands before me in a triangle of black lace.

  Our eyes lock. I feel the hair on my neck prickle as my spine shifts and mouth salivates; heart hammering, jaw tightening, I bend and pick up her clothes. She's a breath away, waiting, feet parted, lace riding fingers as she runs them over her hips. I grit my teeth and place the clothes in between pink breasts framed in rich tanned skin; when my knuckles connect with soft, creamy flesh my body tightens, prickles another warning, and it's all I can do to keep from taking her right there.

  CeCe

  I can hear his heartbeat; I feel the heat of his gaze, the strength behind his touch. Crap! My head is spinning—my head, not the human's I'm wearing. I never do this. I amuse myself and let them do the dreaming, the what-if's, and get off on that. I don't contemplate commitment, relationships, love! I just get my high on. I trade them their lives for a quick fix.

  Damn it, sex with this guy is not going to be a quick fix. I want...

  I realize I'm grabbing for my clothes before they fall to the floor, and he's stepping back, shaking his head. What the hell?

  FIVE

  CeCe

  I was pissed when I left Gaire's, and headed straight for the sewer. I'd ended up here in Purgatory.

  The music seems too loud, pulsing lights are too bright, and su
ddenly smells are cloyingly nauseating.

  A group of berserkers in a dark corner of the bar burst out in robust shouts and laughter. The damp animal pelts they wear release fetid sewer smells that thicken the air and claw at my throat. Fists pound wooden tables and splinters fly beside large brass cages where creatures fight and betters wager.

  The succubus I've been chatting up on the stool next to me sighs. "And?" She prompts me to finish my rant.

  "Yeah, so, like I told Gaire, 'I don't want commitment, just hot sweaty sex, thank you very much.' And not only did he look like I'd just threatened to kill him and grill him, but his attitude was all, 'I don't just hop into bed with anyone, and it disappoints me you do'. I mean, we'd had a whole day with enough voltage flowing between us to light up New York. What's up with the standoff all of a sudden?"

  I belt down a shot of something green, doesn't matter, nothing gets me high but human sex or waiting for that last heartbeat when the body-double separates from the host and allows me to make that critical decision. "C'mon! All I wanted was sex. I thought mortal men lived for opportunities like that?" I wave my hand up and down the host's body I'm wearing, my eyes locked on the succubus sitting at the bar next to me. "Look at CeCe. Would you turn her down?"

  She, the succubi, doesn't comment on my dilemma, looks complacent, knocks her shot glass against the bar and signals a púca, who at this moment looks like a gorilla. Fifteen minutes ago he shifted from a toy poodle to a black bear before serving us.

  Howls follow a group-shape-shift at a table of werewolves when an ogre is served a plate of raw meat and turns into a threatening, growling, snarling beast as it covets the flesh, ripping it apart to devour it.

  "I thought they'd stopped serving ogres," the succubus says as the gorilla hobbles our way.