Untamed(Dark Khimairans # 1)
A Zodiac Shifters Book: Paranormal Romance: Leo
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.
Untamed (Dark Khimairan # 1)
A Zodiac Shifters Novel
Copyright © 2017 Decadent Kane
First digital edition
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.
Editor: Marcy @ Nerdy Kat Books
Cover Artist: 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
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
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 who's 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 a part 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 to 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
Bailey Strone glanced over her shoulder as she slid the key into the lock and turned. Part of her hoped the key worked and the other part, the selfish part, wished it wouldn't so she could leave town and never look back.
The front door to The Talisman opened. Dark curly strands of Bailey's hair shifted over her bare shoulders as the air moved forward. Tightening her ponytail and steeling her resolve to get this over with, she walked into the stuffy new age shop she'd inherited from Aunt Nadia in Currence, Colorado. She couldn't fathom why since the last time she'd seen her aunt, her mother had still been alive. Bailey had been around six or seven years old. She vaguely remembered dark chocolate curls, long nails, and jingling chains. Daddy never spoke of her mother's side or let Bailey see Aunt Nadia. No one had talked about it, but Bailey guessed her family had been gypsies or something, maybe hippies even, at least on her mother's side. She rubbed at the ache in her chest.
Midday sun filtered through dirty windows, casting a brown-like glow over shelves, counters, and wood flooring. The door slid closed behind her, and she relocked the glass entrance. Pulling once, twice, to make sure the entry locked. She glanced out the window, no one seemed to notice her. She had zero desire to draw attention to herself in a town full of Khimairan shifters. What had made Aunt Nadia live here even after Bailey’s mother's murder? Now Aunt Nadia was dead. Could Bailey be next? Were the Khimairans out hunting her family?
Bailey moved away from the window. She wasn't sure she wanted to know any of those answers. Once she was certain no one would bother her, Bailey scrunched her nose, trying not to take in too much of the musty old smell in the shop. Though she'd take the smell over a shifter. Khimairans came out years ago, back before Bailey was born. Sometimes people still raised a ruckus over them, but for the most part, they were widely accepted so long as they didn't wander around in a beast form.
Not Bailey, though. She despised them with every fiber of her being. True, she'd been raised to hate them, she didn’t mind owning up to her hate regardless. She didn’t care what anyone thought; Bailey didn’t have to like them, and she was glad to steer clear ninety percent of the time. But if she had to be truthful with herself, they scared the crap out of her. There had been so much death in her family at their hands. Mom, Aunt, hell, she could even say it was those shifters killing her family that drove her daddy to drinking and then his liver failed. He died a few years back. Bailey picked up and left long before he'd died, but all in all, death in her family leads to the same thing...shifters. Why would the Khimairans want her family dead?
Bailey refocused on the shop, needing her mind to turn back off. Dust particles fluttered through the stale air. How long had it been since someone was in here? A thin layer of dust had already covered incense burners, fairy-like figurines, and all the flat surfaces except the floor.
Bailey had her work cut out for her.
Better than thinking, though... If she let herself focus on the past, she'd fall into the deep dark hole of hate and never come back up.
She'd clean the place up, sell all the stuff, and then maybe sell or rent the building. It happened to be the only thing she owned besides her Dodge, four-wheeler, and some clothes. But she couldn't imagine living in a city where Khimairans dominated. The dirty shifters could piss off... The lot of them. Bailey glanced behind her at the window again, as
if the very name of the shifters would make one show up.
Dirty. Her father's favorite word for everything he didn't like. “Dirty fucking shifters,” he'd say with a beer in one hand, a remote in the other. Bailey straightened her shoulders and pushed her drunken father's image out of her mind. She'd gotten so use to ignoring his darkened, unfocused gaze she almost passed the memories without too much thought. But, her mother's memories would soon follow, and Bailey had enough to deal with in this shop.
She pulled a cardboard box down from the counter. She would have to go through everything. Who had even started packing things up? Bailey opened the box and rummaged through the contents, finding a bag of crystals in shades of pale pink, yellow, browns, and clear. She moved them to the side; plenty of places sold crystals. Next, she pulled out several tarot decks. Her stomach fluttered, not so much at the decks themselves, but the energy around the shop as she started unpacking things. As if she could feel The Talisman awakening. But the shop was just a building in a plain old city.
Next, she drew out rounded empty bottles with corks that might be used for potions or something. She lifted one of the glass bottles up and looked at it in the light. Had her aunt actually known how to use magic? Or maybe she just sold the containers as a novelty? Bailey had seen plenty of new age stores with these kind of items in them.
She spent most of her time growing up in a rundown ranch style home on the outskirts of Cheyenne. While she knew magic and witches and Khimairan shifters were a big part of the world, she generally ignored them. She had no interest in the supernatural world. She was fine going place to place tutoring kids on ranches and such. She avoided staying in towns and cities unless she had to, just so she didn't have to worry about magic and Khimairans. Coming into towns like this one meant constantly looking into people's eyes to see if they were human.
Her father had taught her how to tell the difference. Khimairans looked just like any other human, except their eyes often took on the air of animal eyes, like slits for felines. In a blink, the slight change would be missed. Bailey shuddered. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if she ever actually ran into one, but they'd killed her mother and being in the same place as one made her skin crawl. She looked over the area again, already exhausted by the sight. How was she going to get rid of all this junk?
Garage sale.
Well, sidewalk sale anyway. Being late spring, school was nearly out. A sale would be just in time for summer vacation. People could come and make offers on the crap in the store and then all she had to do was some clean up. Good thing she didn't have any other tutoring sessions booked for a couple weeks, but bad for her paycheck. She'd call her boss after she had everything with The Talisman done and over with, maybe there were a couple kids who needed some summer schooling. She'd just sleep in her truck or The Talisman and reserve her money for food until she sold some of this new-age junk.
Bailey had been in Currence less than a day and already she itched to be out of the city. Cars zipped by, people gossiped as they walked past the front door. The noise of all the people made her head pulse with the stirrings of a headache. She rubbed her temples. She could do this. She had to just sit here and get the items unpacked and in a couple days she'd sell it all and be gone. The task should only take a week or so to clear the shop and then a real estate agent could handle the rest if she decided to sell...which was looking better and better the longer she listened to the city chaos.
After she removed all the stuff from the first box, Bailey stood and wiped her hands on her jeans. More boxes were haphazardly stacked along the walls, but at least the place wasn't trashed. She could count a blessing that she wouldn't need to do any remodeling. Besides, her empty pocketbook wouldn't be able to handle it. A hall behind the front counter led toward the back. She hoped there wasn't a crap ton more stuff back there. Looking around, she didn't even want to think about where her aunt actually lived. Bailey couldn't recall a house or trailer, or even a camper. Maybe she lived out of The Talisman. Perhaps an extra room resided in the back?
The counter was as good a place as any to move forward with getting everything set up. Bailey eyed the shelves lining the white wall behind it. Books were stacked in awkward piles. Some old, some newer looking. If she straightened them up, she could put some of those glass bottles on the shelves. She slipped behind the wooden countertop. An envelope with her name written in black ink sat on the single shelf below. Bailey picked it up, surprised by its weight. Who would have left it? Her aunt? She tore the side open and let the contents fall into her hand.
A handwritten note wrapped in a silver necklace with a yellow stone pendant fell out. The moment the piece touched her skin, a warm sensation traveled through her palm followed by a series of colors radiating from her skin in yellow, red, and gold like a swirling mist inside her body. It rippled along her arm as the warmth moved up to her shoulder. "What the hell..." Bailey stumbled back into the shelf trying to move away from the colors. She shook out her arm, hoping this wasn't real. Her chest tightened, squeezing as if she'd been hog tied by last year's roper winner at the county fair.
As soon as the warm colors reached her chest, her stomach fell as if she was on a roller coaster and her vision blurred. She fell to her knees with a thud, trying not to panic. Magic consumed her body. Panic led to hyperventilating, which led to passing out, which would leave her vulnerable.
Bailey's mouth watered, threatening to refuse her lunch. She swallowed air and saliva trying to keep the contents in her stomach down while the shop spun around her. She closed her eyes only to feel as if she were falling into a deep, bottomless pit. Like she might pass out. Bailey struggled to open her eyes, but her body refused to listen. The lids were so heavy. She knew somehow, she'd fallen completely to the floor, her body more aware than her mind. Only heat and darkness surrounded her. Bailey had not been through four years of college and a drunk father only to go down by a piece of jewelry.
By sheer will, she pushed through the darkness and forced her eyes open.
She wasn't alone.
A man crouched beside her.
Bailey took in his faded blue jeans and black T-shirt stretched over sexy broad shoulders. His golden gaze bore into her.
CHAPTER TWO
Dante stretched his naked form, yawning at the setting sun. He'd catnapped longer than intended in the hammock on his back porch. Sleep was one of the few things keeping his inner beast at bay.
He had been waiting two weeks for the female who would replace Nadia at The Talisman. Guilt assaulted him, tightening his chest, before he let it go. Instead, he raised up anger to keep the pain of her loss away. She was a mother figure kind of woman—strong, always willing to give advice and help. But she'd never spoken of the female in her bloodline who would replace her as the portal guardian, other than she would be her niece. Dante had never even met her.
Nadia made the second portal guardian he'd lost in the last thirty years. Dante hardened himself to much of the human race as their lives ended quicker than they began. However, Nadia’s loss had left a hole which only influenced his beast to react more, wanting control for longer periods of time. She'd been a true friend, a confidant, and her passing only made controlling his beast harder, as if letting go, giving in to the primal desire would be less complicated.
Dante knew the signs. The enjoyment of shifting. Allowing the inner beast to control more of his actions, even in human form. Taking longer and longer to shift into a human again. He needed a mate. Without her, his humanity would fall away, leaving him only his primal beast form.
Primal beasts were put down.
They couldn't be reasoned with, couldn't be tamed, couldn't turn back into human form. Going primal meant bloodshed and lots of it. Dante had killed before. Most of the time he had to kill his own people. Khimairans who turned primal would devastate the world—humans and Khimairans alike. He preferred to be the one to take their lives. As their current leader, his duty was to follow through with the conditioned laws se
t upon them by the celestial beings.
Dante strutted off his porch, naked and relishing in the cool breeze. He needed to go to town and check on The Talisman and hoped the new female would show up. He'd gone every evening, waiting for her. He figured she would actually come during the day, so showing up in the evening, especially from the back of the shop, would give him a heads up if someone had been there recently and not startle her. If she had been there, he could just "stop by" the next day. He wouldn't have had to do this, except he'd screwed up by not being there for Nadia.
The Rocky Mountain, enchanting with its stark peaks against the sky, was at peace fading into the background against the bright pink and orange of the sun slinking down the horizon. Every day it seemed as if he roamed the night more and more in his lion form, napping throughout the day.
Dante puffed out his chest and mentally called on the change. While he could shape shift into any beast on this earth—all Khimairans could—as the leader of his people, he preferred the long mane and claws of the lion, king of the human jungles. Strong. Fierce. Predator. Gooseflesh covered his skin and hair lengthened along his arms and legs. His body moved fluidly with the change, as if it had always known how, curving down toward the ground in the feline form. His tailbone elongated, stretching the skin slowly until a tail emerged with a little tuft of hair on the end. He flicked his tail back and forth and let out a roar.
Birds flew off the trees.
He paced back and forth, listening to the animals of the mountain. The river below rushed over the rocks. Satisfied no one else was around, he leaped out with his hind legs into a run, heading for the portal to the human city. Without the portals, everyone here was trapped and any who had not found their mates, would turn primal and be lost forever. Humans provided the best chance to find a mate on Earth. Once a mate was found, a brand—a glyph of a zodiac sign—would be burned into the Khimairan’s skin.
Untamed: A Zodiac Shifters Paranormal Romance: Leo (Dark Khimairans Book 1) Page 1