Happy Howlidays: Shifters in Love Romance Collection (Shifter in Love Book 1)

by V. Vaughn

  “Merry Christmas,” Jill chirped to her final customer of the day.

  As the customer walked out the door, Jill smiled to herself. She headed to the back room to grab her bag, adjusting her knick-knacks along the way. The holidays were her favorite time of the year, but they were also her most successful. The other months of the year she did all right, but nothing like the final three months of each year.

  There was something so satisfying about sending people off with their purchases in hand, knowing they were going to be opened up on Christmas day. Jill wished she could see all the smiles her little trinkets and things brought people.

  Ten years ago when she had bought the remaining old mansion home on Market Street, her family had thought she was crazy. If Jill were being honest, she was a bit crazy back then. The mansion, as the locals called it, was run down and needed some work. Jill had only seen potential, though. Since she wasn’t going to live in it, she didn’t have to update the bathrooms upstairs or the kitchen. She just had to make it sturdy enough to run her shop.

  The bells on the door jingled, bringing her back to reality. Jill checked her watch and realized even though it was past closing time she had forgotten to change her sign.

  “Hello,” she called as she rounded the corner back to the front of the store.

  When she took in the man standing there, her breath caught. He was a giant, domineering man. The suit he wore clung to his muscular body, and Jill couldn’t help but follow the crisp attire up and down his body. She couldn’t seem to pull herself out of her stupor until she landed on his eyes. The amber orbs bore into hers, and his presence suddenly felt more threatening than domineering - or a strange mixture of the two.

  “You’re a shifter?” she blurted out.

  “Do you greet all of your guests this way?” he asked, the annoyance evident in his voice.

  “I said hello first,” she said, straightening her back.

  The man was obviously aware of the power his presence held in a room and was trying to use it against Jill. She refused to be made little in her own business.

  “Can I help you?” she asked with a bit of a bite when he still didn’t say anything.

  “I’m here to buy your business.”

  “It’s not for sale,” she replied, letting her anger show.

  “I’m prepared to offer you more than it’s even worth.”

  “I’m sorry, who are you?”

  “My name is Andru Varcelli,” he responded, extending his hand out to her.

  Jill wanted to scoff and smack it away, but she decided to oblige him and she took it, only to be shocked. She yanked her hand back. When her eyes met his, she saw surprise, and if she wasn’t mistaken a hint of fear as well. He took a step back, and then turned and left just as suddenly as he had appeared.

  She looked around the room to make sure she hadn’t just dreamed up the experience it had been so odd. The man had walked in all arrogant and smooth talking, and left looking more like a wounded puppy.

  His eyes seemed to haunt her, though. His amber orbs had been unforgettable. Jill finally snapped herself out of her daze and finished closing down her shop. She grabbed her purse and headed out the front door, careful to lock the door behind her. She only lived a short walk from her shop so she never drove, but there was something unnerving about her walk home tonight.

  Jill didn’t want to be the cliché paranoid woman after a run in with a shifter, but she couldn’t help glance behind her every few steps to see if she saw his amber glowing eyes in the dark. When she finally made it home, she let out a sigh of relief and quickly unlocked the door to her town home and locked it up tight behind her. Then she grabbed her laptop and a glass of wine and started researching Andru Varcilli.

  2

  Chapter 2 - Andru

  Once she was safely tucked away inside her one-story brownstone, Andru was finally able to pull himself away. When he had gone into the store, nothing about her had struck him as special. She was a beautiful woman, but the mate bond hadn’t immediately reared its head. It had waited until her hand touched his, and then it zapped every single fiber of his being and lassoed him to the woman.

  Andru scoffed. He had only been mated mere minutes and he was already thinking foolish schoolboy thoughts. The woman wasn’t his true mate, he was just exhausted. His dragon was itching it get out, and had taken to toying with Andru as sport. He looked around the deserted road and then quickly stepped into the cover of some bushes and shed his three-piece suit and shifted into his dragon form. The bushes were inept at covering him in that form, though. His wingspan was as wide as the street and he stood as tall as the lamppost outside her town home. Andru’s tail twitched behind him on the blacktop.

  He leaped into the air. His wings flapped with ease. It had been weeks since he had let himself fly. Once he was high enough over the human houses that they wouldn’t hear him, he let out a roar, and fire ripped up from his belly and blew out of his mouth, releasing the tension and anger he had pent up over his hiatus.

  It felt glorious to fly. As the night grew darker, Andru finally decided to head home. Without another thought to the three-thousand-dollar suit on the ground, he flew home. He would replace the damn thing. Money was the one thing he did have, and the one thing he could always be sure of. That thought brought him back around to the woman. He needed her tiny trinket shop so that he could plow the whole street and put up a more modern strip mall.

  Nobody shopped small ‘mom and pop’ businesses anymore. Hell, people were barely shopping in brick and mortar stores at all. Everything was going online. Amazon was starting to open bookstores and small stores in bigger cities, and Andru was determined for New Haven to be one of them.

  The other shops in the historic district had either already closed down or were more than willing to hand over their empty shops. Jill Beagle and a bake shop were the only two he had yet to procure. He had already approached the bakeshop twice, and they declined him both times. His meeting with Jill earlier had been his attempt at making first contact with her and he had assumed he would be an easy sale. Andru had apparently assumed wrong, though. The woman practically had fire blazing in her eyes when Andru had told her he was going to purchase the shop.

  Andru lived and breathed businesses, both big and small, and he knew that her shop couldn’t possibly be making her any grand income. Andru could offer her an early retirement. The money he had was prepared to put up to buy the two shops was just pennies compared to what he would bring in with his strip mall.

  Some of the shops were already decorating for Christmas. Andru’s first order of business once he owned all the shops would be to tear down all of the Christmas decorations and burn them. It made Andru sick. Christmas had been just another day in his house growing up. His father and mother had both been shifters, but they had forgone all of their heritage and roots so that they could set their minds on making their first million. Andru had wanted Christmas for a short period of time when he had been younger, but it hadn’t taken him long to see the hard work his parents put in was more important than frivolously wasting money on stupid gifts. The whole thing was a waste of money.

  As the lights to his penthouse suite came into view, Andru slowed the beat of his wings. He liked the view he had. No one in his neck of the woods gave a damn about Christmas or frilly decorations. Most of the people that lived in the same complex as him were like him in the sense that they were barely home. They were all business people, out making their fortunes.

  He landed on the roof and shifted back to his human form. The reason he had bought out the top floor and turned it into his penthouse suite was so that he could come and go from the roof as he pleased without the worry of being sighted. Most people knew he was a shifter, thanks to the Goddess blessing them all with amber eyes, but he had found his centuries of life that most humans were fine with shifters as long as they didn’t feel threatened. As far as his neighbors were concerned, they had never seen him shift, and they had no idea wh
at he even shifted into.

  He didn’t bothering putting any clothes on when he went inside. Andru went straight to the shower, hoping he could find a way to get her scent out of his mind. He hadn’t even gotten close enough to her to get her scent all over him, but the smell was still stuck in his mind. No matter how hard he scrubbed though it was all he could smell. His dragon was tormenting him.

  Andru dried off and pulled on a pair of briefs before he slipped between his satin sheets. As he drifted off to sleep, he couldn’t help but feel like his suite felt incredibly empty and silent for the first time since he had lived there.

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  Chapter 3 - Jill

  Jill had thought her anger would have faded after a good night’s sleep, but even in the light of morning she was still raging. It hadn’t taken much time on the Internet for her to figure out who Andru Varcelli was and what he was about. If there was ever a person out there that stood for absolutely everything she hated it was him. He had planned on tearing down the beautiful historic district and putting up some modern, disgusting strip mall. That was the last thing the world needed in Jill’s opinion was another TJ Maxx or Dress Barn. They needed more unique stores with handmade items and artwork.

  As Jill made her way over to open her store for the morning, she thought of all the things she was going to say to him if he would decide to come back in. Jill wasn’t normally a controversial person, but she was hoping for her chance to give the man a piece of her mind.

  Jill flipped on the lights and took in her store. It wasn’t for everyone and she was okay with that. That was actually one of her favorite things about it. When people were searching for something unique and different for a gift, her shop was where they came. The artists that she worked with to showcase their pieces were passionate and put care and precision into each piece. There was hardly ever more than one of their pieces, unless a customer asked for more specifically.

  Strength surged through Jill and she was ready to face the man head-on. During her late night Internet search, she had found out that the Alexanders had yet to sell their bakeshop to him. Their bakeshop was booming, and any chance Jill had to go down and eat there she did. Jill went back into her office and found their phone number and called over there, knowing they opened early for the breakfast crews.

  “Good morning! It’s a good day to get baking, so what can we bake for you?” Sue Alexander chirped into the phone.

  “Good morning, Sue. It’s Jill. How are you doing?”

  “Hi, Jill. We’re doing well. What can we do for ya?”

  “Well I’m gonna swing down for lunch today, but I wanted to call and ask you if a Andru Varcelli had contacted you about selling your shop yet?”

  The line went quiet and Jill could feel the tension through the phone line.

  “Jill, we have no interest in selling. I don’t know what he told you, but this is our home and our dream. We’re not giving up on it.”

  “I don’t think you should. He came to my shop yesterday. He’s a presumptuous pig, and I plan on sending him packing. I just wanted to see if I had an alliance. It looks like there’s not many of us that haven’t sold yet.”

  “I think it’s pretty much just us at this point, Jill. I don’t know how long we can hold off before he gets banks involved and things get dirty, but we’re with you.”

  “Good. I’ll see you for lunch.”

  “See you, Jill.”

  Jill hung up with a delighted sigh. She could and would stand up to the bully, Andru.

  Her morning flew by quickly with several regulars stopping by to pick up orders or place new ones. She also had one of the local artists bring by more items to display. Jill loved working the new inventory into the displays. There was something so fresh and exciting about new products. By the time she finally stopped for lunch, it was well into the afternoon. She flipped her sign to let customers know she’d be back in thirty minutes and locked the door.

  The bakery was in its usual slow period after the lunch rush, which gave Sue a chance to sit down and chat with Jill.

  “I’m not sure the two of us can hold out against him. Bob says he thinks this man’s next step will be to approach the banks we lease through and explain the deal to them. The offer he’s making could make the banks a ton more money than what we offer in our monthly leases. Big stores like he’s can pay big rent. We’re successful, but we can’t pay out any more for rent or it doesn’t make sense to stay in business,” Sue said, seeming a bit defeated.

  “I understand. I’m the same way,” Jill said, putting her spoon down and reaching across the table to grab Sue’s hand.

  “Have you spoken to this man at length yet? Bob’s spoken to him each time we’ve dealt with him.”

  “No, the brief encounter I had yesterday was the extent of it. I’m considering calling up his fancy firm number that’s listed on the developer webpage and setting up an appointment, though. Why wait for him to come to me, you know?”

  “You’ve got spirit, Jill. I’ve always liked that about you.”

  “Don’t lose hope, Sue. Let me try to get an appointment with him and I’ll let you know what I think after that.”

  Jill finished her soup and sandwich, and then headed back to her store. Just as she told Sue, she got the number from the webpage and set an appointment up with the secretary. She used a different name in hopes of grabbing Mr. Varcelli by surprise, the same way he had done with her. What was good for the goose was good for the gander.

  The bell rang in her shop and Jill lost herself in her work the rest of the day. The appointment was set for three days away, and Jill knew she’d have to keep busy to keep her mind off of it.

  4

  Chapter 4 - Andru

  It had been four days since he had run in with the shop owner, and Andru had hoped that the mate bond would have faded, but if anything it had only intensified. It had taken all of his will power not to go back to the store and watch her for hours. He became physically sick the second day. Andru had hoped the sickness would fade, and everything else along with it, but it hadn’t.

  He dragged himself into the office, but he had a feeling he wasn’t going to make it through the long day of meetings he had on his schedule. He was going to have to cave and go see her. His dragon was dying without the connection, and Andru was going to have to bend to his dragon’s will. He was less than pleased with the newfound vulnerability his mate was bringing out in him.

  “Good morning, Sarah,” Andru called to his secretary as he came off the elevator.

  “Good morning, Mr. Varcelli. You still don’t look very good. Would you like me to make you some tea?”

  “No thanks, Sarah. When is my first appointment?”

  “You have about an hour before she’s here.”

  “Who is this woman again?”

  “Her name is Jennifer and she said she was part of some historical society or something,” Sarah replied with a shrug.

  “Oh great,” he groaned.

  The last thing Andru needed was the historical society to get on his ass about his venture downtown. He had known it would eventually come around, but he had hoped to have already bought all the properties, locking them out. Another reason he desperately needed to get down to see his mate and the bake shop owners.

  “Sarah, we need to pull the trigger on contacting the banks that own the leases on the final stores in New Haven.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll get it done today.”

  He fired up his laptop and made his way through his emails. The process was much slower than normal since he was having trouble focusing through his painful migraine. The buzz of the elevator told him his first meeting had arrived. Andru stood up and made his way to the small bathroom attached to his office in hopes that splashing some cool water on his face would help get him through the meeting. Just as he was about to open the door to the bathroom, a sweet and familiar scent filled his lungs. His mate was here.

  The change that came over Andru was instant and sho
cking. He immediately felt like a new man, better than he had in decades. His dragon rumbled within him as if challenging Andru to deny that the woman was their mate still. He went to the door and opened it, shocking Sarah who had just been about to open the door herself.

  “Uh, your appointment is here, Mr. Varcelli.”

  “Oh yes, I know. Um, is there another woman here as well?”

  “Just Jennifer,” Sarah told him, looking a bit concerned. “Are you feeling alright, sir?”

  “There’s not a woman here by the name of Jill?” Andru asked, confused.

  He knew he could smell her. Andru brushed past Sarah and walked into the waiting room. There she was. Her dark hair was down with soft curls touching her shoulders. Her dark eyes roamed up and down his body, and had they not been looking at him with disgust and hatred, he would have loved the feeling. Andru snapped himself out of his stupor and realized he was standing their gawking at her, again.

  “Hello, Jennifer,” he said, extending his hand.

  “Hi. I think you know my names not Jennifer. I wanted to pop in and chat,” she responded coolly, not bothering to shake his hand.

  Andru’s hand burned with the desire to feel her delicate fingers graze across it. After a few more tense minutes, he finally dropped his hand and cleared his throat. He had to focus on business instead of the lovesick dragon raging inside of him.

  “Of course, let’s chat in my office.”

  She nodded and followed his guiding hand to his open door. She looked around briefly before stopping in front of his desk. If she was impressed she hid it well.

  “So, let’s talk,” he said as he motioned for her to have a seat.

  Once she sat down, he did the same. He rubbed his hand over his suit jacket, mostly just trying to get the sweat off of them. In all his centuries of life, he had never felt so nervous and unsure of himself. It was a very unsettling feeling.