ALIEN SHIFTER ROMANCE: Alien Tigers - The Complete Series (Alien Invasion Abduction Shapeshifter Romance) (Paranormal Science Fiction Fantasy Anthologies & Short reads)

by Tanya Jolie

  At night, they went back to the tent. Jenna had never considered how many ways three people could fit together before, but in that week they found a great many of them. She began to dread leaving, and wondered if Arthur and Barrett felt the same.

  They had four days left when the entirely unexpected happened.

  Chapter Seven

  “And if you look at it that way,” Barrett was saying, his arm slipped through Jenna’s as they walked, the sunlight slanting toward dusk, “it’s—”

  The bear rose out of the tall grasses with a suddenness that made Jenna take a step back, nearly stumbling over her own feet. Barrett caught her, held her steady.

  “Slow,” he said, voice low. “Just back up slow.”

  She knew that. Jenna took a step back, Barrett matching her, and from the corner of her eye she saw Arthur do the same. The bear snuffled, rising up onto his hind legs, where he towered over Arthur. Though he took another step back, Jenna thought Barrett looked surprisingly calm. Maybe he was just a better actor than she was. Her heart was racing, her stomach twisting sickly. When the bear took a step forward, Barrett’s arm suddenly left her own, pushed her back behind him. Arthur, ahead of them both, growled, and for a moment she thought it had been the grizzly, but it was definitely Arthur, standing there with his shoulders squared like he intended some kind of challenge.

  The bear paused. Looked at Arthur. Then, as Jenna watched, it shifted, and shrank, and became a man. Her jaw dropped open.

  “Arthur,” the man who had been a bear said, shaking shaggy blond hair back out of his eyes. “Barrett. Didn’t know you two were back in the park.” He grinned, his eyes sweeping over her. “And who’s the lovely companion?”

  Like Arthur and Barrett, he was built big and muscled, though he was heavier than both of them, like he’d been bulking up. Or, she realized, like he was preparing for hibernation. He was also completely naked, and she was glad for the long grass that covered him to the waist.

  “Sloan,” Arthur said, polite if a little tight in his throat.

  Barrett was looking at her sideways, then back at Sloan and Arthur.

  “Jenna,” Arthur said. “This is Sloan. Sloan, this is Jenna, who up to this moment was not aware of the existence of our kind.”

  Sloan had the grace to look a little embarrassed. Jenna wasn’t thinking about that. She was thinking about our kind, about the way Arthur had growled at Sloan and the bear paw tattooed on his chest. She looked at Barrett, whose open expression gave away the rest. Both of them, then.

  “Okay,” she said, pleased with the way her voice came out even. “Explain this to me.”

  “Well,” Barrett said. “Um.” He looked at Arthur.

  “It’s pretty simple,” Arthur said, turning to meet her eyes. He didn’t look upset at being found out. “We’re shape shifters, as you’ve now guessed. Bear shifters, if you want to be exact.

  Why didn’t you tell me? The question was almost on her lips before she realized she already knew the answer. Why should they have, when they’d only known her for a week and a half? Sure, she’d told them things about herself, and they’d told her about themselves in return, but she hadn’t told them the secrets that she kept a little closer. Hadn’t told them anything that was likely to upset the easy balance of their camaraderie. Of course they hadn’t told her.

  “Okay,” she said again. “That’s… It’s a lot to take in.”

  Barrett was looking at her like he wanted to come closer but wasn’t sure he was allowed, and she wasn’t sure if she was going to allow him, understanding of the secrecy or not. But for a grown man who could apparently shapeshift into a bear, he did puppy dog eyes really well. She sighed. Who was she kidding? She lifted a hand and beckoned him closer.

  He was there an instant later, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into the warmth of his body. It felt, she thought, the same as it had every other time she’d touched him, and she wondered if she had expected him to feel different now that she knew. As though somehow something of the bear would be suddenly obvious. But the only kind of bear he reminded her of at the moment was a teddy bear. Laughter bubbled up suddenly in her throat.

  “Of all the things I expected on this vacation,” she said through it, “this was definitely not on the list.”

  Arthur was chuckling, obviously relieved with how well she was taking the news.

  “But then,” she admitted, “neither was meeting you.”

  Sloan had apparently taken it upon himself to give them privacy, because he’d ambled off a little way, and she watched as between one step and the next man became bear, dropping down to all fours and strolling through the high grass toward the mudflats. Jenna stared after him for a moment, not sure if she was actually calm or if she was just in shock, before she pulled her attention back to Arthur and Barrett.

  “You two have a lot of explaining to do.”

  Chapter Eight

  Arthur did most of the talking as they walked back toward camp, explaining how shape shifters existed in the legends of nearly every culture, sometimes good and sometimes bad. Most real shape shifters were just people, trying to get on with their lives. There weren’t many of them, he told her as he continued. And there were even fewer who moved between worlds the way he and Barrett did. Many tried to stay completely human, for fear of being discovered changing. Others, like Sloan, took it the opposite direction, living almost entirely as animals. He had grown up on Admiralty Island, among shifters who lived that way, but the human world had always intrigued him too much for him to leave it entirely alone.

  “That’s why he’s bigger,” Barrett said, the curve of his mouth a little rueful. “He grew up on the Alaskan coast.”

  “I happen to like you the size you are,” Jenna said, pleased to see his expression brighten.

  She had a lot of questions. Wanted to ask them what it was like to be a bear. Whether they still thought like humans in their animal shape, or if it was harder. Arthur told her that in the bear shape thoughts took simpler forms, and the longer a shifter stayed as a bear, the longer it took them to come back to human thought patterns. Some of them, the ones like Sloan, eventually chose to never come back at all.

  They made dinner, cooking out over an open fire rather than over her camp stove, and when it was cleaned up and they had returned to the tent, they stretched out on the sleeping bags side by side, and Jenna’s thoughts turned from bears to Sunday, when she would be leaving.

  She didn’t want to go. There was still so much to see. So much to learn about the men she was coming to think of as hers. So much to share. As though he knew what she was thinking, Arthur rolled over and wrapped an arm around her, drawing her close. Barrett slid nearer on her other side, curling his arm over her stomach, below where Arthur’s arm rested.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  Jenna took a breath and let it out again slowly. “About having to leave,” she admitted. “I don’t want to.”

  They looked at each other over her head for a moment, and then Barrett leaned down and kissed her, slow and soft, his palm against her cheek. When he pulled back, he smiled, small and a little crooked, but there.

  “I’ve never been to Iowa.”

  Her eyes lifted to his face. “Would you?”

  “Of course we would,” Arthur said from her other side. His arm tightened. “I don’t let go of things I want that easily.”

  Jenna looked up into two pairs of brown eyes, both of them looking back at her with an affection she had hoped she wasn’t alone in feeling, and she drew them down close to her.

  “My home will always be open.”

  And maybe it wouldn’t be that simple, she thought, tipping her head back against the sleeping bags as Barrett pressed his mouth to her throat, the motion echoed by Arthur on the other side. Relationships were never simple, not with two people, certainly not with three. But that was the beauty of them, wasn’t it?

  She lifted her hands, tangled them in thick, soft ha
ir as the kisses continued, moving slowly downward.

  Maybe in two months they would realize that it didn’t work. That the time and the distance were too much, or that a shifter and a human couldn’t really work out. But for reasons she couldn’t really put a name to, Jenna didn’t think that would happen. What they had here, right now, it was something special. She raised her arms so they could lift her shirt over her head, wrapping them around two pairs of broad shoulders as she lowered them.

  Arthur, the photographer, so focused; Barrett, so surprisingly sweet behind that shy exterior; and her, the soon-to-be ranger who’d stumbled upon more than one completely unexpected thing in a windswept park on the southeastern tip of Alaska—they made something good together. Something right. And whatever happened tomorrow, she thought as she lifted her hips for Arthur and Barrett to skim her jeans down her legs, they had today. These hours in a tent in bear country.

  And then she stopped thinking about tomorrow, and about next month or the month after, and gave her attention to the moment, and the men who were leaning down over her, their touch warm on her skin. She smiled into two pairs of brown eyes, and gave herself over to the hands and the heat and the soft sounds of three people together in a tent—warm and lit against the chill fall night. Thinking could happen later. Right now, there were better things to do.

  THE END

  Rescuing a Werewolf

  A Werewolf Romance

  Rescuing a Werewolf

  Chapter One

  "Okay, boys. Tell me what we've got."

  Erin Rivers stood with the doctor just inside the ER doors where the ambulance made its deliveries, the shifting red and blue illumination of the emergency lights rolling over them both. The EMTs wheeled the stretcher up from the vehicle and into the ER. Erin, who wasn’t exactly tall, moved quickly to keep up.

  "John Doe. Found by a couple of cyclists out for a night ride on the edge of town. Pretty beat up. Some bad lacerations. Bruises. Cracked or broken ribs. Broken fingers.”

  Erin spun on her heel to follow them as they started down the hall, headed for one of the treatment rooms.

  The man on the stretcher was big—tall and broad-shouldered with brown hair and a tan that said he spent a lot of time outdoors. His shirt had been cut off him, and she could see the gauze that had been taped over his chest, already spotted with blood, the pressure bandage wrapped around his rib cage. The guy was out of it, totally unconscious.

  "Was he awake when you picked him up?"

  The nearest EMT shook his head.

  "Nope. He's been out since we arrived. Guys who found him said he was down for the count when they got there. Don't know how long he's been unconscious."

  That could be bad. Erin nodded.

  "Get him on the bed and we'll take a look at him."

  Between the two of them, the ambulance techs laid the guy out on his side, and the doctor stepped forward to look him over while Erin set up the IV. She watched as the doctor removed the gauze that had been hiding the wounds on the men’s chest.

  He had four lacerations that cut from sternum to navel, all running parallel to each other, ragged along their edges like they’d been opened with something sharp only at its tip. Deep, but they didn’t look life-threatening. They hadn’t cut through to any vital organs.

  The bruising was pretty bad. There were huge purple black marks along his ribcage. Looked like boot marks, and she wouldn't be surprised to find they were. The injuries had the air of something done deliberately.

  "Any identification on him?" Erin asked the EMT, who was standing to the side filling out the paperwork on the new arrival.

  "Nope. And no name from the callers, of course."

  A John Doe, then. They'd find out who he was when he woke up.

  When the doctor took the gauze off his back, they found similar wounds to the ones on his chest. A double set of long cuts, raked down the length of his back.

  "What happened here?" she asked the EMT. "Any ideas?"

  He stepped around to stand with her, looking at the wounds.

  "Our best guess?" he said, looking at her sideways. "They look like something with claws took a pretty strong disliking to him. Except that those are definitely boot prints. So, we really have no idea.”

  “Wolverine?” the intern who’d just walked in to observe suggested.

  "Claws," the doctor said flatly, ignoring the attempt at humor.

  The EMT nodded.

  That was, Erin decided, what they looked like. Four parallel marks, opened by something with a pointed tip. But there were the bruises, which were definitely boot imprints.

  The lacerations needed to be cleaned and sutured, and bloodwork sent to the lab. When that was done, the doctor and the intern left, and Erin was alone with the patient. She checked the IV levels, made sure he was resting peacefully, and stood for a moment, silently studying him.

  He was a good looking guy, even bandaged up and laying in a hospital bed—strong cheekbones, a straight Grecian nose, a thick head of curling brown hair. Erin turned away. She had other patients to see to, after all.

  Chapter Two

  Back in high school, Erin had a friend who'd confessed a secret to her.

  She remembered the day all too clearly. They'd been sitting outside on the swings behind her house, swaying gently back and forth in the slanted golden light of late afternoon. The day was warm, but not hot, one of the last good spring days before summer would set in and fry everything to a crisp. It had rained in the morning, and everything felt fresh and new and clean. The flowers were blooming in the flower beds, and the trees were in blossom.

  "I have to tell you something," Jenna said very quietly.

  Erin turned to look at her past the chains of the swings, her hands curled around the plastic-covered part of them. They were really getting too big for these things, and the seat wasn't exactly comfortable. The edges cut into her hips.

  "Tell me. You know you can."

  Jenna was looking down at her lap, where her fingers were twisting together, her dark hair, a contrast to Erin’s blonde, pulled forward over one shoulder. She tugged at her lower lip with her teeth.

  "Yeah. I know I can, or I wouldn't have said it."

  She took a breath and let it out again slowly. In the little copse of trees to their left, birds called back and forth. Erin waited for her to speak.

  "You know how I'm always missing school for a few days every month?"

  Erin knew. She'd asked about it before, and Jenna always had an excuse, but she'd never given her a straight answer. Erin felt her heart beat pick up a little, and at the time she hadn't been sure why.

  "Well, there's a reason."

  "What?"

  Jenna was silent again for a long moment, swaying restlessly.

  "I…" She seemed to have trouble getting the words out, stopping and clearing her throat. Cleared it again. "I'm not sure I know how to say this," she confessed after a moment.

  "Just tell me, Jen. I won't tell anyone. I promise."

  Erin lifted her hand and drew an X over her heart. They hadn't done that since they were ten, but she hoped it would let Jenna know that she was telling the truth. Jenna could tell her anything. They'd been friends since kindergarten, and she didn't like the distance that had been growing between them over the last couple years, since Jenna had been in that accident while she was camping.

  "It's hard," Jenna said, hardly more than a whisper. "I mean, I've never told anyone this, Er. And telling you could get me in a lot of trouble."

  "Only if someone knows you told," Erin argued gently. "And I'm not going to tell them. Really. I promise."

  What could be so big that Jenna couldn't tell her?

  "This is going to sound stupid."

  "I don't care how it sounds."

  Jenna nodded, the motion of her head abrupt and jerky. Nervous. Erin was growing nervous too, watching Jenna's hands twist in her lap, listening to the too-quick sound of her breathing.

  "So. Um. The days
I'm gone. They're always the full moon."

  Erin blinked. She looked at Jenna.

  "The full moon?" she echoed, to be sure she was hearing it right.

  Jenna nodded.

  "Is that… What exactly are you trying to say?"

  Jenna opened her mouth to answer, but the honk of a car horn stopped her. She looked up at Erin, apology drawing her eyebrows down and twisting her mouth.

  "I'm sorry. That's my mom. I have to go."

  "Wait. Jen—"

  But she was already up from the swing and running across the yard, her ponytail swinging.

  Erin never had found out what Jenna was going to say. She hadn't come back to school after that. But she'd turned the words over and over in her mind, trying to see the conclusion they came to, wondering what they could mean that wasn't totally out of the realm of possibility. It always came back to one idea, though. An idea that couldn't possibly be right.

  It was a strange thing to be thinking about, that day in her backyard, as Erin went about her rounds. She hadn't thought of Jenna in a long time. But for some reason the memory was teasing at her, pricking her thoughts. She shrugged and continued on to the next patient.

  -------

  When Erin returned, the recent John Doe arrival was awake, sitting slightly up in bed. She was on her way out for the night, but she’d wanted to check in on him and see how he was doing. He looked groggy, and it took a moment for his eyes to focus on her. When they did, he frowned.

  "What happened?"

  "A couple of bikers called in a finding of an unconscious man on the side of the rode. You're in the hospital."

  His expression shifted from confusion to alarm.