BOX SET: Shifter 4-Pack Vol 2 (Wolf Shifter, Dragon Shifter, Mafia, Billionaire, BBW, Alpha) (Werewolf Weredragon Paranormal Fantasy Romance Collection)

by Candace Ayers

  Her ragged cough said it all. “I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t. I’m sorry.”

  Sighing in relief that it had been nothing else but my foolishness, I shook my head and kissed her forehead. I should have been paying closer attention. “Don’t be. I shouldn’t have expected that of you. That was my fault.” She clutched at the log for dear life, and my hands covered hers in hopes they would stop her from shivering. They didn’t.

  “Don’t,” she started to push me away, but it only made her grasp slip off of the log and with only one hand holding onto the slippery branch, she ducked below the surface. Fortunately, I grabbed her before she was too far away and pulled her out of the water, heaving her onto the top of the log.

  I took a deep breath and gingerly made my way to the other side of the log to face her. She was still panting, seeking to calm her heartbeat, and squeezed her eyes tight when I appeared before her. Though the current was weaker here on the side, it still tugged at our legs hoping it could pull us along. I could tell this worried her, but we had passed the most difficult part now.

  “This is madness,” she muttered again, unable to meet my gaze.

  “Everything seems to be mad these days.” I chuckled, pulling her wet plastered hair away from her face. “Catch your breath. You’re not going to fall in. When you’re ready, we’ll make for shore. You made it out of the worst part. We just need to get you on some solid footing.”

  “You won’t leave me?” She mumbled, dropping her chin in her hands.

  I shook my head as she met my gaze with those crystal blue eyes. I couldn’t say no if I wanted to, not to her. “We’re in this together, whether you like it or not.”

  She smiled then, and that’s when I realized the uplifting of the corners of her lips were a rare gem that I had to keep an eye out for. It could only be the third smile I had seen, and I tried to treasure it before it was gone. Sure enough, a minute later she sighed and looked away.

  Her mood altered abruptly, changing from discomfort to her usual: quiet, moody, and determined to ignore me. It made no sense but I had done what I could and tried to make the best of our circumstances. I wondered if she usually put her fears away this quickly.

  A few minutes after that, she was finally ready to move on and reach dry land. Remy stopped looking at me altogether as we slowly made our way out of the water. She went inch by inch, careful not to slip again as she clutched the shoreline reeds. I followed behind, ready to catch her at a moment’s notice. During that long crawl, I made a mental note to teach her how to swim when we finally stumbled out of the muddy banks and collapsed onto solid ground.

  She had all the looks of a bedraggled puppy as she shivered and glanced at me through her big blue eyes. I offered a tight smile and pulled her back to her feet. This wasn’t the time to rest if she wanted to get warm.

  “You can rest in a minute,” I pulled her away from the shade, refusing to let her lie in the mud. Her voice was gone as she wrapped her arms around herself when I pushed her into a spot of sunlight. I had been touching her since we’d entered the water- her waist, her legs, her hips, her hands- that I felt as though I lost part of myself when I let her go. She was already drifting away from me mentally, and I wasn’t sure if I could do anything about it. It drove me crazy because I couldn’t stop listening to her heartbeat and glancing over at her. I had to spend all of my energy on not thinking about caressing her skin or kissing her ruby red lips.

  “I’ll get our things.” I left her there and climbed the tree hanging over the river, easily snatching the bag without any problems. Returning to our spot, I found her pounding her feet in the ground with her arms hugged her ribs, fighting for warmth. The wind was nearly knocked from my breath at the sight of her. Still soaked, I could see the outline of her flesh and she seemed to sparkle with the droplets trickling down her bare skin.

  It felt like an eternity since I had seen this much raw vulnerability in her, just like that smile. I drew in a deep breath as she turned, her body still drenched with her shift hiding nothing. We barely knew each other, I reminded myself, but part of me wondered if that was true. After that night, I felt that I knew her better than myself. She must have heard me coming back and looked up. I couldn’t read her gaze as I dropped our things and pulled out her clothes. Her hands grabbed the folds of her clothes.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, and I could have sworn she was drawing out those two words as slowly as she possibly could just so I would be caught on her lips.

  The sunlight bestowed upon the lady a warm glow, similar to that of a halo. I was compelled to stop and stare, and she seemed caught up as well once our eyes met. Her shivering faded away, and I stopped holding onto her clothes.

  She cleared her throat. “We should, um…”

  Her grasp wasn’t firm either so our things fell away to the dust, and my pulse quickened. I knew immediately hers had done the same and I claimed her the moment I heard her heart skip a beat. The business with clothes was over as I pulled her closer, pressing her against me. She paused for only a moment before melting into me, and our lips found one another.

  “Benjamin,” she murmured but there was nothing else to say. She couldn’t resist, and neither could I. Her skin was wet against mine and I enveloped her against me to shun the cold and release her from the chill; she complied more than willingly.

  Her arms wrapped around my neck, and she led me into the sunlight. I held tightly onto her, our lips meeting over and over again. My fingers fumbled with her shift, looking to get her out of it, but that’s when she stopped cold.

  Tucking her face into my neck, she breathed quietly with one hand covering mine that had settled on her hips. Not a word was said, but the rigidness that overcame her body was more than enough of a message. A chaste kiss on my collarbone, and she dropped her arms and slipped from my grasp.

  She slowly knelt and collected her clothes as I collected my breath, still feeling the warmth of her lips on my shoulders. Remy’s gaze stayed down as she moved away from me to sort out her clothes and change. Confused, I could only watch her and wonder what was going on. Her heartbeat sped, possibly faster than my own. There was no way she could not feel the electricity in the air.

  And yet, she still wouldn’t look at me.

  Gritting my teeth, I finally turned my back on her. I looked for words to say, but nothing seemed appropriate. I couldn’t understand her, for I knew she had to feel the same way as myself. Her body proved it. But her mind, that was the mystery. That’s what made her stop, and that was something I couldn’t understand.

  Shaking my head, I put on my things and prepared to move on. There were still a few hours left of daylight, and we could make some good distance. I said as much to her after a few minutes, but she didn’t like the idea.

  “Let’s rest now, and travel later. There will be good moonlight and that will be enough for us to follow. It’s safer, too. Less creatures out and about,” she muttered. The tone she used was unfamiliar to me, after everything we had been through. She could have been talking to a stranger.

  I nodded, though unwilling I might have been. There was a small clearing nearby with plenty of trees to lean against comfortably. We settled down a few yards from another, and took a few hours to rest. Again and again I awoke to the sun shining bright between the tree branches, but it never seemed to bother her as she curled into a tight ball at the base of her large tree, asleep in seconds.

  When she awoke, I was already awake with energy buzzing in my veins. The moon had started its ascent and I could see why she wanted to travel by night. The silver orb appeared closer than ever, and it almost seemed to speak to me. Because of the moon, I noticed when Remy clambered up and returned to the stream to wash.

  “I know you’re up,” she called to me when I hadn’t moved. “There’s some nuts and berries on the path ahead of us, so there’ll be plenty to eat as we go.” A little more splashing, and she clambered back my way. Finally I opened my eyes to watch her plait her hair, d
eliberately avoiding me as much as possible.

  I turned with a small frown, wondering at her behavior. But I shook my head, because women have never been decipherable. I glanced around at the unfamiliar territory as I dressed. It seemed normal, to her, to accept her current surroundings wherever they might be. For myself, it was still strange not waking to a world I was accustomed to. This was the furthest I had ever been from the town I had known all my life, and the distance grew daily.

  This adventure of ours made me wonder if there was ever going to be another home for me to wake up in again. Pushing that thought to the back of my mind, I turned to her, realizing she had everything set to go. With a nod, Remy pointed towards a nearly invisible path.

  “Let’s see where that goes for a while, shall we?” She passed me by and I reached instinctively for her but if she noticed it, she ignored me.

  Dropping my hand, I let her lead, and we began our journey once again.

  Finding her unwilling to converse, and I thought back to home, back to my workplace. The fire had enveloped everything, from what I had been able to see before running out of town in a fit of pain. My shoulder twitched, an aching reminder of what I had endured. I still remembered the white hot pain and how I would have died save it not for Remy’s arrival.

  Watching my feet in every step, it made me wonder why she had remained there for me. She had clearly been on the move, but she had stayed behind, and she stuck with me even now. Lifting my gaze, I listened to the beat of her heart and it fell in place with mine. Eventually I caught up with her so we walked side by side quietly.

  We walked until dawn, and in that area we found a shallow cave in the rocky terrain. The moon had kept us company for the journey, and I realized it seemed to speak to her, guiding her wherever we were headed. She had made mention before how it somehow spoke to her, and I wondered how that worked. That may have been how we found the spot to rest in, too tired to eat as we laid down in the shadows.

  “Benjamin?”

  I was already beginning to doze when she whispered my name. “Hm?”

  “Good night.” I could sense the blush blooming shyly on her cheeks and wished I could see it better.

  I smiled and turned back over with a yawn. “Good night, Remy.”

  3: Remy

  He usually took forever to fall asleep, and rarely slept well, but tonight Benjamin was sound asleep in minutes. For a while, I listened to his breathing slow down and I wondered how the tranquility worked for him. My eyes opened only then and I looked up to the moon above us, pondering too much for sleep to take hold.

  For most of my life, it had only been the two of us. Just myself and the moon. I had Benjamin now, but I didn’t even know what that meant. It had been years since I had anyone else and I couldn’t remember how relationships worked. I glared at the moon above us, waiting for it to tell me what to do. It had helped me out so often before, but now there was only silence.

  It wasn’t usually like this. Right now, it was faint and hard to notice, the connection to the moon. Another two weeks and my pulse will frequently race just at the thrill of the attention. He would soon know the sensation of the pull and the connection to the night.

  It was a gift. I could remember sitting on my mother’s lap as she told me happy stories. However, things had changed since then and while I adored my moon, I worried for Benjamin. He knew so little. I tried to picture him in his changed form- he would be bigger than myself, and definitely anxious to be on the move. I craved this for him as much as I dreaded it. He couldn’t possibly understand, not yet.

  There was no turning back. I knew that. There were those that had prayed for this particular gift in days past, but stories have twisted with the winds and I anxiously wondered about him. The process was difficult on the body just as it was on the mind. It was a hard thing to control both, and though the transformation grew easier with time, but it didn’t always turn into the dream that some had so faithfully believed in.

  A wind drifted through and it ruffled my hair. Sitting up, I sniffed the air cautiously. The noises around us were nothing out of the ordinary, but the nose was always stronger. I smelled the beavers upstream, and the foxes north of us. There were no threats now. When it came to nature, we would be left to ourselves here.

  My eyes drift back to the other side of the cave. Ben was sleeping peacefully. It was by pure chance we had crossed paths in the first place, and by strange decisions we were both here now. I wondered if I had made a mistake. If he was a mistake. Again, the silver orb above offered no answers. I fought off the doubts and closed my eyes.

  Reminding myself that I still required rest no matter what I was, I finally willed myself into sleep. We had been traveling far, and my thoughts and our swimming weighed me down, leaving me exhausted.

  The dreams that followed made me regret ever closing my eyes. I was trapped in the past and I couldn’t shake it free. The moon could do nothing for me inside there. Though these memories had been pushed to the dark corners of my mind, they sprung up like the demons they were.

  It was a warm summer’s morn as we were preparing to enter the den. The hunt hadn’t been good and we wondered if we should move on to a better area. It was spring but there was so little life around our home. Everyone gathered together, annoyed and still hungry. In human form, I dressed and left the pack to pace outside alone.

  We were hungry, and all they could do was fight with one another. Everyone bickered constantly and I was living with a constant headache. The pack had never been so torn apart and it wasn’t going well for anyone. They didn’t listen to the moon these days, and I couldn’t get them to understand reason.

  The moon began to slip away as the sun peeked over the horizon. I couldn’t understand the messages like I wanted to, and I didn’t know how to proceed. It had been days since there was any decent feeding, and we were all feeling the effects of it. My stomach growled, I was weak, and it was hard to concentrate.

  Distracted by my thoughts, I hadn’t heard Lyell approach me from behind. He snaked a hand across my hips before I realized he was there or what he was trying to do. His chin dropped to my shoulder and I instinctively pushed him away when I felt his hot breath on my neck.

  I probably should have paused before acting so hastily. Lyell was the Alpha, but this was unprecedented. Turning to him, I frowned and wondered what he was trying to do. I had never shown interest towards him in the past and wasn’t sure what he was thinking.

  “You’d make a fine mate,” he smiled. I saw his broken tooth and I realized that this was a solicitation. I had noticed him watching before, but had never considered this to be his intention. My heart nearly stopped beating. This was the invitation from my Alpha to be his intended mate.

  Once this had been something I wanted, and I knew how he needed a strong female by his side. But I found myself uncertain. Lyell and I rarely agreed on anything, and he was too proud for the little good he had accomplished as our leader. From a good family like myself, he took his status for granted and believed his rights, not his prowess, were enough to endear a pack to loyalty.

  The voice of my mother rang in my mind, for as a child she had promised me great things. A proper place in a pack, a good man, a good future were all bound to be mine since I carried pure blood in my veins. Good things were meant to come my way, but this didn’t feel right and suddenly it wasn’t what I wanted. That future would be nothing if it meant I had to be with Lyell.

  As I looked at him, I couldn’t see it. He wanted me to be his, but I would be his prize and not his woman. I would never be equal in his eyes for he saw the world as something to conquer. That included me. His hands grabbed for me again like a snaking vine, and I backed away. In that moment, I knew what had to happen. No one was allowed to shun the Alpha.

  “I can’t.” The words sounded foreign on my lips. But the moon was there and echoed my sentiment, assuring me that this was the right thing to do. I needed all the strength I could get for this moment. Lyell glared
at me, his eyes growing red as he drew closer. As he did, I found myself stepping away to remain distanced, and looking for an escape to freedom.

  I shook my head. “I won’t.”

  “You are mine or you aren’t one of us,” he threatened through a snarl. My fate suddenly became clear. In a heartbeat I had switched forms and twisted free of him. All my life, I had outfoxed others by my speed and I used it now.

  He couldn’t chase me for long. Lyell shouted after me, threats and curses that the moon promised I could ignore. He didn’t need me, the moon whispered, the pack didn’t need me. So I ran alone and free at last. It was an incredible feeling but it suddenly faded into something else.

  The memory collapsed into another one within moments. The rush of freedom I had felt vanished suddenly as a burning plank fell to my left. Sparks flew and I screamed, curling up in my small bed. I was young again, eight years old and very afraid.

  Smoke was crowding in my bedroom, and my lungs ached. Everything was on fire. My family’s cabin outside of town was falling apart between the flames, lighting up the winter night like a bright beacon. Peeking out, I glanced at the pretty flames but stayed away. I had learned my lesson from poking around in the fireplace before, and curled up tighter beneath my blankets.

  We weren’t supposed to be home. I had felt ill and for the night, so we stayed at the house. When I opened my eyes again, I knew it was my fault. My parents and brother had to be somewhere nearby and I wondered why they weren’t helping me. I hoped if I squeezed my eyes terribly tight, all would be well. But no matter how hard I tried, it only grew worse. The flames licked the walls, crawling closer.

  Gathering the courage to climb out of my bed, I called out. “Momma! Pop! Danny!”

  I stopped as the corner of my bed caught fire by the sparks falling from the ceiling. Frozen, I stopped breathing for a moment. Tears streamed down my cheeks and they burned. It was so hot and I was so scared.