by KH LeMoyne
HIDDEN
Shifters Unlimited Book 1
KH LeMoyne
Digital Crystal Press
© 2014, KH LeMoyne
Published by Digital Crystal Press
www.khlemoyne.com
All rights reserved.
GENRE: Paranormal/Fantasy Romance
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any for or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed herein are fictitious and are not based on any real persons living or dead.
ISBN-13: 978-1-937080-15-0
ISBN-10: 1937080153
Editorial Team: Linda Ingmanson and Toni Lee
Cover design: Clarissa Yeo
Contents
Hidden
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Preview: Missing
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Also by KH LeMoyne
About the Author
HIDDEN - A Shifters Unlimited Novel
Life on the run is about to end with a sniper’s bullet or an eternal pledge of fealty. Neither suits a seasoned lion shifter.
Shifter Chisholm Barduc has kept his family safe despite the mob’s target on their back. Free from any alpha’s control as well. But his luck is running out when his teenage daughter falls victim from a local crime. And if his instincts are correct, the beautiful police officer protecting his daughter’s secret is the mate Chisholm never believed he’d find. Only she’s not buying her role in mated destiny.
Dani Leggett gets the shock of her life witnessing a teenager shifter’s first change. And while Dani has supernatural secrets in her closet, she not ready to settle down. But one sexy lion shifter and his brood do their best to turn her life upside down and get under her skin. Now she must decide between remaining true to her professional code of conduct or sacrificing everything for those she loves.
This book includes the novel HIDDEN and a short preview of Book 2, MISSING.
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1
McLean County, North Dakota
Columbus Day
“Dispatch, I’m at the location.” Dani Leggett turned her cruiser into a pothole-free dirt lane flanked by freshly dug ditches and cut grass. No flowerbeds, vegetable gardens, or beautification of any kind graced the long narrow plot of land, details suggesting the property was a rental, most likely maintained as a fishing or hunting cabin.
She parked behind a squad car and gauged the distance to the setting sun’s reflection off the cottage windows at the lane’s end. Reviewing the dispatcher’s comments, she stayed in the car and jotted snippets in her notebook. Not that it helped her focus for this call. But details and facts usually helped distance her from emotion: protocol, process, professionalism—a tidy way to mask the abnormal qualities she brought to her job.
Tucking her weapon at the small of her back, she slid from her vehicle and glanced across the burr-cut stretch of harvested wheat fields. A small lake lay beyond, but nothing earmarked its existence except for a few scraggly trees and a tiny hill. Given the surroundings, everything appeared peaceful and quiet.
A crisp hint of winter stung her cheeks, and she pulled her jacket closer for warmth. Prickly and sharp, dread trickled down her spine. Something about fall always ratcheted her imagination into overdrive. According to Native American folklore, the veil between reality and magic faded to transparency this time of year. Not that anyone with five undergraduate and two masters degrees believed such fantasy.
Still, she dug her fists into her jacket pockets and walked faster. Not even a bird or squirrel shifted on the landscape. The normal musk of organic decay hid beneath the clean undercurrent of cold, tickling her sinuses. There’d be snowfall before Halloween. Luckily, the motor pool had outfitted her unmarked vehicle with snow tires this week.
Sheriff Hank Baransky waited on the front stoop. The six-foot, three-hundred-pound officer, the majority of weight balanced in his stomach, didn’t diminish Dani’s discomfort over what waited for her inside, but she relaxed a bit with his appearance. In her first position as a deputy, she’d benefited from his years of wisdom and patience. She knew him better than most of his staff. However, she was present tonight because of how well he knew her.
“Sheriff.” She nodded and glanced behind him into the small living room. “Where are the young men?”
“Those two are in the kitchen with Deputy Caulder. Calling them men would be a stretch.”
Based on the dispatcher’s notes, she agreed. But the Special Detective position she shared across four jurisdictions made her opinions irrelevant. Only professional results counted. “And the girls?”
He gestured toward a closed door at the end of the hallway as she followed him inside. “Parents came for one. The other one is holed up in the bathroom. Sounded like she’s throwing up, and she refuses to open the door. Didn’t want to unsettle her more than she already is.” She waited as Hank sighed and shifted his belt. “With an underage female, you know I usually wait for a female officer—detective, that is.”
Hiding her smile at his correction of her title, she risked a glance toward the kitchen. The deputy had the boys handcuffed at the table. From their fidgeting and hunched shoulders, they wanted to be anywhere but here. “Was the first girl injured?”
“Had a ripped blouse. Didn’t get much else on my visual before her mother rushed her out.”
“Can’t say I blame her.”
He grunted in acknowledgment.
“Has an ambulance been called for the one in the bathroom?” Dani asked, flipping open her notebook.
“She said her family doesn’t believe in doctors.” He paused and shrugged. “She sounds like a piece of work, but at least she stayed calm. Got her friend to run and lock the door. Then she called us. Like to think my daughters possess such levelheaded thinking.”
And that explained Hank’s reason for pulling Dani onto the case. Bighearted and with a tough stance on violence against women, he wanted every advantage to stop problems in his county.
“The boys are both legal-age college students, correct?” she asked.
“Yep.” He shook his head. “Damn mess to make of their lives. Drugging, abduction, statutory rape… What gets into kids these days?”
Thinking the same thing herself, she continued down her list. “The two girls are both fifteen?”
“Tammy Schmidt, the one who left, was fifteen. The other one is only fourteen.”
“The one in the bathroom, right?” Dani scanned her notes. “That would be Tammy’s friend from school.”
“Yes. Her name’s Essence.” Hank rolled his eyes as she glanced up. “I don’t make these things up. First name was all she would give me, and Tammy wasn’t more forthcoming either.”
“So, Essence managed to call the police after her friend locked herself in the bedroom?”
He said nothing.
“Okay, Essence it is. I’ll see what I can learn and get her to come out. Do you have enough to hold the boys?”
“We’ve got forty-eight hours. On principle, I intend to use them all.”
&
nbsp; “Good idea.” Dani headed down the hallway. She spared a glance at the two young men seated in the cramped kitchenette, then continued down the hall until she stood before the closed door.
Silence met her ears. She leaned her forehead against the door. “Essence, this is Detective Leggett. I understand you’ve refused medical help, but I need to make sure you’re okay.”
“Is Tammy all right?” The voice was lower than Dani expected, gravelly, with a smoky, seductive quality. Odd for a fourteen-year-old. Hair bristled on her arms and stood on end as she focused on the vibration emanating from Essence’s words. Not sounds Hank or anyone else would hear, for if anyone else woke up able to hear the cornucopia of instruments Dani matched to kids’ voices, they’d have themselves committed.
But she wasn’t crazy. It had taken her years to come to terms with the fact she heard and saw more than other people did. Now, she focused on the dulcet strings playing through Essence’s words. Unlike her husky voice, her tune played in a confident, if erratic, harmony until a quick hacking erupted.
Dani rested her palm against the door. “Her parents have taken her home, but I’m worried about you.”
“I’m fine. I just need…” A soft hiccup hid the rest of her words, but an odd rumble followed. “Then I’ll go home.”
She squatted closer to the floor and spoke into the doorjamb. “Look, here’s the thing. Because of your age, you either have to let me in or give me your parents’ names and numbers.”
“No.” Another hack. “Please don’t call my dad. He’s got enough to worry about.”
“Essence, he’s going to know one way or the other. Either he comes here, or I take you home.”
The noise persisted again. A long rumble like a growl echoed as the vibrations thrummed beneath her hand. Dani rattled the handle. “What is that noise?”
“Nothing. Please—” Silence again for almost a minute. Ready to ram the door with her shoulder, Dani hesitated when the lock clicked and the door opened a crack. “Just you. Okay?” begged the girl.
“Fine. Just me.” Exhaling with relief, Dani pressed against the door and wedged herself in through the narrow crack. She gasped, then clamped her mouth shut. Naked didn’t quite cover the scenario. The girl’s clothes hung on her in shreds as she lay on the floor. Her brown hair, tipped in bright pink, lay limp against her cheeks and she shivered on the dingy off-white tile. In bizarre contrast, dazzling rose mist swirled around the girl, floating just above her skin as if it resisted actual contact. Dani frowned as she dropped to her knees beside the teenager. “What did they do to you?”
“Not what you—” Essence lurched for the toilet and clung as if she feared the hole might claim her.
Dani bolted to her feet, closed the bathroom door, and grabbed an old paper-towel roll from beside the sink. She turned with a wad of sopping towels and gently dabbed Essence’s forehead. There was no warning before a rasping growl erupted, and the girl’s hair and pale flawless skin glimmered and twisted into tawny fur with solid black rosettes. Even more startling, the rose coloring Dani now associated with Essence’s…well, essence, adhered to the fur and pulsed like a second layer of skin.
Lunging away, Dani’s back hit the door. She sank into a crouch, and gasped. What the hell?
A broad velvety nose punctuated by whiskers and capped by bright chestnut eyes turned her way. For a second, eyes identical to Essence’s blinked at her, misery etched within them. Then the leopard, the largest cat Dani had ever seen face-to-face, tucked its head beneath a paw with a whine.
A rapid knock vibrated along the door at her back, and Dani jumped. The leopard tried to crawl behind the toilet.
“Everything okay in there, Detective?” Hank’s booming voice warned she had minutes before he shattered the door.
“Fine,” Dani squeaked, forcing a louder cough to cover. “We just need a few more minutes. But can you or Caulder get my workout bag from my trunk?”
“What do—”
“I have a jacket and spare clothes in there—there’s a mess in here. Unless you want to help clean the vomit?”
“Nope. Workout bag coming right up.” Hank’s voice faded as he flat-footed it down the hall.
She stared at Essence and held her breath as the leopard shimmered in a shocking yet beautiful display. Someone without Dani’s personal experience with unusual supernatural phenomena would mistake the action as threatening. But clearly frightened and in pain, with an aura of brilliant rose and newly added purple circling her body, Essence didn’t register as a threat. If nothing else, Dani could rely on the colors. They’d never failed her in reading a situation.
With a groan, the teenager reappeared in its place with a muffled sob. Dani knelt again and crawled a bit closer. “Look, I’m a little out of my element here, but you’re obviously in pain. What can I do to help you?”
Essence glanced up and swallowed hard. “I just want to go home. You know—without everyone else seeing me. No hospital.”
Right. Dani didn’t want to explain a big cat any more than Essence wanted to risk a public outing. God, she must be losing her mind.
At the next knock, she opened the door enough to accept her bag. Forcing herself not to think beyond the moment, she helped Essence into sweats. With all the speed Dani could manage, she ushered the teenager through the house.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” Essence whispered.
“Who would believe me?” Dani offered a quick smile.
“Promise?”
Dani nodded, shielding Essence beneath her arm when they passed the young men.
Minutes later, she prayed the girl—or whatever she was—would hold out for the twenty-five yards to Dani’s cruiser. Dani murmured thanks to the universe all the way down the lane that she’d been the officer called for this unusual being. The sudden appearance of claws and fangs tended to unsettle people. But her perspective on life’s possibilities didn’t fall within the boundaries of traditional expectations. Belief in an anomaly in the human gene structure was a stretch, but for her, not that much of one. What surprised her was the brightness of the aura from a human capable of turning into an animal.
Finally reaching her vehicle, she settled Essence into the passenger seat, then slid behind the steering wheel with a sigh of relief and glanced at her watch. Six thirty was early. Some parents might not be home yet from work.
Essence shrugged in the police sweat jacket and stared at Dani’s watch. “My dad works late.”
Dani put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway. “At home?”
“Yeah. He’d be up even at midnight, but he doesn’t expect me home from the library yet.”
“And your mom?”
“Dead.”
At the toneless response, Dani almost stomped on the brakes. But Essence was curled into a tight ball in the seat beside her. Whether to avoid sympathy or just end the conversation, Dani couldn’t tell. She decided to drop the subject.
Frowning, she glanced at Essence. “Did the boys see you…you know?”
“No. They didn’t see me shift.”
Back on the main road, Dani waited through a few minutes of silence. She never avoided engaging a victim in conversation or getting them medical care, but taking home a fourteen-year-old shifter required new rules. At least the colors surrounding Essence indicated a physically and psychologically healthy adolescent. Although after the drone-like recitation of her address, Essence descended again into silence, and scrunched farther down into the seat.
“What does your father do?” prodded Dani.
“Right now he makes furniture. Dressers, rocking chairs, dining room cabinets…big stuff. Sometimes he paints. He’s good with his hands. People like his pieces enough to buy them, but he can do anything.”
No small amount of hero worship going on there. At least they’d found a safe topic and a way to narrow down Daddy’s work location. “I’d think he’d need a large workshop.”
“He uses the barn in our backyard for
a studio. So he can always be around for me and my brothers.” As if Essence had decided she’d said too much, she leaned her head against the headrest and closed her eyes.
The doorbell’s buzz, followed by a quick knock, distracted Chisholm from the clothes and books strewn across the living room. Resigned with the mess, he headed for the front door. A lightning bolt of honeysuckle and lemon balm with a fresh summer-rain chaser hit him like a two-ton elephant landing on his chest, staggering him backward.
What the hell? His privates surged to attention as his fangs fought for release. His body wanted a taste to go with those delicious scents.
He spun, his back to the door, as he clenched his hands and breathed through his teeth, struggling for control that hadn’t eluded him since puberty.
Regaining his balance, he tried a cautious inhale and examined the scent again. Not a shifter. Though a familiar scent mixed in the air with the fragrance invoking his madness. Berries. Hmm.
He shifted his jeans, easing the weight there, and pulled back his shoulders. Control mastered enough that he could manage his beast, he gripped the varnish-stained rag he’d forgotten to leave on his workbench and swung the front door wide open.
A woman in a prim blue pantsuit and professional ponytail of striking white-blonde hair stood beside his daughter. Given the sensation that had nearly driven him to his knees, he’d expected curves, or at least heft, not the petite woman before him. And she didn’t look interested in releasing his inner beast, much less commanding it. And while he’d never felt the effect before, he recognized it. Mating scents didn’t lie. They captured and held, like speared hooks of pleasure.