A Paranormal Easter: 14 Paranormal & Fantasy Romance Novellas

by Tiffany Carby

  “It is kind of funny.” She said with humor still lacing her voice, “We were actually afraid that Millie would eat you.”

  “Were you ever going to tell me? When you sat me down to tell me I was adopted did it ever occur to you to add on, ‘by the way, we’re werewolves’?”

  “Honestly, no, it didn’t.” Mom leaned forward and scrubbed her hands down her thighs, she seemed to think about the best way to explain, which words to choose. “Do you want the truth? All of it?” the expression on my face must have been ample enough because she continued, “You started out as being a family pet.”

  “Oh this just keeps getting better.” I plopped back down on the bed and covered my face with my pillow.

  I heard Mom sigh, then the side of my bed plunged down with her weight as she sat down. She snatched the pillow away from my face before she continued, “If you want to hear the truth Miranda Jade Hatcher, then you have to be willing to listen to it. Without any dramatics. And one thing you need to come to terms with is that we are not human, no matter how much we may look it. And another is the fact that we truly do love you, no matter how much human you still are.”

  Mom didn’t say anything further after that, just drilled holes into my cranium with her gaze. Finally I gave in, looked up at her and said, “Fine, I’m listening.”

  “Good girl.” She paused for a second when I groaned at the pet reference, “Too soon? Anyway, Mildred wasn’t originally an only child, but one of a full litter. She’s just the only one that survived. While most have a litter with one runt that doesn’t make it, we had the bad luck of the exact opposite. I don’t think we would have survived the loss of those pups if we had lost her too. So, me and Derrick doted on that girl like no tomorrow, giving her any and everything that she wanted. But when she asked for a sister or brother, well, that was the one thing I couldn’t give her. I couldn’t risk going through that all over again. Then she asked for a pet instead, a human baby.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “What? Just like some humans take in rescue dogs, she wanted a rescue baby. Like they say, too much tv can be a dangerous thing. Almost every time we turned on the news there was a story of a baby being discarded by some human. Being abandoned, sold for drugs, left in dumpsters, some even flushed down toilets, yet we’re the ones described as monsters. When the song came out by Tupac, ‘Brenda Had a Baby’, there was unfortunately a lot of truth to it. The rate of it happening became so high humans were at a lost as to what to do. They ended up creating a policy where no questions would be asked if any newborn baby was left at an emergency room, fire department, or church. We told her if she found one, she could keep it.” She must have noticed me start to cringe at those implications and decided to spare me the gory details of where I had actually been found; which was probably a dumpster with the way things were going. “Let’s just say a few weeks later she found a little bundle that she happily brought home. We thought she’d dress you up, play with you for a while, and end up eating you or something. Surprisingly, we began to love you just the same as we do Millie. You became our daughter just as much as she is.”

  “When were you planning on telling me all this?”

  “I already told you, I wasn’t. We figured with your lifespan being so short, we could just fake the aging process, raise you as a normal human, and you’d never even know a thing. It had been working so far, you never knew anything was amiss. And whenever you saw something you shouldn’t… Then you had to go and bring home a damn tiger shifter.” The last was grumbled under her breath so low I barely heard her.

  “I’m kind of shocked the idea of turning me didn’t cross anybody’s mind.” I couldn’t keep laying down anymore, so I sat up with my back against the wall so we could have the rest of that talk face to face.

  “It did, but the odds of you actually surviving it were way too small for us to risk it. Had we attempted to turn you, your first shift may have killed you.” Mom pulled both her legs up on the bed and made herself more comfortable. “Knew I shouldn’t have let the two of you watch all of those human shows. The only way a human can be turned without any risks is if their mate is the one that turns them. The bond shared between the two enough to tether them to this plane of existence as they become another species. Just like giving birth is so close to death, so is the change. And, yes, soul-mates really do exist. Every creature other than human, even animals, just have a stronger sense for who that person is. And there’s no question about loverboy downstairs being yours. Which is why him revealing himself to you wiped everything hiding magic away from you clean.”

  “All that damned hard work I went through for nothin’, just no damn respect around here,” My eyes couldn’t have bucked out any harder had I duct taped my eyelids to my hairline. The space in the middle of my room that had just been vacant held a six-foot-tall male that was as dark as a midnight sky with no stars shining. He wore a blindingly neon pink three-piece suit that had various sized hearts embroidered all throughout, with a pair of pearlescent wings that I watched him fold behind his back. Thanks to all of my memories now being intact, I recognized him as the fairy that did indeed wipe or rearrange everything that had to do with magic throughout my life. He stood there with his hands on his hips and head cocked to the side, “Don’t be looking at me like two hens that just got caught in the rooster’s house. Y’all better get ya behinds out back before your two honey’s tear each other in half. Derrick couldn’t stop sneezing at the table but he sure seems to be holding it in just fine now that he wanna fight. Go on now, get. Me and the Missus got plans for tonight that do not involve scrapin’ up blood and guts.” Dietrich shrunk back down to the three inches I remembered and flew out of my bedroom door. Me and Mom hurriedly followed behind him.

  Why did the only human go out the back door first? That is a very good question, that I cannot even attempt to come up with an answer for. Not one that made even a tad bit of logical sense. Only thing I could come up with was some twisted form of fate.

  So, when a giant tiger and an equally giant wolf leapt at each other, fangs and claws bared, each with a paw getting ready to strike, I’m the one that got caught in the cross fire. The claws that had been meant to go into one and the other went into each my sides. They both were brutally snatched away from me, and someone caught my body right before I collapsed to the ground.

  6

  “Please tell me you caught both mac trucks that hit me.” That statement had barely left my lips before Antonio had jumped on the bed that I laid on. He pulled me off the mattress and into his lap in a grip so tight I was almost struggling to breathe. I had yet to open my eyes but knew it was him from the contour of his body and the honeycomb mixed with pine scent that was all him, that strangely tingled my senses even more than it normally did. I reached up to run my fingers through his hair, luxuriated in the silky-smooth texture of it. Burying my face in the crook of his neck I inhaled that delectable aroma, I wanted to immerse myself within it, and just like that all of the aches and pains I had originally woken up with melted away to nothing.

  He had me in a position where I was straddling him, the thin sheet, sheer gown someone had dressed me in, and pants he wore all that separated us. Antonio was saying something to me, but I couldn’t seem to register whatever it was. I was beyond words, past thought, there was nothing but sensations that were amplified tenfold, my skin a thousand times more sensitive to touch. The phrase ‘cat in heat’ came to mind but was gone as quickly as it came. All I wanted to do was satisfy the compulsion to rub every inch of myself against the male beneath me, my instincts shouting at me that he was mine. A visceral part of me needed to make sure that he understood that, and to assure the entire world knew it too.

  The large bulge that pulsated against my core as I rubbed my suddenly heavy breasts and overstimulated nipples against his chest evidenced he was on the very same page as me. I lifted up slightly when I felt him trying to disentangle the sheet from my body, then raised his own hips to set
his engorged shaft free. I undulated my wet folds against it as he took my lips in a soul searing kiss until we were both frantic with need. Our tongues danced as our hands explored leaving a trail of heat with every touch until Antonio’s hands were on my hips. He levered my body just enough so that he was right at my entrance, then slowly pushed me down until every inch was buried deep inside of me. I moaned into his mouth as I began moving up and down in a relaxed motion at first that quickly sped up. He broke the kiss and held my body so tight against his own, causing friction between the base of his shaft and my clitoris each time I ground down hard against him. I threw my head back as my juices started to flow with my first climax, then bit down on his shoulder so hard that I drew blood. Some animalistic part of me compelled to mark him.

  Without breaking our contact Antonio lifted us both on the bed so he could lay us both down with him on top. He began to stroke hard and fast right before bending his head down to clamp onto my shoulder with his teeth. It should have hurt with how hard he bit down, instead it just turned me on that much more and had me climaxing all over again. We had made love plenty of times before, but none of those other times even compared to this. I released his shoulder as he did mine. And the blood surrounding both of our mouths that should have detracted from what we were doing served as an aphrodisiac instead. He grabbed both of my arms and held them above my head while I wrapped my legs in a vice like grip around his waist. For the first time I truly saw his eyes then, they weren’t actually hazel but a raw gold with black slits for pupils.

  Putting both of my wrists in one of his large hands he took the other to lift my leg and put it over his shoulder, going even deeper than he already was. Neither of us lasted much longer after that. After a few more thrusts that damn near made me forget my own name Antonio had me screaming out his name as we reached that glorious peak together.

  Still inside of me he rolled us over to our sides and held onto me like he never wanted to let go, “Gods woman, I was so afraid I’d lost you.”

  “You’re just lucky I don’t know who I should be more pissed at for lying to me, you or my family.”

  “As sorry as I am about that too, that is not what I’m talking about right now.” At first I thought Antonio’s eyes were shimmering from the sunlight that came in from the windows, right then I realized the gleam I’d seen were actually tears pooling in them. “When I saw you laying in a pool of your own blood, knowing it was my fault? Me and your dad both lost control of our tempers not knowing how you were going to react and blaming each other. But to shift unintentionally, I knew better even if your dad didn’t.”

  I reached up and wiped a tear that just shed from his eye, “Now that I have all of my memories intact, trust me when I say I’ve had plenty of close calls. Millie almost bit my head off for using her nail polish once, literally.” Yes, I was already ready to make jokes about it. Near death experiences give you a very different outlook on life. When another tear fell I continued, “What happened was beyond scary, and hurt like mad. But you know what? Being alive to talk about it is all that matters right now. How did I live to talk about it? How long have I been out?”

  “Baby you’ve been out for three days. Three days thinking I would never feel your heat again.” Antonio wrapped my leg around his waist and thrust his hips, still hard inside me, “Three days of contemplating the thought of never tasting your lips.” He kissed me then, taking my bottom lip, he gently nibbled on it before entangling his tongue with mine. He rolled me over to my back, this time he moved a lot slower than before, and every inch glided against my walls in a smooth in and out motion. “Three agonizing days I never want to experience again.” Antonio gripped my behind so that he could raise my hips slightly and go deeper with his body flush against mine, making us as close as we could get. He whispered in my ear, “I love you Miranda. I don’t want to go one more day without claiming you as my own. I want everyone in our world to know you belong to me. You are mine, and I am yours, now and for all time.”

  I found myself repeating that same last sentence to him, some primal force pushed the words through my soul straight to my lips. Then as we continued to make love something happened. A warm glow that seemed to have come from within us encompassed our bodies. My hands that were gripping his back became hot as did his hands that were still clamped down on my hips. It was sensual, sensational, sexual, yet somehow also spiritual. For just a moment I was inside of Antonio’s body, his heart, and mind. That brief amount of time I knew his every emotion, his every thought, and the searing love and adoration that he had for me. Antonio’s life after meeting me flashed before my very eyes. The first time he saw me as I stumbled out of the library and dropped my books in the snow, when he gazed in my eyes as he helped pick them up, the impact hit him like a physical blow at finding his mate. Every time that we had been together his love had grown more and more. The pride that filled his heart as he watched me cross the stage to get my master’s in early childhood development. Fear of how I would react to the truth of him being a tiger shifter. Anger at my family for keeping me in the dark for so long. Soul shattering panic after embedding me with his claws. Relief when the witchdoctor said me healing so fast meant I’d probably just change (I did a double take on that one). I saw and felt all of it and any doubt I may have had melted away to nothing.

  Then I was back in my own body, our rhythms more in synch with each other than ever before. One look and I knew he’d had the same experience as me. With all of those emotions and sensations it wasn’t long before we climaxed together.

  Right before we collapsed I asked, “About this witchdoctor…”

  Once we finally made it out of the bed and took care of our baser needs, and Antonio fed me breakfast in bed, I went out to take a walk by the beach, the cold no longer as harsh as it had been when I was still fully human. As it turned out we were at Antonio’s cabin in Howell, Michigan. Before he had secreted me away from my family, the witchdoctor had given me a clean bill of health and care instructions for my almost non-existent wounds. The only side effect being me becoming a shifter. Apparently, she could sense whose claws – between my dad’s and Antonio’s – would cause the change, while she sensed a little wolf in me that was only from being raised by them, she mainly sensed tiger. But I wouldn’t fully turn until the next full moon, I would just experience small changes.

  I called my parents, reassuring them that I hadn’t been eaten by the tiger and was still alive and well. I also had to reassure them that I didn’t hate them for basically brainwashing me most of my life, but I was still pissed. But, I would always love them; what they did was out of love, not malice. Soon as I had hung up I heard a loud buzzing sound by my head.

  “Do you realize how much fairy dust I’ve used in your short lifetime, clouding over your memories? I’m so used to following you around like a puppy to make sure nothing shocked your senses or exposed your folks as the wolves in humans’ skin that they really are, I don’t know what I’m going to do with all this free time.” Dietrich said as he landed on my shoulder without so much as a ‘hi’, I’m lying.” He said on a snicker that reminded me of Alvin and the Chipmunks, “Me and the missus are blowing this pop stand like nobody’s business. ’Cuz it ain’t nobody’s business. We’ll be back in about a hundred years, give or take a few decades.”

  “Dietrich, no offense but, I’m really extra sensitive right now and your feet are digging into my shoulder blade.”

  He flew off with a sheepish, “My bad,” and was instantly six feet tall again, that time in a purple suit.

  “And what do you mean a hundred years? Just how long is your lifespan?” It dawned on me right then that I actually had a fairy godfather. I cracked a little private smile at that while I waited on that answer.

  “Honey,” he said with his hands firmly on his hips, “you mean how long are our lifespans? Baby girl, you are officially no longer human. You’ll be living more than a few centuries yourself, as long as you don’t catch on fire, or get deca
pitated. Oh, and do not get trapped in a zoo. Long story, I’ll tell you all about it one day.”

  Before I could ask him anything else, there was a sudden change in the air right before a gorgeous female appeared right beside Dietrich. With perfectly chiseled porcelain skin and long, flowing blonde hair wearing a silver dress that shimmered in the sunlight, she looked like a fairy princess. But on closer inspection I recognized her as the witch she really was. More accurately, witchdoctor, I recognized her voice as soon as she began to talk.

  She spoke in a French accent that probably drove men wild, but only gave me a headache trying to make out all of her words, “Mon cher, you are taking way too long. I ’ave finished my business and you still are talking.” She finished off by crossing her arms under strategically displayed ample breasts, and a slight pout to her mouth. I wasn’t even slightly gay, yet as I looked at her my insides liquified. I had to clench my thighs.

  Dietrich grabbed her hand and placed a gentle kiss on it, “Oh, honey, it’s going to be so worth the wait. Now, let me properly introduce the two of you and we can be on our way.” Then he let go of her hand to pull something out his pocket. Looked like a slim, silver chain with a tiny whistle on it. “I know loverboy in there can protect you. But if you ever need me, for anything, just blow on that. I don’t do phones, I’d spend too much time on social media and that shit is just life draining negativity.” he shuddered with that last sentence. I lifted my hair and he placed the necklace around my neck, then kissed me on the forehead. “My work here is done, time for me and the missus to go and have us some fun. Smooches.” And just like that they were gone.