Wild Things
A BBW Paranormal Shifter Romance
Catherine Vale
WILDFIRE PRESS
Website: http://www.CatherineVale.com
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Copyright © 2016, Catherine Vale. All rights reserved.
Published by Wildfire Press
Edited by: Addison Reede.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, brands, incidents, and places are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction. The publication/use of these trademarks is not associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Wild Things
Senna, the curvy Princess, and fierce protector of her kingdom, refuses to be given away in marriage to the Ottway, an evil bastard of a man, who just so happens to be aligned with her father. Marriage arranged, Senna is torn between what she must do for her kingdom, and what her heart truly wants.
Gabriel isn't just Senna's guard, but a powerful wolf-shifter, who just so happens to want her as his own. It would be treason to go against the wishes of the King, but what these old men don't seem to know, is that when it comes to love, rules are meant to be broken.
Will Gabriel be successful in his attempt to rescue Senna from danger? And if they make a run for it, will they be able to survive in a world of aliens and shifters, who will stop at nothing to destroy them, should they rebel?
Note to Readers: This is a quirky, fun story set in a modern world with a steam-punk feel, mixed with everything you want in a paranormal shifter romance. Gabriel is a wolf-shifter, and Senna is the curvy lady that he's willing to do anything for, including give up his life, if he must. This story, along with all of my other stories, will end in a HEA, but the journey to get there will be nothing short of wild. Hold on tight!
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
About The Author
Other Books By Catherine Vale
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Chapter One
The screech of the train whistle tore Senna from her sleep. She blinked, then pushed herself up on the bench seat she’d been resting on. Her body was stiff, her mind fuzzy. The wine she’d had left her groggy. The train jerked, and she could tell they were speeding up.
“What is it?”
The guard at the door in her car swayed with the movement of the train. “I’m not sure, Princess.”
“Well, find out, please. I want to know what is happening.” She pulled aside the curtain on the little window. The glaring sun made her blink, but she pressed her face against the glass. Something sped by in a plume of dust, but she couldn’t make out what it was.
“I’m not to leave you. I have orders.”
She turned to glare at the man. “You are to do as I say, aren’t you? I order you to...”
The door to her car opened, banging into the guard. He drew his dagger, struggling to get his balance.
“It’s me, you dolt.” The man pushed into the car. It was the leader of the Protectorate, set to keep a watchful eye on her, on this long journey home. They were not her own guards though; they belonged to the Ottway Venn. This was his train, and these were his men.
“You will not leave.” The leader glared at the lesser guard. “You will stay.” He turned his glare on Senna.
“We are under attack. You are not to leave this car. Do you understand me?” He leaned closer to her. “I said, do you...”
Her hand cracked against his cheek. “You do not speak to me like that, no matter who you are. Do you understand?”
The man drew back, the outline of her hand on his cheek. “You do not move.” He flicked his eyes over her, then turned and pushed past the guard at the door.
Senna sat up, straightening her gown, tugging at her corset. The damnable thing, a gift from the Ottway Venn, was too small for her curves. It was made for a child, not a woman. And she was a woman, dammit. He knew that, should have known that. She’d been there long enough for him to see her. But no, she’d been given this—this thing—that flattened her bosom even more, and took away every curve that made her a woman. She tugged again at the garment, then looked up.
The guard was watching, his eyes following the movements of her hands, sliding over her body. She glared at him, then spat on the floor between his feet.
“You may not have to obey me, but you could at least have the decency to turn your eyes away. I am, after all, going to be your...” She fumbled for the word. The Ottway...what was her title going to be once they were married? No one had ever told her.
“I am going to be married to the Ottway.” That should be enough for this guard.
The man shrugged, but turned his back. It didn’t matter any longer. The corset was unbearable, and no amount of plucking at it was going to help.
The train lurched again, and she fell back on the bench seat, her head hitting the wall. She looked out the little window. The plumes of dust surrounded the train, keeping up with it, but the train was slowing, coming to a stop. She could see the riders clearly now, rather than watching a blur of movement.
It took her a moment to realize it wasn’t men, but something else, astride strange machines. They held what looked like weapons, and they wore leather clothes, wrapped around their arms and legs, shredded and torn pieces of cloth trailing behind them. Their faces were covered, the lower part with a leather mask, the upper with glass goggles. The train slowed, and the beings began to circle outside her window. One rode close, waving a spear, and through the glass she heard an unearthly shriek.
“What is it?” She turned to the man guarding her. “Who are they?”
“Aliens.” He spat the word, as she had spat at him. “They attack trains, especially the Ottway’s trains. And especially when there is valuable cargo on board.”
She blinked. He must mean her. What else of value was on this train? “That is...” The thought that those things out there wanted her was beyond anything she could even comprehend. Clearing her throat, she tried again.
“It is savage. Surely I am well protected?”
The guard laughed. “Very well protected. Look. See for yourself.”
She turned back to look out the window. There were other machines now, sleek and shiny, not dirty and rusty. The riders were men, or they app
eared to be. But among them ran wolves, desert wolves, long and low and deadly fast. They were shifters, the elite fighters of her kingdom. They charged among the alien riders, lunging at the wretched looking machines, knocking the riders to the sand.
Then a wolf sprang out, knocking the alien to the ground. With horror, she watched, as it grabbed the alien by the neck, shaking its huge head back and forth. The alien’s head snapped back and forth, then hung, limp.
The aliens scrambled up, crouching as they watched the wolves circling. One ran forward, waving a weapon. It landed on the back of a wolf, slicing across its neck, faster than she’d ever seen anything move. The wolf kicked once, then lay still, its blood staining the sand.
With a cry of disgust and fear, Senna turned away, unable to watch any further. If what the guard said was true, it was her blood they wanted.
Chapter Two
Senna’s carriage jerked to an abrupt stop, steam sputtering into the dry desert air. Impatient to be out of the stifling carriage, she slid open the etched glass window that separated her from her driver.
“What is it? Why have we stopped?”
He flipped up his dusty goggles, and frowned. “Security check, Princess.” The man’s voice carried no emotion, but the eyes that met hers in the rearview mirror held concern. “I’ll find out the reason.”
Without movement, the air inside the carriage immediately grew stifling. Senna fanned herself, moving the hot air around, but not cooling herself one bit. Her corset made it hard to breathe, and the layers of her silk dress clung damply to her skin. She reached up, undoing the silver fastening that held the veils that covered her face, leaving only her eyes visible. They fell away. It didn’t help any. It seemed she couldn’t get a breath. It was that damnable corset.
Since the train had resumed, after the battle between the aliens and shifters, she’d been keyed up, unable to sleep, eat, or find any comfort whatsoever. The guards at the Ottway’s Protectorate had only watched her with unchanging, distant expressions.
Her driver rolled down his window, leaned out, and there was a brief conversation with someone outside, but she couldn’t hear much of what they said. The driver finished, then turned around, his face etched in something between fear and anger.
“There have been sightings, Princess.”
“Sightings?” She leaned forward. “Of what?”
“Aliens, Princess. Inside the outer perimeter.”
For a moment, her blood ran cold and she shivered, remembering the alien being killed outside her carriage window. But this was her home, and she wanted to be inside where she felt safe. This wait was unnecessary.
“And they think I’m a lizard-faced shiny-skinned being from another planet, or something?” She wrapped her fan against the seat. “Do I look like a freaking alien?”
The driver didn’t answer, which she thought was probably his best course of action, but in the mirror she saw the corners of his mouth turn up into a slight smile. Her temper was fired up, and she was uncomfortable. Not a good combination. She rolled down her window, letting in a hot breeze. And dust. Always dust.
“They’ll need to see your papers. And they want to search the carriage.”
From the plush confines of the back seat, Senna glanced past her driver at the man who had stopped their steam carriage. He was wearing the standard uniform of her father’s Protectorate, sand-colored tunic and pants, beret pulled low over his eyes, blue sash denoting a middling rank. She eyed him for a moment, then reached into her travel bag. Leaning forward, she passed her leather document folder to her driver and then sat back, blowing out a sigh. The shifter took it with deference, as he should. But in the square of his shoulders, the set of his jaw, she saw defiance.
Watching him piqued the same interest it always did, these mysterious creatures that guarded the palace, and protected her and her family. They were so different, yet they were human, just like her. Yet somehow, they were more than human, almost superhuman. Not like the lizard-faced, shiny-skinned aliens that overran the desert, and were now making her life difficult. Not like the ones that had attacked the train.
She watched through the open window as the man unfolded the parchment, checking the official seals from her trip, confirming she’d passed through checkpoints. There were noises behind her, as another shifter looked through her trunks and boxes, satchels and containers in the cargo hold.
She tried to guess what kind of shifter was at the gate. Did the subtle tilt at the corner of his eyes mean he became a cat when he transitioned? Hmm, but there was also a bit of scruff on his chin; perhaps he was a wolf, like she had seen in the desert? She had heard there were bears in other parts of the world so she wasn’t ruling that out. She’d never seen a bear, but she imagined the men who shifted into that form were big, burly; larger than life.
Sometimes, sitting here like today, made her think how small she was in this world, how much of it she hadn’t seen, or experienced. How sheltered her life had been. Even if she was a princess. Maybe because she was a princess. But today those thoughts made her head hurt, and she wished she could just clear her mind and enjoy the day.
She let her gaze move past the man, through the closed iron gates between her, and where she wanted to go. The Rhibarian Oasis was a short distance ahead, and from here she could just see the tops of the waving palms that marked the official entrance. The walls here were tall, heavy, a blight on the landscape. This was the ugliest part of the journey home, and she hated this view. She hated that aliens—beings who had decided this planet was better than theirs, had landed, and then begun preying on everyone and everything in sight—had created the need for these big lumbering walls.
But, she was tired, bone tired. The better part of the last two days had been spent crossing the Nitillian Desert, returning from the Dominion of Malisharia. Even traveling on a lavish steam train, the journey had been tiring. The attack by the aliens had been unbearable. She longed for her own rooms, the cool tiles of the floors beneath her feet, the clean linen of her own bed against her skin. It was her intention to have an intimate twenty-four-hour relationship with her bed, starting as soon as possible. And if anyone stood in her way, well, she would just have them punished.
She leaned forward, impatiently tapping the driver on his shoulder with her fan, knowing she was being a real pain in the ass, but too hot and tired to care. “What is taking so long?”
“I’ll check…”
Suddenly the air was filled with men shouting, and the roar of engines. She gasped, staring out the window as two leather-clad riders on a pair of sleek two-wheeled machines that roared loudly, tearing through the gates, sending up spumes of dust and sand. Four, or five men ran out of a low building. None of them were wearing the pants and tunic she’d come to recognize as the standard shifter uniform. Instead, they were covered in plates of what looked like leather with brass fittings. She knew they were shifters. It couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds, but time seemed to slow down.
The shifter closest to her was suddenly charged with some kind of strange energy. Without breaking stride, he threw back his head, roaring into the sky. There was pain in that sound, horrible pain, but so full of animalistic power that the hairs on her arms stood up on end. She watched with horror, as he stopped by her window, as something terribly fascinating began to happen to his body. The leather armor on his body, moved and stretched, but stayed on his body, even as the cloth between, shredded and fell to the sand.
The man’s body, his arms and legs, twisted and contorted, shoulders and hips rotating, the bones – even from this distance she could hear the sounds – popping, and snapping, as they grew and lengthened, as with another cry of pain, he dropped forward, landing not on hands and feet, or paws, but on something in-between. His hands curled under, claws thrusting from the fur-covered feet. Those claws curled, digging into the sand as the man-thing, wolf-thing, continuing to change.
Senna looked to the man’s face, but it was too caught up in som
ething resembling a mix of human and shifter. His jaw had lengthened, shoving brutally forward, fangs with razor-sharp edges cutting through the extended jaws, thick trails of blood were trickling through the grizzled fur that grew from the oversized jaws.
She cried out in shared pain, as the man’s forehead changed shape, sloping back, eyes moving closer over the long snout, which now had the black nose of a wolf. Fur grew quickly, covering its face, rising up to the cover the pointed ears that grew out of the top of its head.
It couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds, and then…
And then he wasn’t a man any longer. He was a sleek desert wolf, with thick brown fur between the plates of leather armor. He turned his head, and looked at her with gleaming yellow eyes. He showed white fangs, snarled, and then took off. She watched him, and the others, run through the gate and into the desert, their armor fitting their bodies like a second skin, moving with them. Then, they were gone.
“What is it? What’s happening?”
The man outside her window looked up at her, then dropped his eyes, but spoke to the driver. “There was a sighting, close by. Apparently they followed the carriage from the train station.”
It took her a moment to register what he’d said. The aliens who’d attacked her, had followed the train, followed her back to the gate. Then her heart started beating in a sick way, making her dizzy. She closed her eyes, too shocked to even be frustrated with the delay. Nothing like this had ever happened to her. To be this close to danger, to have danger follow her home. She should never have left the palace, never have agreed to go on this horrible trip.
“Open the gate!”
She turned, with relief, toward this new voice, toward the man outside who was clearly in charge. He glanced briefly at her, and in that instant her body went hot and cold, a shiver running through her.
Wild Things (BBW Paranormal Shifter Romance): Shifter Lovers Romance Page 1