Shifter's Claim (The Shadow Shifters)

by A. C. Arthur

  Priya held his head in place, arching her back beneath him as her breathing hitched. She wanted him just as much as he wanted her, perhaps more based on the way she was breast-feeding him. Bas’s nostrils flared as a thick sweet scent infiltrated. With each inhale his body grew warmer, his dick harder. If he didn’t get inside her soon he was going to hurt somebody or something.

  Instead he fumbled between their bodies for a second longer than he wanted until his finger finally pressed into the godforsaken seat belt clasp. The moment it clicked he pulled his mouth away from Priya long enough for her to whisk her arms free and for him to grab her by the waist, turning her so that she was now kneeling on the backseat. The additional enhancements he’d ordered for his Yukon had added to the other FLs teasing how self-centered and eccentric he was. But right at this moment, Bas was grateful for the leather bench and extended floor space in the back of his truck.

  They weren’t supposed to do this. He wasn’t supposed to be with a human and the human wasn’t supposed to tell anyone who he really was. But as Bas undid his zipper, freeing his thick erection, he realized he didn’t give a damn about what should and should not be—not at this moment. As this moment, as he pushed her dress up over her hips, rubbing his hands over the rounded globes of her delectable ass, he knew what mattered most to him.

  “Bas,” she whispered. “This is insane.” But she didn’t pull away, didn’t stop him when he slipped his fingers beneath the rim of her underwear to touch her bare flesh.

  Bas shook his head, not willing to struggle to think of an excuse. “It just is,” he finally managed, the heady scent of her all but drowning him as he continued to rub her backside, mesmerized by her.

  “I want you all the time,” she admitted.

  The words were like an echo to what Bas had already been thinking. He licked his lips, all but panting at the sight of her bent over and ready for him. “You want me here, pretty girl? Tell me you want me right here and now,” he insisted.

  Bas needed to hear those words. He needed to know this woman wanted him, not the rich resort owner, and even though she knew about his cat, he needed to hear her say the words that no other female had ever said to him before.

  “I…” She hissed and arched back as his fingers slipped between her crease, down to her heated center, spreading her dewy essence. “I, oh god, I need you right now!”

  It wasn’t enough, her words, her willing body, they didn’t seem to be enough, not this time. Shaking his head and moving so that he was ready to sink inside, Bas planned to ignore what was still missing. He planned to fuck her right here and now regardless of the fact he was feeling something pretty strange between them. Then, as if his own feelings weren’t bad enough, he inhaled and it hit him so hard he almost faltered.

  Grabbing his shaft at the base, Bas guided his length to her, tapping the bulbous head against her plump cheeks. She moaned and pushed back, rushing him. With his other hand Bas pulled her apart, licked his lips once more at the sight of her plump folds, dampened by her arousal. He groaned at seeing how tight her ass really looked, after only feeling it up to this point. He couldn’t decide what he wanted more, which he needed to feel the most. When she groaned his name he pushed forward, pressing the head of his engorged cock into her waiting center until he was completely buried inside her.

  A new scent surrounded them, neither hers nor his own, but theirs. Bas clenched his teeth at the thought, then pulled out of her until he was almost completely clear of her warmth. Looking down to her essence glistening on his arousal he cursed, sinking back inside her once more. It couldn’t be, he thought as he thrust again and again, keeping his eyes closed as if that would stop what he knew was happening.

  He pumped slowly and she gyrated wildly as if she knew he was trying to get away, trying to save them both from a path that led to a dead end. It couldn’t lead anywhere else, not for him. None of that mating and joining bullshit was for him, his parents and then Mariah’s death had seen to that. Connections of the emotional sort weren’t worth it, not for a shifter like Sebastian Perry.

  Even knowing all this, Bas wanted more. Clasping her hips, holding her still as he rammed in and out of her, he knew he wanted it all. Everything she had, everything she was. He wanted to claim her, to mark her as his and to dare anyone to disagree with those facts.

  Without another thought he did just that, leaning forward and sinking his sharp teeth into the nape of her neck. She let out a scream, simultaneously clenching her thighs around him as her release ripped through her fiercely. The increase of that foreign scent, her tightening around him, her scream, the deepness of his thrust, all of the above pushed Bas right over the brink and he let loose what had to be the most powerful release of all his life.

  “Sweet,” she whispered after they’d been still but for their racing hearts for a couple of minutes.

  Bas had pulled out of her, moving back to his seat near the window, watching as she did the same. “Excuse me?” he asked when he realized she’d spoken.

  She stopped buttoning her dress to look over at him. “It smells so sweet in here. Maybe we’re at the bakery or the mall has a Cinnabon shop.” She groaned. “I love Cinnabon.”

  If Bas thought it was strange that she was talking about Cinnabons after a very intense and possibly game-changing round of sex, he didn’t say it, because something else had grabbed his attention.

  The moment he’d climbed into the truck he’d activated the privacy window that blocked the front seat from seeing or hearing anything that was going on in the back, another enhancement which was actually in all the FL vehicles. So Kaz had no idea what they’d been doing back here for the last … how long had it been?

  Yet the shifter had continued to drive.

  Lifting his arm, Bas looked down at his watch. They should have been in town ten minutes ago. The truck should have been parked and Kaz should have either called him through the com link or knocked on the back door to get them out.

  Instead, the truck was still moving.

  “I need you to be very quiet,” Bas told Priya after he’d adjusted his clothes. Reaching forward, he opened a compartment just beneath the privacy window. There was a small plastic packet in there and he retrieved it, holding it up so she could see it. “Clean yourself up and do not get out of this truck.”

  The calm that was in her eyes just seconds before was replaced by the slight edge of panic and Bas felt ready to kill. Instead he shook his head, returning to the seat and reaching out to touch her. “No. Nothing is going to happen to you. Nothing at all. I just need you to stay here until I come back for you. Do you understand?”

  She nodded her head and Bas released his grip on her. She immediately took the packet of wipes from his hand and he moved across the seat to the window where he’d been before. Reaching beneath that seat Bas retrieved his gun, removed the safety, and spoke into his com link.

  “Kaz, what’s our ETA?”

  There was no response.

  “I said, what’s our ETA?” Bas repeated.

  A few seconds later there was still no response.

  Bas cursed just as the truck swerved, jerking both him and Priya around on the backseat.

  Chapter 25

  “Press pound three and say code blue,” Priya whispered to herself as she held Bas’s cell phone in her hands like it was her lifeline. He’d thrust the phone into her hands just before opening the door and leaving her in the back of the truck by herself. She pressed a button on the phone and watched it light up. If he wasn’t back in seven and a half minutes, she was to call that number and hopefully help would come.

  In the meantime, she thought with fear snaking along her spine, she’d just wait here, like a sitting duck. Looking out the window she saw immediate darkness and what looked like it could be streetlights in the distance. She pressed the button she’d watched Bas press when they climbed into the car and waited while the privacy partition was lowered.

  “Dammit!”

  The dr
iver was gone. It hadn’t been the same driver she’d seen the first night, the one she now knew from Jewel was Bas’s best friend. This was a younger guy who had stared at her breasts much longer than was polite and gave a salacious smile when he’d held the door as she climbed inside. He’d had a creepy look about him but Priya was used to that. She hadn’t come from the best neighborhood in D.C. so she was used to dealing with scumbags and jerk-offs, only she hadn’t thought she would be faced with them in Bas’s quaint little resort town.

  It was deathly quiet now. The word “deathly” echoing in her mind as soon as she’d thought it and her heart hammered in her chest.

  Why was she sitting here waiting for something bad to happen? Wasn’t she more of a proactive than a reactive woman?

  Nothing is going to happen to you. Nothing at all.

  That’s what Bas had said.

  I just need you to stay here until I come back for you.

  Yeah, or wait until somebody or something else comes back for her. To hell with that!

  Priya reached for the door handle just as it was pulled from the other side. She stumbled a bit, keeping a grip on the cell phone and looking up into the deadliest eyes she’d ever seen.

  * * *

  Bas chased Kaz down the stretch of road before he turned off into a copse of trees. He could have shot him, could have just shot that bastard traitor in the back but they weren’t in a private location.

  Kaz had stopped the truck about a quarter mile away from a cul-de-sac town house development. If he fired his gun the neighbors would surely hear and call the cops. Cursing, he stopped running and turned back toward the truck. Priya was there alone. He had to get back to her and call Jacques to tell him what was going on. He had to …

  The scream ricocheted off the trees, cutting through Bas like a heated blade. Inside his cat roared, his human feet picked up, and he ran full-on toward the truck only to come up short when he saw Priya … and the two full-grown male jaguars standing on either side of her. From behind the truck came a man that possibly matched Bas in height and weight; the glow of his eyes and the foul stench that rested heavily against the dry air branded him a shifter, a rogue shifter.

  One of the cats knocked its head against the back of Priya’s legs and she fell to her knees. Bas moved in and the one still in human form stepped in front of him.

  “We meet again, Sebastian,” Palermo Greer said, a wicked gleam in his cat’s eyes. “This time you have something that belongs to me and I have something that belongs to you. You wanna trade?”

  The last was said as if the words tasted like a dead fowl on his lips and were followed by a laugh that echoed in the night. Bas didn’t flinch and he didn’t give a damn what he had that Palermo thought belonged to him, Priya was not a part of this, not now and not ever.

  “Let her go and I won’t kill your sorry ass,” was his response.

  The rogue tossed back his head and laughed again, showing the tattoos on his long, dark, orange skin-toned neck.

  “Like you did all those years ago when we were in the forest? Oh, wait, you didn’t do anything that time and look what happened.” Both cats, already shifted and standing just behind Palermo, replied with open-mouthed growls that echoed off the mountaintops.

  Bas wanted to shift and break Palermo’s spine with his bare teeth. He wanted to rip the bastard shifter apart the same way he’d watched him and his cohorts kill Mariah. But this wasn’t Mariah. She was dead. This was Priya and his chest ached with the possibility that she could suffer the same fate, because of him.

  “I’m not that man anymore,” Bas told him steadily.

  “You’re not a man at all, are you? Or maybe you didn’t tell your lovely little human mate about your true nature?” Palermo continued.

  Oh but he had, Bas thought fleetingly. “This is not going to end the way you want it to, Greer. I’m not giving you back the blood.”

  There was an endless second of silence while Bas’s words were digested. “Then I’ll just have to take hers,” Palermo finally spat, his teeth elongating, head tilting as he leaned in closer to Priya’s head.

  Bas’s gaze rested on Priya, who had only made a slight gasp as Palermo pulled her up around the waist, pushing her head forward. He would go for the back of her neck, paralyzing her before he actually killed her, just like he’d done with Mariah. But Priya was different—a fact Bas had already discovered—she wasn’t crying even though fear engulfed her … no wait, anger was mixed with that fear. And as Bas looked even closer, he saw what she held in her hand, his cell phone and the screen was lit indicating she’d made a call.

  Unfortunately, having Jacques on his way wasn’t going to get that mangy rogue’s hands off her and for Bas that was priority number one.

  Returning his gaze to Greer, Bas moved slightly, aimed, and fired, hitting the filthy rogue in the shoulder. The sound of the gunshot brought the cats behind Greer into full action and they both lunged past Priya toward him. Bas had maybe two seconds to decide whether he was going to use all his bullets trying to shoot the cats down then take out their leader, or simply shift and kill all the bastards. Shifting would mean exposure, but Priya had already seen him and right about now he didn’t give a flying fuck who saw him. She was the priority, saving her was all he cared about. A repeat of fourteen years ago with him burying a dead human body so that no one would ever find it was not going to happen, not this time.

  He shifted, falling to his haunches instantly and the second the first cat approached, Bas jumped upward and bit deep into its skull. The second one attacked him from behind, but he twisted with the animal, pounding at it with his paws.

  * * *

  Priya moved quickly the second she heard the gunshot. The man holding her had faltered and she’d fallen to the ground once more, almost on her face. Not hesitating, she rolled over and came to a standing position, calling on her year of self-defense and kickboxing training at the Y. The man fell against the truck holding his shoulder and she went at him instantly. Fists balled, arms raised, she stepped toward him, angled her body, then put all her weight on her left leg, swinging her right leg into the air. The heel of her foot caught the man on his chin. His head jerked back and she moved in closer, punching him in the throat and taking away whatever air he had left.

  He crumpled to his knees and she stepped away, looking over to where the cats were battling. The sounds were horrendous, the pounding against their massive bodies, the growls and roars. It all played in horrific stereo that only amplified the sight before her. These were vicious animals fighting possibly to the death and Bas, the man she’d been sleeping with these past couple of days, was one of them.

  With her heart beating way too fast to be normal, Priya ran toward the cats, falling to her knees just a few feet away from the truck where Bas had dropped his gun. Once she had the cool metal in her hands, she fumbled through her mind to figure out how to use it. She’d taken self-defense classes, not classes at the gun range. But Malik had never been a stranger to guns or how to use them, so this wasn’t the first time she’d held one in her hands. It was, however, the first time she held one with the intention of actually shooting someone.

  Later she would wonder how she heard him, how she knew he was coming for her again but right now Priya turned quickly, gun raised, and pulled the trigger. The huge black cat that had been lunging for her hit the ground with a horrendous thump. Kickback from the gun pushed at her until she fell on her ass and in the next instant she was staring up into the face of one angry-ass big cat, teeth bared and ready to strike.

  Chapter 26

  Washington, D.C.

  Agent Dorian Wilson was nowhere to be found. Nivea had gone to his apartment once more, she’d waited hours for him to leave, but he hadn’t. Sure, because of Bas’s call she’d been an hour late getting to his apartment near the D.C. and northern Virginia border, but he wasn’t due into work for another forty-five minutes, so she’d thought she still had time. Now, at almost ten o’clock in the
morning, she knew something was wrong. A search of the parking garage where he held a monthly pass, proved her point. Wilson’s car wasn’t there.

  Cursing to herself as she drove out onto the street once more, she reached for her cell phone, which was based on the dashboard and pressed for a stored number to be dialed. Before the number could be connected and she could speak through her Bluetooth, reporting her location and current situation to the guards at Havenway, she received an incoming text that read:

  Search complete. IP location: 9091⁄2 29th street NW.

  With the call back to base completely disregarded, Nivea punched the address into her GPS and drove with every intention of finding out who was holding Malik Drake hostage and threatening the shifters at the same time.

  Forty minutes later she parked her car directly in front of a brownstone that displayed the same address as the one in her phone. Grabbing her phone off the dash, sticking it in her back pocket, and checking the weapon under her right pants leg, she climbed out of the car and headed up the steps. Three presses to the doorbell but there was no answer. Two sturdy knocks and even an attempted yell through the door that she was with the utility company, and still no answer, but there was a scent.

  Closing her eyes, Nivea pressed her forehead to the door and took a deep inhale. Cars drove by on the street behind her, somewhere in the distance a dog barked, and above the sun shone like a beacon. Nivea, however, remained perfectly still as she focused totally on the scent tickling her nose.

  It was a human, a bleeding human and it was coming from inside this house. She didn’t think beyond that, couldn’t really, as her adrenaline kicked immediately into action. Pulling a pin from her ponytail she went to work on the lock, disengaging it about ten seconds after she’d first touched it. The knob turned at her command and in the next instant Nivea was inside the house. The scent instantly intensified and she stopped only long enough to pull her gun from its holster before fully moving in. Letting her senses guide her, Nivea moved through what looked like a very well-to-do person’s house with its crystal-and-gold chandelier gleaming from above, plush carpets, and lavish furniture. She ignored all that in pursuit of the aroma, passing the living and dining rooms, coming to a pause at a door. With no one there to stop her, Nivea opened that door and hurried down the steps only to be welcomed by the ring of gunshots.