Shifters in the Shadows: Seventeen Paranormal Romances of Sexy Shifters, Dangerous Vamps, & Things That Go Bump in the Night

by J. K Harper

  “I don’t know her. Why would I trust her?” There was a note of petulance in her voice, and I couldn’t blame her. If my dragon had abandoned me for so long, then I’d be a little pissed and unsure too.

  The cabin lights dimmed, the people around us settling in for the long flight through the night.

  Nudging her chin back up with my hand from where it had dipped, I continued, “She’s a part of you, you just need to get to know her.”

  “Will you help me? When we arrive home; back at Jewelcrest?”

  She assumed that because I had come to find her that I was a part of her clan. But what could I say? She was staring at me, her eyes filled with hope and trust, and I couldn’t abandon her to her fate. Wouldn’t. I owed it to her to see her through what was coming, even though it was the last thing I wanted to witness. My molars ached as I ground them together, self-preservation warring with the need to see her safe and happy. I would have to stand by and watch as men fought over her, vying for the right to claim her as their mate. Strong and important Alphas from clans all over the States, each desperate for the chance to win her hand.

  To take the Seer as his mate and form an alliance with the Jewelcrest Clan.

  But she knows all this, remember? Fuck, you just gave her a play-by-play!

  Guileless emerald eyes blinked at me, the glimmer of hope fading in the wake of my continued silence.

  “Yes. I’ll help you with your dragon.” And then I’m gone, I added silently, hoping that she understood.

  She nodded, a smile spreading across her face. She glanced down, her smile widening.

  My thumb had been swirling a lazy path across the back of her hand, my body betraying me with its need to touch and connect with her.

  She leaned forward, a loose strand of hair grazing my arm. “Can you help me with something else?”

  Sweet motherfucking hell! Peeling my tongue from the roof of my mouth, I dragged my eyes up from the plumped up mound of her breasts. “What, Astrid?” The thread of control I clung to was fraying before my very eyes.

  “I’d like to try something.” Her eyes dipped for a second, her throat working as she swallowed.

  “Tell me.” I barely recognized the hoarse whisper as my own.

  “I—I want to join the Mile-High Club.”

  So do I … my dragon piped up.

  I dug my free hand into the chair arm, the metal warping beneath my fingers. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I eventually forced out, ignoring that my mind was screaming yes!

  Her lips parted.

  My grip tightened, the chair arm groaning. I surged to my feet, my head slamming into the overhead locker. Hunching over, I gave it a rub while shoving a hand in my pocket, hastily hiding my rapidly thickening cock. “I need to go to the men’s room,” I muttered.

  “Yes! That’s exactly where we need to go!” She jumped up and the already tiny space shrank even further, every spare inch filled with her gorgeous curves and nibble worthy skin.

  “No!” It came out as a roar.

  Passengers craned their heads to stare.

  Didn’t she know I was two seconds away from throwing her down onto the floor and mounting her like an animal?

  I sank back into my seat. “We can’t do this,” I offered. It was weak, as if my subconscious knew I’d already lost the fight. But why was I fighting it?

  Because I knew once would never be enough, not with her.

  Sinking down next to me, she squeezed my hand. She took a deep breath and I instinctively braced myself. “I know you want me, and I want you, so why are we playing around?”

  Her words sank in, striking a chord deep within. Then it hit me. “You know?”

  She nodded.

  Had she seen it; was I fighting something inevitable? Was I a fool for resisting?

  What if she’s your true mate? After a taste, could you give her up?

  Worse—could I stand never knowing the truth?

  Chapter 9

  Astrid

  He looked like he wanted to devour me. Whole. A musky scent tickled my nose, followed on it’s heels by the scent of grass, conjuring images of a garden awakening after the sun has burned off the morning dew.

  His hand trailed up my arm, fingertips grazing my bare skin and leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake. Cupping my chin, his eyes captured mine. “You’ve seen it? Us?”

  I couldn’t speak. A small moan escaped as images slide into my head. Images of limbs entwined and writhing, Trent capturing my groans with his lips, his tongue thrusting into my mouth. His strong, muscular frame braced over me, beads of sweat snaking down his chest, captured by the ridges of his torso. Vision me follows the trail with my tongue, the salty taste of his skin dragging another moan from my lips. My legs fall open, spreading wider to accommodate the thrust of his hips as he flexes above me, the feel of his cock thick and hard inside me. Vision Trent growls, punctuating the primal sound by dragging me to him. “Mine…” he whispers.

  Eyes flicking open, I stared at him. The real him in front of me. “What was that?”

  “What?” His eyes slid away, shadowed with secrets.

  “You said I was—” I swallowed hard, the memory of him moving inside me so real I could almost still feel him.

  “Christ, Astrid…” he groaned, his pupils dilating as he scented the air.

  “You called me yours: mine.”

  His hand on my chin tightened, the tension in his jaw threading through his body. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, then his mouth crashed against mine, his lips firm and hot and sliding in a brutal quest to taste me.

  On a gasp my lips parted, yielding to him.

  A throaty groan rumbled through his chest as his tongue slid between my teeth. His hand moved to my hair, fingers sliding through the messy knot and holding me in place as he plundered and demanded that I give him everything.

  This is what it’s like to be kissed! The thought drifted through my mind, chased away by the frantic urge to get closer, to nip and taste and take. My tongue ventured forward and was immediately captured by his in a coiling dance, our lips moving and sliding. My breath mingling with his, I slide my hand across the chair and into his lap, tracing his muscular thigh through the heated denim.

  He was so big under my hand; muscular and firm—he could snap me in half. My own body was soft and jiggled more than I liked, but his was hard to the touch. And he was so hot he almost burned. I needed to get closer, to feel more of him. My hand slid higher as I leaned toward him, my back arching and my thigh hooking between his in the cramped space.

  Two seconds later I was straddling his lap, his mouth moving in a determined path down my throat in little nips and bites, his tongue swirling over my skin.

  His hips thrust up as his hands pinned me in place.

  My head fell back on a soft cry, the feel of him grinding against that secret place almost too much to bear. “Trent!” I half whispered, half moaned, wanting to see the look in his eyes. To know that he felt the same.

  The gold flames had swallowed up the soft brown, widening as they crashed with mine. Time stood still for a split second as we stared at each other; his eyes mirroring my exhilaration and wonder at finally finding the one.

  My true mate.

  Then I was sat back in my own seat, nursing a case of whiplash.

  “What the—”

  “We can’t do this.”

  I rounded on him. “What?”

  He held his head in his hands, eyes squeezed shut. His chest rose and fell in rapid succession as he struggled to calm down. “I don’t deserve you.”

  He was a dragon shifter in his prime, one who had just found his true mate. And he was saying no?

  I was speechless. Then I couldn’t breathe, pain stabbing me in the chest and twisting as his words sank in. He didn’t want me.

  “I do want you, but I can’t have you,” he replied, and I realized I must have said it out loud.

  “Why not?”

  He shuddered, t
hen his back straightened, steel infusing his spine as he turned to face me. “I have something I need to tell you, and it will explain everything.”

  The deadly serious look in his eyes sent fear rippling down my spine. “Tell me,” I whispered, though a part of me was screaming that if this was something that would keep us apart, I didn’t want to know.

  He took another deep breath. “Astrid, you’re not an ordinary dragon shifter, you’re a Seer.”

  “A Seer?” I repeated. I’d never heard of it.

  “A Seer is someone who has visions of the future. Turns out she, or he, can also hear other’s thoughts.”

  I sat back in my seat, my mind spinning with too many questions. “Why have I never heard of it?”

  “Because Seers aren’t usually shifters.”

  Oh.

  “They’re witches.”

  “But I’m not a witch—”

  “One of your ancestors must have been.”

  Right. I felt numb, not sure what to say.

  “After you left your brother reached out to clan elders around the world, searching for answers. He finally tracked down someone who remembered reading about something similar.”

  “Who?” There was someone else like me? Hope swelled like a bubble in my chest.

  “She was a shifter hybrid, like you.”

  “Was?”

  “She lived almost seven hundred years ago.”

  The bubble popped, tears pricking at my eyes. Swiping at them furiously, I gritted my teeth. So what if I was the only one? I’ve made it this far on my own and I’m doing okay…

  His hand hovered above mine before he snatched it back. “You can take a look at the papers the elder sent over when we reach Jewelcrest, but I’ve been thinking it over. I think that your two sides have been at war—the witch and the dragon—each vying for control and that’s why your dragon hasn’t shown herself before now.” His lips clamped shut, his eyes sliding away from mine, as though he’d said too much.

  “But my dragon is emerging, does that mean that these Seer powers are going to disappear?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m sorry, Astrid.” With a gentle voice, he crushed my small sliver of hope.

  “So, what does this mean?”

  “I was tasked to bring you home because you’re special. You’re the only one of your kind that we know of; we have no idea what your powers can do, or what you’re capable of.”

  “And Bastian wants to use me.” It made sense now. I was valuable. Then it hit me. “That’s why you’re fighting this!”

  He didn’t flinch under my accusatory stare, his warm brown eyes drinking me in as though it were his last chance. “Your destiny doesn’t include the likes of me.”

  “Even though we are true—”

  He cut me off, pain etched clear on his face. “Yes, even though everything inside of me is demanding that I make you mine. Especially because of that. You deserve the strongest of all alphas, one with a rich and powerful clan who can protect you.”

  “You’re strong.”

  “Not in the way that you need; I’m not influential or connected. I’m a nobody. You need to let go of any dreams you might have about us being together. It’s never going to happen, it can’t.” With those final words he slipped on a pair of headphones and closed his eyes.

  I stared at him, unable to wrap my head around what had just happened.

  I was a Seer, someone who could see the future. I was part dragon shifter, part witch. I was his true mate.

  And he was mine.

  But there was something he wasn’t telling me, there had to be, and I was going to figure it out. Because no matter what he said—or did—I’d seen it.

  In my heart I knew, our future was together.

  Chapter 10

  Trent

  Grateful to be out of the flying tin-can I resisted the urge to kiss the ground, instead I escorted a still sulking Astrid into the terminal.

  We hadn’t spoken for the rest of the flight. Something I couldn’t decide whether to be happy or pissed about.

  I’d decided about halfway through the flight that it wasn’t my fault that she was some kind of super powerful all-seeing psychic. It damn well wasn’t my fault that I wanted her so badly, cared about her enough that I couldn’t bring myself to ruin her life. But for all the internal cursing and futile fist-shaking at the world in general, I couldn’t bring myself to wish that she was normal. I despised myself for even thinking the word, hating the connotation that Astrid wasn’t perfect, but, deep down, I knew that if she’d been a regular dragon shifter none of this crap would be happening and things could have been different.

  Would have been different.

  But she wasn’t your regular, run of the mill dragon shifter—she was unique. And it was her uniqueness that made her who she was.

  And there I was, back to square one.

  She’d sat next to me the whole flight, her gorgeous face creased in a frown of concentration. Probably listening to my self-loathing monologue.

  I’d tried to think of something else—anything but her—but everything circled back to that kiss. The feel of her in my arms, the burst of contentment at having finally found the other half of my soul.

  The fact that my cock was still aching for her, my hands twitching to grab her and never let go.

  At least all the cards were on the table now, nothing left unsaid—out loud at least. Except for the gathering her brother was arranging for the night after tomorrow—the one where she’d select her future mate. Fuck. Just the thought of it made my head hurt. I couldn’t do it. I’d drop her off, demand assurance from Bastian that my clan was free of all debts, and go find a nice damp cave to hide in for the next fifty years.

  Sounds like a plan.

  I half expected her to call me on it, to demand that I honor my promise to her, but she remained silent as she followed me out of the airport and across the parking lot to my truck. Two minutes later we were pealing out onto the highway, the squeal of tires on tarmac punctuating my silent frustration.

  Jabbing the radio on, I flicked through the stations, eventually settling on a generic soft-rock song, the wailing guitars fitting my mood to a tee.

  Click. Bouncy pop filled the cab.

  My eyes slid over to her. She was perfectly still, her bare arm settled on the open window, the crisp fall breeze tickling her hair back and forth. Her eyes were closed as a small smile played on her lips, the frown from earlier smoothed out.

  “You missed it?” I didn’t mean to ask the question, but the words came anyway. A serenity surrounded her, a calmness that I hadn’t seen before.

  Not opening her eyes, she replied in a low murmur, “Everyone misses home when they’ve been gone.”

  Not everyone, I wanted to say, but that would be inviting questions. And I wasn’t ready to answer them, not yet—maybe never. “Bastian has missed you,” I eventually said. Her brother might act like a controlling bastard, but I’d seen his eyes when he’d blackmailed me into this task. He cared about his sister, maybe more than he actually was willing to admit, even to himself.

  Shifting my focus back to the road, I sped up. The fields around us blurring into a stream of green with the tang of promised rain filling the air and settling on the back of my tongue. I was hoping for a storm; there was nothing better than flying in a sky filled with lightning, the thunder of the clouds loud enough the drown out all thought. Yeah, I’m praying for a storm.

  “Maybe he has.”

  It took me a second to figure out what she was talking about. Bastian. “He only wants what he thinks is best for you.” Even if I don’t agree with it.

  “Don’t you think I know what’s best for me?”

  It wasn’t just her voice that seemed far away, she was physically curled up on the far side of the cab, nearly hugging the door. I realized that since leaving London we’d been in constant contact, even when arguing. Until now. How can I miss it already? “He’s not going to make you do anything yo
u don’t want to do.” I’d make sure of it.

  Shit. That would mean hanging around.

  “And you’re going to teach me how to fly,” she added, a dreamy look on her face.

  Yeah, definitely hanging around. My plans of sneaking off at the first opportunity vanished. I couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t leave her to face the crowd alone. “I promised, didn’t I?” I injected forced enthusiasm into my voice, hoping she wouldn’t notice.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw her turn her whole body to face me. “What was that?”

  So much for not noticing. “What?”

  “That.” She pointed at me while making a grimace. At my silence she let out a loud chuff of exasperation. “You’re not the one being thrown into the lion’s den.” She folded her arms across her chest and I had to bite back my groan as her breasts plumped and jiggled with every huff.

  “Lion’s den?” I muttered in a hoarse voice, sending out silent thanks that I was a shifter. A human would have been in a ditch by now with the amount of attention I’d been paying to the road.

  “I’m not stupid; my brother has some sort of plan for me. Probably one in which he profits by my return. So, spill. What is it?”

  She wants to hear me say it. And who could blame her; she probably had questions. Wrenching the wheel, I pulled the truck over to the side of the road and slammed it into park. “I know you’re meant to pick one of them, but I don’t think your brother would make you if you hated them all.” There, I’d said it. My secret fantasy—that she refused all the wealthy, powerful alphas, and everything they offered, and chose me.

  And that Bastian agreed to the match without penalizing my clan. Never going to happen.

  I hadn’t even dared think it until now, knowing that she’d hear me. But, fuck it, desperation was riding me like a long lost friend.

  “Pick one of who?” she said slowly. Then her eyes widened, her mouth falling open.