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

by J. K Harper

  If I chose Mark, and Cole couldn't, or wouldn't, leave us? What then?

  I left those questions floating in my mind and turned to the other possibility.

  What if the morning sun shines bright, and Cole is gone?

  Would I be able to see him on other Halloweens?

  Would the thought of him always sit between me and Mark, or between me and any other relationship I ever took on?

  Which did I want?

  When morning comes, do I want normal or Cole?

  The thoughts were pointless, really. I'd have my answer come morning, which was in just a few hours.

  They checked me into the hospital, bumping us out of the ER and into a room for the night, saying they didn't want to release me until all of the nuts and the various injections were out of my system. They kept me hooked up to the saline IV, but that was it.

  They let Mark stay, pulling a rollaway cot into my new room, but they told him that I needed to rest and that all the antihistamines in my system would make me sleep anyway.

  I tried to fight the medications, preferring to feel Cole in the last few hours that I knew for sure I'd have him, but a troubled sleep eventually won out.

  My mind was restless even in sleep. Sexy, erotic dreams filled the rest of the night. Mark was in them as well, sometimes with Cole and I, sometimes without.

  I gave myself up to them, letting the three of us fight it out in the most erotic ways as my body healed. I wasn't entirely sure if they were all in my mind or if Cole and I took advantage of the thin veil and of my and Mark's guards being down in sleep during the magical Halloween night, fucking the night away, but real or imagined I was glad to have them.

  * * *

  When I opened my eyes I was alone.

  The room was bright with sunlight, I could hear activity just outside in the hall, and Mark's cot was folded up and out of the way, with him nowhere to be seen.

  I stretched and took inventory of myself. I felt good. I was a little sore from all the poking and prodding, but I wasn't groggy in the slightest. I'd slept surprisingly deeply and felt well rested and whole and ready to get out of here.

  Flashes of the dreams I'd had in the night flitted through my mind. Memories of the sensual scenes where I was locked in passionate embraces, calling out in pleasure again and again warmed my face with color and I was glad that no one was here to see it, or notice my pulse suddenly starting to race.

  When I thought I could take the answer, whatever it would be, I reached out to Cole in my mind.

  Are you still here?

  There was no response.

  I couldn't hear him or feel him. All I had was the memory of him, and he felt further from me than he ever had before.

  Cole? Are you here? Tell me I didn't dream it all, please. Tell me you weren't a figment of my imagination, or a side effect of the drugs. You were here, weren't you?

  Nothing.

  I sighed a deep, sad sigh as a knock sounded on my door. They didn't wait for a response, but opened the door on the tail of the announcing sound and a nurse let herself in, hands full of instruments and paperwork.

  "Good morning! One more check of everything and you get to go home. I sent your boyfriend down to the cafeteria for some coffee when I saw him in the hall walking out the kinks of sleeping on our wonderful cots, but he should be back up soon. We'll get some food in you and get you guys on your way, how's that sound?"

  I gave her the answer I knew she expected, "Sounds good."

  "How'd you sleep?"

  There was an odd tilt to her question, so I glanced up at her as she put down paperwork and started to cuff me to check my blood pressure.

  "I feel well rested so I guess I slept well. Thanks for asking."

  "I always hate having to come in every few hours when patients are sleeping and take their vitals. Most patients hate it as well, but you never even stirred. You slept through all of my checks. You seemed quite…"

  When she didn't finish I finally prompted her.

  "Quite what?"

  "Quite … peaceful," she paused again. "Most of the time."

  She seemed to be holding something back, so I prodded her again, curious and oddly blushing.

  "Most of the time?"

  She grinned then, and said, "You were talking in your sleep. Calling out, actually. It sounded like you were having a lot of … fun. I, uh, felt like I was intruding when I'd have to touch you and check on you."

  I felt my face flame with color as more flashes of my dreams filled my head.

  "Oh! Um … yeah. I had some … great … dreams. Did Mark hear them, too? We haven't … done anything … yet, so that would be kind of … embarrassing, if he heard.…"

  "Yeah, he was awake during one round, at least. He seemed a bit uncomfortable after I came in and you were dreaming somewhat loudly. I had been about to leave when you said something about being cold. You mumbled it. Cold.

  I told him I'd be right back with a blanket for you, he nodded at me, not meeting my eyes. I thought I'd woken him up by coming in here and he was still blinking at me cause he was half asleep, but a bit after you said you were cold you started moaning and I said, 'doesn't sound like she's cold anymore.'

  I laughed and looked toward him, but he didn't seem to think it was funny. It was probably unprofessional of me to have said that, but I didn't think anything of it until it seemed to make him mad.

  After that I didn't say anything when I'd come in. You never said you were cold again, but I did bring a blanket in. He was always asleep when I came in after that.

  Sorry if my comment made him uncomfortable, I just wanted to tell you before he came back. I didn't mean to put him on the spot while you were out like that. We see and hear a lot here as nurses, I just took it in stride. I hope I didn't upset him."

  I smiled at her and said it was fine. I told her not to worry about it, but after a few seconds of her fussing over me and notating that all my vitals looked great, I couldn't help it—I had to know.

  "Could I have been saying something else? Maybe the name 'Cole?' Cause if so…"

  Her eyebrows shot up into her forehead as she understood and said, "Oh! Umm, maybe? I take it Cole is … someone else?"

  I nodded, closing my eyes in embarrassment. Crap.

  I'd have to wait and see how Mark acted to know for sure, but I'm pretty sure he'd hear the difference between cold and Cole, especially moaned.

  Double crap.

  He knew my history, of course.

  I just wasn't sure how he'd react to being the man here with me after my near death experience, sleeping on a cot beside me so I wouldn't be alone, and then hearing me calling out Cole's name in the dark.

  "Did I ever say his name? Mark?"

  I asked the nurse half hopeful and half scared that I had. Was it better to call out two names in a delirious, drug induced passion, or to only call out the name of your dead fiancé?

  She shook her head no.

  "Great," I said.

  "You two haven't ever…?"

  I shook my head no.

  "And Cole is…?"

  "An ex."

  I went with the simplest explanation.

  "Oh. Maybe he just heard what I thought I heard—cold."

  "Maybe."

  We stared at each other for a minute, two women in silent communication.

  "Can I ask you a personal question?"

  I nodded and said, "You've heard me call out another man's name, during … dreams, I'm thinking we're now on personal question terms. Go ahead."

  "Why did you and Cole beak up? I only ask because, well, if I had a man that made me … dream … the way you were dreaming last night," she said, delicately. "I'd never let him go. I think I'd do anything to get him back. A man who makes you dream that much in one night, is a keeper. Just saying. Unless he hurt you, or cheated on you, or something like that, of course. Sorry if I'm overstepping by asking."

  "No, he never hurt me. We never … in real life, either. Just in dream
s, apparently."

  "You haven't, you know, really dreamed, with either of them?"

  "Nope."

  "Well, damn. In that case, don't listen to me. Drugs can do really weird things to a brain, I know, I've seen it all. It probably didn't mean anything. And Mark was here for you, you know? All night. That's a good man, too."

  I agreed, Mark was a great guy. He just wasn't Cole. But Cole was gone, again, so …

  As she wrapped up her check-up, saying the breakfast tray would be around shortly and that I should be able to go home soon after, I heard her mumble, "If I had dreams like that I don't think I'd ever want to wake up."

  * * *

  Mark drove me home after I was released. The ride was quiet but polite. I don't think Mark knew how to address whatever he'd heard in the night, or if he even wanted to address it. He didn't ask me anything about how I'd slept or if I'd had any dreams.

  How could he though, really?

  So … did you enjoy the noisy sex you had all night, with your dead fiancé?

  Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

  Besides, could you even hold that against someone? I was drugged, after all.

  I didn't bring it up, either. I just pleaded exhaustion and pushed Mark out my front door so I could be alone.

  I thanked him, of course. I was grateful, after all. For everything he'd done—saving me, staying with me.

  Or was I?

  If he hadn't saved me, would I be with Cole now?

  Would I have preferred to be with Cole now?

  Would it be possible? To be with Cole? Now?

  Chapter 8

  I felt like someone else was going through the motions, and I was only watching.

  I made my first stop, parking the car and going inside like I was on auto pilot. I made my selection, waited in line and paid the cashier. I made small talk as she handed me my receipt and I left the store.

  I parked down the block from my second stop, sitting in the car for a while, thinking, fingering the package of hazelnuts the cashier had asked if I wanted her to put in a bag. I hadn't.

  I fondled the package like it was a stress ball, squeezing it, working my fingers into the places that gave way, only to unclench my fist to let the spaces fill as the contents shifted again.

  Was I insane?

  Could you back up on your own, personal freeway, ignoring the cars honking in protest around you, and take the exit ramp you'd missed before?

  It was safer, of course, to drive on to the next exit, but who knew if the next exit was a mile up or a thousand miles up? And what did “safer” mean in this context, anyway?

  I knew the destination I was aiming for; I just didn't know if I could still get there from here.

  Actually, I knew the hazelnuts would get me there. I just didn't know if I'd arrive too late.

  Would Cole be waiting for me even though I was making my own exit ramp, after the veil had closed?

  I figured there was only one way to find out, right?

  I got out of the car and walked the few blocks to the asylum. I found the loose fence everyone who'd ever snuck in there, or had heard about others sneaking in there, knew about and I shimmied my way onto the property. I aimed for the broken window, pried the plywood from it and slid inside.

  I propped the plywood back over the window as well as I could from the inside and turned around, taking stock of the place without a huge party going on.

  Lots of the decorations were still in place, since the Halloween party was a yearly thing and no one else but the occasional group of teens trying to scare the pants off of themselves and their friends ever entered the place.

  It looked completely different in the light of day, and yet somehow exactly the same.

  Party trash was everywhere, which made sense, since the party had just been the night before. I knew a clean-up crew would arrive later on in the day to pick up a lot of it—it was the one thing the city asked in exchange for allowing the yearly event. Well, one of the few things, right up there with not going deeper into the place than the main, front room, but the clean-up rule was actually followed.

  With that thought in mind, that someone could show up here anytime, I aimed my footsteps toward the back of the room. Toward the door that I had forced my way through the night before, kicking all of this off.

  I didn't have to force my way through it this time as it stood wide open, probably from all the activity passing through it just hours before, of partygoers and medics alike. For me.

  To save me.

  I paused in the doorway, but not for very long.

  I stepped into the hall and turned, following the same path I had the night before, or that part of me had, anyway.

  This time my whole body explored the halls, alone, until I found the room. I hadn't been completely sure it would really be there, since I hadn't really, physically been there before, but there it was.

  I went inside, pulling the cold, metal door shut behind me. I leaned against it for a minute, just taking it in. It was sad and depressing to look at during the day, the small window not letting much light brighten the room. It had a bed in it, a bed we never utilized last time, as we never made it further than the door itself.

  The door was cold against my back. It felt good. It helped cool the blood pumping through my veins as I made sure this was what I really wanted.

  I looked down at the floor and saw it- the perfect foil square of the unopened condom I'd grabbed on my way here the night before. It had fallen out of my fingers when I let Cole's ghost have his way with me, thinking he was Mark.

  It was real! It did happen! I thought. The condom proved it.

  The condom bolstered my determination.

  I nodded, more to myself than to anyone else, since I was quite alone.

  I walked over to the bed and sat down, leaving the condom where it lay and ripping the tall, thin bag of hazelnuts open instead.

  I tilted the bag into my hand and as soon as the first nut rolled onto my palm I popped it into my mouth and started to chew. I poured and popped the next two before I'd fully chewed the first one.

  My heart was racing, though I wasn't sure if it was from nerves or if the nuts were doing their thing already. I had trouble swallowing the next few, but I wasn't sure if it was because I was eating them so fast or if my throat was closing for allergic reasons. I didn't think it mattered, to be honest.

  I tried to take a deep breath through my nose since my mouth was full, and I could finally smell him again. Cole's cologne. It was working, he was here. Or I was there. Whatever.

  "You shouldn't have done that," his words were angry in my ears.

  "You left me. Again."

  "It's not your time."

  "And yet I'm here."

  "No one is coming to help you this time, Hannah."

  "The only one I need is already here, Cole. You're all I'll ever need."

  I felt his mouth slant down over mine, his anger showing itself in the roughness of his kiss. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back, biting his lip and curling my fists into his hair. I needed him and I didn't care how angry he was.

  I opened my eyes but I couldn't see him. I could hear him, and smell him, his scent filled my nose and I drank him in. I closed my eyes and felt him deepen our kiss.

  His tongue pressed, sliding between my teeth until it filled my mouth and drank from me.

  My mouth fought with his, I was determined to give as good as I got.

  I felt his hands slide into my hair and he yanked hard. He pulled my mouth from his and I felt the desperation of his words as he chastised me.

  "Fuck, Hannah. Do you know what you've done?"

  "I like the sound of that," I answered.

  "Of what?"

  "Of you saying 'Fuck, Hannah.' That's exactly what you should do. You should fuck me. What's done is done, Cole. If you didn't want me you shouldn't have taken me. You should never have shown me what being with you could be like. Failing that, you should have
left me alone in the hospital. I would've thought I'd only dreamed of you, but you had to go and tease me there with Dr. Greene."

  I opened my eyes again, hoping to look at him as I pled my case. I could see him now; he was as solid as sin before me.

  His eyes were full of pain and wanting. He needed me as much as I needed him, he just needed a push. Angry or not I needed him to welcome me. Hard and fast or slow and sweet, I didn't care which.

  "You did this, Cole. You showed me what could have been. You fucked me here, in this room. You fingered me, you teased me under the not so watchful eye of the doctor. You said you wanted to flip my gown up and bury your face between my thighs. You did this. You came for me. You made me want you, ache for you…"

  I didn't even have to finish the thought, his mouth slanted over mine again, harder this time.

  This time he bit me, taking my bottom lip between his teeth before soothing the sting with the tip of his tongue.

  I moaned my need into his mouth and he answered my need by taking another handful of my hair in his fist and pulling hard.

  This time when he pulled my mouth from his it wasn't to talk to me but to yank my head back and bite my neck. He bit down on the tender skin, pulling my hair with one hand as his other hand found the edge of my shirt and yanked it up, baring the tops of my breasts in my bra and nibbling a trail from my ear, over the swells of my breasts and finding first one nipple through the lacy fabric and teasing it with his tongue before seeking out the other tight peak and biting it, making me squeal with need.

  "Don't think you can talk to me about fingering you, or fucking you, or burying my face between your thighs and not expect me to do exactly that."

  His heated words teased my nipple in the moments before his tongue found it again and sucked it deeply into his mouth.

  I grabbed the hair at the back of his head, only instead of pulling his mouth from me as he had done, I pressed his face harder against me. I arched my back, offering him more of my breast, and he took my offering, sucking and nipping until I was a squirming mess of need.

  He pushed me backwards until his weight pressed me into the bed. I opened my thighs to him, wrapping my jean covered legs around his waist and digging my heels into his ass. He found my wrists and yanked them up above my head, pinning them out of his way as he dry humped against me.