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

by J. K Harper

  "Yes. It probably wouldn't be considered acceptable for a respectable shifter doctor to be engaged to a vampire."

  "Probably not. Plus, there's the age gap." She winked at him. "Look, whatever the hell kind of spell you put on me, you did a great job. I can't believe how fast I fell into bed with you."

  He held the back door of the tent open for her to enter first. "I told you, I don't hypnotize people. The desire was all yours. And mine, of course. But it was purely consensual on both sides."

  "So you say. But I don't know."

  "Believe it."

  The soldier on duty was reading a book. He leaped to attention when he saw them.

  "Thanks for holding the fort. I had an—an unavoidable emergency. You can stand down now, Sergeant."

  He looked relaxed. "Ah, it's no problem at all. All quiet tonight, ma'am. The ceasefire seems to be holding, for now. No patients so far. Best of luck for the night."

  He nodded at them, and left.

  "You don't need to stick around, Louis." Isabel rolled up the sleeve of her army shirt. Even for someone as tall as her, it was way too long. It must have been made for a giant.

  "You don't know what the night will bring. You might need help. Besides, we can brush up on our engagement story."

  "Oh yeah. Okay. Good thinking." She sat on the edge of a gurney. "So I'm Isabel Prowse, eldest daughter of tiger shifters from London. Two sisters, two brothers. My mom is American, and my Dad is British. I studied medicine at Harvard. I like strawberries, and I hate raisins. What else?"

  "Who was your first love?"

  "What?" She was taken aback by the question. "I'm not sure I ever felt true love. You know, that's not unusual for shifters. We have the whole fated mates thing going on."

  "You believe in fated mates?"

  "We have no choice. That seems to be the way it works out. Like, my ex-husband I told you about. Sebastian. He found his fated mate. He knew instantly. So did she, even though she's mostly human. They just couldn't tear themselves apart."

  "I see." His stare seemed to bore into her. "And it's always with another shifter? Shifters never fall for a human, or ... some other kind of person?"

  "Shifters can pair up with any other shifters, or white witches, or other magical people. All on the light side." She fiddled with her shirt, suddenly self-conscious. "Nothing from the dark side. No demons, or warlocks, or ... vampires."

  He looked a little thoughtful.

  She wondered what it would feel like to find her fated mate. Surely nothing could be more intense than the attraction she had for this vampire?

  And yet, there must be something else. A vampire couldn't be her mate. Someone else must be out there for her.

  The thought left her strangely disappointed.

  "So how are we going to finish this, in the end?" He sat on the table opposite her. It wobbled slightly beneath him, but he kept his balance.

  "Finish? How do you mean?"

  "How do we end this engagement story? I mean, you're going back to England, or America, or wherever you live when you're not in war zones. You already told me your organization does not permit any extension to your assignment. So how does it end? Do we stage a fake break-up?"

  There was a slit in the tent door. Behind it, she saw only darkness.

  "America." She could smell his scent and it was the best thing ever. She had no idea why she couldn't smell him before, when she first met him. "Yeah, I guess we could stage a break-up. Or you could come with me out of here."

  He shook his head. "That wouldn't be possible."

  "You want to stay living out here? In the middle of a brutal war? Why?"

  "Honestly? You want the unvarnished truth? Believe me, you won't like it."

  "Try me."

  He sighed exasperatedly. "I came here so I could feed on the recently deceased." He looked disgusted with himself. "See, I told you you wouldn't like it."

  "You feed on the dead? I thought vampires needed warm blood, from living people?"

  "There's a window of opportunity after death. Before the body goes stiff, you can still feed. I don't like to kill any more, like I told you."

  "But you do have to drink human blood?"

  "Of course. At full moon, it's essential. Even at other times, it's pretty important. Animal blood will only take you so far."

  "What happens if you don't drink human blood when there's a full moon?"

  "First, I'd grow weak. Then I'd be driven wild by forces I can't control, and I'd go on a killing spree that would destroy entire villages." He looked at her, his face blank and unreadable. "That is why I try to avoid reaching that point."

  She shivered. "I see."

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  "So you came someplace you knew would be full of recently dead people?"

  He stared across the tent, not meeting her eye.

  "War zones are full of loss of life. I lurk in the shadows during air strikes. Bombs can't kill me, of course, because very little can. And when human life is lost, and I'm sure there is no hope of recovery, then—" He left the rest of the sentence unsaid.

  "You see that as morally better? To feed on those killed by violence?"

  "Don't you?"

  "I guess."

  She glanced at his pale, almost luminous skin, and the way his ebony hair hung over his forehead. His black pants and white shirt looked so great on him.

  "Then there we go."

  "But I'd like to know something. Why do you have morals? You're a vampire. You're not supposed to have a sense of right and wrong. You're evil. You're amoral. You don't care. That's what you people are."

  He looked back at her with fire in his eyes. She felt her heart jolt with a force she didn't recognize. God, he was hot.

  "I'm not your average vampire," he whispered. "I have my soul back."

  Want

  "Wait, wait, wait. You have what?"

  "My soul. I have it back."

  Isabel frowned and rubbed her temples. "Wait. How can you have a soul? You lose that when you're sired as a vampire, don't you? Or was my Supernatural Studies class teacher wrong?"

  "No, your teacher was right. I lost my soul when I was sired. Only I got it back."

  This was all too much to comprehend.

  "Okay. Back it up now. How did you get your soul reinstalled?"

  "There's a long version of this story, and a short version. The short version is this: I paid a witch."

  "You paid a witch?"

  "I was expecting a slightly different result, however."

  "Slightly different?"

  "Are you just going to repeat everything I say?"

  "No. I'm not. Look, what's happening here? Are you a real vampire, or aren't you?"

  "I am a real vampire, as real as they come. But I'm a vampire with a soul."

  Isabel let out a frustrated shriek. "Vampires can't have souls! That doesn't make any sense."

  Louis moved over to the gurney Isabel sat on, and stretched his long legs out. Then he lay down behind her.

  She stayed perched sideways on its edge.

  He looked up at her. "And now you want the long version?"

  "Yes please."

  Louis folded his arms behind his head. "It's like I told you. When I was sired, the French Revolution was in full swing. Lots of my family had been executed. Heads cut off. Blood in the streets. All that. One of Napoleon's inner circle took an interest in me. She was one of Viscount de Grenoble's favorite mistresses, and very beautiful. I looked up to her, although I did not see her in a romantic way. I believe she saw me that way, however."

  Isabel found this unsurprising. The dude was cute. Probably even more so before he was a bloodsucking fiend.

  He went on. "When my wife was killed by the peasant mob, the Viscount's mistress called me to her chamber."

  "I'm so sorry about your wife."

  "Thank you. It was a long time ago." He stared at the ceiling. "The woman was called Antoinette, and she made me an offer. She s
aid she could turn me immortal, so the guillotine could never kill me. She said it would take away all my human misery and I would no longer suffer the cares of humanity. I had been driven mad with grief and terror. And finally I agreed to her offer."

  "So she sired you?"

  "Yes. One night, she got me drunk on red wine, and she put something in it. A drug, or something to remove inhibitions. Then she seduced me." He looked awkward. "And then she bit me. And here I am."

  "Wow." Isabel took his hand. She hated the idea of someone else seducing him. Although he'd been drugged, and it was two hundred years ago. Pretty unreasonable, Isabel. "So everyone you knew in France back then—?"

  "All gone. All dead. Only the vampires left alive."

  "Were there many vampires?"

  "Some. I left for Russia after that. Their revolution didn't come until 1917. We French exiles had a good number of years there before destiny caught up with us."

  "When did you decide you were sick of being a vamp?"

  "Around a hundred years ago. The endlessness of eternity stretched out in front of me—it was so crushing. So tedious. I was bored out of my mind with the relentless sameness of it all."

  "You actually got tired of eternal life?"

  "Yes. Killing and feeding wasn't a thrill after the first thousand times. All I had to look forward to was the usual thing, lumbering on endlessly into the future. No love. No companionship, even, because vampires have no loyalty to one another, and humans eventually die. "

  "Couldn't you just get yourself staked?"

  "It's not that simple. Everything in a vampire's heart resists being staked. Though I was tired of living, I would literally kill millions before I'd succumb to a stake. Nobody ever got close enough to do it."

  "Wow."

  She wondered if she could stake him now, lying in front of her. Probably not. His defensive reflexes would be honed, after centuries of practice.

  "Yeah."

  "So then what?"

  "I found a witch. It took a long time, but I found her in Prussia, as it was called then. She promised me she would make me mortal again."

  "And she lied?"

  "Well, she didn't lie. She just didn't know for sure what effect her magic would have. It was experimental. And it didn't have quite the desired effect." He paused, lost in thought.

  Isabel stared expectantly at him. "Go on?"

  "She restored my soul, but she did not restore my mortality. She did not undo my vampire state. So now I am doomed to walk the earth forever tortured by my own evil urges. And death cannot undo me." He narrowed his eyes. "Quite a punishment."

  "Then what?"

  "I tried to put myself in situations where I might get staked, after that. But it didn't work. It never did. No idea why not. Even that one get-out clause lay out of my reach."

  "Shit."

  "Indeed."

  They sat in silence for a while, holding hands.

  "I wish you could come back to America with me. I have a great little place outside Boulder."

  Even as she said it, Isabel tried to imagine him rocking in the wicker swing seat on her porch, in his dramatic white shirt and black pants. She stifled a smile at the image.

  "I would love to see America too." He looked miserable. "But I couldn't catch a commercial flight, even a night flight. No paperwork. And there's the chance that a flight would be delayed, or diverted, and I'd be caught outside in the daytime." He ran his thumb over the back of her hand and turned away.

  "A few of my friends have private jets. Tiger shifters. Good guys. And some humans could help us out with arrangements too. Like Rufus, who I've known all my life. He's like a second dad to me. And the whole Chase family. And—"

  He shook his head. "I'd be a danger to your friends."

  Yeah. She sure didn't want that.

  She lifted his fingers to her lips and kissed them. "Could you sire me?"

  He looked back at her with horrified eyes. "No!"

  "I'm not asking you to do it. I don't want you to! I'm just asking if you could turn a shifter."

  "I doubt it. Your human side would be useless in a fight, but your supernatural DNA wouldn't stand for it. Quite right, too. You shifters have the better deal, by far."

  She lay down next to him on the gurney and he rested his head on hers. The bed was too narrow for them both really. She turned to lie on her side, with her head on his broad shoulders. Her leg felt just right draped over his.

  A wild thought occurred to her.

  "Could I turn you?"

  He pulled his head away a little, so he could look her right in the face.

  "Turn me? Into what?"

  "A shifter."

  "Tiger shifters can't turn people, can they? Only bears can do that. And wolves. Right?"

  Isabel stroked his cheek. "My ex-mother-in-law Araminta told me there was once a time when all types of shifters turned people. Around Halloween, at the last full moon of October, or something. The Recruitment, she calls it."

  He slipped his arms around her and planted a soft kiss on her lips.

  "Never heard of it. And I'm from the olden days." He swept a strand of hair off her face. "But if you could turn me, I would be all over that."

  "It sounds funny to hear modern phrasing in your sort-of French accent."

  "I'm a funny guy."

  They kissed again, deeper this time. His tongue circled hers and she melted into the embrace.

  "Seriously, though. What if there's a way? It is Halloween in a few weeks, after all."

  He kissed her eyebrow, then her forehead. "You really think shifter blood would cancel out my vampireness?"

  "Sure I do. We're pretty badass, you know."

  "Yep, tiger. I get that."

  "Again with the modern phrasing."

  He flipped her over so he was on top of her. "I love your thinking. I just don't see how we'd do it."

  "Me either." She dug her teeth lightly into his neck, as if to try out the maneuver. Then she kissed the same spot. "But I think I might call Araminta when this night shift is done. There has to be something we can do."

  She flipped him back onto the bed, so she could lay with her head on his chest. His hands stroked her hair rhythmically.

  Undoing one button, she slid a hand inside his shirt and caressed the hard muscle of his chest. God, he felt good. Kinda cold, but good.

  Tracing a line down, she reached the top of his pants. Her arm rested lightly on his hip and she could tell he was hard.

  It was too tempting to resist.

  She pulled open his pants, before he had a chance to object. Then she reached inside.

  No underwear. So the French nobility went commando.

  Like her for the last twenty-four hours, apparently.

  She wrapped her hand around his thick shaft and he grunted. He grabbed a handful of her hair and held her head tightly, so she couldn't drop it toward his lap.

  "Isabel..." His voice was growly with lust. She liked how her touch had such an immediate effect on him.

  He was trying to stop her, she knew. But he wasn't strong enough to push her away completely.

  His cock was so large, her fingers barely met around it. She pulled it out into the air so she could see it.

  Hot damn. He really was huge.

  And beautiful.

  And fuck, she wanted him so deep inside her right now.

  She bent forward to kiss his lips instead, but he still had her hair in his hands. She couldn't move without his permission.

  "Let me taste you," she whispered.

  His breathing was fast and his cock twitched in her hand. "I can't."

  "You can so. Let me, Louis."

  She could tell he was considering it. She licked her lips as sluttishly as she could. "I want it, Louis, Don't deny me. I need to know what vampire cock feels like in my mouth."

  He groaned. "You're making this so hard for me."

  "Oh, but that's because you made this hard for me."

  She squeezed him
at the base of his cock, and it strained against her hand.

  "How I'd love to bend you over this bed and fuck the sass out of you right now."

  "Do it." She had never wanted anything more.

  The fact that he was a vampire was totally irrelevant now. Somehow she couldn't care less.

  "I can't... Isabel, no. We can't." He thrust himself upward once in her hand, like he couldn't help himself. "Don't push me to the point where I can't stop."

  "But I don't want you to stop."

  She saw his fangs were out again, but she didn't give a shit.

  "I could hurt you."

  "I don't care."

  "You don't mean that."

  "I do."

  Cock. In me. Now.

  Speech felt unnecessary. She had been reduced to pure wanton need.

  He pulled her up roughly so she was kneeling over him, with her knees on the bed on either side of his hips.

  Yes. Now.

  If she just sat down now, she'd feel his gigantic cock skin-to-skin with her pussy.

  She tried to do just that, but he gripped her waist so she couldn't drop an inch.

  "You're such a fucking tease," she wailed.

  He pulled her up higher still. Clamping his sharp fangs around her shirt, he yanked at the top buttons. They flew off, exposing her breasts.

  Sharp teeth lightly grazed her soft skin. She wasn't a bit scared.

  He took her nipple in his mouth and sucked. With his hand, he pinched and rolled the other nipple.

  She tried her best to sink down onto his cock again, but he wouldn't let her. His other hand still kept her at bay.

  "Goddamn it, Louis. Fuck me." She felt like throwing a tantrum.

  Tipping her head back, she closed her eyes. His tongue felt incredible on her body.

  Even with eyes shut, she couldn't miss the flash. Then another. The tent was lit up all around them.

  Both froze, and looked into each other's eyes.

  The sky-splitting booms came just a few moments later.

  "Bombs." She jumped off him and slid off the gurney, pulling her clothing back to respectable level of cover. "We're going to have patients. A lot of patients."

  "Patients. Yes. Of course."