One True Mate: Shifter's Solace (Kindle Worlds Novella)

by Georgette St. Clair

  Silly – that expression on his handsome face made something twist unhappily inside her. She drew on her anger again, this time to force down more confusing emotions. Feelings she didn’t want to have to deal with right now. Rage was easier, so she clung to that instead.

  “Who do you think you are?” she demanded. “First you all argue over me like dogs with a bone, which is rude.” She took a step closer. “Then you bring me here against my will, which is illegal.” She poked him in the chest with her finger. “Then you magically turn into a bear, which is impossible. Well you can just quit it!”

  Wow, his chest was muscular. She realised she was still prodding him, and slowly drew her finger back.

  He was looking down at her with a strange mixture of emotions on his face. His eyes were a deep, intense blue. His hair was a medium brown and cropped short, and his high cheekbones and stubbled jaw gave his face a harsh strength that was softened by the soft, pink fullness of his lips.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” His voice was a deep rumble that sent a thrilling vibration through her.

  “I’m not afraid,” she said quietly. “I’m furious.”

  That was a lie, though. She was frightened. Because he hadn’t denied turning into a bear. In fact, nobody in the room had laughed, or questioned it, or checked her for head injuries. And that meant one of two things.

  Either every single person in the room was stark raving mad. That could be a really bad situation. Or she wasn’t crazy at all, and something much stranger and more frightening was going on here.

  And she was increasingly worried that might be the case.

  The room was brimming over with testosterone, but there was something else. A distinctive, animal smell, like burying her nose in fur. And the only place she could remember smelling it before was in her vision.

  “Turn into a bear,” she demanded, her voice shaking. “Do it now.”

  A tiny smile curled the corner of his mouth, as if he were trying it on for size. “You just told me not to,” he pointed out.

  She pushed him hard in the center of the chest. He didn’t move, solid as a rock. “Do it!” she insisted.

  He looked at her for a moment longer, then he stepped back and shrugged.

  He stretched his arms above his head, lacing his fingers together and cracking his knuckles. She tried to keep her eyes off the narrow band of his flat stomach that was exposed as his T-shirt rode up. As he brought his arms back down, fur washed over his skin like a shudder, and his face pushed out into a muzzle. He dropped to all fours, and his spine twisted, his limbs contorting and his hands and feet spreading into enormous paws with wicked, curved black claws as long as her thumb.

  Then he was standing in front of her, as large as life and twice as furry. As a bear.

  Ivy stared, her heart racing. Her limbs felt shaky and weak. She wasn’t going crazy. He really could turn into a bear. And she guessed the other firefighters could too, since they were standing there watching, completely un-freaked-out, like it was an everyday occurrence.

  Maybe it was, for them.

  She circled him cautiously, looking at his broad, furry back, his powerful hindquarters, his curved flank, the solid strength of his forelimbs. There was no smoke and mirrors. It wasn’t a trick or an illusion. He was real and solid and there. She could feel the heat radiating from his big body and smell his musky, animal odor.

  She reached out with trembling fingers, and she took his small, round, velvety ear between her fingers, rubbing it gently. He gave a low, happy rumble from deep in his chest, like the bear version of purring. She gazed into his eyes, no longer that startling blue, but still with the spark of human intelligence.

  Then she turned and bolted for the door.

  Chapter Seven

  He must have shifted back into his human form blindingly fast, because he was at the door before her, barring her way. She struck out at him, pummelling him with her fists, but he grabbed her wrists and pulled her close up against his body so she couldn’t even knee him in the balls.

  “Stop it,” he rumbled. “Just stop it. None of us are going to hurt you. Just the opposite – we want to protect you. I want to protect you.”

  “Forgive my scepticism,” she said icily, “but you dragged me here unconscious, and now you’re physically stopping me from leaving.” She paused, then added in a slightly strangled voice, “And you have no clothes on.”

  It wasn’t actually unpleasant being held up against his big, hard, warm body. Not unpleasant at all. In fact tension coiled low in her belly, a sensation that had nothing at all to do with fear or outrage. She was almost disappointed when he released her wrists and stepped back, pressing his back against the door. Sending the message, she supposed, that she still wasn’t going anywhere but he really didn’t want to hurt her.

  They stood, eyes locked, both breathing hard.

  Then a voice from behind her made her turn. “Anyone would be horrified by the sight of Rory’s junk. The Light knows, we make him cover up in the locker room. But he’s telling the truth. We had a really good reason for bringing you here.”

  The speaker was a huge guy with a shock of overlong white-blonde hair and black tattoos winding their way up his muscular arms. He held out his hand.

  “I’m Brady,” he said. “Sit down with us, and I’ll explain it to you. Then, if you still want to leave, you can. I promise.”

  There was a growl from Rory – the firefighter at the door, the one she was fighting not to think of as “her” firefighter.

  “Tone it down, Rory, you’re scaring the lady,” said Brady. “In fact, make yourself useful and go into the kitchen and make us all some coffee.” He returned his gaze to Ivy. “Well?” he said.

  She studied him carefully. An explanation would be nice. And anyway, how was she going to fight her way out of here if half a dozen firefighters and a bear wanted to stop her? She reached out tentatively and took his hand. “Okay,” she said. “But once you’ve explained, I’m leaving.”

  Brady nodded. “If you still want to,” he promised her, “you can.”

  A few minutes later, introductions made, they were seated around a long table, each of them with a large mug of steaming coffee.

  “So, the first thing you need to know is about shiften,” Brady began.

  “Shifters?” Ivy asked. She nodded at Rory, noticing how large his hands were, cradling his mug of coffee. “Like him. He’s…a were-bear, right?”

  A firefighter called Ben sucked in a pained breath between his teeth. “Ixnay on the erebear-way,” he said. “We’re bearen. And for The Light’s sake don’t call felen cats unless you want them to make you eat kitty-litter.”

  “We?” Ivy looked around the table at the men she’d been introduced to. Ben, Brady, the Chief, twins Jasper and Jake, and her firefighter, Rory.

  Not yours, she scolded herself. As soon as this is over, you’re getting out of here, moving to another state – hell, maybe even another country – crawling into the bottom of a bottle and staying there until you’ve killed enough brain cells to forget this ever happened.

  “You’re all were-b— I mean bearen? Are all firefighters bearen?”

  That was a ridiculous question, obviously, but then it had been a ridiculous day.

  Brady smiled at her. “Not all firefighters are bearen, but most bearen are firefighters,” he said.

  Then the Chief chimed in. He was a handsome black man who looked to be in his early forties, with a deep, musical voice that made Ivy feel safe and reassured, even though she knew she should feel anything but.

  “There are three types of shiften,” he told her. “Bearen, like us. Usually firefighters. Wolven – what you’d call werewolves. They usually work as cops. Then there are the felen. Cat-shifters. Mostly they’re…soldiers, I guess you’d call them. Some of them are guards, or medics. Lots of them are mercenaries; some are in the government. Usually, we leave them alone and they leave us alone. Most bearen aren�
��t really cat people.”

  “No,” Ivy said, slightly hysterically. “You’re bear people.”

  The Chief went on. “All three types of shiften have one purpose; to defend humanity from a demon called Khain.”

  “And that’s where you come in,” Rory interrupted. “The prophecy…”

  Brady cleared his throat, and all eyes turned to him. His gaze turned soft and misty, as though he were looking at something elsewhere. And he began to recite.

  In twenty-five years, half-angel, half-human mates will be discovered living among you.

  This is how you will rebuild.

  Warriors, all, with names like flora.

  Save them from themselves, for they will not know their foreordination.

  They will not be bound by shiften law, but their destinies entwine so strongly with their fated mates, that any not mated by their thirtieth year will be moonstruck. Those who are lost may be dangerous.

  He shuddered as he came back from wherever he’d just been.

  “So now you see,” Rory said, reaching out to gently take her hand. Her slender fingers were swallowed up in his. “You’re one of the women the prophecy talks about. Your name is Ivy. You’re twenty-five years old. And I bet you never knew your father, right?

  “Just one question,” Ivy said in a small voice. She didn’t think she was going to like the answer. “What does ‘moonstruck’ mean?”

  “Moonstruck?” Rory frowned. “It’s a kind of madness that can strike shiften, or the One True Mates if they aren’t found in time.”

  “Oh,” said Ivy. She swallowed. “In that case, I think it might be too late.”

  Rory rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb, sending little shivers of arousal over her skin. A trickle of moisture dampened her panties, and she silently cursed herself for allowing him to get under her skin.

  “What do you mean, it’s too late?” he said gently. “You called for me, and I came. I found you.”

  “I called for you?” she murmured. His pupils were blossoming pools of blackness in the vivid blue of his irises as he gazed at her.

  “In your head,” he explained. “We call it ruhi. You called for help, and I heard you, and I came.” I’ll always come for you, Ivy.

  He hadn’t spoken that last sentence. Not out loud. Had she really heard it inside her head? Or was it just another symptom of her mind slipping away?

  Her heart was like a panicky bird in her chest, and her voice shook as she replied. “You were too late, Rory. I think I’ve already gone mad.”

  She saw the firefighters exchanging concerned glances. Well, if she was right and she’d inherited her mother’s mental illness, she’d better get used to that.

  “You seem pretty sane to me,” Ben told her. “Kept your shit together – more or less – when you found out about shiften. Clearly revolted by Rory taking his pants off. Not noticeably foaming at the mouth.” She could hear the concern under the banter, though.

  “I’ve been having hallucinations,” she told them. “Before the fire started, I saw… Well, I saw spiders. Thousands of them, running over the piles of paper and trailing flames behind them. I…”

  She trailed off as she saw the looks of pure horror on the guys’ faces.

  “Okay, it’s not that weird. Why are you all looking at me like I’ve got two heads?”

  “Khain,” said the Chief. “Jake, Jasper, lock this place down. I want it airtight. Rory, Ben – watch the girl. Brady, with me. We’re gonna notify Wade Lombard.”

  Ivy disentangled her hand from Rory’s as the men scrambled to their feet and bolted into action.

  “What’s happening?” she demanded. “What does he mean, lock the place down? You said I could go once you’d explained everything.”

  Ben shook his head. “Sorry, doll, not happening. Not today.”

  “That was before,” Rory explained. “Before we knew for sure that Khain’s after you.”

  Chapter Eight

  “So this demon, Khain, controls spiders.” Ivy shook her head. “This is completely crazy, you know.”

  “But you’re not,” Rory said. He was sitting beside her on the couch, so close she could feel the heat radiating from his body. “And yeah, controls them, or manifests as them…either or both. And he likes to play with fire.” The expression on his face was grim. A little muscle twitched in his square jaw, and Ivy wondered if he was remembering the fire he’d pulled her from.

  But of course he was a fireman. A hero. Burning buildings were just part of the working day to him, so that couldn’t be what was upsetting him.

  Ben put a big scrapbook on the table and opened it, displaying headlines and stories cut from newspapers and pasted in. “The wolven have a much bigger collection,” he said. “This is just a handful of the crimes and disasters we’re sure Khain had a hand in. Shiften law forbids us to write down our history, but it doesn’t say anything about scrapbooking.” He grinned, and she couldn’t help smiling back.

  Growing up in group homes, she’d developed a knack for spotting “types”. The leader, the follower, the peacemaker, the shit-stirrer. It was a quick way to get a read on group dynamics, and that was a survival skill. She’d pegged Ben right away as the trickster – the class clown who had a smart mouth and an attitude that belied his loyalty and generosity of spirit. She thought that she could trust him…insofar as she trusted any of them. Her vision kept rising in her mind. The animal scent and the feeling of fear, of evil.

  She leaned forward and examined the headlines displayed on the page.

  FIRE KILLS 12

  FREAK EXPLOSION LEVELS CITY BLOCK, 20 MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD

  NEW, PLAGUE-LIKE DISEASE EMERGING

  SARS EPIDEMIC FEARED

  SWINE FLU PANDEMIC SPREADING

  EXPLOSIVES FOUND IN TOY, PROMPTING MASSIVE RECALL

  BATTERY PLANT EXPLODES, ENTIRE CITY EVACUATED

  TERRORIST BLAMED FOR EXPLOSION THAT BROUGHT DOWN CHICAGO SKYSCRAPER

  POISONED CITY: FLINT WATER CRISIS GROWS DEADLY

  “And he burned the shop specifically to kill me?”

  “Maybe,” Rory said. He pressed a little closer to her, and she thought she felt him shiver. “Or maybe he would have snatched you at the last moment and…done something worse.”

  She didn’t have to ask what that meant. Growing up in group homes also meant she had a sound working knowledge of all the horrible things people did to each other. Did especially to the vulnerable and isolated.

  And that was why, however nice these men seemed…

  “The little golden angel,” she asked abruptly. “The one I found just before the shop burned. Is it magic? What does it do?”

  “Your shiftsegen,” Rory answered. “It was left for you by your father. We know they’re powerful, but they’re also unpredictable. Did anything…happen when you touched it?”

  They’d heard rumors.

  “If it had,” Ivy said, playing her cards close to her chest,” should I trust it?”

  “Yes,” Rory said at once. “Your father wanted only the best for you, for shiften, and for humankind.”

  “Oh,” she said in a small voice. Because that meant her vision could be trusted. And that meant that Rory could not.

  * * * * *

  Ivy let her head drop back as the warm water ran over her aching muscles. Ben had agreed to run out and fetch a pair of jeans, a couple of T-shirts and some underwear in her size. She hadn’t been able to persuade Rory to go with him – “Are you crazy? I’m not leaving you here alone. Fifty-two percent of accidents happen in the home!”

  She’d argued that yes, they’d already established that she might be crazy, and anyway this wasn’t her home, but he’d been adamant about staying with her. She’d made it clear, though, that if he insisted on guarding her, he could do it from outside the locker room while she took a shower. She was smeared with stinking ash and sticky with fear-sweat, and she desperately wanted to feel clean.

  She sighed as she squirted a p
ool of liquid soap into her palm. There was no separate shampoo – she guessed firefighters didn’t go in for coconut-scented, salon-perfect curls. She sighed again as she ran her soapy hand over her breast, her nipple perking to life against her fingers. Her mind wandered to Rory; his big, muscular body and his intense blue eyes. She let herself imagine it was his large hands running over her body, one cupping her breast and the other trailing down over her belly to the water-beaded curls between her thighs.

  She imagined how it would feel to stand on tiptoe and press her mouth against his, chewing on his plump pink bottom lip. He’d wrap his arm around her waist and yank her against him, and she’d feel the subtly throbbing ridge of his erection against her hip. She’d wriggle against him, and he’d groan at the friction, sweeping his tongue into her mouth, thrusting it against hers to mimic how it would feel when he was inside her, hips pumping, driving a breathless whimper from her with every thrust.

  Her fingers wandered to her tingling slit, and she parted her folds, running her finger through the slick moisture. She bit her lip and repressed a tiny whimper as her finger found her clit and she circled it gently, imaging Rory above her, inside her, rocking her to the core with every thrust of his—

  Bang!

  The door to the locker room slammed back against a locker, jolting her from her erotic daydream, and a hot, furious blush rose to her cheeks.

  Did he know what she was doing in here? He said she’d called to him with her mind – could he tell that she was touching herself and thinking about him?

  “Ivy, are you okay in there? You’re taking a while.” Just the sound of his voice made another flush of embarrassment wash over her.

  She snatched her hand away from her pussy and quickly rinsed off.

  “I’m fine! I’m coming out now! It was hard to get the smell of smoke out of my hair.”

  She reached for the towel draped over the wall of the shower cubicle and wrapped it around herself, tucking it in above her breasts so it would stay in place.