Mated By The Demon Collections: Paranormal Romance

by Riley Moreno

  “Thank you!” I say with more enthusiasm than I feel. This was going to be a bad week; I could feel it in my tiny, awkward bones.

  The clients start to pile in and Sonya takes her son to her office while I filter pets and their owners on to the vet offices one by one. There is a mangy cat smell in the air today. A dog with a banged up leg whimpers in one corner. I send him in to Brenner’s office as soon as he’s free.

  I pick on my nails absentmindedly till Brenner calls me in to assist. I don’t have a degree to practice but I’m pretty handy in times of emergency. I’ve been stitching cuts and wounds since I was five; a valuable skill taught by my mom. She was an animal lover and we’d rescue birds and hungry mutts on our walks.

  The bogs leg is a chewed mess. It looks like it got in to a fight with a bear. Brenner’s got his amputation face on but I think he’s being forced to save the leg. He loves chopping limbs off the sadistic bastard!

  “He got out of his pen yesterday,” the owner was blabbering. “We’re very careful but he got out and zipped through the woods towards Shifter Grove; and you know what kinds of animals are abundant there.”

  That didn’t sound too promising for my rental prospects and I guess Sonya was being truthful. Yet why would she insist on staying there with her baby if it were such a dangerous place?

  I help staunch bleedings and hold the wounds open for him to get to the torn up muscles. Then when he’s done I stitch up the wound and dress it. Brenner pumps it full of morphine and we’re done.

  I clean up in the staff bathroom; it smells antiseptic which is oddly comforting. When I come back out there are five patients with disheveled pets in the waiting room and Sonya Blackpaw is talking to her very handsome, very butch husband. Diesel Wake looks like those men you see on the posters of action movies.

  “There she is,” Sonya says when I slide behind my desk.

  “Hi,” I say raising a limp hand.

  “Hey,” Diesel says jovially. He has the baby strapped to his chest in a carrier; instead of looking ridiculous he looks more dangerous with his cub. Now why would I think of that word? “Sonya tells me you’re looking for a place to stay.”

  “Yup,” I nod. I become monosyllabic in the presence of handsome men. It’s one of my moronic personality traits.

  “Well we have an abandoned cabin up in Shifter Grove about two miles from our place,” he said. “It’s abandoned and last I checked the owners all died or moved away so you shouldn’t have a problem. It was rented out a few years ago and the rent went to a PO Box so there is someone somewhere renting the property.”

  “Do you think they’d be okay with a new tenant?” Sonya asked.

  “I don’t know,” Diesel scratched his head. “But by the time a problem arises Lucy could find a new place. At least this gives her a wider window to look for listings in Waterville.”

  Or someplace else. Maybe this is a sign from God that I’m done with Waterville and small towns.

  “What do you say Lucy?” Sonya asked. “We’ll only be two miles down the road if you need us.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”

  Three words. That’s progress. I think.

  Chapter Two

  Dirty Dave

  The Waterville hotel is known for its family values and strict code of conduct. The Presidential Suite is currently hosting an orgy. Naked girls are everywhere, some are lounging about, backs arched so their meager tits look bigger, some are sucking cock or riding it.

  It would be beautiful to watch if the men weren’t such ugly sons of bitches. Old, liver spotted hands cup young flesh; sagging balls slap against taut silky thighs. Two young men stand at the door watching the proceedings. One is significantly taller than the other. The short one has a twitchy moustache, black and scraggly. He has skin the color of weak tea.

  The other is tall, well built and has a shaggy main of red hair. His green eyes drip contempt at what he is viewing. His generous mouth is slopped down in disapproval. He has thin scars running across his face from his left eyebrow to his right cheek as if a cat’s claw had swiped at it. It is a handsome face that could turn in to terrible horror when angered.

  “Be nice,” Miguel says. He’s already got a hard on but he’s trying hard to keep it professional.

  “Ah, they’re here,” a crusty old man with sagging balls calls them over. The girl pumping his junk doesn’t miss a beat. “So what do you have for us?”

  “Dave lives in the area,” Miguel said taking a seat opposite the man. He’s a bit hypnotized by the woman’s bobbing head.

  David looks pissed and he is pissed at the power positions in this meeting. These old white dudes know everything about him but he’s not even supposed to know their names.

  “And?” the man asks. He must be in his eighties. The rest of his party aren’t that much younger either. All over the age of sixty they were getting serviced like kings. It payed to be that rich.

  “The festival’s two days from now,” David says pushing his fists in his jacket pocket. He remains standing. “The Blood Moon marks the coming of age of most Shifters and the entire community takes part in it.”

  “How many are we talking?” a short man with the smallest dick David’s ever seen asks. He has two girls wrapped around him.

  “About 250 Shifters,” David say. “Their human family members don’t participate. They number around 300.”

  “So the woods will be awash with Shifters two days from now,” the first man said. “Is there an area where we can recuperate; make base camp.”

  “There’s an abandoned cabin a mile or two into the woods,” David’s throat is suddenly dry. “I can have that prepared for you.”

  “Excellent!” the first man seems satisfied. “The bag,” he indicates to Small Cock.

  Small Cock pulls a black plastic bag out from under his seat. He hands it to Miguel who takes it after wrenching his eyes from the girl sucking up Old Chief’s pipe. Miguel doesn’t check the money.

  “Please,” Old Chief says. “Help yourselves. There are many to go around.”

  Miguel looks like a kid with a five dollar bill in the candy store.

  David snarls at the girl that puts her hand on his arm, her breasts huge enough to suffocate a man in his sleep. Miguel snatches at her hand and pulls her on to his lap. David watches as Miguel begins to suck on her breasts. The woman looks bored. Miguel rubs her clit and she moans but it’s obviously an act.

  It is miserable.

  A redhead crawled over on all fours, her head snaking up Old Chiefs lap, joining the brunette who was lapping at his sorry excuse of a cock like she was starving. The red hair gleamed in the sunlight from the French windows behind the sofa. It burned, fire and boiling gold.

  David watched her lithe body glide up till she was flush against the Old Chief, her dark pink nipples hard and huge. Breastfed baby at home, David thought; wonder if it’s a boy.

  The Old Chief’s cock is twitching and he holds the face of the brunette down, pressing it upon his disgorging member, his lips locked firmly with the redheads. The Brunette comes up for air, her lips smeared with old man junk. The redhead, still kissing Old Chief, straddled him, her round butt cheeks, plump and spankable, quiver slightly as she descends and takes the man’s still hard cock inside her.

  All hail Viagra, David sneered. He’s seen enough. He snatches the bag off the floor where Miguel dropped it; the busty woman riding him and moaning dramatically, her swinging breasts in Miguel’s face.

  David kicks Miguel in the shins lightly to get his attention.

  “We’re leaving,” he says.

  “Oh come on man!” Miguel protests but David snarls and Miguel pushes the woman off of him, his dick shiny and hard from the busty woman’s juices. Miguel nearly trips in his haste to pull up his pants and follow David who is already out the door.

  David doesn’t like the deal, he doesn’t like the stupid old farts who think they’re the kings of the world with every creature at their feet. They�
��re sick men who want to hunt Aborigines in Australia, Pygmies in Congo and Shifter’s in their ‘natural habitat.’

  When Miguel had told him about it he had wanted to hit him across the head. But he figured if he didn’t do it someone else would and he needed the money. Not for some selfless thing like a mother in the hospital or to save his dad from cancer. Both his parents are dead. He needed it for himself because he thinks he deserves a break in this stupid life.

  “I’ll go check on the cabin.”

  “But the money,” Miguel protests. He tries to take the bag from David but he growls under his throat. Miguel knows better than to mess with a WereTiger.

  “My money goes where I go,” David says. “Here,” he hands Miguel a thick bundle of cash. “That’s for your small part in this.”

  “Come on man!” Miguel shouts. “This isn’t fair!”

  David pins him against the hotel building, his muscular forearm on Miguel’s windpipe.

  “Not fair?” he growls, “I’ll tell you what’s not fair. These old farts coming to hunt my kind and you having the balls to come and ask me to help kill them. I do all the work and you expect to get half just for getting me a connection? Is that the long and short of it, Miguel?”

  He can’t answer. David’s cutting off his air supply so he nods. His eyes are bulging.

  “Do you think that’s fair?”

  Shake of the head.

  “Good,” David lets him go. “I’m glad we agree.”

  David leaves him to piss his pants. He can still smell Miguel’s fear and ammonia when he reaches his car.

  Chapter Three

  Luckless Lucy in the Woods

  My new home is a dump. Sonya prattled on about how it was a ‘work in progress,’ she failed to mention it was a piece of crap property that looked like an old turd had been left to dry in the sun. It was modest. The living room was large and after we got rid of the rat colony under the floorboards it was also inhabitable.

  Diesel did most of the grunt work. He carried my sofa in while Sonya and I twaddle behind with a cushion a piece. I hung my Bon Jovi poster over my bed to cover the peeling wallpaper. Sonya made a meal on my stove while little Forrest toddled between her legs trying his best to topple her over.

  They are gone now and I’m lying in bed thinking about how alone I am; how if someone came to murder me no one would know. It’s a creepy house and screams of horrible things that must have happened here but it’s all I could get. I decide to take a few swigs of cough medicine and call it a night.

  I’ve just about dozed off when I feel someone shaking my leg. I kick at the hand and mumble something about letting me sleep but the hand pulls harder and I nearly topple off my bed. My blue hair is in my eyes and it takes me a few disoriented swipes to see a man standing above me.

  Holy hell!

  I’m screaming. I’m scrambling back on my hands and I’m screaming. The man ambles towards me; he grabs me around the head silencing my shrill shrieks of horror. He smells of rich soil and deep woody musk. The scars across his face stand out in the gloom. His peculiar green eyes are boring in to mine.

  “Hush your mouth,” he snarls. His voice is deep, booming. “What do you think you’re doing here?”

  “I live here!” I say. Not really. He has his hand over my mouth so it comes out as a mumble.

  “What?” he asks. The proximity of his body against mine is arousing in a most alarming way.

  I roll my eyes and point at his hand. He removes it reluctantly.

  “I live here,” I say and push his hands away. I find my feet and stand five feet tall. It’s like a mere cat standing up to an elephant. “Who are you?”

  “This is my cabin,” the man says. “I own it.”

  I’m genuinely stumped. I thought he’d say this was his crack den where he came to shoot up most nights; or a Satanist cults meeting place or even the playground of a deviant orgy group. I did not expect him to come out as the owner of the property. Diesel had said the owners weren’t around!

  “Oh,” eloquent me, I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “You’re trespassing,” he growled. That got me out of my comatose state.

  “I am not!” I screeched as if he’d accused me of adultery in 1865. “I paid rent and everything. The Sherriff said I could stay here and send my checks to PO Box account. You did receive my check, didn’t you?”

  He looked dazed like I’d sucker punched him.

  “What’s your PO Box number?” I ask on a whim. His slack jaw and over bright eyes are rousing my suspicions.

  “Okay so I lied,” he concedes but he doesn’t look too pleased about it. “But I need this property two days from now.”

  “What for?” I ask.

  “That’s private,” he says. His evasion makes me angry. What I should be doing is calling the cops on this freak who entered my house and tried to terrify me with my second eviction in 24 hours, no matter that he was very handsome and made me a little wet between the legs. But I won’t. I’m alone, in a house this man is capable of getting into. Let’s just resolve this rather than enrage him with threats of arrest and end up being murdered.

  “Well tough,” I shrug.

  “Can you clear out for two days?” he asks. “Loan me the use of it? I can pay you handsomely. You can stay at the Waterville hotel, huh, imagine not doing your dishes. Or take a trip, go see the Grand Canyon.”

  It was tempting. The man himself was tempting. But I pushed both thought in the back of my mind. I have no idea what he wants to do here, and I’m not packing all that damn crockery again just so people won’t use it.

  “No,” I say as politely as I can manage. “I’m sorry but I’m not interested.” The shadow of a smile that had been playing in his eyes disappeared completely. For a fraction of a second I thought he might attack me but he seemed to rein it in and shrug with an effort. “Your funeral,” he muttered ominously and left. I followed him to make sure he was out of my door. He paused at the threshold of the front door and glanced back at me, his eyes piercing in to mine and I felt myself flush. He sneered and lifted his middle finger, and sauntered out of my house.

  Chapter Four

  The Family Man

  Diesel Wake could feel the swell of Sonya’s breasts against his chest. She didn’t sleep she sprawled. Her honey caramel hair tickled his face and he tucked them behind her ears gently. He cupped her cheek, and kissed the tip of her nose, his other hand snaking around her waist, his mouth closing around a hard nipple straining against her nightgown.

  Sonya moaned and darted her hand down his sweatpants, stroking his aching hard on.

  “Mama!” Forrest cried.

  Diesel let out a frustrated sigh. Sonya giggled, kissed him on the cheek then got out of bed to attend to their baby boy. Diesel hopped in to a cold shower, his penis wilting under the onslaught of freezing water. It was a little frustrating; Sonya was exhausted at night and he was horny all the time. But Forrest was worth the blue balls. He guessed.

  He’d been lonely before Sonya, before Shifter Grove. This place had opened its arms to the ex-Navy SEAL; a man who had no family and they had made him Sheriff. Sonya had completed the sense of emptiness and she had given him not only a son but reunited him with his father. Andrew Wake lived in Poughkeepsie with his second family; but had extended open arms to Diesel and Sonya.

  “Bye, kiddo,” Diesel kissed Forrest’s bobbing head and Sonya’s puckered lips and headed to the office. It was a quick drive taking no more than fifteen minutes. All of Shifter Grove was a drive of fifteen minutes from cabin to cabin; it made it easier to live as a community; not too far that it would be a hassle getting in touch, yet not too close that Shifting could be dangerous for the non-Shifting populace.

  Diesel took his job as Sheriff very seriously. Last winter a boy had gone on a Shift all alone and ended up in a ravine with his leg broken. It had been lucky that Diesel had found him before he died of hypothermia.

  “What’s up Bill?”r />
  Bill was Diesel’s deputy. Tall and gangling he didn’t have Diesel’s physical prowess but he was an intelligent boy and was useful.

  “Morning, D,” Bill said waving at him from his desk, his head bent over a piece of paper. “I’ve got a ton load of requests here,” he said finally looking up. He lifted the sheaves of paper. “Some of the families are concerned about the Blood Moon ritual.”

  “What about it?” Diesel asked.

  “They are concerned about security.”

  “As long as they stay indoors they’ll be fine,” D spread his hands as if it were obvious. “It’s like any other night, only all the Shifter’s will be out is all.”

  “Yeah,” Bill said his lips tightening in a grimace, “these are from Shifters.”

  “I don’t get you,” Diesel said.

  “The Shifter’s are concerned about the kind of security there will be to avoid conflict and preventable slaughter,” Bill said then raised a hand when Diesel was about to interrupt. “There’s also a rumor about a hunt.”

  “What hunt?” Diesel asked leaning forward on his desk.

  “Ramsey’s spotted a man named Arthur Grim in Waterville,” Bill said. “Apparently Arthur Grim is a man of singular tastes; namely hunting of exotic animals. Ramsey’s certain he’s here to hunt Shifter’s during the Blood Moon.”

  “That sounds a bit far-fetched to me,” Diesel said shaking his head. Ramsey had been known to be a bit soft in the head and had bombarded them with wild claims of alien invasions.

  “He’s not the only one, D,” Bill said. “Courtney; the redhead bar girl down at the Pig Out,” Diesel looked confused. “The one with the big knockers.”

  “Oh yeah,” Diesel said.

  “She says she was at a party Grim threw and there was talk of hunting and Blood Moon and we ought to be careful.”

  “I don’t know,” Diesel still didn’t look convinced.

  “She saw David Meyer there.”

  That made Diesel sit up straight and pay attention.