Preternatural: An Erotic Paranormal Romance Collection (3 Book Bundle)

by Connor, Cara B.

  “Before you do anything,” Thomas said as he bent closer to him, “you need to listen to me. You wouldn’t have believed me before now, but I’m something like a modern day wizard, and as punishment for making your judgment without getting to know the real Pamela, I’ve changed you into a furry little brown and black dog. But magic, as you might call it, well, it doesn’t always work smoothly and definitely not as you might have planned it. It’s not always kind and gentle that way. Just like life I guess you’d say.”

  Logan couldn’t make sense of what his friend was talking about, but slowly the reality of what his friend was saying dawned on him, and he took in his brown paws and the dog sounds that came from his throat when he tried to talk. He still felt strange, having to orientate himself in his current form.

  It’d been several minutes yet he still didn’t feel right at home in this new body. He felt dizzy, disoriented… And weird… for lack of a better word, he just felt weird! What is happening to me?

  “You don’t know anything at all about Pamela.” Thomas went on. “You’re selfish and clueless and have never really cared about her problems. So here’s your new job, you have to go find her, and find out more about her. Until you can prove that your reaction to who she is, who she really is, is justified, you’ll stay just like you are right now.”

  Then Thomas got up, but before he left he told Logan one last thing, “Alright kid, the only way you can reverse this is by proving that you will make sacrifices for her if it comes right down to it. If you don’t, you’ll both be done for.” Then he turned and left, leaving Logan all alone in the park.

  As he lay there, new senses flooded Logan’s mind… smells he had never noticed before and sounds he’d never heard. He lay there for a few moments, trying to make sense of everything, trying to stay calm… until he realized that nothing was going to change if he didn’t do something. Anything.

  So he managed to get it together enough to sit up on his haunches and look about the park from a completely new vantage point. And then a natural urge that he didn’t have before came upon him and told him which way to go to find her, and a loyalty to her overcame him. So he started walking and after a few steps that changed to a run.

  All the new things he was now encountering… overwhelming would have been an understatement. But he kept on moving anyway… he had to find her! In the middle of the city square he stood, admiring the sheer size of everything around him… Past the new smells, new sounds, barking, cat… whoooh, that was a tough one because he really wanted to find out more about them.

  But he couldn’t call her – obviously! And he couldn’t ask for directions… even if he wanted to… so he just kept on moving toward his intended target like a dowser searching for underground water. He was on her trail.

  Hours passed… but he still had no idea if he was closer to finding her or not, but some unknown sixth sense seemed to be leading him to her – he had no idea how. Then the wind changed and suddenly he caught a scent, drifting across the streets on the breeze, and reaching deep into his soul. He breathed in deeply, and felt almost giddy at the scent.

  Then he became aware of another problem that was starting to slowly rear it’s head – he was hungry. Not long after that the need to eat soon overruled the search for Pam. He was in search of something to fill the dark hole in his belly.

  Sniff, sniff, sniff… he smelled the air and the ground looking for something to eat. But he kept on moving too. He started tasting new things on his mission just in case they might be edible… grass… nah… piece of unwrapped candy… yes… orange peel… ick… wood chips… nah… earthworm… surprisingly, not bad… then finally, a few loose french fries. Yum! And at that moment he smelled something new and exciting. Something that smelled heavenly – and the scent was getting stronger.

  It’s some sort of perfume, he gathered, because he’d never smelled anything as sweet before, but it numbed his mind and he could only drink it in. Nothing else seemed to matter at that time! He continued to move on in the direction of the new scent and then he found the source – an overturned trash can filled with bags! Score!

  The bags strewn about the street were all tied up but the plastic bags were no problem for Logan’s sharp claws and teeth. He sniffed about the treasure to find the exact thing he caught a whiff of a few blocks away… and then he found it. A steak bone wrapped in tinfoil! Perfect!

  With an enthusiasm he hadn’t had since he was a kid, he ripped open the trash bag, located the steak bone and removed the tin foil in seconds. Then he sat down licking his prize and finished chewing it up in minutes.Yum! he thought to himself. That was a good start but he was still hungry – and now thirsty too, but with a good treat in his belly he moved on, pulled by an invisible desire to find Pam. Call it doggie GPS if you’d like.

  A Girl’s Best Friend: An Erotic Shapeshifter Paranormal Romance, Chapter 6

  It took him most of the night to find her, but he finally did! He was tired, his paws and shoulders ached and he was even more hungry than ever… but he did it! This was her place, he had no doubt about that fact in his mind. Exhausted, he walked up the 3 steps to her tiny porch and sat down in front of the white door with the peeling paint panting almost uncontrollably.

  But he knew she was inside. He didn’t know how he knew, he just did. So he waited there at her door, sometimes sleeping, but often waking up to sounds he didn’t know. Finally, dawn came, and the sun colored the world to him in different ways. He yawned and rolled over on his side, tired but happy, and fell back asleep.

  Moments later he heard footsteps inside, as he pricked up his erect ears, looking at the crack at the bottom of the door intently. Minutes later a key turned in the lock, and he was momentarily distracted by the sensation of his length of a tail, wagging. Then the door swung open and there she was, looking worn and tired, dressed in a waitress uniform.

  “Well, hello puppy,” she said to the big dog by her front door, kneeling down and holding her hand out to him. He licked it immediately, not knowing what else to do, and she giggled. Hmmm, that was new. He hadn’t heard her laugh like that before.

  “Who do you belong to, boy?” she asked the stray while scratching behind his ears. “I love your black coat and red coat – and your lovely tall ears!” She giggled again. “You’re such a handsome German Shepherd – I’ve always wanted one, and here you are.”

  He was vaguely annoyed at how good the scratching felt, but gave himself over to the feeling and before long she was knelt over him petting him all over. Then he rolled over, showing her his empty belly that definitely needed a rub.

  She complied immediately by squatting down and scratching his belly and all over his chest. And just then she found a spot right underneath his rib cage that set his back legs to twitching like they had a mind all their own. He smiled that perfect doggy smile upside down at her as his lips curled back to expose a set of teeth that demonstrated no threat of any kind to her.

  “You don’t have a home, do you, boy? No tag or collar. Hmmm, you can stay with me if you don’t mind being alone all day while I’m at work.” She kept scratching as she cooed to him, and he had to admit that her voice was soothing and the scratching felt great. His legs kept wiggling now just as fast as his lovely little tail.

  “Come on in, boy,” she said to the big dog. “I have some leftovers I can give you. But then I have to go to work, so you’ll have to wait until I get home if you want to play some more, okay?”

  She fed him some pizza crusts and poured him a bowl of water that she put just outside the door on her small porch. Then she left for work. Logan went over, circled a few times, then laid down just outside her front door and fell asleep. The later in the day it got, the more intense his desire to see her grew. New and exciting sounds and smells surrounded him but he fought the temptation to wander.

  He stayed there all day long just outside her front door, except for the few times he needed to go relieve himself, until she returned later that evening. Needles
s to say when she returned, he did a dance for her like none she had never seen or had a chance to enjoy. He literally jumped for joy! And his lovely long tail never slowed down once! That was part of who he was now, loyal until the end.

  This became their routine and the days passed so quickly. He spent his time with her when she wasn’t at work, always by her side, feeling lost when he wasn’t. He waited at her door until she came home, not wanting to wander off, and she fed him and took him for walks, talking to him about everything, from her hobbies and dreams to her fears.

  Logan found out that she was a whole different person than he’d always made her out to be, and as the days passed he found that a different feeling was developing, something deeper and stronger than the natural loyalty of a dog to its owner. Logan began to admit to himself that he was falling in love with her.

  A Girl’s Best Friend: An Erotic Shapeshifter Paranormal Romance, Chapter 7

  Thomas’s words were haunting him. He didn’t know how to prove his renewed devotion to her in the form of a dog. He couldn’t do anything else than be by her side whenever possible. One day when she was at work he made the trip to the suburbs to find Thomas, but his friend was nowhere to be found. His frustration grew as time passed and he started to realize that he might never change into a man again, and might never be able to show Pamela exactly what she meant to him now, and that he was wrong in turning her down the way he did.

  On one of her off days Pamela was sitting on the plastic chair she had in her sparsely furnished duplex, reading the newspaper. The inside was neat and smelled of disinfectant, and it didn’t look worn down and neglected like the outside and the rest of the lot. A knock on the door got Logan up, growling at whatever stranger was interrupting their time together.

  Pamela opened it, and it was her father. And old man with white hair stood there in the pale yellow light, looking at her with an expressionless face. The old man stood back a bit at first, but after a few moments Pamela slowly gestured for him to step inside. Logan felt the tension ripple through her, almost as if it rippled through him, and for the first time since she started telling him about her dad, he understood what fear she’d known.

  This man had something about him that he hated immediately, something that smelled dangerous. He barked and barked but Pamela scolded him, and invited her father inside. He couldn’t believe that she was doing that. He barked more, his aggression growing, but she told him firmly to keep quiet, and he knew if he didn’t she would lock him outside. He lay down next to her, his body taught, every muscle trembling.

  Her father was clearly drunk, sobbing in her little kitchen, begging her to come back, telling her how much she hurt him by running off. Her father screamed in agony, begging Pam to come back home with him. What a ridiculous drama queen, Logan thought to himself.

  How could Pamela not see through this man? She listened silently, offering him a tissue when he became a real mess. She kept saying no to him, to Logan’s relief, but every time she did, the man sitting across from her got more and more angry, and Logan could smell his aggression, like something acrid in his nose.

  “Spit it out girl, I don’t have all night. Are you coming with me or not?” her father yelled at her.

  She stood there in front of him, motionless, like a deer in the headlights. The next thing Logan knew he saw her dad curl his hands around a butter knife that lay on the table. Logan, understanding the man’s intention, jumped up with a growl, leaped into the air, and let out a piercing howl from his throat just as the butter knife sank in between his ribs, instead of Pamela’s neck as her father had meant to do.

  Logan had jumped in front of her to save her from that fate. Everything went black. This is the end, he thought, at least the last thing I saw was her face.

  ——–

  Suddenly he felt better, he could breathe again but the scents… well, they just weren’t as powerful as before. His head didn’t feel light, and his vision had cleared up. Logan blinked his eyes twice, trying to adjust to the bright light, wondering where he was. How did he get here?

  A sharp pain to his ribs brought him back to reality but made him dizzy too, but when he lifted his arm to reach for the wound, he realized he was human again. He was human again! And in the hospital. Thomas sat next to his bed, grinning over at him.

  “What happened?” Logan asked his friend weakly.

  “You saved her,” Thomas told his friend. “You’re okay now and you are in the hospital.”

  “But what about her dad?”

  “All locked up.” Thomas confessed. “And you proved yourself. Well done, young man.”

  Thomas sauntered out of the hospital room, smiling, just as the nurse came in to check on Logan’s current condition.

  A Girl’s Best Friend: An Erotic Shapeshifter Paranormal Romance, Chapter 8

  He slept fitfully that night, and a week later Logan was out. It took a couple of days mulling the idea around in his head, but the more he thought about it, the stronger he felt about giving it a shot. What did he have to lose? He didn’t have the girl of his dreams now anyway; it couldn’t get much worse than that, really. But he knew that he had to go win her back now…

  Finally he decided to do it. Logan called her up later on. He swallowed nervously, not knowing what to say, walking up the steps to her sad little duplex. She didn’t know he’d been the dog. But he had to fix where he messed up without any help. But what if she didn’t want him anymore after the way he had treated her in the past?

  He felt guilty now that the roles were reversed and had a change of heart since he realized he judged her way too easily. Logan passed the swings in front of the large schoolyard right next to her small rental home, counting the missing panels that created those ragged, gaping holes to distract himself enough to keep himself from feeling like he was stuck in a horror movie.

  He knocked on her door, and after a few seconds she opened it, looking a little stunned to see him there, but then she smiled, and he knew it would be alright. She grabbed his right hand and pulled him inside, shutting the door behind him.

  “I’m sorry.” Logan said as he entered Pamela’s apartment. He hesitated a moment again, but then decided it was now or never, and stepped into the small duplex she was now living in.

  “What’d you do, Logan?” she asked with a gleeful admiration.

  “I just… well… yeah.”

  He shook his head lightly, thought about what Thomas had explained. He wanted to tell her that he was the dog, but when he’d opened his mouth to mutter the words, something prohibited him to speak. Without a doubt it was Thomas’s magic still working on him. He grabbed at his throat as if to suggest that he was choking, swallowed a couple times just to make sure he’d still had his breath.

  Pamela’s jaw dropped. She actually thought he was choking as well. He did gasp once before grabbing at his esophagus. By the time she’d reached him and started patting on his back, he was clearing his throat, gargling on his own phlegm if you will, and coming back to his senses. She asked him if he’d wanted a glass of water.

  “I’m alright… but yeah, a glass of water will do fine,” he gasped, in between clearing out his throat.

  He took a seat on the couch as he waited on the drink.

  Pamela came back into the living room with a tall glass of ice water and a cheery look. Her beautiful eyes sparkled. Logan had never seen her so full of life and energy. She gently handed him the tall glass of ice water and took a seat beside him, and asked where he had been.

  “These past couple weeks?” he asked with wide eyes. Yes, it was a shock to him although it shouldn’t have been. He had not prepared any type of speech or bogus story to feed her mind. He repeated himself before finally asking her how she’d been.

  “I’ve been great,” she grinned. “Nothing could ever be more wonderful.”

  Logan stole a glance at Pam as she passed him in the room. She looked gorgeous, her dark hair pulled back in a mini ponytail and her emerald green sweater
reflecting the color of her gorgeous eyes. She almost shimmered it seemed.

  He turned away as she came closer. He didn’t want to be caught staring. But as time went on, Logan realized that Pamela was completely different than he thought at first, and he falls in love with her, realizing that he treated her wrong.

  She now acted like a new woman. This was a side of Pamela that he’d never witnessed in his human appearance. He had only seen this side as a pup, licking the palm of her hand or snuggling up underneath her. He didn’t know what to say, then looked over toward the kitchen entrance and saw a pair of tin bowls on the floor.

  “Oh,” he said to her with a smile. “You got a cat?”

  He knew she did not have a cat but figured he’d play along with the setup. He needed a story to play off of before getting to the meat of his own spiel.

  “Cats… oh no, yuck!” she laughed, slipping her tongue to the edge of her lips as she bit down, tilting her head to the left and pulling an imaginary rope over her head at arm’s length.

  Logan laughed at the act. The longer he sat there the more he wondered how he let her get away from him. “So I guess it wasn’t a cat then,” he said.

  “Oh no…” she stretched the word no into a two second long term. At that moment she fell silent for a split second, lost in thought. She closed her eyes and thought about what she was going to say next.

  “Logan,” she said, excited. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  He didn’t know what to think. He just openly flapped his arms and let them fall to his lap. “Ha,” he blithely huffed, not exactly happy, but not knowing what else to say or do.