20 Shades of Shifters: A Paranormal Romance Collection

by Demelza Carlton

  I wrinkled my nose, reaching up and pushing up my glasses. “I had a quick chat with, like, a weatherman, I think.”

  “A weatherman? What the hell?”

  “I don’t know! He said it was going to rain, and then he walked off.”

  Katelyn gave a melodramatic sigh. “Libby, you have to try harder, or you’re just going to end up Libby the Loser. This is your future. A grim, dark future with a knitting circle and fifty cats.”

  Jacques was awkwardly hovering around while Katelyn interrogated me. I caught his eyes and gave him a kind of ‘help me’ look. I didn’t like Katelyn going home with strangers all the time, but it was her life, her choice.

  “It won’t be, okay? I’ll stay here and keep looking. You two go have fun.”

  I shepherded Katelyn towards Jacques and they stumbled towards the main exit together, arm in arm. I watched them go, pulling out my phone when they were out of sight. I pulled up my journal for today, tapped out Waste of time!, finished the surviving water in my glass then weaved my way through the crowd to the back exit.

  I was about five minutes out from the club, and about fifteen minutes away from my apartment, when the sky opened up and it began raining sideways.

  A wall of rainwater buffeted me as I walked. That slick red dress of mine displayed a property I had not been forewarned of: it turned see-through when wet. Canberra was a big place. It was late. Busses and trains weren’t running at this hour; I needed a cab. Huddling under a bus shelter, I opened my waterlogged purse and pulled out my iPhone.

  Soaked through, dead and silent. I’d gotten it brand new, too, and it had taken me months to save up for.

  I waited an hour for the rain to stop but it didn’t. Freezing, with no way of contacting any of my friends and attracting entirely discomfiting stares from a trio of guys who looked like they were part of a gang, I started to walk back to my apartment in the pouring rain.

  Splash, splash went my ruined high heels as I trudged through the puddles on the footpath, arms huddled around me for warmth, trying to focus my mind on warming myself up. I thought of warm sunshine, of an electric heater, of a nice warm fuzzy blanket.

  A car drove behind me, headlights shining through the rain. I moved to the side, off the footpath, so that the inevitable splash from the wheels wouldn’t soak me further.

  I stepped right into an enormous dog crap. The splash got me anyway.

  It took me nearly half an hour, hopping between the sparse shelter offered by overhanging shop awnings, to finally drag my soaked, smelly, freezing self back to my apartment. A quick search of my purse revealed that my keys were missing. They must have fallen out when I pulled out my phone.

  I needed to get inside and an easily broken glass window was stopping me. My iPhone was a brick. This was an easy puzzle to solve.

  I stepped back and hurled my dead phone through the window, then reached around and opened the door from the inside. I stumbled into my apartment, kicked off my stinking shoes near the door where the mess would be easy to clean up and sank onto the couch. I buried my face in the pillows and tried not to cry.

  Clinton, my cat, began sniffing at my hands. He purred and licked my wet fingers. I blindly reached for his head, giving his ears a playful scruff.

  “Hey, Clinton. My special little man.”

  I rubbed around and down his neck, tracing my fingers over his coarse fur.

  “How was your night, huh? Did you miss me when I was gone?”

  He purred, rubbing himself up against the side of the couch. Clinton wasn’t usually this affectionate. He must have sensed that I was upset. I gave his ears a rough scratching.

  “Yeah, I bet. You probably just want to be fed, don’t you, boy?”

  I interpreted his incessant meowing to be an answer in the affirmative. Groaning, I hopped off the couch and wandered over to the kitchen, looking for cat food. I was out.

  “I’ll go shopping tomorrow,” I promised Clinton, reaching down to give his yowling self another pat. Strangely he didn’t seem to want food, but he kept yowling. Shrugging it off, I walked down the corridor to my bedroom, tugged off the red dress and threw on a pyjama top, then faceplanted in my nice warm bed. In moments I was sound asleep and dreaming.

  In the dream I wasn’t myself.

  I ran on all fours, crushing the grass beneath me. I had four strong legs that were covered in orange and black stripes. My eyesight was clearer than it had ever been. My ears were like radar, hearing everything around me. Every scent excited me, caught my attention, and I felt alive.

  I stopped under a tree at the top of a hill and I felt my form melt away, then stood upright and walked like a person. Now I was myself again, with olive human skin. I was naked, without a single stitch of clothing, but it felt completely natural. The air, cool and refreshing, whipped around my body and the tree bent towards me, worshipping me. This place was high; I could tell by the cool, thin air. A small mountain, perhaps… a peak in the earth covered in lurid green grass and crowned by a single tree.

  “You took your time,” came a voice, a voice I remembered. The man from the bar. The wind continued to blow, whipping the grass around but making no sound; there was just breathing, and I felt hands, strong hands, slide around my hips. I smiled over my shoulder, closing my eyes, feeling the warmth of a chest pressing up against my back.

  “Did I? Aww,” I purred. It was my own voice, but odd; it was me and not me. My tone, my inflections, coming from my throat… but it was raw. Powerful. Strong. This wasn’t the voice of Libby the Loser, this was the voice of an animal set free. A powerful, impossibly confident creature who had nothing to fear from anyone. “I felt like I needed to stretch my legs.”

  “I was waiting for you, you know.” His strong hands gave me a gentle squeeze around my middle, pressing me against his body. He kissed my neck and I tilted my head, giving him access to my bare skin. “It’s not polite to keep the Rakshasa waiting…”

  I reached around behind, blindly finding his body, my hands exploring his hips. I touched his skin, warm and inviting, and closed my eyes. “I would have thought that was my line, now I’m one of the clan. I’ve been waiting for you, Ishan, for my entire life.” I wiggled and squirmed, turning around to face him, and I looked into his eyes. They were just as I remembered. Bright blue, the colour of the midday sky. I slowly slid my hands around his strong shoulders.

  He leaned forward, his breath washing over my face, and his lips found mine. I kissed him, feeling heat rising up from my toes, little sparks of energy coursing up my body. I’d kissed boys before—the kind of awkward, shy kisses where nobody really knows what they’re doing—but I’d never, never felt anything like this. This was kissing in a raw, passionate sense, a kiss that wasn’t the release of sexual tension but something that escalated it, like a charge being passed through me.

  I ran my hands along his arms, drawing them down to his sides, pulling his body against mine. I pushed him over onto his back, falling with him onto the thick, bright green grass. I kissed his chest, pressing my lips to his tan skin, my body rubbing incessantly against his.

  Strong hands gripped my backside and I squirmed for him, emitting a soft moan. This person I was in the dream wasn’t anything like who I really was, but I liked her. I shifted my posture, pressing my groin against his and straddling his body, pinning his warm shaft down against his belly.

  I’d had sexy dreams before, but nothing, nothing like this. I was always the meek receiver, never had any control. I’d dream of entirely mundane things: of making out with a cute guy on my couch, or meeting the perfect stranger in the library where I worked. Silly things that seemed frivolous and petty in the light of this wonderful experience.

  Instead, now, I was in control and I was making love on the crown of the world.

  I eased forward, casually stroking my groin forward, teasing him with my bare flesh. I felt his girth slide beneath me as I settled back. I arched my back, pushing out my breasts, closing my eyes as I felt him en
ter me.

  The moment he did the wind picked up, silently whipping the grass around us into a frenzy as I began to rock atop him, my whole body moving sensually, moving with the wind. My thighs dragged across Ishan’s flesh as I pushed him into me, this stranger I felt like I’d known for my entire life. White, puffy balls from the cottonwood trees floated all around me, carried on the wind like a celebration of my raw, unleashed sexual power.

  His hands explored me, but in a familiar sense, his strong fingers tracing their way up my sides, over my breasts, then down my belly to my hips. I worked at him, my hands gripping his chest, feeling intense, powerful waves of pleasure wash over me. It wasn’t mere sexual pleasure—I’d played with myself before, I’d had an orgasm, I knew what to expect—this was more. This was a connection, a union both physical and spiritual between two people, and this was the physical side of it being expressed in a raw, primal sense that didn’t seem to be able to confine itself within our bodies. All around us, nature began to respond; the wind howled, the grass writhed and thrashed underneath us and the tree bent almost to the ground as my pleasure grew and grew.

  My fingernails dug into his chest, holding him close, and he pounded up at me, his groin thumping against mine in a rhythm: even, fluid, sensual… but needfully, too. He wanted me as much as I wanted him and I could feel that. And I wanted to pleasure him; I wanted him to take me, to exhaust himself within me, to complete the union that we had. I felt him move within me, his eager body driving against mine and I moaned. I sank my teeth into his shoulder, gripping him tightly, unwilling to let go, unwilling to let this pleasure end. This perfection.

  The world grew dark as my pleasure mounted, the whole hill bathed in a dark crimson blanket. I stopped, twisting around, looking over my shoulder. The sun above me was cast into shadow as the moon moved across it, blocking its light, darkening the whole of the world. I felt my weight drop and, when I looked below me, Ishan turned translucent and vanished before my eyes as the world grew darker and darker.

  There was a loud crack, the sound of a gun.

  Right before the sun vanished completely I woke up, covered in sweat and alone in my apartment.

  2

  The Window

  Stumbling out of bed, drenched in sweat, I followed the sound, coming from within my apartment, of high-pitched squeaking. It sounded like a mechanical device that needed oiling, squeaking lightly but incessantly, but as I got closer I realised that it was the sound of meowing cats.

  As in multiple.

  I found Clinton inside my cupboard, along with three baby kittens, squeaking in incredibly high-pitched voices. They had Clinton’s orange coat, but patches of black and white, too. My shoe collection, neatly arranged at the floor of the cupboard, was covered in blood and afterbirth.

  It took a second for me to process this. Clinton wasn’t my special little man. ‘He’ was a female cat.

  “I don’t believe it,” I muttered, regarding the three squealing little kittens as they nursed on Clinton’s teats. “Even my damn cat can get some easier than I can.” I crouched down beside the four cats, reaching out to give Clinton a pat. “How the hell did you manage this, huh? You live inside…”

  It would remain a mystery. The mess grossed me out but I didn’t have the energy to clean it up right away (and didn’t want to disturb Clinton-ette any further) so I just left it there and wandered back out to the kitchen.

  The dream stuck with me, though, wild and vivid and real. In my ‘just woken up’ sleep haze it seemed much more real to me than this moment, as though the world around me were the dream and making love on a mountaintop had been the reality.

  “I’m probably just coming down with the flu,” I said to nobody, running my hands through my hair and trying to make sense of the situation. “I was out in the cold. That’s probably it.”

  I sank into the chair next to my small kitchen table. There was the briefest of silences, then,

  “Libby?”

  I practically jumped out of my skin, shrieking and flailing my hands uselessly, knocking my purse off the table and scattering its contents all over the floor. I turned around, nearly snapping my neck.

  It was just Katelyn, clad in her underwear and wearing a sleepy expression.

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “I…” My heart was beating fifty million beats a second. “Jesus, Katelyn, don’t scare me like that! Holy shit!”

  She laughed, shaking her head. “Sorry! I just came over here after the storm last night. My roof collapsed and I didn’t know where to go. I tried calling you but your phone was off, so I thought I’d crash on your couch. I thought you’d be cool with it.”

  My hands trembled slightly as I slowly began to calm down. “Okay, that’s fine. Sorry I shouted.” I remembered the broken window and put my head in my hands again. “Sorry about the glass too.”

  “Glass?”

  Strangely wide awake now that I’d been scared out of my skin, I pointed a finger to the window near my door. “Yeah, the window, I had to break—”

  It was intact, a clear pane of glass exactly where the last one had been. There wasn’t a single hint of any glass on the floor, or anywhere.

  “Libby?” asked Katelyn, moving to stand over beside me. “You okay?”

  “T-The window,” I stammered, “I broke it last night. I broke it with my phone, because I’d dropped my keys…”

  “Doesn’t look broken to me.”

  It didn’t make any sense. I had a clear, vivid memory of being outside, freezing, and throwing my dead phone through the window. I remembered the shattering glass. I remembered gingerly reaching in to turn the handle. “No, I smashed it, I did. I had to, to get in.”

  “But it looks just the way it always does. Hang on, look.” Katelyn skipped towards the window, and tapped on it with a finger. “There’s scratches on this glass. Remember when you just got Clinton and that bird kept coming by the glass, and how Clinton would paw at it to try and get it? Those scratches are still here.”

  “But I broke it with my iPhone. Last night.”

  “Doesn’t look that way.”

  I stared, dumbfounded, at the glass. Even from where I was sitting I could see that she was right—little tiny scratch marks, from a young kitten, all over it.

  I remembered Clinton’s little surprise. “Speaking of kittens…”

  Katelyn looked at me oddly. “I… what?”

  I grimaced slightly. “Sorry, I was just thinking out loud. Clinton—I’m not sure I can call her that anymore—had a bunch of kittens last night. I think they’re sleeping at the moment.”

  “Huh? But Clinton’s male.”

  “No, she’s actually… she’s female.”

  Katelyn stared at me without saying anything.

  I waved a hand down the hallway. “Check the cupboard down the hall. I have no idea how he—she—got knocked up, but… God.”

  Katelyn continued to stare at me, slowly slipping into the seat beside me, reaching out and touching my knee. “Libby?”

  “Umm. Yeah?”

  She took a deep breath. “Look, um, I know things haven’t been going well for you recently, but you’re my best friend, okay? You know I’m always here for you. If the going out thing is starting to get to you, we can do something else on Friday night, okay? We don’t have to. I know this—”

  I boggled. “I’m not crazy, okay?”

  “Really? Because, like, you’re going on about breaking glass that isn’t broken, about losing your keys that aren’t lost, and about cats that turn from male to female and get pregnant. You’re sure sounding crazy.”

  “Go check the hall!” I tilted my head. “And how did you know my keys aren’t lost?”

  She pointed at my hip. “They’re in your pocket.”

  They were, too, the black lanyard poking out. I pulled them out with a jingle and vaguely remembered putting them in there at the club. “Well,” I sighed, “at least I didn’t lose my keys.” I put them back in my pocke
t. “Anyway, where’s… Jack?”

  “Who?”

  I closed my eyes, shaking my head. “No, I didn’t imagine that. Last night, you picked up this guy, with the—”

  “Oh! Jacques. Yeah, um, when he discovered my house had kind of collapsed he buggered off. I got his number, though.”

  “Well, that’s something, at least.” I pushed myself up to my feet. “Let’s go see these horrid little things.”

  “They are so cute!”

  I groaned as Katelyn continued to play with the sleepy kittens, alternating between patting them and patting Clintonette. “Yeah,” I murmured, “the vet bills are going to be really cute, too. Can you imagine how many shots these little squealers are going to need?”

  “Oh, who cares. They’re adorable!”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, you were saying about me becoming a cat lady? This. This is the day everything went horribly wrong.”

  “I’ll adopt one, if you want,” Katelyn said, gently patting one of the kittens on the head.

  “Okay, but only if you get it neutered first.”

  She laughed and nodded, giggling inanely at the prospect. “Sure, sure. I’ll make sure.”

  I wanted to say something but there was a polite knocking at the door. I shot Katelyn a confused look and then hopped up to answer it, making my way down the corridor to the entrance, putting my eye up against the peephole.

  And I found myself looking right into a set of bright blue eyes.

  It was him. It was the guy from the club—the guy from my dream. Ishan Kari. I still remembered his name. I gave a little squeak of surprise and fear.

  “Hello?” He’d heard me.

  “… hi! Just a second!” I fumbled with the latch, pulling it back then opening the door wide open. “Hello?”

  He smiled at me, a curious expression painted on his face. “Nice pyjamas?” he remarked.

  I stared at him blankly. “Huh?”