20 Shades of Shifters: A Paranormal Romance Collection

by Demelza Carlton

  “Hurry!” hissed Asmodeus, throwing a toothbrush at me. “What the fuck are you staring at your own tits for?”

  That was a good point. I grabbed the dirty pair of jeans, thrust my hand into the back pocket, and withdrew Juliet’s pen. It still stank, but there was no time to do anything about it. Holding the messy thing I ran out of the bathroom.

  Gabe was waiting for me on the other side, his flaming pistol held comfortably in both hands. “Let’s go,” he said, and together the three of us bolted out of the master bedroom, Asmodeus buzzing ahead of us.

  A colossal foot descended down through the ceiling, crushing the room we had just left, blasting the walls into splintered wood panels and broken bricks.

  “Whelp,” said Asmodeus, despondently. “This is why we can’t have nice things.” Then, with a shimmer of dark energy, he vanished into smoke, leaving a smouldering imp-sized pentagram underneath where he had been flying.

  If only I, too, could helliport out of this place.

  “Come on!” shouted Gabe, this time grabbing my hand instead and dragging me through the front door.

  Towering over the house, a version of Juliet, standing almost as tall as the ring of trees around the property—which neatly shielded her from public view—stood with one foot through the roof of Gabe’s safe house, staring down at us with eyes that crackled like twin orbs of electricity.

  “So much for the masquerade violation,” I said, staring up at the giant person above me.

  Surprise Meetings

  Outside Heaven’s safe house

  Near Damien’s Place

  New Jersey

  A massive version of Juliet the nephilim looked down at me. I looked up at her. Her face was bathed in the blue and red light of the police cars across the road.

  For a brief moment, everyone stood in shocked silence. I risked a glance at Damien’s house; at the cars parked outside. The officers within were slumped over the wheel, or passed out on the lawn out front. All asleep.

  Had they been killed? Had the nephilim killed them? That seemed not possible, but there it was. They were just lying there.

  “Lady Grace,” boomed Juliet, shifting her foot inside the building, causing the structure to crumble even further. “There is no need for further hostilities. Come with me, face your termination, and all this incident will be put to rest. A charge of theft will be added to your record, and then this disturbance is over.”

  “Theft?” I scowled at her. “I didn’t steal jack shit.”

  With a colossal finger, Juliet pointed at the pen in my hand. I threw it angrily to the ground. “There!”

  “The charge of theft will be removed,” said Juliet. “But the other charges remain. Submit to destruction.”

  There was no way I was doing that. “I don’t even want to be here!” I shot back, waving a fist at her. It seemed a hopelessly impotent gesture but I was angry. “I didn’t choose to come to the mortal realm. I didn’t choose to go to that party.”

  “But in regard to the dead mortal, you did choose,” said Juliet, her voice thundering way, way too loud. “Nothing in your mission mandate included murder.”

  “He was a dick,” I said.

  “He was definitely a dick,” said Gabe. Wow. Supporting a demon against a fully battle-ready nephilim. He must really want me. My “secretarial duties” game must be even more lit than I thought.

  “His behaviour is of no consequence to the Nephilim Establishment. All mortals, no matter their temperament, are protected beings. His sins are to be punished in the afterlife, not here. Not now. Impatience cannot be tolerated.”

  Impatience wasn’t why I’d done it, but fine. Fine. I let the words slide. “Well, I’m not going with you.” On this I was sure. “So if you’re thinking you’re going to be taking me by force, or killing me here, then you’re sorely mistaken.”

  “Hey,” whispered Gabe, worriedly. “Maybe now’s not the best time to be offering the gigantic enforcer of interplanar law a give-me-freedom-or-give-me-death ultimatum, you know?” He turned back to Juliet. “I’m sorry, Lady Juliet-Tango-Delta-Five-Eight-Eight. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

  I twisted around, raising a curious eyebrow at that. I never told Gabe her name. “You know this…thing?”

  “Mmm hmm,” he said, nodding slowly. “We…have met.”

  Met.

  Met.

  I laughed. I actually, genuinely laughed. “You fucked her? You fucked…her?”

  Gabe shuffled uncomfortably, bouncing his pistol in his grip. “It’s a very long story,” he said. “Nephilim don’t really date, so…it’s complicated.”

  “Not really,” I said. “Demons don’t really date either.”

  Gabe didn’t really have an answer to that. I followed his gaze back up to Juliet. “Right.”

  The nephilim, Gabe’s ex apparently, just stood there, waiting for us to finish. So polite.

  “So,” boomed Juliet, “Lord Gabriel of Heaven, let this be your formal warning; a verdict has been rendered against Lady Grace, and her punishment has been clearly communicated to her. Are you prepared to assist us in the dispensation of this, our justice?”

  “If you want to destroy someone for killing a rapist who drugged innocent people, then I feel that this is not justice. I will not assist you.”

  There was a brief moment of silence. Juliet was probably communicating with some agency I could not see or hear, just as Asmodeus was able to do. Both angels and nephilim had more in common with us than we liked to admit…and the same was likely true of them. We were all spun of extraplanar matter, subject to many of the same limitations and benefits.

  It seemed, however, that the Nephilim Establishment were slower talkers than the pit. Probably a committee on the other end.

  “Then,” boomed Juliet, finally. “You shall join her in death.”

  Stomp, Stomp, Stomp

  Outside Heaven’s safe house

  Near Damien’s Place

  New Jersey

  Well…shit. Now Gabe was going to die as well.

  Juliet began to move, lurching forward in a distinctly automatronic monster, her fists crackling with energy. I’d seen the strength of her hands when she was the same size as me; I couldn’t imagine what kind of power would be behind them when she was as tall as she was.

  Instinctively, I took a step back down the driveway, then another, and another until I was standing beside the letter box. Which was useless. We couldn’t run forever. I focused internally, shifting my form, letting my claws slide out of my body, horns growing out of my forehead. I made sure to keep my wings inside, though. No need to ruin another hoodie just yet.

  Gabe, however, seemed to have another idea. He leapt back, broad wings bursting from his back and shredding his shirt, leaping into the air and aligning his pistol to Juliet. “Don’t make me do it,” he said, in a loud, firm shout. “I don’t want to harm you.”

  Juliet continued her advance. I knew how this would go; Gabe’s flaming weapon would probably hurt her, or at least he felt confident that it would, but someone would need to keep her busy on the ground. Give her a target to focus on.

  Guess who.

  I stepped forward, growling angrily, letting my natural voice slip out. “Come on then, you stupid robot,” I hissed, brandishing my sharp claws in front of me. “I’m going to steal your man just like I stole your fucking pen.”

  Juliet said nothing, stomping toward me, raising her other foot as though to squish me flat.

  “Is this really a good time for that?” asked Gabe, incredulously. “You stole her…pen?”

  “Shoot her!” I shouted. Lucifer’s Teeth. “Stop worrying about the damn pen and shoot her!”

  Juliet’s foot came down. I leapt to one side, rolling on the grass as the massive foot—Monty Python style—smashed into the letter box, splintering it to a billion pieces. I sprung back up to my feet, then leapt forward at the foot, both hands leading the way. I sank my fingers up to the palm into her ankle,
the sharp tips sliding into her plastic-looking fake skin far too easily.

  “Gabe!” I yelled over my shoulder. “Now!”

  He hesitated, pointing the pistol at Juliet, wings beating gently in the air.

  Juliet raised her foot again, and I hung on, my claws tearing long jagged strips in whatever passed for her skin. She tried to shake me off.

  Bam! Gabe fired, a yellow-white holy streak of fire slamming into Juliet’s chest. Bam! Bam! Bam!

  They all hit. Juliet staggered backward, slamming her foot back into the ground, the impact throwing me off. This time I was much less prepared and went sprawling on the ground. Dammit. I had only just gotten clean…

  “I warned you,” shouted Gabe. “Let this be a warning to you; abandon this unjust pursuit, Juliet-Tango-Delta-Five-Eight-Eight!”

  “Call her Juliet!” I leapt back up, claws out in front of me. They were slick in a black, oily substance which I assumed to be nephilim blood…or whatever they had that passed for blood and came out of them when they were injured.

  “I will crush you both,” intoned Juliet, advancing toward me once more.

  Gabe unloaded, blasting her from above with a volley of shots that struck her face, chest, arms and shoulders. His weapon seemed to have an infinite ammunition supply; it was shaped, perhaps, like a pistol to simply assist in disguising it. Over and over he shot, each round splashing into her, spraying black blood in all directions.

  I crouched, coiling my legs, then leapt into the air, springing off her knee and up to her abdomen. I dug my claws in deep, letting my weight carry myself down, raking my thick claws down her body and tearing it open like an overripe fruit.

  Juliet slumped back, falling heavily onto the roof of the safe house, crashing through it and ruining any chance that the building could be repaired, crumpling it into ruin. Her feet stuck out from the house’s ruined walls. From within the house, a burst gas line ignited, and angry orange flames leapt up from the building’s walls.

  She didn’t get up.

  “I think we got her,” I said, barely able to believe it.

  Gabe shook his head, landing down beside me and folding his wings in against his body. “Nephilim regenerate their bodies,” he said. “They feel pain and they don’t like it, but they can recover from almost any form of injury.”

  Slowly, as I watched, her feet began to shrink down. She was shifting to be our size.

  “Now’s our chance,” I said, jerking a thumb over my shoulder. “Take your shirt off.”

  Gabe stared at me. “This is not the time—”

  “Because it’s ripped, you dickhead,” I said, giving him an angry stare.

  “Oh, right. The wings.” With a single motion, he tore it right off his body, revealing his bare, muscled chest.

  Aww, nice. But I didn’t have any time to linger on it. “C’mon,” I said. “Let’s get the fuck out of here before any more cops arrive.”

  Better Part of Valour

  Liberty State Park

  New Jersey

  Discretion was definitely the better part of valour. The two of us legged it, sprinting away from that cluster-fuck as fast as we could go. Fortunately Gabe was able to keep up with me. Maybe he was thinking the same thing.

  I knew Juliet couldn’t chase us in our giant form. Heaven had obviously picked that safe house because of the tall trees, but they obviously hadn’t anticipated being attacked by nephilim.

  Made sense.

  A jogger lay passed out on the footpath, their nose bloodied but otherwise okay. Gabriel touched her neck, obvious relief coming across his face in an instant. “She’s alive.”

  The cops back outside Damien’s place had been unconscious too. “I’m guessing the nephilim didn’t want anyone to be spotted,” I said.

  Sirens began to wail in the distance. Whatever had happened to the cops back there, and to this jogger right here, we didn’t have time to figure out. We kept moving.

  After about twenty minutes we came to a small park. The sun was up and people were about, but since our clothes were clean and undamaged—except Gabe being forced into being bare-chested which, you know, I was totally okay with—we actually managed to blend in fairly well.

  “Well,” said Gabe, the first words we’d shared since the jogger, “that went well.”

  I knew he was being sarcastic but I actually felt it was true. “Honestly, that was pretty sick,” I said, letting the corner of my mouth turn up. “You actually fought pretty well for a feather-brain. That moment when she went all fee-fi-fo-fum and tried to crush me, and you shot her right in the centre of mass? Beautiful. Basically poetry.”

  “Feather-brain,” said Gabe, sceptically.

  I stuck out my tongue.

  Finally, after a brief moment seemingly resisting the notion, Gabe smiled too. “I guess,” he said. He was actually really muscled with his shirt off. How much of his appearance was an affectation? An attempt to try and blend in, be inconspicuous, fly below the radar?

  Thoughts for another day.

  “So,” I said, grinning a bit. “What’s it like to fuck a nephilim?” I gave him a playful nudge in the side with my elbow. “Was she better at kneeling at the altar than I was?”

  “That mental image’s just terrible for someone like me,” said Gabe, but the amused smile grew on his face, too. “And…like I said. It wasn’t like that. We just hung out and stuff.”

  “Stuff? What kind of stuff?” I considered. “Butt stuff?”

  His eyes went wide. “No! Nothing like that.”

  I struggled to stifle a giggle. “Okay, it was definitely butt stuff.”

  “It was…not…butt stuff.”

  “Oh, so you were saving that for me, huh,” I said, grinning teasingly.

  Almost churlishly, Gabe shook his head. “You’re assuming I haven’t done butt stuff before.”

  I let out a mock gasp. “Oh, well, now you have to tell me,” I said, elbowing furiously. “Tell! Tell!”

  He laughed. I laughed. It was mostly the laughter of people who had survived a battle. At once hysterical, relieved, amused, joyous. People kind of stared, but we ignored them. They were morning people anyway. Only people by the technical definition of the term.

  “Okay,” I said, when we had both gotten our breath back. “So…Asmodeus bailed on us, which I’m sure you’re not surprised by in the least. But you stayed.”

  “I did,” he said, but then nodded to me. “You stayed, as well.”

  I didn’t want to share that I couldn’t helliport. I wasn’t sure exactly why, but I think he was secretly glad that I’d stuck around. More surprisingly, so was I. “She pissed me off,” was all I could say.

  Gabe smiled knowingly. “Also,” he said, “you said you were going to steal her man. I’m guessing you were talking about me.”

  “That was as much making fun of you as it was of her,” I said, suddenly a little uncomfortable. “Don’t read too much into it, feather-brain.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Horn head.”

  I rolled my eyes but, also, couldn’t help but smile. I looked at Gabe.

  He looked back at me.

  There was a strange moment. A little hesitation. Something inside me spoke up. That I should lean forward and kiss him, right in the middle of the park. It came from a strange place in me; normally kissing someone was useful for knowing if they were evil, or to try and seduce them, but…at that particular moment, I knew the answer to any question I could reasonably ask, and as my little bit in the shower had shown, he was plenty seduced already.

  And yet, I still wanted to do it.

  Something had happened between us. Some unspoken connection had been made that I couldn’t really explain.

  “I should head back to the clouds,” said Gabe, coughing politely and breaking the spell. “And…pick up a new shirt, I suppose.”

  Probably. That was the smart call. He could teleport—heaven-port just simply didn’t have the same ring to it—and it might be a good idea to get som
e information. At the very least, he could get dressed properly. “Okay,” I said, a little reluctantly. “Go for it. I’ll find a place to lay low for a little while. See if Asmodeus, that snivelling little worm, decides to crawl up out of the ground and re-join us.”

  “Sounds good,” said Gabe. He gestured to the nearby public toilet. I knew he couldn’t be seen teleporting in public, so together we walked over to the gents.

  “Good luck,” I said, nodding firmly. “Text me when you get back.”

  Gabe gave me a little playful salute, stepping into the concrete structure. My sharp ears heard the faint creak of an opening door. Then nothing.

  I shook myself. What the hell was wrong with me, all of a sudden? I’d gotten all…weird…around Gabe. Staring at him. Trying to kiss him unnecessarily. Not wanting to disembowel him for being a horribly warped, twisted creature of the light.

  When I got back to Hell, I was going to fuck the hell out of the first demon I came across. And the next. And the next. I was going to get the biggest, most nasty, spiked strap-on from my collection and I was going to bend some mortals over a flaming spire of basalt. I was going to have so much sex. Get it out of my system.

  That must be what was wrong with me…pent up sexual frustration. Common problem amongst succubi and incubi. Totally normal. Nothing to worry about.

  Maybe I wouldn’t wait that long. There were plenty of mortals in this city, and plenty more who would love to take me for a spin. I could get laid right now if I wanted to. Right in this very park. In this very toilet block. The next guy who came out of there, I would fuck his brains out.

  Yeah. It was time. I turned to the exit of the men’s, waiting for my prey. The very next guy…

  Was Gabe.

  He came out, his eyes wide and confused. For a moment he almost didn’t see me there, even though I was right in front of the entrance. He looked like he had been smacked in the head with a hammer. Confused.

  “What the fuck happened?” I asked, careful to keep my voice down. “You’re supposed to be…gone.”