Dying to Live: The Shifter City Complete Series

by Liam Kingsley

  After a week, everything had been set and settled. Logan had been given a schedule and a routine, both of which he was expected to follow. He swore to himself that he would try, but made no such promise to anyone else. This was uncharted territory, and all he could do was his best. The night before everything was to begin, he and Hail went for a walk through the city.

  “Are you scared?” Hail asked him.

  “Nah,” Logan said. “I passed scared a while ago. I’m starting to feel comfortable, which is making me antsy.”

  “It’s okay to be comfortable,” Hail said. “I promise it’s safe.”

  “I’m not sure what to do with safe,” Logan said. “I’ve never had it, I’ve never been it, and now I’m living in it. I feel like an alligator living on land.”

  “Alligators can live on…”

  “Special water living alligators,” Logan interrupted with a laugh. ”Work with me here.”

  They walked around the city and came back to Hail’s home. Logan stopped for a moment at the edge of the property, memorizing the sight. The pinkish-brown bricks around the green-shuttered windows. The green door with the flagstone steps which trickled down to spill over into a winding walkway, snaking through the thick, green grass. Home, he thought. He’d never had a picture in mind when he thought that word before. He tried it out loud.

  “Home.”

  Hail wrapped his arms around him from behind, resting his chin on his shoulder. “How did that feel?” He asked.

  “Can’t tell yet,” Logan said.

  “Try it again.”

  “Home,” Logan said. “That’s my home.”

  Hail squeezed him gently and kissed his cheek. “And now?”

  “Doesn’t feel wrong,” Logan said.

  “Let’s try it one more time then. Logan Kim, welcome home.”

  Logan shivered with pleasure. That invitation was all that had been missing. He turned in Hail’s arms and kissed him, running his fingers through Hail’s thick curls. Family, he thought. I have a family.Overwhelmed with the newness and impossibility of it all, Logan ran into the house, pulling Hail behind him. As they made love on their bed, and as they cooked a family dinner in their kitchen, everything started to click into place. It wasn’t boring yet. Logan had the strong sensation that it wasn’t ever really going to be.

  Dying to Live

  Shifter City Book 2

  Liam Kingsley

  © 2017

  Disclaimer

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and events are all fictitious for the reader’s pleasure. Any similarities to real people, places, events, living or dead are all coincidental.

  This book contains sexually explicit content that is intended for ADULTS ONLY (+18).

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sweat glistened like dew across his firm, muscular chest, glittering like cresting ocean waves as he heaved and panted, writhing against his lover. Vanilla and cinnamon scents filled the air as he gazed with his sea-colored eyes up into Killian’s face. “Love me,” he whispered without moving his lips. His eyes seemed to darken and deepen, drawing Killian in. The pressure of his creamy thighs against Killian’s hips pulled him closer, ever closer to bliss. “Love me.” The echo rippled through the dream scape, intense and insistent. Killian moved without moving, plunged deep, falling into a quivering, aching lust. He was ethereal, magical, larger than life; Killian fell into him and they tumbled through the cosmos, making love amongst the stars.

  “Come,” the man whispered in his ear. A flash of guilt and fear turned the star-speckled sky red, and a blast of super nova brought forth the stern, disapproving face of Killian’s old employer, Jerry Barnhouse. “Sin! It’s a damn sin! You are a role model in this community, Mister Walsh. This is unacceptable behavior for a man in your position! I can’t fire you, but trust and believe, if you don’t resign I will make your life a living hell.” With those final words, his narrow, rat like mouth split wide, opening into raining fire and brimstone. Killian grasped at his lover as he fell toward the scene, but his lover faded like a ghost. “Help me!” Killian cried. But his lover only smiled and winked before disappearing in a puff of smoke. The massive jaws were upon him now, he could feel the fire licking the soles of his feet, he wasn’t going to make it this time. He squeezed his eyes shut, then screamed as spikes dug into the sensitive spot between his toes.

  The scream transcended the dream, bridging the space between wake and sleep. Killian heard it before he felt it and awoke with a start, drenched in sweat and shaking in fear. His tiny grey kitten squawked and leapt off of his feet, darting out of the room. With a gasp and a frustrated growl, Killian pulled his feet toward him. Grover hissed at him from under the couch, defending his decision to bury his needle-like claws into Killian’s feet while he was lying defenselessly asleep. Killian resisted the urge to throw a shoe at the irritating little mammal. He rubbed his face and groaned. Maybe he still had time to sleep. He hated starting the day with a nightmare haze lingering in the folds of his brain. He had just pulled the sheets over his body and had begun to lie back when the alarm clock interrupted him with its buzzing shriek. Cursing, he smashed the clock to pieces with his fist, the cursed again.

  “They really need to make those things stronger,” he muttered irritably as he flung the sheets aside and stepped out of bed into the dark, forgetting the pieces of clock which were no doubt scattered across the floor. He found one immediately, made worse by the grumpy force with which he stepped. It buried itself in his heel and he swore loudly, limping to the bathroom. Grover cleaned himself on the back of the couch, utterly content to ignore Killian’s discomfort. Killian glared at the cat as he slammed the bathroom light on and ripped the bit of tin from his foot. The wound spurted blood for a second, but closed quickly. It had pierced his skin, but not his sub-dermal layer; only werewolf bone or claw could do that. Still, it hurt, which made him even grumpier. He was going to need an extra-long shower to shake off this mood; the last thing he wanted was to carry this mood to work. A long shower, a hearty breakfast, and a cup of coffee stabilized him, and he and Grover were friends again by the time he switched the TV on.

  News from the outside world was usually hype and rarely informative. But, just like his morning coffee (which did little to stimulate his new biology), the news was part of Killian’s morning routine, and served to calm and focus his mind for the day ahead. He sat at his little round kitchen table in the early light of dawn, looking over his plans for the following week and only half-listening to the rambling, chipper tones of the news anchors. Grover tried to help by batting the pages around the table, and Killian smiled indulgently at the tiny, fluffy hell beast. After a moment, however. A single word spoken on the TV caught his attention, and his work was instantly forgotten. He turned up the volume.

  “Another pack of wolves was spotted today, roaming the streets of Chicago. Officials say they chased the animals for several blocks before they disappeared. A similar story broke only last week, as a pack of wolves was seen roaming the streets of Los Angeles. New York, Boston, Austin, and Reno have all reported similar occurrences in the last twenty-four hours. We’ve brought a wildlife biologist to the studio this morning, to see if he can explain the animals’ erratic behavior. Dr. Douglas, so good to see you.”

  “Thanks, Mary. Yes, we have been seeing a strange migration with wolves this year. Usually wolves will avoid areas with large human populations, but that no longer seems to be a deterrent. Additionally, we are seeing more wolves this year…an unprecedented number of them, in fact…more than we had predicted for this season.”

  “Wolf rehabilitati
on has been on the rise in the last twenty years, hasn’t it?”

  “Indeed it has, Mary. We have rehabilitation centers throughout North America, and while we were predicting an increase in the numbers of wild wolves, the reported numbers are far and away beyond anything we saw in our simulations.”

  “Do you have any theories as to why this is happening? Could it be related to the shifter epidemic that we saw in…?”

  “Excuse me, Mary, but I will not be a party to this hype. Climate change is the most reasonable explanation for the increased numbers and migration changes. I am confident that this has nothing at all to do with…that.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  “It’s simple, Mary. The shifters we saw twelve, thirteen years ago were monstrous human mutations. They stood on two legs, their spines elongated into some semblance of a tail, do I need to remind you what they looked like?”

  An image popped up over the screen, and Killian scowled. The stock photos of shifters were always the most frightening, nightmarish images, captured in the moments after the first change. In that moment, they were all beasts. Their nerves fired without consent or control. The only instinct they possessed was to kill and crush every bit of stimulus around them, because it hurt. Senses became heightened beyond migraine levels. Fury burned in the blood like molten metal. That moment would haunt every shifter until the day they died, and it was an utterly unfair representation of their species. Unfortunately for them, it was the only moment that humanity at large remembered, which is why shifters had taken refuge inside the thick, sturdy walls of Regis Thyme.

  “These animals we’re seeing now,” Douglas continued, “Are real wolves. Here’s an image taken from the streets of Chicago this morning.”

  A second image slid into the screen beside the picture of the shifter. Massive wolves, natural wolves, stood on the sidewalk staring directly at the camera.

  “Aren’t they exceptionally large?” Mary pressed.

  “They are. This again can be explained by climate change. Shorter winters mean more food during their first few years, which means they have the opportunity to grow larger. We see the same pattern in human evolution; after we developed agriculture we grew taller, and again after the industrial revolution. More food, more efficiency, more opportunities to grow. These wolves are entirely natural.”

  “What advice would you give to our viewers if they happen to encounter a pack of wolves?”

  “Stay out of their way,” Douglas said with a shrug. “Call animal control. These wolves haven’t attacked any humans that we know of. They seem to be utterly disinterested in humans. They aren’t attacking or avoiding, they’re simply ignoring us. Best thing you can do is not rock that boat.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Douglas. Have you found yourself waking up exhausted every morning? It could be something you ate! Patricia Rice has that story, after the break.”

  With his frown firmly in place, Killian turned off the TV and stared thoughtfully at the corner of his kitchen, where the pale yellow tiles met the dusky red brick. He sipped his coffee, considering everything that had been said. Grover jumped into his lap, mewing, and he stroked the soft, downy fur absently. First of all, the media was still insisting that the shifter epidemic was a thing of the past. Though it was blatantly false, it really wasn’t surprising. They had been saying the same thing for eleven years, and everyone…including shifters living in Regis Thyme…had accepted it as reality. They had lived an isolated life for over a decade, until their illusions were shattered by the sudden appearance of a desperate shifter pack at their door.

  That had been one year ago, and much had changed in that time. There was a new job to be done; a job which involved leaving the safe haven to scour the earth for misplaced shifters, to bring them home into the fold. The alpha of that first, surprising pack was a woman named Mariella. She’d been given the job of training shifters for roles in retrieval teams (affectionately called Shifter Squads, a name given them by the first Omega of the stray pack), and everything that Killian heard told him she’d been doing a damn good job. Rumor had it that the teams were set to leave the following month, under her supervision. Killian had considered volunteering for a moment, but the urge had passed quickly. He already had a mission; a noble, dangerous, and endlessly important mission. A glance at the clock told him that he was running late for that, and he hurriedly finished his coffee and scooped his lesson plans into a briefcase. They’d fallen out of order in his hurry, but he thought he’d have time to put them to rights later. Grover, as always, tried to trip him up on his way out the door. Killian scooped the kitten up, kissed its fuzzy little head, and tossed it on the cat tree by the kitchen door. Grover glared at him, but was quickly distracted by the square of sunlight which had appeared on one corner of his platform.

  As he stepped out of his heavy, rounded wooden door into the morning sun, the slight chill in the breeze told him that autumn would soon be upon the little shifter town. He breathed it in, and all of the musty, summery scents it brought with it, and started down the cobblestone path toward the city center. Six new buildings had been added to it in the last year, which he approved of. He only wished that Broderick, the high alpha of Regis Thyme, had chosen originality over uniformity. There was something almost foreboding about the sixteen-building grid made up of ten-story cubes. No matter how many gardens they planted in the courtyards, or how many trees lined the winding cobbled paths between them, the city center remained a testament to those first desperate years. When the shifter epidemic fell upon them, the research laboratory (which had then been called Central Nebraska Research and Development) had built ten cubed dormitories in which to keep the shifters they studied. They had been treated well, as the founder of the facility was related in some obscure way to the very first shifter, but good food and gentle doctors could not wash away the pain of utter rejection and abject terror.

  Since the founding of Regis Thyme, these dormitories had been remodeled to host the needs of the growing shifter city. The groceries, which were vertical fields of food and textiles, filled four full buildings in the southern-most row. The first, northern-most row, the one nearest the only gate in or out of the city, held the means of first-world living. The hospital, the Care building (which hosted all sorts of classes for new shifters, from parenting to biology, as well as meditation and a full gym), the mall, and the school were all part of this row. As Killian hurried toward that last building, a flash of brilliant blue caught his eye, startling him out of his pre-work panic. The literal man of his dreams was fast approaching from the other end of the city center, sauntering down the cobblestone path with the ease of one who wouldn’t be late for work for hours.

  His heart raced in his chest and his mouth went dry. He cleared his throat quickly as the distance between them shortened, but it was a useless gesture when those laughing, sea-colored eyes found his. His face lit up with a brilliant smile and he quickened his pace to meet Killian.

  “Thought I missed you this morning!” Pan said, tossing his head so the morning light reflected off of his earrings. “Late start today?”

  “Something like that,” Killian said, his voice sounding strangely hoarse in his own ears. Pan reached out to touch the end of one of Killian’s black curls, twirling it around his finger with practiced efficiency.

  “Time for your trim,” he said. “You coming in today?”

  “Of course I am. It’s the fifteenth.”

  “A creature of habit,” Pan sighed. “One of these days you should let me do something wild and crazy with your hair.”

  “I don’t really do wild and crazy,” Killian said with a small, nervous grin. He never could figure out how to behave around Pan, and the incessant dreams of him didn’t help any. Pan had been pestering him to change his hair for years, but Killian had never seen the point. In addition to maintaining his professional image, there was the problem of clothing. Many years ago, the research facility had developed clothing which would morph with the movemen
ts of shifters, changing from human to beast in size and function. They had produced hundreds of thousands of uniform pants and shirts in a few basic colors, and those were distributed to the shifters who lived within the city. This created an almost-creepy sort of commune feel, but function had taken precedence over form from the very beginning of the shifter crisis. Without clothes to match the hair, there didn’t seem to be much point in changing it from the shoulder-length loose black curls that he’d had since the end of the quarantine.

  Pan gave him a look halfway between amusement and disapproval, a teasing sort of smile which made Killian’s heart leap in his chest. “I don’t believe you, but I’m going to let you delude yourself for now. If you ever change your mind, though, I can show you some wild, crazy things that’ll rock your socks off.”

  Killian hadn’t figured out how to react to that when they were interrupted by Eulyssa, who was jogging toward them with a stroller. She called out a greeting to Killian and slowed to a stop.

  “Aren’t you late, Mr. K? I just dropped Andy off with Jane, it looks like things are getting out of control over there.”

  “Shoot! Sorry about that, darlin’, guess I lost track of the time,” Killian said with a smile that came much more easily. He turned to excuse himself from Pan, but Pan had already started walking. Eulyssa’s baby began to fuss and she left as well, cooing at the child. Killian looked at the time with a frustrated sigh, then jogged toward what was sure to be a crisis of epic proportions.

  CHAPTER TWO