by Romi Hart
“So he mounts her and that’s it.” She thought she knew it all.
I shook my head. “No. The buck doesn’t just take what he wants, although he is plenty strong enough to do that. He woos her. Acts cute, strong, and protective. He fights off other bucks as they scent her and come looking for her too. He becomes her hero, saving her from the males who flock to harass her sexually. And in doing that, he wins her heart, her trust, and her love. So, she allows him to mate with her.”
“And she thinks they’re in love.” With a huff, she looked irritated. “Yeah, I know her pain.”
Getting up, I walked around to sit behind her, cradling her in my arms. “I know that you do. And I know that I was an ass.”
“Was?” she asked with a hopeful tone to her voice.
“I’m a work in progress, my sweet. But I know of no other female who has the ability to affect my heart while not emitting a scent to turn me into a sexual beast. Seeing you hurt and unhappy is hurting me and making me unhappy too.” I just wanted us to be happy again. And I had to learn how to pay attention to my own feelings and not rely on some overpowering scent to make me love the woman in my arms.
Leaning back into me, she sighed. “That is a start, I think.” She took my hands, placing them on her stomach. “We made something together. And whatever fueled you, it was love at the time.” A sniffle escaped her, and I knew that she’d begun to cry. “No matter how you’ve changed, I still love you, Tieris, my fire.”
Holding her this way, nuzzling her hair, feeling her body in my arms, I began to feel something inside. My heart began to pound, my mind began to blur, and my cock began to pulse. “Oh, my word!”
Turning her head to look at me, she asked, “Was that your dick that moved against my back?”
Nodding, I was as surprised as she was. “And my heart is going crazy. Can this be real?”
“You wanting me without the scent making it so?” She turned in my arms, facing me and straddling my lap, putting her sweet spot up against my pulsing cock that came to life with only my feelings about her. “I think this is real, my fire.”
Her fire!
I might not have always been her fire. I might not have always been the type of male who could stay interested in a female once she’d lost her unique and powerful scent. But I had become the type of male who could love his female with more than his nose alone.
Gazing into the depths of her warm and loving eyes, I found more there than I had before. “Linda, you are my home.” Emotions welled up inside of me and spilled out of my eyes. The odd sensation felt odd -but an awesome odd.
Wiping away the liquid emotions off my cheeks, she wore a wide smile. “You’re crying.”
“It’s a lot to take in, this love I have for you. It’s overpowering me in ways that make me feel whole.” Kissing the top of her head, I didn’t want to stop there. “Can we put the last few days away in some locked-up chamber in our brains and get back to being in love? I much prefer this to what we’ve been doing.”
“I prefer this too.” Wrapping her arms around me, she pressed her lips to mine but then pulled them away as she looked me right in the eyes. “I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. And one day in the future, I would like it if you would make me into what you are.”
She had no idea what she was asking for. “Are you sure?”
I could feel her heart beating with mine. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. We are mates for eternity, my fire.”
Gulping back more emotions that boiled inside of me, I knew we’d found something that not everyone finds. “Linda, this is it for us. This is our happily ever after.”
“I think you’re right. I think we have found the elusive happiness so many search for their entire lives.” She kissed me again and this time, I didn’t let her stop to say another word.
It’s time for us to get our happy endings once again – and for many, many eons in the future.
Zanthe (Primal Impulse Shifters, Book 2) - Special Preview
1
Zanthe
Trickles of clear water filled the small cracks in the bedrock of the floor of the cave my brother Freedrick and I called home. Romanian caves in the Apuseni Nature Park in Romania could flood at times. Many had running rivers within them but ours did not.
As bear-shifters, living in a cave with an average temperature of about one point seven Celsius, we always hibernated in our bear forms. Waking from my deep sleep due to wet fur wasn’t pleasant at all.
I growled as the water soaked my fur, making me cold and agitated. My grumblings woke my brother as well, who looked bewildered as he got up and shook the water from his fur.
He seemed to be experiencing anxiety as he turned into his human form. “Zanthe, do you hear that?”
I didn’t hear a thing. But I felt a vibration that I had never felt before. Unlike my brother, I felt safer in my bear form. Rising from the resting position I’d taken to get some sleep; I sniffed the cold air. And what I found both surprised and worried me. Growling with disapproval, I shook my head. This cannot be.
The scent of water filled my nostrils, then the sound hit me that my brother had already heard. It started out low and distant. But the rumble got louder and louder, came closer and closer. Then the trickle of water turned into a something akin to a babbling brook.
Freedrick waved his arm, urging me to join him as he began making his way toward the mouth of the cave. “Something’s wrong, Zanthe. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Slamming my fist against the nearest rock wall, my bear brain had the idea that I could simply stop this water by punching the wall of our cave. As one might kick something that’s broken in an attempt to make it work, I hit the wall again. But this time I roared and growled, showing my rage at the water that now had turned from a brook to a ninety-one centimeters deep creek.
“Zanthe, would you please come on?” Freedrick pointed at the water that now separated us. “It’s getting deeper.” Touching the top of the opening that he stood in, he went on, “And once the water reaches this arch, you’ll have an extremely hard time getting out of here.”
Although we were immortals, living life underwater sounded daunting. I liked sunshine. I liked climbing trees. And I loved breathing fresh air.
So, I turned into my human form, to let the higher elevated portion of my brain take over. “What do you think is causing this to happen, Freedrick?”
“Let’s get out of here, then we can look around to see if we can find that out.” Heading out, he led the way and I followed behind, the water lapping at my feet as it rose even higher.
By the time we made it to the mouth of the cave, water covered the rocky floor of the highest level and we were certain that we’d barely outrun the flood.
Spending three days looking for what could be flooding our home, we came up empty. Nothing made sense. And that meant that the cause most likely wasn’t coming from the human world we lived in. So, we did what shifters do when looking outside the box for answers. We traveled to another dimension. The realm of the dragons.
Our entrance to the dragon’s world began with a boom as loud as thunder. Traveling as bears seemed safer. Meeting dragon-shifters for the first time seemed safer as bears as well.
A thick forest is what we’d come into. I snarled to let the dragons know we’d arrived, and we weren’t afraid of them. Showing fear of other shifters meant you were there to fight or steal. If you showed a bit of aggression in the first place, it let others know that you were prepared for a fight, but not asking for one.
Instead of taking their dragon shapes, we found two men in human forms who stood side by side as one of them held out his hand – palm facing us – to show he meant no harm but wanted us to stop coming toward them. “We want no trouble, animals.”
The other man sniffed the air. “Mako, they can’t be regular bears. Not here. Not in our realm.”
“Ah, you are so right, Tieris.” The other man said as he held his arms in a
greeting gesture. “Let us converse in human form, shifter brothers.”
Looking at Freedrick, I gave a nod. We made our way to them, transforming as we went. Wanting to lead our conversation, I spoke first, “Please excuse us for coming uninvited. We have traveled a path that led us here to your world, dragons. I am Zanthe of the Devine Forest. And this is my brother, Freedrick.”
My brother bowed as he took formalities to extremes most of the time. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, dragons.”
“I am Tieris and this is my brother, Mako.” The men were taller than my brother and I. The one who called himself Tieris had long blonde hair and seemed to be the leader of the two. “And what path led you here, might I ask?”
Immediately, I noticed that no water flowed over some nearby boulders with green moss covering the tops of them. It was apparent that not too long ago water had run over them, making what I guessed was a gorgeous waterfall. “You are missing water. Are you not?”
Mako nodded. “That, we are, brother bear.”
Freedrick crossed his arms over his chest. “We are missing air in our cave as water has filled the interior cavern where we live.”
“Ah, ha!” Mako smiled as he smacked his brother on the back. “I think we’ve found our water.”
“It sounds like it,” Tieris agreed. “And how did this water enter your cavern?”
“We have no idea.” It all still seemed almost like a dream. “We were deep into our winter hibernation when we woke to soaked fur and water growing deeper by the second.”
Freedrick shivered with the memory. “Had it not been for my brother’s awakening, we would’ve been trapped beneath the water for eternity. Spending eternity drowning isn’t the way we want to live.”
Tieris looked to be deep in thought as he pondered, “So, you have no idea how this water came to fill your cavern and we have no idea how our water came to leave our river.”
I looked at the vast stretch of dry rocks that had once been the bed-stones of a river. “Perhaps we could poke around your dry river to find out what happened here.” I began walking along the middle of the river until I found something of interest. Leaning over, I picked up something and held it up to examine it. “A scale. Like that of a giant fish.”
Mako came to see the large scale. “There were no giant fish in our waters, Zanthe.” He took the scale from my outstretched hand as I offered it to him. “And this is from no fish. This black scale is from a dragon.” He held it against his skin that shared a similar dark shade to the scale I’d found, but it wasn’t quite the same. “And it is no match to mine either.”
Freedrick and Tieris came up to see what we’d found. The shiny, jet-black scale glistened in the sun’s light. A rainbow began to form on the scale then it became larger and larger until the rainbow filled the sky over our heads. “And what of this?” Tieris asked with wonder.
Freedrick hissed, “Sorcery.”
Mako nodded. “Magic.”
Mako held the scale up high and as he did so, the sound of water bubbling as if it boiled in a pot filled our ears. All around us, the springs began to fill with water. Water soon pooled around our feet, making us retreat to the edge of the river that had begun to refill.
I looked at Freedrick as the thought filled my mind that our problem at home might not be anymore. “Shall we go check our cave and the massive cavern we call home to see if this has rectified our situation?”
“I think we shall.” Freedrick smiled at the dragon-shifters as he and I began to find our way back to the portal. “Thank you. I hope this is the fix we all needed.”
I hoped that as well. But my mind was on the black scale and who it might have belonged to. And why someone felt as if they needed to drain the dragons’ river to fill our cave with water was at the forefront too.
After stepping into the portal, only moments later we stepped out into the forest we called home. Even with our human noses, my brother and I both cringed with the stench of evil that hit our noses as if it were a balled-up fist. “Damn!” I cursed and drew my hand to cover my nose. “Don’t change into your bear, brother. The smell will drive us mad if we do that.”
“I agree,” he said with a nasally sound as the fingers which pinched his nose made. “Perhaps sulfur is escaping nearby from an underground geyser. Maybe that was the reason behind the flooding, and it had nothing to do with the dragons’ river.”
He could’ve been right. At this point, there was simply no telling what had caused it. “We’re not sure our problem has been solved. Let’s get to our cave to find out.”
Nodding, he and I got on our way, making the short distance back to the cave. “I hope we haven’t lost any of our things. I would hate to have to replenish all we’ve accumulated in our years.”
“It’s just some stainless-steel pots and pans and a few pieces of fine China that we’ve snagged from campers throughout the years, nothing that special,” my tone a bit on the agitated side. Freedrick tended to horde things and it bothered me at times. “Within the month, I can have everything replaced. And probably with better things now. The China set is from the fifties. I’m sure they have much nicer patterns by now.”
“But finding a matching one is key, Zanthe. And what of the silverware?” Even while holding his nose I could see the distraught nature of his expression. “It took me ages to put together that matching four-piece set.”
I supposed it had never occurred to him that we could simply steal money from the campers to purchase the things he thought he had to have. So, I let him know that. “Freedrick, did it ever occur to you that instead of picking up the items some of the campers bring into the woods with them, that we could take their money instead, leaving them with their treasures?”
With a laugh, he flourished the free hand that didn’t hold his nose. “What would we do with paper, brother? Wipe our asses with it?”
“Crude, Freedrick. So unlike you.” The foul odor had to be affecting him in an extremely negative way. “The paper – although you rarely go into town – is used to make purchases. We could simply buy what we’ve lost if need be.”
The mouth of the cave came into view and no water ran from it, a refreshing sight. Freedrick broke into a run and I followed along. What we found was welcomed. No water, the rock floor damp but drying, and the sound of water was gone too.
Moving further back into the cave, we found some of the items we had lying on the floor or up on ledges where the water had washed them. But nothing seemed to be ruined.
Going to the furthest chamber, we found it all clear of water. Freedrick clutched a handful of silverware. “I didn’t see the butter knife. I’ll go check outside to see if it flowed out onto the ground.”
The damp air made my chest feel heavy. “I’ll come too. This will take a while to dry. Until then, we’ll have to stay clear of the deeper chambers or we’ll get pneumonia.”
Being a shifter meant it was damn hard to kill us. But we could become ill. Although the illness didn’t last nearly as long as it did in humans. Be that as it may, we hated to get sick.
Freedrick nodded in wholehearted agreement. “That’s the last thing I want.”
Not too far from our cave, an old hunter’s cabin from the sixties still stood. “We can stay the week in the cabin. It’ll be like a vacation.”
“I think that’s a good idea.” He took a step out of the cave and immediately put his hand over his face. “Yuk. I can’t stand this smell. We have to get out of here. Now that I’ve had to smell it for so long, I can tell there are only tiny remnants of sulfur and I think there is brimstone in it as well.”
“The smell sort of reminds me of the dragons’ realm that we just left. Only it’s got a sickly side scent to it.” I didn’t try to shield my nostrils from the smell as I breathed it deep into my lungs to deduce the ingredients. “Lyme. Granite. Sausages?” A smoky meat-like scent accompanied the horrendous odor. And as I held my head up high, nose to the sky, I felt something underneath my f
oot.
The sound of a spring popping filled my ears as pain shot up my entire leg and filled my head. Freedrick’s shrill cry was most likely heard throughout the forest, “Zanthe! Beartrap!”
“No shit!” Hopping up and down, I grabbed the rusted yet sharp teeth of the horrific contraption that had clamped to the bone around my ankle. “Help me get this thing off of me, brother!”
He knocked me to the ground, making me land hard on my ass. “Here, sit down. Let me do it.”
“Shit!” I huffed as the wind came out of my lungs with the abrupt fall. “Be careful not to cut yourself. I feel as if poison is coursing through my veins. There has to be some on the spikes.”
A thick substance coated Freedrick’s fingers as he pulled the thing off my leg. “Yes, this isn’t something natural at all. And it holds the stink we’ve been smelling. I’m not sure if it’s the smell of this stuff, or if it’s the smell the thing that put it here emitted. Whatever it is, it is truly awful.”
“And I am feeling truly awful, brother. Can you get me to the cabin?” My head began to swim. And as he lifted me up, my body felt as if it was nothing but jelly. “This is some potent shit.”
“Lean on me, brother. I’ll get you to the cabin.” He shouldered my weight, which was greater than his.
“Maybe we should change into our bears. It might heal my wound faster and make it easier for you to help me get to where we’re going.”
“I agree.” Freedrick shifted.
Then so did I. In my bear form, with all the throbbing in my leg with each step we took, with all the sickness which moved through my body, with all the waves of nausea that moved through my head came another scent. Soft, fresh, fragrant as a bouquet of freesia flowers the scent wafted passed my nose. “What’s that, Freedrick? Have we come across a field of flowers?” I telepathically asked him.
“You’re going into a dream-like state from the poison, I’m afraid. Ignore it.” He grunted as his steps faltered. “Rubble. Slipping. You’re so damn heavy.” Changing back into his human form, he tried to gain traction.
