Dark and Forbidden Luca’s Secret Baby
Hockey Playing Lion Shifter Dads
Abigail Raines
A sports paranormal romance series
Contents
Chapter One: Chloe
Chapter Two: Luca
Chapter Three: Chloe
Chapter Four: Luca
Chapter Five: Chloe
Chapter Six: Luca
Chapter Seven: Blake
Chapter Eight: Chloe
Chapter Nine: Luca
Chapter Ten: Chloe
Chapter Eleven: Luca
Chapter Twelve: Chloe
Chapter Thirteen: Luca
Chapter Fourteen: Chloe
Also by Abigail Raines
About the Author
© Copyright 2019 - All rights reserved.
It is not legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental.
Chapter One: Chloe
I groaned with relief as I slumped down on a bench in the break room at the back of Tom’s. A twelve-hour shift never seemed that bad in the morning, but those last couple of hours were brutal. I slipped off one shoe, rubbing my foot. I needed new sneakers. The pair I was wearing had paper thin soles by now. I knew I should have replaced them a year ago. My shifter’s strength and stamina gave me some room there, but I relied on it too heavily sometimes to carry me through rough days on too little money. Now I slipped my shoe back on and forced myself to stand. If I let myself sit too long, I wouldn’t want to get up again. That’s how I sometimes ended up sitting there in Tom’s break room for an hour after work, staring into space, unwilling to get myself back on my aching feet and out the door.
“Okay,” I muttered. I made my way out, nodding goodbye to Mindy, a wolf shifter, and Jeff, a regular ol’ human who had no idea he worked with magical folk. I grabbed my parka from the coat rack by the door and slipped it on, yawning as I made my way down the hall and outside into the biting chill of Stone River, Minnesota. It was winter and, as always, I pitied the fragile humans. If it was just a little uncomfortably cold for me, I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have to live in this weather without a shifter’s constitution. Tom’s was just a few blocks from the woods and I knew the route through the woods to the shabby little house I rented with my father and my brother like I knew the back of my hand. I shoved my hands in my pockets, and hurried along, eager to shift and stretch my legs for the run back to the house. I had a car I shared with my father; an old beater that barely ran. But on a day-to-day basis, I didn’t bother. It was just as easy to shift and run to work and it always woke me up in the morning and was somehow relaxing too on the way home.
I glanced around as I trotted into the woods, carrying my purse, just to make sure no troublesome humans were anywhere near me. I could already smell a few shifters up ahead in the forest, acquaintances from the big pride I was born into and raised in, but nobody who would give me any trouble. Once safe under the canopy of the trees, I shifted into my cougar form, my clothes and things all shifting with me; a convenient feature of being a shifter. I stretched for a minute, crouching on my front paws with my butt in the air, just enjoying the feel of the chill air on my thick winter coat.
I often get playful in my lion form. I find it harder to translate that feeling when I’m human. So it’s especially nice to get to shift every day. I know that some shifters are much more assimilated into the human world and not too involved in the daily life of a pride or pack. I don’t know how they get by, just mentally and emotionally. I consider myself a lion as much as a human, or maybe more so. I’m both and neither. It’s a feeling only shifters can understand.
Now I bounded through the forest, glancing at fellow members of my pride as I ran by, but not stopping. My paws were still as sore as my human feet were and I was still exhausted from a long day at a crappy job I didn’t love, but none of it mattered now as I ran like the wind through the trees, leaping over familiar obstacles like the frozen over creek and the fallen pine that still hadn’t been cleared. As tired as I was, I felt like I reached home all too soon. I couldn’t see our little house from the woods, but I knew this whole town well enough. Even without little landmarks like the knot in a certain tree or a circular formation of stones, the smells changed. I could smell every little scent in my vicinity of the forest and some scents wafting around outside of them; the ice rink, the barbecue stand, the Dairy Queen, the lumber yard… I could smell my own house from half a mile away so I knew when I was near. My father was home and my brother wasn’t. I slowed my run and didn’t bother to shift till I was well out of the woods. Our little shack is in a pretty deserted spot and the nearest homes and businesses to it are all shifters anyhow as is most of this town.
Once I was trotting up to our door, I shifted back and shivered again as the cold hit my still too human skin. I stomped on our welcome mat, knocking the snow from my boots, and let myself in. Like usual, my dad was in his big chair in front of the TV. Dad was retired. Or rather, dad’s bad days after my mom died had turned into retirement and now he just collected social security and drank his feelings in whiskey, and once in a blue moon he’d go running in the woods.
He used to be an alpha. Our pride, like most lion prides, has multiple alphas. My dad unseated a bad one back in the day. He was a real leader back then. Maybe not a great leader but a reasonably competent one. Now he was just a sad old alcoholic and I’d never been able to help him beyond keeping him fed and borderline healthy. Just walking in to see him like this made me sad. It made me sad every day.
“Hey, Chloe,” my dad said, not looking away from the TV.
Our place was shabby and dimly lit, but I kept it clean and uncluttered. I think I had an insecurity about being considered trash. We were definitely considered trash by some prides in other towns, just by virtue of being poor. Lions can be a little bit classist like that (although we’re not nearly as bad as dragons). I knew I shouldn’t care and that there were plenty of other prides like mine near Stone River. There was St. Dominic, for example. Not that I could ever point to St. Dom as an example. Their pride had rivaled mine for generations. I was fuzzy on why exactly. But that was the thing about feuds. They went on forever until eventually nobody could remember why the fight had even started.
I checked my phone, yawning again before I took off my parka and hung it by the door.
“Gabe’s not home yet?” I said softly.
Gabe was my little brother. He’d just turned nineteen, and it wasn’t as if a nineteen-year-old had to know exactly where they were going in life but I worried about him. High school had been great for him. He’d been a varsity high school star and the both of us had been sure he would get recruited to The Stone River Fangs.
But I hadn’t counted on the bad blood between my father and Blake, the Captain of the Fangs, as well as one of our pride’s four alphas. It was Blake’s father who my dad had unseated all those years ago. He’s never directly said so, but I was sure that was the reason Blake wouldn’t put Gabe on the team and it had been a hit to Gabe’s confidence. Meanwhile, I know he wasn’t going to leave the pride and try to find a spot on a different team. He felt too loyal to my dad. I didn’t know why. My dad had never done anything for him. But I knew they shared a bond over missing my mom. My mom’s death hit me hard too, but Gabe h
ad been a kid. It hit him harder.
I went to the kitchen and started making a simple dinner. Hamburger Helper might have been cheap, but it got the job done well enough for us when we didn’t feel like hunting. I just hoped Gabe would get home soon. I also hoped he hadn’t gotten into any fights. He just didn’t have much going for him right now, taking odd jobs around town and unable to find regular work after high school. That was a perfect recipe for trouble. He’d started hanging around with young, troublemaking lions who I didn’t much care for and he let himself get tangled up in their bullshit. But I tried not to worry about that too much as I made dinner, while listening to music on my phone.
Not that I succeeded in not worrying. My entire life, I’d always felt like we were scraping by. But since my mom’s death, everything had just felt so much harder. I was always worried about either my dad or my brother and too often it felt like nobody bothered to worry about me.
“Hey.” I heard the muted voice of Gabe in the living room just as I was leaving the Hamburger Helper to simmer. Gabe swept in and I grabbed a root beer from the fridge for him, knowing it was his favorite. But when I turned to look at him, I gasped reflexively.
“Gabe!” Gabe was all beat up. My dad wouldn’t know because he probably hadn’t looked him in the face. But Gabe had a shiner and a split lip, plus a bruised cheek, and he was limping a little. “Goddammit.”
“Don’t look at me like that,” Gabe grumbled, sitting down gingerly at the kitchen table. “It was a couple St. Dom’s guys. Showed up on our turf. But I didn’t start it.”
“Men,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Oooh, they showed up on our turf! Like that matters? We cross turf all the time. We have to live, don’t we?”
“But they were shifted,” Gabe said, as if that should be obvious.
It wasn’t obvious to me. The fight went back deep into our history but it had been so long ago. It seemed silly nowadays to get into scrapes over nothing. The feud was mostly expressed via the minor league hockey team rivalry anyway. I felt like that was a healthier type of competition than starting wars for no reason, although even when it was just hockey, it often led to real life fights. Hence, my brother.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “You’re an adult, for God’s sake. Can’t be getting into fights over stupid turf. You’re not even an alpha.”
Gabe looked wounded by that and I felt a little bad. It was a sore spot for him. Our father had been an alpha after all, albeit not for very long. I knew Gabe felt he should be following in our dad’s footsteps. It all seemed like silly boys playing silly games to me. But that was pride life.
“I’m sorry-”
Gabe turned away before I could finish, stomping off to his little room, and I felt even shittier.
Great. My stupid mouth had run away from me and hurt my brother when all I wanted to do was take care of him. I shook my head and finished making dinner. I knew dad wouldn’t come in to eat. I took him his food, and he thanked me, smiling briefly. That just gave me a good look at his red nose and his bloodshot eyes. I felt like I was watching him waste away right in front of me sometimes. I set out Gabe’s dinner for him and we both ate at the kitchen table, but I could tell he was still angry at me.
“I’m truly sorry I said what I did,” I said quietly, as I poked at my food. “You know I didn’t mean it like that. Besides, we both know you’d be a better alpha than dad was.”
Gabe seemed to absorb that, and he smiled sadly at me. “No, I wouldn’t. But I wouldn’t be worse either.”
That made me feel a little better and a little sadder all at once, but I only nodded at him and said, “Let me take a look at your banged up face, will you?”
Gabe nodded and our dinner passed smoothly after that. But I was suddenly feeling restless. I was tired, and the next day I’d have another long shift in the morning, but at the moment, I didn’t care. I felt like if I stayed in this house another minute, my head was going to explode.
After dinner, Gabe let me patch him up. It felt all too familiar. But I guessed if he was on a hockey team, he’d be getting banged up just as often. When I was done, I told him I was going out and he raised his eyes in surprise.
“Just edgy,” I said, shrugging. I left him in the bathroom with a bandage on his cheek and flounced off to my own room to change into something a little...showier.
“You mean horny!” Gabe said, following me. I cast him a dirty look and he grinned even with his split lip. “You wanna get laid!”
“Don’t be gross,” I said loftily.
But he wasn’t wrong. I knew I wouldn’t, if only because this town was small and I already knew what my choices were. I was tempted to go into another territory just for a change of pace. Even being a rival shifter, if I went into St. Dom, nobody was going to kill me for being one woman having a drink in enemy territory. I was pretty sure anyway.
Gabe only laughed at me and I shut the door in his face, changing into a short skirt, tights, boots, and a sweater that showed my curves a little. It would all be covered up by the parka but it still felt nice to put on some lipstick and fluff up my honey colored hair. I even applied some winged eyeliner that made my big amber eyes pop. It always made me feel young again, getting ready to go out. That was a ridiculous feeling in itself. I was only twenty-six for God’s sakes.
I’d decided to just walk to Bobo’s, one of the local watering holes on the edge of town. It wasn’t very exciting, but it was familiar and maybe it would be better not to go looking for trouble. There were human towns I could go to, of course, where I wouldn’t need to worry about shifter rivalries at all. But somehow, even supposed “enemy territory” seemed a little homier than the world of humans.
I was walking along the quiet street, enjoying the way snow caught the streetlights and the moonlight, when I heard Blake behind me and tensed up.
“Hey there, pretty girl,” Blake said huskily. I could hear his footsteps on the icy sidewalk and I didn’t smell anybody else anywhere near us. I didn’t like that. Blake might have been an alpha, but I’d never trusted him a lick.
Blake had a grudge strong enough to ban my brother from The Fangs even though he was the best young player in our town and probably in the couple towns surrounding, but that didn’t stop him from messing with me every chance he got. I wouldn’t have minded if he was just a dick. But he hit on me aggressively even though I’d made my lack of interest in him clear. It was annoying at best, and at worst it made me scared that he might not take no for an answer someday.
“Hi, Blake,” I mumbled. I stuck my gloved hands in my pockets and walked a little faster, though I had to be a little careful on the ice. I heard Blake laugh and he jogged up in front of me, walking backwards so I was forced to look at him.
“You goin’ to Bobo’s, baby?” Blake said. “Me too. How about drinks? How about a little more than drinks?”
“No thanks, Blake.” I kept my voice neutral and refused to look in his eye. It all felt like a game. I’d said no a million times, but I couldn’t tell him off. I had to be civil or I’d get flak from the pride since he was, after all, an alpha.
But I could go somewhere other than Bobo’s. If I went to a bar in St. Dom, I knew Blake wouldn’t follow me there, or at least not without some back up.
If he was going to Bobo’s, Blake wasn’t about to leave me alone.
“What do I have to do to get on your good side?” Blake said, leering at me.
“Put Gabe on the team,” I said dryly.
I didn’t mean it at all. It was only what was so often on my mind when it came to Blake. But it wasn’t as if I’d really come around on him if he put Gabe on The Fangs.
“Gabe never makes The Fangs,” Blake snapped just as quickly. “You know why.”
I shrugged but inwardly, I was a little relieved. What if he agreed? Then I’d be forced to actually make the choice. And truthfully? I’m not sure what I would choose.
I sniffed out shifters coming, and not particular friends of Blake, just to
wnsfolk. That was good, I thought. I walked along, fully intending to walk right past Bobo’s and out of town, over to St. Dominic.
“Well, goodnight, Blake,” I said quickly. I picked up my pace, leaving him cackling and shaking his head as if we’d been bantering in good fun when in reality, I was relieved to get out of the conversation safely.
Every time I go into St. Dom’s I half expect a bunch of lions to chase me down with pitchforks. But most of that rivalry just comes out on the ice. It’s just old habits and stories from childhood that put that thought in my head really. Though obviously, given that stupid fight Gabe got into, there’s still quite a feud. It’s stupid. Shifters should be unified in my opinion. We have enough to fear from humans without going at each other.
But now I was walking down St. Dom’s sidewalks, and while noticing that their streets were just a little nicer than ours, I also couldn’t help but notice that nobody was paying me any mind. Maybe they just hadn’t sussed out that I was from Stone River. It wasn’t as if you could smell that on a shifter. But either way, it made me relax a little. Just off St. Dom’s main drag, I saw a neon sign that read: The Drawing Room. It looked a little divey, but not dangerous. Just my speed. My breath puffed in the sharply chill air, as I nodded at the bouncer who just waved me through.
Great, I wasn’t even getting carded. That made me feel just a little too old.
In an hour, I had a second drink in front of me and I’d been hit on twice. But somehow that thirst I’d been feeling back at home that Gabe had been right about, had all gone out the window. Now I just wanted to be left alone. I blamed Blake for that.
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