The Skin She's In

by Margo Bond Collins

  “They’re worried about... Well, they’re worried about our decision to take in the baby lamias.”

  I leaned in and ducked down a little to catch his gaze. “They’re worried about me, too, aren’t they?” I asked. “About us seeing each other?”

  “Yes,” he finally said. “They’re having a difficult time understanding why I’m dating a lamia. I’ve told them that it’s because they don’t know you, that once they have a chance to get a sense of who you really are, it’ll all be okay.”

  I frowned. “You don’t know that, not for sure.” I wrapped my arms around my midsection, hugging myself tightly, as if that would ward off any unpleasantness between Kade’s family and me.

  “It’ll all be okay,” Kade said, brushing my hair out of my eyes with one hand. Normally, the gesture would’ve soothed me. Today, though, I just found it irritating. I spun away from him, throwing myself down into a chair at the table and resting my head in my hands.

  “They’re coming into town next week,” he said. “I want you to meet them.”

  I let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “Because my life isn’t stressful enough. I’ve got wolves determined to wipe out all of my kind, my own clan threatening to abandon me in droves, and now my boyfriend’s family is planning to show up to judge me. Perfect.”

  “It’s not like any time has been a good time since we met,” Kade pointed out.

  I flicked my gaze up toward him, checking to see if there was any sarcasm in the statement. But Kade looked, as usual, perfectly sincere.

  Right now, even that pissed me off. Suddenly, it was as if nothing in my world was right, and yet he managed to stand there continuing to look sympathetic—even as he added to the stress by assuming that I would be perfectly happy to host his family for a visit.

  I dropped my head onto the table, burying it in the crook of my arms. I wasn’t being rational, and I knew it.

  “Gloria thinks I need to take some time off while we get settled in with the babies,” I said, my voice coming out muffled.

  Kade sat down beside me. “It’s not a terrible idea,” he said. “You do have a lot in your plate right now.”

  “How are you so calm?” I asked. “it’s not like this isn’t affecting you, too.”

  “I do have the added benefit of not having to worry about being the direct target of a group of evil wolves.”

  “Are you absolutely sure of that?” I raised one eyebrow. “Your family seems to suggest that there will be at least a little bit of a target on you—if they’re concerned, then there is a good chance that the wolves, and everyone else who would like to see me gone, are going to lump you in with me too.”

  Kade stretched his hands out across the table, reaching for mine. “There is no place I would rather be lumped,” he said, a slight smile working at the side of his mouth.

  I shook my head, laughing a little. “Well, then. Come on. Let’s get our lump on, listen to what these werewolf assholes have to say, and go find our missing baby.”

  He dropped a kiss on my knuckles, then stood and led me out of the room.

  Chapter 34

  I CAUGHT FRANK’S LAST name for the first time as the local Alpha finished his blustering and called Frank Boyer onto the stage.

  And Frank was slick as any politician I had ever seen. He greeted everyone, called a few of them by name, even though he wasn’t from this area. Everything in the little speech he gave was designed to make sure he was appealing to their sense of community, of the shifter version of family values.

  Then he said, “And, as I’m sure many of you know, it’s been a long time since we have faced the threat of a lamia invasion in North Texas.”

  “You’re not exactly facing one now, either,” someone called out from the audience.

  “Bunch of babies don’t exactly count for an invasion,” another shifter said.

  I didn’t recognize the voices, and even in the small crowd, I couldn’t tell who’d spoken out—a wave of gratitude swept through me.

  Some of these people, at least, were going to stand up for us.

  “But isn’t that something you should be able to decide for yourselves?” Frank said from the front of the room. “Shouldn’t we, as free shifters, have the right to determine if a killer lives and works among us?”

  From another point in the room, I heard someone mutter, “Hell, yeah.”

  Guess they aren’t all my supporters.

  “And that,” Frank said, “is why I am calling a national meeting to convene here next week. We will have a full and open discussion of the issues we face.”

  “Will that be before or after your werewolves kidnap all the lamia infants?” Kelly called out from nearby, her hands on her hips as she flipped her dark hair over one shoulder.

  You go, girl!

  If anyone knew how little threat these juvenile lamias posed, it was Kelly, someone who had taken care of them, fed them, held them, bonded with them.

  “I heard about the abduction at the hospital yesterday,” Frank said with contentious glee. “It is a terrible, terrible thing to have happened.” He shook his head as if sad. “Please know that my people would never do something so obviously unlawful.”

  No word, I noticed, about it being immoral, too.

  He kept talking. “But, while we don’t believe in illegal actions, we do believe in a free and open debate about issues just like these facing our communities. We will stand up for your safety, your rights, and your freedoms. We hope you’ll join us at next week’s Council meeting.” As he finished speaking he looked down at his watch, in a way that caught my attention.

  Not that someone giving a speech shouldn’t look at his watch—but when he flicked a glance at one of his other men toward the back of the room, all my senses went on high alert.

  Something isn’t right here.

  My fingers tightened around Kade’s anxiously.

  Janice’s phone buzzed, and she glanced down at it, her face going white.

  Before I could even begin to move toward her, my own new phone buzzed at me, too. When I looked down at its text, the words swam in front of my eyes for a moment, refusing to resolve themselves into a message that my mind did not want to accept was there.

  NICU under attack.

  As soon as I could make any sense at all what I saw, I was already pulling Kade out Janice’s door and toward his truck. But Kade had gotten his own message, too, and didn’t need any encouragement.

  I could hear Janice inside saying, “We’ll need to cut this short, folks.”

  Kelly followed us outside, but I said, “You stay here and help Janice take care of this.”

  Kade nodded. “We’ll get everyone over to the hospital as soon as we can, but please tell Janice she needs to stay here and watch Frank and his group. Whatever they’re doing, it’s underhanded as hell.”

  By then we were already in the truck, and Kade was starting the engine. As we pulled out onto the street, I began texting everyone in our small army.

  “Eduardo tells me he’s got the Shields keeping the NICU on lockdown,” I told Kade.

  “Does it seem odd to you at all that Frank and his goons would attempt another abduction so soon after the first?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Depends on what they want. If all they want is a way to get through the Earth-magic portal, then that’s the closest one around,” I said. “They’re almost stuck having to go through the NICU.”

  “Yeah,” Kade said. “If they hadn’t gone through once already, I’d almost laugh—it’s one of the most secure areas of the hospital.”

  “But they did get one baby through,” I said, my voice turning solemn.

  I checked my texts for responses.

  “Tomás is meeting us there, as well as Shadow and Jeremiah.” I was amazed at how quickly the people I had access to responded when I needed them.

  Between growing up not knowing about any other shifters at all and discovering that my race was feared and hated, it alw
ays came as a surprise to realize that I had as many friends and allies as I did.

  I sent a tiny thankful prayer up for them.

  We hit the hospital entrance at a run, dashing down halls and corridors that had been cleared specifically for us.

  When we got to NICU Room Five, though, everything was entirely quiet.

  I didn’t know the nurse on duty, but she seemed nice enough—nothing in her appearance, scent, or heat signature suggested that she harbored me or the two new babies any ill will.

  “So there wasn’t an attack here?”

  My frantic question made her forehead crease. “No. It’s been quiet all day.”

  As we reported in that everything was clear, and other teams across the hospital began doing the same, the sense of oddness grew.

  “What’s going on here?” Eduardo asked, his brow furrowed as he, too, walked into the NICU a few minutes later.

  I circled the magical rift in the world to check it for anything unusual.

  Nothing.

  Then I circled it again, this time drawing the sparkling energy into myself just enough to send it questing out, searching for what was wrong.

  “Oh, no,” I whispered. “No. No.”

  “What?” Kade asked. I glanced around the room at all the guards we had here to take care of two infants, to protect them.

  Just them.

  “Take me back to Janice’s,” I said.

  Something flickered in Eduardo’s eyes as he stared at me. I shook my head. “No. Stay. I’ll go check on things there. You make sure everything’s safe here.

  “Keep in touch,” Kade said to the Shield. Eduardo nodded.

  I sent texts to Janice all the way back.

  She never responded.

  When we got to back to her house, everything seemed perfectly calm from the outside.

  I almost breathed out a sigh of relief. Most of the cars were gone, as if everyone who had still been there when we left had departed peacefully.

  That illusion lasted until I got halfway up the path to the front door.

  Even in my human form, I could smell blood all the way out here.

  But I had to see it for myself.

  Kade grabbed my arm as I reach for the door—but he knew better than to try to stop me from going inside. “Stay with me. Don’t touch anything. Don’t track anything.”

  I knew he meant don’t track blood anywhere.

  But I couldn’t think it.

  I couldn’t think anything.

  Right inside the entryway was clear, and for half a heartbeat I allowed myself to believe that maybe everything would be okay.

  Then I took two more steps in, far enough to see into the living room.

  It was a bloodbath.

  Every shifter who had spoken out for me—all the ones who had not left with us to go back to the hospital—were all there. Dead.

  I’ve seen blood before. A lot of it.

  But not like this.

  What happened here was a slaughter, with no reason other than naked ambition.

  It left me reeling.

  And then I saw Kelly.

  It looked like she had tried to jump in front of Janice to protect her. And Kelly had been ripped in half for her trouble.

  The wolves have been more careful with Janice. They wanted to make sure she was recognizable, at least her face.

  They had planted her head atop a pile of disembodied pieces. Like a small offering laid there, waiting for me.

  And this time, I planned to retaliate in kind.

  Chapter 35

  I WAS ALREADY IN MY serpent form and headed back out the door when Kade’s voice and words finally penetrated. “Lindi, they’re at the hospital. They’re going after the babies now.”

  It was enough to convince me to shift back into my human form, wrap my clothes around myself, and make my way to the truck.

  For the second time in a row, the hospital was on total lockdown when we arrived.

  I shoved through the doors, blowing them so wide open in my rage that one of them shattered.

  The sound of my vows beat in time with my pulse.

  They killed Janice. They will not kill my babies.

  One of the wolves who had been in Janice’s living room when Frank started giving his speech was out in the waiting room with a number of other patients.

  I assumed he had been involved in the plan, if not the execution—some demented part of my brain laughed morbidly at the double entendre of execution.

  I didn’t stop to consider whether there were human patients in that waiting room or if my actions might have an effect beyond this moment.

  I simply reached out with one hand and applied every ounce of my serpent strength to his neck, squeezing the life out of him, like a constrictor preparing to eat prey.

  I don’t know if the humans could even tell he was dead—I kept dragging his body with me until we were away from non-shifter eyes, then I dropped it on the floor unceremoniously.

  As we got closer, I could see that there were several half-shifted wolves fighting to get into the NICU.

  I slammed my way through them even as I shifted, breaking wolfmen and dropping them for as long as I had hands to do it with.

  And then I broke down the doors of the NICU. Only the knowledge that there were children inside those rooms kept me from knocking down the walls as I went.

  But when I got to Room Five, I discovered that Frank and some of his other wolves had used the back entrance and broken through to the lamia babies.

  When I saw that they were there before me, cold despair filled my entire body—it was all I could do to keep from throwing myself down and begging them to trade.

  Because they each had one of the incubators. Two werewolves in their half-wolf form, fending off a circle of angry shifter-warriors. Several of the shifters, including the Shields, had taken their animal form.

  The babies’ defenders, I noted, included the newcomer who had come through the rift.

  I was glad to see he was fighting on our side.

  I charged at them, those werewolves who held my babies hostage, only coming up short when I discovered that they had actually taken the infants out of the bassinets. On one side of the room, Shane the herpetologist had picked up an IV stand and was brandishing it threateningly.

  There’s no way to get the babies and get out.

  In that instant, I knew I had only two options.

  One was to let these monsters take the infants that I had already sworn to care for.

  The other was to take them myself.

  I made eye contact with Kade, hoping he could read my intentions in the look I gave him.

  I glanced around one last time, hoping I was doing the right thing.

  At the very last instant, Kade’s eyes grew wide as he finally figured out what I was planning. But it was too late for him to stop me.

  I charged forward, shifting as I went, so that the two wolves in their wolfman form were prepared for a snake. They weren’t prepared for the giant half-snake, half-woman who towered over them at the last moment, snatching the babies out of their arms and pulling that window between world as wide as it would go.

  As I dove through the open air, leaving behind the scent of the hospital and trading it for something absolutely foreign, full of dust and smoke.

  I hoped Kade had understood the last thing I yelled.

  I love you. Take care of Serena.

  I almost heard it echoing away behind me.

  WE LANDED HARD ON THE street in some strange world. Both babies, when hit by the magic inside that window, had shifted into serpent forms. I heaved a sigh of relief, certain I wouldn’t have been able to function with two premature human babies in a strange world.

  As I glanced up at the shimmering rectangle in the air, I saw two more shapes hurtling toward me, and for just an instant I had the wild thought that maybe Kade had come with me and maybe Eduardo had decided to come as our protector, as well.

  But the two men
who came tumbling out of the sky were Shane and the man who had traveled through that window to get to our world in the first place.

  I focused all my attention on the rift between worlds and shoved it almost completely closed. I hadn’t been sure I would be able to do that.

  As the stranger stumbled to his feet, brushed off his pants, and glanced around, he said, “Well, I guess this isn’t my world, either. But it looks like you might be able to use some help anyway.” He stuck out one hand. “My name is Coit Dugger. Looks like you had some pretty serious trouble back there. Maybe you’ll be able to keep it from catching up with you here.”

  I stare blankly at Coit’s hand.

  “Yeah. I just thought you could maybe use some help with some snakes,” Shane said, grinning at me. “Couldn’t let you do this alone.”

  Tears prickled behind my eyelids and I fought to shove them back down.

  Because whatever else might be true, I knew that although I had managed to get lost, I wasn’t done with Kade Nevala.

  I would find the third infant born this week, and all four of us would go home to Kade.

  The wolves would pay for everything they had done. Including Janice’s death, and Kelly’s, and the life of every other shifter they’d slaughtered today.

  I’d get payback. And it looked like I was going to have some help to do it.

  I knew one thing for sure.

  This is not the end.

  LOVE THIS BOOK? BE sure to get In Someone Else’s Skin, Book 3 of the Lindi Parker Shifter Shield series.

  You can read about other characters from this book in these books:

  Darkness There tells the story of Tomás and Bron.

  Laugh Out Love tells the story of Shadow and Jeremiah.

  Rift Magic tells Coit’s story.

  You can also sign up for Margo’s general newsletter here for information about new releases, giveaways, and more.

  About the Author

  USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times bestselling author Margo Bond Collins is a former college English professor who, tired of explaining the difference between “hanged” and “hung,” turned to writing romance novels instead. (Sometimes her heroines kill monsters, too.)