The Shifter's Mail Order Virgin (Stonybrooke Shifters)
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Table of Contents
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THE SHIFTER’S MAIL ORDER VIRGIN
A Stonybrooke Shifters story
Leela Ash
Copyright ©2017 by Leela Ash. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic of mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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STONYBROOKE SHIFTERS SERIES
DADDY SHIFTER’S VIRGIN
A SECRET BABY FOR THE SHIFTER
Table of Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
BONUS BOOKS
Dystopian Romance
Love and Survival in the Time After
Victorian Mystery
Alien Romance
MC Romance
Bear Shifter Romance
Stepbrother Romance
Highlander Time Travel Romance
Billionaire Romance
Time Travel Romance
Dragon Shifter Romance
Wolf Shifter Romance
1.
“Open up, Ferguson! We know you’re in there!”
Molly’s heart panged with fear at the sound of Mr. Jeffers. He had been hounding her family for months, coming and going as he pleased and making pass after pass at Molly, who was at least thirty years younger than he was. It was just creepy.
The worst part was that Molly’s father was at this man’s beck and call, and nobody seemed more anxious to please the old man than her dad. Being the youngest of the three children at twenty-three years old, Molly had always been sheltered from the ways of the family business, but she’d gotten the impression that things had gone far, far south, and a shady deal with the horrible old man had been the only way to save the business her father had worked all his life to build.
“Just one moment, please,” Molly said as evenly as she could. Her father had made it clear he wasn’t to be bothered, under any circumstances, before locking himself in his study. It had made her feel a little bit apprehensive at the time, especially with Jeffers always dropping in at random. It put her in a bit of a tight place. She knew that whatever was going on with Jeffers was important, though, and if he thought her father was avoiding him then things would go downhill fast.
Molly rushed upstairs and rapped urgently on her father’s door.
“How many times do I have to tell you kids what ‘do not disturb’ means?” her father exclaimed.
“It’s Mr. Jeffers, father,” Molly said, her chest tight. “He’s here for you.”
“Curse that infernal man,” Molly’s father said quietly under his breath. “He’s going to be the death of me.”
“Especially if you don’t answer the door,” Molly said quietly.
“Of course, of course. See to it that nobody comes up here and disturbs my work, all right? That’s my girl.”
Her father dropped a quick kiss on Molly’s forehead and she watched him head downstairs quickly. It seemed odd that she would be appointed to guard his office. None of them ever dared to go inside. Not even their mother. What was he hiding in there?
“Mr. Jeffers, welcome!” Molly’s father’s voice boomed jovially throughout the house and Molly cringed. There was nothing but falsity in it, and there was nothing that Molly valued more than honesty. “Please come in.”
“I might feel more welcome if that daughter of yours would allow me to wait inside for you. I swear, you’d think she was raised in a barn. Pretty as hell, though, that one. She’s lucky for it too, otherwise she wouldn’t get away with it.”
Molly’s cheeks burned as she listened to the men chatting candidly in the hallway. Did they realize just how far their deep voices carried in this place?
“It’s my fault, really. You see, I told her I wasn’t to be disturbed. But your visits here are always welcome. She just wanted to clear the air.”
“Ah, a considerate girl, indeed,” Jeffers said. “I have half a mind to put her to work. If you know what I mean.”
Molly frowned. She was well aware of the types of business that Jeffers mixed himself up in. He was quite infamous for his dealings in brothels and the like. Whether shifter or human, the man knew his way around a corner. The sex trade seemed to suit him. It made her sick to think he might think of her in such a way, though she couldn’t say that she was surprised about it either.
“Molly is not cut out for that line of work,” her father said rigidly, clearing his throat before changing the subject.
“Well, you’re going to have to do something about this. You owe me money. Big money. And we’re not going to be doing each other favors anymore. We agreed on that.”
“It’s out of the question. We will find another way.”
“I wouldn’t put her up in a brothel,” Jeffers went on as if he hadn’t heard her father. “She would have a nice, loving home. Do you know the market value of a virgin? She would rake in way more than enough to pay off your debt to me and save the business at the same time. Otherwise, you know it’s going to come out about the murder.”
“That was an accident!” Molly’s father hissed. “And don’t you think I feel bad enough about that? Now please, do not speak of that in a place where my daughters might overhear.”
“It doesn’t matter to me who overhears your issues. They might as well know it. You killed a man and your boy was with you. In fact, your son could go to prison for a long, long time, Ferguson. He covered your ass. And you know everybody is going to see the alarming coincidence. The night Terry Ramsey disappeared was the same night he was going to come in and shut down your business. Buy you out like you were the world’s biggest putz. And somehow, that very night, he just so happens to get hit by a car.”
“You know exactly what happened. He threatened me! Threatened my family! Then he decided to jump out in front of my car. It was storming and I couldn’t stop in time.”
“Which is why you came to me. You knew I had experience in such…delicate matters. You
told me the whole sad story about your floundering business too. And I took pity on you. I helped you. But there was a price for that help and your deadline is far past due.”
“Molly is off limits, Jeffers. I already told you that we will think of something.”
“Well, you’re just going to have to think fast, because if you don’t have a solution by Tuesday morning, I won’t be able to help you with the nice, hard-working police man who will knock at your door.”
“Please! Just…”
But the door had already slammed shut, and Molly’s father stood downstairs, his silence enough of an indication of what he might be thinking. He eventually returned to his office, smiling feebly at Molly, before closing the door behind himself and leaving Molly in the darkness.
2.
“I just don’t see why you couldn’t have stayed with Veronica! She was a nice girl!”
“She wasn’t my type, Ma, could you just give it a rest?”
“But Greyson, your time is severely limited. Don’t you see that?”
Greyson glowered at his mother, a growl rising in the back of his throat.
“Greyson Beauregard Bleuth, do not look at your mother like that!”
His father’s stern voice made Greyson balk and he turned his glaring eyes onto his father.
“Why do you two insist on treating me like I’m twelve years old? I’m nearly thirty-two and you’re still trying to play matchmaker. Why can’t you just mind your own business about it?”
“You know perfectly well, why,” Greyson’s father said, his dark, serious eyes silencing his son.
And it was true. Greyson was of a proud shifter heritage. One steeped deeply in tradition. They were descended from the founders of Stonybrooke, and had always had an important role in looking out for the rest of the pack. Times had changed, and drastically, since the original shifters had roamed the land, but not so much that Greyson’s family had lost sight of who they were.
“I just haven’t met the right woman for me yet, that’s all,” Greyson said with a heavy sigh.
“Well, you have a date tonight,” his mother said cheerfully, flipping open her notebook and scanning through the pages. “A girl named Heidi. She’s very cute. And a virgin. You know how important that is.”
Greyson grunted. He knew how important his parents thought it was. According to legend, if the first-born shifter of noble blood mated with a human virgin, then not only would the union be blessed for all time, but the rest of the pack would be given the blessing of the ancients, and the couple’s offspring was granted special powers that other shifters couldn’t possess. Especially in the presence of the Serah stone.
It all sounded very alluring, but Greyson had never thought much either way about whether a woman was a virgin or not. Not that he was the type of man who liked to be intimate with every girl who crossed his path. Quite the opposite, actually. He was a loner at heart, and a secret romantic. He just couldn’t see himself being with a woman, let alone settling down with someone, who didn’t stir him in some way.
“Where did you find this one?” Greyson asked with a heavy sigh.
“The same dating site where I found Veronica. She’s looking for the right special someone to give her ladyhood to!”
“Mother!” Greyson exclaimed, disgusted by both the phrasing and the cheerfulness with which his mother imparted the news.
“Please, just promise me you’ll meet her and give her a chance.”
“I give all of them a chance,” Greyson growled.
His father raised a warning eyebrow at him and Greyson sighed.
“Well, give this one an extra chance. You only have one more month until the Serah ceremony commences. If you’re not mated by then, you won’t get another chance like this for the rest of your life. It’s only held once every thirty-one years, and I doubt you’re going to be able to bear children at the ripe old age of sixty-three.”
“I’ll try my best to give her a chance,” Greyson said, bowing deeply at his parents before turning his back on them and heading out the door. “But I can’t make any promises.”
“That’s all we ask,” his mother said, her voice bright now that she had gotten her son to agree to another date that, as far as Greyson was concerned, was going to go nowhere. “Have fun!”
Greyson grunted. If she wanted him to have fun so badly, she wouldn’t be sending him on this miserable misadventure to begin with.
***
The date was arranged for that evening at the nicest restaurant in Stonybrooke. Greyson’s parents had a lot of money, so they were able to afford fine dining for all of Greyson’s unfortunate candidates. He sat at the table, twenty minutes early as his mother had instructed him to be, and fiddled with every single thing he saw on the table as he went over the long list of women he had rejected.
First, there was Annabelle, the woman who compulsively spoke only about the things that irritated her. It got to be very poor company after a while, even if she was attractive. Then it was a girl named Sue, who seemed to be allergic to every single thing on the menu. Even worse was Jackie, who seemed to have an aversion to all types of shifter cuisine and seemed to have nothing good to say about the political standing of shifters and humans.
None of these women had gotten Greyson particularly interested. Even if his parents thought he was turning down the girls to spite them, he wasn’t. They were just too consumed with his bad reputation. He had hung around a bad crowd for the larger part of his life, and he had little patience for anybody else. If he found someone irritating upon his first impression of them, he wasn’t the type of guy to give them a second chance. There was no point in wasting his time on stupidity and mundane people. There were more important things to think about.
“Greyson?”
Greyson sighed at the shrill timbre of the woman’s voice, and when he stood up to greet her, he was shocked to find that she stood at least two heads taller than he was, which was fairly miraculous considering he was a hearty six foot six inches tall.
“It’s nice to meet you,” he said, forcing himself to smile. This was going to be a long night.
3.
“All right, Fergusons,” Jeffers said with a sly, ugly grin. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”
Molly’s father was silent. Everybody was gathered in the sitting room. Molly’s parents, and her older brother and sister were sitting across from Mr. Jeffers, whose face was lit up as if he had just received the best gift he had ever gotten.
Molly’s parents exchanged looks and finally sighed as her father stood up to face Jeffers. He looked the horrible old man square in the eye.
“You’re just going to have to turn us in,” he said, swallowing hard. “Because I’m not going to make anybody else pay for my mistakes. I shouldn’t have come to you for help. I let my pride endanger my family and my business.”
“Very well,” Jeffers said, standing up, his smile faltering a bit. Molly knew exactly what he had been hoping to hear, and her chest felt tight as she stood up, nausea overwhelming her.
“Don’t do it,” she said, her voice shaking horribly. “I’ll do it, Mr. Jeffers. I’m sorry, father, but I have to do this for you and for Danny.”
She smiled at her older brother, who had always been there for her through thick and thin. She wouldn’t let him go to prison for the rest of his life because of their father’s shady business dealings. And she didn’t want her father to be arrested either. If the family business went under, their family would have nothing.
“Molly, you don’t know what you’re saying,” her father exclaimed, standing up. His face was pale, and he stared in horror at Mr. Jeffers’ face as the sickening grin spread across it once again.
“I think she knows exactly what she’s saying, my boy,” Jeffers said. “You heard us speaking the other night, didn’t you?”
“What is going on?” Haley, Molly’s older sister, asked, looking around the room. Nobody had told her what had happened between their
father and Mr. Jeffers.
“I’ll explain it all to you later, honey, I swear,” their father said. “Jeffers, if you lay a hand on Molly at all, I swear –“”
But Jeffers only smiled again and shook his head. “I will not be the one touching the girl. All she has to do is put an ad in the newspaper. Somebody out there will find it. I’m sure he will be quite the gentleman.”
“How dare you!”
Molly’s father stood up and lunged toward Jeffers, but Molly stood between them. She looked her father in the eye and took his hand.
“I want to do this. It will give you all a second chance. And I will be okay. I trust that my fate will be a merciful one. And even if it isn’t, I will accept it all happily knowing that I’ve done something, finally, to contribute to the family. Your happiness is worth it to me.”
“Molly, please don’t do this!”
But her mind was made up.
“It’s going to be worth it. You’ll see!”
Jeffers grinned and slapped Molly’s father hard on the back.
“I’ll see to it that no harm will come to her. I will look into the families that offer to take her personally and ensure that she will be in caring hands.”
“If there’s one thing you taught me, father, it’s to take care of myself and to do the right thing. I know you made a mistake, but you shouldn’t suffer for it for the rest of your life. Not when you’ve given up so much to make us a life. I’ll see to it that your debt is repaid. Please, just let me do this.”
The room was silent, the tension thicker than it had ever been in that room before. Finally, Molly’s father hung her head.
“It seems there’s nothing I can do to change your mind. You are an adult, my child. And if this is what you set your mind to then that is what will happen. I’ve known you from the time you were young. You were willful, but not headstrong, and I’ve come to trust your judgment. Just please, promise you won’t go far.”