BIG GATOR by Annora Soule
Copyright 2014
WGA Registration 2014
Cover Stock Photography obtained through Shutterstock and iStockphoto
Cover Design by the author
Sharing free copies of this work is not allowed and harmful to self-published writers. Please respect the hard work of this author by not distributing free copies of this work to anyone; instead, please encourage interested readers to purchase an individual copy. All rights belong solely to this author.All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Sign up for author Annora Soule’s newsletter at: http://mad.ly/signups/102501/join
Coming soon: www.annorasoule.com
PLOT SUMMARY
Curvy alligator shifter Brandy Guyette is more than just a BBW. She's a BBG – a Big Beautiful Gator.
As the biggest female gator ever measured in the Southeastern U.S., Brandy has the hotter-than-hot wildlife expert and famous gator wrestler Jake McEvans equally enthralled. McEvans fell in love with her as a primo reptilian specimen the day he fished her out of a swimming pool in Miami and made her the starring attraction of Animal Sphere, his famous theme park in South Florida. Soon, McEvan's relationship with his model girlfriend starts crumbling when she realizes she can't compete with an alligator.
But Brandy wants McEvans to see her as more than just a big gator to wrestle – she wants him to notice her as a human woman.
Brandy comes from a long line of shifters, the descendants of a Louisiana man struck with a Hoodoo curse, courtesy of the legendary Madame Eve LaBelle. Brandy's kin are not the only alligator shifters around. Madame LaBelle put the juju on pretty much everyone who pissed her off circa 1884, and now their descendants are spread out all over the Gulf Coast.
There's plenty of downside – as curses are supposed to deliver – but for Brandy being a BBW in the Floridian shifter community earns her respect and admiration, from both men and women, for being the biggest and most desirable alligator around. She's also not one to be trifled with. Brandy is known for delivering 'swamp justice' whenever someone has it coming.
When Brandy accidentally shifts in front of McEvans, events are set into motion that enflame both their passions with potential risk. And soon the legacy of Madame Eve LaBelle rises from the grave in the form of another Conjure Woman who is just learning how to use her own power, with very direct implications for Brandy and McEvan's burgeoning relationship.
Chapter 1
Jake McEvans was, quite literally, a trademarked wild man. The CEO of Animal Sphere, Inc. and its related theme park and production company, Jake stood around 6'2'', 210 pounds of lean muscle in khakis and a black t-shirt, with a shaggy crop of sun-bleached blonde hair.
He stood tall in front of a live studio audience, with an alligator by his side. The gator could barely take her eyes of this man.
“Meet 'Shirley,'” he announced, introducing the alligator. The microphone attachment pinned to his shirt carried his baritone voice throughout the arena. “Shirley is the largest measured female alligator ever found in the Southeastern United States.
The gator's real name was Brandy. And she had never broken a record before. Brandy had even made the news, apparently.
“Isn't she beautiful, folks?”
Brandy's scales blushed. Flattery would get a maneverywhere with her.
Ever since McEvans had trapped Brandy in a four-star hotel swimming pool in Miami Beach two weeks ago, he simply couldn't get enough of her. The feeling was mutual. That's why she had allowed herself to be kept in captivity for so long, even though she was sure she had lost her job back home in Escala by now, having pulled an extended no-show.
She was, indeed, an unusually large gator for a female. In her human form, Brandy was a big girl, too, roughly a size 18. What she loved about shifting – despite the fact this was the result of a Hoodoo curse put upon Brandy's family generations ago – is that when she morphed into a gator, all that weight turned straight to muscle. The other gators didn't mess with her – so life was easy around Florida – very little danger for a gal like Brandy.
Hoodoo is not the same as Voodoo, by the way. People mix the two up. Hoodoo is a pure system of magick, not a bona fide religious tradition. And Brandy's wasn't the only Southern family living around the Gulf Coast to be cursed like this. It turns out the Alligator Curse was the favorite black magic spell of the 1880s. Madame Eve LaBelle put the juju on almost everyone who pissed her off circa 1884.
In her normal human form, Brandy was a Floridian BBW in all her glory. Her life wasn't all that exciting, though. She lived in the small town of Escala, a rural community on Lake Okeechobee. She worked for a telecommunications company that competed with the likes of Verizon and T-Mobile, and she was perpetually single. This last thing was more by choice than you would think. One man kept trying to marry Brandy – that was Ray, also a gator shifter. Ray had been in and out of prison, though. He was beefy and charming on his good days. Rough and tumble – a man who would take care of his woman, but she really didn't want to be with a man who was persistently on the wrong side of the law and a little bit of a dirty dog.
All the male gators liked Brandy a little TOO much, but gator love was a risky. If she had an affair in her scaly form during mating season, Brandy would end up with about 20 children all at once after they hatched. As a single mama (male gators are deadbeat dads), she would have to explain them all to welfare services when everyone shifted into their human selves for the first time.
Now, right at this very moment, Jake McEvans – this hunk of a man – was about to wrestle Brandy. And she was going to let him, for all the world to see. He liked her more than all the other alligators, since she really played along.
As McEvans continued to amaze the audience with facts and trivia about her species, Brandy slid closer to him. When he turned to look at her, she gave him a big ole' snap just to make him feel like a man. He seemed to like that. She moved slow, though, so he could step back unscathed.
Sometimes during the show McEvans would get Brandy to do things against her will. As a reptile, she had involuntary instincts. He liked to tap her nose to get her to bite reflexively, or stick his head in between her jaws as they hung open. If he didn't bump the roof of her mouth, she wouldn't bite him.
He definitely knew how to handle Brandy. After a show, he would throw her a fish. To Brandy, it was better than chocolate.
How it all started was this:
Brandy and her cousin Marianne had decided they both needed a weekend away. They shifted and swam on down to Miami through some back channels, stopping in the Glades to say 'hi' to some friends. They had connections in Miami, which meant a coastal condo. Brandy and Marianne could slip out of the water after sundown, shift back to human form in the darkness, and they had a stash of clothes already waiting for them.
After ditching their hides and making their humans selves presentable, Brandy and Marianne went out for margaritas. One margarita led to two, then three, and soon they were skinny dipping drunk in a pool at the ritzy Hotel Salinas.
Security caught them. Marianne jumped out fast and ran off, but Brandy was too slow. She was trapped. There she was – naked in the pool with flashlights on her. She was about to get arrested probably. Brandy panicked, and when the guards looked away for a minute, she shifted.
Now they had an alligator in their pool. That changedeverything.
Finding an alligator in one's pool in Florida is actually a common occurrence, and there are specialists who make a living snatching gators. Finding an alligator in o
ne's pool scares the bejeezus outta people.
The pool at Hotel Salinas was roped off, although curious bystanders couldn't be shooed away. Brandy was in a jam. If the wrong trapper was brought in, he'd skin her and turn her into a pair of cowboy boots.
This was bad, bad, bad. Why had she shifted?Brandy chastised herself. She sometimes just didn't think. Now, it could all go downhill, very fast.
As it turned out, Jake McEvans was filming a show nearby. Management at the Hotel Salinas decided to pull him in as a PR stunt. When McEvans first arrived, he looked a little bored. Then he saw all 13-feet of her (bigger than many males, even) and suddenly, he was intrigued. There were news crews and excitement. Brandy recognized McEvans immediately – she was secretly addicted to watching Animal Sphere on cable – and she knew she was probably safe with him.
When McEvans waded into the pool and approached her in the shallow end, she was so excited to see him that she momentarily forgot she was an alligator and rushed at him to ask for his autograph. All that came out, however, was a low reptilian roar.
Brandy had accidentally let out a mating call, in fact.
McEvans panicked and splashed backwards, flailing for dear life. He didn't look quite so professional at that exact moment.
No, no, no!Brandy thought. I don't want to hurt you! I want you to get me out of here!
She had to calm down, so he would feel safe. Brandy had to regroup. She dipped under water, circled the pool, and then swam slowly back in his direction, stopping about five feet away. Her eyes popped up just above the water, with the rest of her body resting just below the surface.
McEvans gingerly waded around her again. She stayed very, very still. Then she slowly turned and headed back to the deeper end. McEvans smoothly slipped under the surface and soon was swimming right under her cream-colored leather belly. She had watched him on Animal Sphere often enough wrestling gators so that she knew exactly what move he would make, if she set it up right.
Her plan worked. Within seconds, McEvans stood upright, his hair dripping pool water, with Brandy resting like a heavy barbell across his shoulders. At the gym, he could squat 400 lbs, and the water helped to float her. He had to start crouching, though, as he headed toward the shallow end in order to still get the benefit of having her float some.
A man had never scooped her up so easily before. She felt almost like a bride being carried across the threshold as he walked her toward the stairs in the shallow end of the pool. Without the buoyancy of the water, however, he couldn't manage her alone and needed the assistance of a couple guys from his crew to actually get her out of the pool.
Everyone around them clapped and cheered. Brandy felt sweet relief.
McEvans slipped her into the covered flat bed of a pickup truck with some help. It was the first time she ever went home with a man she had just met.
Not too long after, McEvans would examine Brandy and figure out that she was a she-gator – which shocked the hell out of him. She weighed in at 790 lbs (just around four times her human weight) and also was about 1.5 times the length of an average female alligator. Instead of being put-off by her size as a female, however, McEvans was really, really excited.
He showed her off to his crew and his producers. He gave her a private little corral by the wading pool, so she had her own space away from the other alligators. He gave her extra rations.
And then he made Brandy the star off his show.
It couldn't go on forever, though. After two weeks, Brandy sadly knew she would have to escape and go back to her boring, normal life.
Chapter 2
Although Marianne had run away, she had not abandoned Brandy. Marianne jogged five miles a day and was a petite little thing, so naturally she was fast in general. Brandy didn't blame her at all for bolting and leaving her behind.
Marianne tracked her best friend down pretty quickly at the Animal Sphere theme park, and she came to investigate the gator pit within a couple of days. There was a little walkway where tourists could hang out and watch the gators swim around a manmade swamp.
Animal Sphere was always packed, but Marianne patiently waited on the bridge until she had a few minutes when no one was around. Then she called out Brandy's name, trying to be as discreet as possible.
Brandy had been sunning herself on the opposite side of the bridge, but it wasn't so far that she couldn't she her friend. She waddled to the water's edge, then dipped in and swam on over. Marianne recognized her immediately – there was no mistaking Brandy amidst the others.
Gator shifters can communicate with each other irregardless of whether they are in human or reptile form. In human form, a shifter always will speak out loud. In gator form, a kind of mental telepathy mixed with reptilian body language is involved.
Alligators in general have no vocal chords, but they can roar and hiss, let out mating calls, and emit something known asinfrasound. Infrasound is low frequency and below the normal hearing range of most humans, although gator shifters can always hear it, even when they are in human form. All of this further expands a gator shifter’s overall vocabulary.
In addition to the fact that gator shifters can always talk to each other no matter what form either party is in, they also can talk to other gators. Most of the time, however, regular gators simply cannot hold up their end of a conversation.
“Oh my God, Brandy,” Marianne gushed, “I am so-so-so sorry! I just panicked and ran. We have to get you out of here!”
“It's not so bad,” Brandy told her. “It's kind of interesting actually.”
What she didn't admit to Marianne is that she had the hots for Jake McEvans.
Marianne was wearing denim short-shorts that were a hair's breath away from exposing her butt cheeks as she leaned over the wooden railing to talk to her friend. A natural redhead, her teal tank top contrasted stunningly against her creamy white shoulders splayed with patchy brown freckles that reached across her back and upper chest.
“You've been in shifter form for three days straight now,” Marianne. “That can't be healthy. How long have you ever been a gator without turning back into a human?”
“No more than 16-hours,” Brandy admitted. This was probably typical for a gator shifter. “Do you think I'm really at risk here?”
“I don't know,” Marianne said. “But don't you want to get the hell outta here?”
“Yes, of course,” Brandy said. Eventually, unfortunately.
“We have to come up with a plan,” Marianne said. “I'll get Ray – he can break-and-enter any facility around.”
“PLEASE don't get Ray,” Brandy said. “Then he'll think I owe him one, and you know how he's going to want to collect.”
A wicked grin spread across Marianne's face.
“Oh, come on – let yourself give in to the bad boy just for once,” Marianne said.
“The problem is he wants to pretend to be a good boy – he wants to marry me!” Brandy said. “But he's an ex-con, soon to be back behind bars any minute I'm sure!”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Marianne said. “We can't leave you in here. You should be more freaked out about this than I am!”
“You're right, you're right,” Brandy said. “It just has felt like kind of a vacation.”
A couple of male gators – not shifters – swam up beside Brandy to scope her out. She was used to this.
Brandy communicated to them something to the effect of, “No chance in hell.” It wasn't mating season, so the two gentlemen callers weren't really in the mood for love. They were just looking to flirt a bit, so when they were rebuffed, they swam off without a scuffle.
“I don't like the look of those two,” Marianne said. “Look at their shifty eyes.”
“We alligators all have shifty eyes,” Brandy corrected her.
“Not likethat. I know it's not the right time of year, but the longer you stay trapped in gator form, the more chance you have of gettingpreggers. What if you start laying eggs in here!”
; “Please! Give me some credit!” Brandy said. “I’m nobody's fool.”
“What if you don't have a choice? You're surrounded in here. What if you getgang-banged?!”
“Please, Marianne,” Brandy said. “No one is going to mess with me with my size. I'm pretty good at reading the primal instincts of other alligators, and the ones who aren't shifters are even easier to dominate.”
More tourists were coming, so Brandy and Marianne no longer had any privacy.
“I'll see you later,” Marianne said. “And I'm getting Ray to help, whether you like it or not.”
Brandy floated in the water and watched her friend take off.
It turned out that Ray was out-of-town on some kind of mysterious business, so Brandy was indeed stuck (happily) for two weeks.
Chapter 3
After a show one day, Brandy was led back to the manmade swamp just in time to see a new batch of gators arrive. Night fell so things were about to get interesting. Alligators are nocturnal, so the party was just about to get started.
Most gators are loners, so even when they are in a swamp filled with other gators – or a manmade pit at a theme park like this – they try not to piss each other off (unless they are psycho). Fundamentally, normal gators are cowards. Shifters definitely are NOT. Since shifters naturally merged human behavior with alligator behavior, that meant they hung out with friends, family and associates, and they could be aggressive.
Madame Eve LaBelle, without thinking of the long-term implications of her actions, had used her conjure to fill the swamps of Florida with a new kind of reptile. If a poacher came across a shifted gator, he often was in for a surprise, because everything he thought he knew about alligators would turn out to be wrong.
Since no one from any of the cursed families had exposed the situation to outsiders in over a hundred years, that meant that no one from the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission knew what they were dealing with, either.
Big Gator: A BBW shape shifter paranormal romance Page 1
