Shadows and Stars

by Becca Fanning

  “Please quit talking. It’s not helping!”

  Heather didn’t even care if she sounded like a lunatic at this point. She was positive that her son had decided to take up permanent residence in her womb and never leave. Never having been around anybody pregnant before she had no idea how long it was supposed to take; her labor was lasting hours though, and she was sure something was wrong.

  “Where the hell is Trent?”

  Trent and his dad had gone way up to the northern part of the state to a discount building supply store. It hadn’t been long after they left that Heather’s water broke and her contractions started. They hadn’t been able to reach the guys until they finally called the store. Apparently even with a pregnant wife at home nearing her due date, Trent still forgot to take his cell phone with him. His father refused to carry one, so Heather figured she couldn’t be too mad at him. Trent was then three hours away trying to hurry back to be there for the birth.

  “I thought it was nice that you asked Cage to give you away. I still wish that you would consider trying to reconcile with your parents, but I understand they’re difficult. Cage was honored to give you away though. Don’t you think that was nice, Michelle?”

  Michelle nodded, and Heather gave her the death glare. The last thing Heather wanted to think about right now was her parents. What she wanted was for her baby to come out, and her husband to be there beside her when it happened.

  “Where is Trent?” Heather yelled again as another contracted ripped through her body.

  “Any minute now, Heather. Hang in there, he’s coming.”

  A commotion sounded downstairs, and Heather prayed it was Trent. She had been in labor for what felt like days, and she was pretty sure the baby wasn’t coming out until Trent was there. Heather was also pretty sure she couldn’t handle the pain any longer without him. Emma had even come over and tried to help but it was useless. Heather knew Emma had taken control of the downstairs; keeping everybody updated on Heather’s progress and preparing food.

  Why people would want to eat while Heather was slowly dying upstairs, she’d never know. Another contraction came on, and Heather tried to push through it.

  “I’m pretty sure humans can’t have Shifter babies. It feels pretty impossible right now.”

  The door to the bedroom flew open and bounced off the wall behind it. An air of arrogance and calming washed over Heather and she knew Trent had finally made it. Everything seemed easier now just having him in the room with her.

  “You will have this baby, and you’ll both be just fine. You are not human.”

  His booming voice might have sounded arrogant to everybody else, but Heather could hear the bit of tension behind it. A three-hour drive with no way to be updated on her had to have been rough for Trent.

  “It’s about damn time.”

  “I’m so sorry, baby. I would have never left if I had known.” He rushed to her side and grabbed her hand.

  Another contraction came on and Heather pushed some of her pain into Trent like she did when she helped ease other people’s. Melanie and Michelle’s constant cheering faded, and Heather was only conscious of her and Trent and bringing their baby into their world together.

  One deep breath; one push with the strength of ten Shifters, and Heather’s world snapped into focus with the cry of a baby. Her baby. Their baby.

  She looked over at Trent who had tears streaming down his face. He leaned over and kissed Heather, never letting go of her hand. His hands started to shake, and Heather pulled some of his anxiety away from him. He looked at her when she did it, and smiled.

  “You are such a strong, beautiful woman. I couldn’t imagine a better woman to share this life with.”

  “Are you ready to hold your son?” Melanie whispered as she came over cradling their baby.

  Heather eased her blanket down and Melanie laid him down on her chest. Heather’s arms wrapped around the baby, and Trent’s hand covered them both. Everybody else slipped out of the room while they continued to hold each other.

  “He’s so perfect.”

  “Just like his daddy. I love you, Trent.”

  “I love you too, Heather.”

  “We both love you, Dru Wiley Cipher.”

  The baby wiggled and cuddled against Heather’s chest as if to proclaim his love back to them. Everything was right in their world. They had fought their demons, left their pasts behind them, and created a future full of possibilities.

  THE END

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Becca Fanning is a USA Today Bestselling Author who just can’t get enough of Shifter Romances. There weren’t enough to satiate her, so she started writing them. You’ll find mostly Bear Shifters in her books but some other types of Shifters might turn up soon if you check back at your favorite ebook retailer. ;)

  EVER MINE

  EDEN ASHE

  Ever Mine © 2018 Eden Ashe

  * * *

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  EVER MINE

  Can a kidnapped fairy and a human find love despite all odds?

  NATHAN ALEXANDER’S batty aunt has done it again. This time she’s sent him a rare plant he doesn’t want. Imagine his surprise when he finds a kidnapped fairy hidden within its leaves. As a man who heads a non-profit organization for abused women and children, Nathan makes it his mission to help her find her way home.

  All her life Katenia was warned about the evilness of humans. Never was that proved more true than when she was kidnapped from her quiet valley home. Thrust into the human world, Katenia must fight her very instincts to trust Nathan if she ever hopes to return to her rightful place…and to her normal thumb-sized fairy form.

  But with their lives in danger, finding home…and love…will be a journey worthy of a fairy tale.

  ONE

  “EXCUSE ME, sir, but I’m leaving for the night.”

  Nathan Alexander glanced up from the file on his desk when his office light switched on. Frustration pounded in his head as he tried to focus on the woman filling up his office doorway, an oddly large silver plant in her sturdy arms. “What?”

  Maggie James, assistant extraordinaire, shifted her considerable size further into the room, her direct look stern enough to make him squirm. While he had no idea how old she was, Nathan was long since over denying she terrified the hell out of him. The woman was built like a linebacker, with not a single soft spot in her physique or personality. She plopped the flowerpot onto his desk.

  Nathan was smart enough to keep his eyes on her face when she crossed her arms over her ample bosom. He was a man after all, but the last time his normal reflexes had dropped his gaze for the barest of seconds, he’d been slapped in the back of the head hard enough to make his ears ring.

  He had to admit there were days he worked harder than others to remember why he kept her.

  “You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Mr. Alexander.” She let out an annoyed tsking sound, and with a shake of her head, she started around the room, straightening whatever did not meet her OCD tendencies. Considering he hadn’t touched a thing o
ther than his desk and his files since the last time she’d cleaned up, he watched her in vague amusement. “You are not a young man anymore.”

  Nathan pushed his executive chair back, untangling his long frame from his uncomfortable position, and raised his arms in a bone-popping stretch. He was 34. Not exactly an old man. “Keep sweet talking me, Ms. James, and you won’t see your next raise for another year.”

  The battleax didn’t even blink as she came around his desk to start gathering up discarded coffee cups. “You make that threat weekly, sir.” She tossed the used cups into the trash, then grabbed him by the tie and pulled, bringing him to his feet. “You need to shower. You have dinner with Rhiannon in an hour.”

  “That’s tonight?” He let out a frustrated sound, and dragged his hand down his face. “I’m going to need a drink. Or maybe five.”

  She nodded, and gave him a shove toward his executive bathroom. “Already ordered you an extra strong pot of coffee. It will be here when you get out of the shower.” She sent a disdainful, pitying look toward the plants scattered around his lake-sized office in various stages of dead and dying. “Poor things. Why your dotty aunt insists on sending them, I will never understand. You don’t appreciate them.” Sighing, she plucked the hand-written note out of his newest exotic gift and rested it on his desk. “Do not forget to call her before you leave for the night.”

  He nodded as he shut the bathroom door behind him. He stripped out of the suit he’d had on since sometime around dawn, and since it didn’t look like he was going to have time to work out at the ninth-floor gym, he dropped to the floor and did a quick cycle of one hundred push-ups and one hundred sit-ups.

  Because sleeping—or not, depending on what he had coming up—at work was a common thing for him, he had a closet built off the bathroom, with an entire wardrobe in it. Everything he needed was in it from suits, to tuxedos, to workout clothes, to jeans and sweatshirts. The closet was a necessity. It could be days sometimes before he made it back to his penthouse.

  He sneered. The penthouse was another necessity. Despite the fact he ran a nonprofit and was expected to forgo a salary, he was expected to not be destitute. And by non-destitute, it meant throwing lavish parties in his home up to the high society standards of his wealthiest donors.

  He pulled a suit out of the closet without looking. It could have been ten years old, or it could have been brand new. He never paid attention enough to notice. Maggie made a comment once, when he’d first hired her and put her in charge of the credit card he used solely for his suits, that a few of them were worth more than what she’d made in the last year. He’d come close to drinking himself comatose that night, and she’d never mentioned it again, or allowed him to see a single receipt or statement.

  When you’d grown up on a steady diet of stale bread, moldy cheese, and the back of your father’s hand while your mother busted her ass working two back-breaking labor jobs, knowing the price of one suit could have fed her for months was sickening.

  Once he was dressed, he shoved his fingers through his damp hair and stepped out of his bathroom. There was a fresh steaming pot of coffee on his desk, next to whatever exotic plant his batty Aunt Mellie had sent him this time.

  Not in a hurry to leave, he poured himself a cup of coffee and grabbed the note his aunt had sent. Knowing her, she knew what date it was, and had sent him some kind of supposed-mythical flower to cheer him up. He snorted. It was going to take more than a pretty silver and white plant to get him through this dinner. While he and Rhiannon had broken off the engagement more than two months ago, tonight would have been their wedding night.

  Apparently, since he’d been the one to call things off, it translated to him taking her for dinner, while listening to his failures for two hours while stone-cold sober.

  Leaning back against the floor-to-ceiling window, with his back to the Chicago skyline, he ripped open the notecard his aunt had sent with the flower.

  Nathan,

  Some things that are broken were never meant to be whole. And sometimes, taking care of something else puts the pieces back together. Tonight, your life begins again. Take her home with you. Cherish her, and she’ll love you forever.

  * * *

  Don’t screw this one up.

  Aunt Mellie

  * * *

  Nathan stared at the handwritten note for a long moment before he let out a frustrated snort, and tossed it into the trash. Great. Aunt Mellie thought his destiny was a plant. Maybe it was time to see about having her mental stability checked out.

  He reached over to flick off his desk lamp, and noticed the exotic plant was starting to bloom. His eyes narrowed, he straightened, watching as the long, striking petals unfolded, stretching into the steam of the coffee still sitting next to it. It wasn’t until the flower had completely unfurled that he realized something was inside of it. He turned the lamp back on and leaned forward, squinting as he tried to figure out what he was looking at. It was almost like…

  Wings?

  This was a first. Sure Aunt Mellie had spiked the note with something to make him hallucinate, Nathan shook his head and reached a finger out, ready to poke whatever was perched in the center to see if it moved, when the thing took flight.

  Nathan stumbled back, landing hard in his executive chair as what looked like part butterfly, part dragonfly fluttered directly in front of his face. He blinked rapidly, but the longer he stared, the clearer the image of what fluttered in front of him became.

  Christ Jesus, he was looking at a fairy. Not the fat, ugly, terrifying kind from ancient myths, but a tiny, beautiful fairy that couldn’t be as big as his thumb. Silver hair hung in waves down her back and around her wings, while tiny scraps of see-through silver covered the important parts of her ridiculously small body.

  He shook his head as she dove toward him suddenly, jabbing him in the nose with her finger. At least he thought it was her finger, it could just as easily have been her fist. Either way, her face was one of pure, mutinous, furious female.

  After five years with Rhiannon, it was a look he was quite familiar with.

  He started to raise his hand until he saw her flinch away, and he realized how big his hand must seem to her. He lowered it, and just shook his head again, trying to convince himself he was hallucinating. Maybe saying the words would help. “You’re not real.”

  She started chattering at him, her hands flying in emphasis to whatever she was saying almost as quickly as her wings were moving. She finally threw her small hands in the air and distinctively pointed at him, before turning around and pointing at the flower.

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” he finally said, giving up trying to understand her. You would think someone who was clearly a figment of his imagination would have better charade skills. He glanced down at his watch. “It doesn’t matter. You’re not real, and I have to go.”

  Scribbling a note to Maggie to schedule him a check for full neurological workup, he shot the fairy one last look and headed for the door.

  Katenia of the Lillie Valley clenched her fists, tapping her foot on an imaginary floor, before letting out a sound of pure frustration and shot in front of him. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him, willing the stubborn beast of a male to understand that she needed to go home. When he ignored her and just side-stepped her, heading for the door again, unbidden tears filled her eyes. She squeezed them shut before the tears could leak out, and focused all of her magic into her vocal cords. “Where am I?” She yelled.

  Hope fluttered in her chest when he stopped walking, and slowly turned his head to look at her out of piercing, dark blue eyes. Dark eyebrows pulled into a frown, and if he wasn’t as big as the mythical giants of lore, she’d have thought him handsome.

  The giant of a human stared at her for a long moment, before he let out a frustrated sigh and dragged a hand down his face. “Let’s just say you are real,” he said, as if he thought she was some kind of illusion. “Where is your home?”
>
  The tears she’d been trying to keep inside burst free. “I don’t know. I’ve never been anywhere else.”

  He let out a growling sound that came with so much force, it had her shooting backward before she could adjust her wing speed to hold her still.

  “You’re telling me you have no idea where your home is?”

  She bobbed her head in a nod, though she was leery of the look on his face. The valley elder had had the same look before she’d threaten to beat her for getting too close to the edge of their garden.

  “I don’t know how I got here,” she sniffled. She flew toward him, wiping her fingers under her eyes as she hovered right in front of his face. “Please, will you help me?” She asked, still using magic to amplify her voice.

  His jaw tightened until a muscle directly under his eye started to twitch. “No.” He shook his head as he moved around her. “No, because you are only a figment of my imagination. Maggie spiked my coffee, or Aunt Mellie poisoned my note. I don’t know, but fairies do not exist.”

  Her wings drooped. Instead of staring into his eye as she put herself between him and the door again, she was suddenly looking at his stubbled chin. “I could say the same thing about giants like you,” she snapped, her wings fluttering faster just to keep herself airborne.

  Amusement flickered over his face. “Giant?”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “Giant, human, same thing. Will you help me?”

  He raised his hands slowly, and scrubbed them over his eyes, before he blinked rapidly a half a dozen times. Then another five or six times, before he looked at her again and sighed. “You’re still here.”

  “Yes.”