by Renee George
“Love you, Maddie,” Cage muttered. They were practically smothering her, but it kept Adelaide’s body out of her eyesight.
How would they explain this to the pride? To Zaria? The truth would do more harm than good. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Adam. She was your sister, and I know it hurts.”
“Not as much as losing you,” he said, smoothing her hair. “Never as much.”
She stared into his handsome, yet dirty, face and gazed into his midnight eyes. “You know this isn’t your fault, right?” She felt he needed to hear the words so they would be real to him. She turned to Cage next. “We are the lucky ones. We’re together now, and that’s all that matters.”
Carl raced in, the dwarf halting abruptly as he took in the scene. Maddie imagined it must have looked pretty bad. She was bloody with maul marks on her arms. Adelaide dead. “Jesus,” he said. “I heard the scream.” He took in a deep breath. “We gotta get rid of her.”
“Adam, we’ll have to tell Zaria that her mother’s dead,” said Maddie.
“Yes,” said Adam, “but she will never know the truth. We will raise her in the pride, and hope that our love and guidance will be enough to overcome her grief.”
Cage and Adam wrapped Adelaide’s body in a tarp. With Carl’s help, they cleaned what they could of the blood while Maddie retrieved the station wagon. They took Adelaide down a gravel road with dense woods on both sides. When they were far enough out, they dug a hole, poured gasoline over her body, burned her, and buried what was left. Fire was the only way to guarantee coyotes wouldn’t dig her back up. There was no ceremony, no kind words or prayers, though Maddie said a prayer for Zaria. They washed up in a gas station bathroom, and headed back to finish the final packing of the carnival.
Carl had finished taking care of the blood and mess in the laundry tent, and was waiting when they pulled back into the parking lot. He narrowed his gaze at the three of them. “You okay?”
“Nope,” Cage said.
Maddie and Adam shook their heads. It would take a while for them to get over the necessity of Adelaide’s death and the revelations of the day.
Carl nodded. “We’re ready to go when you guys are.”
“We’re ready,” Maddie said. “So ready.”
A crooked smile played on Carl’s lips. He walked over to Maddie and bowed. So much for Marlena’s prediction about no curtsies or bows. He tilted his head up to meet her gaze. “As you say, my queen.”
She blushed as a spark of pleasure embarrassed her. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You have but to command,” the dwarf said.
“Get us lined up, Carl,” Adam said.
Carl turned on his heal and headed toward the lead truck and trailer.
Maddie looked up at Adam. He wore the oddest expression on his face. “I shouldn’t be happy.”
Adam stroked her cheek. “But you are.”
“Yes, I am.”
He smiled. “We have each other. That’s what matters.” His gaze took in both Maddie and Cage.
Cage dipped his head and kissed her. “My queen.”
Adam kissed her next, and she smiled. “My queen,” he echoed.
The warmth of their love washed away the blood and the betrayal. They were strong together, and nothing could tear them apart. Not anymore.
“My kings,” she said. She looped her arms in theirs, and together they moved forward.
Epilogue
TWO years later... Maddie sat on a crate inside the big top and laughed as Adam lifted Christopher over his head. The toddler’s russet-colored eyes sparkled as he held a full handstand. Eight months and four days after their mating, their beautiful son had arrived. The pregnancy had been difficult, but Alana’s skills as a nurse, and midwife it turned out, had made the process less scary. The boy shifted for the first time before his first birthday, a feat both Adam and Cage had been thoroughly impressed by. As far as they were concerned, Christopher was a genius, and Maddie couldn’t agree more.
Zaria, now twelve, skipped over with Lucy, their six-month old daughter, on her hip. She had dark blue eyes and pale blond hair, and both Cage and Adam doted on her like the little princess she was born to be. Maddie smiled as the two girls danced around in a circle. They had officially adopted Zar, and she was the best big sister Christopher and Lucy could ask for.
It had been almost three years since she’d seen her parents. How could she possibly explain to them about her life with the carnival, or how she’d chosen two men to take as husbands? She never regretted, not for a minute, her life with her kings. Still, she sent letters occasionally to her mom. Now that she was a mom, it wasn’t fair to make her own mother worry whether her only daughter was dead or alive. She wished she could tell her mom about the babies, and how her daughter was named for her. Maybe someday.
Christopher jumped excitedly, flipping in the air, an amazing feat of agility in one so young, and Maddie burst with pride at the expression of approval on Adam’s face.
She felt Cage behind her. He wrapped his arms around waist, now thick and round with their third child. “How are you feeling today, love?”
Exhausted. Tired. Gassy. She smiled. “Happy. As always.”
“You are beautiful,” he said.
Her body warmed, her lower parts clenching, as he stroked the side of her belly. The side look Adam gave her, the half-grin and quick wink, had her immediately wishing they were alone. She’d made a mental note to ask Marlena if she was free to babysit.
Cage kissed the side of her neck. “I better get in some practice, or Christopher will be replacing me in the act.”
Maddie laughed again. Adam set down their son, and the boy leaped onto her lap. With enrapt attention, Maddie watched as Cage and Adam moved as one, their bodies in perfect unison. It always impressed her, even more than their strength, which seemed boundless. How had she gotten so lucky? They were responsible men, attentive fathers, and wonderful lovers.
Again, her body reacted. They were, and would always be, her lion kings.
The End
More Shapeshifter Romances
By Renee George
The Cull: Claimed by the Alpha
The Cull: Protected by the Alpha
Soul of the Alpha
Serial Novel
Midnight Shift Episode One
Midnight Shift Episode Two
Midnight Shift Episode Three
Introducing
Midnight Shift
Benie Dilian hunts supernatural bad guys. Her ability to shift like a chameleon, to hide in plain sight, as well as her enhanced senses, makes her the ultimate killing machine. The only person in her life that she remotely trusts is her genius best friend—Ian Arent.
After a dangerous supernatural tracker attacks Ian, turning the human into a werewolf, Benie must not only find out who is behind the attack that nearly killed her best friend, but also find a way to help Ian deal with his new reality. She enlists the help of telepathic werewolf Trace Calder, a werewolf who specializes in mediation with the “other worlders.”
As Benie fights her intense attraction to both men, she knows she has more to worry about than losing her heart and soul. Soon, she finds out that the attack on Ian is only the beginning of a journey fraught with danger and dark truths—and a prophecy that promises Benie a destiny she never wanted.
Chapter One
His mouth tasted of smoke, not from cigarettes, though she wouldn’t have minded, but this was more woodsy, natural and earthy, reminiscent of burned hickory. At the Millstone Bar, Benoica Dilian—who preferred Benie—had spotted the gorgeous creature right away. He’d been a bold brunette and beautifully built with his long torso, wide shoulders, and sculpted muscles. He’d known all the right things to say, and she knew in bed he would have all the right moves.
She’d taken him to a quiet, out of the way motel. The kind that rented by the hour. The walls were beige with a few dark stains, the curtains a large flower print with one side held closed with safety pins
, and the bedspread was a hot paisley mess. Benie wrinkled her nose at the mustiness, but places like these didn’t smell like potpourri. She cast a worried glance at the decor before promptly turning off all the lights.
“I like it dark,” she told her pick-up. “It’s more mysterious and sexy, don’t you think?”
He took her in his arms, and when his tongue swiped across her lips, the heat of his mouth made her knees tremble. “I want to see you,” he said. “Let me turn on the lights.”
“No,” she whispered. “Don’t.”
“But you’re so beautiful, and I’m so beautiful. It’s a shame to waste us in the dark.”
Benie grabbed the front of his jeans and squeezed. “We seem to be doing okay.”
“Yes, we sure are,” he agreed.
If she was right about the man, he would make his move soon. She breathed in his scent, the aroma arousing her even more. Yeah. She was right about him. “God, you smell good. What are you wearing?”
“It’s all natural, darling.”
“Good genes?”
“You have no idea.” He kissed her neck, his hot breath causing goose bumps to rise on her skin. “More talk or more action?”
She ground her hips against him. “More action. Definitely.”
He didn’t need additional urging as he lifted her shirt and cupped her breasts.
When his deft tongue twirled her nipple, she almost forgot her purpose. Almost. “Shit, yeah,” she told him, reaching into her back pocket. “God, that feels so good.”
He lifted his head, drawing himself up the length of her body. “Tell me you want to fuck me.”
“I want to fuck you.” She mentally added: up.
“How bad do you want it?”
She wanted him to stop talking and get to gettin'. Make his move already before she decided she didn’t care about having proof. Then it happened. The bite. All the evidence she needed. “Son of a bitch!” Damn, it hurt. Reflexively, she bashed his face with her forearm and yanked a two-inch push dagger from her back pocket. She pressed it into the side of his neck, then reached over and flipped on the bedside lamp.
The blond stared dumbstruck at her. “What the fuck are you?”
She looked at her arms. Her skin had shifted to beige and flowers as she blended into the background where she wasn’t clothed. It had been why she’d turned the lights off in the first place. “You don’t get to judge me, asshole. I’m not the one eating women… and not in a fucking good way.” The man was an other worlder who fed on aroused women, and she’d felt his powers of seduction firsthand. Her bits still pulsed! But off-the-charts arousal wouldn’t stop her from doing her job. “You are guilty of murdering five women in the past two months, and who knows how many countless more during your existence.”
He chuckled, but then winced when she pushed the tip of the blade into his neck.
“Me biting you doesn’t prove a thing, sweetheart.” He smiled a dazzling smile and put his wrists up. “Go ahead and take me in. A warden tribunal will clear me.”
The wardens were a group of OWs who policed themselves, albeit badly, as evidenced by this slimy bastard. They only took action if the perpetrator’s actions threatened to expose them to the human world. Benie shook her head, not liking that he thought she was an OW lackey. “I’m not a warden.” She sunk the blade into his neck and destroyed his main artery with a quick twist. “I’m an executioner.”
She jerked out the dagger.
His eyes widened with surprise as his fingers clawed at the spurting wound. The black ooze of his blood and the pungent, musky scent he released as he struggled to cling to life confirmed he was Leiol—a species mythology and fiction called incubi, but was actually only a hominoid evolution that survived on human flesh. The sex pheromones they excreted made their quests for food more like fishing than hunting. They dangled the bait and reeled the humans in when they jumped on the line.
Knowing he fed on humans like catfish didn’t make killing him easier, but she had little regret. If she hadn’t taken his life, he would’ve continued preying on innocents. That was something Benie couldn’t allow.
As incubus’s eyes turned milky, he let out a final, shuddering breath. Benie dropped him to the floor, and his body landed with a dull thud.
She walked to the wall mirror positioned above an oak-colored laminated bureau. Her skin shifted again to fit her surroundings—the floor, the walls, even the television stand. As her heartbeat slowed, her skin returned to flesh tones and freckles, her hair changed back to auburn, and the bite mark flared an angry red around the broken skin where his teeth had penetrated.
Benie had allowed the guy to attack her first. It was the first rule of hunting her parents had instilled as part of her training. Make sure your target isn’t human. Her fingers trailed underneath the bruised flesh. She’d heal. She always did.
Her parents had never discussed how they’d come to adopt her, but she knew they’d saved her from a fate worse than being a slayer.
Benie rubbed her face then straightened her clothes. She had bigger problems to worry about. Lately, her body’s camouflage mechanism had been faulty, and she found it harder and harder to control. Which made hunting more difficult. She’d been raised to hate the other worlders, OWs, the ones mythology called supernatural or paranormal or sometimes even gods. Who were, in fact, no more than branches of the same evolutionary tree as humans. Some lived for super long periods of time, centuries even, which lent to their appearance of immortality. But as a slayer, Benie had learned a long time ago that all monsters could be killed.
She dialed a number into her phone, and when the call went straight to voicemail, she said, “Clean up. Lincoln Ave and Fourth Street. Domino Motel. Room six.” She didn’t know who would come, because she never stuck around long enough to find out. Another rule her parents had taught her. Cleaners liked their anonymity as much as hunters. However, she did know that the body and all evidence of the Leiol’s death would be taken care of efficiently. No muss. No fuss.
She put her cell away then took a syringe from her purse and drew a sample of blood from the dead thing at her feet. Next, she used a hook that looked like a crotchet tool to jab up through his nose and into his brain. She pulled some of his gray matter out and put it in a small plastic specimen container with a flip-top cap. If she’d had time, she’d have sliced into the head, cracked the skull open and tried to retrieve an unbroken section, but she had someplace to be. Ian would have to make do with what she could quickly salvage.
Her heart fluttered, and her skin shifted for an instant as she thought about Ian Arent. Ian had a double doctorate in chemical and molecular biology with an emphasis in molecular genetics—in other words, he was a freaking genius. For the last two years, his main experiments had all centered on Benie. But the last two months, he’d centered all of his focus on figuring out why she kept glitching. He’d even made her an appointment with a shrink. She looked at her watch. The doc had said he’d see her tonight, but she had gotten a last minute tip on the incubus and hadn’t given the appointment another thought… until now. If she hurried she could make it.
Benie’s new lack of control meant she could barely go out into public anymore, since any heightened emotion triggered her chameleon condition. According to Ian, the psychiatrist was a professor at the university, and he specialized in behavioral psychology.
She seriously doubted he could help with her problems, but she wouldn’t break her word to Ian. Even if lately she’d felt more like his lab rat than his best friend—what with all the pokes, prods, skin samples, blood samples, and hair samples. She worried Ian might stop thinking of her as a person—maybe want her brains on a slide. While the OWs hadn’t been able to take Benie out over the years, losing Ian as a friend would end her like no other battle.
She’d grown up with him in a small town down in southern Missouri. He was younger by two years, but more intelligent by a millennium. Now that her parents were dead, he was the one and only p
erson on earth she trusted completely. It’s why she’d agreed to let him be her own personal Dr. Frankenstein. Unfortunately, Ian’s work had become an ugly necessity. He had been offered several great jobs after he got his doctorate, but he decided to take a teaching job at the local university so he could focus on research—in other words, her.
Her abilities made it possible to get the upper hand on the baddies when stealth was required. Her father had called her abnormality a gift—fate intervening and evening the odds against the other worlders. She thought it was more like a curse—fate’s way of screwing her out of a normal life.
Bitterly, Benie left to go be head-shrunk.
***
Ian Arent, Ph.D. put his isolation-gown-covered elbows on the counter in his small lab. He’d designed the clean room soon after he had moved into the very large loft-turned-apartment he shared with Benie. Clean meaning that the room was set up for sterile work. The floor was ESD vinyl, and the walls and ceilings were made of thermoplastic sheeting. The air flow and air conditioner were filtered, and thanks to a privately funded grant, he had most of the equipment he needed for his study: a gel electrophoresis chamber, DNA analyzer, a freezer that dropped to -80 degrees, several computers, and many more “bells and whistles,” as Benie called them.
He smiled at the thought of her, and then frowned. She had changed recently and not in her normal way. Ian had always been attracted to Benie, but lately the draw had become intense. There were moments when he’d had to fight the overwhelming urge to confess his growing desires. He didn’t have time for nonsense. Benie had fought a Jekyll a few weeks before, and now there were major changes in her blood cells and in her perspiration’s chemical makeup.
The Jekyll, an OW who appeared to be a mild mannered, even timid, human but turned into a violent and raging monster when strong emotions were triggered, had killed three men outside a library in the Meadow district. After dealing with creature, Benie had ended up with a broken wrist and deep scratches across her back and upper arms—the Jekyll, of course, ended up dead. Ian had seen her in much worse shape after a hunt, but this time had been different, and the changes in her body chemistry supported his concern.
