by Vonnie Davis
Table of Contents
Book Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Finding Cameo
A Zodiac Shifters Paranormal Romance: Aquarius
Vonnie Davis
Dedicated to author Melissa Snark who introduced me to the Zodiac Shifters.
Contents
Foreword
Book Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
SCOTTISH BUBBLES AND SQUEEK PATTIES
About the Author
Also by Vonnie Davis
© Copyright 2018 by Vonnie Davis
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the publisher except for brief quotations embedded in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations and incidents are works of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, things, living or dead, locales or events is strictly coincidental.
COVER DESIGN: Ravenborn Book Covers
AUTHOR’S BEAR LOGO: Farah Evers Designs
FORMATTING: Melissa Snark
Foreword
THE BIRTH OF MY BEAR SHIFTERS
True Story!
I was recovering from cancer surgery to my saliva gland—of all places—when a pair of large golden spots began to glow in the back of my mind. These strange apparitions didn’t go away. Brain cancer, I thought. The surgeons didn’t get it all and the cancer’s spread to the back of my head. Just as I was ready to call the doctor’s office to make a dreaded appointment, the glowing neon yellow spots blinked. Blinked, mind you!
Eyes?
These spots I’d tried my best to ignore for two weeks were eyes? Well hell, I didn’t need a cancer doctor. I needed a shrink!
For almost a month as I healed, making daily trips to the doctor to have liquid drained from my swollen face, these yellow eyes watched and waited and willed me to speak to them. Now, I might be a tad crazy, but even I know better than to talk to things that shouldn’t be there.
So, one night as I was drifting off to sleep, the eyes moved. They floated from my head and into the face of a huge brown bear standing at the foot of my bed. Since I believe book characters often search for an author to write their stories, I told him he was at the wrong house. That I didn’t write children’s stories. He shook his large head. “Oh, you’re not that kind of bear?” He silently shook his head again. It was an eerie moment.
Then to my surprise and delight, he shifted into a kilt-wearing Scot with long dark hair. “Oh gee, you’re still at the wrong writer’s house. I don’t write paranormal. I don’t even read it.”
He sauntered to my side of the bed and sat. “Aye, lassie, but ye will.” His Scottish brogue sent a shiver skittering over my skin. “Scoot over and I’ll tell ye how bears came to be extinct in Scotland.”
I snuggled closer to hubs and the bigger-than-life Scot stretched out on the bed next to me with one hand beneath his head. He told me the most bizarre, imagination boosting tale of his ancestors. He said his name was Creighton Matheson—Mathe meaning bear. I absorbed every detail of his family’s legend.
What do you think was the first thing I did when I woke up the next morning? I googled “Are bears extinct in Scotland?” They were. In fact, I found an article where the UK was trying to re-introduce the species into the Highlands. The article claimed the bears were shot by hunters in the previous century. But I had a better story…straight from the mouth of a bear shifter.
I was told by a woman who reads auras that the bear was my totem; my healer when I got sick. Who’d have thought?
My series of shifters began with almost zero knowledge of the paranormal genre. I hadn’t intended for anyone to read them because I felt like a fake writing about something I was ignorant of—but, oh, what fun I had writing for my own enjoyment. My agent at the time told an editor at Random House about my “play stories.” The editor read the first three chapters of one and gave me a contract for three books in a series. The books and novellas have continued and I’ve fallen in love with the bear shifters with the glowing, golden eyes.
Sometimes, dreams do propel us. They certainly led Cameo Blake, a woman who suffers from prophetic dreams, to a certain Aquarian bear shifter.
This man, full of wit, who loves people—if he feels they’re worthy—was born on February 2nd. The Aquarian sign ranges from January 20th to February 18th.. The sign of the water bearer is in actuality an air sign. The Aquarian male looks for someone to engage him, mentally. A challenge of ideas and theories, of wills. Don’t get me wrong, while he enjoys the physical attributes of a female, the real turn-on for him is the mind.
I raised an Aquarius. He made me laugh often with his zaniness. He strove to please me. And he loved sitting up late at night talking philosophy. When he was in second grade, his teacher sent home a note accusing him of being unsociable, refusing to join in group activities. When I questioned him, he said, “But, Mom, the rest of the kids are so dumb. Why do I have to do dumb things with dumb people?” I could almost feel my first gray hair pop out.
But what happens when an Aquarius meets a woman who is more educated than he? A woman so full of herself, she makes this bear shifter laugh. Slip into the story with me…
Book Description
Bowie Matheson, an Aquarian bear-shifter and police detective, is the first to believe Gemini Cameo Stone’s retelling of a dramatic dream. Cameo, a new lawyer in town, has the gift or curse of having prophetic dreams. Bowie, a humanitarian, looks to protect his community.
As soon as Bowie’s bear sees Cameo, he chooses her for his human half’s mate. Bowie is not impressed. He wants a mate with a sharp mind. Someone as beautiful as her couldn’t have both. But with the magical help of pink-haired witch, Effie, the sparks fly between Cameo and Bowie.
The compatibility between their signs cause them to grow closer since they often think alike. They are analytical, intelligent, and love the process of learning. Once these two get tangled with HSS, a gang that’s migrated from Glasgow, lives are in danger, fears reign, and the typically calm life of the area changes.
When Cameo is abducted by the murderous gang will Bowie’s intellectual connection with the woman he loves help him find Cameo?
Chapter 1
She was naked again.
The cold wind blew Cameo Stone’s long hair away from her shoulders and back. What was displayed below, as she floated above the danger, commanded her attention. Cameo was used to the form and sensations of her dreams. Dreams that were a sign of things to come—of illness, impending danger, or looming horrific events.
In her heart, she believed it was up to her to warn the person or persons in her nightmares that bad fortune lay ahead. A process that caused people to think she was whacky, dangerous, or someone simply to be avoided. It made for a lonely existence.
From her dreamy viewpoint, a silver compact like hers sped down a curved mountain road. A black-haired man wearing a black knit
hat and black puffy jacket ran out of the woods.
That’s why she hadn’t seen him at first. Action slowed to a snapping movie frame of motion, which typically meant important clues were coming. There was a huge red rock with a rivulet of water draining from a crack in the tall boulder.
He had a rifle with a scope. A hunter, perhaps? A more sinister reaction gripped Cameo. Part of the barrel had been sawed off his gun. His green-eyed gaze in a face dotted with tattoos shifted to the driver. So did his weapon.
An emblem was on the cuff of his black hat. Orange. Round. Edged in blood-red. In the center were bold black initials HSS.
The driver sped up, trying to go around the menacing man before he shot her. She hit a patch of ice and spun out of control. Out of her right peripheral vision, a policeman followed with his handgun drawn. The driver braked hard, swerved, tires squealing, but she still hit the officer. The man with the light brown hair rolled over her hood. As he bumped across the windshield, golden glowing eyes stared at her. His badge held his name. Sounds of his spinning and scratching her roof made her shudder. It was like fingernails on a blackboard. To her shock, a bear slid off her trunk giving chase to the man with the rifle.
Where had the damn bear come from? How had she missed that part?
By now, Cameo realized the driver was her. She zoomed silently from the sky to the interior of the automobile. As soon as she had the car stopped, she jumped out, fully dressed somehow, and looked for the officer she’d struck. There was nothing on the road behind her compact. She dropped to her knees and peered under the vehicle. Nothing there. With her gaze shifting, she slowly circled her car before walking along the ditches on both sides of the narrow road.
Where was the man she’d struck?
She woke with his name on her lips, “Bowie Matheson.”
Her feet slid from under the pile of covers and slipped into her blue bedroom slippers, or baffies as the Scots called them. Cool air hit her and she reached for her blue robe mid-shiver. Her clock displayed three-forty-two and a cup of hot tea called her. All she had to do was shuffle downstairs to the kitchen in Matheson Lodge and heat a pot of water.
Cameo had been a guest at the castle converted into a hotel for four nights now. She’d traveled to Matheville for an interview and was waiting for a response on a job as a solicitor at the law firm of McGuire and Dunn Associates. During the rest of the time, she drove and walked the narrow streets of the picturesque small town, acquainting herself with the businesses and places to rent should she get hired.
She tiptoed down the steps, wondering again why so many citizens bore the last name Matheson. The beautiful clean bay and the town, itself, bore part of the name. When she’d asked Fiona Matheson, who handled the reservation and staff of the lodge, the woman had informed her Mathe stood for bear.
Until the dream she’d just had, she hadn’t seen any bears.
Once in the kitchen, she turned on a light and filled a teapot with water. It would take her several cups to work through the meaning of the dream and settle her nerves. This had been the first time she’d ever been a player in one of her prophetic nightmares—and it had her especially rattled.
Her tea made, she stirred in two cubes of sugar. It would be a long while before she’d take her car for a drive in the mountainous segments of the Highlands. That much she was sure of. Parts of her dream were understandable. A cop chasing an armed man for whatever reason. Hints of the two men’s identities. This was typical in her night visions.
Thank God, she didn’t have these kind of dreams often. Sometimes they came once a week and others might only plague her once a month. Some were easy to interpret. Others were difficult as hell to figure out.
Like where had the policeman gone? How had a bear replaced him? And why had that change been kept from her? Usually, she saw every gory aspect of her nightmares. Why not with this one? Really, she ought to be relieved she’d been spared some of the details. And she would be if the driver of the car hadn’t been her.
Two cups of chamomile tea later, Cameo returned to her room and placed several logs in the fireplace. She crawled under the pile of covers, thankful for her flannel pajamas. The bedrooms were cold at night.
Although the tea had soothed her, it hadn’t helped her to analyze the dream. Maybe if she had the nightmare again, she’d get more signals. She pulled the quilt over her shoulders, closed her eyes, and began counting backwards from one-hundred.
She was naked again…
Chapter 2
Bowie Matheson filled in the blanks of a computerized arrest form for public drunkenness against Giles McFlinn—his third apprehension this month. It was nae coincidence Giles’ wife had moved out a month ago. ′Tis what a man got for marrying for lust instead of wedding a friend. Someone he could talk to and discuss the secrets of the world with.
Bored to death with the dull routine of police clerical work, he stood, stretched, and snatched his empty coffee cup off the metal desk. He was pouring a fresh jolt of caffeine when a wild-eyed, redhead stormed into headquarters. She vibrated with angry thunder and flashed with lightning. Bloody hell if she didna make the fine hairs on his arms stand straight out.
Bowie wasna so sure what it was about the unknown female that snagged his attention or made him overflow his mug, burning his hand. He cussed, reaching for napkins to wipe up the mess and dry his hand. His scalded skin stung. Even so, his policeman’s eye for detail took note of her advance.
He didna think it was her long, swinging ponytail or her huge golden spiral earrings that mesmerized him. Nor did he imagine it was her attention grabbing siren-red lipstick she wore so thick it needed kissing off, nae that he’d offer. And he certainly wasna a bit aware of her tight navy skirt hugging thighs made to wrap around a man’s neck while he feasted.
That thought did cause his cock to stir.
Her blue gaze landed on him like a thousand-watt sex bomb. That is if bombs had wattages, he wasna so fookin’ sure right now.
“You!” She pointed with a deep-red fingernail as she swayed down the aisle toward him. Navy stilettos beat a staccato beat on the tiled floor further wakening his sex-starved cock. “I want to talk to you or I won’t ever get a decent night’s sleep again.”
What the bloody hell? She couldna mean him. True, he’d gotten shite-faced drunk two nights ago when he found out about his promotion, but he hadna picked this beauty up. Fook him stupid, he’d never forget a pair of legs like hers. She must be yelling at someone else. He spun to see who was behind him. Nae one.
A prickle of unease zigzagged up his spine as she continued to stalk toward him.
Damn, the lass certainly ken how ta make an entrance. There wasna an eye in the place nae focused on the crimson-haired beauty. He supposed the whole police department wondered why she resembled a tigress on the prowl. Sheer irritation shimmered off her and it seemed to zero in on him.
Och, she’s the one. I pick her fer ye. She’s got a mind fit ta challenge ye.
Bear, I ken ye have the duty to pick a mate fer me. But nae now. Nae her.
In their shifter world, the bear half chose the mate for the human half. It was their tradition and at this moment Bowie would like to belt the rat-arsed bastard who’d thought of this insane idea. His bear was choosing on looks which was verra nice for a couple of night’s fun. But when it came ta the long haul, he was more attracted to a woman’s mind; someone he could have long, intelligent conversations with.
Bowie kept his eyes lowered as he carried his coffee to his battered and scarred metal desk. He didna want to give her cause to yell at him some more because he had nae clue what was bloody wrong with her. When she settled in the chair in front of him, her citrusy perfume damn near took his breath away.
His hand trembled slightly when he placed his coffee mug to his right. He leaned forward, folded his hands, fell headlong into her mesmerizing cobalt eyes—and waited.
It didna take long for the next verbal explosion to happen. “My name is Cameo St
one. I’m from south of Cambridge, here in Matheville for a job interview.” Her fingernails clicked a beat on his desk, grating his nerves. “I’ve come to warn you.”
“And what would ye like to warn me about, Ms Stone?” He twirled his ballpoint pen between his fingers.
“I’m going to run you over with my car.”
Aw shite, another nut case. Better bring an officer over to witness the threat.
Bowie motioned for his cousin Chief Detective Kendric Matheson to join them. “Kendric, this young lady is new to our town from England and her name is Cameo Stone.”
Kendric sat on the corner of Bowie’s desk and folded his arms. “I’m pleased to meet ye.” His gaze shifted from Bowie to Cameo, a dark eyebrow arched in question.
“Would ye please tell the head detective what ye just told me?” Bowie gulped his coffee and burnt his tongue. Bloody hell!
She tugged on the hem of her white sweater, emphasizing her full breasts. “I’m a normal woman who has a gift or a curse, depending on how you look at it.” She paused, her gaze going from Kendric back to him. Neither one spoke. They’d heard stories begin like this many times. “I have prophetic dreams. I can foretell the future through them.”
“We ken what prophetic means, miss.” Kendric muttered before giving Bowie an amused look. After all, they lived in an area of bear shifters, witches, fairies, seers, and a warlock who occasionally passed through on his way to wreak havoc on someone’s life.
She nodded. “Good. Last night I had the same dream three times. I was driving on a narrow country road somewhere around here. A man ran out of the woods with a sawed-off shotgun. He had pale-green eyes and wore a black knit cap and a thick black jacket. I didn’t see him at first. Along the edge of the road was a large red rock with a rivulet of water draining from a crack in the tall boulder. He turned his weapon on me and I saw this emblem with the initials, HSS.
