Scandalous Shifters Paranormal Box Set

by Mia Taylor

  “You are in love with my son,” she said, arching a perfectly sculpted eyebrow questioningly, but it was rhetorical if there was one at all.

  “Ma’am, forgive me, but I don’t know you and I am not comfortable discussing my private life with you.”

  Marc’s mother’s mouth became a full grin and she reached out to touch Jacques, who eyed Quinn with shocked eyes.

  “Oh! Oh, she is perfect, Jacques! Don’t you see? Can you see? She has our…”

  She didn’t finish the thought but the antiquated servant at her side hung his head, presumably in agreement.

  “Miss Sommer, allow me to introduce myself,” she said finally, extending a jeweled hand forward.

  Quinn noted the gold and sapphires on her slender fingers, glittering and confusing.

  Those can’t be real. Marc’s family can’t be that wealthy. He would have told me… wouldn’t he?

  She shoved the question aside. If Marc didn’t want to have anything to do with a wealthy family, that was his business, not hers.

  Quinn met her palm as the older woman continued to speak.

  “I am Isadora Diederich, Queen of Luxembourg.”

  Quinn stared dubiously at her.

  Oh, she is suffering from mental illness, Quinn realized sadly, trying to smile.

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said politely, quickly withdrawing her hand as if Isadora’s cold hand was catching.

  At that moment, the U-Haul pulled back onto the street and Quinn was sure she had never been so happy to see a vehicle in her life.

  Isadora began to laugh.

  “You don’t believe me,” she chuckled as Quinn turned toward the truck.

  “Here’s Marc,” she offered. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you, Mrs. Diederich… uh, Your Highness.”

  Quinn didn’t want to antagonize the woman or get off on the wrong foot with his mother. Whatever their problems, she was still Marc’s family.

  The woman laughed louder and again looked at Jacques.

  “His name is not Marc, liebling, his name is Vivier. Vivier Diederich and he is the Prince of Luxembourg.”

  Quinn pretended not to hear her and instead rushed toward the driver’s side door, eager to be near Marc.

  “Marc, these people—” she breathed as Marc slowly opened the door. But he wasn’t paying her the least bit of attention, his eyes boring into the jewel-sodden woman and her assistant.

  “Mamm, what are you doing here?” Marc gasped, jumping out of the truck and striding toward them. “Why did you come?”

  “I heard you were alive and I wanted to see for myself,” Isadora commented with a certain dryness.

  “Wonderful. Now you may leave,” he said curtly. “Come on, Quinn.”

  She didn’t need to be told again and hurried to follow him into the house, but Isadora’s voice rang out to freeze Quinn in her tracks.

  “I told her who you are, Vivier,” his mother called as they tried to turn away.

  Quinn stared at her lover’s face, trying to make sense of all that was happening.

  “Marc,” Quinn whispered. “Your name is Marc.”

  Slowly, he shook his head, shame coloring his face, and Quinn suddenly knew everything she’d been told was true.

  “Marc,” she breathed. “Please, say your name is Marc…”

  But she didn’t need to hear the words to know that she was asking too much. He wasn’t going to lie, not now when he was being called on his BS.

  “No,” he replied gruffly, looking away. “It’s Vivier. Vivier Diederich.”

  Shock filled Quinn and she wrestled her arm away from him.

  “Quinn…” he said, reaching out for her. “Let me explain—”

  “You lied to me?” she gasped. “After everything I’ve told you about my life?”

  “Please, just wait and we’ll discuss this—”

  “Discuss that you’re the Prince of fucking Luxembourg?” she choked in disbelief. “Is that what we’re going to discuss?”

  He looked devastated and shook his head.

  “Quinn, I’m not him anymore. I left the prince in Luxembourg. The man you met is the man I am.”

  She shook her head, her eyes filled with tears of hurt.

  “You’re really a prince?” she stuttered, trying to make sense of everything she was learning.

  The words seemed bizarre, something she never thought she’d say.

  “Yes,” he sighed. “I am the Prince of Luxembourg.”

  Quinn could hear nothing else after that as blood seemed to rush into her ears.

  She turned and ran then, her feet pounding against the pavement, oblivious to the sound of her name being called through the abnormally warm day.

  As she passed the rental van, she irrelevantly thought of the late charge.

  It’s okay, Vivier can afford it. He’s a prince, after all. A lying, deceitful prince who just broke your heart. Some fairy tale.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Back to Reality

  The car exploded against a wall and people began to scream, running in mass chaos.

  “This is bullshit!” Vivier hissed. The next impact was not on screen but at the very real wall inches away from the television as Vivier whipped the controller against it. Fury like he’d never known enveloped him and instantly, security detail was inside the suite, arms drawn.

  “Get out!” Vivier screamed at them and immediately they retreated, knowing that no good could result in a protest.

  Haven’t they learned by now not to come in here? Idiots. All of them.

  He leaned over and pulled his tumbler glass to his lips, feeling the burn of the liquid as it seared down his throat. A wave of dizziness overcame him but he ignored it, pounding down the rest of the liquid in a long swallow.

  How many had it been? Five? Six? He’d lost count long ago.

  Not that any of it mattered anymore. Vivier would drink until he couldn’t feel anything anymore and hope that sleep would overtake him like it did every time.

  It didn’t get any easier to sleep, even with the single malt and mind-numbing hours spent locked away in his suite.

  It was New Year’s Eve and he was about to break in the new year more miserable than he’d ever been in his long life.

  I had her and I lost her. She was my mate and I let her get away. What was I thinking by lying to her? Why wasn’t I just honest from the start?

  Was there really any answer to justify what he’d done? If there was, he couldn’t figure it out, not now when he was drowning his sorrows in his suite in the palace.

  Vivier had not seen nor heard a word from Quinn since the day they had been meant to move into their house together.

  Marc and Quinn were supposed to move into that house together, not the Prince of Luxembourg and Quinn. I don’t blame her for staying away. How could I expect her to trust me after I betrayed her?

  Yet even though he understood why she stayed away, it didn’t make the loss any easier.

  “Why did you come for me?” he had screamed at his mother and advisor. “You have ruined everything! I left you alone! You could have done the same!”

  “You are going to ruin everything for yourself if you don’t find that girl and marry her,” Isadora retorted sharply. “You have no one to blame but yourself for what has happened here. No one told you to lie to her.”

  Vivier stared at the queen, open-mouthed.

  “You can’t be serious! You left me no choice! I had to get away from the life you are strong-arming me into. You cut off my finances! You seemed sure I needed you to survive. And after I proved you wrong, you just couldn’t let me be happy, could you? You had to swoop in and take that from me too.”

  He thought of Damon Sommer and how he felt the need to shatter Quinn’s fragile security at every chance.

  We have so much in common. Her father, my father.

  “Are you really that big of a fool, Vivier?” Isadora snapped. “Do you believe it all has to be one way or another? You c
an have it all if you would just let go of the power struggle you have with your father.”

  He gazed at her, his face filled with misery.

  “No, I can’t,” he said dully. “Because she hates me now. I should have told her from the start but I didn’t want her to be like all the other women. She loved Marc Reich, Mamm, not some heir to the throne. She loved the being underneath the money and prestige.”

  “No, liebling, she loves you. She loves your heart and your charm and your good heart. I concede, you should not have lied to her but what’s done is done. Now you must find her.”

  But the words were much easier said than done and when Jacques was finally able to track Quinn down at a hostel in Spring Valley a week later, the message was resounding.

  “Your Highness, she does not wish for you to contact her again. She says…” Jacques trailed off in his absentminded way, something which Vivier knew was a stall tactic.

  “What did she say?” Vivier asked quietly, sensing that he probably didn’t really want to know the answer.

  “She says she doesn’t know nor did she ever know a man named Vivier Diederich.”

  The hurt would not subside although Isadora assured him it would.

  The only good which seemed to have come of Vivier’s adventures in America was that he had acquired a begrudging respect from his father.

  Too little too late, Vivier thought furiously.

  “Your Highness, your father would like a word with you,” Jacques said tersely from the doorway.

  Vivier scowled and stared up at the advisor, resentful that he was being reminded where he was.

  “I am not going downstairs for that damned New Year’s Eve party, Jacques, and no guise will make it so,” he slurred, slightly ashamed by his tone, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “Your Highness…” he looked uncomfortable even for Jacques. “He has news about your young lady.”

  Vivier felt the world slipping from beneath his feet and he lumbered up, his heart thumping slightly.

  “Tell me,” he breathed. “What happened?”

  Jacques shook his head and turned for the door.

  “His Highness is expecting you in his study. I’m afraid that’s all I know.”

  Vivier didn’t remember throwing open the doors to his suite or shuffling after the advisor, his blood draining from his face.

  What happened to her? Is she okay?

  He knew he shouldn’t have insisted that Quinn’s whereabouts be tracked, but he needed to know that even though she didn’t want to see him, she was all right.

  He bypassed Jacques, bolting down the red-carpeted semi-circle steps to the main floor where he froze.

  The guests parted, allowing him a full view of the ballroom’s end where Quinn stood.

  She turned to him, her honey-blonde hair coifed in a chignon, her train spilling white and glorious to match the pearl of her gown.

  “Hi,” she called. “I heard you might want to get married.”

  Time seemed to freeze as he stared at her, not comprehending what he was seeing.

  “Is that a no?” Quinn asked coyly, cocking her head to the side.

  Vivier ran then, as fast as his legs could take him, and he swept her up in his arms, placing a long, urgent kiss on her lips.

  “You don’t hate me,” he murmured, casting her half-veil aside to stare into her vivid grey eyes. “You wouldn’t take my calls, you wouldn’t see me.”

  “Are you drunk?” she asked, stepping back to peer at him skeptically.

  “Come with me,” he urged, pulling her out of view and into the library where he closed the door, his intoxication fading away to be replaced by a heady feeling of love for the woman before him.

  “What are you doing here?” he breathed. “What changed your mind?”

  Sighing, Quinn gathered her long skirts in her hand and sank onto a settee, her skin sparkling against the glow of the fireplace.

  “I was pretty damned mad,” she confessed. “I might still be.”

  “Quinn, I…” he paused and inhaled. “I never expected to meet you when I came to America. I went there to escape all this, to get away from the weight of this royal oppression.”

  She smirked slightly and rested her gaze on him.

  “I know how that must sound to you,” he rushed on. “Given everything you’ve been through, but…”

  Again he trailed off.

  “There are other things you don’t know about me, Quinn.”

  “Your bloodline, you mean,” she offered and Vivier gaped at her.

  “W-what do you know about my bloodline?”

  “You’re immortal,” she said in a tone that was nothing short of flat. “And apparently I carry the same blood.”

  He stared at her, unsure of how she was processing the information.

  “W-who told you that?”

  “I did,” Isadora announced, entering the library almost silently. “It was only fair that she know the entire truth now.”

  Vivier glanced at his mother and he saw a warmth in her eyes he hadn’t seen since he was a boy.

  “We’re mates,” Quinn said and Vivier choked back the overwhelming emotion he was feeling. “Royal mates, no less.”

  “I love you,” he whispered hoarsely. “I never wanted to lie to you.”

  “You’d better never again,” she replied, cupping his face with her hands. “But something tells me that I’ve figured out all your secrets now.”

  Their lips met and Quinn felt the throb of her fangs against his lips, his heart racing in anticipation.

  Quinn drew back first and smiled at him.

  “If you’ll excuse me, Your Highness, it is very close to midnight and I fear your deal with your father expires at that time.”

  Vivier turned to look at his mother, who turned toward the door, and the prince nodded.

  “Yes,” he replied. “It does, but I don’t care about that.”

  “I do,” Quinn said brightly. “I’ve always wanted to be a princess.”

  Vivier laughed.

  “No, you haven’t,” he snickered but he gently kissed her cheek. “But I’m going to make you a duchess anyway.”

  They made their way out of the library and back into the party. For the first time, Vivier realized he was wearing only a pair of sweatpants and a wrinkled t-shirt, reeking of old whiskey.

  “I need to get changed,” he muttered but Quinn shook her head and nodded toward the grandfather clock.

  “There’s no time,” she told him softly. “Not if we want to seal the deal."

  “It’ll be a story for the grandchildren,” he chuckled jokingly but her eyes only shone.

  “It’s funny you should say that,” she breathed. “I have some other news after this wedding business is attended to.”

  Vivier’s jaw gaped open.

  “Y-you’re…?”

  She nodded.

  “I am,” she replied. “Pregnant with the next vampire prince of Luxembourg.”

  Epilogue

  “I just feel like we should have heard something by now,” Lena whined. “I mean, it’s been like two months. How much longer are we going to have to wait?”

  “You need to be patient, baby. When it comes, we’re gonna be set for life,” Damon assured her, sitting back in his La-Z-Boy recliner and cracking another cold beer. “Look at us, royalty in the making.”

  They eyed one another and laughed, but Damon didn’t blame her for being uptight. He was getting sick of waiting too.

  What’s a man gotta do around here to get ahead? I’m sick of making my cut through the dealers and gangs. I deserve more than that, especially since it’s my kid in that palace.

  “Who would have thought that little mouse would amount to anything worthwhile, huh?” Lena commented, sitting on her husband’s lap. “I think I would make a good princess, don’t you?”

  She made a moue with her lips and Damon buried his face into her neck.

  “You would make the best princess. Hey,
maybe there’s a way you can be one. We’ll look into it. There has to be something in the books that say parents have a say in these things.

  Again the couple chuckled but Damon was serious.

  “Maybe you should call the consulate again and see if Quinn is even there. Maybe she decided not to marry him. She’s dumb that way, you know. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s thrown away a perfectly good opportunity for no good reason.”

  Damon frowned, suddenly worried that Lena might have a point.

  “You need to be patient. I know the prince is back in Luxembourg. Can you imagine, working as a janitor when you have more money than God? I mean, is there anything the super rich won’t do for shits and giggles?”

  Lena sighed and pouted, her lip curled down.

  “I wouldn’t know,” she replied grumpily. “I’ve never seen that kind of money before.”

  Damon felt a spark of annoyance.

  Like you’ve ever wanted for anything. Women. The bane of my existence.

  He thought of Lily and how demanding she had been.

  What made me think of that one? he thought. All this drama with Quinn is making me think of her mother.

  “You will see that kind of money, baby, you will. Have I ever led you wrong?”

  There was a sharp rap on the front door and Damon half pushed his wife onto the floor before she could answer. He wasn’t in the mood to hear Lena’s whining that night.

  “I hope that’s our pizza. The Cranstons’ parties have the shittiest food,” Lena commented. “Why do they even bother if they’re not going to feed us properly? I won’t feel bad leaving them behind when we get invited to live in Europe.”

  Damon opened the door of the bungalow, his smile fading slightly.

  “Can I help you, gentlemen?” he asked.

  Instantly, two badges appeared in his face and Damon stepped back in mild surprise.

  “Sheriff Sommer?” the smaller of the two men asked and Damon nodded, leaning against the doorframe to cross his arms.

  “Yes. What’s this about?”

  “Detective Mendez, Detective Shue, Internal Affairs. Can you step outside, sir?”

  Damon glanced back at his wife, a slow smile forming on his lips.