Caught Between Shifters

by Juniper Hart

  Charlotte asked, “What does my blood taste like?”

  Killian’s eyes darkened at the question, and a devious grin appeared on his face. “Delicious would be the best word for it. Sweet and rich with iron. I could hardly pull myself away. Not to mention how hot it was… Feeding during sex is called bloodletting. The venom in my saliva mixes in your bloodstream, making it pleasurable for you, too.” His expression turned into a frown. “I really didn’t mean to bite you… It’s why I had stopped myself the first time we made love. I didn’t want to do that to you. I didn’t want you to be afraid of me… and yet here we are,” he sighed.

  Charlotte’s heart swelled knowing he had tried to protect her this entire time, denying himself his primal instincts just to be around her. Her mind began to think over their entire time together, lots of things starting to make sense. “So… with you being a vampire… is that why you didn’t like me taking your picture?” she asked, curious to know if that part of vampires’ urban legend was true. She realized she hadn’t actually looked at his pictures on the camera yet.

  “Aye,” Killian sighed. “I mean, I still show up on film. But for some reason, my face is always blurred. Who knows why it does that to vampires… I asked a priest once. He said it was because even though my body may be here, my soul is in purgatory. I don’t know if I believe that, though. I feel very much alive and soulful.”

  A sudden realization clicked, and her eyes were wild, standing up from the couch. “It was you, wasn’t it?” she questioned in a gasp.

  “What are you talking about?” Killian questioned, brow furrowed.

  “The white figure that saved me from the mountain lion… It was you,” she breathed.

  She relived the scene in her mind, knowing for certain it was him. And the reason her crisp picture had a blurry figure in it was because he was a vampire. But before he could answer, her heart sank. Killian had to have known that picture was of him before they formally met and bought it just to cover his tracks. “You didn’t buy my photos because you liked them… you bought them because you were in them. How did you even find me? There are dozens of galleries in the city.”

  Killian’s eyes filled with shame and pain, looking away from her as he admitted, “I had someone put the word out that I was looking for something like the scene you photographed. The gallery you were showcased in knew I was looking for it before you even submitted to them.”

  Hurt and anger boiled her blood and cramped her stomach. She hadn’t been good enough to be featured in a gallery? They only placed her because they knew they would get a large commission off her photographs since a billionaire was buying them.

  Killian stood and reached for her, “But I didn’t want them because I was in one of them. I don’t care about that. I bought them because I wanted to meet you.”

  Charlotte turned her head, not wanting to listen to his lies.

  “It’s true, Char, you have to believe me,” he pressed. Killian’s arm looped around her, bringing her against his body as his hand held her chin to make her look at him. “I saw you that night before the mountain lion got to you. I was out on a walk, and I spotted you along the river. Even then, I was in awe of you. In awe of your beauty and those big brown eyes of yours. Then I saw that cat stalking you. And for the first time in decades, I worried for another person. It hurt my stomach, I worried so much over you, and I hadn’t even met you. So, I searched you out after the attack, wanting to make sure you were okay. Also, I had to meet the beautiful woman that had made this old heart feel alive again. I’ve been alone, and content with being alone, for a couple centuries. But when I saw you in that gallery, I never wanted to be alone again if a woman like you walked this earth.”

  Charlotte’s anger melted away, her heart thumping in her chest at the news of his story. He had spent over twenty grand just for the chance to meet her? While she still wasn’t over the fact that the gallery had likely only accepted her art because of Killian, could she really be mad about it? It had led her to him and the most wonderful whirlwind romance of her life. No matter how much her pride wanted her to be angry with him, Charlotte wasn’t. She was overwhelmed with his notions of deep emotions for her. He could have hurt her at any time or let that mountain lion do her in, but he didn’t. Killian really did just want to protect her, to get to know her. She was at a loss for words. He stared at her with pleading eyes; it was clear on his face that he was terrified of her walking away from him.

  She threw her arms around his shoulders and pressed a deep kiss to his lips. His hold on her tightened as though he were afraid she would slip through his fingers. They shared an impassioned, amorous kiss, each of them expressing the emotions that their words couldn’t. It was all so much for Charlotte to take in, but she would process it in time. She knew in her heart that she couldn’t walk away from the man holding her.

  Chapter 5

  Their kiss was interrupted by a sudden knock at the front door. Killian pulled back from her lips. “Who in the hell could be here?” Killian mused, not at all pleased that someone had shown up out of the blue.

  He wasn’t expecting any deliveries that day. It had to be one of his executives. From time-to-time they forgot their place and would show up unannounced. Each time it pissed him off. Taking her hand in his, he walked through the house until they reached the front door.

  Swinging open the door, prepared to scream in the face of his employee, Killian found his porch empty. He blinked, looking down to Charlotte. “I’m not losing it. You heard a knock too, right?” he asked.

  Charlotte nodded in agreement, scanning outside. Her eyes then fell to the ground and noticed a large yellow envelope laying just outside the door. She bent down and picked it up for him. Killian took it and closed the door. As they walked to the living room, he surveyed the envelope. Strange… There was no sender, nor his address or name.

  “Divorce papers?” Charlotte joked lightly.

  “Definitely not,” Killian laughed, glad to see her in good spirits. “I have no clue what it could be.”

  Once they sat down on the couch, Killian pulled Charlotte onto his lap with a big grin, kissing at the nape of her neck. With his arms around her, he opened the packet. Reaching into it, he pulled out the contents with a bewildered look. There was another envelope within it, a disc, and a folded piece of paper.

  “What the hell…” he muttered.

  Opening up the secondary envelope first, both of them gaped at the contents. It was a stack of photographs. Killian slowly flipped through them in horror. They were images of a white blur in the woods—Killian. The blurry figure got closer to the camera in each photograph. Then an aerial photograph of him drinking pouches of blood on his deck. The photographer had clearly been in a tree when the photograph was taken.

  “Who in the hell took these?” Killian asked loudly, forcing Charlotte to her feet when he stood.

  As he paced about with the photographs clutched in his hand, Charlotte picked up the disc and walked over to his television. Inserting the disc into the DVD player, Charlotte turned the television on and moved back.

  The video feed turned on and quickly zoomed in on the frame. The picture was mostly black, but a set of headlights cut through the darkness. The car grew closer and came around a curve before coming to a stop. A light came on inside the car, and the figures were lit up. One was blurry, but the other was a short pale woman with a chin-length bob. Charlotte. Her jaw dropped as she watched the video of herself. The camera stayed on them until they disappeared inside.

  It then cut to a video taken in the woods. Within just a moment, Charlotte was in the frame again. This was taken on one of her early morning hikes through the forest with her camera. It played a montage of videos of her on her hikes, some shot from afar, some disturbingly close. The final clip in the video was from just a short while ago, of them making love at the river. The camera was zoomed in close on Charlotte’s face as she moaned in pleasure as he fingered her from behind. There was heavy breathing co
ming from the cameraman, then the ruffling of clothes before breathy moans sounded. It panned all over her body as she rode Killian on the bank. But then the blurry figure was at her chest, their movements intensifying. The moaning stopped from the cameraman, and it zoomed in on her chest, a trickle of blood on her skin.

  Then the screen was black. Charlotte was frozen in horror of what she had just seen. This man was following her, too?

  Killian hugged her tightly. “This man isn’t going to hurt you. I assure you of that. I’ll rip his bloody head off with my bare hands before he touches you,” he told her.

  Charlotte was in complete shock, unable to respond to him. Killian moved her to the couch with him, sitting her down with his arm still around her. Taking a deep breath to compose himself before the anger took over completely, Killian plucked the letter from the coffee table.

  “I wonder what this sick prick has to say,” he faintly said as he unfolded the paper.

  A few more pictures fell out when he opened it, ones taken just after she had fallen down the hill in the forest. Charlotte gasped, remembering hearing the sound of a camera shutter—but she thought it was her mind playing tricks on her after hitting her head. Killian tossed the photos to the side, his jaw clenching as he read the note.

  KILLIAN WALSH.

  YOU WERE BEHAVING, BUT THEN YOU WENT AND GOT A BLOOD BAG. RELEASE HER BY MIDNIGHT, OR ELSE I WILL COME REMOVE HER—AND YOUR HEAD.

  “Blood bag?” Charlotte read aloud. “What in the hell is he talking about?”

  Killian was wide-eyed at the note. “He’s referring to you,” he muttered, his eyes still not ripping away from the paper in his hand. “It’s a hunter causing all this…”

  “What would a hunter want with us? Seemed more like a pervert to me.”

  He shook his head, putting his face in his hands. “Not like a trophy hunter, dove. A vampire hunter.” His hands rubbed vigorously at his face. “I suppose he crossed paths with me while he was hunting some other vampire and was watching me to see if I hurt anyone. He must have seen that I don’t harm humans, but then saw me bring you home. Now he’s on a self-righteous mission to free you from me,” he contemplated aloud. “Of course, the fucking pervert just had to watch us make love and see me feed from you. Couldn’t have looked away like a decent bloke,” Killian grumbled.

  He didn’t sound upset that the man was a hunter out to kill his kind, but more upset over watching them have sex and spotting the one time he dared a taste of her blood. “He shouldn’t have been following you around anyways. Clearly, if you were in danger, you would have just went running off into the woods and not come back to my house…”

  “What do we do?” Charlotte frowned. “It isn’t like when he shows up to ‘rescue’ me that he’ll be willing to sit down and hear us out…”

  “There’s only one option,” Killian sighed, wringing his hands together when he sat up. “I’m going to have to kill him.”

  ***

  Charlotte stayed curled into his side, her eyes wide open as they lay in the dark. Killian tried to convince her to sleep, but it wasn’t going to happen. Her entire body was wracked with nerves, her fingers fidgeting with the fabric of his shirt.

  “It’s going to be just fine, Charlotte,” Killian soothed her, rubbing her back. “Once this man is six feet under, we won’t have any worries, and we can focus on us.”

  That sounded nice, but it didn’t exactly calm her. A man was coming there to try and kill Killian. Even though she didn’t doubt his strength or abilities whatsoever, Charlotte couldn’t help but worry that something could happen and this hunter could actually kill him.

  Midnight was fast approaching, and Killian headed downstairs to get outside before the hunter arrived. He should have left a while ago, but it was so hard to leave her side, especially when she was so scared.

  Killian pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll be back in just a little bit; I swear to you.”

  She wanted to latch onto him, to keep him there with her, but she knew he had to go. Nothing could be done, except face the hunter. He slid from the bed and got to his feet.

  Killian stole another glance of Charlotte in his bed before heading to the door. But before he even walked across the room, the door flung open. A middle-aged man with oily blonde hair and pale blue eyes stood in the door frame, glaring hard at Killian before his eyes drifted to Charlotte.

  His eyes darkened at the sight of her, and then he winked. “Don’t worry, baby, I’m here for—.”

  Before the hunter could finish his sentence, he tumbled to the ground as Killian tackled him. Charlotte sat up on the bed, watching with beady eyes as Killian beat the hunter.

  “Don’t even look at her!” Killian screamed as he beat the man, his fist repeatedly colliding with the side of the hunter’s face while Killian’s other hand was around his throat. But then, there was a struggle, and Killian rolled away to dodge something. Charlotte couldn’t quite make out what was going on. In fear that the tables were turning on Killian, Charlotte stood to try and get a better look, wanting desperately to help him. But as she took just a few steps closer, a sudden pressure ripped through the center of her chest. Charlotte stumbled back from the force of it, her eyes blinking rapidly as she became dizzy and her ears ringing loudly. Her mind was completely blank, not even feeling the pain at first.

  It didn’t even click anything was wrong until she heard Killian scream, “No, no, no!”

  Charlotte’s looked down to see her chest completely soaked in blood. A shaky hand pressed to it before peeling back, her eyes staring at the warm blood covering her hand. She had been shot? And like someone flipped a switch, Charlotte fell to the floor, her body going into shock. The commotion of fighting sounded miles away, all sounds muffled greatly by the ringing in her ears. The fighting ceased and quick footsteps came her way.

  Killian cradled her face as her eyes stared up at the ceiling with dilated pupils. “What has he done to you?” he painfully whispered, his eyes dimmed with his agony.

  Charlotte was still breathing, but she was gasping. And she was still moving, but it was twitching and shaking from the shock. The hunter had tried to shoot Killian but missed and got her instead.

  Guilt weighed on Killian’s chest as he tried to think of what to do and how to save her. There was so much blood… the sweet red fluid pouring from her chest into a puddle around her. He lived too far from a hospital to get her to one in time—hell, even if there was one right next door, she might not have made it. He couldn’t lose her, he just couldn’t.

  Even though he didn’t want to damn her to eternity like him, Killian knew it was the only way to keep her from dying. With glossy eyes that begged to cry but couldn’t, Killian raised his wrist to his mouth and punctured himself with his fangs, not even flinching at the pain. Lowering the wound to her lips, he let the blood trickle into her mouth. Charlotte’s body involuntarily swallowed as the droplets hit the back of her throat. Killian held it there, watching with cautious eyes as she drank some of his blood.

  Her eyes were suddenly animated from the daze they had been in, but they were on fire with pain. As the blood reached her stomach, it burned as though his blood were made of acid. The pain radiated from her stomach throughout her entire body, her heart racing a mile a minute as the chemicals in his blood worked rapidly throughout her bloodstream and organs. Charlotte screamed out in agony, tears pouring down her face. Getting shot didn’t hurt as badly as the transformation did. Every cell of her being was in sheer agony. She screamed until she was blue in the face and everything went black.

  When her screaming stopped, Killian moved to hold her, not caring about the blood that soiled his clothing. He cradled her in his lap, his fingers sifting through the soft pecan brown locks on her head. The transformation didn’t take long, but it was excruciating. Killian had forgotten the pain associated with dying and being reborn and wished he could have gone through it for her somehow. He hated that he had to make the call over her mortality. C
harlotte had just discovered that he was a vampire, and now he had made her one too. What if she didn’t want to be one? What if she had wanted to move on with her life to have kids and grow old? What if she hated him for literally all eternity for what he had done? His chest ached at the thought.

  Charlotte’s head turned in his direction, and Killian’s breath caught in his throat. He watched in silence as she slowly stirred, her big brown eyes opening to beam up at him. She stared up at him in confusion as she remembered the events that just took place. The hunter, the gunshot, his wrist in her mouth... Charlotte held her breath, and moments ticked by, and she felt no pain from holding it in. She didn’t need to breathe.

  Charlotte was a vampire. When the realization truly clicked within her, her eyes went wide, but as she stared up into his jade-green eyes, seeing the pain, regret, and concern swimming in them, a calm came over her. Killian had saved her life, and by the look on his face, he was tormented by his decision. A weak smile appeared on her lips, reaching her brown hues. Killian watched as she raised a dainty hand and held his cheek, “I love you, Killian.”

  Killian exhaled as his chest swelled, and his eyes glossed over. “I love you too, Charlotte,” he breathed to her. He bent his neck down and pressed a soft kiss to her lips, unable to believe that she had said those words after he had just turned her. And for the first time in his life as a vampire, he felt blessed to be immortal because he knew for certain Charlotte truly would be his forever.

  *****

  THE END

  Receive a FREE paranormal romance eBook by visiting our website and signing up for our mailing list: