Shifters and Spice: A Shifter Romance Box Set

by Desiree Holt

  “That is for me to decide, little tala.” He squeezed my hand and I swallowed hard. Had he really just called me little wolf using my ancestral name? “I think we both understand the gift that we have been given.”

  He felt it too. We were fated mates, if only I wasn’t so wrong for him. So broken. So … so …

  You think because your wolf doesn’t come out to play you don’t deserve a mate.

  Maggie’s words from earlier played in my head like an old record. She was right; I did believe that. Even after trying to believe Maggie’s words of encouragement from the afternoon, I still didn’t truly believe I was worthy.

  “I’m broken,” I spit out before climbing from the seat and running out the door. I made it only to the corner before the tears started flowing. That was it. My one chance and true forever love and it was so close, yet so far. Why oh why had fate picked me as one of the few to have a fated mate? Why?

  It would be twice as hard to settle for a marriage now that I felt the power of a mating pull, but I would make it work. I was complete and whole as far as a human was concerned, and I could give my all to make it work. I fell to the ground, my back to the brick wall as my sobs took over.

  “Little tala.”

  I felt him crouch down beside me, but I dare not look up. Not because I was a snotty, teary-eyed mess, but because I couldn’t face him. Fate had screwed him over and given him a defective mate. One not worthy. One who might never bear a shifter cub. “What makes you think that fate would be so cruel as to give us each other if we couldn’t be together? You aren’t broken; you are perfect for me. Fate deemed it so.”

  His arm draped over my shoulder and I found myself leaning into him, my wolf demanding I touch him, and me unable to do anything but. If it was this hard for me, I couldn’t fathom the challenges Chris had been facing with Camille, his human mate, one who would need him to go at a human speed.

  It took me a few moments, moments that felt like hours, to pull myself together. Not that I was truly pulled together, but I was far closer than I had been and finally able to speak. Well, speak-ish.

  “I’m latent.”

  “Impossible.” He gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

  “It’s true. Sorry to disappoint you. Fate must have a messed up sense of humor.” I couldn’t bring my eyes to his, the shame laying heavily on me.

  “No, little tala. I feel her, your wolf.”

  He. Felt. My. Wolf. That was huge. No one else ever had, not even my alpha father or his beta.

  “I feel her too, but she stays put.” I reached into my pocket, ever grateful for my dress with pockets, when I immediately found myself wanting to tell him so, wanting to share with him my little joy over having a dress with pockets. The draw to him was so much more than just the physical. “I’ve never changed and I don’t know what kind of shifter you are, but for wolves, if you don’t change well before now, you never do.” I spoke the last sentence at light speed, wishing with all I was that it wasn’t true.

  “Oh beautiful, beautiful tala, you don’t understand. I’m a lion.” A lion. I kicked myself for not sensing it earlier, especially after talking with Chris only an hour or two earlier. Not that it changed anything.

  “You’re right, I don’t understand.” I slowly turned my face to his, using every bit of strength I had and feeling my wolf lend me her strength as well. She was just as afraid of the rejection as I was, possibly more so. It was so odd and almost exhilarating to feel her so clearly after years of not always even knowing if she were there. “What does you being a lion have to do with it?”

  “Wolves can mate a human.” I nodded, knowing this to be true and having an aunt who was one hundred percent human. “Lions cannot mate a human. It just doesn’t work, so fate gave us a gift. When we mate a human, our mates become lions.”

  “I’m not human.”

  “No, you’re a wolf, and, I venture to guess, a gorgeous one at that.” James had a way with words. If he had been human, I would’ve been doubting his sincerity. Heck, I would probably called BS by now, but as a shifter, I felt them to be true. “Don’t you see? When we mate, for I’m not letting you slip away, you will shift. You are born of an alpha, so your inner wolf is strong, even if she stays hidden. There’s no way she would allow a lion to take her place.”

  He was right on that one. Even in her hidden state, I was hers and she was mine. There was no way she would allow another to take her place, nor would I. My wolf and I might not be close, but she was mine.

  “So you think she will come out finally.” I heard a flicker of hope in my voice and saw in James’s smile that he did also.

  “I do.”

  “And if she doesn’t?” As much as I wanted to latch onto his sunshine and roses view, I had to be realistic. Wolves didn’t emerge this late in life. While mating a lion might change that, it wasn’t a forgone conclusion.

  “I will still be your mate.”

  “And I will still be broken.” And that was the crux of my indecision at the moment. If I gave into the mating call and we mated and I was still broken, there was no undoing it. True mates, mated for life. If I was still broken, he would be stuck with me and I would bare that guilt for always.

  “No, you will still be perfectly mine.”

  Before I could even form a response, his lips were on mine. There was nothing tentative about his kiss, but it held a tenderness that warmed me from my head to my toes. I quickly found myself allowing the kiss to deepen, right there on the street, and just as his tongue sought entrance, we were tongue blocked by a car’s horn honking followed by a round of “Get a room’s” from the passengers.

  “Shall we go see if our burgers are ready?” He stood and offered me his hand, which I greedily took.

  “I didn’t order yet.”

  “I took care of it on my way out. I ordered you a burger with everything on the side and onion rings. Can’t have my mate going hungry on my first day, now can I?” He reached up, his thumb caressing my cheek lightly, my heart beating loudly in my chest. If such a simple touch could impact me this deeply, I could only imagine what he could do when he set his mind to it.

  “Onion rings?”

  “Of course. I already ordered them for myself, and onion rings cancel out onion rings. It’s a thing. I’m sure of it.”

  The man thought of everything, and even while I playfully bumped his shoulder as he justified the onions ring, I knew he was right. It was a thing.

  Our burgers were being delivered as we walked through the door, our timing perfect. Almost as perfect as the timing of the car hitting the pothole and the tire being across town. Maybe Ms. Maggie was better at her job than I gave her credit for. I might not have met my mate on my blind date, but there was no way I would have met him tonight without it.

  Need a Lift?

  We devoured our dinner. Never once, in either my pack or in the human world, had I ever felt comfortable enough to even eat a whole plate of greasy goodness while at a restaurant. The nagging feeling of people judging me by my size always made me too nervous, but I felt none of that with James. We were both shifters and both starving, so we ate.

  We talked about all sorts of things as we dined. It turned out that he too was at the diner by coincidence, although I was pretty sure by that point that coincidence had nothing to do with it. James was working late at his office and decided to grab dinner on the way home, only to be detoured because of a water main break. He saw the diner, smelled the food, and decided to give it a try.

  We spent the entire time chatting about the normal first date stuff: favorite movies, how we felt about our jobs, where we went to college, that kind of thing. We had a whole lot of important things to discuss, but we held onto a silent agreement to wait until we were alone for them.

  “Did you want me to take that up to the counter for you?” Our waitress not so subtly reminded us we had finished eating and been sitting far too long for her liking. To be fair, we had ignored all of her gentle hints for t
he past half hour or so.

  “Thank you.” James handed her some cash before I could take out my wallet. “No change needed.”

  She scampered off, the smile on her face showing her appreciation for the overly large tip he threw her way.

  “May I walk you to your friend’s car?” James slid out of the booth and held his hand out to me.

  “Please.” What I wanted to say was, “No, take me home.” My wolf was in a thousand percent agreement on that one. My brain was not so accepting.

  We walked slowly. I was not ready for the evening to be over, and he seemed to be in a similar mindset. Neither of us mentioned it though as we made our way to the garage.

  “Dinner was good.” He pulled us to a stop right outside the entrance.

  “It was. I don’t want …”

  “I don’t either.” He leaned in as he spoke, and for a moment I thought I would get to savor his lips once again, but the lights outside flicked off and a slight tap on the door behind me drew my attention. Stinks, they were closing.

  The bell chimed as we walked into the garage, very grateful we had made it on time. Not that the loss of the kiss wasn’t a disappointment.

  “Ma’am, we tried to call you.”

  I pulled out my phone and sure enough there were three missed calls from the garage and a text from Camille checking to make sure I was all right.

  “Sorry, my phone must have been off.”

  “We can’t get the part until the morning.”

  James wrapped his arm around my shoulder as the man made his apology.

  “Thank goodness,” both James and I said in unison, earning us both an odd look from the man in front of us.

  “What?” he asked, looking down at his clipboard as if the answer were hidden among his quote.

  “I meant, I’ll pick it up then. What time should I be here?” I would text Camille as soon as we left and let her know I would drop her car off in the morning. If things were going well, she probably wouldn’t even see the text until then. I smiled at myself. What were the chances that the two of us would not only have fated mates, but that we would meet them both so close together?

  “I’d say ten to be safe.” He handed me a business card with ten written on the back. “It’s a quick job once we get the part. I apologize, ma’am. I didn’t realize the other store was closed due to a water main break.” Was it wrong that I was secretly wanting to thank whomever or whatever it was that caused the water main break? “My manager had me refund you fifty percent off of labor for your trouble.”

  “No need to apologize. Things happen.” In this case, all good things seemed to happen at once, even when shrouded in things that would have normally been a pain in the ass.

  “We have a free shuttle.” He pointed to a minivan with their logo on the side. If I hadn’t met James, I would have taken him up on the offer, but I had better things to do tonight.

  “No, thanks. I think I have a ride.” The growl I could hear building in James’s chest told me that I had just given the perfect response.

  Patience is Not My Strong Suit

  “This is me.” James pointed to a midsized cabin as he pulled into the driveway. We had decided pretty much right away that we would go to his place, just outside the city, in case my wolf really was going to come out to play. More like he decided between kisses that had me breathless and pretty much unable to form a coherent sentence.

  “I didn’t know there was so much open space this close to the city.” I had lived in the city for years, but pretty much stayed there. I liked having things close, and since my wolf never really let me know she was even awake, staying there worked out fine.

  “There is some protected wetland abutting my property or else there probably wouldn’t be. This land was my grandfather’s hunting property before the city grew.”

  I almost giggled at the thought of his grandfather’s lion prowling the land, hunting just as a family came by birdwatching. He would have smelled them long before they got close, but the thought of a lion so close to the city still had me smiling.

  “He gifted it to me when I became a ‘city dweller,’ as he called me. Told me I was going to need the land to keep at peace with my lion.”

  “It’s beautiful.” In the moonlight, it looked like a picture out of a story book more than a real life home. Home. The word settled into me. This would probably be my home, since my tiny apartment was far from any grass, much less a place to roam.

  “Welcome to our … my home.” He made the quick correction, and I knew immediately it was to avoid me running again. He too felt the rightness in this becoming my home.

  James stepped out of the car and walked around like a true gentleman, helping me out of the car and through the moonlit pass, up the covered porch and into the front door. We probably could have stopped to look at the flowers or admire the porch swing or even lock the car, but after a half an hour pent up in the car, the pheromones were driving me and my wolf insane.

  “This is the—” He started to gesture to the small hall leading off of the front, and I nearly tackled him against the wall. I was so not this girl—except, apparently I was.

  “Tour later?” I whispered before pulling him down for a kiss. Not that I had to pull very hard. He was just as eager as I was.

  The kiss. Oh the kiss. It started out powerful, releasing all of the pent up tension from the car ride over and quickly grew to be so much more. He explored my mouth and I his. Neither of us breaking to catch our breath, both of us needing this connection.

  When his chest started to rumble, I pulled back in shock before it hit me that he was purring. I caused that. James used that time to swoop me up and carry me down the hall to what I presumed would be his room, his hardness pressed against me. He was just as turned on as I was, which I would have thought was impossible since I was pretty much on fire.

  I waited to be dropped on a bed and devoured, but instead I was set down gently in front of a door as he took a step back. His eyes showed his lust just as strongly as the erection pushing against his jeans. That had to be painful.

  “Something wrong?” All of my insecurities hit me at once. My latency. My weight. My boringness.

  “What? No. Nothing is wrong.” He inhaled deeply as if choosing his words carefully. “I just don’t want to rush this beyond your comfort and my lion disagrees. He wants me to throw you on the bed, strip you naked, ravage you, and just as we come, mark you for all to see that you are ours.”

  “I vote that,” I said without hesitation, my insecurities once again buried. His lion was so front and present as he spoke that it left me with no doubt that this was real. This was happening. I was his.

  I didn’t have to say it twice. His lips were upon me as he guided me into his room, unzipping my dress as he did. I may have been more forward than normal when we first entered the house, my alpha roots shining through, but I preferred James taking control like this. It had my wolf rolling over in submission. Yep, she loved it too.

  His lips didn’t leave mine as he pulled back enough to let the dress fall to the floor. My hands grabbed desperately at his shirt, knowing that my knees were about to give out. He took it as a sign to remove his shirt. I took the brief moment his lips left mine to give him a once over. I might have thought him handsome, even breathtaking, dressed, but the man underneath the clothes was so much more.

  My fingers explored his chest, tracing the lines of his muscles as he brought his mouth to mine. Only he bypassed my mouth and his breath sent chills down my spine as he spoke by my ear, “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. It is all I can do not to rush this moment and take you hard and fast right now.”

  His lips began a slow journey from the spot just below my ear that tuned me to mush down to the crux of my neck, the spot where I knew he would mark me. He hovered there as he removed my bra and I tried to get his jeans unbuttoned. Button flies might look sexy, but right now I was about to rip them off. It wasn’t helping that they were so tig
ht due to his very ready cock. I was a lucky, lucky girl.

  “I vote that,” I all but shouted as he nipped my neck ever so gently and the final button popped loose and pushed his jeans down. He nipped again. “No, like you mean it. Take me hard and fast and make me yours.”

  His cock was now bouncing against my belly, all but begging me explore it. When a drop of precum touched my belly, I couldn’t take it anymore and dropped to my knees.

  “I think that is the opposite of—” His words stopped as I swirled my tongue around the tip of his cock before taking as much of it as I could into my mouth. He was long and thick and I gave it a valiant effort, but there was no way it could completely fit. The groan of pleasure he let out told me it didn’t matter. I sucked as I pulled off of him with a pop and was pulled up and dropped on the bed with him lying beside me before I could complete another circuit of yum.

  “You are a naughty, naughty mate trying to get me to come before you have even had one orgasm.” His hand slid down the front of my panties, his fingers torturing me by bypassing my clit, which was already throbbing for him. “You are so perfect; look at how wet you are for me.”

  He wasn’t lying. I was drenched and ready, oh so ready. I wasn’t really big on the whole dirty talk or even any talk during naked fun before, but all of a sudden I wanted to hear more.

  “You make me that way.” I pushed my hips up, hoping he would take my less than subtle hint. Instead he pulled my panties down and off. And climbed up until we were face to face, his body above mine, almost touching. That is mostly true, his cock was setting me on fire as it bounced up and down against my belly.

  “Little tala, tell me you’re mine. Tell me you want this as much as I want you. I promise that I will revere your body the way it was meant to be tonight, but for right now, I need to make you mine. My lion is clawing at me, and I can feel your wolf clawing at you.”