Shifters in the Shadows: Seventeen Paranormal Romances of Sexy Shifters, Dangerous Vamps, & Things That Go Bump in the Night

by J. K Harper

  “But if you never leave, what happens when you … you know, die?” Sabrina continued, obviously taken with the topic.

  Donovan could feel his mood suddenly plummet. It was a question he had asked himself a few times. He was the only child of his parents, and they had died when he was no more than a teenager. There were servants that were loyal to the family, who made sure that he had everything he needed from intellectual stimulation to food, but other than that, Donovan Silvertip was very aware that he might just have been the loneliest dragon in the world.

  Perhaps that’s why you won’t let her leave…

  Another preposterous thought.

  “Life will find a way,” he said dismissively after a pause that had gone on for a bit too long. “There are other Silvertips in the world. They will sense when I pass. Someone will take my place.”

  “Okay,” Sabrina said somewhat dubiously. “But… Do you never leave?”

  “I fly on occasion, stretch my wings,” Donovan replied with a shrug.

  “How has no one seen you, then?” she asked, leaning forward and exposing her gorgeous long neck a bit more to Donovan’s gaze.

  Her milky skin invited him to run a finger over it. He wondered whether it was as soft to the touch as it seemed it would be.

  I bet the answer is yes, he thought, catching himself leaning forward across the coffee table but stopping before he could do something foolish.

  “It is the gift we have,” he explained, frowning slightly as the words slipped over his lips. A dragon never shared his secrets, and yet here he was, spilling his life story to a journalist of all people. “The Silvertips. If we do not wish to be found, we are not. I know there is at least one other dragon around here—the Goldplains, but he has no idea I exist. It doesn’t work flawlessly, and I could not fly over a city during daytime and not expect to be sighted, but during evenings … with smaller crowds … you could be staring right at me and not see me.”

  “Cool,” Sabrina whispered, grinning, her eyes alight with curiosity. She looked absolutely breathtaking, and it was driving Donovan mad. “I never knew dragons could do that. I mean, sure, the Goldplains’ shows are too good to just be special effects, but stuff like that? Wow!”

  “We don’t get to pick what our gifts are,” Donovan said with a shrug. “But coming from lines that reach further back than the history of mankind has some perks, I guess.”

  Sabrina met his words with a smile, and Donovan found himself smiling back, his drink suddenly forgotten in his hand. He caught himself staring at her, mesmerized in more ways than one, and she didn’t break the gaze they shared for the longest time. Finally, she looked away with a blush, her cheeks tinting pink.

  It took all he had to keep from rushing to her side, making sure he hadn’t caused her any discomfort.

  She’s supposed to be your prisoner. You’re not supposed to care!

  But he did.

  Oh, how he did.

  The dragon within him snarled and twisted, pushing him forward, telling him that he was a fool for sitting so stiffly in his seat and not acting on what was only natural. This perfect specimen of a woman had been brought to his doorstep, and he was still questioning his morals, what was right and what was wrong.

  He pulled a hand through his silky black hair, putting the glass down on the table. Awkwardness was something that Donovan Silvertip was not used to experiencing. His whole life, he had been the master of his domain, with loyal servants coming to him once or twice a week to make sure he had all that he needed after his kin passed. Sometimes, other dragons from the family lines would come to the lair, but more often than not, Donovan was alone, perfectly content with the state of affairs.

  Yet, here he was, looking at the personification of freedom and a life unlike any he had known. And he couldn’t help but want to taste more of it.

  “I’m sorry I stumbled in on you,” she said finally after a long silence had fallen between them, ripe with questions and tension.

  “I have no one but myself to blame,” he answered, frowning at the admission.

  It wasn’t entirely true. The doors were not supposed to open for anyone but the select few servants who snuck up to the mountain in the dead of night, always confirmed beforehand with Donovan, and other Silvertips. Yet, Sabrina had simply walked through the door as if it wasn’t protected by centuries of magic.

  As if she belonged there.

  As if she belonged with him.

  “This must be a lonely kind of life,” she said after another pause. “Don’t you ever wish you could leave?” she asked.

  “I haven’t until now,” he replied immediately, the earnest manner of his words catching both of them off guard.

  Donovan looked down at his drink on the table with a scowl, and Sabrina blushed, smiling slightly.

  What are you saying?

  “You know, I wasn’t lying about the fact that I wouldn’t tell anyone. Your secret’s safe with me, Donovan.”

  “And why would you do that?” he queried, looking up and meeting those perfect hazel eyes that he could easily sink into and never come up for air from.

  “Sometimes you just need to believe in a little bit of human decency. Stop expecting the worst and hope for the best,” she said, smiling softly.

  But what if the worst is always behind the next corner…

  Sabrina

  Those butterflies that she’d at first mistaken for pure terror at the sight of a scary as hell dragon were still fluttering away in the pit of her stomach well into the evening. Despite his somewhat haughty demeanor, Donovan Silvertip had revealed himself to be genuinely … intriguing.

  Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. The man’s a dragon, after all.

  After plenty of coaxing, she’d gotten him to tell her about his life in his lair. They’d kept talking for hours, well into the night. The feeling she’d gotten about the manor, that everything seemed just a tad too perfect, had been right on the money.

  The Silvertips had used to be one of the few families in the area. When more inhabitants began popping up and the Silvertip dynasty got smaller, the dragons made the only sensible decision and disappeared from the public eye.

  The manor was emptied of all valuables and made to look as if it had been abandoned completely. Most of the roads leading up the mountain had been destroyed, and the level of disrepair on the manor was carefully maintained, making sure that nothing would be too far gone to fix up if need be, yet not in such good order that it would call to curious onlookers.

  Yet, clearly, their plan had had small flaws, namely one Sabrina Corrolie, who had still found the place fascinating. Donovan told her that the stories had originally been concocted by his mother and spread in the area locally. Only later had they been perpetuated on the internet. So far, it—along with the Silvertips’ natural capacity to keep curious minds away—had been enough to make for a calm existence.

  “Until you showed up,” Donovan said, the smile on his lips easier now as he walked Sabrina through the long, winding corridors beneath the manor.

  What she had perceived to be a small, private living area was only the beginning. Actually, there was a whole castle beneath the house, not taking into consideration the caves that held the hoard. It was all carved out of the mountainside, yes, but Sabrina had scarcely seen a five star hotel with anything on Donovan’s home.

  “Well, I guess fate works in weird ways sometimes,” Sabrina murmured, following him while taking it all in.

  The walls were lined with gorgeous paintings and the hardwood floors were covered with fine carpets that looked far too expensive to be walked on. Yet, Donovan seemed to barely notice the opulence that surrounded him. Which, again, was not surprising.

  He was a dragon after all.

  “I still can’t get over the fact that I walked in on a dragon,” Sabrina said with a little giggle, the whiskey having warmed her up completely now, and some of it having clearly gone to her head.

  Not that being close to Donov
an wasn’t cause enough to feel all hot and bothered.

  “Shows you what a little bit of adventure can do,” Donovan said absently, stopping at a gilded door.

  He seemed to hesitate for a moment as Sabrina came to stand beside him. Though she had told him that she’d be perfectly fine curling up in her sleeping bag, Donovan was having none of it. Sabrina wasn’t entirely certain if it was because he didn’t trust her to wander too far or if he just wanted to keep her close.

  The rational side of her told her it was the former, but the giggling, whiskey-drunk side hoped it was the latter.

  “Is this me?” she asked, looking up at the tall, painfully handsome dragon.

  His features were near perfect. A strong, slightly sharp chin, a long, perfectly straight nose, high cheekbones and thoughtful, deep green eyes made him fit for any magazine cover. And he was hiding out beneath a mountain without anyone aware of his existence.

  What a tragedy!

  “It is,” he said, pushing the door open to reveal a bedroom straight out of an old school romance novel.

  The bed was a four poster with a red velvet canopy, the walls were covered in matte black and silver wallpaper, and the dark wood floors had swatches of white and silver furs in places, looking like they might very well have been wolf pelts. Just in case, Sabrina didn’t ask.

  Instead, she gasped, taking a few steps in.

  “Holy hell,” she whispered. “I might never leave!” she said with a squeal, taking it all in.

  There was a big vanity table with a gold-encrusted mirror across from the bed and a behemoth of a dresser to the left of the door. Though there wasn’t a single window in sight, it still didn’t feel gloomy or dark in any way. She was practically in love with the room.

  “I might not let you,” Donovan countered, making Sabrina turn around.

  He blushed immediately, and it was the first time she’d seen color touch his cheeks, his naturally pale skin doing nothing to hide the sudden embarrassment.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” he quickly added.

  “Didn’t you?” Sabrina asked, feeling herself drunk with bravery.

  Okay, that and maybe the whiskey helped a little.

  She took a few steps towards the tall dragon who still hovered in the doorway, his hand on the handle. His expression was creased by a frown for a moment, and even that looked like it was perfectly planned, expertly set in place by the hand of an artist instead of a man going through emotions like any other.

  There was something so timelessly exquisite about him that now, it made perfect sense that he would be a dragon. Despite the guise of a man, his aura seemed to swell and swirl around him, bending time and existence in a way that was mesmerizing and intoxicating.

  Sabrina came right up to him, though she was so much shorter than Donovan that it didn’t matter much. She looked up at him and, spurred on by her bravery, put her hands on his chest and got up on her tiptoes, leaning into him. He stood firm, and she caught the way his breath hitched a little, his nostrils flaring.

  “I thought you said there would be consequences,” she murmured, making small swirls on his chest with her fingertips.

  “Sabrina,” he said, his breath a hoarse whisper, the velvet almost out of it from the surprise. “I … I don’t want to make you do anything you might regret,” he stuttered, adorably bashful when just hours ago he’d been a fire breathing monster ready to claim the world.

  “Does it look like I’m being coaxed into anything?” she asked, surprising herself yet again with her forwardness.

  She was never the kind of woman to go so immediately for what she wanted, or what she thought she could want. It was always preceded by weeks of doubting and questioning, mulling over the option and looking for alternative routes before she settled on anything. But this time? Hell, she’d come so far, faced her biggest fears, and now she was face to face with the most gorgeous, intriguing and fascinating man she’d ever met!

  I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t go for it, she thought, the butterflies seeming to go into a flurry of activity at that admission.

  “No,” he finally said, and when his hand slipped on her lower back, an involuntary little moan escaped Sabrina’s lips.

  Donovan leaned forward, and she could feel the temperature in the room spike several degrees. Where he touched her, flames seemed to spread in her body, hot and immediate. Their lips were only a few inches apart, Donovan’s other hand now cupping the back of her neck and sending little shivers of pleasure and heat tumbling through her like the beginnings of an avalanche.

  “Are you certain of this?” he asked, that carefully poised frown still marring his features.

  Instead of answering, she grabbed hold of his expensive button-up shirt and tugged him closer with both hands. When their lips met, the world seemed to fall away.

  And Sabrina couldn’t care less if it ever returned, as long as she could be kept in that cocoon of pleasure that formed around her when Donovan touched her.

  Sabrina

  The kiss was like fire, pure, hot, untamable flames roaring through her from the moment their lips met. She gave into it easily, and though Donovan’s first touch was hesitant, the kiss almost impossibly soft considering the raw heat between them, she could feel his walls crumbling within seconds.

  In another moment, he was pulling her tightly against him, his tongue slipping into her mouth and tasting her like he’d never had anything quite so delicious before in his life. Sabrina could feel her pulse racing, adrenaline hitting her harder now than it did when she ran from the dragon.

  But why wouldn’t it? Before, she’d been running from the beast, now she was taming him.

  She barely noticed as Donovan’s arms wrapped tightly around her and picked her up, cradling her against his tall, lean, muscled body as he carried her across the floor to the bed. Only when her back hit the plush, silky covers did she come back, her eyes fluttering open, her lips already missing his.

  He stood before her, breathing heavily, and she could see the tiny flecks of gold in his green eyes expand and undulate, the dragon so close to the surface. The way he looked at her was as if he’d just found the greatest treasure he could ever have imagined, and it was slowly dawning on him that it was his for the taking.

  Sabrina scooted up on her knees, kicking off her boots in the process, and her fingers started undoing the buttons of his shirt as he leaned in for another kiss. It was just as exhilarating as the first ones, and she was entirely certain that she would never get enough of them.

  My very own dragon…

  “You’re breathtaking,” he murmured between kisses, his hands trailing down her neck and arms, leaving spirals of heat and shivers mingling together on her skin.

  “You’re not too bad yourself,” she countered with a grin, reaching the last button and pulling the shirt out of his pants.

  He shrugged the dress shirt off and pulled the undershirt over his head, discarding that as well. Sabrina bit her lip, looking at the absolutely stunning specimen of a man before her, though her fingers were already undoing the buckle of his belt. He was strong but slender in a way, with wide shoulders that framed his body well. His muscles were tightly coiled, and every breath and motion gave her a better look at them, making it seem as if he were built of nothing but strength.

  When the belt buckle came loose, her fingertips brushed over his abs and the tight tuck of the V that she wanted to explore, his breath hitching. The next thing she knew, her shirt had been pulled from her so smoothly that she couldn’t even remember raising her hands, and she was trapped underneath Donovan’s weight, his mouth on hers and his hand traveling up her side.

  Sabrina’s back arched as he pulled the straps of her bra down and yanked one cup lower, revealing a nipple to his hungry gaze. Though she was remiss to leave his kiss, the momentary sadness was quickly replaced by a moan of pleasure as he flicked his tongue over the delicate nub, only adding to that coiling heat within her.

  E
ven that motion made her spasm with need, bucking against him. Her fingers traveled through his hair, impeccably kept and just as soft to the touch as she’d imagined, and her thighs clenched around him.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, the makings of a whine in her voice. “I want you so bad!”

  The snarl that emitted from the bottom of Donovan’s throat sent a shudder through her. It was wild and untamed, completely the opposite of the carefully poised man he showed himself as, but so in touch with the dragon she knew hid within him. He undid the clasp of her bra and ripped it off of her, kissing her breasts and sucking on her nipples while he undid the button of her jeans.

  She raised her hips to meet him, eager to give him everything he wanted. Usually, it took endless dates for Sabrina to feel comfortable enough with someone to take things to the bedroom, and even then there was a plethora of awkwardness and doubt involved. With Donovan, however, all of that seemed to disappear.

  She wanted him to see all of her, because every fiber of her being was telling her that he would worship all of her, love all of her and need all of her. It was a certainty unlike any she’d known before.

  When he rose up on his knees to pull off her jeans and panties, she finally got a good look at the gold and silver chains he wore around his neck. A long one with an emerald pendant rested right over his heart, smaller golden chains intermingling with it.

  Pieces of his hoard, she thought with awe. So it’s always with him.

  Donovan must have noticed her staring because he smiled slightly, nudging himself back on the bed. She was naked before him, and in a moment, he was the same to her. He stepped out of his pants and shoes, and Sabrina gasped, a throaty, shocked little noise.

  The dragon was big in more ways than one.

  His cock was hard, veiny and thick, the purplish head smooth and calling to be licked by her tongue. Sabrina swallowed drily, admiring the girth and length of the massive thing, her pussy soaked with expectation. The last thing she’d expected to happen when coming on this trip was that she’d end up in bed with someone. Now finding herself there with Donovan … well, it just went to show that some fairytales really couldn’t be imagined.