by Kate Wendley
He leaned forward and grabbed her hand. “I finally shifted and what? What was supposed to happen?”
She snatched her hand away and bitterly snapped, “Nothing, I guess. Because that’s what happened. More of the same nothingness.”
“Penny, I just wanted to be better for you. I didn’t want to bring all the craziness of my life into yours. I wanted to be healed, but if this is healed, then I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I think I’m still screwed up.”
“Vince, I don’t care about any of that. I−”
“Well I care! I can’t ask you to spend the rest of your life with me just to force you to take care of me every time I get sick. What kind of man would I be to ask you to do that? I should be able to take care of you. And to worry about passing on to our kids whatever’s wrong with me? It kills me to think about it. So… I let you be mad at me. It was better than screwing up your life, too.”
She was suddenly blinking back tears. “You want to spend the rest of your life with me? And have kids?”
He gruffed in frustration. “Did you hear me? I still don’t know what’s going on with… this.” He gestured to himself. “I don’t have control over whatever this cat thing is supposed to be, Penny. It’s weird and not at all what I expected.”
She chuckled even though she still looked upset.
“I’m serious, dammit.”
She laughed even louder this time, and it irritated him, though he reluctantly laughed, too.
Good God he had no idea what he was doing, but he grabbed her up into his arms again. She squealed in surprise, but didn’t fight him this time.
“Penny, I−”
She put her finger to his lips. “Vince, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I tend to get into my own trouble from time to time. And sometimes I need help getting out of it. As you’ve seen.”
He stifled a smile. “Do you get kidnapped a lot?”
She smacked him in the arm. “No. It’s not usually stuff as dramatic as that. Jerk.”
He liked that she faked being mad at him right now even though there was a smile in her eyes.
“What I mean is we’re supposed to be a team. You and me. And I thought we were again that day you were so out of it. I went over to your place and you grabbed me up into your arms and wouldn’t let me go, even when your dad tried to pull me away.”
Anger filled his soul. “Why was he trying to pull you away? What happened?”
She put her hand on his chest. “Relax, kit cat. Your dad just didn’t want us all around. He wanted you to rest, but once I reached you in your room, you wouldn’t let me go and actually growled at anyone else who got too close.”
A sense of pride bubbled up in him, and Penny seemed just as happy about it.
He hugged her tight to himself. “Penny, you’re mine. I just… I don’t want you to have to deal with my issues.”
She smacked him in the arm. “Hey, jerk. I didn’t finish my story. While you were out I spilled my stupid guts to you, and I guess you don’t remember that either.” Her gaze drifted away. “Vince, you’re the first man to actually see me for who I am. You can’t take that away from me just because you don’t feel good sometimes. And if you hadn’t been so out of it, you’d know I also took care of you when you were sick. And I’d do it again. I love you, but you can’t keep things from me. You can’t shut me out like you’ve been doing. It hurts.”
He felt like the biggest loser right now, even more so because her emotions were seeping into him stronger than ever before. He could feel her love for him all the way to his bones.
He cupped her cheeks in his hands, and with tears stinging his eyes, he said, “I love you too, Penny. And I swear, I’ll do everything I can to not hurt you again. But you’ve got to understand, I’m out of my depth with all this shifter stuff.”
“And girlfriend stuff.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, and girlfriend stuff.”
“Are you asking for my help?”
He went still at that. He hated that word. Hated it. He was so sick of people wanting to help him, but an image of waking up naked in the woods suddenly came to mind. All those people, his new pack, even his own father had helped him when he needed it most. Even Penny had apparently helped him.
He finally understood how Anthony must’ve felt when he’d first turned vampire. He relied on his family for so much while he got used to his new life, and he was the most powerful of them all now. Maybe getting help from others wouldn’t actually make Vince weak. Maybe it really could make him stronger.
But it still felt like he was tearing his own guts out when he said, “Yes. I need your help. Or at least your understanding.” Saying it out loud was even harder than he thought. And it wasn’t just him this time, it was also his cat that hated to hear it. But he already knew he couldn’t do this on his own anymore. “Will you help me, Penny? Help me figure out what I’m supposed to do with this animal inside me? And more importantly, help me figure out how to be a good man to you?”
She clenched her fists and grimaced in what seemed like good natured irritation. “Yes, but only if you’re honest with me. We’re in this together. You and me.”
He pulled her tighter against him and said, “Honesty on both ends?”
She hesitated and he froze. Crap. He’d pushed her too far. She might have a lot to say to him about the way he’d handled his own issues, but she was still an emotionally vulnerable person whether she realized it or not.
One side of her mouth quirked as she looked down, then squeezed his arm. “You’re right. I guess I don’t always say what I mean either. Jerk.” She looked into his eyes and smirked, and he pulled her in for a kiss.
She fell into it, and in between quiet whimpers, he said, “We’re a team. You and me.”
She mumbled, “Ok,” as he kissed her neck, then nipped at her tasty flesh. Her body went supple in his arms, and her braless breasts pressing against her snug tank top were now too tempting to ignore.
Her hands were all over him as he cupped her and ran the pads of his thumbs over her nipples until they were taut, sensitive peaks that elicited just the right whimpers from her luscious mouth.
A shiver ran through her slowly writhing body, and her voice was breathy when she asked, “How are your bullet wounds? Do they hurt?”
“All healed.” That was one thing about all this recent craziness that he liked. He could now heal like a shifter was supposed to.
Penny’s bedroom eyes were suddenly alive and ferocious as she sat back from him, then grabbed his shirt and ripped it off his body.
He stared at her in shock and surprise, and in total lust. He was shifter and so was she. They didn’t have to be gentle with each other since they both had superhuman strength.
“Shorts off, kit cat.”
Excitement thrummed through him, his body instantly hot and hard for her. He had a powerful need to lick and nibble and do crazy things with her body.
“I have to tell you something first.”
She frowned irritably at him.
“I’ve… had this fantasy for a while. About you. And I’ve never told you about it.”
The zest was back in her eyes, and by the look of it, she liked where this conversation was going.
“You’re crawling towards me in a tight t-shirt and really slinky panties that don’t really cover your ass at all. So… do you have an outfit like that?”
She popped up with a wicked smirk on her face and disappeared into her bedroom, so he got to work getting naked. He quietly laughed to himself about how crazy his life had become, and how crazy it would continue to be now that he could actually shift into a freaking animal. All these people here did it every month, and sometimes more often, but now that he would be shifting too, it seemed incredibly surreal that this was his life.
And everyone here just took it in stride as just another day in Brookhaven.
Penny came out of her bedroom slowly, giving him time to look her over in a tight little top that s
queezed her already ample breasts together, the short bottom of her shirt falling halfway down her belly. Her hot pink panties were lacy and had a little bow right in the middle with lacy straps on either side going round her hips to the back.
She gave him a look over as well. He’d gotten comfortable all spread out on her couch while he waited, and her eyes caught on his stiff erection before she gazed back up into his eyes. Hoping she wasn’t getting nervous or shy all of a sudden, he smirked wickedly and gestured for her to turn around while he began stroking himself.
She slowly twirled and let him see all of her, the sexy pink panties nowhere near covering her sexy ass, just like he’d imagined. The purr rumbled out of him before he realized it, and she dropped to her knees, then started crawling towards him.
And that’s when he knew this was his home. Brookhaven was where he belonged, with family and friends that cared about him and actually understood how crazy his life was. He’d grown to care about them, too, even the scary people, and couldn’t imagine not being a part of this anymore.
Penny growled and his animal perked up at her playfulness. For once he felt like a whole, healed person even though he knew he still had a ways to go with that, but his physical problems didn’t seem to matter anymore. Not now that he knew he and Penny could get through this together.
Epilogue
Anthony had never gotten as involved in shifters’ lives as he felt like he now was with Vince and Penny. They were frequently around, either to be volunteer feeding partners for Kaia or to just come visit. It was strange to him that he’d acquired more friends, but whatever made Kaia feel welcome in her new home was something he’d continue to encourage.
Vince and Penny were also in the midst of wedding plans, which seemed rather quick to him, but there was no doubt their lives would be interesting together. Vince’s father was a complication, though, since his father, the Savannah Alpha Jaguar, tried to so carefully control everything about his family all the way down to who they had children with. Sooner or later he was bound to find out about Vince, but that problem could wait for another day.
Kaia was slowly getting used to being vampire, and slowly coming out of her self-imposed shell. She was trying so hard to keep her hunger under control, as well as get used to her new strength and greatly heightened senses. She felt it was taking too long, but all in all she was doing wonderfully, even though she was still overwhelmed at times. Surprisingly, many in the family offered her advice and well-meaning encouragement, and occasionally sympathy while she struggled through this difficult transition phase.
And in the meantime, home life for everyone in Brookhaven had become more paranoid since they uncovered the breadth of the embezzlement problem. He’d even caved and asked for more security cameras to be installed, though he was still trying to decide if he would keep them. He wanted everyone to feel safe at home, but he didn’t want to feel like he lived under a microscope. He also didn’t want someone to leak footage of anything that happened around here to the world at large, so as of now he tightly controlled who could access the cameras and view any recordings. And, of course, someone was now always keeping their eye on the militia group in the woods.
Tonight, he had a bigger worry on his mind. It was a premonition Kaia had when she was human. He doubted she even remembered having it since she was sick at the time, but she’d told him they’d meet the King of the Faeries soon and that Anthony needed to be careful because the man was powerful. She’d also told him not to go through the door that led to his home. Kaia had no idea that a woman calling herself the Vampire Mother had told him the same exact thing, and the date for their meeting with the King was fast approaching.
Not that he didn’t take Kaia’s warning seriously, but he’d dealt with powerful creatures before and wasn’t as worried about what could happen to him. He’d die inside if something happened to her, though, so he’d started taking her out to various secluded spots in the woods on many nights to teach her everything he could about being vampire, even as the feeling of being watched was constantly tickling the edge of his senses…
Mastering Darkness
A Forest of Darkness Novel #1
Can love save his humanity from slipping away?
The gruesome duties of being the Master Vampire of the Atlanta territory are enough to tempt Anthony into turning off his emotions for good and becoming the monster he sees in the mirror, once and for all. But a flirtatious chance meeting with a beautiful human shocks his heart into remembering sensations he thought he’d long lost the ability to experience. Oblivious to the supernatural world existing in the shadows all around her, Kaia has secrets of her own, though, like why she’s the only human living at Wild Woods, home to Anthony’s bitter foe.
Years after escaping a traumatic past, Kaia has a life she’s proud of, and maybe, finally, a man. But as her nice, safe world unravels before her eyes, she has to decide what’s more important… safeguarding her secrets, or letting herself find love with a monster…
Abandoned Darkness
A Forest of Darkness Novel #2
An Alpha Wolf too wild for love…
Having the rare ability to read minds won Sebastian no friends in a world full of secrets. Years of being shunned by the very people he’s sworn to protect only reinforces his bad attitude while he cultivates the deadly power of his wolf, keeping it barely contained most days.
A collision with the sweet woman of his dreams tests his ability to be more than just the angry, brute Alpha Wolf people know him as. But as his nagging fight with the old Alpha heats up, and Sebastian’s own screw up threatens an important friendship, he aches to lash out more than ever.
Jade doesn’t understand why it’s so hard to find love. All she wants is someone sweet and polite, and someone who never brings up the fact that once a month she has to go through the nightmare of shifting into a jaguar. Her animal abilities are the weakest in the family so most days she can easily ignore that part of her existence. But after crashing into Sebastian, the most powerful, terrifying, and sexy shifter in Atlanta, her cat is awake in every good and horrible way, whether she likes it or not…
Resisting Darkness
A Forest of Darkness Novel #3
Getting revenge was supposed to end his pain…
Ethan was a powerful Master Vampire. He wasn’t supposed to need help… Beckoning home the only vampire he’d ever made in order to exact long overdue justice, Ethan’s link to this killer was driving him mad. As he focused on his plans for what, and who, might be left behind once he righted the heart wrenching wrongs of his past, a beautiful new vampire in town threatens to distract him from his mission.
Harmony snuck into the rumored supernatural nirvana of Atlanta, GA with weapons and an attitude. Forever searching for the elusive something or someone that could satisfy her restless vampire soul, she was ready for anything that came her way… or so she thought. A murdered lover, a killer who thought he’d redeemed himself, and a sexy man that calmed her itch to move on force her to decide what she’s willing to do for love.
From the Author
Thank you for reading Shifting Darkness, A Forest of Darkness Novel #4! If you enjoyed the story, please consider posting a review. Feedback is always welcome!
To find out when Kate’s next novel is available, sign up for her email list at KateWendley.com.
About the Author
Kate Wendley writes paranormal romance for those who love drama. Vampires, werewolves and more contend with hot tempers and incredible powers while bravely navigating the mysteries of finding love and acceptance in her series, A Forest of Darkness. Set in the ‘City in a Forest’, Atlanta, GA, it’ll make you think twice about how well you really know your friends and neighbors.
When Kate’s not busily writing about things that go bump in the night, she enjoys watching sci-fi, campy horror movies and stand up comedies. To learn more about Kate, visit KateWendley.com.
Wendley, Shifting Darkness
