20 Shades of Shifters: A Paranormal Romance Collection

by Demelza Carlton

  “Oh, yeah? Maybe she’ll show me how to—” Her how-to list was filled with such a litany of creative swearing, mostly themed around threats to his balls, that he mentally crossed his legs.

  Ky kept his thoughts to himself and when they got close, he opted to fly directly to Steele and Fleur’s new home.

  He didn’t love being in the air like Cage did. But, he couldn’t risk running into more demon dragons on the ground. There was also the distinct possibility that Jada would try to run away from him if given the opportunity.

  Ky spotted Steele and Fleur’s home and circled down to it. Vines climbed the walls and one corner of the back garden was covered in little white flowers. A green dragon and an earthy flower witch’s delight.

  At least they had a pond in the back too. The things he’d like to do to Jada in that pond.

  He carefully set her on the walkway to the front of the house and shifted immediately into his human form. Instead of bolting like he expected her to do, she stretched her shoulders rolling her head back and forth.

  A blue dragon tattoo, matching his own but smaller peeked out along her collarbone. His mark. The bite had shimmered and swirled forming the symbol on her skin right before his eyes.

  There was no mistaking what it meant.

  But, Jada hadn’t yet seen it.

  He took her hand, not giving her any more opportunities to get away from him and walked them to the front door.

  He expected her to try and yank her hand from his. She surprised him by holding it tight.

  Her skin was warm and sent heat up his arm. If he let it, that heat would sink into his whole body. It was already trying to work its way toward his cock.

  It would have to wait, a long fucking time the way her mind was freezing him out. Good to know at least her body reacted to his.

  A sign on the door with a stylized green dragon painted and old-world script read: Here there be dragons.

  Ky knocked on the door.

  He scented sex in the air, and mentally apologized for interrupting. They waited only a few seconds before they heard voices on the other side of the door.

  “Go away.” Steele’s voice came through the wood.

  “It’s Kaiārahi Tarakona Puru.” He used his alpha voice, not wanting to waste any more time.

  “Shit.”

  The door opened to a cute and curvy woman in a green bathrobe tied slightly askew who had daisies in her sex-mussed hair and an angry dragon warrior wearing nothing but a fig leaf.

  “Hi, come on in.”

  Steele’s adorable mate led them into the house with walls covered in living plants. Half-way down the hall she noticed her mate wasn’t wearing anything and smacked his ass. “Go put some pants on. We’ve got company.”

  Steele laughed and disappeared down another hall.

  Fleur led them past a tree growing right in the middle of the house and into a sunken living room, where Steele rejoined them wearing pajama pants.

  She offered an outstretched hand to Jada. “I’m Fleur, and this ill-mannered dragon is Steele.”

  Jada sucked in a sharp breath and squeezed his fingers like she didn’t want to let go and shake hands with Fleur.

  Before, she couldn’t wait to get away from him. The scent of a new anxiety wafted from her. She had nothing to be nervous about in this house. These were friends.

  He gave her hand a squeeze and then let go, showing her it was okay.

  Jada swallowed, pushing a mask over her fear, and took Fleur’s hand, but only for a fraction of a second. She threw her thumb over her shoulder indicating him. “Is he as big of a dickhead as this one?”

  “Oh my.” Fleur laughed. “So, it’s like that. Come on in to the kitchen and have some tea with me for some girl talk. I’ll tell you all about the time I made Steele sleep in the bathtub.”

  Jada hesitated, but followed Fleur. As soon as she was out of earshot, Ky breathed a long sigh. Steele glanced down at Ky’s glowing soul shard and clapped him on the back.

  “So, that’s…your mate.”

  “Yes. I have been blessed.” He made it sound sarcastic, but she truly was a gift. She didn’t see it that way.

  “Clearly.” Steele stepped down into the room and crossed to a built in mini-bar. He poured them both a few fingers of dragon spirit. He dropped ice into Ky’s glass and then blew a mist of his healing dragon’s breath into both glasses. “Here, you look like you could use this.”

  Could he ever. Imbued with Steele’s healing power, the alcohol coursed through the cells of his body, restoring and rejuvenating. His muscles weren’t as sore, and the tiredness slipped away.

  His mind felt clearer too. Except in matters of Jada. Only two other dragons in the world had found mates. Steele was one of them.

  “When you claimed Fleur, did she resist the mating?”

  Steele chuckled and lifted his glass in a salute before taking a swallow. Ky did the same.

  “For a while there, I wasn’t sure Fleur was going to accept me at all. She was pretty damn sure she was destined to mate one of the wolves.”

  “What changed her mind?” It was strange asking advice from a younger dragon. But, only Jakob and Steele had been through this mating business.

  Steele sat on the edge of the couch. He stared into his glass for a moment. “I’m not sure, and this is going to sound crazy, but I think it was the White Witch.”

  The mate of the First Dragon. The mother of them all. Ninsy’s words rang through his mind. “Not that mother.”

  Ky nodded. “Jada had a necklace, it glowed with the light of my soul shard. She said a witch in a white dress gave it to her. But, when I touched it, it disappeared.”

  “Same thing happened to me when I gave Fleur my own.” Steele touched the place on his chest where his soul shard used to hang. “Do you think the White Witch is, I don’t know, matchmaking, from the afterlife?”

  “But, why now?” It had to have some connection to this insurgence of demon dragons and that big black dragon. “We had a run in with the black dragon we battled for your mate tonight. I don’t think it’s a demon.”

  Steele crushed the glass in his hand, shattering it to pieces. “You saw it? The bastard that took and tortured Fleur?”

  “We fought him and his minions. Jada’s coven helped us escape certain death. It’s why we’re here.”

  “I’ll kill him.”

  Fleur appeared in the doorway and hustled through the room. She took Steele’s hand in hers and picked out the remains of the glass. She blew her own healing dragon’s breath across his hand.

  She shouldn’t be able to do that. It was a dragon ability. Another gift from the White Witch?

  Had she given any gifts to Jada? She stood in the entryway to the living room, looking bedraggled and so damn tired. She might not want to be his mate, but he would treat her as such and care for her.

  “We’ll contact the other Wyverns in the morning and make plans. Do you have someplace we can wash up and rest?”

  “Of course.” Fleur led them to a lush guest room, decorated in a range of colors, with plants, a small water fountain, a fireplace, and big windows, so that a dragon from any Wyr would be comfortable. “There’s an ensuite bathroom through there.”

  He wanted to pick Jada up and carry her to the shower. Fuck it. She could rail at him all she wanted. As long as she was in his arms.

  The second Fleur closed the door, he stripped off his shirt, shucked his shoes and pants, and picked her up.

  “Hey, what do you think you’re doing? Put me down right this instant.” She squirmed, but she was no match for him.

  “Don’t fight me, Jada. You’re knackered, and I can see the salt of the sea coating your skin and hair. You can hate me for it in the morning but let me take care of you.”

  “No, please. If you stay so close I…I don’t think I can control myself. I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He chuckled and pushed open the bathroom door with his foot. Tuck
ed into one corner he found a huge spa tub. Thank the First Dragon.

  “You can’t hurt me, aroha.”

  “You don’t understand. With the battle and everything else this week, I’m so hungry. It took everything I had in me not to attack Fleur. She’s so cute and nice, and I’m afraid some of my allure slipped out.”

  A rhythmic thumping started on the wall opposite them and little daisies popped up in the planter box on the high narrow bathroom window.

  She gave him a look that said ‘see.’ “She’s got Steele to help alleviate that appetite I might have accidentally increased in her. We have to go raid their kitchen. I need sugar, and a lot of it. If I don’t get some soon, I—”

  She gulped and turned her face away.

  The hunger in Jada had poured out of her with a scent of smoky need. She didn’t want sugar. She wanted blood and sex.

  She was a succubus first, his mate second.

  He’d been so preoccupied being a whiny asshole about her rejection of him that he hadn’t paid attention to the clues her scent was sending him.

  “Let me give you what you really want, Jada.” He stepped into the bathtub and set her down.

  She shook her head and balled up her fists. “No. I can’t. You can’t.”

  “I can, and I will.”

  He pulled her top over her head and lowered his head to the tattoo on her collarbone. He licked it along the place where he’d marked her. She whimpered, and her body trembled.

  “Please, Ky.”

  He didn’t think she knew whether she was asking him to stop, or not to. “It’s okay. I promise. You can’t hurt me. Let me feed you.”

  She shook her head, her whole body tensed. “I hurt everyone I touch.”

  Fear mixed with her need adding a pungent smell to her smoky sweet scent.

  “I’m not like the humans you’ve played with. The dragon part of me won’t let you take too much and will heal me. Take what you need. I give it freely.”

  She bit her lip, hunger in her eyes, and she nodded. The tiniest of a smile pulled at her mouth. “I’m trying to give it up, you know. I’m in a twelve-step program.”

  Trying to give up blood? She was a succubus. It would be like him forsaking water. Eventually he’d shrivel up and die. But, he’d let her have her little joke, if it relieved some of her fear.

  “This doesn’t mean I’m not still mad at you.”

  “I know.” It was a step closer.

  She poked him in the chest. “And we will be talking about the whole claiming and mating thing.”

  “Yes, we will. Later.” He grabbed her finger and sucked it into his mouth.

  Her eyes went from dark and stormy to darker and lusty. Her fangs extended, peeking out from under her lips.

  He popped her finger out of his mouth and kissed and nibbled his way up her arm. There was no staying away from his mark, and he sucked on her skin there. She wrapped her hands into his hair, scraping her fingers across his scalp.

  “Tell me what you need.” He whispered into her ear and licked the shell of her ear.”

  “I’m too jittery, too sensitive to, you know, just feed on you. I need to…” She trailed off.

  She was reticent to ask for what she needed. She may have never been able to before. If the only sex she’d ever had was with victims, then it was as if she were a virgin.

  A really experienced virgin, but with no understanding of the ways of lovemaking.

  The thought of being her first true lover wrapped around Ky’s chest and squeezed. He would be her first, her last, her only.

  “It’s okay, baby. What you need is to come, to take the edge off.”

  “Oh, I, uh.” She looked all around the bathroom, everywhere but at him.

  Holy Krakatoa. No way, it couldn’t be.

  Ky backed her up against the wall and nailed her hands to the tile. She gasped and arched her back into him, still avoiding his eyes.

  “Look at me, Jada.” She stared right as his chest. “Jada.”

  “What?” Her eyes flittered across his chest, hiding from looking at him. Hiding.

  “Sweetheart. Have you ever had an orgasm?”

  She turned pink and then red, sputtering out her words. “Of course, I have. I’m a succubus. I mean. I kind of have. I don’t know.”

  “You’d know.” He was both angry and excited. How many rat bastards had fucked her and not even thought about her pleasure. They all need their guy cards revoked. They deserved the pain she’d inflicted on them. Now, he had the opportunity to right the hell out of that wrong. He would be her first, her only true lover.

  She shook her head. “I’m not usually focused on me. I don’t need to get off. It’s the sexual energy that I take, not actual pleasure.”

  “It’s time you took both.” Ky kissed her, licking across her sharp teeth, and sucking on her tongue. He could go on kissing her mouth forever, but he had a long list of other places on her body that needed kissing.

  He worked his way down her throat, keeping her hands over her head. She moaned when he scraped his own teeth across her neck.

  Her skin was so creamy and smooth, not a mar on it, unlike his own that was tattooed, scarred, and toughed by the sun and sea. She was delicate and soft in all the right places, in contrast to his hard lines.

  He clasped her wrists together in one hand and pulled the cup of her bra down with the other. He’d been daydreaming about seeing his dark skin caressing her snowy white tits, playing with her rosy nipples.

  The reality far outmatched the dream. She arched her back into him, pushing her body to meet his. “Ky, I want—”

  “Tell me, baby. What do you want.”

  “I—I—”

  He’d tease her into asking what she wanted. “This?”

  He flicked his tongue across her nipple. The little bud hardened, puckering the skin around it. God, she was so responsive. How had no one ever noticed? Just seeing her body react to the simplest of pleasures had his own cock hardening relentlessly.

  “Yes, yes.”

  “Then say it. Tell me what you want.”

  She whimpered again, in such adorable distress that he almost gave in. Instead, he yanked the other cup down and blew cool air across her nipple.

  It hardened into a shiny pink point. “Don’t make me kill, you dragon.”

  “Tell me what you want.” He blew on the other breast, sending a shiver across her body. “Say it. Out loud.”

  She growled at him but then blurted out, “Lick my nipples, suck on them. Right now.”

  “Good girl.”

  He pulled one nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue around and around, exactly like he was going to do to her clit next.

  Her wrists twisted in his hold as her hands reflexively opened and closed, trying to grasp for something. She slid down the tile a few inches as her knees gave out under her.

  It was going to be so much fun seeing her get all hot and bothered. And by fun he meant sexy as hell.

  He let her hands escape his grip on them and they went straight for his head, holding him tight to her breast. She knew what she wanted, or at least her body did.

  He reached around and unhooked her bra, then dragged it down her arms as he sank to his knees in front of her.

  Her pants were the next to go. They were the soft stretchy kind that hugged her curves. Curves he couldn’t wait to see in the flesh. He yanked them down, taking her panties with.

  She squeaked and stared down at him, her eyes so wide. He grinned up at her while he tossed her pants over his shoulder.

  “Tell me what you want now, aroha.” He didn’t wait for her response. Her musky aroused scent was like a drug. He licked one thigh, then the other, and wrapped his hands around her hips, digging in to her lush ass.

  He licked his lips and buried his face between her legs, licking her wet pussy, eating her juicy lips and clit like he was the one starving.

  Starving for her.

  Deliciously Sinful

  The
sexual energy flowing off of Ky floored Jada. She’d never been with any man who got so aroused from trying to bring her pleasure.

  Bring her pleasure, he did. His mouth, his tongue, his hands, were all magic. Everywhere he touched her, her body tingled and tightened. It made her heart beat hard and she couldn’t seem to get enough air. It felt so good.

  Good wasn’t right. Fabulous, wonderful, amazing. None of them described what he did to her. Deliciously sinful was closer.

  He made her want more, made her want to feel all the pleasure she’d given over the years.

  The power of his lust for her refilled the empty hole in her like fine dining after eating a lifetime of fast food. But this other feeling surrounding him, pouring from him to her, was a force she didn’t understand, didn’t know what to do with.

  The way he touched and tasted her body was a hot meal, the way he wanted to do it, and wanted her to like it was the coffee, dessert, wine, and the doggie bag for a midnight snack.

  He overwhelmed her, her senses, her body.

  His tongue teased, flicking across her clit, but only for a second before he licked his way down to her entrance and pushed inside of her.

  Oh, yes. That’s what she wanted, needed.

  She wanted more than his tongue. Never had she cared a bit about a man’s size. She’d seen one, seen them all. His cock was big enough to fill her, and she couldn’t wait.

  He’d asked her, demanded she tell him what she wanted. The words felt strange in her mouth. “Ky, take me. Fuck me.”

  Those were the words men loved to hear.

  Right?

  Oh god. Now she was all up inside her head. Was she doing this correctly? This wasn’t the kind of sex she’d ever had.

  He grumbled, the vibrations of his voice tickling her pussy, sending shocks of need straight to her clit.

  She had no idea what he’d said, but he didn’t move from his position on his knees.

  He liked it when she put her hands in his hair and scraped her fingers across his scalp. She did that and tried to pull his head up.

  “Ky, I want your cock inside of me.”

  That got his attention. He looked up, her juices covering his mouth and chin. “Don’t worry, I’ll fuck you long and hard, but not yet. First I want to hear you moan my name while I suck on your clit.”