20 Shades of Shifters: A Paranormal Romance Collection

by Demelza Carlton

“Your… um. Pyjamas. That you’re wearing.”

  I hadn’t even got out of the pyjama top. “Oh. One moment.”

  I sheepishly stepped back and eased the door closed. A mad scramble was made for clothes from the dirty clothes basket—a loose-fitting T-shirt and an old, ill-fitting bra— and I threw them on as quickly as I could. On the way back I stepped around Katelyn still fawning over the kittens, then I returned to the front door.

  “So, um, hi.” My initial surprise faded and I realised that, aside from my dream, I had barely said two words to this man. Further, I realised in a sudden spike of panic that he was now outside my door. How had he found where I lived?

  “Hi. I’m Ishan Kari. We met, briefly, last night at the Hole.”

  So that was his name. I nodded awkwardly. “Oh, uhh, sure. Okay. I’m Libby.” I looked around, half expecting a band of ninjas to leap out and attack me. “Can I ask what you’re, uh, doing here?”

  He didn’t answer right away, just looked at me with those bright blue eyes of his, staring at me. I felt comfortable, though, looking at him. It wasn’t creepy, although it really should have been.

  “It’s… a little hard to explain.”

  I put a hand on my hip. “Well, I mean, I don’t know who you are, and I met you last night at a kind of dodgy club—and all of a sudden you’re showing up at my house like some kind of crazy serial killer or rapist or something, so I mean, if you can’t explain what you’re doing here in about fifteen seconds I’m going to shut the door and call the cops.”

  Ishan held up his hands to placate me. “Okay, look, I’ll try, but can I come in first?”

  “Going to be honest, I’d rather you explained while you were standing…” I jabbed a finger at his feet. “There, if you don’t mind.”

  He laughed at that, a pleasant laugh that made me a little better about the situation. You could tell a lot about someone by how they laughed and this Ishan guy didn’t seem to have the serial killer vibe. “Sure. Okay, um.” He gave a cocked smile, shrugging his shoulders. “I—”

  A line of fluid spurted out over my shoulder, hitting him in the face. Ishan howled and clutched his face.

  “Take that!” Katelyn shrieked from behind me. “You fucking psycho!”

  “KATE?!”

  Ishan thrashed, clutching his eyes. “Ahh! AHH! What the hell!?”

  Katelyn pushed past me, a can of pepper spray in her hand. She gave him another squirt, the jet hitting Ishan over his chest and shoulders. “Fuck off! Don’t you touch her!”

  I grabbed hold of the can, pointing the jet of stinging fluid away from him. “Kate?! Kate, stop it, stop it! For God’s sake, stop it! What the fuck?”

  Katelyn wheeled on me. “Libby, he followed you home! He must have!”

  I grabbed her shoulders. “What? How do you know?”

  “How else would he know where you live? He must have been stalking you!”

  I extracted the can from her hand and turned back to Ishan. “I am so sor—”

  But he was gone.

  Katelyn and I exchanged a confused stare.

  “Sorry, I thought he was the Champawat Tiger.”

  The door was securely closed now, and Katelyn and I sat in the middle of the living room floor, rattled after what had happened.

  “Who?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Jeez, Libby. Don’t you read the news?”

  I shook my head. “Not really,” I admitted.

  “Well, he’s this dude, right? Goes to all the clubs—meets people. Not necessarily chicks, but guys, too. Has a drink with them, hooks up, whatever… then either that night or shortly after, they go missing. They’re calling him a serial killer.”

  “So you thought he was this… Champ-a-lot Tiger, then?”

  Katelyn just laughed, sighing in bemusement. “You are Indian, aren’t you? It’s Champawat. You know, the famous Champawat Tiger? Back ages ago, in the twenties and thirties, there was this tiger on the Indian subcontinent that was attacking people, right? It ate something like four hundred and thirty people, more than any human serial killer.”

  I felt the colour drain away from my face. “How many people has the human version killed?”

  “Something like ten or eleven, all in the last year.”

  My voice rose an octave. “And… and you think that could have been him?”

  Katelyn shrugged. “It could have been. I dunno. Nobody knows what the killer looks like, but that guy was creepy and followed you home… He looks strong, too, you know? Like a murderer?”

  I didn’t think he looked like a murderer, but my ability to read people was legendarily bad. “Wow. Do you think we should call the cops?”

  “If you want to. I dunno.”

  I found my eyes drifting back to the window near my door, the one I’d sworn was broken. My mind went to all kinds of strange places. Had I really broken it? Maybe the creeper had come in at night, replaced the glass with an identical one, then snuck away to return in the morning.

  That sounded more insane in my head than I was prepared to deal with, so I forced myself to look back at Katelyn.

  “Okay. I will later.”

  She nodded again, jiggling her can of pepper spray. “Glad to hear it works.”

  I gave a slight wince. “Hopefully we won’t need to test it again, huh.”

  Katelyn shuffled over towards me, resting both her hands on my knees. “Did you want me to stay here tonight? You know, just in case he comes back?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’d be perfect.”

  Katelyn stayed with me the whole day, blowing off uni and keeping me company. As twilight began to fall we made a call to the local pizza place. Katelyn went to the door to pick it up, then we stayed up late watching chick flicks and pigging out on greasy pizza and garlic bread, laughing like we were twelve.

  When it finally came time to sleep, I dreamed again.

  3

  Bloodlines

  “Sorry for startling you when I visited.” Ishan’s voice, deep and calming, caused me to open my eyes. I was back on the hill again, surrounded by impossibly green grass and a brilliant azure sky. Ishan was resting on his side, looking across at me with a warm smile.

  “I don’t think it was your fault,” I answered, sitting up. Once again we were both naked and I was completely at ease with this. “And I think it’s me who should be saying sorry to you after Katelyn gave you a face full of pepper spray.” I hesitated slightly. “You’re… not mad, are you?”

  He shook his head. “No. And I meant the last time we were here.”

  The dream world seemed just as it had been before, bright and wonderful. “I wasn’t startled. In fact, I rather enjoyed it.” How strange to hear such confident, bold words from my lips.

  “Then why did you leave so suddenly?”

  I tilted my head. “I didn’t. It was the eclipse. It cast the land in shadow, then I woke up.”

  He seemed confused. “I didn’t see any eclipse. I just saw you disappear. I assumed someone had woken you from the other side.”

  I smiled warmly. “My cat had kittens. Maybe that’s it. I could hear their crying from my room.”

  He didn’t seem convinced. “Maybe.”

  I didn’t like seeing him unhappy. I slid closer to him. “Sorry about Katelyn, too.”

  Ishan didn’t seem worried. His hand reached out for my thigh, touching it gently. I could see, now, the faint outlines of black tiger stripes along my leg, as though I’d had them tattooed on decades ago, but the ink had since faded. “Your friend is a good friend. She was just trying to protect you.”

  My left hand reached out for him, resting over his toned, fit fit chest, slowly stroking up and down his muscled torso. The same markings appeared on my arm, too. Black tiger stripes along the insides of my arm, stopping at the elbow. “She’s got a strange way of going about it. She drags me out to seedy clubs so I can meet people, but then leaves me to hook up with guys… and when one finally does talk to me, she assaults him.�
��

  “Her reaction is understandable.” His hand slowly journeyed northward, settling over my groin, cupping my pubic region. I felt his finger squirm against me and closed my eyes, enjoying the sensation, my hand slowly stroking over his abdomen. “She didn’t know me. She didn’t have the dream you and I shared.”

  I felt his finger slide into me, parting my lips, wiggling against my warm inner passage. “Mmm. The dream last night? This dream?”

  “This dream,” Ishan confirmed, sliding his finger further into me, right up to the palm. He curled it inside me and I inhaled, breathing in the sweet, pure air, mixed in with the faintest whiff of what I knew was his scent. My hand slid to his groin, feeling his package, my fingers gently tracing around the base of his shaft, then slowly finger-walking up the length.

  It was something Katelyn had told me once. One step is no fun, two will leave you feeling blue, for three you’ll give it up for free, but four will leave you begging for more…

  Slowly my fingers stepped up his length, feeling his warm flesh pulse gently below my fingertip. One, two, three… four. Glad that he met Katelyn’s seal of approval, I slowly wrapped all of my fingers around his shaft, feeling it throb gently in my hands. My thumb began to play around the tip, stroking teasingly, playing around in small circles.

  “This is nice,” I said.

  Ishan gave a teasing wiggle of his finger within me, a second gently pushing in to join the first. “I’m glad you agree…”

  I giggled, shaking my head, slowly stroking my hand up and down his thick, eager shaft. “I… didn’t mean this and that. I meant… this whole place. It’s beautiful. Real. I know it’s a dream, but it seems so real.”

  Ishan began to move a little faster and, following his lead, so did I. We pleasured each other and my breathing quickened. Once again, the wind continued to flick the grass, but the sound became muted and dull.

  “It is,” he said, “in a sense. The dream is the first step towards your new life. A much better life.”

  My palm stroked back and forth against his shaft, rubbing from the tip to the base, stroking smoothly and evenly. “I’m afraid I—mmm—don’t quite follow.”

  Ishan’s other hand rubbed up and down my thigh as he fingered me. “The Rakshasa… the were-tigers of India… are an ancient people, physically identical to humans, at least until our bloodline begins to manifest when we become adults. Through the years our power has been diminished, but we still possess… amazing gifts. When a Rakshasa’s bloodline begins to manifest, it sometimes does so through close proximity to another one of our kind. A bond is formed, and then the transformation begins.”

  “Transformation?” I unconsciously shuffled closer to him. It was hard listening to him as he continued to work this finger inside me, and as his musk rose. I could feel his shaft pulse in my grip and I knew it was time.

  His finger slid out of my damp passage and his hand slipped over my shoulder, easing me onto my back, settling me into the soft, plush grass. “Enough words,” he whispered, his face close to mine, kissing me. “I’ll explain in time.”

  I wanted to know more about what he was saying, but I also wanted him. I wanted to finish what we had started last time. I wrapped my legs around his hips, pulling him closer, my hands gripping his shoulders and squeezing.

  “Enough words,” I echoed, pulling him towards me, pressing his lips to mine as I felt his shaft press against my damp entrance, pushing inside with his strong legs. He sheathed himself within me, his skin pressing against mine, his breath warm on my face.

  Once again the natural environment began to respond to the pleasure building within us. The grass swayed and the tree bent over with the force. I felt him work himself within me, his body thumping against me as he took me over and over, his hands stroking over my body, touching me in all the ways I wanted to be touched. I returned the favour, my hands gripping him, my heels stroking at the small of his back, dragging across his dark skin.

  Back and forth Ishan rocked, his eyes closed, his breath spilling out over me, and I breathed in the scents. I felt him move faster and faster and my body urged him on, my insides squeezing down on him, begging for more. I scratched my nails along his back, biting down on my lower lip, begging for more of his pleasure. For his ecstasy. For his release.

  It began with a feeling like little sparks travelling up and down my body, starting from my toes, working their way up past my hips, to my chest, running all the way to the top of my head. I felt waves of pleasure flow through me, my breath coming in laboured pants, and then it came. Then I came.

  A noise from my throat, a roar of such strength and power I could barely believe it, boomed as the pleasure overtook me, cutting through the silence that cloaked the entire hill. Every part of me held Ishan close as my body shuddered. I felt like joy itself was exploding from within me. The release of energy empowered me and, in an intense rush of power, I felt my body change. I felt my hands enlarge, grow powerful and thick, and I felt a tail—long and thick and strong—grow out from my lower back. I felt Ishan above me, a shiver running through his form as he emptied himself into my eager body, taking me with his powerful thrusts, a similar change enveloping him; his muscles thickening and strengthening, his features taking on a distinctly feline edge. He blindly kissed me, my tongue playing against his as I rode out the explosion of pleasure, the sparks slowly fading as the high died.

  My skin was now covered in orange and black tiger stripes, my belly covered in white fur, and I could see the beginning of whiskers at the edges of my face. I wasn’t completely feline, though; my arms and legs moved and worked as a human’s might, as though someone had merely painted a tiger stripe pattern onto my body with impossible skill and detail.

  Ishan, however, had white ‘fur’, unlike the orange colour that covered my body. He leaned over me, panting heavily, still lodged within my body, eyes still closed. I reached up with a hand, touching his striped face, smiling. He smiled back, revealing elongated canine teeth.

  “I see what you mean about the transformation.” I felt my tail bump against another, slowly winding around it, squeezing gently. I stroked my thumb over his cheek. “See?”

  He opened his eyes, but the moment he did they widened in shock. He withdrew from me, scrambling back, his face a mask of horror and confusion as he slowly climbed to his feet.

  “Ishan?! Ishan, what’s wrong?”

  He stared, mouth agape, at my entire body. His confusion was completely alien to me; he looked as I looked, except for his white fur. I stood, too, staring at him in bewilderment.

  “Your… your markings,” he said, extending a hand. “Orange? From the Altaica clan? But how? You should be Rewa, like me.”

  I held out my hand to his, taking it and squeezing it firmly. “Ishan, I don’t understand. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  He went to speak but, suddenly, the world began to darken. I looked over my shoulder as, once again, the moon began to cross in front of the sun.

  “What?” Ishan asked, seeming oblivious.

  “The eclipse. It’s coming again.” I turned back to him, stepping close, but he instinctively stepped back.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Why are you Altaican?”

  “I don’t even know what that means!” The world became crimson tinted and dark, the moon covering the sun’s light. I groped for him, blindly. “Ishan? Ishan?!”

  But there was the roar of the shotgun, the wizz of a flying shotgun slug. Then the dream world disappeared and the real world replaced it.

  4

  Naked, Screaming and Covered in Blood

  A human is born into this world naked, screaming and covered in blood. They have no memory of what came before, and their eyes are open in a way that never comes again. Their mind is clear and fresh and accepting of new possibilities. They know nothing of anything and their brains are eager to be filled with new knowledge, to learn, to expand, to grow.

  A Rakshasa is born the same way, more or less.
/>
  I awoke in a vast open field, staring up at a twilight sky just beginning to fill with stars. The last vestigial rays of the sun’s warmth and light were tickling the highest of the clouds, painting them with faint strokes of red and gold. Grass, slick with bright red blood, clumped together below me. I felt cold, clammy, sticky.

  My mind felt clouded, fogged. Where was I?

  I struggled to sit but my body was weak, as though my limbs were made of lead. I struggled to see in the twilight. I could see I was naked, but unlike the dream I felt exposed. I felt vulnerable and weak and helpless. In a frenzy I wiped my hands off on the thick grass, trying to get the blood off.

  In the gloom I could see the tiger-stripe tattoo was back on my arms, stopping at the elbow, just as before. But now it didn’t give me confidence and power. I felt like a freak.

  I could hear footsteps. Panic began to fill me. I turned to see the approaching shadow of a person—tall and broad, their face obscured in the darkness.

  “W-Who are you? Where am I?”

  “Don’t worry,” came Ishan’s voice. “I’m here.”

  Relief. “Ishan? What’s going on?”

  He crouched beside me, taking my bloody hands in his. He was wearing a collared shirt and stone-washed jeans, which seemed odd. I had gotten so used to seeing him naked. “It’s okay,” he answered. “You’ve undergone your first shift. I doubt you remember much, but it’s okay. That’s normal. Just try to relax.”

  “There’s blood, Ishan. What happened?” I squinted, trying to see him. “I don’t have my glasses.”

  He smiled, leaning in close enough for me to see him, his handsome features softened by the lack of light. “Pretty soon you won’t need them anymore. Your eyes willl adjust. Already your body is beginning to strengthen; at first you’ll feel weaker, but that’s just because you’ve been running. Soon you’ll be stronger. Stronger than any other human.”

  He placed his hand in mine and I used him to stand, leaning against his chest, my breath exhaling in a soft white cloud. I remembered I was naked and suddenly was made acutely aware of how cold Canberra nights could get. I shivered against Ishan, pressing against him for warmth, but almost instantly I felt a warm blanket being draped around my shoulders.