20 Shades of Shifters: A Paranormal Romance Collection

by Demelza Carlton

  It was late by the time I arrived back at the Garden of Shadow, a large cave system leading into the limestone heart of one of the many mountains in the Brindabella Ranges, a series of mountains in the Bimberi Nature Reserve that separated the Australian Capital Territory from New South Wales. The moment I stepped into the warm, welcoming cave mouth I felt like I was home.

  “You took a while,” came Asena’s voice from further down the cave.

  I smiled as she stepped into view, and I lowered the large sack of supplies. “Sorry. Ishan and I talked for a while.”

  “Mmm. We saw.”

  I cocked an eyebrow curiously. “You… saw?”

  “We watched you come in, from a distance. Ishan knew, too. We had to make sure he would respect our boundaries.”

  “Ishan’s not your enemy,” I said. “He’s trying to help.”

  “He’s a Rewa. His loyalties are to his own kind.” Asena held up a hand. “I know he loves you, it’s obvious, but that doesn’t change what he is.”

  I bit my tongue, wanting to argue the point, but instead I reached down and opened the canvas bag. “I bought everything.”

  Asena crouched beside the bundle, nodding her head in appreciation. “Okay, good.”

  “Can I leave you with this?” I glanced down the cave, towards the bed that Asena had set up for me when I was injured. “I’m going to head to bed.”

  In truth I felt wide awake and nervous about the coming dawn, but it wasn’t exhaustion that drove me to want to sleep. To sleep was to dream, and I missed Ishan already.

  Asena gave me a wide smile. “A’right, you. Hit the sack. We’re up in five hours, so make it quick.”

  Five hours. It had to be long enough. Without wasting any more time I strode down the dimly-lit cave system towards the little hollow that held my bed.

  13

  Winter In Our Dreams

  I struggled to let sleep take me, tossing and turning amongst the thick blankets, keeping my eyes closed. I tried everything I could: I thought of something, I thought of nothing, I counted until aggravation caused me to stop.

  But finally, eventually my body did its thing. My breathing slowed, my mind released its hold on the present, and for a few hours I slept.

  Ishan and I shared a place when we dreamed. A wondrous, bright place that seemed to be overflowing with nature, with verdant grass and pleasant breezes.

  Not this place. I opened my eyes and found myself at the usual place, the top of a hill with a single tree upon it. But the sky was dark, not its usual bright hue, and snow fluttered all around me. The air was cold on my bare skin, but not as cold as it should have been, and small clumps of white powder formed patches over the grass.

  “Ishan…?”

  I looked around frantically, trying to find him. He was normally here, right next to me, and the sun was normally brilliant and warm. This wasn’t right. I ran to the top of the hill, kicking up puffs of snow when I stepped on a small patch of white, and looked around in all directions. I could see no sign of him. Panic rose in my chest.

  “ISHAN!?”

  Then I felt strong, calm hands take hold of me and I relaxed, settling back into his arms.

  “Sorry.” Ishan’s voice, strong and confident, but also edged with something. Stress?

  “It’s okay.” I looked over my shoulder, smiling at him, drinking in the view of his sky blue eyes. “Where were you?”

  “I was going to ask you the same thing. I looked around, but I couldn’t see you.”

  That was worrying, but I put it out of my mind. “I’m here now,” I said, snuggling my back up against his bare chest. His hands stroked over my abdomen.

  “I’m glad.”

  “I don’t feel cold,” I said, “but it’s snowing… It’s winter in our dreams. Why would this be?”

  “Our dreams reflect our conscious mind. If you’re worried, or stressed, then our shared dream world will reflect that. The same goes for me.” Ishan’s hands slid up my body, gently cupping my breasts. I arched my back, pushing them out for him, pressing back against him. “How do you feel?”

  I laughed, easily and lightly, reaching around behind him and gripping his backside, giving a playful squeeze. “Right now, I’m feeling great…”

  In return he squeezed my breasts, eliciting a soft moan from me as his fingers pressed against my flesh, touching me in the ways I enjoyed being touched. I could feel his chest pressing up against my back and I basked in the warm, comforting feeling it gave me.

  I felt the cool wind pick up, causing my hair to float around beside me. I tilted my head back, rubbing my cheek against Ishan’s, exhaling gently. My hands played over his backside, stroking gently, then I squirmed around and faced him.

  “If we’re going to walk into a trap tomorrow,” I said, “I’m going to at least have one wild night before it all comes to a head.”

  I reached up and touched his cheek, bought his mouth to mine and kissed him with a fiery, eager passion, casually pushing him over backwards. Ishan landed on his rump, laughing up at me, which ended when I crouched down and pounced over him, pushing him onto his back.

  I squirmed around, settling my knees on either side of Ishan’s golden-tan body, straddling him easily and comfortably. I was surprised by how aggressive I was getting when it came to sex: the Libby before the manifestation of my Rakshasa bloodline would blush and shy away at the sight of a bare-chested man, and in the real world I hadn’t even had sex yet.

  But not here, not in the dream world. Here I was an assertive, confident woman who knew what she wanted and took it. I liked being this woman a great deal. The changes to my personality, to my attitude, were incredible when I was dreaming. Slowly these changes were bleeding into my waking life, but I wanted them to come faster. How different my life would be if I felt this confidence in the real world.

  I ran my hands up Ishan’s muscled chest, feeling his taunt, bronzed skin, shifting myself atop him. I felt his muscles, felt the curves of his chest.

  “Come on,” I urged, sliding myself back slightly, pressing him against me, my hands sliding down to his hips. I adjusted my posture, pressing his firmness against my entrance, slowly pushing back, pushing him into me. “Take me.”

  I exhaled as our bodies joined and made one flesh, my breath coming in a white puff around me. I shifted slightly, getting comfortable atop him, feeling the warmth of his chest, of his body. I let my fingers walk along his skin, slowly exploring across his sides, and then I began to roll my hips, slowly at first, feeling him move within me, this perfect union in this perfect place.

  The snow began to fade away as the heat between us built, the sun clawing its way from beyond the cloud cover. The world became brighter as the sun’s warm light began to pour down on the winter of my dream, blasting away the clumps of snow with a wave of fiery light.

  I began to move a little faster, rocking back and forth, curling my toes as the pleasurable feelings grew. I arched my back, tilting my head back slightly, basking in the warm rays as they blew away the fear, the uncertainty, the doubt of the day. I let the warmth of our feelings melt the cold.

  Now the dream world was as it should have been—bright and impossibly green, every corner bursting with life. The wind, now warm and pleasant, blew my hair around as I increased the pace, my body thumping down against Ishan’s, his hands wandering up my sides.

  I leaned forward, moving over him, laying my chest down against his. I kissed him eagerly, needfully, my lips pressing against his. I felt his warm tongue brush against mine, teasing me, and I returned the favour, breathing in small puffs through my nose, the kissing muffling my soft, eager moans.

  Ishan rolled his hips below me, his body thumping up against mine, the pleasure of our union growing as we worked toward our mutual satisfaction. Suddenly, he gripped me, and rolled over in the long grass. I went with him, laughing playfully as he fell on top of me, my hands around his middle.

  “What are you doing, you goose?”

  H
e laughed, kissing my neck. I tilted my head back, eagerly giving him access as he shifted around, pushing into me once again. “Leverage,” he answered breathlessly. I felt his strong hands grip me again, holding me tightly, and I curled my legs around his body, holding him close.

  “Leverage is good.”

  Ishan started again, his body working against mine and I gripped him tightly. “Kiss me,” I implored, pressing my chest against his, feeling my pulse quicken. He obliged and I closed my eyes, basking in the feeling, the wind and the sun creating a natural mirror of my soaring feelings, my beating heart, my growing, endless pleasure.

  I worked with Ishan, letting my instincts guide me, groaning softly as he pleasured me. My fingernails dug into his skin, holding him, begging him for more.

  And he gave it to me, rocking his strong hips, every muscle in his body working. I pushed back against him, squirming in pleasure, feeling the warm light grow within me.

  “Soon,” I panted, “soon…”

  But the end came sooner than I thought. Driven to ecstasy, driven to the wildest heights of passion, I felt the high of the passionate, emotive climax take me over the edge. The natural beauty around me intensified, so bright I could barely see, the sun flooding the entire area with light and power.

  Then it was all over, and Ishan lay atop me, panting for breath, my hands gripping him tightly.

  “Better,” I said, kissing his forehead, keeping his body close to mine. “Much better.”

  He nodded his agreement, breathless and sweaty, and I stroked my heel against his lower back. “No eclipse,” I observed, kissing his skin again.

  “No eclipse,” he answered, bumping his nose to my chin. “Perhaps that’s a good omen…”

  “Perhaps,” I said, giving him a squeeze. “Perhaps.”

  “Libby?”

  A voice, female, distant as though calling my name from far away.

  “Libby, wake up, it’s—”

  14

  Dawn

  “—time to wake up. We have to go.”

  I felt a squeeze on my ankle that released as I squirmed, blinking slightly, forcing my eyes open. I was in the cave that led to the Garden, still in the bed that they had prepared for me. Asena sat on the end of my bed, her hand resting over the end of my leg.

  “Wha—?”

  “It’s time. We need to get moving if we’re to meet the rendezvous by dawn.”

  Groaning, I pulled the covers over my head. “I know, I know. Two more minutes. It was just getting good—”

  “Think of your friend,” Asena said, her tone gentle. “She needs us now. We’re all going, all of us, and we’re going to save her. But we can’t do it without you.”

  A stab of guilt ran through me. How could I be wanting to spend time dreaming with Ishan when Katelyn’s life was in danger? I chalked it up to a post-awakening grumpiness and threw back the covers, exposing my body to the cold air.

  “Yeah. Okay.” I groaned again, stretching my arms and cracking my back. “Let’s go do this.”

  Asena nodded, seeming pleased. “Okay. You go have a shower, now. I’m expecting a call.”

  Right as she spoke her phone began to vibrate. I let her step out to answer it, walking down the cavern to the house, seriously hoping that it had a working shower.

  Pre-dawn in Canberra, irrespective of the time of year, was always cold. Not that the temperature was significantly problematic—it wasn’t exactly t-shirt weather, but Canadians would hear of our thermometers hovering at a mere -5 Celsius and laugh.

  During my run only a day ago, before I had learnt of Katelyn’s disappearance, I had been barefoot and lightly clothed. I’d barely felt the cold. Now, though, it was affecting me keenly. I felt that rather than the actual temperature,, it was the wind—rare but straight off the Antarctic shelf—that made things truly miserable, that cut through whatever you were wearing to steal the heat from your skin. Why had people built a city here?

  I knew the answer, of course. Canberra was born of a prideful argument, an artificial city created to solve a dispute between Sydney and Melbourne over who should be the nation’s capitol. Constructed halfway between the two it was, as some folks described it during its inception, a waste of a sheep paddock.

  I envied the sheep with their long wool coats. My thought, tumbling over in my head as the coven made their way on foot out to the wind farm at Lake George, was that we should return the city to the sheep: those animals capable of living in the cold, who ignored the biting wind, blithely chewing on grass and living out their simple, peaceful lives.

  Strange that I should be thinking of sheep as we marched headlong into an obvious trap.

  The Capitol Wind Farm came into view as we crested one of the rises, now outside the Australian Capitol Territory’s borders and well into New South Wales. The coven and I approached from the southeast, away from the roads and the developed areas to avoid being seen. The four of us moved in a rough diamond formation with me in the lead.

  We arrived, with the very faint beginnings of dawn indicating we were on time. There was no sign of Ishan, nor anyone else, as we stood amongst the churning propeller blades, freezing our tired arses off as light began to fill the area.

  “What if he’s not coming?” I said.

  “He’ll come,” Asena said, “or make the purpose of our visit obvious soon enough. Eclipse is not the type to drag us out here for no reason. He has no mind for games; all he cares about is increasing his own power.”

  “By killing us,” I observed, wrapping my arms around my body to keep the warmth in. I tried to think of Ishan, imagining my freezing limbs wrapped in his—warm and strong and safe, taking me away from this place and bringing me somewhere warm, somewhere where there were no traps or deceptions or kidnappings. Hawaii was nice, I’d heard, and there was plenty of sun there… Florida, too, or—

  “Do you hear that?” said Asena.

  I strained my ears, but all I could hear was the howl of the wind, the churning propellers and the faint whine of the generators.

  “Shit,” said Vriko. “Do you think they’re coming here?”

  “Who?” I asked.

  Then I heard it. Faint, but carried by the wind, a noise that immediately set my nerves on edge and pumped adrenaline through my body.

  The sound of a car engine and tyres along the dirt road.

  In the gloom I could see a car speeding down the dirt road, although with the low light I could barely make out the colour, let alone the manufacture. It stopped at the base of one of the wind towers and I heard, rather than saw, a door open on the other side of the car.

  I inhaled, taking a deep breath to steady myself, then started towards the car. I could hear the others walking behind me, keeping a respectful distance. This was my thing—they were my backup, nothing more.

  As I got close, a head appeared above the roof of the car. With the distance reduced and the ambient light increasing as the dawn broke, I came to the sudden realisation that I’d seen this vehicle before. The Hyundai. I’d been in it.

  I realised who the driver of the car was as he looked directly at me, grinning a coy grin, his short-cropped blonde hair standing out against the pale light.

  Jacques. The guy from the club, the one Katelyn had picked up and taken home, but her house had been damaged in a storm. Otherwise…

  Otherwise she would have died that night.

  He’d given me a lift in his car. He’d seen me come back from my first transformation. He’d been so close to me, so many times, and I hadn’t noticed. The memory of him snogging my friend in the club, of Katelyn drunkenly falling all over him, made my skin crawl. As he made his way towards me, hands casually tucked into his pockets, I could see he’d noticed my reaction.

  “Surprise.”

  “Where the hell’s my friend?”

  Jacques nodded over his shoulder, keeping his eyes fixed on me. “In the boot. She’s alive, for now.”

  I tensed slightly, unconsciously glancing towards t
he boot of his car. “So that’s it? You’re just going to give her to us and then you’re going to go?”

  Jacques’s smile grew slightly wider. “Yes.”

  “Why? What do you possibly stand to gain from all this?”

  He shifted his posture slightly, inclining his head. “You think,” Jacques said, “that I’m an unthinking beast. That I have no purpose in life but to mindlessly kill, without planning or foresight, and that I could not possibly have any kind of ulterior motive. Some longer play, a plan that would only come to fruition when left to grow. You think I’m impatient.”

  “That’s the general consensus,” I said, “among those who know you.”

  “And yet you do not, but you agree with their conclusions.” He withdrew a hand from his pocket, curling his fingers and making a gun, casually pointing it at the three other Rakshasa in turn, mouthing a ‘bang’. “You are all walking corpses.”

  I grit my teeth slightly. “Tough words for someone outnumbered four to one.”

  “Four?” Jacques laughed, low and long, shaking his head mirthfully. “Please, don’t insult my intelligence. I could smell the Rewa the moment I opened the door, and I can smell their silver. I know they’re here too.”

  That surprised me. I glanced around at the wide open terrain, now bathed in the light of dawn. There was nobody else in sight except for us. Was Ishan here, watching everything? The thought brought me confidence.

  “That’s news to me.”

  Jacques gave a laugh that seemed more like a low purr. “Maybe you really did not know. It is understandable, for one as weak as you: they would never have come here without their veil, their disguise. Shade’s little parlour trick that she’s so proud of.” He showed his teeth, teeth that were longer than they should have been and far more pointed. “But her pathetic attempts to hide from me are useless and destined to fail.”