20 Shades of Shifters: A Paranormal Romance Collection

by Demelza Carlton

  I was pissed. Full pissed. I gave Damien a rough shove in the chest. “Why don’t you lay down,” I hissed, letting a little of my natural voice slip in to my tone. “Mortal.”

  “Mortal? What the fuck.” Damien laughed, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. Not one full of joy. It was nasty. “Man, that shit makes bitches say the most retarded things. Lesson for today: no more blondes. Dumber than a bag of hammers.” Another laugh. “Okay, a’right, let’s get those clothes off you so I can see what I’ve got here…”

  More anger.

  I knew I should have ignored him. Just dived overboard and swam for it. Or maybe punched him, stolen his boat and taken it for a joyride. Or even gone along with it. I should have done a million different things but I didn’t.

  Instead, I focused on my essence, the blood in my veins, and I shifted. My bones creaked. The skin on my back stretched and two stubs grew out of my shoulder blades, forming a pair of ten-feet-wide wings. My teeth grew, canines growing razor sharp. A pair of inch horns slid out of my forehead, sharp and ready. My fingers and toes became razor edged claws, shredding my sneakers. My clothes fell apart into tattered rags.

  Damien shrieked something unintelligible, his hands balled into fists that he pressed to his temple. The delightful terror in his eyes was a pleasure all its own and his face distorted into a wild, panicked knot.

  Not done yet. I unfurled my wings, stretching muscles I hadn’t used in too long, wingtips brushing against the bulkheads of the yacht. “Like what you see, mmm?” I asked, using my real voice—so much deeper and full of dark promise—echoing slightly as though in a spacious cave. I hopped into the air, wings beating casually and scraping against the walls, hovering a foot or so off the ground. “You wanted me to get my clothes off. Here I am.”

  “T-This isn’t happening!” Damien closed his eyes, shaking his head violently. He staggered back, out the door of the superstructure and out onto the deck. “No…no, no, no!”

  I drifted toward him, flashing my best shark-smile. “So you like to pick up chicks, huh?” I asked, nimbly snatching him by the shoulder, digging into his flesh and pulling him off his feet. “An ironic turn of phrase. Poetry, really.”

  He started punching at me, kicking wildly, but even a fit, strong human could barely hurt me. I rolled my eyes, flapped my wings, and took off toward the night sky.

  “Stop, stop!” Damien struggled below me. I ignored his wiggling, lifting him up, up past the bamboo trees that lined the water’s edge, away from the yacht, following the Hudson River as I climbed.

  “You crazy bitch!” he shrieked, holding onto my foot for all he was worth. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “I’m flying hundreds of metres above the Hudson River,” I said, flatly. It felt good to fly…finally. Up and up I climbed, gaining altitude with every flap. The cars on the nearby road got smaller. The boats became little white and grey dots on the water.

  “Grace, Grace, Grace!—okay, listen—” He clung to me, both trying to pull my claws out of his shoulder and also hang on to me tightly. W-what do you want? You want money? We have money. We have lots of money! We even—we even have kidnap insurance. Literal—literal insurance. Twenty million bucks. Twenty million! We can give you whatever you want!”

  “Can you bring me back to Hell?” I hissed, shaking him violently, my claws tearing his flesh.

  Damien shrieked in pain. “Let me go!”

  I smiled down at him, showing my fangs, the glow from my red eyes lighting up his face. “Okay,” I said, and I dropped him.

  It Was The Raccoons

  Hudson River

  I let go of Damien about two kilometres above the Hudson River.

  He didn’t scream as he plummeted through the night sky. Just kind of…tumbled, arms and legs stretched out like a starfish. Over and over like a human pinwheel, falling until he hit the water with a splash too distant to hear, barely a dot on the waters of the Hudson.

  At the speed he went in it was like hitting concrete. Damien’s body would be intact from this height, but I knew all his bones were broken and organs mashed to pulp. His twitching, broken body sank below the waves.

  Tiny drops of blood fell from my claws. The rage inside me slowly died down to a bitter simmer and, slowly, the realisation of what I’d done sank in.

  I’d just killed Damien.

  Killing mortals was a huge problem. Angels and demons weren’t supposed to interfere with the mortal realm, the nephilim—a neutral people who could adopt the form of giants—forbade it. Both sides, Heaven and Hell, did all the time, of course. The only rule was: don’t get caught.

  Fortunately this wasn’t as big a problem as it might have seemed. I internally spun a narrative for what might happen. How the media might report it. A drunk teenager crashed his boat and drowned in the Hudson. Pretty simple story. And I had time…human bodies only floated when they were long dead and full of gas. His corpse would be gone for a while. Plenty of time to make the arrangements, get the hell back to my safe house and away from the scene. Nobody would suspect me.

  I hoped.

  Pondering what that nasty motherfucker would look like blown up like a balloon, and looking forward toward visiting his damned soul in Hell, I flapped my wings and drifted down toward the Cythera. It was so pretty, so expensive, it seemed like a waste; but I knew I had to get rid of it.

  I went back into the yacht’s superstructure, down the stairs to the lower levels. Two rows of bunk beds and a floor freezer-fridge combination. Freezing water could expand and break the hull, but…there was no time for that. Instead, I decided to go for an entirely demonic approach; I put my fist through the hull.

  Freezing cold water sprayed into the inside of the yacht, the pressure knocking me back off my feet. I spluttered inanely, wings crumpled and splayed, as a jet of water gushed into the hull. The yacht began to list downward almost immediately.

  Shit. I hadn’t expected it to be so violent. I spat out a mouthful of water and struggled to the staircase, using my strength to fight the power of the torrent. The railing twisted as I pulled myself out of the hull of Cythera, onto a deck which was pitching at almost thirty degrees.

  The ship was sinking. I spread my wings and took flight again, zipping over to the shore, landing in the mud of the shore. The lights of the nearby houses cast long shadows through the trees.

  If any of the humans had seen me, they’d given no sign. I focused myself inward once more, shifting my body back to Tatanya’s image. My clothes were mostly torn off and ruined, but my hoodie had largely survived the transformation, apart from where my wings had shredded the back. I was soaking wet from the boat but I’d be fine.

  “Grace?” came a voice from nearby, so close it made me jump. Gabe stepped out of the tree line. He had his shirt off and was a long way away from Damien’s house. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just…having a swim,” I said, putting on my best dumb smile. That stupid guy…

  “In your clothes?” he asked, sceptically.

  “I didn’t go swimming in my clothes,” I said, somewhat more angrily than I needed to. “They just…got wet after I put them back on.”

  “Trying on a new fashion trend?” asked Gabe, pointing to my hoodie. “That thing’s ruined.”

  “A raccoon ate it,” I lied. “It, uhh, attacked my stuff while I was skinny dipping. Before I…put my clothes back on, of course.”

  Gabe considered a moment. “So you…went to Damien’s boat. Took off your clothes. Dove into the water. Put your clothes back on. Then…a raccoon ate your clothes that were on the boat, then you put the torn clothes back on and swam to the shore.” His eyes fell to my feet. “And what happened to your shoes?”

  “Damn raccoons,” I said, turning to face him properly. “They steal everything.”

  “Mmm hmm. And I suppose,” said Gabe, nonchalantly, “that a raccoon ate your wings as well?”

  I kept my face an expressionless, stupefied mask. “What wings?”

 
“Your wings. The wings you can extend and retract into your body. I saw you fly to the shore. You looked real different.”

  I laughed, waving my hand dismissively. “You’ve had too much to drink, Gabe. I don’t have wings. See?” I turned my shoulders a bit, showing him. Showing him the two holes in my hoodie where my wings had burst from. Damn…not smart.

  He didn’t answer. Not right away. Just stared at me, intently, with a gaze that was at once angry and sad. Ice and fire. Steel and powder. “Where is Damien?” he asked.

  “Last time I saw him,” I said, smirking slightly, “I think he was falling for me.”

  “Well,” said Gabe, “I have to talk to him. I saw you two get on the boat. I heard a splash. Now I see you here.”

  “He’s dead,” I said, flatly, not seeing a reason to lie at all.

  Gabe’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure,” I said. “From the height I dropped him, there’s no way he’s walking that off.”

  “Wait.” For a moment, Gabe seemed terribly confused, holding up his hand and squinting in disbelief. “You killed him?”

  “Yeah.”

  Gabe swore softly under his breath, cupping his mouth with his hand as though to stifle the noise. He looked away, then back at me, studying me intently. “Are you a nephilim?”

  The name itself made me feel cold. “No,” I said, trying to study his face in the dim light. “Are…you?”

  “Of course not,” said Gabe. Nephilim couldn’t lie, so that was a relief. “I’m here to talk to Damien Anderson. He’s in great danger. A demon from the pit was sent to seduce him, and I was forced to destroy it.”

  Jessica. Gabe had taken out Jessica. But…Asmodeus had said that a celestial had destroyed the other succubus.

  The two of us stood there for a brief moment. “You’re not from the pit, are you?” I asked, cautiously.

  “No,” said Gabe. Which left only one place he could be from.

  Safe as Houses

  Bank of the Hudson River

  My claws extended. Slowly. Carefully. I didn’t want to tip him off. Celestials were powerful; they had flaming weapons and strong fists. I just had to get close enough to tear his throat out. One moment was all it would take; one quick action and—

  “So…what are you?” asked Gabe, considering me. “I know you’re not from the pit. You’re obviously not from Heaven, yet you’re extraplanar.”

  Out, out came my claws, slowly and gently, hoping he wouldn’t notice. I folded my hands behind my back. “How do you know I’m not from the pit?”

  “I didn’t sense any evil in you,” said Gabe. “And we kissed—technically—so that makes sense. But I didn’t sense any good, either. I thought you were just…you know. Indecisive. Neutral. But only mortals and nephilim taste that way. And mortals don’t have wings.” He scratched the side of his head. “But nephilim can’t lie. So what are you?”

  Huh. Angels had the same power we did. That I did not expect. Celestials kept their powers closely guarded, as did demons. “It doesn’t matter right now,” I said. “Let’s just go our separate ways and pretend nobody saw anything, okay?”

  “I think it matters,” said Gabe, scowling. “If you really did kill Damien, then you’ve probably caused enough fuss for the nephilim to get involved, and if they are, I don’t want to mess with one of their agents.”

  That was fair to me. “You’re right. The nephilim are likely on their way. We should move.”

  Gabe obviously wanted to talk to me more, but the nephilim’s single concern was to prevent both Heaven and Hell from interfering with the mortal realm. They would punish him too if they caught him. “We should head to my safe house,” he said, “and wait for this all to blow over.”

  Ooooh no. No no no no no no no. I wasn’t going to some celestial’s den. “Whoa. Hey, just because I played Lewinsky with you once doesn’t mean I trust you, okay?”

  “I know,” he said, stepping toward me. “Look, we don’t have time for this. Do you have a better idea?”

  “Come to my safe house,” I said. It would be better to fight him there. Asmodeus would be there to help. Or, at least, throw things and distract him. Plus it was an apartment block. He’d want to hold back.

  “Fine,” said Gabe with palpable reluctance overridden by his obvious concern. “Lead on.”

  I felt even less comfortable about walking ahead of him, but I had no choice. I let my claws sink back into my body and, reluctantly, headed off back toward New Jersey. Toward the apartment block. Asmodeus would no doubt be super happy to hear that I’d gotten what I needed, and the story of Damien’s body splashing down into the Hudson would probably make him pretty happy. Sadistic little shit.

  On the way, though, I felt…vaguely nauseous. I’d killed a man with a full-on angelic being in the immediate vicinity. Not even Lucifer could pull off something like that; and if he turned on me, I was fucked. Normally taking out a celestial took a small group of high ranking, powerful pit lords, or a small army.

  Sometimes being brave was simply not knowing the true extent of the danger until it had passed.

  It took us almost two hours to walk to the apartment block following my phone’s GPS. I didn’t know the way and Gabe, for some insane reason, didn’t know either and didn’t have any kind of electronic device. Which was…weird.

  Finally, we ended up back at the dank alleyway with the fire escape where Asmodeus had let me in the building. I still hadn’t gone in through the front yet; next time, I promised myself.

  “Okay,” I said, pushing open the fire exit door. “Room 313.”

  “I should wait here,” said Gabe, suddenly looking a little nervous. “Probably for the best.”

  “Hell no,” I said, grabbing him by the collar and glaring at his face. “You’re coming in with me. No way I’m going to let you just run off and report my location to your masters.”

  He brushed off my hand. “I promise that I won’t,” he said. “And you know that means something coming from me.”

  I had to begrudgingly accept that. Celestials were pieces of shit in many ways, but they didn’t lie. Not like we did. Weirdos. “Fine,” I said, wheeling back to the fire escape and yanking open the door so hard the hinges creaked. I was reminded how shitty this building was. “Okay, this way.”

  Stomping my feet with every step, I trudged up the stairs to the third floor, to room 313. The door was closed. “Home sweet,” I said, pushing open the door. “Home.”

  Asmodeus was buzzing around the main living room like a mad hornet, his hands on his ears, seemingly having four conversations at once.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said, his voice high pitched and stressed. “Look, I don’t know. Yes. Yes. Okay. I’m on it. No, trust me, I’m on it. I’m going to fix this. Don’t stress. Yes? Of course. Right. No. Okay. Twenty minutes, no more. Maybe ten. Hey, fuck off. I’m working on it. No—”

  “Hi,” I said.

  I could have thrown a grenade into the room and gotten a smaller reaction. Asmodeus’s head snapped toward me, voice cutting out. “She’s here,” he said, taking his hands off his ears. He buzzed over to me, hovering a few feet in front of my face. “What. The. Fuck. Happened.”

  “Demon!” hissed Gabe. He snapped his fingers, a flaming pistol appearing in his hands, the weapon glowing with holy light. He levelled it at Asmodeus.

  Oh shit.

  Fucking Up

  Asmodeus’s Safe House

  New Jersey

  Asmodeus hissed like a feral cat, brandishing his tiny claws, his snake-like tail whipping back and forth, looking for all the world like a predator about to pounce.

  Gabe coolly drew up his pistol, bright yellow holy flames licking from the barrel as he pulled back the cocking handle.

  “Lucifer’s Teeth,” I said, stepping between the two of them. “Stop. Both of you.”

  “Who is this?” snarled Lucifer. “He has a flaming weapon. A celestial?”

  “He was at the party,” I s
aid, trying to diffuse the situation. “It wasn’t deliberate. We were worried about nephilim—”

  “You’re worried about the nephilim?” Asmodeus snarled viciously. “You understand what this means to me? My ears are full of the pit—I have ten thousand fucking voices all screaming at me in unison trying to sort this shit out. I swear, the whole fucking realm is pissed. They’re all watching.”

  “What do you mean? I did what you asked, I got the information. How did I fuck up?”

  “I don’t know, you tell me! Everyone’s talking at once and I can’t make out the details. Honestly don’t think they know either, and—” Asmodeus swished his tail angrily, staring daggers at Gabe. “Put that fucking thing away, glowboy.”

  Gabe kept his pistol lined up at Asmodeus. “Demon of the pit,” he intoned, his voice deep and righteous. “Traitor to Heaven and betrayer of men. I hereby sentence you to—”

  I swatted his pistol away, glaring at him. “Stop. Idiot.” I pointed at the gun. “Away.”

  Gabe hesitated then, very slowly and carefully, re-holstered the weapon behind his back.

  Asmodeus buzzed over to Gabe, hovering above him, leering down like some kind of angry boss. “You. What the fuck happened?”

  “Ask her.”

  “What happened is simple,” I said. “At the party, I killed Damien.”

  The imp spluttered. “You killed Damien?!” Asmodeus stared at me with a mixture of anger and shock. “You fucking iced him?”

  “She killed Damien,” said Gabe, somewhat unhelpfully.

  Silence. For a moment I thought Asmodeus might explode. His whole body turned an angry purple-red and shook like a psychotic little winged mouse. “So that’s fucking it. You fucking killed a mortal. Just like that. Bam! And then you brought a celestial into a Hellish safe house. I…you—and I can’t believe I have to say this again—you killed a mortal. What part of reconnaissance do you not understand, you dumb bitch? I told you to blend in!”