20 Shades of Shifters: A Paranormal Romance Collection

by Demelza Carlton

  He released her.

  She stood, her eyes no softer for him having let her go.

  Osiris stood as well. Taller than her, bigger than her, yet he felt small in her presence.

  “Osiris and I were married for a decade. We dated for four years. We lived here together, and I was his mate. I know you don’t remember any of that, and I don’t expect anything from you. My husband and mate died, so you have no obligation to me. But I have an obligation to his memory, which means I must find who murdered him.”

  Her tone may have softened when she’d spoken, but her eyes hadn’t. As CEO of Dragon Investment Group, Isis was used to giving orders and having them obeyed without question or comment. He didn’t work for her. Well, since the merger, he kind of did, although they were supposed to be co-CEOs. Still, if they were mates, she didn’t get to tell him what his obligations were to her.

  “Do you know how crazy you sound talking about me as if I’m two different people? I’m the same Osiris Ombos that you married, even if I can’t remember any of it.”

  “No, you’re not. Memories and shared experiences, Osiris, that’s what makes a marriage. Knowing each other and growing together. You have no foundation for a relationship with me. In your mind, we haven’t even had our first date. It took us four years to get to a place where we wanted to bind ourselves to each other. Two of those years was you grappling with having a working and personal relationship with the woman who controlled the fate of your clan’s company. The first year I had no idea how to set aside time for a romantic relationship without feeling I wasn’t giving DIG my all. We disagreed and saw things differently. We had so much to learn, if we wanted to be together. We aren’t easy people to be in a relationship with.”

  “I get that.”

  “How could you? You not only don’t remember any of it, which isn’t your fault, so I’m not blaming you. But you also don’t feel any of it.”

  “You don’t know what I feel.”

  “Do you love me, Osiris?”

  That brought him up short, as did the affectionate voice that laced her question. It was the way Isis had spoken to him last night when she hugged and kissed him. When she’d thought she’d resurrected her mate, not him who didn’t have a complete heart, no less a beating one, to love her with.

  “Your face answered my question. I know you don’t love me. How could you? You didn’t fourteen years ago, and nothing has changed for you, although everything has changed for me.”

  A sad, hurting Isis was worse than an emotionally walled-off Isis.

  He reached for her again, but she moved away from him and toward the bedroom door before he touched her.

  “It’s all right, Osiris. You have enough to worry about, which was why I didn’t want to get into our past relationship.”

  He didn’t know what to say to her. Isis was right, he didn’t love her. If given time, however, he suspected he could easily grow to love her, the way he obviously had.

  Before I died. Before someone killed me and ruined my life with Isis.

  The problem, one of many, was that he didn’t know how much time he had, even if Isis was willing to start over with him, which she seemed disinclined to do.

  “Pureed.” He turned around to see Isis by the bedroom door, facing him. “I assume you have a blender in this big manor.”

  “Yes, an overpriced one. I’ll bring it up.”

  “And a glass.”

  “Mother is going to explode when she finds out. Are you sure? I mean, I know you’re positive that a demon was the one who shot you, but do you really think the Gateway of the Two Ladies is reopened? I know I was a newborn and you only a few months older when Mother destroyed the arch, but everyone old enough to remember tells the same story. Mother burned the gateway, which cut off the only connection between the human and preternatural realms.”

  Isis and Nephthys, in their hybrid form, entered Egyptian airspace fifteen minutes ago. She tried not to think about the fact that her twin had retrieved a piece of Osiris from the Nile River.

  “All I know for sure is that a demon came to my home in search of the scepters and then shot me.” The demon’s dark eyes flashed in her mind. She could see those murderous orbs so clearly, even as Isis darted through the sky, her red-and-white wings spread wide, arms at her sides and her red tail straight and as deadly as an akrafena sword. “What I don’t know is whether the demon was in the human realm before Mother destroyed the gateway or, somehow, found a way to this realm afterward.”

  When they reached Cairo, the dragons began to increase their ascent. The metaphysical space between the two realms was eighty thousand miles above Cairo, Egypt. The ancient country factored into this too many times for Isis to view it as a coincidence to be ignored rather than a clue to be investigated.

  One of Nephthys’s white wings grazed Isis’s when she bolted past her, flying at a speed that meant the moon dragon wanted to race and had claimed a head start.

  Not to be bested by an investment funds lawyer who would, if Isis allowed, institute Casual Friday every day of the week, along with mandatory Happy Hour, she took off, her open back dress whipping in the air.

  In hybrid and dragon form, Nephthys was faster than Isis, and they both knew it. Her sister didn’t require a head start to win the race. She simply enjoyed leaving Isis in her dust and then gloating about it afterward.

  When she reached the upper atmosphere, the air thin at this height, Nephthys waited for Isis with a smug smile on her face and arms crossed over her chest. The dragon wasn’t even winded by the sprint, unlike Isis, who hadn’t recovered fully from the damage done to her human body. If she were in full dragon mode, she would feel no effects of the gun wounds.

  “Are you all right?”

  Isis sucked in deep breaths and blew them out slowly. “Yes, I’m fine. I need to fly more and drive less.”

  ‘That’s what all the out of shape dragons say.” Nephthys pointed to a cluster of gray clouds to the northeast of their direction. “I’ve never seen it as an adult, do you think that’s the entrance to the gateway?”

  With caution, Isis flew closer to the cluster of clouds, her twin right beside her. “I can feel magic. I’m sure you can as well.”

  “Yeah, dragon magic mixed with something else.”

  “What do you smell?” Isis went to draw nearer, but her sister laid a refraining hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right, Nep.”

  “It isn’t. Do you see yourself? Or me, for that matter?”

  She saw nothing but the gray cluster of clouds. Whatever was behind them beckoned to her. The primal urge to follow the call had her moving without consideration, which wasn’t like her. Isis forced her gaze away from the enchanting clouds and to her sister.

  Except for her face, every part of the moon dragon not covered by her sleeveless blue dress glowed with a repeat pattern of four symbols: side profile of a vulture wearing a white Atef crown of Upper Egypt, a white Egyptian lotus, and a Shen ring, a loop of rope tied at the end with a tangent line at the bottom of the circle.

  Nephthys lifted her dress. Sure enough, the design went all the way up her thighs and to her stomach and chest. The symbols ringed her neck and traveled between her wings.

  “The symbols of the goddess Nekhbet.” Isis ran an exploring finger over a row of symbols. They weren’t raised and felt no different from Nephthys’s normal skin. Neither did the images resemble a tattoo, which, to Isis, always appeared like an unnatural layer of color on one’s skin. They weren’t like freckles either, in clusters and an overproduction of melanin. They were simply Nephthys’s skin, and Isis had seen the images before, but never like this. “You’re not in dragon form.”

  “Stating the obvious, sis. Yeah, I know these only appear when I’m in full moon dragon mode. The same with you.”

  Isis raised her arms, already knowing what she’d see. Like Nephthys, the skin of her hybrid form glistened with symbols. The Uraeus rearing cobra, the ankh, papyrus, and the red crown of Lower
Egypt, all symbols of goddess Wadjet.

  “This shouldn’t have happened.”

  Isis agreed. Taking her sister’s hand, she backed away from the cluster of gray clouds and the pulsing magic coming from it or whatever was behind the cloud cover.

  “We need to get out of here, Nep, and talk to Mother.”

  A wail and high-pitched scream halted the twin’s retreat. A child’s cry. Isis bolted in the direction of the sound, which was toward the gray clouds.

  “Dammit, Isis. Wait.”

  The clouds parted and out flew three fairies, followed by two snarling demons, their maws snapping as they pursued the frightened children. One foot of pearly-white bodies darted toward Isis and Nephthys, blue-and-purple wings working hard but not strong or fast enough to avoid the hungry demons much longer.

  As if they’d planned it, Nephthys went for the fairies and Isis the demons. Nephthys may be faster than her, but Isis was stronger and had a score to settle with a demon, even if not the ones she’d just flown up to, her body a protective wall of red-and-white between them and their prey.

  Knowing her sister would keep the children safe, and at a distance from the battle, Isis attacked without hesitation or mercy. The rearing cobras on her skin came to life, hoods lifting, tongues hissing, and round pupils taking in the enemy demons.

  With a silent command, the ten-foot red-and-black cobras detached from her body. Hurling them like a deadly whip, Isis sent the smoothed scaled reptiles at the demons.

  Face. Wings. Legs. Chest. Isis’s cobras bit into the demons, their hollow fangs in their top jaw unable to hold their fangs down on their prey. Instead, the fangs injected lethal venom into the growling beasts.

  The demons battled the snakes, their claws slicing through them as they fought to disentangle themselves from the slithering creatures. Sharp demon claws cut much, even the tough, leathery hide of a demon.

  The beasts had no finesse or control, not when they were swarmed by so many poisonous snakes whose sole intent, Isis’s intent, was to deliver as much pain as possible and a brutal, unforgiving death.

  Demon screams pierced the midday sky, muffled when one then two cobras crawled into open mouths. One of the demons flew at Isis, her bare breasts, narrow at the top and full at the bottom, swayed with her fluid lunge. A cobra, impaled on each of her hooked iron teeth, wiggled as the demon flew, her dark eyes murderous and mean.

  Isis could’ve avoided the demon. Could’ve done any number of distance attacks she’d learned from Aset and Osiris. Instead, she planted herself where she hovered, arms at her sides, white feathers with red tips craned back and primed for the collision. She wanted this fight, more than she should’ve.

  When the demon was within range, Isis reached out and grabbed the monster by her hooked teeth. Yanking downward, she slammed the demon’s face into her lifted knee. Clawed hands raked down Isis’s sides, shredding parts of her pink sundress and glowing skin.

  She didn’t let go of the hooked teeth. Using them like handlebars, she twisted and turned while flying through the air. A punch to her stomach had Isis spitting up blood but not letting go. With a hard wrench of her arm and shoulder muscles, Isis broke the demon’s neck, which disabled but didn’t kill the strong creature.

  Isis recalled the cobras to her. Between the cervical fracture and the venom coursing through the demon’s body, the monster would soon die. Her battered wings and will were all that kept the female from plunging to her death.

  Unconsciously, Isis’s hand lifted to her childless stomach. A tear fell and her hybrid belly boiled with fire and vengeance. Out the fire came, swirling flames of cobra fangs. Her lower jaw gaped wide and long, permitting the stream of heat to escape in a rush of fatal sun rays.

  In a graceful move, Isis swung her body and fire in the direction of the second demon. The male still struggled with the cobras, having sliced off an arm and part of a leg in his vain attempt to get at and stop the snakes. Futile, the king cobras were manifestations of goddess Wadjet’s power. They couldn’t be killed, but they could multiply.

  Fire engulfed the demon, ridding him of the snakes but not putting the monster out of his misery. She caught the demons in a prism of sun dragon magic. Isis’s sunbeams cut through the flat, polished surfaces of the prism and the body of the demons. When she released them from her prison, their charred remains were ugly testaments to the fate that awaited the Demon Kingdom.

  Chapter 8

  I burned the Gateway of the Two Ladies to rubble.” An agitated and angry Nut stomped from one end of the living room to the other, her eyes no longer human brown but sky dragon blue. “It’s impossible.”

  “And yet…”

  Nephthys pointed to the three fairies curled up on the sofa beside Isis. By the time he’d followed the sound of the commotion to the living room, Isis had already calmed the children and was plying them with small pieces of cookies and chocolate milk they gulped down with a straw. Fifteen minutes later, despite the raised voices and crowd of dragon females in the room, the two girls and one boy had fallen asleep.

  Osiris wanted to move from where he sat on the loveseat to the sofa with Isis. Sitting there, surrounded by children, even pearl-white ones with vibrant wings wrapped around their bodies like a blanket, Isis radiated motherhood. The thought of a maternal CEO Isis Philae should’ve brought a smile to his lips. Instead, the migraine from last night returned. Nowhere near as intense but a slow building ache the longer he watched Isis with the children, her hand, idly, stroking the hair of the fairy that slept on her lap.

  “Yumboe.” Nut stopped and looked at the sleeping fairies. “Pearly white color, silver hair, and mainly lavender wings. Yumboe is a type of fairy that grows no taller than two feet. I haven’t seen a fairy, Yumboe or otherwise, in over a century. They looked to be about eight. They’re also triplets. Yumboes are known for multiple births but also few pregnancies. Their parents are either dead or worried out of their minds.”

  “We’ve never seen one before today.”

  Strange enough, Osiris knew Nephthys had spoken for everyone in the room, which included who he now knew was the Tyets. Osiris still had no clue what that meant, but he knew Hathor, Serqet, Aset, and Merit. Like the twins, they had grown up attending many of the same dragon functions. They didn’t run in the same circles, but they were on friendly enough terms to be more than associates but not quite friends.

  The way the women, including Nut, had embraced him when he’d ambled into the living room, tears in their eyes and warm smiles greeting him, he was reminded, once again, of how much death had taken from him. He possessed none of the affection for them that they’d had for him, which made for an uncomfortable moment. Isis had informed them of his memory loss. Their relieved smiles had morphed into pitying stares and awkward retreats at his silence and discomfiture.

  Without a word to anyone, Isis bundled up the fairies in her arms and left the living room.

  Osiris jumped up to follow.

  “Don’t,” Nut and Nephthys said at the same time.

  “Umm, I’m just going to help her with the children. They may be small, but it’s still three of them to one of her.”

  Mother and daughter looked at each other then to the Tyets who sat in different spots in the living room, their faces blank. All except Aset who met his gaze and shook her head with a, “Isis can manage.”

  “She’s bleeding, or haven’t anyone noticed?”

  “Of course, we all noticed.” Nut turned judgmental eyes to her daughter.

  “What? It’s not my fault. Isis wanted to fight the demons, so I let her.”

  “Did it once occur to you, Counselor Philae, that you should’ve prevented Isis from killing both demons so we could interrogate at least one?”

  “Are you kidding me, Mother? Have you met my sister? She drew the female demon to her just so she could fight her up close and personal. After what Isis has been through, I don’t blame her for wanting payback.”

  “What do you mean? Wha
t has Isis been through? Why would she need payback?”

  Again, the six women glanced at each other, then at him.

  “You know, I’m getting tired of everyone trying to protect me by keeping me in the dark. I died, was killed, and now I’m back but don’t have a beating heart. I drank my organ smoothie like a good little dragon.” He pressed the palm of his hand to his chest. Nothing. “I may not remember it, but I’m a member of this family. I deserved to be treated like one.”

  Nut moved to stand in front of him, her hand going to his cheek and cupping before dropping back to her side.

  “We are treating you like family, Osiris. We love you and hurt when you were taken from us. We also love Isis and don’t wish to see her hurt any more than she already has been. I know you have no idea what I’m talking about. But the answers you seek aren’t ours to give. Keep this in mind, rock dragon, you may have forgotten your life with Isis and your death, but she remembers everything. She lived it. Is still living it.”

  “She’s my mate.”

  “I know. But you aren’t hers, at least not in the way she needs you to be. Until you are, if you ever are again, be patient with her and don’t rub against open wounds.”

  “No one will tell me a damn thing. How am I supposed to know what not to do or to say around her?”

  “It’s simple, don’t treat my sister as your wife and don’t expect her to treat you as her husband. For self-preservation, she won’t. Your heart may not beat, brother, but Isis’s beats all too well.”

  “Sitting back and doing nothing isn’t my style.”

  Merit laughed. Small, cute, and with way more hair than anyone as short as her needed, the dragon smiled up at him from the other side of the room where she sat on a black ottoman. “We know that, and so does Isis. This is the thing, if you want to rebuild what you once had with the sun dragon, you can’t chase her. She’s too alpha for that approach. The only thing you need to do is be there.”

  “That’s doing nothing.”

  “Wrong. Isis is an apex predator. She’s beautiful, intelligent, and annoyingly well-mannered. She’s the most vicious and cunning dragon I know.” Merit, comfortable-looking in a pair of boyfriend jeans, bare feet with yellow-and-blue painted toes, and a dark-blue sleeveless blouse, pointed at Nephthys, her fingernails done in the same floral design as her toenails. “That’s saying something considering I know that dragon there. Viciousness and cunning, a terrible combination for those who make it to Isis’s enemy list.”