20 Shades of Shifters: A Paranormal Romance Collection

by Demelza Carlton

  Of course, she wanted to fight the damn demons. She didn’t know how else to purge her anger and grief but to release them on as many demons as she could.

  “And Set? Really? He’s strong but not a top tier fighter. My heart may not beat, but my brain works just fine.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Osiris dropped his arms and walked forward, his body big and imposing as he crowded Isis between him and the tree behind her.

  “Tell me the truth.”

  “About what?”

  “Don’t do that. Just tell me what everyone but me knows. Stop lying to me, Isis. Even if you’re doing it for what you think is my own good, I don’t like being lied to.”

  Lies of omission. She’d used them plenty in business, although rarely with friends and never, until recently, with Osiris. Their relationship was one of equals, which meant lies, in any form, had no place between them.

  “You’ve suffered enough.”

  “So have you, but you’re still standing.”

  “Barely.” Closing her eyes, Isis leaned against the tree. As she hoped, Osiris followed, pressing his long, hard body to hers. “I’m only keeping from you what you already know. You’ve chosen to forget.”

  “Set?”

  She opened her eyes. “Yes. You know the truth, even without me giving voice to your fears. We can keep it unsaid, Osiris. Let me take care of it my way.”

  “Isis, he’s my brother.”

  There was a plea in Osiris’s unnecessary reminder. A plea that asked Isis to not harm Set.

  “You’re my mate, and Asim was our daughter. I can’t forgive, forget, or do nothing.”

  “Not even for me?” Their faces were so close, Osiris’s breath minty, his voice soft and sad. “Isis, please.”

  “When that foul-smelling demon crawled into bed with me, his hand over my mouth and his gun pressed against my stomach, I called to you. Over and over, I searched for our mate bond link. You weren’t there. I kept hitting an emotional void. I knew, as that demon threatened to kill our child if I didn’t give him the scepters, that you were dead. I knew, but I’d forgotten when I came out of my coma. I searched for you again, in the faces of those gathered in my recovery room. I searched and saw your brother but not you. The darkness in my soul, when the truth came crashing over me, is still there, Osiris. Your heart may no longer beat, but my soul is deeply wounded. Every time I think I can staunch the bleeding, something else happens to rip the wound open wider.”

  “Revenge won’t heal the damage.”

  “I know, but it will guarantee no more are inflicted on those I love.” With a small tilt of her head upward, Isis kissed her mate’s downturned lips. “I have no intention of harming your brother, and neither will Nep nor the Tyets, unless in my or their defense. But we also won’t help him if he finds himself surrounded by demons.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you have a mobster mentality.”

  Isis didn’t know whether Osiris meant that as a joke to lighten the mood or whether he was sincere. He’d referred to her as a mob boss a few days ago, too. She disliked the implication, but couldn’t argue against the general comparison.

  They’d had an entire conversation without either of them directly stating what Set had done. She wouldn’t say the words, for Osiris’s sake. He still wasn’t ready to face the full truth of his brother’s treachery. Perhaps he never would.

  “If you don’t want me to allow myself to be captured, do you have an alternative plan?”

  “I do.”

  Strong, gentle fingers glided from Isis’s shoulder, down her arm and to her hand, which Osiris grabbed. Pulling her away from the tree, he gave her a wicked smile right before he pushed the straps of her dress off her shoulders.

  The green dress fell, leaving Isis in a pair of black underwear.

  Osiris’s eyes widened, then darkened with lust. He reached for her, and she stepped away.

  “We don’t have time for what you’re thinking.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have worn a thong into war. I bought you those, and others, by the way, but you rarely wear them.”

  “Thongs are perfect for when I’m in my hybrid form. They don’t get in the way as much with my tail. Unless, of course, you prefer me to wear nothing under my dress.”

  “A thong is damn near nothing.”

  “It’s your own fault that you know what I have on underneath my dress. If you wanted me to shift, you should’ve asked instead of stripping me in the middle of the forest.”

  She’d said that with enough sensuality and flirtation to irritate her rock dragon because he knew, like her, that sex would have to wait. This may be the ancestral home of dragons, but it was also enemy territory.

  He glared at her, so she slipped off her thong and threw it at Osiris, smirking when he caught it before it hit him in the face.

  When, if, they returned home, he would make her pay for toying with him. The thought made her smile.

  “What in the hell?” Set’s rock dragon turned to Osiris. If he’d been in his human form, his brother’s mouth would’ve hung open in shock, if not terror. “Her hybrid form was bad enough. What in the goddesses’ name is she?”

  “A sun dragon.”

  “No dragon looks like that.”

  He’d seen his mate in her sun dragon form only once, the night of their mate ceremony. Her size, in comparison to his, had made consummating their union quite the alignment task. His increased height, however, would make their mating easier, although the sun dragon was still bigger than his seventy-feet.

  “Isis is beautiful and her sun dragon magnificent.”

  “Your feelings for Isis has left you blind. No dragon should exist that looks like her. None.”

  Every time Set spoke, Osiris’s head ached. It began back at Philae Manor when his younger brother arrived. Osiris had been happy to see him, but five minutes into their conversation his head began to hurt. Not as intense and debilitating as the migraines, but a persistent pounding pain that didn’t begin to recede until Osiris was in the air and away from Set.

  Now, as he listened to him, the pulsing behind his eyes returned. The last thing Osiris needed was a goddamn headache spinning his head and churning his stomach. He needed to be at peak mental and physical performance. He’d vetoed Isis’s dangerous plan. Well, as his mate, she’d allowed him to change her mind. As Dragon Queen, she didn’t have to take his advice or even listen to his objections. Her sister and the Tyets would’ve done as told.

  In truth, Isis probably wasn’t wrong in her assessment of King Sansabonsom. Now that Isis and Nephthys were back in the preternatural realm and he likely knew they were the scepters, he’d want them captured not killed. Which meant the horde, if given a chance, would’ve taken the twins straight to their sadistic leader.

  That was the rub for Osiris. None of them, not even Isis, could anticipate with one hundred percent accuracy how the hordes or the Demon King would react to the moon and sun dragons. While he didn’t think they would kill the sisters, death wasn’t always the worst fate. Sometimes, depending on the damage done to the mind or body, death was a prayed-for relief.

  Osiris looked at his brother, smaller than him and the same shade of black he used to be before his death and resurrection. The first part of Isis’s plan involved Set. Did she think the demons would kill him, doing to Set what Osiris suspected she wanted to do herself but hadn’t because she didn’t want to kill her mate’s brother? Or had she thought, during the fight, Set would run away or turn on the twins, revealing his true nature?

  The thrumming in his head deepened the longer Osiris continued down a path that felt uglier the harder he pushed for answers.

  “Tell me why Isis now distrusts and hates you.”

  “I wasn’t aware that she did. I’m here because she asked for my help. That doesn’t sound like someone who distrusts and hates me. You got it wrong, big brother. Isis and I are fine. She’s just uptight and stressed.”

/>   Where was a sumatriptan tablet when a dragon needed one? Osiris walked away from Set, then lifted into the air where everyone, except Hathor, convened. Apparently, Isis had assigned the gray mist dragon to Set. He ignored her, but she watched him.

  As usual, the sisters were next to each other, appearing nothing like the twins they were when in human form.

  At eighty-five feet tall, the sun dragon was unmatched in her size. Not just of the dragons in their group but of all dragons. Whereas Nephthys had taken her height and size from Nut, Isis’s girth most matched Geb’s, although that dragon was well over a hundred feet.

  As in her hybrid form, Isis’s wings were a vivid white outlined in dark-red. Long and narrow, her wingspan at one hundred feet resulted in great stability during flight. Her tail, thick at the base and thinner at the curling tip swished back and forth, as Isis spoke with her sister and the Tyets. Osiris wasn’t fooled by the innocent-looking tail, however. He’d seen it in action and knew it rolled back to reveal a dangerous, fire-spewing maw.

  Sharp claws led to heavy, coarse legs and a wide, solid body covered in the symbols of the goddess Wadjet: the Uraeus rearing cobra, the ankh, papyrus, and the red crown of Lower Egypt. Osiris hadn’t realized, until the twins shared their goddesses’ symbols with Geb, how their skin had glowed with the ancient symbols of the long-gone deities. When Osiris had removed his mate’s dress, he saw that the markings traversed every part of Isis’s body except for her face.

  Now, in her dragon form, he couldn’t make the same statement. Her pronounced face, big, red eyes, short snout and fangs that extended past her jaw, hooded cobras, red-and-black, blended with the rainbow scales, more red than any other color. Although, with each subtle movement, a different color of the sun dragon dominated.

  No, that wasn’t right. No set of eyes saw the sun the same. He wondered if the same phenomenon was true for Isis. To one set of eyes, she appeared mostly red, while green to another, and blue to yet another.

  Like Isis, Nephthys’ dragon had changed. She wasn’t as tall or as broad as her sister, but she was now Osiris’s size when, just yesterday, the moon dragon was sixty feet tall. Her scales were a richer shade of pearl white. But those weren’t the most striking changes to her form. Those would be the inclusion of horns, like that of ram’s horns, as well as the black spikes that ran in two rows down her back and to her tail that ended in spikes shaped like an arrowhead. The same shape as Geb’s tail.

  Combined, Isis and Nephthys were both frightening and awe-inspiring.

  When he approached, the females stopped talking and turned to him.

  Serqet and Aset shifted to the left so Osiris could join their circle and be next to Isis.

  “Any thoughts about the physical changes to the two of you?”

  “They have no idea,” Aset answered. “But I think it has something to do with how Nebty has changed since we were last here?”

  “What do you mean? I was only ten, but the four of you were a little older.”

  “I was trying to explain it to the twins, when you came up. We’re in northern Nebty, and everything looks the same as it did a hundred years ago. I can hear birds in the trees, snakes on the ground and wildlife we used to eat tromp through the forest. The air is clean and smells like I remember.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m missing your point. Everything you said sounds right to me. This is our home.”

  “No, this was our home. Except for a couple dozen dragons, we all left Nebty, so explain to me why this area hasn’t changed. It’s not overgrown, and there hasn’t been an overpopulation of wildlife. How is either possible, if Geb and his warriors are dead? Even if they lasted longer than we know, this place shouldn’t look and feel the same,” Aset said.

  “There’s more.” Merit looked from Osiris to Serqet. “When Aset and I flew to the southwest, there was a point in the sky where it felt as if we crossed a Rubicon. Did the two of you experience the same thing when you went southeast?”

  Serqet answered. “We didn’t get that far. When we spotted the hordes at the Cave of Dep, we flew back here to notify Isis.”

  “Okay, well, once we crossed the Rubicon, everything changed.”

  “What do you mean?” Isis asked.

  “Everything you see, hear, and feel here is the opposite there. Nebty’s landscape is as geologically diverse as any continent in the human realm. Rugged mountains, green valleys, deep sea trenches, and plunging waterfalls. Rivers, rifts, and deserts. Dragons lived all over this island, not all regions equally as appealing to every dragon type, however.”

  “Are you and Aset saying that none of those things are there now?”

  Isis sounded as confused as Osiris felt. His scales still tingled, for an unexplainable reason.

  “No, our point is that what we saw of the southwest looked used and abused. As if squatters moved in but couldn’t make the environment work for them. We saw nothing alive down there. Any wildlife that was there when we left is all gone now.”

  Isis turned toward the southwest. “You think the demons tried living here after killing Geb and his warriors, fed off the wildlife until they’d driven them to extinction, and then abandoned the island when they finally realized that only dragons can survive and thrive on Nebty?”

  “Yeah, that’s what we think. I remember Nut explaining to us, when we were young, that the goddesses built the preternatural realm and every nation with each species in mind. She said each island would give the inhabitants exactly what they required, adapting, when necessary, to fit their needs. I now see what she meant.”

  So did Osiris. “That doesn’t explain why northern Nebty hasn’t changed.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Isis agreed. “We’re missing a critical piece of information, and I don’t like not knowing.” She turned back to the group. “Osiris has a plan.”

  Five sets of eyes shifted to him.

  “It’s more like an amendment to Isis’s plan. Nut made us memorize a map of the preternatural realm before we left, so we don’t need the demons to their kingdom. With Isis’s poisonous snakes, we can take care of the demons at the Cave of Dep. How many can you produce?”

  “As many as we need. Good idea. The snakes can slip into their camp undetected, especially at night. They can also find the demons in hiding.”

  “If you plant your snakes over as much of Nebty as possible, by tomorrow morning, Nephthys will have an army of demons at her disposal.”

  “No blood, no evidence of battle but our spies to control.”

  Osiris did love the respect and pride in Isis’s voice.

  “Nephthys can send them home. A Trojan horse, of sorts. That way, when we attack, we won’t have to worry about the possibility of being flanked if the hordes stationed here are called home.”

  Isis kissed him. Well, she rubbed her nose against his, which was a dragon’s equivalent to a human peck on the lips.

  “Have I told you how much I love your strategic mind? So sexy.”

  “Don’t answer that,” Nephthys piped in. “We have no interest in being bystanders to your flirting and verbal foreplay. Let’s get back to the plan.”

  “Fine. I assume Isis intended for either Aset to use her shadow magic or Hathor her gray mist magic to conceal our entry into the Demon Kingdom.”

  “Yes, that was the plan. The blood link I share with the Tyets, as well as our mate bond link would’ve allowed any of you to find Nep and me. The sun will set in a few hours.”

  “When it does, we can head out. In the meantime, we can fine-tune our plan.”

  It was a given Nephthys would go with her sister when she deployed her king cobras. Isis would likely take the shadow dragon too, in case demons patrolled the sky. With Aset with them, they could fly undetected.

  Tomorrow night, they would invade the Demon Kingdom, their objective, the capture and death of King Sansabonsom.

  Chapter 18

  Sansabonsom covered his head and scrambled to the other side of his burrow. Just in time, too.
The dirt roof collapsed where he’d been sleeping mere seconds earlier, crushing his lover under mounds of heavy mud and rocks.

  A mangled claw broke through the dark debris, then a smashed head. Her dirt-filled mouth gasped for breath. “H-h-help”

  Help?

  He would. Himself.

  On hands and knees, Sansabonsom crawled away from his lover and through a winding dirt tunnel. Smart demons, like him, lived underground, venturing above to hunt his next meal or sex partner. Even then, he dragged both back to his lair.

  Stupid demons, the ones who bedded down in trees or, worse, built four-walled dwellings, as if they were too good for the mire that birthed them, didn’t deserve a place in his new and improved kingdom.

  Sounds of fighting echoed above his head. He could hear the pounding of feet and fists and the rapid flapping of demon wings. What he didn’t hear or smell were dragons.

  If the beasts he’d expected, any day now, had arrived, he would know it. He’d laid a trap for them. A trap they wouldn’t be able to pass up. He grinned, teeth carved to pointy tips, hooked fangs sharp. Nut’s daughters would come.

  He didn’t know how the dragons had become the scepters, and he didn’t care. The twelve or so demons who’d survived the attack against Nut and her daughters had returned with a tale he almost didn’t believe. Once he killed one of the survivors, cutting off the male’s testicles then making him eat them before hacking off his head, and the others didn’t change their story, he knew they spoke the truth. No matter how bizarre.

  If the dragons weren’t there, then what was going on above him?

  Getting to his feet, but still crouched, he ran as fast as he could through the passageway. More dirt and rocks fell, closing off the tunnel behind him. Sansabonsom couldn’t risk damaging his wings by flying, so he dug his hooked feet into the ground and leaped forward at an awkward gait.

  Demons roared and screamed.

  Sansabonsom ran faster, barely escaping an avalanche of dirt. Up ahead he saw the first glimmer of moonlight. He ran toward the exit.

  When he finally reached the end of the tunnel, he clawed his way up and out. Rain pelleted the ground, hard and relentless. His demons were everywhere.