Damaged Pack Shifters: The Complete Paranormal Collection

by Leela Ash

  After Megan had seen his penis, she had gone paper-white and then she had screamed loud enough to wake the dead. It had taken all his presence of mind to jerk his pants back into place and dash to the door and lock it. In less than two seconds, Joshua and Kelly had come running, banging on the door and wondering if she was alright. He had managed to explain away her fright, but his ego had taken some serious pummeling.

  Sure, he was hung, but did she have to scream as though he were going to kill her? He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but she wouldn’t be on his list of ladies to bed anytime soon!

  Less than an hour later, Derek had thankfully arrived to announce that the coast was clear, and they had all trooped home. Megan had carefully chosen the backseat of the Lambo on the way home and she had almost fallen in her haste to get out and onto the sidewalk when he pulled up in front of her house.

  Jack recalled with chagrin how his annoyed gaze had met Joshua’s in the rearview mirror, and he could have sworn the older man was biting back a great guffaw of laughter.

  It was mortifying.

  Derek, Luke and Drake were making no attempts to mask their laughter now, as they helped him haul supplies off the bed of the truck and stack them just where they needed to be placed. Seeing the old house yesterday, plus his frustrated energy from his aborted plans to make love to Megan had made him decide to renovate the house. Total frustration means… bang on something. He could either sell it when it was done or lease it out.

  He didn’t have plans on remaining in Weirna anymore though, beyond the time it would take them to get rid of Nabradia and see about cancelling the Witches’ Conference. Luckily, all the brothers were into construction and could be persuaded to come help renovate the old mansion he had grown up in.

  And indeed, it was a mansion, he thought, looking up at it with adoration and ignoring his laughing brothers. The house had twenty rooms in all, because it had been built in an era where houses were supposed to house as many relatives as possible, no matter how remotely connected.

  His grandparents had been the last in a long line of Sivans to occupy that house and now he had no intention of staying in it. It held too many memories of his family. His mom letting him lick the ladle while the cookies baked, giving him warm hugs and fussing over him when his father scolded him. His grandmother spoiling him rotten and holding him on her lap even when he was already a teenager. His father and grandfather playing tennis with him or sometimes facing off against each other and inviting him to be the judge.

  But all those memories had been replaced with grim realities, when he had become a shifter, by accident. His parents no longer watched him with love and devotion but with fear and repulsion. His grandmother’s indulgent smiles had faded into worried looks. His grandfather no longer beamed when he raced by, but called out to him to be careful not to slam into anyone — his meaning had been clear. Jack had mistakenly slammed into his grandfather one night after he became a shifter and the force and his super strength had lifted the old man clean off his feet and knocked him onto the floor. This was no small accident. His grandfather had never walked again after that day. Jack had never been able to forgive himself, but his father had been even more unforgiving and angry.

  It hadn’t been long until he had known the only way to keep them all safe was to move away and be with other shifters, like himself, in Joshua’s house. He had become a monster overnight.

  And when he saw the chance to leave Weirna, he had taken it, and never looked back, until Derek had called and asked everyone to return to help Joshua.

  Jack reflected that he had extended an olive branch of sorts when he tried calling his father to see if the man wanted the house to be sold or rented. The house was in Jack’s name and his to do with as he please. The call had merely been a ruse to try to mend fences, but as soon as he’d told his dad that he was in Weirna, his father had hung up and refused to take his calls again.

  Jack sighed now. He hadn’t spoken with or seen his parents in the entire fifteen years he had been away, but his grandparents had made certain to forward postcards from their travels around the world to their only grandson. His grandmother had also forwarded their mobile numbers just before she died, otherwise he might have lost touch with them forever.

  Hearing his father’s voice had brought back many sad and horrible memories and this morning he was all the more eager to leave a town that had stolen his boyhood and happiness and left him with little else.

  And now Megan had gone and made it worse!

  “Dude, what’s your size anyway?” Luke asked, still chuckling.

  Jack glared at him. Unperturbed, Luke stuck out his tongue as though they were still children. In seconds, the years fell away and it was as though they were playing in fields behind Joshua’s house again, in that part of Weirna where they were free to be their shifter selves.

  Jack leaped towards Luke, changing into a huge mountain lion as he went. Luke changed into his wolf form too and met him head on as they automatically fell into a friendly sparring.

  Derek and Drake stood side by side, both tall and impossibly handsome as they watched. Jack leaped on Luke and grabbed his neck between his teeth, careful not to bite down. Luke performed some impossible sort of twisting maneuver and wrested himself from the lion’s mouth.

  Bo strode into the clearing just then and everyone paused in surprise.

  Why wasn’t he in the throes with his wife? Jack and Luke changed back into their human forms.

  “Hey, Derek. I’m here.”

  Jack, Luke and Drake shot Derek incredulous looks.

  “You hauled him out of bed with his new bride?” Jack demanded.

  “Chill, Jack. Jeanine won’t scream at the sight of his dick when he returns. She’s used to it now,” Derek tossed back, laughing some more.

  Jack felt the tips of his ears go red. With a muttered oath, he grabbed some plywood and strode into the house.

  “Why’s he angry? What did I miss?” Bo was asking as Jack re-emerged.

  “Uh, we still have some strays roaming around. We need to get them in case Nabradia gets some more bright ideas on Alabad,” Derek said instead.

  Bo nodded. Nabradia had tried previously to use the strays to bring about Alabad on earth and knowing the witch, they wouldn’t put it past her to try again. Besides, they had only removed the crystals from the Tiara of Oistrophe. The crystals were indestructible, which meant, all she had to do was find them and voila!

  “You’re right. I’m going to round up the remaining strays. But I’m gonna need some help.”

  Derek shrugged, “Jeanine can help. She was helping you before, wasn’t she?”

  Bo shrugged, “Um, well, yes she was. But I was thinking one of you could help. Hey Jack, you could help deliver them to the vet.”

  Jack glared. Megan worked at the vets’. “I’ve got my own duties,” he said instead.

  “He’s right,” Derek said. “You worked well with Jeanine before.”

  “She wasn’t pregnant then,” Bo said.

  “Ah, shit,” Jack groaned, kicking a stone out of the way.

  He didn’t see the silent look of communication that passed between Bo and Derek.

  A gleam of understanding lit Derek’s eyes and he looked at Jack, considering, “Listen Jack, this whole thing is bigger than all of us. You’re gonna have to help Bo. Your job was to research the Tiara and that’s done. Now get on this with Bo, please. Drake and Luke are going to have to work hard on finding a way to stop that witches’ conference.”

  Bo frowned, “Why?”

  Derek shrugged, “I just get this uneasy feeling every time I think of that conference. Like Nabradia is going to use it as some sort of weapon.”

  “Well, if we wanted to stop the conference, I would think all we had to do was talk to the Council of Seven, right? My new mother-in-law happens to be one of them.”

  Derek frowned. “Isn’t the Coven Assembly the final decision authority?”

  Bo gave him a
pitying look, “The Coven Assembly is made up of the oldest of all witches in the world; the Council of Seven controls even them.”

  Derek slapped a commiserating hand on his shoulder, “Well, in that case Bo, you have one more task to do. Get your new bride to help you and you should definitely play the ‘great-grandchild coming into a peaceful world’ card if you have to. But get Nana Lourdes to agree with you that the witches’ conference cannot happen until Nabradia is truly out of the way.”

  The brothers nodded in agreement and moved the discussion to soccer. It wasn’t long before they were laughing and teasing each other.

  They didn’t see the lone figure dressed in a long dark robe with a pointed, wide brim hat. She was standing several yards outside the boundaries of the compound protected by magic which repelled supernatural beings.

  The witch whom had been listening with the help of powerful magic pursed her lips in an eerie whistle as she sauntered away. She had heard all there was to hear. Nabradia had been right, after all, in asking her to keep an eye on those boys. To think how she had pouted for hours, at being asked to babysit shifters, after Nabradia’s planned attack at the hall failed. At least now she knew their plans and once she reported back to the Salem witches, they could figure out exactly how to stop them.

  She let a happy chuckle escape her. Nana Lourdes might be untouchable but that granddaughter of hers, Jeanine, was very touchable. Nabradia has long suspected that Nana was hiding something and now she, Luferia, had the exact information her queen needed. Luferia’s eyes shone with greedy delight as she imagined all the ways Nabradia would repay her.

  One thing was clear though: Nana Lourdes wouldn’t live for very long, not once she told Nabradia her news.

  7.

  Five whole days!

  It had been five whole days since she had clapped eyes on that dratted man and if she never saw him again for the rest of her life, it would be way too soon. Megan fumed to herself as she signed off the last batch of files on her desk and pressed the intercom for her secretary to come ferry the documents away.

  She stood and strode to the windows overlooking the car park, staring at nothing in particular, as her thoughts unwillingly returned for the thousandth time to that moment when she had seen Jack’s penis and turned into a screaming, virginal flower. It was completely embarrassing.

  Why had she screamed like that? What must he think of her? She had acted like some sixteenth century nun who had been sequestered in a convent for her whole life. She was a doctor for crying out loud — okay, so, a vet wasn’t exactly a regular doctor, but still.

  She was mortified and shamed to the roots of her soul. She knew most people in AniVets didn’t like her much. Most of them thought she was unbending and the men sometimes caustically referred to her as a prude.

  Prude.

  That word hurt. That was the same word her only boyfriend in college had used when she had caught him cheating and wanted to know why. That was the same word her crush in her last place of work had used to describe her.

  Men didn’t find her appealing. Yes, she had a pretty enough face, but they seemed to think she acted… stiff and unnatural; ergo, prude.

  They would never have guessed that what they saw as stiffness was actually shyness on her part. Megan was naturally shy around most people but she had learned to hide her feelings behind a calm, almost expressionless demeanor.

  A flurry of movements in the parking lot drew her attention and she straightened from her position leaning against the windows and frowned.

  A large man was grabbing animals and stuffing them haphazardly into a cage. He had three cats under one arm and a dog in another and he was heading towards the cage when two rabbits erupted and streaked like lightening for freedom.

  “That silly man is about to get the Angle over-run with animals,” she grumbled as she hurriedly darted away from the window and headed downstairs. The entire town would be flooded with strays in a nanosecond if he had his way!

  “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” she challenged, as she ran up to him.

  He turned around looking frustrated, hassled, and more than a little furious and Megan promptly forgot to breathe.

  It was Jack!

  “You!” she gasped.

  “You!” he returned. Was she imagining it or was there a shimmer of anger in his gaze at he looked at her?

  Well, get real, Megan. Any other man in his position would be a tad upset, her subconscious informed her, with blunt asperity. You saw him naked and ran for the hills! Think how you would feel in his shoes.

  Megan jerked her gaze away from his and shut down that meddling inner voice. She focused instead on the animals still straining for freedom in his grasp, “You’re creating a madhouse. Why did you think you could handle so many animals alone?”

  Several attendants from the veterinary clinic had rushed out too and they began to grab some of the strays and stuff them into cages. They were careful to do up the latches on those cages before carting them away.

  In less than two minutes the pandemonium had ceased.

  Jack was looking slightly less hassled now. His hair was tousled — probably from wrestling with a dozen cats and dogs — his sweatshirt was rolled up to the elbows and his long legs were encased in well-worn jeans. He should look shabby, or at worst, unappealing. But he was so incredibly gorgeous it ought to be outlawed. His amber eyes were alive with fire and mischief in their golden depths, and as the slight wind blew around them, his clean masculine scent wafted towards her to tantalize her nostrils.

  Megan fought down the urge to inhale deeply and then when she saw the glimmer of laughter in his eyes, she realized he knew exactly what she had been thinking.

  He was just the sort of odious man to remind her of the heat of the last time they had met. How he managed to say a thousand things without so much as moving his lips was beyond her.

  Megan put up her chin. Horrible man, she thought.

  Scaredy-cat, his eyes replied.

  “You’re going to have to sign some paperwork,” she said shortly.

  He frowned, “They’re just strays.”

  “Rules are rules. We’ve got to know how many you brought in, their species, etcetera.”

  “I can’t remember all of that. Bo just grabbed them all and sent me over with them.”

  So, Bo was responsible, she thought with a sniff. She was going to have to have a word with Jeanine about reining in her new husband. He could deliver the strays himself to AniVets thank you very much or he could send Jack over to the animal shelter on the far end of town to deliver them!

  “Next time, send Bo,” she grated, as she turned to return to her office. “But for now, you have to come sign the papers.”

  With a low oath he strode past her and right up the front door. He entered and then held the door open as he waited for her to walk in.

  She sailed past him, her nose in the air, as though what he had done was nothing out of the ordinary. In truth though, she felt her heart turn over at the gesture. Regardless of how annoying he could be, he really was a gentleman.

  How did she feel about that, she wondered, trying to listen to her heart amidst her inward turmoil.

  Her office was a safe haven from the big prying eyes of AniVets staff and she was happy to escape into it. It took some effort on her part to calm the wild reactions of her nerves at the thought of being in a room alone with him so soon after…

  She would not complete that train of thought, she told herself as she headed with jerky steps for the file cabinet and picked out the small sheaf of forms he needed to fill.

  When she turned around, he was standing politely beside the visitor’s chair, one eyebrow arched as he looked around. He was waiting, it seemed, for her to offer him a seat.

  It seemed suddenly as though she were breathless, as though he had sucked all the oxygen out of the room.

  “Have a seat,” she said with brisk professionalism trying to ignore how much smaller the room now fe
lt.

  He did as he was told without a word and she placed the forms onto her desk in front of him, over his gigantic shoulders. He proceeded to fill them, leaving her to stand over him, unsure what to do with herself.

  Megan bit down on her lips, trying to decide how to occupy herself as he filled the form. Inspiration struck and she hurried to the teapot on the shelf in a corner and poured a generous measure of tea into two cups.

  The cups rattled in the saucer as she reached him and he looked up in confusion, his amber eyes dilated with the intensity of his concentration on what he had been doing.

  Megan’s heart slammed into her chest as she caught his gaze and her left hand shook, causing her to yelp as she tried to control it.

  Jack shot to his feet to grab the cup at the same time she thrust her hand forward to keep the hot liquid from burning her.

  Her eyes rounded with horror as she watched the teacup empty its very hot contents against his chest before tumbling to the floor to shatter into a million pieces.

  Megan screamed and dropped the other teacup haphazardly onto the desk as she dashed towards Jack. He was strangely silent. He hadn’t so much as gasped when the hot tea poured all over him.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” she cried in genuine dismay as she hurriedly yanked the bottom of his shirt and lifted the wet shirt away from his skin. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so, sorry,” she continued, as she began to lift the shirt all the way to his armpit.

  He silently lifted his hands in response to her wordless command and she jerked the shirt over his head and tossed it in a corner. His chest was glistening with moisture where the tea had poured but to her shock, it wasn’t red at all.

  Megan was beside herself. That tea had been scalding. He had to be in serious pain even though he hadn’t made so much as a sound. She dashed to the cabinet and grabbed some ice. She rushed back to hold it against his chest. She was so mortified. She couldn’t bear to look at him because she was afraid that if she saw one trace of pain or accusation or anger in his beautiful eyes, she would burst into tears.