Damaged Pack Shifters: The Complete Paranormal Collection

by Leela Ash

  “What do you want with the leader?” she demanded, lifting her hand higher, the threat obvious.

  The man was no fool. His gaze dropped to her hand and lifted back to her eyes noting the new determination in her eyes. She was going to blast him with whatever spell —or was it fire— she thought she could command without a wand.

  His gaze hardened perceptibly, the last traces of his smile fading as he became more alert. “None of your business. Bring me to her. Now.”

  Everything happened so fast. He took one more step into the shed and Kathy let fly, releasing a bolt of electricity aimed straight at his groin with enough power to fry an elephant. He dodged with supernatural speed to the side, escaping the blast and wondering what had just happened. He’d never known any witch to be able to do that, at least not without a wand. Unless she had one hidden in her sleeve?

  She whirled, grabbed a knife from behind her and started to fling it. Her motions unseated the cauldron and it tipped, its contents heading straight for the ground. In a nanosecond, he was beside her, his large hands catching and righting the cauldron, just in the nick of time to save the contents.

  Kathy stared in shock. She’d never seen anyone move so fast. “What are you?”

  He was standing so close now that she could readily tell that his height was a full six-five. His eyes were more silver than grey and he had a musky scent that was pure male. Her nostrils flared involuntarily, drinking in his clean, masculine scent.

  “I am a traveller who needs to see your boss,” he informed her with an insouciant grin.

  Kathy glared at him. “How did you move so fast?”

  He lifted his eyebrow, “How did you blast current from your hands?”

  Touché.

  She ignored him and grabbed the rapidly cooling cauldron and poured its contents carefully into a tincture. She looked at him, her green eyes sincere as she said, “Thanks for saving the contents. I went to a lot of work to create it.”

  He shrugged. It was a peace offering of sorts, he knew. But it was a fragile truce at best and would only last until she found out that he was a dragon. Then she would loathe him as much as he loathed her kind.

  With a weary sigh, he shoved a hand through his hair, “Look, I apologize for startling you and barging into your workplace. But my instincts drew me to this shed as soon as I landed so I knew you could help me.”

  Landed? Had he flown here? Kathy faltered in her motions as she looked up at him, confusion etched onto her features. She saw him curse a little beneath his breath as though he had said a bit too much and then he forced a smile, “Look. We can stand here and argue all day or we can go get the woman I need to see. I wouldn’t come all this way if it wasn’t serious. Trust me.”

  She wanted to trust him but she was afraid. Klyana meant too much to her, to all of them. If anything were to happen to her…

  She lifted her chin. “Your instincts were right. I am her assistant. But what sort of assistant would I be if I didn’t know why you wanted to see her before I brought you into her presence? She is a fearsome witch. She could kill me if I took you there and you angered her,” she lied.

  He groaned, “What is it with your kind? Why are you always murderous?”

  “My… kind?” she faltered.

  He gestured wildly towards her and her surroundings, “Witches. All you do is kill people, hurt others, wound little animals.”

  Kathy stared. How could he be so crass and how could he disparage an entire community of women, herself included, to her face and expect her to help him?

  Her chin jutted out and her eyes took on a stubborn glint which should have warned anyone who knew her well.

  “Well, we would hate to offend you with our presence. Please find your way out of our settlement the same way you came in.”

  His eyes became pure steel, “No can do. I have to see her.”

  Kathy glared at him, her face suffused with angry color, “You claim you need our help and yet you’re insulting us. I can have you writhing in pain in a nanosecond with a mere glance and yet you don’t take care.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” he chortled.

  “Please, leave this instant. Our kind can manage just fine without your withering scorn and condescension. I can certainly manage without your probing eyes following me around,” she told him.

  His brow lifted, “My eyes haven’t followed you anywhere. Plus, this is public property. You can’t throw me out just coz you’ve got a stick up your ass.”

  Kathy gasped. How uncouth. “I haven’t got a stick up anywhere. And if you think this is public property then something is very wrong with you. Just get out.”

  He came up to her, his essence filling the entire shack as he held onto her shoulders, his gaze flinty, “Listen, people are dying in droves where I come from and only your kind can help. Now I can’t just waltz in and kidnap a witch, I need to give someone in charge the heads up. So this is me nicely asking you to freaking get off your high horse and point those little feet towards where I can find your Tribe Leader.”

  She glared back, “And if I don’t?”

  “Plan B; I kidnap myself a witch. And guess who’s the closest witch to me right now?” he purred.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Kathy challenged.

  He was gratified to note that her voice lacked conviction. “Oh, I would dare all that and more. Don’t think for a moment that I’ve forgotten how you tried to castrate me with your powers. You owe me.”

  3.

  Drake could never be very certain what happened next, but one minute he had been taunting the green-eyed witch in his arms and the next she did something fancy and intricate with her legs and he landed flat on his back, blinking up at the crumbling ceiling of the tiny shack.

  “What the hell?” he muttered, the sound part compliment, part surprise. It wasn’t a spell; he hadn’t heard her mutter anything. Besides most witch spells wouldn’t work on him; not anymore.

  A tiny foot appeared on his chest and pressed down hard, “What sort of fool imagines he can kidnap a witch in her own home? And for your information, I am not just any old witch; I am the Kathy Calder.”

  He squinted at her, “Should that name mean anything whatsoever to me?”

  He saw her check as though she had revealed more than she intended to and he manipulated that split second of surprise to execute a fancy move of his own. She yelped as she lost her footing and went crashing to the floor. Surprisingly, he twisted his large frame deftly and she landed on him, saving her from the worst of the fall.

  Before she could digest that unexpected bit of chivalry, he rolled, pining her beneath his weight with his body perfectly embedded in the space between her legs as though they were about to make love. Heat arched, fierce and unexpected, and Kathy gasped. His gaze dropped to her parted lips and lifted to her eyes, their expression stormy and fiery. Was it her imagination or had she seen a flash of fire in his grey eyes?

  Suddenly she became aware of the slowly hardening arousal pressing into the soft juncture of her thighs and her nipples budded traitorously in response. His gaze dropped to her lips again and his head shifted downwards imperceptibly. A soft mewl of pleasure and keening need escaped her. She started to part her lips in silent welcome when reality intruded.

  No. She couldn’t be this close to any man, she thought, panic coursing through her as she remembered… She couldn’t!

  “Gerroff,” she cried, wriggling beneath him and shoving helplessly at his huge shoulders.

  “I am not letting you up, you feisty little witch until you let me know where to find your leader,” he persisted, rallying quickly from that brief bout of absolutely unwelcome lust he’d entertained for the bewitching witch lying beneath his body.

  “If you will get off that girl, you’ll see that her leader is right behind you,” Klyana announced in a voice dripping pure venom and ice.

  “Klyana!” Kathy cried.

  Drake cursed as he sprang to his feet. To his credit he r
eached down and helped the squirming Kathy to her feet.

  As soon as she was vertical again, Kathy glared at the man and aimed a kick at his shin in a surprisingly childish gesture. When she was done, she ran off, leaving him alone with the scowling old woman bent over her walking stick.

  “What’s your business here?” Klyana demanded, her voice hard as nails.

  Drake scanned the old woman. She was dressed in an old, threadbare black robe that hung all the way down to the ground but she somehow managed to adopt an air of royalty. Her eyes were a fierce agate in her slim face, her cheeks were sunken and paper thin and both her frail hands clutched her walking stick. Her black and grey hair hung down the sides of her head in greasy strands.

  He reflected that she was the first witch, apart from Jeanine’s Nana, whom he’d ever met who didn’t try to use magic to enhance her appearance. As much as he hated witches, he’d loved Nana. Her death had affected him as much as others. Perhaps this woman was also different?

  “I need your help,” Drake intoned, his expression open and sincere as he walked up to her.

  She wrinkled her nose as though she’d smelled something foul and surprise passed in her eyes. “Don’t come any closer, Dragon. Tell me how it is that you are here. Your kind was destroyed thousands of years ago.”

  Drake quirked an amused eyebrow, “I think my presence here gives the lie to that folklore.” He’d unconsciously slipped into her more ancient style of speaking he noticed and shook himself mentally. Bo would never let him hear the end of it if he showed up after mere days away with a quaint speaking adaptation.

  “A more feasible reason for your presence is that you escaped from the dark dungeons of the Underworld,” the witch announced.

  Before he could guess her intent, she waved a hand in his direction and an invisible force jerked him clear off his feet, lifted him into the air, and pinned him against a wall. Drake stared. With all the training he had been secretly having in the past months, not many witches could spell him. It meant that for all her frail appearance, this woman was packing some serious juice. She had to be even older than she appeared.

  “What are you doing?” he gasped, struggling to break free.

  She barked at him. “Tell me why you are here. Did you escape from the Underworlds?”

  “It’s not me you should be worried about. We need your help.” Drake told her, trying in vain to wrest off the unseen hand currently squeezing his throat. “The rift between the worlds was destroyed when a shapeshifter took on the form of Nabradia, former queen of the Salem witches, and wielded Krilce’s Sobriety.”

  Klyana staggered backwards, so shocked that she released her hold on him. Drake slid to the ground with a grateful sigh, clutching at his neck and gasping much needed air into his lungs.

  “Nabradia is dead?” she muttered.

  He eyed her warily, his guard still up. “You didn’t know?”

  She stared at him and started to cackle with pure undiluted glee. “Nabradia’s dead! That witch is dead,” she chortled, throwing back her head in a full belly laugh.

  Okay, he wasn’t going to dwell on why Klyana seemed particularly happy about Nabradia’s demise. Heck, everyone he knew seemed particularly happy when Nabradia had been iced. But he did have to wonder about this small community of magical women sequestered deep in a rain forest without any form of civilization around. If he hadn’t had his powers and Joshua’s map, he might never have been able to locate them.

  Joshua had been convinced there were still witches alive in the States. He swore their magic maintained the fragile balance of the world or everything would have torpedoed. After he’d defeated the banshee, he’d been more eager than Joshua to go on his quest. And now, here he was, facing down an old witch vacillating between cold anger and cheerful glee as she tried to decide whether to throttle him or dance at his news.

  As though she’d heard his thoughts, the witch stopped laughing abruptly and eyed him with a gimlet stare, “Now boy, tell me again why you were lying on Kathy when I walked in.”

  He shrugged, “Coincidence?”

  “I don’t believe in them,” she grated without a glimmer of a smile.

  He shrugged again. “Look, while we’re here arguing, people could be dying by the dozens.”

  It was her turn to shrug, “Why should I care? People die every day.”

  He stared at her. “You really don’t care that the veil between our world and the world of the dead has been torn? You really don’t care that it’s a matter of very short time and you and your precious Kathy will fall to the world of the dead; just like the rest of us?”

  “My Kathy will never fall to any world of anything,” she announced loyally. “I’ve heard your piece of fiction, now get out.”

  He stared at her, feeling her rejection like a whiplash. With a muttered oath he turned and strode for the door. He would fly to Brazil if need be; he’d heard there was another small cluster of witches in that area.

  Just then he remembered Joshua’s last words to him and he paused midstride. There was no time; before he could complete the cross-continent leap to Brazil and back, so many more people could be dead. The rift could have widened; it might be too late.

  Desperately he turned back to her, strode right up to her and grabbed her hands in his. She flinched, her eyes going to where his touch was already branding fire into her skin. It was that way with a witch; a dragon’s slightest touch was like fire to them. But it hadn’t happened with Kathy! Why? Wasn’t she a witch?

  Klyana yanked at her hand but he held fast. “You can read minds Klyana. Read my thoughts, and you’ll see I’m telling the truth. The most horrible creatures are already topside and more are creeping out. I fought off a banshee before I got here.”

  “A banshee?” she repeated, genuine alarm in her gaze as her eyes searched his for the truth. She found it. Then she seemed to age even more right before his eyes, her shoulders slumped and her eyes took on an even more distant look, “Banshees have been dead for so many centuries. Those abominations wrought enough harm that the Council of Seven banished the last of them, in one of its finest moments.”

  Something about the way she’d said it niggled at him and he stared, “Were you a member of the Council?”

  She straightened, her eyes going blank, “You need a witch to heal that rift. I can help you. But I will never leave my Kathy behind. How do you propose to carry two witches all the way to… this Weirna?” she demanded, reading his thoughts.

  Drake was so happy he could have kissed her. “Thank you for offering to help us Klyana. I’ll fly you both there. Although, there are some territories where I won’t be able to fly across because of the beings inhabiting them, so we would have to walk a little too.”

  She was still, digesting his words. Finally, she nodded, “I may be the only witch powerful enough to help heal this rift; apart from Kathy of course. But you must take care sirrah; as long as we are with you, you’ll keep your paws to yourself and off my Kathy otherwise I’ll take her and leave you to heal your dammed rift! And the devil with the world crumbling.”

  Drake swallowed a grin. He couldn’t believe how easy it was so far. So according to her, the price of getting her help was keeping his hands off that enticing baggage and delightful mix of hocus-pocus on two legs with a tendency to try to fry a man’s balls off if he got too close? That should be no hardship at all.

  He gave Klyana a blinding smile, as he assured her, “You can relax on that score Klyana. Your Kathy holds no attraction for me whatsoever. You would have to bribe me to touch her, ma’am. And even then, you wouldn’t succeed.”

  A flash of movement off to the corner caught his eye, and he could have sworn in that split second that the figure had moved with the lithe grace he had quickly come to associate with Kathy. But before he could turn his head to investigate, Klyana distracted him again.

  Klyana glared, “Are you saying my Kathy isn’t beautiful enough for you?”

  He stared. Someti
mes he didn’t understand women. First she warned him off her daughter, now she was angry that he wasn’t more interested.

  “Listen, get angry all you want. We both know a dragon can never have any intimate dealings with a witch. That’s what I meant.”

  She nodded as though satisfied. “Good. Keep that in mind and keep your paws to yourself.”

  “So, you will help us?” he demanded.

  “And for the record, my Kathy is beautiful, you blind bat!” she said aggressively.

  Drake scrubbed a hand down his jaw to hide his laughter, as he replied in a voice as meek as he could make it, “Yes ma’am.”

  “No, we won’t help him,” Kathy announced, her voice as clear as church bells as she glared across the space separating her and Drake.

  Klyana looked taken aback as she stared from one to the other. The other witches gathered in the middle of the community numbered about sixty women of varying ages. They all exchanged glances at Kathy’s words.

  “Kathy—” Klyana began.

  Kathy walked up to Klyana and snatched her hands in hers, “I feel danger when he is near. It’s the same feeling I had when I thought it was going to storm while we were returning from picking herbs,” she said.

  Klyana nodded. She’d felt that same danger which was why she’d known at once that it wasn’t a mere storm as Kathy had thought at first.

  “He’s a dangerous …being,” Kathy continued, her voice trailing off on the last word as the conviction settled in her that Drake Alcorn was not a mere man. He had to be supernatural and probably the most dangerous being she’d ever encountered.

  Klyana sighed. She supposed the truth would have to come out because knowing Kathy, there was no way her charge would let her go off with a man she considered dangerous.

  She looked at Kathy and the gathered witches as she raised her voice slightly to be heard, “Sisters. I would keep nothing from you. Drake is a dragon and that’s the danger you sense.”