Shifter Secrets: Shifter Romance Collection

by Juniper Hart

  Esme went aisle by aisle, shelf by shelf, and continuously giggled at the gaudy décor. Olive swatted at her arm, trying to get her to behave while the clerk gave them death glares. Of course, Esme did not care. Wandering away from her friend, Olive searched around herself and tried to bide time until Esme had had her fill. She stopped and inspected a few of the more curious items, honestly having no idea what some of them were supposed to be. Just as she turned to return to Esme in hopes of getting out of the store before a scene was caused, something in the corner caught her eye.

  It was a small lamp with a glossy royal blue base. The lampshade was utterly covered in shells, some even stacking up on one another and giving it a convex shape. Would any light even escape? Curiosity pierced Olive, and she sauntered over. Her fingertips ran along the cord until she found the little wheel and flicked it. To her surprise, it had a blue tinted bulb inside of it. Glancing around to see the light it gave off, Olive was in awe. Apparently, the shells were meticulously placed to leave tiny spaces in between, producing little star shapes all over the walls. It was beautiful, and she knew right away it would be perfect and serene for a nursery.

  Just as Olive wrapped her hands around the base of the lamp to check the price, a hand gripped around her forearm and jerked her away. For a split second, she thought it might have been the clerk, there to scorn her for touching the merchandise—but it wasn’t. It was Esme, who had a panicked look on her face. “We have to go, now.”

  Before Olive could ask what had happened, Esme was in a full sprint, with Olive still in her grip. They weaved in and out of the people crowding the alleyway between shops.

  “Why are we running?” Olive demanded to know, but she kept her pace.

  “I saw Asher. They found us.” Olive’s heart stopped, and her body froze at the blunt words. Asher? Asher was there? Her eyes flew around, unable to resist the urge to look for his head of raven curls. “Come on!” Esme hissed and tugged Olive’s arm once again.

  Even though her head was in a fog, she followed. How had Asher found her? A mixture of fear and longing churned in her stomach, causing her early dinner to want to evacuate. A clammy hand clasped her mouth as she ran, begging herself to hold it together. In no time, they found their way to Esme’s beat up red Toyota and jumped inside. Esme, in the driver’s seat, hardly bothered to look out for pedestrians or other cars as she peeled out of the parking lot.

  “Grab my bag from back there,” Esme commanded, gesturing to behind her seat. Olive awkwardly shuffled her body so that she could reach the worn leather satchel. She placed it between their seats, and Esme immediately began rummaging through it. When her hand finally came out of the bag, a thin metal chain was wrapped around her fingers, with a medallion or locket of some kind dangling from it. Was it a necklace? “Put it on.”

  Olive was a little amused, but mostly confused. Why was Esme asking her to put on a piece of jewelry in the heat of the moment? However, knowing how serious Esme was in that moment, she didn’t argue with it. Sliding the item over her head, the medallion fell to the center of her chest, and Olive plucked it up, inspecting it. It was a locket, a large, flat circle with a red gemstone embedded in the center. Intricate swirls and symbols were engraved into the dark golden surface. She attempted to open the latch, but it was welded shut. “May I ask why I’m wearing this?”

  There was hesitation in the air before Esme responded, “It’s a good luck charm.”

  Not for the first time, Olive sensed Esme was lying to her. Why would she lie about a piece of jewelry, though? It wasn’t like Esme was any kind of pathological liar; in fact, the woman was generally brutally honest. However, when it came to talking about her past, the same hesitation would come, followed by a story or statement that didn’t exactly add up to the other bits and pieces Olive had gathered on her friend. Still, Olive didn’t comment on it. After all, Esme was rather superstitious, so having a good charm wasn’t out of the question for her.

  They took country roads, heading aimlessly in a random direction, only trying to get as much distance between them and Asher as possible. Olive’s eyes continuously went to her side view mirror, constantly checking to see if Asher’s white BMW popped up behind them. It never did.

  The two of them rode in silence, both of their minds racing. The only noise was the hum of the engine and the soft indie music coming from the radio.

  Olive felt like she was going crazy, unable to stop her thoughts from going a mile a minute. How had Asher found her? Why was he trying to find her? Was it because he missed her or because he somehow, someway found out she was pregnant? Should she be afraid of him? Olive never would be, though. Memories of their time together flashed through the forefront of her mind. Days spent in the park, talking for hours and watching the clouds, telling him things she had never told anyone. Like how her biological parents put her up for adoption at birth, and she had floated around group homes until the age of seven, when she was finally adopted by what she called her real parents. Asher held her as she explained and occasionally cried while doing so. He asked questions, wanting to know more, though not in a prying way.

  They had gone on leisurely vacations, just the two of them out on one of his family yachts with nothing but the ocean waves, stars, and a fully stocked wine cooler. They had never run out of conversation. Asher had been such an old soul, enjoying classic foreign films Olive never even heard of. He took her to plays and concerts, creating so many blissful memories together. Of course, there had been a time or two where they would fight, usually about something stupid after one of them had had a particularly long day. Yet he never lost his temper with her, not really. He never spoke to her in a demeaning tone or said things he didn’t mean. They would make up so quickly and easily and make passionate love.

  A blush came to her cheeks just thinking of it. While they hadn’t even dated an entire year, Olive just knew that he was right for her. Her mind led back to the question that haunted her every single day. What would things have been like if she had told him? Would he have listened to her concerns and ran away with her? She could only imagine the joy he would have felt knowing he had a child, since he thought he was sterile. Even though they never dove very deeply into the conversation of having children, Olive knew Asher would have made an amazing father. The world’s best, even.

  Guilt ate away at her as she looked over to her friend. Not because she was reminiscing on what life would be like without having Esme as a surrogate parent, but because Olive had never told her the full truth about why they’d had to run away. She had kept it plain and simple: Asher’s family scared her, and she was worried that they would try and either take the baby away, or have so much control that Olive would have been rendered obsolete as a parent. With Asher so close to them and not knowing what his exact intentions were, Olive heavily realized that Esme could be in danger and not even know it.

  Finally, Olive burst into a sob. Big, hot tears poured down her cheeks, and her body quaked.

  “Woah, woah, woah, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” Esme asked urgently, her tone heavy with worry.

  “I’m so sorry, Esme,” Olive wept. “Y-you have been nothing but good to me, and you changed the whole direction of your life for me, a-and I haven’t been honest with you. I am so sorry. I… I…” She choked on her own tears.

  Olive was so consumed by her guilt that she hadn’t even realized Esme had pulled over and stopped the car until arms were wrapping around her. Esme’s calmative touch smoothed Olive’s hair and rubbed her back, shushing her and telling her it was okay, to take deep breaths. However, Olive rebelliously shook her head. “I haven’t been fair to you. You don’t know everything, and you need to. You really do, and I’m so sorry. It’s just so hard to explain, let alone believe… Just Asher—”

  Then, her face was being lifted. Esme’s steel gray eyes were staring deep into hers.

  “First, stop apologizing. There’s no need to apologize, okay?” Esme’s thumbs brushed away a few of the falling tear
s from Olive’s cheeks. Esme herself took a deep breath. “Look, you don’t need to explain Asher to me—”

  “But I do.”

  “You don’t,” Esme insisted. They just stared at each other then, Olive confused and Esme searching for her words. “I… I know about Asher and his entire family, okay? I know what they are. Why do you think I jumped so quickly to get you away from them when you told me you were pregnant? Yes, I’m your friend, and I would do anything I could for you. But if this had been so simple as you not getting along with your baby daddy’s family, I would have stuck with you there and helped you sort it out. I know that all the Tallants, along with the families around them, aren’t to be trusted.”

  Olive’s brows drew together, completely and utterly lost. Esme was speaking so vaguely that Olive wasn’t sure if they were on the same page. How and why did she think Asher’s family wasn’t to be trusted? She had never even met Asher in person… Had it been his last name that tipped her off? Like Olive in the beginning, did she just think they were like a mafia? Business people out for blood? “I don’t think you understand…”

  “They’re dragons.”

  Olive’s jaw fell slack, and her tears ceased. How could Esme possibly know that? An uneasy feeling came over Olive, and she wanted to get to the bottom of this. She needed to.

  Esme withdrew her hands from Olive and ran them through her own hair. “My family is very, very… weird. I suppose you could consider most of them to be archeologists or historians. They have been aware of dragons for generations, and while I’ve never met one myself or been up close to them, I know that they are very—no, extremely—dangerous. That’s why I wanted to help get you away, you and the baby.”

  Olive shook her head, not processing everything Esme was saying. “Asher isn’t dangerous. He would never ever hurt me.”

  “That’s what you think, hon,” Esme frowned at her friend. “Dragon-shifters are well-known for being cunning, charming, and deceptive. I wouldn’t even put it past him to have carried on a façade with you just to get this outcome.”

  “Dragons are sterile,” Olive persisted. “There was no way he knew this would happen.”

  “Clearly, they aren’t sterile if you’re pregnant, right?” Esme challenged. “It was a lie, Olive. You have to see that.”

  Olive’s heart was pounding so hard that her heartbeat was thumping in her ears. She shook her head rapidly. Of course, she had no idea how she had gotten pregnant if they had been sterile. It was a mystery but one she figured had a rhyme or reason to it. Perhaps in her most fragile and senseless of moments, she had led herself to believe that it was destiny or some greater power taking control to give her Asher’s child. Esme’s words buzzed around in her head like angry hornets. Which made more sense: miraculous conception, or Asher lying to get her pregnant for some darker purpose? The tears returned.

  “He loves me, though… I know he does…” Esme cupped her cheek.

  “No, sweetie. He made you love him blindly so that this could happen. But we’re in control of this situation now, okay? I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you or Henry.” Olive’s lip quivered as she did her best to hold back her tears. What if Esme was right? What if the divine love she and Asher shared had all been a lie?

  “I feel sick,” Olive announced in something less than a whisper, but Esme understood her perfectly.

  “Let’s stop for the night and get a fresh start in the morning,” she said comfortingly. “I love you, Olive.”

  “I love you, too,” Olive responded in the same volume. The car pulled back onto the road, and she rested her head against the window, completely destroyed.

  8

  Asher was a madman, horrendously distraught over losing the trail. Sebastian had to drive to search for the woman, Asher practically foaming at the mouth. He tortured himself with thoughts of, if he had been a little faster, if he hadn’t been so hard for Sebastian to wake, if he hadn’t missed a turn or two on the way to the boardwalk, if, if, if…

  He was aware that his rage was making Sebastian uncomfortable, but his brother knew best than to try and simmer him down. Even the calmest of dragons, like Asher and Sebastian, had tempers, and any sort of interference would turn a situation into a bloodbath. Asher punched at the dashboard of the rental, leaving fist-sized dents in the plastic. All Sebastian did in response was turn up the radio. Asher surprisingly didn’t snap at him, just blurted out a few curse words before falling back into the cushioning of his seat.

  “She was so close,” he groaned, his hand covering his face.

  “I know,” Sebastian calmly stated.

  “She’s real, and I almost had her.”

  “I know, but stop beating yourself up over it. The same thing happened to Collin and Carter, you know? What matters is that she was spotted again and cannot be far.”

  Asher clenched his teeth. While he logically knew that his brother was right, he couldn’t let go of the fact that everything could be coming to a close right then if he had done X, Y, and Z. The scent had been so strong at one point that she had to have been just a few feet away from him. Yet the place had been overflowing with people, so he couldn’t have known which woman to grab. She had to have known they were there somehow; she had to have known they were looking for her. Of course she did. If she had been with a dragon and known it, then she likely also knew what a big deal this would be.

  Asher couldn’t imagine being in her shoes. Although he was sympathizing with the stranger, he was growing angry with her, too. She was on the run from them, and that meant she was deliberately keeping this secret from the Kingdom, not wanting anyone to know. How selfish could a person be? So she was allowed to have a child, but no one else could? Asher’s desire to find the woman grew more and more.

  He and Sebastian drove around for hours with the windows down, trying their damnedest to pick up a trail. The more they drove, however, the more irritable Asher became, despite his temper deflating. Once the sky grew dark and all the shops were closing, the crowds dispersing, Sebastian stated they might as well crash for the night. There was no use in driving around and making themselves that much crazier.

  “If we stop, she could get further away,” Asher muttered.

  “Without even knowing what direction she was going in, we don’t even know if we would get closer. Besides, she is probably stopping for the night, too. She is pregnant, after all.”

  It made sense, but it didn’t sit well with Asher. If this woman was going to be stopped, wouldn’t that be the prime time to be out looking for her? Asher didn’t protest further, knowing that Sebastian wasn’t going to have it, and he was the one driving. They checked into a hotel and carried their bags upstairs. Sebastian instantly flopped down onto one of the beds and let out a long sigh of relief. Asher, on the other hand, was too riled up to even sit. He paced about the room as casually as he could, which wasn’t very much. He was trying to do the math in his head of how far the woman could have gotten within the radius of the boardwalk, seeing as how she would have had to drive at least within the speed limit to eliminate the risk of getting pulled over.

  She also would have had to be within range of one of the four groups they had formed. There were so many possibilities, though. They had ridden through towns in case she had stopped to try and hide. What if she had just stayed on the highway and gone straight through the state? No, no, that didn’t seem right to Asher. His intuition was telling him she had stopped somewhere near, either to rest or to hide.

  “Please lie down, Ash,” Sebastian called, his voice muffled from the pillow he was faceplanted in. “You’re not going to be of any use tomorrow if you stay up all night festering.”

  Yeah, he wasn’t going to lie down. Not yet. “I’m too wired right now. I’m gonna… I’m gonna go down to the hotel bar and grab a drink to calm down,” Asher spoke as he discretely fished the keys out of the side of Sebastian’s bag.

  “Alright, but don’t drink too much.”

  “I know.�
� With that, Asher turned on his heel and walked out of the hotel room. Even though he loved his brother, he felt like he could breathe a little better being on his own for a little while. To have time to think without feeling like he needed to hold it all in or calm down as his brother wanted.

  Making his way down to the parking garage, he climbed into the driver’s seat without even realizing what he was doing. Asher stared down at the steering wheel. Where would he even go? Sebastian was right, they had no idea where the woman could be, and driving around all night would just exhaust him and probably frustrate him even more. Still, he didn’t get out of the car. Leaning his forehead against the steering wheel, he breathed in and out. He prayed for a moment of clarity, for just a minute to feel like himself. He hadn’t in so long that it was hard to remember what it was like.

  Asher had always been more emotional than his brothers, but not emotionally unhinged. Not so… all over the place. He tapped his head lightly against the vinyl, groaning outwardly. If he could just clear his head of this woman, of Olive, of the pressure from his father, then maybe, just maybe, he could have enough foresight to find a solution to the entire thing.

  Asher focused on his breathing, drawing air in and out rhythmically, trying to make it as even as possible. He did his best to focus on nothing, listening only to the sounds of his breaths and the ambient noise of the parking garage. There were still parts of his true self within him. They may be fragmented and scattered, but they were there. Little by little, he let go of the frustration, anger, and heartache; they wouldn’t be gone forever, only for the time being. His chest and head emptied of all of it as he meditated. Despite feeling the need to get away from his brother, Sebastian had been the one to teach him the healing art of meditating, long ago.