Shapeshifted
Authors: Cassie Alexander
Tags: #Fantasy, #Romance, #Paranormal, #Fiction, #Urban
| Shapeshifted | |
| An Edie Spence Novel [3] | |
| Cassie Alexander | |
| St. Martin's (2013) | |
| Rating: | **** |
| Tags: | Fantasy, Romance, Paranormal, Fiction, Urban |
SHAPESHIFTED
Cassie Alexander
Nurse Edie Spence is once again called upon to save a life…and this time, it’s personal. Can her new community of zombies, vampires, and shapeshifters come to her rescue when she needs them most?
When Edie was fired from her paranormal nursing job at County Hospital, her whole world came crashing down. Now she’s is once again shaken to her core. Her mother is deathly ill and there’s only one thing that will save her: vampire blood. But with the paranormal community shunning Edie, where can she obtain it…without losing her own life in the process?
SHAPESHIFTED
Edie hopes to procure it at her new job at the clinic across town, where the forces of evil loom large. Vampire gang wars are rampant. Old underground enemies are rising to the surface. And Edie’s zombie ex-boyfriend has arrived at the scene—but is he the same man he used to be? And what should she make of the enigmatic doctor with whom she shares an unexpected connection? She’ll have to figure it out soon, because all hell is about to break loose—literally—and time is running out…
From Cassie Alexander comes the third book in the
Edie Spence
series.
Praise for the Edie Spence series
"Dark and clever full moon insanity that will get into your blood, crawl under your skin and haunt your dreams."
—
Sherrilyn Kenyon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the
Dark Hunter
series
“The best debut I've read all year.
Nightshifted
is simply amazing!”
—
Kat Richardson, bestselling author of the
Greywalker
series
"Edie Spence has a distinctive, appealing and no-nonsense style that you won’t quickly forget. Add to that a paranormal population that needs medical care for some very odd reasons, and you have a winner of a debut novel." --Kate Elliott, author of the
Cold Magic
series
"Fresh, exciting, dark, and sexy, Nightshifted is excellent urban fantasy that grabs you by the throat and pulls you along for a wild ride. Cassie Alexander is an author to watch!" --Diana Rowland, author of
Mark of The Demon
“
There's so much paranormal stuff out there that I often find myself longing for some true urban fantasy.
Nightshifted
is the one I was starving for. It's gritty and dark, its heroine jaded and tough, and both of them are studded with moments of humor and human frailty.” –
Angieville.com
Nurse Edie Spence is once again called upon to save a life…and this time, it’s personal. Can her new community of zombies, vampires, and shapeshifters come to her rescue when she needs them most?
When Edie was fired from her paranormal nursing job at County Hospital, her whole world came crashing down. Now she is once again shaken to her core. Her mother is deathly ill and there’s only one thing that will save her: vampire blood. But with the paranormal community shunning Edie, where can she find it…without losing her own life in the process?
SHAPESHIFTED
Edie hopes to procure it at her new job at the clinic across town, where the forces of evil loom large. Vampire gang wars are rampant. Old underground enemies are rising to the surface. And Edie’s zombie ex-boyfriend has arrived at the scene—but is he the same man he used to be? And what should she make of the enigmatic doctor with whom she shares an unexpected connection? She’ll have to figure it out soon, because all hell is about to break loose—literally—and time is running out…
“Like a dark and twisted version of
Grey’s Anatomy
, I was constantly on edge to see what was going to happen next.” —
All Things Urban Fantasy
The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way.
Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at:
us.macmillanusa.com/piracy
.
To everyone who helped make the
Affordable Care Act a reality.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank all the usual brilliant suspects—my editor, Rose Hilliard; my agent, Michelle Brower; my incomparable alpha reader, Daniel Starr; for the book you’re holding in your hands. Aleta Rafton, my cover artist, and Laura Jorstad, my copy editor, and their counterparts in other countries translating me. My husband, Paul, for his perpetual support, and Rachel Swirsky and Barry Deutsch again, my late-night writing friends.
I’d also like to thank Jen Coreas and Kelsey Luoma for their Spanish help—although any mistakes that remain are definitely mine!
And my thanks to everyone who’s read about Edie so far, especially to my fellow night-shift employees who e-mail me late at night. I hope I’ve made your shifts go by a little faster.
CONTENTS
Praise for the Edie Spence series by Cassie Alexander
CHAPTER ONE
I’d lost fifteen pounds in six months.
Being a nurse, I’d run through the worst-case scenarios first: cancer, diabetes, TB. When I’d checked my blood sugars and cleared myself of coughs and suspicious lumps, I was left with the much more likely diagnosis of depression. Which was why I was here, even though here was an awkward place to be.
“I can tell you anything, right?” I asked as I sat down across from the psychologist.
“Of course you can, Edie.” She gave me a comforting smile, and adjusted her long skirt over her knees. “What do you feel like talking about today?”
I inhaled and exhaled a few times. There didn’t seem to be any good way to launch into my story.
Hi, I used to work with vampire-exposed humans. Once upon a time, I dated a zombie and a werewolf. So, you know, the usual.
I snorted to myself, and admitted: “I’m not sure where to begin.”
“Anything that feels comfortable for you is fine. Sometimes it takes a few sessions to rev up.”
“Heh.” Six months was a long time—I should be getting over things already. Things like being fired … well, shunned, which felt a lot like firing. Maybe I should have let them wipe my memory when I’d had the chance. Figured I would make the wrong decision. “I’ve just been through a rough time lately.”
“How so?”
“I had this job that I really enjoyed. And I had to leave it. To go elsewhere. Ever since then, my life just feels … plain.” I’d spent the end of winter up to now, July, working the full-time night shift in a sleep apnea clinic, monitoring patients while they slept. It was dull. My skin was paler than ever, and my social life was long gone.
There was a pause while she attempted to wait me out. When I didn’t continue, she filled the gap. “Let’s talk about what you used to enjoy. Maybe we can figure out what you enjoyed about it, and think how you can bring those qualities over into your current situation.”
“Well. My co-workers were good people. And my job was exciting.” I paused, chewing on the inside of my cheek.
“What was exciting about it?” she encouraged me.
I looked at her, at her nice office, nice couch, nice shelves with nice things. It must be
nice
to be a psychologist. I looked back at her. She smiled, and opportunity blossomed inside my heart. We, she and I, had patient–therapist privilege. As a registered nurse, I knew the boundaries. As long as I wasn’t a danger to myself, or to anyone else, she’d have to keep what I told her quiet. It wasn’t like she was going to believe me, besides.
I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. “What do you think about vampires?”
The smile on her face tightened for just a fraction of a second. “It’s more important that I know what you think, not the other way around. So, tell me, Edie. What do you think about vampires?”
“What if I told you they actually existed?” I said. Her smile appeared increasingly strained. “Here, I won’t make it into a question. I’ll tell you what I think. They do exist. There’s quite a few of them out there, actually. They have human servants, some to do their dirty work, and others just to get blood from, like human cattle.”
The words poured out. I knew I wasn’t supposed to say anything, and I knew from looking at her that she didn’t want to hear it—but it felt so good to finally talk about it. The dam had broken. I couldn’t stop now.
“And there’s werewolves too. There were two big packs, but now there’s just one, and they race around on full moon nights in the parks outside of town, and then there’s also zombies, and I dated this zombie for reals once—I knew he was a zombie going into things, and I still dated him. You know how I knew? He told me. I was his nurse one night. At the hospital where I used to work.”
I sank back into the world’s most comfortable couch and pressed a hand to my chest. “I cannot believe I just told you all that. That felt so good.” Looking up, it was clear my confessions hadn’t had the same effect on both of us.
She gave me a tight high smile. “Do the vampires tell you to hurt yourself?”
Not lately!
was the wiseass answer that I wanted to give—but everything I told her was going into a file. If I was going to abuse her listening skills, the least I could do would be to take things seriously, and stay polite. “No. They don’t. They’re not in my head either.”
She tried a different tack. “Do the vampires tell you to hurt other people?”
Not anymore!
“No. They’re not allowed to talk to me anymore.”
I could see her measuring me, weighing my sanity. It was pull up now and laugh, like everything I’d said had been part of a prank or crazy joke, and wasn’t I hilarious? Or sink like a stone—which was the direction I was heading in. It could be said I lacked the gene for self-preservation that most people came installed with.
“There was this one vampire that I was really close to. She kicked me out to protect me, after I destroyed all the extra vampire blood in the county. I saved everyone … but I ruined everything too.”
The therapist inhaled and exhaled deeply. “Edie, at twenty-five you’re a little old to be having a schizophrenic break. But we need to do some reality testing here.”
Reality testing. Like everything that’d happened to me this past winter wasn’t real. I stared at the patterned carpeting beneath my feet. “That’s the thing. It was all real. All of it. But I can’t tell anyone about it. You know what’ll happen to you when I leave this room? If you believe me?”
“No.” Her face looked like she was sucking on an increasingly sour candy. “Why don’t you tell me?”