To Love a Shifter: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set (132 page)

“Don’t be absurd,” he scolded gently.  “You’re still too young.”

“But I hate it that Angelica knows you
that
way and I don’t.”

He kissed my pouting lips, my nose, my hair, and in a second, he was carrying me in his arms, walking toward the park entrance.

“Lucian,” I nagged.

“You’re still too young.”

“You did it with Angelica.  She’ll always make it seem like I don’t know you as well as she does—”

“Then she’s wrong because you know me where it really counts.”

I had to giggle.  “Lucian, is that
you
?  That was so mushy.”

He muttered something incoherent and distracted me by nuzzling my cheek.

“Wait.”

He stopped the delicious things he was doing with his lips and raised a brow.

“How long do I have to wait?”

“At least till you graduate from college,” he replied after a while.

“That’s too long,” I wailed.

“Don’t be such a baby.  Besides, if you want to worry about something, consider your sister.”

That shut me up.

He groaned.  “I’m sorry.  It was a stupid thing to say.”

“But you’re right.”

“No, I’m not.  I’m a cold, tactless jerk and I’m lucky I have you.  Davie’s all right,” he assured me.  “I suppose you know the Zekan prince is in love with her?”

I nodded.

“He’s a good sort, actually.  Just…misguided.  It’s really too bad he’s Zekan.  I’m certain he’ll keep her from harm, but if you want us to try rescuing her now, we will.”

“No,” I decided after a moment.  “I trust you, Lucian.  If you say it’s better to wait for her to get well then that’s what we’ll do.”  My eyes narrowed.  “But back to what we’re talking about—”

“No negotiations.”  He nuzzled my cheek.

I sighed, told myself I had an eternity to convince him otherwise, to quit complaining, and enjoy Lucian’s newly discovered affectionate side.

###

The Zombie Who Loved Me

Draugar

Draugar come from fallen warriors the Goddess has breathed into life to guard skat, which are the greatest and rarest living treasures of the earth. They are immortal but not impossible to kill and the majority of these warriors originated from Scandinavia, during a time when Vikings ruled the land and sea.

Never talk to strangers.
I’m a nerd. I should have known better. But I’m a sucker for helpless old women. Who knew she’d turn out to be an evil goblin in disguise?

“Is it still far?” I was getting nervous. Tivoli Gardens, with its pretty lights and camera-wielding tourists, was fast becoming a dot in the distance. Imperial Hotel, where I shared a room with the other back-up dancers, was good as gone. Worst of all, I had no idea how to get back.

          Better worry about it later, though. The important thing was to help this poor lady save her kittens.

          “
Alvaws jizr
,” she wheezed, leading me to a darkened alley.

          That translated to
‘almost near
’. It had taken me a bit of time to understand her accented English; if I had my eyes closed, I would’ve mistaken her voice for a car engine.

          “Great!” I tried to keep my voice moderate, knowing how my American accent could grate on Scandinavian ears.

          Peering doubtfully at the menacing shadows moving over the vandalized walls, I asked warily, “Are you sure---”

          “Hurry! I can hear them crying.”

Ooh
. Never came across octogenarian hearing this good. Mine heard zero. “Coming,” I called back. I felt around for the walls, taking baby steps. My glasses – steel-rimmed, broken more times I could count, and a hundred points below my grade – were not enough to give me 20/20 vision at night.

And then she was gone.

“Granny?”

“I’m here,” a voice whispered near my ear. I turned just in time to see Granny’s sweet, wrinkly face morph into a not-so-sweet hook-nosed monster.

What the---         

Then my world exploded in sheer agony, her blow taking me by surprise and sending my eyeglasses to God knew where.

The old lady wasn’t so helpless after all: anyone with an uppercut like that could make Manny Pacquiao see stars. Then again, the old lady wasn’t an old lady in the first place.

I thrashed in her hold, violently. Everything was a blur without my glasses, making me miss more than I hit. But it didn’t matter. All I could think of was my stepmom and how I just could
not
die. She wouldn’t have anyone else if I did.

“Stay still,” Granny Monster growled.

“Piss off---”

Gunshots burst in the night, cutting me off. Before my mind could digest what was happening, Granny Monster suddenly shrieked.

Her hold loosened, followed by the thud of her body as it fell.

I dove to the ground, grimacing in pain as my elbows scraped against the rough surface. I covered my head, keeping myself flat as more rapid gunfire pierced the air. What. The. Heck. Was. Happening?

One second, two, three, five seconds passed. There were sounds of a scuffle, more gunfire, and lots of those growling machinery noise, but miraculously, I was still alive.

I began groping around the snow-coated ground for my glasses. Somewhere around this dark and dreadful alley, my glasses would be on the icy ground, shivering. Poor glasses. Poor me. We were lost without each other.

My hand came into contact with warm dead flesh.
Ugh.
I almost gagged but went on searching. Another obstacle came. Leather. Maybe a shoe---

“Gwargh!” was the best I could manage. You couldn’t do much more when someone had you by the neck and your feet were dangling in the air.

          “Vrrr zrrr brrr!” Just my luck to have Captor #2 not understand I was verbally waving the white flag.

          “Don’t…speak…Danish,” I gasped out.

          His grip tightened. He spewed out more Transformer-like noise and a generous amount of spit.

          “Don’t…speak…German…either.”

          I did my best to score a punch, but it was hard to hit your target when you were 99% blind.

Captor #2 suddenly made a gargling sound and his fingers uncurled its chokehold. A sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I waited for him to dump me on the ground or smash my head  against the floor but instead, I found myself another person’s captive.

Honestly – WHAT THE HECK WAS HAPPENING?

Captor #3 had slimy bumpy skin. I wasn’t exaggerating. He needed to be in the ER of some posh Beverly Hills dermatologist’s clinic, pronto.

His arm fastened around my waist in an iron hold, and I might as well have been in chains. I screamed and bounced as he started to run. Held my breath, too, because Captor #3 stank like rotten vegetables. And by God he felt huge, if his thunderous footsteps were any indication.

          “Please let me go! You’ve got the wrong person!” I had to make them realize that. I was just a lowly, nerdy b-girl on her first time in Denmark – heck, make that my first time outside Florida! I was here to dance back-up for a pop star. My kind didn’t get involved with stuff like this. Wild victory parties and having flings with celebrities, yes. Crazy, violent pseudo-grannies and shootouts, never.

“NO.” His voice was deep and rumbling, sort of like a thunder hinting of a Category 5 typhoon, drowning out the noise of gunfire. I wished it wasn’t so, but I had a very bad feeling all those guns were trained on me and that was why I could feel Captor #3 twisting and turning as we continued to run from…who? Captor #4 to infinity?

I tried getting out of his hold one more time, but it was impossible.
Every
one of my captors seem to be inhumanly strong, darn it. “Let me go!”

“I’m not---”

“Quiet!” His hiss was more like a dragon’s than a snake’s.

“But I’m not---”

“You are Dazzle White---” Captor #3 crouched and swung me down to carry me by the waist at his side as I felt him crawl into some sort of tunnel-like passageway.

“---and I have been awakened to protect you.” He got to his feet and swung me back up over his shoulder.

Fear and relief made me dizzy. Okay, the roller-coaster twists and turns helped, too. The sound of gunfire was fading, and all I could hear was the heavy pounding of my captor’s footsteps. My mind tried to take it all in.

The bad news: my name
was
Dazzle White.

The good news: stinky Captor #3 may turn out to be Rescuer #1.

The gentle rush of a nearby stream and the rustle of leaves woke me up. A city girl by heart, I found the sounds almost unnerving. The only time I heard them was when I had a bucket of popcorn with me.

          “Good morning.”

Dawn was breaking and my eyes slowly adjusted to being able to
see
again. Not much, but seeing just a bit was still better than nothing. Last night’s events flooded into my mind, making me jerk up to a sitting position.

“Are you alright?” It was Captor #3 / Rescuer #1. The voice was familiar. So was the smell.

I faced him, words of assurance brimming on my lips, but it turned into a silent cry of horror.

Oh God.

“Woman?” he –
it
– growled.

“M-morning.” I looked away, pretending to shield my eyes against the sunlight. Unfortunately, with the sun barely visible behind the lavender clouds, it was a totally lame attempt to avoid looking at him. It. The zombie.

Because…that was what it was.

“I know you can see me, woman.” The zombie’s English had a touch of European accent, but his words were surprisingly decipherable.

“J-just a bit.” Which was true, but it was still more than what was good for my empty stomach. I busied myself by studying the surroundings, just so I wouldn’t have to look at him. It was the last days of winter and nature was showing signs of coming back to life. Baby leaves sprouted from the branches of snow-capped trees and birds were chirping faintly from a distance.

I decided to take another look.
I could’ve been imagining things
, I reasoned out and mustered enough courage to peek…only to glance away after a second.

Nope. Still the same. Think bulging eyes, piranha teeth, and pus-oozing skin. Zombie was definitely the first word anyone would think of. But he wasn’t…he couldn’t be that…right?

          “Do not be afraid.”

          “Who? Me? Afraid?” I was normally a
great
liar, but this one was a little out of my league.

          “I had thought you were blind. I would have changed if you were not. Woman---”

         
Yeargh!
I scrambled away, but it was too late.

He had
touched
me. I was
infected
. I was going to be a
zombie
.

          He reached for me again.

          “STOP!” Birds above us furiously flapped away at the trembling force of my shout.

          His hand went behind his back in a flash.

          My stomach churned. God, but he was fast. “How did you become like…
that
?”

          “You have nothing to be afraid of, woman. I was human like you once, before I was chosen to be a Draugar. It is what I am now, what I will always be.”

          I squeezed my eyes shut.
I’m not going to panic. We’ve been together the whole night and he hadn’t even taken a nibble.
That’s a good sign. I’m going to take it as a good sign because I needed all the good signs I could get.

          “So…” I forced myself to look at him. “Are you a zombie?”

          “I do not know this word.” A frown creased his forehead, making him even more hideous.

          I tried not to blanch. “The, uhh, undead?”

          The frown eased. “Ah.”

          I almost sighed in relief. Making a zombie frown was never a good idea.

          “That is just a myth about us.”

          I relaxed even more. “If you’re not a zombie, then maybe you’re sick?” Contagious disease I could handle – well, I could as long as it wasn’t like the one that spread like Rabies in the movie
Quarantine.
“And that’s why you look…sick?” I couldn’t very well say terribly ugly, could I?

          The zombie’s lips cracked into a ghastly smile. “I thank you for your kind words, but I know I look more than sick in this shape.”

          “Umm…” This was ridiculous. Now
I’m
getting embarrassed in front of a zombie?

          “You have nothing to fear from me, woman.”

          “Well---”

          He cut me off. “Enough questions. It will be simpler if I proved it to you. Watch closely, woman.”

          “I still can’t see clear---
holy freaking cow
!” Somehow, he had grown smaller and thinner and instead of a ten-foot zombie hulk, he now resembled a man.

          He dragged me forward and I yelped in shock. He brought my hands to his face. “
This
is my original form.”

          Skin just like mine. None of those grisly bumps and holes – yes, holes – that I had vaguely seen and actually felt when he was carrying me. I let my fingers drift towards his lips. Soft and curved where it was supposed to curve, no longer cruelly thin and cavernous.
Normal.
I drew back to study him as intently as my impaired eyes would let me, making out fair hair, a hard jaw, bare chest, and…

          I jumped away, face flaming. “You’re
naked
!” And if he was naked now---could he have been naked last night as well? But then – he had been a zombie. Naked zombies didn’t matter. His God-awful looks would make his nudity unnoticeable.

          “I am.” He didn’t sound the least bit embarrassed that he was conversing with me in his birthday suit.

          That wasn’t much of a problem since I felt enough embarrassment for both of us. “You weren’t naked last night!”

          “My old clothes would not last in this form. I’m too big.”

          “That’s not a valid excuse!”

          “I suppose I can look for clothes---if you wish.”

          “Oh, I wish.”

          A sound escaped him, which awfully resembled a laugh.

          My face burned even more. Great. I had just made a zombie – oh wait, a
Draugar
– laugh, whatever a Draugar really was. Just thinking about what it meant – about what he was – made my head spin.

          I could feel his eyes on me and when I looked at him, he said in a sober voice, “It is against my duty to leave you unprotected---”

          “
Duty
?”

          “Did we not already talk about this? I have been sent to protect you.”

          This just kept getting better and better. What the heck did he mean he had a duty to protect me? “Can we talk about that – and everything else – when you’re---” I waved a hand towards him. “---fully clothed?”

          “Or the other way around,” he suggested oh-so-casually.

          My jaw dropped. “You
just
didn’t say…” I was sincerely at a loss. A zombie was coming on to me? I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Great. Just great. The first guy to come on to me, and he had to be a zombie. And yeaaaah, I watched
Warm Bodies
, too. But no. Just…no, no, no.

          “It was a joke, woman.”

          I managed a weak smile. “Right. Ha-ha. Very funny.”

          He sighed. “I know you do not see me properly, woman, but I am truly not as disgusting as you think I am. I have
changed
. There is no reason you should still feel ill at ease with me. I cannot protect you properly if you are not comfortable in my presence.”

          “No more flirting and I’ll try being
comfortable
,” I bargained. The thought of a zombie crushing on me, even a nice one like this guy here, was just too weird.

          “It will be as you say, woman.”

          Guilt nipped my conscience because he sounded cold. “It’s just that I p-prefer to date within my own species,” I stammered. “You’d be better off with a nice female zombie, err, Draugar, don’t you think?”

          “I have already given you my word, woman. I understand my place.” He rose to his feet and I hastily looked away because that would have put me on eye level at his zombie…thing.

          “Before I leave you, woman, it is important for you to fully understand your situation. You are still not safe even though we are alone in these woods. Goblins---”

          “Goblins?” I said faintly, squeezing my eyes shut once again.

          WHAT. THE. HECK. WAS. HAPPENING?

          “Please tell me I heard you wrong,” I muttered, eyes still closed.

          “These goblins are not to be underestimated.”

          I squeezed my eyes more tightly shut, counting slowly to ten. This technique got me through everything. When my parents divorced, when they died, when my stepmom was confined, when we lost our house---

          Basically, it was the only therapy I could afford for all the shitty things in my life.

         
…eight, nine, ten.

         
I opened my eyes.

         
“Are you all right, woman?”

          I gave him a thumbs up. “Perfect. You’re a Draugar and goblins are after me. Got it in one.”

          “I don’t think I should leave you when you are feeling this way---”

          Most people would have been fooled by my tone, but zombies appeared to be more intuitive. I said more firmly, “You don’t have to worry about me.” The thought of my stepmother in the hospital suddenly entered my mind, but I pushed it away. I
would
get through this and I
would
make my way back to her. 

“You must not let your guard down, woman. These goblins can also appear in human form, such as the old woman---”

          “That old lady was a
goblin
?” I was never, ever going to trust anyone above sixty. Ever.

          “Yes.” He exhaled impatiently. “Although goblins do not come out in daylight, they are sure to have human minions and those may still be looking for you. I need you to stay here so I can find you easily if there’s trouble.”   

          “I’m not even going to move an inch,” I promised.