The Shifter's Mate (Paranormal Pleasures) by Nadia Nightside Read Free Book Online

you the whole story...I don’t know it. I can only tell you what I know.”
    “Okay,” said Lauren.
    “This...this transformation?” said Caleb. “How I become that thing, that werewolf thing? I don’t know how it started. Just one day, all of a sudden, there I was. Big werewolf guy. I wasn’t bitten or cursed, I just...I don’t know. I wasn’t one day, and the next I was. My sister Felicia, she knows about this sort of thing. This, I don’t know what to call it. This occult sort of stuff. I asked her, and she got together with her friends...there’s a lot of me out there. Werewolves. But, they’re not all like me. Mine is different.
    “That transformation you saw? I didn’t believe it was happening at first, this time around. I got into a lot of trouble at the end of school...almost ruined some people's lives. Luckily, I was able to fix it, Felicia and I. But I thought it was done, now. Otherwise I would have said something. It was supposed to kill me,” he said. “The next time I turned, I was supposed to die. That’s what Felicia said, what all the other people said. I’m uncontrollable, they said. The others, the other werewolves...they know how to manage it. But my inner-wolf, or whatever you want to call it? It burns too brightly—it eats up my whole life force, they said. There was no way I’d survive the next transformation. So...these tattoos? They were there to contain me. To make sure that I never turned again. But something here made me regress...and something...you, I mean.” He took Lauren’s hand. “You made me whole again. You saved me, Lauren.”
    Lauren’s face swelled with gratitude, that she could be the one to make him better. Maryse again tried to fight down that stab of jealousy.
    “But that was...it was you, who took Heather?” Maryse asked.
    “Not me. I mean, yes and no. I don’t know. I did, but I didn’t want to. I never want to. It just...happens. The first thing I remember is seeing Lauren again. That must have been enough to revert me. But this time...I guess I had to make love to you.”
    “It was a little more intense than making love,” Lauren said with a chuckle.
    “What made you change, though, if you weren't supposed to change?”
    Caleb's face clouded over. “I'm not sure. I'm really not. We'd have to ask Felicia, maybe.” He shook his head. “I don’t get it, though. The other girls, when they were around me...they...”
    Lauren remembered now how Heather was so happy to do anything Caleb suggested.
    “They became your slaves.”
    He nodded, embarrassed. “Pretty much.”
    “And I’m not.”
    “Yes. You turned me back. You’re not affected. You’re...special, Lauren. Chosen, by something.”
    “Chosen?” Lauren laughed. “I don’t think so.”
    “I don’t know everything about it. I won’t pretend to. These powers are ancient. But you are...you’re something I haven’t even heard of, if you can resist what I've got. And that worries me, a lot.”
    “Why?”
    “Because up until I showed up, for those friends I told you about? I was something most of them had never heard of either.”
    “Your sister,” said Maryse. “She knows a lot about all of this sort of thing?”
    “Yes. She’s been studying for years. Since she was younger than us.”
    “I’d like to speak with her, then.”
    Caleb looked confused. “Why?”
    “Because I’m involved, now. And now that I know this sort of thing exists...I want some protection. I want assurances.”
    I want power , Maryse thought. And as much as I can possibly get my hands on .
    Caleb shrugged. “That’s fair.”
    “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” said Lauren. “I'm exhausted. Can we just...would you hold me? Both of you? And we can settle it in the morning?”
    And so they settled in together with each other on the floor, and ended the night in one another’s arms.
    * * * * *
    L auren woke up on the floor of the complex.
    Her dreams had been indistinct. Runes floating