Shift Happens

By H. Elizabeth Dunn

With Trey taken from her and the challenges for control over the enclave rising, Valerie Hannigan is fighting for her life, her love, and her family in more ways than she believed could exist.

Though surrounded by friends and family, Valerie is isolated by her own pain of loss, fears for the future, and a secret she can’t hide forever.

Join Valerie on this dark and dangerous journey as she carves out her place in the world she has chosen to be a part of and does whatever it takes to bring the love of her life back.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984524614

H. Elizabeth Dunn

H. Elizabeth Dunn was born and raised in California, but military service gave her a world view and many, many years in the Midwest. Now, back in SoCal, she spends her time writing, driving for Uber and trying to figure out how to get her stuff back from Ohio.

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Copyright © 2018 by H. Elizabeth Dunn.

Library of Congress Control Number:              2018905073

ISBN:                  Hardcover                     978-1-9845-2463-8

                            Softcover                       978-1-9845-2462-1

                            eBook                            978-1-9845-2461-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 04/25/2018

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A huge thank you to Kathy, once again for reading through my work and making it so much less messy.

She, also was a deciding factor in getting this book published on the heels of When the Shift Hits the Fan. I don’t like cliffhangers any more than her, and that was what my last book was.

I, also want to thank the waitstaff at Denny’s in Tomah, WI. I have camped out and worked on my books endlessly there and appreciate the fact that they let me.

To my brother, Tim: Dude, I swear I’ll be home soon. It may not be for more than a week or two, but I will come home.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1     Another Shower Alone

Chapter 2     It Was The Plane Sex!

Chapter 3     I Didn’t Miss The Sex … Wait.

Chapter 4     I Like My Unprofessional Creatures.

Chapter 5     You Are So Mean.

Chapter 6     You Look Like Hell.

Chapter 7     I Didn’t Kill You.

Chapter 8     You Do Owe Me A Child.

Chapter 9     I Love You. I Need You. Please, Find Me.

Chapter 10   Funny, Funny Mate.

Chapter 11   Are You Purring?

Chapter 12   Can I Kill Him Now?

Chapter 13   Marc’s Face Spoke Of A Groin Shot.

Chapter 14   His Response Was A Not-So-Happy Face.

Chapter 15   Rawr!

CHAPTER ONE

Another Shower Alone

I was dying, but then again, that was nothing new. I was getting really good at skating along that thin line between life and death and had even dipped my toes into the darkness once. My mother waited for me on the other side. There was no doubt in my mind because I’d seen her there. I didn’t fear death. I just didn’t want to do it right now. Things to do, places to go—heifers to beat the crap out of.

This specific heifer was the one with her claw piercing my chest and leaning in to crush me slowly under the weight of her magnificent dragon form. The bitch wanted my mate, and it looked like she was going to get me out of her way.

I’d thought about killing her a time or two, or eight, and it mostly involved a chipper shredder, but she acted first. Now my beautiful dragon-shifting mate had been overpowered by two of his dragon kin, forced into his human form, and the bitch Tiamat had left bits of her magic in me from a thwarted attack. She accessed her magic, and I went down, feeling as if I were being torn to pieces from the inside. I guess that wasn’t good enough. Now she’s going after the outside, and I could do nothing.

I will hunt you down and kill you! Trey screamed. There is nowhere you will be able to hide that I will not find you!

Tiamat’s weight eased as she shifted into her physical form—her ridiculously beautiful physical form—and her claw became a delicate foot that now rested on my chest.

You will thank me, TreTanau, she assured him sweetly. You will finally know freedom without her influence confusing your thoughts.

No! he shouted with as much panic as authority. What will it take for you to be convinced that I am hers by no other means than our love?

Ugh, she sighed with complete disgust. Killing her would be very definitive.

Damn it, Tiamat! Trey roared and strained against the hold of the dragons in human form on either side of him. You are wrong, and when it’s too late, nothing will save you!

Come back to our realm, she offered after an uncomfortable pause. Six months away from her and with your own kind would convince even me that I’ve made an error.

Trey fisted his hands, anguish washing his rugged features as the two dragons held on even more tightly. There was a third, but he had been used as a chew toy by my guard after I downed him. I didn’t know if he were alive or not. I didn’t care.

I’ll go, he said, and the defeat and anger in his voice mixed in heartbreaking balance. Six months, not a day more. You hand me over to the Draco Corpus Legum, and I won’t fight you on this.

The Corpus Legum? Tiamat repeated in deep confusion. Why?

I trust them sight unseen, Trey snarled, over you.

Fine, she conceded with disgust and walked over my useless body. Let’s go.

Marc, Trey growled. Get her to her home. Take care of her for me.

Of course, Beast Master, Marc, my ex-boyfriend and now captain of my guard, said as he moved to my body.

No! No! My mate was leaving me! In my head, I understood he was saving my life, but my heart broke as I screamed silently, trapped within my broken body.

Trey shifted into his fire dragon. Scales of reds and oranges glinted in the faint moon’s light as the remaining dragons shifted and rose into the dark sky.

***

I awoke screaming. Desolation swamping me as my voice echoed off the walls of the suite Trey and I had shared and I now occupied alone.

Nightmares were a constant companion. Even a nap could be enough for my fears to rise and swarm me as I slept.

I hadn’t been at all conscious after Tiamat had driven her claw through my chest, but I’d gotten a detailed accounting of what had happened, and my mind just ran with it.

I did count myself lucky that I never dreamed of Trey leaving happily with Tiamat.

Valerie? Marc’s voice broke through the emotional pain as he let himself in and came to my side. Wake up.

I’m awake, I said and sat up in my big empty bed. I’d finally changed the sheets after a month but left Trey’s pillowcase untouched. The scent comforted me as the long wait continued. I’m fine.

He sighed, knowing full well that I was lying.

Can I get you anything? he asked softly. I just shook my head and dropped my gaze to my lap. Try to get some more sleep, he suggested kindly. You need your rest.

I nodded and buried myself under the covers once more and curled up around the farthest point I could reach on my mating bond with Trey. Maybe I’d get some rest, maybe not, but either way, I was going to be fighting for my life later today.

I had done my best to keep my emotions in check. I’d felt Trey’s rage when I first became conscious. Now it was mostly sorrow and anger. It was the same with me. I missed my mate terribly, and my showers were quiet and lonely.

Every morning, I made another mark on the shower wall. Six months was a long time to be without him, but he had made an agreement, and I would stick to it.

Focusing on the tenuous connection Trey and I still had was keeping me sane … ish. It was now my responsibility to run the Enclave. Approving big expenditures, sitting with the judicial council and hearing cases four days every week, and then letting everybody do their jobs.

One of my personal guard ghosted through my day with me, which I found odd. I’d fired them.

Not because they couldn’t do the job—no, they had nearly killed one of the dragons who’d attacked us—but because Red had been killed trying to defend us along with Simon, who had been killed because he just happened to have been assigned driver duty.

Everybody had taken the deaths hard, especially Mac. He and Red had a friendship that went back decades.

I could barely walk the day I’d attended Red and Simon’s funerary rites. The pyres burned bright and high as my tears fell, and I worked hard not to lose what little dinner I’d managed to eat.

I challenge Valerie Hannagan for the right to rule the Enclave, Daniel said loud enough for everyone to hear. We need an alpha in charge.

I saw a lot of eye-rolling as Daniel spoke. Challenging the alpha during a funeral seemed to be frowned upon. I agreed.

I have never wanted to kill anybody in the Enclave, I whispered as I turned to Marc, and he steadied me, until now.

Just as I got ready to shake off Marc’s hold, a clear voice rang out in the darkness.

A challenge has been issued, she said. The challenged has three days to accept or step down. The challenge must be completed within four days.

I had four days to finish healing and then fight a werewolf who wanted power and thought he had a chance to take it.

You’ll have my answer in three days, I told him coolly. The look on his face was murderous, not toward me but the woman who stepped forward and gave me the reprieve.

With Trey gone, the scum was rising. As the alpha’s mate, it was my duty to fight for his position, to hold it for his return. There had been fighting within some of the houses of weres and shifters, and those who came out on top challenged me for the right to rule as the beast master. There were others waiting in the wings. Daniel was the first and probably the sacrificial lamb. He was a bully and did better in groups than on his own in most occasions. I had a feeling how I fought him was going to be scrutinized by those looking to take a shot at me.

I was surprised there hadn’t been more. I had no access to my magic and was relying on my vampire nature and training to get through.

My aunts had the part of me that my magic ran through completely bound. Tiamat’s magic had shredded it. My magic leaked through the rips and tears painfully. They assured me I would heal, but it would take months, and they couldn’t tell me how many.

I could think of these challenges as a blessing. I was angry and feeling utterly impotent. It was a fine thing to have a willing asshole in need of a good beating. So far, there had been two. The were-wolverine later today would be number three.

I tossed and turned, burying my face as deeply as I could in Trey’s pillow, pulling in his scent and trying to convince myself that he would be back in the spring and everything would be okay.

Spring! Fucking! Spring!

We were going to miss our first Yule together. I had been looking forward to the longest night of the year being spent in bed with him. The longest night and the promise of life as the sun returns to its power. He had already picked out a Yule gift for me, and I was looking forward to wearing it so he could do unspeakably wonderful things to me, such as strip me out of it or not. Either way, it was going to be fun. Or would have been.

Our first Valentine’s Day, or as I had heard it, referred to as Singles Awareness Day. It was a good old pagan celebration, but Catholics had co-opted it. I had been looking forward to yet another excuse to spend the day in bed with Trey.

The spring equinox. The time when life takes hold. I would be different by then, very different. How could I not? When there are people actively attempting to kill you in a bid for power, it leaves a mark even if there aren’t any scars. I wasn’t going to think about the other inevitable changes, not until I had to.

I wasn’t going to get any more sleep, not now. I grabbed something to eat out of our fridge, lingering over the artwork that graced its door. Trey had drawn a self-portrait and left it for me one morning. I couldn’t have done better. The man knew how to wield a Crayola. My eyes stung as I swore a blue streak and headed to the bathroom.

Another shower alone.

If he gets you on the ground, Terrence began when he met me in Trey’s office. He was the captain of the Enclave guard and a fine mountain lion shifter. A good man who followed the rules. You’re done.

I had been in Trey’s office for a couple hours. Marc was in his quarters for the day, and Cujo, Marc’s second-in-command, was just outside the door. Terrence had come in to brief me on my upcoming fight with a freaking were-wolverine.

I know, I added. They are diggers. Their natural position is to the ground. He’ll disembowel me if I’m not careful.

Yes, but it gives you a slight advantage, he told me, leaning in intently. Even in his fighter’s form, he leans forward. From above or behind, he is more vulnerable.

I nodded and pulled the request for funds file from the desk drawer. It wasn’t full, but I needed to go through it and keep it not full. I didn’t want a mountain of work awaiting Trey when he came back.

With a deep breath, I grabbed a couple crackers from the box I brought with me. The low levels of nausea were annoying.

You look tired, Valerie, Terrence noted and rightly so, and tell me you are eating more than crackers. You look like you are losing weight.

I promise I’m eating, I told him and stifled a smirk. He had no idea. Nobody did. It’s just nerves, and I will nap before the fight.

If I could stop this, he said, rising from his seat and leaning over the desk toward me, I would.

I know, I assured him as I met his worried gaze. Alpha’s got to defend her position. Or in my case, the position of her mate. Trey would be livid when he got back, and he was coming back.

Terrence nodded and left me to the day-to-day running of several hundred weres and shifters, even the ones who wanted me dead.

I had meetings with the head accountant and the senior legal consultant for Enclave law, the one who’d spoken up and saved my ass at the funerary rites.

Meagan was an adorable woman whom you would expect to shift into a kitten. She wore pastels and skirts, bows in her hair, and bright, flirtatious jewelry. With lustrous brown hair framing her heart-shaped face and large gold/brown eyes that were filled with curiosity, she made you smile even when you didn’t particularly want to. She was a tiger shifter, and I was finding that there was a larger population of them than I’d originally thought. Whether shifter or were-tiger, they didn’t discriminate. They all stuck together as tigers. Best part was that they tended to like me. I’d been instrumental in saving one of their own and nearly died in doing so.

She was keeping me abreast of the laws that pertained to my situation or whatever decision I had to make in Trey’s absence.

There are many who are impressed with the fact you didn’t kill Daniel or Reeve, she told me simply as she handed me the documents I needed to sign in order for a small land purchase to be finalized.

I then pulled the Bastion Ranch Cooperative paperwork from the expenditures file and approved them to be paid for their meat deliveries in November. I wondered if there was space on the Enclave proper to raise chickens. It wasn’t that I was opposed to the funds going to support a shifter-run enterprise, but it could be handy to have livestock on hand, and chickens were easy to deal with. If we had fox shifters, I’d put them in charge just because I thought it was funny.

I’d discuss it with Trey when he got back.

I waved off her comment and focused her on the laws I needed to be aware of when the judicial council met tomorrow.

Obviously, I planned to be there.

People came and went, questions were asked and answered, and the paperwork was caught up on before I choked down as much food as I could handle and took a nap.

I would have cried myself to sleep, which was normal, but I could feel him so much more intensely this afternoon. As if we were focusing on each other at the same time. It gave me a sense of peace enough for blessedly dreamless sleep.

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