Shifting Gears

By H. Elizabeth Dunn

Half-vampire, half-witch, Valerie Hannigan thought she had a pretty sweet life. With a full vampire boyfriend and a job (hunting rogue vampires), she had happily walked away from the sorrow that swamped her home life.

But dark magic rose and along with it are years’ worth of lies, a family member in danger, a father she’d never known, and a love she’d never imagined.

Now with her family ensconced in the midst of two hundred fifty shifters and were-creatures, her new mate edging into his fertility cycle, and the hunt for a missing were-tiger underway, Valerie discovers more about herself, her new mate’s painful past, and the new life unfolding before her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984552129

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.

ISBN:                  Softcover                     978-1-9845-5211-2

                            eBook                           978-1-9845-5212-9

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without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 09/18/2018

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Keter! Thank you, so much, for going over the manuscript. Of course, the many hours of your time helping through some of the worst times of my life was really helpful too. May the path of LOL enlighten us both a little more each day.

Vincent, my twisted sister, a second set of eyes is very useful, thank you for your time, your love and all that you have given to me from your heart. The decades have flown by, but your friendship remains.

To all of the Lumen’s Gators and Spirallers that have been and continue to be a part of my life and my process of becoming, a huge thank you for all that you have shared with me.

To Matt Simas, my cover artist from DeviantArt.com, you made the process so easy! Thank you for your patience and talent!

CONTENTS

Chapter 1     Damn, I love the dragon thing.

Chapter 2     No! They Were Doing It!

Chapter 3     We can make it to our suite.

Chapter 4     How Fast Can We Leave?

Chapter 5     Maybe A Guard Was A Good Idea

Chapter 6     Earth Dragon

Chapter 7     You heard me scream?

Chapter 8     Good Manners Don’t Cost Nothin’. Do They?

Chapter 9     Want your lips back?

Chapter 10   It Was Hell

Chapter 11   You’re thinking too hard,

Chapter 12   Cool! My Mom Was Here

Chapter 13   This man had the most amazing aim!

Chapter 14   Buzzkill Marc

Chapter 15   ‘He punched you in the nose.’

Chapter 16   Ack!

Chapter 17   Damn, stubborn dragon!

Chapter 18   Just thinking. Always dangerous,

CHAPTER 1

Damn, I love the dragon thing.

I awoke with a jerk, but seeing as I crawled in bed with him last night, I really shouldn’t be surprised.

Trey and I had been mated for a week now, and he was snippy, bitchy and, occasionally, downright unpleasant. Okay, he really wasn’t a jerk. Trey, being The Beast Master of the Southwest Region of North America, has many reasons to get snippy, bitchy and downright unpleasant. With nearly 250 were-animals and shape shifters to govern, he had managed to find himself a mate in a mouthy, trouble making, witch/vampire half breed. That would be me.

I had saved the local were-animal and shifter population from enslavement and/or annihilation so it made me fairly popular among his people.

Well, most of his people.

Some weren’t happy that I was, in fact, a witch. Their last one had screwed them over, so there were a few who weren’t big fans of witches. Especially the relatives of the dead. There were still a few more questions than answers around Gabrielle, but she had been executed and I wasn’t going to get answers from her. I did not do necromancy. The dead needed to stay dead as far as I was concerned. Well, that is except for vampires, but zombies and ghouls really freaked me out.

Being of vampire parentage I needed to be okay with some of the undead stuff. Unfortunately, there were a few in the Enclave that had a hard time with the fact that I had a tiny bit of vampire blood in me.

Okay, more than a tiny bit, but I could pass as human right down to taking long walks on a sun soaked beach and eating a good steak with all the trimmings.

Anyway, I did jerk awake from a nightmare. I’d been having the same basic dream of being torn in two since childhood. I was of two natures so I wasn’t going to read too much more into it. The dream came and went. I’d have this dream nightly for weeks at a time, and then nothing for months on end. I wasn’t Freud, but it was more than just annoying.

Trey was still sleeping as I rose with the lightening of the skies.

Yup. A vampire, up with sun.

I slowly untangled myself from arms and legs that weren’t my own and headed for the shower. Trey had a habit of entwining himself with me at night, as well as trying to pin me during sex.

His first attempt at mating ended with him nearly losing his life. Apparently, when dragons mate it’s a life and death struggle.

Not being a dragon I really didn’t understand it, but there was that one time I did actually try to kill him and I don’t think he had really let go of that.

What can I say? He had scared the shit out of me.

Snippy, bitchy, occasionally unpleasant shape-shifting dragon that he is. I loved him though, and someday I’d actually tell him.

His dirty blonde hair covered most of his face as he lay on his side. But, I could see the relaxation in every muscle as he lay there. He was a beautiful man in my eyes. Okay, in most people’s eyes. Lean and muscled, tan and powerful, and he was mine. Beyond being fabulous eye candy he was kind and gentle . . . ish. Some of our bed time could have been lethal for most, but it just rocked my world on so many levels.

I headed to the shower before the scent of my arousal woke him.

Jets of hot water caressed me, and a cracked tile in the wall caught my attention. A smile curved my lips as I shampooed my hair. Trey and I had cracked quite a few tiles in the last week. Most of them in the 87+ hours that constituted the time our mating took to conclude. How long we took for our mating had been noted. As well as how many meals we took, and how many tiles we cracked.

Those in the Enclave had entirely too much time on their hands and enjoyed betting on just about anything.

They were a disturbing lot, but I liked them.

It was strange that the Enclave, being only an hour and a half from Las Vegas, wasn’t a ghost town most of the time. I guess the gambling out there wasn’t as much fun as out here in the middle of the desert and away from the bright lights of that city.

Eventually, I’d replace the cracked tiles myself and create a whole new betting pool. Right now, I had four aunts, a detailed seeing spell and an ex—boyfriend to deal with.

Marc, the ex, is a full blooded vampire. I had loved him. He was my first. I mean first everything not just vampire. He took my innocence in many ways, and then broke my heart when I found out he’d been assigned to me by the father I’d never known.

Clan Master Erick Olafson had sired Marc and was my biological father. And now, for some reason, Erick gifted Marc to me as a ‘so, you’re mated to a dragon shifter’ present.

I would have been happy to have turned Marc loose to have a nice life and don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out, but it didn’t work that way.

Marc no longer had the protection of a clan and as a former rogue hunter his life expectancy would drop to nothing without me claiming him as my property.

I leaned against the tiles, some of the ones we hadn’t cracked, and let the hot water rinse the soap from my hair. Goddess it felt good.

I was tired. Even though I’d had a full night’s sleep and a couple of hours of loving from my mate, I was just plain worn out.

I had three of my aunts here who had made the trek from Arizona, where they had raised me, to Nevada, where the Enclave was. They were here to support my fourth aunt, Maggie, who may or may not be executed for crimes against the paranormal communities.

They were a handful. Every last one of them, and I hadn’t seen them in years.

My family.

Crazy in their own special ways.

I felt Trey before he spoke. His energy had begun to tickle my senses with his proximity. It had started slowly and continued to build. A gentle wash of an energy that was unique to the dragon-shifting man I loved. At this point I could feel him at 10 feet, 20 if I were paying attention. This morning I was, so he didn’t completely blind-side me.

Are you going to use up all the hot water? His voice was rich, deep and gravelly. It did things to my insides. Like turn them to liquid.

Trey’s an amazing lover. He’s also, thoughtful and understanding when he’s not messing with me. He’s all of those things even when he is messing with me, too, but giving him some grief every now and again keeps his ego in check.

It’s a flash heater, Trey, I said leaving my head under the hot spray and simply continuing to enjoy it. It’s not going to run out. Part of me hoped he would sleep until I got out, but the rest of me? The man was six and a half feet of well-muscled, smokin’ hot, sensuality. And, he was all mine.

He gently grasped my waist and turned me to his warm, hard body. I lifted my head up; the water and his fingers pushing my hair out of my face while my body felt every second of being ready to take in my mate.

My mate.

I was still getting used to the idea that I was anybody’s mate, much less The Beast Master of the area.

I don’t like it when I wake up alone, Valerie. He dipped down and his lips took mine in a slow, passionate kiss. If my insides hadn’t already turned to liquid his kiss would have done it.

Is that a dragon thing? I asked as he lift me against the shower wall and worked his length into my body. Damn, I love the dragon thing.

I guess if I waited long enough we could just replace all of the tiles at once. A couple more cracked as he worked me into blinding, physical pleasure. Sometimes I truly wondered how my life had managed to change so fast, but at times like this, I just didn’t care.

Breakfast was waiting in the adjoining suite. It had originally been the designated ‘mate’ suite. It was the separate suite that would house Trey’s mate, should he find one and she not kill him.

I called it the ‘flavor of the week suite’, until he told me that it had never been occupied. Ever. Until me.

Then he decided that he didn’t like separate suites, even though it was a dragon thing.

Whatever.

I still didn’t have all the answers. Like what my job description was as his mate, besides regular, mind-blowing sex with a 900 year old dragon shifter. Or, my job description as the Enclave’s resident witch.

Are you going to train with the guard today? Trey didn’t really like me training with them. It involved me being in physical contact with them, and them hurting me on a regular basis.

I was getting better with my fighting skills and I only hoped that I would be good enough when the challenges started coming in. There were more than a few females roaming around the Enclave that didn’t think I was a good choice to stand by their alpha.

The males probably wouldn’t challenge me, but I wouldn’t put a covert attack past the worst of them. I didn’t think there were many of that ilk in the Enclave, but I kept my eyes and ears open.

Of course. If my day didn’t start with a good beating then I wouldn’t know how to act. Trey is entirely too serious and I do tend to skate injury and accidents regularly so I try to lighten any moment that may cause me damage.

I heard Trey growl. It was low and soft, but he tried very hard to keep it to himself and I really appreciated that.

What about your aunts? he asked as he began to load his plate with an obscene amount of food.

The investigation is still moving forward, I told him and began to pick food off of his plate. He smiled. There was more than enough food to feed a family of four on the table, but it looked so much better coming from his plate. It also let him know that I was his.

Not as if he didn’t already know that, but this was different, subtle and soothing to the dragon within him. Yeah, the dragon that still thought I was going to try to kill him, you know, again. I’m going to see Molly after practice. They should be up by then. I think Molly and Angeline hit the casinos last night.

I didn’t hear of her checking out a vehicle, Trey commented. The movement of my aunts in his Enclave really was his business and I couldn’t begrudge him wanting to keep a close eye on my family.

They took my bike. My little Kawasaki. Both my aunts were in their 50’s, Molly closer to 60, but they were showing no signs of slowing down. The Enclave was in trouble. I had warned Trey when I first knew they were on their way. I don’t think he really believed me, until now.

Molly and Angeline had already been in two drunken brawls, which ended with a werewolf running in fear, and Angeline in bed with two shifters at the same time. Molly had disappeared for two days and came back only to sleep a solid twenty-four hours. I don’t even want to know what or who she’d done. Those incidences made them that much more popular around here and opened up a whole new world of betting opportunities in the Enclave.

Molly had married once, but she claimed the divorce was due to his lack of bedroom interest. I think she just scared the crap out of him with what she was capable of. Or, so I’d heard. And, let me tell you, hearing about some of the things my aunt had done in the bedroom and out was enough to scare me for life.

I thought they were here to support your Aunt Maggie? Trey said as he made an appreciable dent in the breakfast offerings. Other aunts to get into trouble."

I like your aunt, Bridget, he commented.

Of course he liked Bridget, she was the quiet one. She had found her peace and walked a more Zen existence than my other aunts. They were Irish brawlers from way back. Emotional, physical, loved deeply and never held back. I loved those women, and I missed them. My mom was second youngest and died in a car accident six years ago. A witch in a long line of witches and one that hooked up with a vampire. Not just any vampire, but a freakin’ clan master.

I never knew why she ran, but having met him I had a good idea. He was a dick.

She’s the one least likely to incite a riot of any type, I said, popping a piece of bacon in my mouth.

When are you going to do the locator spell for Andy? Trey asked as he fed me a grape. His eyes burned the way they do. Somewhere behind the blue a flame lurks and burns. The dragon makes himself known in ways small and large. The Alpha male was feeding his mate and I knew how much it meant to him deep down in his little dragon heart to do it. Of course, catching his fingers between my teeth and then sucking on them usually prolonged the amount of time it took to eat our breakfast.

I’d end up straddling his lap and forgetting about food for twenty or thirty minutes. Just a quick break to build our appetites back up.

It’s not really about a locator spell as much as a seeing. I had told him about Andy’s brother, Quinn, who had disappeared almost four months ago. I located him in Northern Oregon and could pinpoint his location, but not what was happening to him or with him. A small contingent had quietly gone to check out the area I’d reported, but there was nothing there except stale blood and stale scents.

Andy, a were-tiger who I’d met claws first, had been patiently waiting for me to recover and the mating frenzy between Trey and I to calm down some.

The seeing could take a lot out of me and I might not be available for recreational purposes for a day, give or take. If I dipped into Trey’s energies the working wouldn’t drain me near as much, but if Andy didn’t want Trey there, then he would have to suck it up and carry me back to our suite to sleep it off.

Trey didn’t seem to be able to go more than six hours without finding a secluded area to get me at least partially naked in. So, going an entire day without thoroughly sexing me up had been another reason he was snippy, pissy and unpleasant these days. He knew this was coming.

Crazy aunts in the Enclave. No mate to, uh, mate with. No mate to act as a buffer between him and the crazy aunts in the Enclave. At least, there wasn’t anything trying to kill me, or him, or anybody else in the Enclave.

Always a plus.

Right after lunch, I told him. Will you be available to haul me back to our suite?

Trey frowned.

He really hated it when I treated the aftermath of my magic with such a cavalier attitude, but he was entirely too uptight and needed to get used to the fact that certain things would just trash me. I always recovered and I just wished he’d focus on that.

So, I’d be unconscious and vulnerable for a little while. What could possibly go wrong?

Okay, a lot could go wrong. I mean all kinds of shit can happen when you least expect it. I didn’t expect my boyfriend of five years to have been a plant by my father to train me and keep an eye on me, or to run into a freaking dragon shifter while searching for him and end up being a dragon’s mate.

I hadn’t expected to find one of my aunts at the center of a bunch of witches who were looking to create a supernatural army with a magical virus.

I had trusted my now ex-boyfriend, Marc, with my health, my heart, and my safety for five years. Now, I had trusted him to pack up the house we had rented for the job that brought us to Nevada in the first place and bring it back to the Enclave. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

I still believed that I wasn’t in danger around him, but I needed to be cautious. My father was his sire and he had a much different vision of how my life was supposed to go and it didn’t include me mated to The Beast Master of the Southwest Region of North America.

My trust went only so far with Marc these days. Trey? He would leave him for the sun to fry at the first opportunity. I told him that it would be rude to kill my ex just because he didn’t like him. Besides, if anybody was going to kill him, it would be me and there would be a damn good reason.

I will be there, Trey told me. Like he had a say. There won’t be a reason for you to become that depleted.

Maybe, I said. I hadn’t thought I’d need to continue until he opened his going to explain it to him, because I knew he would have a discussion with Andy and ensure he’d be there. It needed to be Andy’s decision without any pressure.

I have to get moving if I’m going to make practice on time. I rose and promptly found myself in Trey’s lap. He liked me there and I have to admit it was a fine place to be for a variety of reasons, but I had places to go and people to beat up. I’m going to make it on time, Trey. My voice brooked no argument. Damn it! I had to do this. My skills needed work, lots of work, and nothing was going to sway me!

His lips came down on mine as the fire burned in his eyes. Call me swayed. I was 10 minutes late to practice and I promised Trey lunch together. I only hoped to eat enough to get me through the ritual I had coming up this afternoon.

There were forty three guards within the Enclave. Nearly twenty percent of the population secured and protected this place and those within it. And, within those numbers, eighteen were females.

Tamara and Sienna Jenkins were panther shifters and twins to boot. They would often shoulder into each other, sometimes accidently, other times not. It would then escalate into elbowing, shoving and slap fighting. Nobody ever tried to get in between them for fear of losing a limb, and the sisters never did serious damage to each other, mostly ending the fights in a fit of laughter.

They resembled Sean in many ways and I suspected they were related. They had the same flawless mocha skin and amber eyes. Close cropped hair, fit and lean, there was nearly no way to tell the two apart. Tamara had a more polished feel to her. From her movements to couture, there was a certain something that set apart from her sister.

At times their demeanor was as girly as it got; giggling and whispering in each other’s ears, a penchant for flouncy sundresses and behavior more suited to the Los Angeles valley area than anyplace else. However, they protected each other ferociously and fought with a practiced viciousness that occasionally disturbed my sensibilities.

I liked them.

Practice was long, hard and I was ending up with more than just bruises today.

Cynthia, a mountain lion shifter, and not one of my biggest fans, was especially hard on me. I had been teamed with Terrence, Lance and Cynthia to rescue my Aunt Maggie. They were all mountain lion shifters, and Terrence; the captain of Trey’s guard. We got in, got my aunt, got out and none of us died. Still Cynthia had a problem with me.

She was well trained, and did her job effectively.

Today her job was to see if she could actually break me. Terrence had stopped her a couple of times already. I guess my questions as to when I would be challenged were being answered.

If you’re going to coddle her, she’ll never learn, I heard her hiss at Terrence. In a way she was right. Marc had coddled me and that had come as a shock. I got my ass kicked a couple times because of it. I thought my ass kicking skills were a lot better than they actually were. I was stunned to find out that he had been managing the encounters I had been in. He made sure I was never injured too badly. The thought made me angry and sad all at the same time.

But, at the moment my biggest problem was not knowing what would happen if I was challenged and lost the fight. I couldn’t hide behind my mate, and I didn’t want to die.

The best thing I could do was kick in with my vamp skills and try not to bite anybody. Nobody in the Enclave, but Trey and Marc knew that my bite could paralyze and I wanted to keep it that way.

I was still working on letting that part of myself rise and fight. I never thought I had that depth of darkness within me. I was stronger, faster, healed quickly and had a better sense of smell and sight than humans, but not the level that a full blooded vampire had. Until the night I just snapped and it rushed out in a wave of anger, rage and frustration.

I had attacked Trey. His blood had nearly killed me, and I could have killed him as well. We made love for the first time that night. What more could you ask for? Blood, sex and violence.

I walked away, rolling my shoulders and tried to focus on letting the vampire in me come up, without taking over.

My breaths became deeper, I let my world shrink to the size of the center of my chest and felt for that repressed part of me. I felt my nails lengthen, not a lot, but enough to know that I was headed I the right direction. My fangs lengthened as well. I felt my vision sharpen and the violence rise within me. A craving for blood washed over me and I breathed it in, letting it fill me, and then relegating it to the leash I needed to keep it on so that killing wouldn’t happen.

I turned and looked toward Cynthia, who had finished being pissy with Terence. She met my gaze and stilled.

Bring it bitch, I growled low and soft. Not just what humans do when they are pissed, but a low, soft, animal growl mixed with my voice.

I had never fucking growled like that in my life.

When in their human form, were-animals and shifters are tough creatures to fight. When they are fully in their animal forms, the best thing to do is fight them as you would any huge, crazed, rabid animal.