Beauty and the Shapeshifter (Evil Rising, #4) Read online

  He tightened his grip on her hand and the size difference became evident. His long fingers and thick palm engulfed her smaller hand. She looked down at the contact and saw that his fingers were covered in black.

  Made sense. He had used claws as a weapon, so there would be blood on his hands. Because of the whole werewolf thing.

  She pulled her hand away once they reached the kitchen, but he didn’t let go. “What do you think you’re doing here?”

  “My family is powerful. We can protect you.”

  Elsie rolled her eyes at the echo of her mother’s words. “There is no protection. I grew up listening to horror stories about what myotises do to their prey. Tonight only proved that I was right to fear them. I need to get as far away from here as I can.”

  Finally something clicked for Brock. “Where did you get that gun from? I heard myotises are hard to kill.”

  “I’m a—”

  “Siren,” hissed the unfamiliar voice from behind her. Elsie screamed and jerked around.

  The myotis stood at the entrance to her kitchen. How the hell had it gotten in her home?

  Brock pushed himself between Elsie and the newest monster. Two more of the monsters appeared behind the one who spoke. The ability to teleport had not been included in the stories she was told as a child.

  “This is between you and me,” said Brock, sounding like the biggest idiot she had ever met. She should say something—admit it was her who did the killing. But her fear paralyzed her tongue and kept her speechless.

  “You might have his blood on your hands, but we know who the true killer is.” It was the same one who spoke earlier. Two more appeared and Elsie’s chances of survival were dropping by the second.

  Her mother and sister ran in from the living room, but two of the monsters grabbed them.

  “No! Please! It was me who killed him. Take me but please let my family go!”

  She moved to run to her sister, who was closest to her, but Brock stopped her with a thick arm around her waist. “Let me handle this, Elsie,” he whispered to her.

  She whipped around to face him. His arm still held her and her front was pushed up tightly against him. She craned her neck back to meet his eyes. She was used to being at least two inches taller in his presence.

  “Please save my family,” she whispered. Tears streaked down her face. “I’ll do anything.”

  Brock said nothing as he pushed Elsie behind him.

  “I was attacked for no reason by your clansman,” said Brock, as if his life wasn’t on the line.

  The spokesman of the group tsked. “No excuse. You’re an experienced fighter. Surely you could’ve let him live. You just wanted to kill one of us.” The ears of the myotises around the speaker twitched, and one of the creatures started to drool in anticipation of violence. “We have a code. We have rules. He would not attack you unprovoked.”

  “I am aware of your rules. My clan also follows strict rules. My name is Brock Holt. Your man attacked my woman and tried to violate her. When I was defending her honor, she shot him. From what I understand, it is permissible for a werewolf to defend his or her mate by your rules.”

  Rebecca abruptly stopped struggling as a large smile stretched across her face.

  The speaker let out an angry breath. “You claim this female as your mate?”

  Elsie held her breath as she gripped Brock’s shirt tight enough to turn her knuckles white. What was he doing?

  “I claim Elsie Handeland as my mate,” said Brock without the slightest hesitation. Elsie rested her forehead against his back, too afraid to look up.

  “In that case, you and your mate may survive. I suggest you stay far away from myotises from now on.”

  A long silence filled the air. Brock shifted beneath her death grip on his formerly white shirt. “They’re gone now.”

  “Elsie!” screamed her mother. “You’re hitched to the king of werewolves!”

  “What?” she squeaked. Who said anything about Brock being a king? She jerked her hands away and stepped back until the counter wouldn’t let her go any farther. “What are you?” she whispered.

  “I really think we should have that talk now,” said Brock.

  Rebecca pushed past Brock and grabbed Elsie in a tight bear hug. “You’re going to be immortal just like me and Etta!” she squealed.

  “You really are a siren?” asked Brock.

  Suddenly unable to look him in the eyes, she mumbled, “That’s right, Your Majesty.”

  His jaw clenched but he kept quiet. Luckily, Etta was there to make things even more awkward. “How long have you been working on the werewolf king? I never thought you had it in you.” The thin strain of jealousy shone through her words. This was supposed to be Etta’s big announcement. But, in her defense, it wasn’t as if she planned to be attacked and marked for murder.

  Elsie untangled herself from her mother’s tight embrace and shot Etta daggers with her eyes. “I haven’t been ‘working’ on anyone. I have been working with Brock, who I fully believed was human until an hour ago!”

  Was it really just an hour ago that her biggest concern had been her fresh nail polish smudging? At the thought, she looked down at her hands. Ha! Not one nail had chipped, even with all the ruckus.

  Shaking her head at the foolish thought, her gaze made its way back to Brock. His gold eyes intently studied her every movement. “Elsie, we need to talk about what just happened.”

  Rebecca and Etta stared expectantly at her. Not one to confront family head on, Elsie looked around her home. The kitchen fed into the dining room, the walls and furniture all in light browns and greens. It was meant to be soothing. A relaxing place to unwind after a hard day’s work.

  Even after being broken into by her family and invaded by the bat people from hell, there was no mess. Everything was in its place, and no fight had broken any of the furniture she had collected in the two years of renting out the space.

  This was supposed to be her sanctuary. Would she ever feel safe there again? “I don’t want to talk, Brock. I want to be alone.”

  Her mother shot her an obviously disapproving glance and tried to mitigate the damage. “I’m sure she is exhausted from her ordeal. If you just give us a few minutes, I am sure she will talk to you.”

  Elsie snorted at her mother’s delusions. “Alone means that you’re leaving too.” For a beat, no one moved. “You’re leaving now,” she said firmly. “I am exhausted and filthy and I am NOT marrying or ‘mating’ anyone. Everyone out!”

  Finally the group of them moved to the front door. As Brock turned, she saw a nasty-looking bite mark on his neck. She wanted to offer to bandage him but bit her tongue. He was a werewolf. All he had to do was shift to his wolf form and he would be healed. There was nothing she could do.

  Rebecca and Etta climbed into the red sports car. They traveled most places together because both their vampires lived in the luxurious apartments of the newly constructed Sonin Tower. Brock lingered at her porch. As Rebecca drove away, she shot one last smile and wave at Brock. Elsie shook her head. There was no talking sense into that woman sometimes.

  “Will you at least talk to me tomorrow?”

  “There’s really nothing to talk about,” she insisted.

  “Damn it, Elsie! You can’t just pretend nothing happened.” At his shout, she jumped and took a cautious step away from him. He closed his eyes and took a calming breath. “What exactly do you know about me?”

  “Not as much as I thought I did,” she muttered.

  “I meant werewolves.”

  This was exactly the type of conversation she was trying to avoid. “Not a lot,” she answered truthfully. Had he moved closer? She could have sworn she had put more space between them. “Mother didn’t talk much about shifters.”

  That was only half true. Her mother would’ve loved to talk for days about all the supernatural creatures of this world and beyond. It was Elsie who refused to listen. Etta had been a dutiful student, eager to learn from their
mother and find a powerful immortal to bind with.

  Elsie wanted nothing to do with the supernatural world. Until the age of twelve, she had a mostly normal life with her mortal father. Etta was only six and could barely remember the life of a normal human.

  Rebecca met Roman one year later, and from then on, Elsie was surrounded by the supernatural. Even so, she made sure she stayed in a human school and distanced herself as much as possible from all things that go bump in the night.

  Her werewolf knowledge consisted of the fact that they liked to stick with their packs and the more powerful they were, the more control they had over their shifting.

  And that was about all she knew about werewolves. Roman and her mother never mentioned them and Elsie had never met one. Well, she didn’t know she’d met one.

  “A verbal declaration is all that is required to claim a mate,” he said softly.

  Elsie wasn’t sure what he expected from her, but it probably wasn’t the blank stare she gave him.

  “Aren’t you going to say something?” he finally asked.

  What the hell was she supposed to say to that? “Claim a mate? What century is this? How can you even say that with a straight face?” Disgusted with the whole situation, Elsie backed into her house and shut the door in Brock’s face. He probably could’ve stopped her. If he really was part dog, he would have fast reflexes.

  She leaned her forehead against the cold wood but didn’t hear Brock’s retreating footsteps. Was he just a silent walker or was he still on her porch?

  Elsie jumped at the sudden sound of his voice from outside. “This isn’t over. We need to sit down and talk about this.” Elsie squeezed her eyes shut and bit her bottom lip, willing everything away. Why wouldn’t he just leave her alone?

  As if he could hear her thoughts, he called, “I’ll give you tonight, but I expect you in the office tomorrow.” There was another silence, but she knew he still stood on the other side of the door, waiting for some sign she was listening. “I know you are still there,” he said in such a soft voice that Elsie almost didn’t hear him. “Just tell me you’ll be in the office tomorrow,” he pleaded.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she called to him.

  He mumbled something under his breath before his loud footsteps sounded. He was finally leaving. Elsie let out a pent-up breath of relief as she sunk down to the floor. Her knees came up as her head leaned back for support. Fuck. Werewolves, myotises, and her mother all in one night. She looked at her formerly spotless dress, now covered in dirt and blood. She shouldn’t be sitting on the floor. It could get even dirtier.

  She let out a small laugh at the thought. At this point, a little more dirt wouldn’t hurt. She could never wear the thing again. Fuck.

  As Elsie tried to absorb it all, she shot away from the floor and headed to her office. Her two-bedroom town house wasn’t very spacious, but she needed a work area in her home, even if it meant giving up the guest bedroom.

  She opened the door and the blur of chestnut-red and white fur ran around her legs. “Riggs!”

  At the sight of the dog, she immediately felt better. The normally low-key mutt was now frantic with energy as he raced in circles around her and twisted himself between her legs. “Calm down, buddy,” whispered Elsie. “I know you heard some strange things, but everything is okay now. Well, I think they’re okay now,” she qualified.

  Riggs calmed down and sat next to her while he leaned his weight against her shin. Poor guy. Rebecca probably shut him in the office when she “invited” herself in.

  The dog and Rebecca had a mutual dislike for each other. Riggs was scared of everything and everyone, and Rebecca was scared of anything that didn’t fall in love with her at first glance. She didn’t realize that if she just ignored Riggs, he would avoid her anyway. She had to take the extra step to lock him in a separate room.

  Elsie rolled her eyes in frustration and continued into the office. The closet was filled with boxes of various holiday decorations and books that didn’t fit on the shelves that lined the walls of the office around her.

  One by one, she dragged boxes out and looked through each one. Only after her office was filled with clutter did she find what she was looking for.

  The “family encyclopedia,” as Mother called it, didn’t look special. It was a paperback book about an inch thick. Its cover was a clean and shiny black. The only writing on the cover was in white and read “Angels to Vampires: A Growing Guide to Mythical Creatures.”

  Except the creatures described in these pages weren’t mythical. This was a copy of the diaries of Elsie’s ancestors, going back a thousand years. Rebecca had the book printed under the guise of a novelty mythology book. Every decade or so, she would issue a new “edition” to Elsie and Etta.

  Although Etta would always read every new edition from cover to cover, Elsie would file hers away as soon as possible and forget she had it.

  Now she needed it. She flipped through the book until she got to the M section. There wasn’t much about the myotis. They were said to be exceptionally strong and able to communicate telepathically. The bond between nest mates was so strong that anyone who dared to kill one was guaranteed death by any survivors in the nest. Elsie took a nervous gulp upon reading that gem.

  Other powers included teleportation and quick healing, but there was no estimated population or favored living areas. Which probably meant that no one knew.

  There was an entire page devoted to siren hunts. A pack of myotises would locate a siren and hunt her down. Because sirens largely depended on mates or extended family for protection, the hunts generally only lasted a day, though there was a recorded hunt that lasted for three years. It didn’t mention why sirens were the only beings hunted by the creatures.

  Elsie couldn’t even imagine it. Three years of running from those beasts? Not knowing why you were being hunted or whether they would ever give up...

  They didn’t. The siren was found dead, but it didn’t say what the cause of death was. Elsie wished it was in the book. Whatever reality was, it couldn’t be worse than her imagination.

  Notably, the book mentioned nothing about any pacts with werewolves. Which meant the werewolves probably knew more about them than the vampires, considering most of Rebecca’s knowledge came from Roman.

  After memorizing the sparse two pages devoted to myotises, Elsie flipped to the back of the book. Werewolves had an entire chapter devoted to their complex pack structures and history.

  Because the book was crafted for sirens, the section on mates was right at the front. A mating union was formally recognized once announced publicly by either mate, though the union wasn’t complete until the first full moon after the announcement, and there was no recorded case of divorce or separation between werewolf mates. Ever.

  Elsie mentally counted days since the last full moon. It must’ve been at least a week or two ago. She just had to figure a way out of this before then. Shouldn’t be impossible.

  Elsie then skipped to the end of the chapter, fully intending to read all the pages in detail later. Normally a matriarchal species, the werewolves inexplicably switched to a king three hundred years ago.

  Ragnar Hultin took the throne, followed by his son and then his grandson, Brock Holt, who took over in 1903. Well over eighty years before Elsie was born.

  Very early into her workday, it became painfully obvious that Jackson was oblivious of the drama of the previous evening. He walked into her office for the fourth time in two hours, despite the shut door. “Do you know when you’re having that meeting with Brock?”

  Elsie took a few seconds to finish typing the sentence in the email she was drafting before she turned her annoyed gaze to Jackson. She didn’t even bother to try to hide the annoyance. At this point, she wasn’t too worried about the consequences of Jackson not liking her. He could go take a long walk off a short cliff for all she cared.

  Though her carefully applied makeup hid the circles under her eyes, she’d barely slept the ni
ght before. In her restlessness, she read the entire family encyclopedia. After reading about all the things that go bump in the night, she was fairly certain she would never sleep again.

  Jackson had met her as she walked into the building, and at first, Elsie was just grateful she didn’t have to see Brock right away. Her opinion soon changed.

  First it was, “Can I sit in on your meeting with Brock?” Elsie politely shot him down. Then it was, “I just got the quarterly reports in from the bank and I think I should bring them up in the meeting with Brock.” She politely reminded him that he wasn’t invited to the meeting. Half an hour later, “Maybe we should postpone the meeting to give Brock a tour of Jersey. When is the last time he saw anything besides the plant and his hotel?” Elsie couldn’t remember whether she even bothered with a polite response to that one. She looked up at him, waiting to hear what utter bullshit was about to spew from his mouth.

  “Brock looks tired today,” he said, not disappointing her. “Maybe the meeting should be pushed back.”

  “Oh! For the love of—” Elsie pushed away from her desk and stomped out of her office and down the hallway to Brock’s temporary headquarters, quickly grabbing the discreet white envelope that sat on the corner of her desk.

  “Jackson, of all the days, this is not a good time to mess with me,” she called from over her shoulder. She heard his footsteps frantically trying to catch up with her, but she didn’t look back.

  Brock’s office door was closed, which was rare. Like her, he usually practiced an open-door policy. Today was different.

  Without knocking, Elsie charged in.

  “Jackson, I—”

  He abruptly stopped and stood up when he saw her. Somehow the large office felt half its size when he stood.

  Brock looked good and bad at the same time. He had the same circles under his eyes that were hidden under concealer on her face, and the stubble on his jaw indicated he hadn’t had time to shave.