Highland Shapeshifter Read online

  The second yuppie guy with dark hair had them in his cross-sights. At least the gun he carried was a regular handgun. And who knew if that was a good or bad thing? The other came at them, shoving a box out of his way. Where had the woman gotten off to? The shifter edged to the side, putting himself between her and the gun’s muzzle.

  “All right now,” Yuppie Ken Doll said. “Don’t move.”

  His lip curled at the same instant he flew into the wall, body-checked by a raging bulldozer of Starch.

  “You think you can come into my pl—”

  The blond yuppie jerked his weapon toward the ogre and the shifter pounced into action, running straight into the guy, flipping him off his feet and kept on going.

  Lenore stared after his retreating backside wide-eyed. Well, he was gone. She’d never see his hide again, not that she blamed him.

  Crashes banged up front. Gainy and the woman?

  Starch lifted the guy he had body-slammed off the floor. The guy moaned. Lenore would not want to be him. Starch’s eyes bulged.

  “Wanna run by me again how you’re just gonna take my property?”

  Lenore edged around them. Time to play scarce while she was still in one piece.

  “No.” A feminine voice barked. She came face-to-muzzle with the business end of the really strange looking gun. Up close and way too personal, it looked more like something out of a video game. The yuppie woman’s eyes narrowed. “Where’s the shifter?” The gun hummed, ramping up to recharge for another blast of blue. Yep, definitely a weapon straight out of the comics. Must be some homemade tech junkie’s dream.

  Lenore eased her head sideways out of the line of fire. “Did what shifters do best. Tucked tail and ran.”

  The woman frowned. Her eyes tracked toward the ogre pounding the snot out of her friend.

  “You gonna deal with that?” Lenore lifted her hands. “’Cause I’m not in this.”

  The woman’s gun shifted back toward her. “Oh, you’re in this.”

  She had short blond hair, almost silver blond, with long side-swept bangs, which she flipped out of her eyes with a toss of her head.

  “Bekah!” The yuppie guy sailed through the air, arms and legs flailing, and landed in a jarring heap.

  “Dammit.” The woman shot at Starch, a streak of blue light and whirring purr that pushed the ogre back into a pile of crates. Okay, so the ray gun did pack enough of a punch to throw a two-ton ogre like that. She’d be impressed if she wasn’t so stunned. The following concussion of force vibrated through the floor.

  Whoa. What a kick. Nearly rocked off her feet, Lenore took that as her cue to high-tail it. She ducked between swaying crates, narrowly escaping as they crashed behind her. Score one for being small. Packets of orange crystals broke across the floor, lifting in clouds of noxious powder. She hoped it wasn’t anything toxic, quickly covering her face and trying not to breathe it in, and slammed into a wall of ogre.

  “Hey!” Lan’s meaty fists grabbed her, swallowing most of her upper arms between his fingers. The ogre bouncer was on his knees, huge eyes dazed and way too heavy, dragging her down as he tried to use her as support. Apparently whatever those blue streaks the yuppies shot could only immobilize ogres for so long.

  “Lan, let go. Starch is back there. He needs your help!” She tried to shrug out of his grasp, but he was still too out of it and pushing down on her as an aide to make it to his own lumbering feet. His bulk was crushing her. “Lan!”

  “The lass said tae let go.”

  Both their heads snapped up.

  The shapeshifter leapt out of nowhere, taking them all to the floor. Lenore hit the ogre’s belly hard and was immediately dragged up around the waist and set on her feet. The shifter’s head canted, looking her over.

  “Stop!” The yuppie woman called out and that whining build-up of her weapon purred out. The shifter yanked Lenore between another row of crates as blue light exploded beside them, the concussion of it rocking through the air.

  Hand in hand, they ran. Shouts and thuds poured after them.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” Lenore shouted.

  The guy twisted to look back at her. Dark brows pulled together like a shrug. “Away from the noise. I thought that would be best.”

  Of course. Geez, why didn’t she think of that? Poor guy was still completely out of it. Yet even drugged to the gills…Lenore’s heart squeezed a little…he’d come back for her.

  Another pulse of light whined close. The guy’s hand tugged on hers.

  “Let me lead.” She squeezed past him, not letting go and pulled him along. There had to be a rear door. Starch would never let himself be boxed in without an escape in his own place, but so far she hadn’t seen any windows or doors beyond the stacks and stacks of boxes.

  She really didn’t want to head back through—wait, were those stairs? Veering that way, Lenore tried to see beyond a tall partly covered gilded picture frame to where a set of rusted metal steps led. There was a single door high up in the cinderblock wall. The steps and door didn’t look wide enough to support an ogre’s frame though, but you never knew. Starch was good at taking care of Starch. Was it a dead end?

  The shifter followed her right up to the steps, his glassy gaze wary. “Ye’re certain?”

  She winced, thinking the same thing he must be, that the stairs would expose them to the yuppies’ ray gun darts of fury.

  “No. Not really.”

  The grin he turned on her was drop-dead brain-cell-killing sexy. He didn’t look quite as young and innocent as before.

  “Up ye go, then, lass.” Not wasting another second, he practically lifted her onto the third step and clamored up behind her, placing his own back in the direct line of fire.

  “Bekah, Matthew,” one of the yuppies called out. White-laced preppy names if she ever heard any. “Stairs.”

  Crap. They’d never make it. The whine of their mail order kit alien weapons built up.

  Starch was suddenly there, looking up at them from the bottom of the steps, all three of his large pupils rimmed in silver. That was a new twist on adrenaline, she noted for future reference if she ever decided to study ogre anatomy. Yep, that was the curse and the gift of her mind, always storing random information like a walking breathing index file. But if you couldn’t learn something new while fleeing for your life, what good were you? “Four thousand. Final offer.”

  “Deal. You got it.” Lenore shouted, ready to throw out her cash right then.

  “What I do for you,” the ogre growled and threw himself up onto the metal grating of the stairs like an acrobat, shaking the groaning steps, his huge girth covering them as the blue light speared his chest and every muscle in his body went stiff as a board. He teetered forward on the successive buffet of air and fell forward, hitting the floor, smashing crates in a flume of dust.

  Stunned, Lenore stared over the shifter’s shoulder until he nudged her upward.

  The weapons purred again, powering up for a second wave.

  “Go,” Shifter Dude hissed behind her. She was already taking two steps at a time. They made it to the door without being shot at. Lenore yanked the knob and it didn’t budge.

  Seriously?

  She rattled it, trying to open the stupid door. The two weird guns whined louder.

  The shifter reached across her waist, covered her hand and calmly twisted the knob. It released with a click. He smiled sweetly, lifting his chin forward to indicate she should go through it.

  Oh. So he had a bit of a smart ass in him.

  Together they shoved open the door, spilling out into a back alley. He quickly slammed the door closed as blue light shot between the door’s edges.

  “C’mon.” Lenore sped off, stopping when the guy wasn’t immediately following. “Come on.”

  He leaned against the door, shaking his head dazedly before pushing off and immediately blanched, swaying.

  Lenore ran to him, pressing up beneath his arm. “Whoa, hey there. Sorry, I forgot ab
out the drugs.” It was a wonder he’d managed this far.

  “Drugs?” His brows rose in confusion, giving him a lost puppy quality.

  She smiled. “Let’s just get out of here for now before our friends burst through that door. Think you can walk?”

  He nodded, seemingly too out of energy to speak and took a step forward, which almost pitched him to the ground.

  Lenore took most of his weight, managing to keep them both from face-planting. Barely. “That’d be a no on walking. New plan. Just stay upright and I’ll do the rest.”

  Chapter Two

  She nearly got him to her car parked around the front of Starch’s bar before the shifter’s legs gave out. Dang tanglewort was beginning to wreak havoc with his coordination.

  “Whoa, okay, gotcha big guy.”

  His weight almost bowled her over. “My car’s right here. Think you can make two more steps?”

  Squinting, he gave her a sloppy smile, which fell when his gaze landed on her little red Prius. Yeah, she wondered how he was going to fold into the thing too.

  Pressing tight into his chest to keep him on his feet, she reached over and wrestled the door open.

  “Stay,” she ordered and eased away a little so she could get the passenger seat moved back. He had the presence of mind to grab hold of the top of the car and the door to keep upright and nodded for her that he wasn’t going to fall.

  Between his body and the car Lenore felt rather puny. Masculine strength radiated off him. What in the world was she going to do with him? He wasn’t a sweet kid a year younger than her, but a man, dangerous and big. Probably unsafe to be around. Starch had thought so at any rate, enough to keep the merchandize incoherent. He didn’t seem so dangerous now, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be. He was a shifter losing every bit of his sense of control to drugs. Of course that was dangerous.

  Chills skittered across her scalp. Better he was with her than an innocent bystander on the streets if he lost it. Even without needing to know what he was asking around about her sister for, she couldn’t have left him to whatever those gun-toting yuppies had in mind for him.

  She got the seat pushed back and turned, nearly colliding with his chin. He’d begun to sag, his arms shaking on the car and open door. They were pressed so close she saw small flecks of darker green in his light eyes. Doors slammed farther down the alleyway.

  Poor guy looked as though he was about to drop.

  “We are traveling in this wee car?” He said car like it was a new word he was still testing. His lips curled lazily. “I like cars.”

  “Well, it’s the only one I got. Come on.” Scooping herself beneath his arms, she guided him around to back into the seat. He was all gangly uncoordinated limbs, trying to fit into the seat while he smiled crookedly at her with adoring eyes. He looked sweet, not like some threatening imposing shapeshifter.

  She pretty much shoved him in, closing the door on his large frame and raced to the other side.

  Shouts chased after her. Come on come on come on. She dug her keys out, fumbling them into the ignition.

  “Stop!” the blond Malibu Ken yuppie shouted.

  Lenore hit the gas as he filled her rear view mirror and she sped away.

  The shifter flopped over, dark head pushing against her arm. “This car is tiny. As are you.”

  Her heart plowed ahead a mile a minute.

  “Hey.” She bumped her arm up, trying to shift the guy back into his own seat but he was out, the drugs clearly taking their toll.

  Lenore drove deeper into the city, away from her apartment. She couldn’t take him there. Not that she thought Starch would tell the yuppies where she lived after how they tried to cheat him, but she wouldn’t trust the ogre not to be bought if the price was satisfactory either.

  There was only one place to go and she seriously did not want to go there.

  Wincing, she dug her cell out of her pocket, awkwardly steering with the cutie pie’s forehead ground into her shoulder and punched the number.

  It took six rings before he picked up, all groggy voiced from sleep. “Mmmmmph.”

  “I need you to open your garage.”

  Silence coated the other end as it sank in who was calling him this time of night. She could almost hear his ego expanding. “Nory?”

  “Yeah. I need to get my car out of sight.”

  “My ‘vette’s in there.” The last syllable cracked on a yawn.

  “Well move it. Please, Gabe. I’m coming in hot. You do not want my car spotted outside your place.”

  Again there was silence while he digested that little tidbit. Her tires hit a bump and the shifter’s head bounced against her arm.

  “Is this an otherworldly kind of thing?” Now fully alert, his voice thrummed with excitement. His footsteps padded down his steps.

  Lenore clenched her jaw, drawing on the little scraps of patience she had for the man. Gabe dug all things supernatural. Their short relationship only lasted as long as it did because he was enamored with her being a real-life healer.

  “Yes.”

  He practically squeaked like a girl. She imagined him fist-pumping the air. “How close are you?” Through the phone she heard the rumble of his garage door lifting and the engine of his corvette turn over.

  “Two minutes.”

  She sped down his street, past the white corvette parked out front, her tires squealing on his short driveway, and hit the brakes, as the car rolled into the street-level garage of his townhouse.

  The garage door rumbled down behind them. Gabe pulled open the passenger door and leaned in, tousled in nothing but plaid boxers. “Whoa, darlin’. You almost hit the wall.”

  “Help me with him.” Opening her door, Lenore ran around the back of the car.

  Gabe tapped the shifter’s cheek. “He’s completely out.”

  “Drugs.” Lenore squirmed between them to assess just how out of it the guy was.

  Gabe straightened to his full height, folding his arms over his chest. “You brought an addict to my place?”

  Lenore scowled up at him. “Like I would do that. Geez. Not an addict. Someone drugged him.”

  Gabe crouched back down beside her and took the guy’s arm to start tilting him out. “Why?”

  Jonesing for all things supernatural, he was going to love this. The entire time they’d been together she tried to keep him out of the otherworldly scene—or rather, spare him from getting on any of the more lowlife of the creature’s radar, all while Gabe pushed to be in it. That couldn’t be an issue right now. She needed his help.

  “The drugs subdued him. To keep him from properly—Look, they just needed him calm and incoherent long enough to sell.”

  “Sell?” Gabe’s brows rose into the blond streaks at his hairline. “As in human trafficking? Nory, what have you gotten into?”

  She winced. “Not exactly human trafficking.”

  Gabe’s head swung toward the huge man crammed in her car, and then back to her, his features impassive, waiting for an explanation. She hated how he did that.

  “Shapeshifter, all right. I bought him. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You bought a shapeshifter? You can do that? Bought him for what?” His eyes widened with each question uttered. She wasn’t sure whether from excitement at seeing a real life shapeshifter or horror at what she’d done.

  “I had to. They were going to give him more drugs—and he really can’t take any more and survive—and then this weird motorcycle gang showed up, shooting streams of light capable of throwing around the ogres…”

  “Wait. What?” Strong hands clamped onto her shoulders and gave a little shake. “Nory, sweetheart, you are not making a lick of sense. Ogres and motorcycle gangs? Okay. Okay. Calm down. We’re going to get this guy inside—shapeshifter.” A bemused smile lifted his lips. He shook his head, beaming. “Shapeshifter.”

  Lenore gave him a bland stare.

  “Yeah, I know, all right.” He lifted the guy’s feet out of the footwel
l. “Let’s get him upstairs and then you tell me all about it over a cup of tea.” Tugging the shifter’s arm, Gabe swiveled him across his shoulder into a fireman’s hold, and standing, headed toward the stairs.

  Her adrenaline crashing, Lenore followed sluggishly after. “But you hate tea.”

  Chapter Three

  Gabe lowered the shifter onto his bed and stared down at him.

  “He’s not going to shift.” Lenore knelt on the mattress and swept the man’s sweat-soaked hair from his clammy face.

  “One can hope,” Gabe said. “He going to be all right?”

  Lenore shrugged with one shoulder while checking the shifter’s pulse. It still ran fast, assuming shapeshifter’s hearts pumped at a similar rate to a human’s. She frowned. “They gave him a high dosage. He just needs to work it out of his system and I’ll know more.”

  “Well, can’t you…you know?”

  Her teeth pulled across her bottom lip. “Heal him?”

  “Well?”

  The thought had occurred to her. “Honestly, I don’t know. It’s not exactly an injury or illness. Can you get me some lukewarm water and washrags?”

  “Sure.” Gabe’s bare feet padded across the tile. She heard cupboards opening and the faucet turn on.

  The light from the hallway cast a soft glow over them. The shifter looked vulnerable and young in his sleep again. How did he do that? Go from youthfulness to dripping with masculinity just by opening his eyes? Dark lashes formed feathery half-moons on his perspiring skin. An urge to help him swelled low in her belly.

  Gabe brought in a bowl of water, a couple of towels and several wash cloths. He sat on the other side of the unconscious man, one leg bent on the bed. “So what do we do?”

  “Keep him cool. Hydrate him whenever he wakes.” She reached over him and took a soaked cloth and began cooling down the guy’s arm. “And we can’t let him shift. No matter what.”

  Gabe’s gaze snapped up. “Thought the drugs kept that from happening.” He dropped another cloth into the water to soak it.

  Lenore trailed her cloth down the shifter’s nose. He had a nice nose. “They usually do, but earlier, he started to shift anyway. It shouldn’t have been possible.” She reached across the guy’s chest and latched onto Gabe’s wrist. “He’s strong. Even with the drugs, he would have gone into a transformation.”