Authors: C.J. Ayers
ROMANCE: SHIFTER: Shifter to the Max Collection (Dragon, Bear, Wolf and Panther Shifter Romances) (Paranormal Fantasy Romance Collection) (49 page)
FOUR YEARS LATER
"Wait up, professor!"
Sawyer Donovan paused in his stride, and turned to glance over his shoulder in feigned disinterest. Kira Bentley, his student teacher, loped towards him. Her rollicking blond hair was tied up in a ponytail, and it swept the back of her neck as she jogged; she wore dark, thick-framed glasses that only appeared to magnify her warm, gorgeous eyes, while serving the dual purpose limiting her vision to acceptable human levels. His former student looked older and wiser, and ten times lovelier than he could have ever believed. Despite seeing her daily basis, Donovan still sometimes felt like he was getting the wind knocked out of him for the first time.
Not that she needed to know that. Any endearments he conceived, he kept to himself, until he could tell them to her in the privacy of the woods or in the apartment they shared off-campus. Now, Professor Donovan shook out his shirt sleeve and glanced at the face of the watch she had given him for their first anniversary. They didn't have a date officially set for when they had started dating—as with most things, they counted in full moons.
"You're late," he observed. Kira stopped beside him, and stood a little too closely as she pretended to scrutinize the hands of his watch. When she dipped her head, he was treated to the perfume of her hair, and a low growl of desire rose in his throat. While their situation—that is to say, their forbidden relationship—had certainly changed since her graduation, having her for his student teacher had ushered in a new set of all-too-familiar problems. With Kilman gone, there was no one who knew the true nature of their relationship… although he thought that Shannon Drieling, Kira's former roommate, probably suspected. They both thought it best to continue to keep their secret under wraps, at least for now. Some days were more trying than others.
"If I'm late, what does that make you?" Kira's eyes flickered upward to fix him from beneath the frame of her glasses.
"Fashionably late," Donovan answered easily. They were outside his old classroom, the classroom they now shared. Donovan pulled the door open for her, and Kira offered him a poised, polite smile as she entered first.
It was the start of their first semester teaching together, and with the advent of the school year came a fresh batch of students. As Kira made her way to the table set up beside his desk, Donovan set his briefcase down and crossed to the board to write their names. Kira was already dividing a pile of syllabuses to pass around.
"Welcome to English One-oh-One," he stated. The greeting was automatic by this point. He looped his name in big, bold letters on the whiteboard. "I am Professor Donovan, and this is my sidekick, Miss Bentley." He knew without turning back around that Kira would pull a face at that. She hated being referred to as the 'sidekick' or 'assistant' in their duo, but he would continue to milk the terminology for as long as she taught beneath him. If she wanted to get even with him later, well… Donovan certainly wouldn't mind being the one occupying a position beneath
her
for a change.
"Would someone mind cracking a window?" He was certain it wasn't just the ferventness of his imagination that was making the room warm. One eager-eyed student toward the back complied, and quickly turned to work the window crank. A cool summer breeze blew in, fluttering Kira's papers, and carrying with it a familiar scent that froze them both momentarily to a spot.
Kira straightened, and Donovan's gaze snapped upward over the rim of his glasses. Sitting beside the eager student was a fellow freshman, a boy—or at least, Donovan assumed he was a boy. The second student had his hood drawn so far down that his face could hardly be seen, and was wearing a pair of dark sunglasses that succeeded in hiding the remainder of his features. He was slumped forward across his desk, as if hoping his poor posture would help him escape detection… but there was no escaping the wild musk that the breeze carried with it, nor any of the other all-too-familiar symptoms.
Donovan looked at Kira.
Kira looked at Donovan.
"This semester is about to get a lot more interesting," he muttered below his breath.
The End
Curvy ER doctor, Lexi Green has seen a lot of bizarre things on nightshift duty in the local hospital, but this has got to top the “All-Time-Strangest” list. After taking eight gunshot wounds to the chest, this guy shouldn’t even be alive much less giving her a wink and a nod on his way out the hospital doors. WTH?
*********************************
There was nothing in the world that Lexi Green loved more than her job. Hell, she was good at it. And you don’t become a well-respected trauma surgeon in a major city without
really
liking your job. It had been a slow night and Lexi was sitting at the nurse station, sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup. One of her favorite nurses, a young girl fresh out of nursing school, was just telling her about the apartment she was looking into when the doors of the ER slammed open and two harried looking medics rushed in with a gurney.
“John Doe, probably in his thirties, eight gunshot wounds to the chest, a few to the legs, and a knife in his neck!” One of them shouted.
“A knife in his what?” Lexi almost dropped her coffee. How was this poor guy even alive?
“Neck.” The adrenaline that surged through her whenever a big job came through the doors hit her with full force.
“Book me an O.R. Now!” She shouted. Her relaxed, chatty attitude was gone. It was like she was a completely different person. The room began to bustle and the gurney was driven into the O.R. as Lexi scrubbed quickly.
The man was hooked to various machines, but everything that was happening around Lexi didn’t matter. All that mattered was saving this guy. Her heart hammered in her chest as she surveyed the knife wound. It just missed his jugular, otherwise he would have bleed to death. As it was, she didn’t know how he was still alive.
Even though his face was covered in blood, she couldn’t help but realize how attractive he was. He had sharp features and black hair that was a little long. It softened his face. He was tall, and well-muscled, and if she had seen him at a bar, she might have asked him to have drinks with her. But he was on her table, and how cute she thought he was was completely irrelevant. She needed to save his life.
“I’m going to need compression immediately after I remove the knife,” she said firmly. Her scrub nurses nodded, preparing themselves. She put her hand around the knife and pulled. The nurses slammed the gauze down, but there was very little blood.
“What the…” She looked down at his torso. The medics had cut his shirt off so she could examine the bullet wounds. But there weren’t any. She looked up, and saw the nurse, wide eyed and scared, no longer putting pressure on the wound. Because there was no wound.
“What the hell is going on?” she growled.
Two hours earlier…
Shane ran his hand through his black hair and sighed. The last thing he wanted to do right now was deal with his cousin’s bullshit. He had a business to run. And pack to manage. He was exhausted. He leaned against his desk and looked out at the rapidly darkening sky.
“I think you need an assistant.”
He turned his head. His sister Amanda stood in the doorway. It was obvious they were siblings. They both had the same black hair, the same slate-grey eyes, but where he was all sharp angles and lines, she was soft curves. She was tall for a woman, almost six feet, and always wore high heels. She was gorgeous, and Shane had been in more fights because he was protecting her honor than for any other reason. She hadn’t needed him to protect her lately (not that she really ever did, she liked to remind him. She was just as fierce as he was.). She was about to get married. It was a good match. A great match, in fact. They were madly in love, and Shane liked the guy. And he had never liked anyone Amanda dated. And it didn’t hurt that she was about to unite to of the largest wolf packs on the East Coast.
Shane sighed. “I don’t need an assistant.”
“You do. But you’re too much of a control freak to admit it.” She crossed the room and hugged him. “I just want my big brother to be at my wedding and not die of exhaustion before I make it down the aisle.”
“You’re being melodramatic.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “I’m worried about you. Between all of this bullshit with Matt—“
“Can we not talk about our cousin?” Shane pushed himself off the desk. Matt was the last person he wanted to talk about now. It was bad enough that he had to deal with him during pack meetings, he didn’t want Matt’s shadow to effect his human business too.
“We have to talk about it, Shane. It’s a week until the next pack gathering and dad is going to announce that he’s stepping down as Alpha. And then you’re going to have to start training for the role.” It wasn’t a surprise to Shane that Amanda assumed that he was going to be the next Alpha. Indeed, it wouldn’t be a surprise for anyone in the pack. Shane was the obvious choice. He had been groomed for running the pack since he was a young boy, and he was the strongest wolf around. And he was part of an Alpha lineage. He couldn’t remember when someone from his family was not the pack Alpha.
When his father started to get sick a few months ago, everyone in the pack assumed he would be the uncontested choice to fill the role. And then Matt stepped into the picture. Shane’s and Amanda’s cousin Matt was the sort of wolf who always had a chip on his shoulder about his pack status. Most wolves accepted their place in the pack; everyone had a place, and everyone was valued for their place. But Matt wanted more. And he was apparently willing to fight Shane for the title.
“I’m going to deal with it, Amanda.”
She pursed her lips. “If you say so. But you should do it sooner rather than later. He’s been talking to people in the pack, trying to sway opinions. There hasn’t been an Alpha contest in years, I don’t think one now would be a positive thing. Especially since we’re trying to come out to humans.”
Shane scrubbed his face with his hands. “Please don’t remind me. Everything will get handled. When have I ever left anything undone?”
“You haven’t. Because you’re a workaholic.”
“Thanks for that glowing recommendation.”
“That’s what sisters are for. Now, are you done here? Henry is waiting downstairs. We have dinner reservations in half an hour.”
“I just need to grab a few things. Head to the car; I’ll be down in a minute.” Shane turned to his desk and began to collect his laptop and a few files for the weekend.
“If you’re not down in five I’m sending Henry in to drag you out.”
Shane snorted. Henry was many things that Shane would never be, romantic, patient, but Shane was much stronger. “I’ll be down in five, promise.”
He heard her leave his office. He finished putting the last of his files into his briefcase and turned the lights off. He walked to the elevators and pressed the down button. The doors opened, and a man pointed a gun at him.
The bullet was in him before he could move. He roared in pain and then leapt forward, trying to get the gun out of the man’s hand. He heard multiple shots fire, and then he felt the knife plunge into the side of his neck.
The pain set his blood on fire. He tried to shift but couldn’t. There were too many bullets. He hoped they weren’t silver.
His attacker stood over him. “That’s from Matt,” he said before he spit on Shane’s face. The world went blurry and then Shane only knew darkness.
