Shifters on Fire: A BBW Shifter Romance Boxed Set (12 page)

It also made sense to have it here, in a quiet place, like the entry hall. Clubs were loud. Or so she assumed.

Pausing by the phone, she dug in her purse for her debit card. It might be an anachronism, but the device was modern enough not to accept cash. She consulted her cell phone contacts for the cab company they’d used to get out here and, bracing the receiver between her chin and shoulder, slid her card in the slot. What if the company refused to send someone to pick them up? The large number of cars in the parking lot at the base of the cliff indicated most patrons drove themselves. Cookie had wanted to rent a limo for the evening but Karma thought it silly for just the three of them.
Who’s silly now?
If anything happened to her friends, it would be her fault.

But what could happen? She’d make the call, order the cab, offer to pay whatever it took, and soon they’d be on their way back to the city, maybe even get there early enough to make a cursory stop at a normal club—just to say that she had.

The inner door opened and, amid a blast of music, a pair of laughing women stumbled into the hallway. Slim and gorgeous, the golden-haired beauties bent their heads close together and stopped just a few feet short of where she stood, hand poised to punch the cab company number into the payphone. Frozen, Karma waited for them to move on, to go back into the club or outside, but, instead, the taller girl pressed the other one against the wall and…and kissed her. Her friend moaned and twined her arms around her neck, tilting her head and returning the other woman’s passion.

Dry-mouthed, again, Karma reviewed what she’d seen outside and what she’d heard. Lots of both men and women, some obviously heterosexual couples, waited on the winding staircase, so it wasn’t strictly a lesbian club. But the pair she watched seemed not to care what anyone thought, although she didn’t think they’d noticed her in the low lighting. At least they hadn’t acknowledged her if they had.

Their kisses continued while the taller woman untied the other’s halter top and let it drop to her waist, revealing the most perfect breasts Karma had ever seen, not that Karma had a lot of experience with breasts. She did own a pair, heavier than the nymph’s to be sure, but the woman with her back against the wall had wide, dark areolas and her friend cupped one in a graceful palm and lifted it toward her mouth, the nipple hardened into a sharp point. Karma watched, mesmerized, her own lips pouting as if she were the one about to taste….

The girl against the wall writhed, muttering, moaning, and…growling? What was happening with her face, the lower part elongated, her teeth as well, and the hands locked behind the other woman’s neck changed, warping. Karma blinked, trying to focus. The low lighting had to be playing tricks on her eyes, but….

Both doors banged opened at the same time, and the pair jumped apart. The topless woman grappled to tie her straps again. The giant strode toward the women with determined steps. The roar of music and voices from the door closest to Karma almost drowned out his words, but not quite. The outside one closed again. “Goddammit, Mariel, Jinger, you know better than to pull this where someone might see from the line. Some of those people out there are not like us. Take it inside.”

Blushing, they straightened their clothes but showed not the slightest remorse. The taller—Mariel?—rose on tiptoes and pressed a sassy kiss to his cheek. “C’mon, Warren. Don’t be such a growly guy. Come play…we can take it inside, all three of us.” She giggled and rubbed her body against his. “You know you love cats.” Karma stared, but whatever hallucination she’d seen no longer existed. The two were just gorgeous women wearing slinky gowns flirting with the bouncer.

His deep chuckle cut off when his eyes lit on Karma, standing only a few feet away, and he cursed low and long. Setting the blonde away from him, he turned her toward a short, stocky man standing in the club doorway, wearing gray slacks and a fuzzy white pullover shirt. “Take the girls inside, now, Harvey.”

“Right, boss.” The man bustled out and grabbed their arms, dragging the pair through the doorway into the noise and flashing lights of what must be the club proper. The door closed behind him and silence returned. Only now, Karma wasn’t alone. She faced the giant man in a narrow hallway and the anger in his eyes could not be denied.

“Get out.” If he’d growled before, now he roared and started toward her, seeming even larger in the shadowy space.

Karma parted her lips to protest she hadn’t made the call yet, but tilting her head far back to take in his looming presence, she snapped her mouth closed and ran for the exit and safety.

Warren Ursa drew in a final breath of her scent as he watched the door close behind the little human who had no business in his club. Harvey returned and followed her out to take up his usual position at the door, his break cut short. Unlike most of his fellows, Warren had no problem allowing a hare to bounce. Harvey had speed on his side and the wariness of his species to guide him in his work. Even in human form, his ears twitched in alertness. He’d never have made the mistake of letting a human through those doors.

Warren had allowed her into the hallway only so she would make her call and leave Animals behind. Usually he didn’t care what happened to humans who were stupid enough to find themselves out in the middle of the desert at a club not intended for them, but something about this one reached out to him. She smelled like the wildflowers of the mountains of the Pacific Northwest where he’d spent his youth. It made him homesick. Cursing yet again, he headed for his office where the mountain of paperwork even an underground club generated occupied most of his days and nights. Not the way he’d dreamed of spending his time when he’d conceived the idea of Animals.

Chapter Two

Karma fled down twenty or so steps to a landing where a cluster of guys stood, passing a flask and shooting the breeze, two with beautiful women hovering behind them, before she stopped and peered behind her. She had to get back in there and place that call. But how? She doubted she’d be able to convince that new bouncer to let her inside. Maybe she and the girls could just hang on, huddle together for warmth, and try and hitch a ride back to the city with someone leaving when the club closed.

Eyeing the others in line, she shivered a little. The man nearest her ignored his pretty blonde companion, raking his gaze over Karma’s body and meeting her eyes with a challenge she feared to define. The couple behind him gave her the same look. She swallowed hard.

They were all too polished, too attractive, and too…too something she couldn’t define. The idea of trusting them for a ride home, especially if they had to split up because they couldn’t all go in one car, set off alarm blares.

She’d always been sensitive to other people, sometimes overly so. Accompanying her friends to the mall, amusement parks, other crowded places could sometimes be an anxiety-inducing nightmare. Nothing she could put a finger on but, sometimes, when someone brushed against her or bumped her while in line to check out of a store, the urge to flee overwhelmed her.

The peer counselors on campus were less than helpful and the family doctor her parents’ plan paid for offered her social anxiety meds. Theo wanted her to get past her issues, so she was willing to try anything.

She’d taken them once and felt like a thick, musty wool blanket covered her from head to toe, muffling every sensation. And the headache! Dull thudding that beat with her pulse in her ears, creating an off-rhythm cacophony. Once she vomited, she decided to stick with the devil she knew. She avoided the peak crowd times when possible—which was why she was in this line mid-week instead of on a weekend evening.

Glancing around, she found herself the object of interest for far too many of the other line-dwellers. One tall, silver-haired fellow licked his lips revealing sharp canines.
The better to eat you with, my dear.
She had to get out of there, fast. If she fell to the ground in a full anxiety attack, would they call an ambulance?

Somehow, she doubted it. Nothing about this place or these people fell within the range of normal. Deep breathing—a technique that served her in the past, pushing anxiety to an almost manageable level—helped her again. She inhaled to a count of seven, held it to seven, and exhaled to the same count. Again. Again. Her head cleared enough to consider the possibilities.

Thinking fast, she bent to adjust her shoe and came back up with a handful of pebbles. Turning to gaze over the low wall at the desert landscape, she let the rocks fly to clatter down the dry hillside. “Oh my God! Is that a mountain lion down there?”

As she’d hoped, the bored people in line and hanging around the landing crowded that side of the stairs to peer down and she ducked past them, managing just one anxiety-inducing contact with a woman dressed in zebra-print, and hopped over the wall on the other side, where she dropped to her knees and scrambled toward the top. Steep, the slope still offered enough handholds and places to stick her toes in their ridiculous shoes to get her the short way to the top. Her brief stint at rock jumbling in high school and sheer determination served her well, although not one part of her outfit would be wearable again. Not that she planned a repeat of the night. Clubbing was far too strenuous for Karma. How did people manage this every weekend?

Scrambling at an angle, she arrived on the plateau about a dozen yards from the doors and the attending bouncer who, along with everyone in line, scanned the hillside. He spoke into a radio—a good substitute for non-working cell phones. “Yeah, I know we banned Leo for life, but he’s out here again. At least a dozen of these losers swear they saw him.”

Crowd mentality strikes again.
Like in a children’s game of Telephone, where the whispered message changed with each speaking, someone—her—claimed to see a mountain lion and by the time word worked its way up the line, everyone thought they saw some guy named Leo who was probably a drunken troublemaker. A better distraction than she could have dreamed.

Kicking off her shoes, which she probably should have done sooner, she grabbed them by the straps and scooted away from the crowd, around the outside of the adobe and rock structure, hoping to find another door. Maybe an employee entrance or unlocked fire exit. Although she suspected fire codes along with health and safety and every other kind of regulation, might not apply here. With each passing moment, her impression of having stepped out of time and place grew.

Toto, I don’t think we’re in Phoenix anymore.

In her bare feet, she stepped deeper into the cave, away from the light bestowed by the full moon, and could only pray not to step on a scorpion or snake or other poisonous creature. But the desperation to get home grew, and along with it, her bravery. The girl who shuddered at brushing shoulders with a perfectly innocent lingerie shopper had no compunctions at trespassing into the darkness of a dark cave far from anywhere. As the light dimmed, she moved closer to the structure, its rough walls scraping skin from her trailing fingers. But she’d come too far to go back. Eventually, she’d find her way around the outside of the building and back to the front. If she didn’t run across a door by then, she’d rejoin the girls and see if they had any ideas. Hers, so far, had been without measurable results, after all.

But how big could the building be? Minutes passed and she switched hands, reaching across her body when the fingers of the first became too sore to continue. Just as she’d decided the building went on forever without ending, she found a crack in the wall. Tracing it, she knew. Patting gently, she jerked her palm back. A splinter added more injury to insult, but also indicated a door.

Could it be unlocked? She didn’t care where it led, at this point. The encroaching blackness of the cave had rendered her vision useless, and her eyes sent her odd sparks and flares as she strained to see. Finding the handle, she pushed on the panel, but nothing happened. Perhaps the old door was never used? Had frozen in place? Or maybe it opened outward…she tugged and it opened so easily she fell onto her bottom with a squeal. Karma moved to cover her mouth to avoid any more noise then let her hand drop to her side and pushed to her feet.

Flashing lights and electronic music swirled about her. Chattering voices and laughter, the clink of glassware. Pausing long enough to slip back into her shoes and straighten her dusty, torn dress, she stepped inside.
Karma, welcome to the nightlife.

So this was what she’d been missing.

Loud, cheerful, yet sensual. And large, much larger than she’d believed from outside.

Couples and groups swirled and stepped on the dance floor, their pattern of light and color almost choreographed in its elegance, its perfection. Their clothes fit perfectly to their perfect bodies, and their hair, in a fantastic array of colors, many unseen in nature, flew in silky strands. If they were human, she was some lesser species. Each dancer who whirled past her was more beautiful than the last.

Yet they were all sizes and shapes in their perfection. Their clothes enhanced their best attributes, and for just a moment Karma wondered if thin wasn’t necessary for beauty. But she could mull that at home in a tub full of bubbles. For the moment, her friends waited outside in the cold, surrounded by those less-than-respectable people in line. She needed to find that payphone. The seamless walls, at least those she could make out from her location, presented no obvious doors, except the one she’d just used to enter.

Slipping deeper into the shadows, she took in the seating along the walls. Benches and tables, most occupied. And the couple in the booth to her right were naked. The man idly caressed the woman in his lap, petting her breasts and neck, pausing from time to time to press kisses where his hand passed as they talked and laughed, sipping from short, square glasses of turquoise liquid.

Pretty. Them, the glasses, the luxurious maroon banquette bench and glass table that allowed her to see every inch of their bodies. Their faces were cast in shadow, but she could not tear her gaze from them.
Rude, Karma. Look away.
She winced. Her mother’s voice had no place here.

She forced her attention back to the dance floor as the song ended and another began, something from the Bee Gees, she thought. Retro. Some of the dancers retired but others filled the spaces and began…the
Hustle
. She’d done it in PE in seventh grade. Maybe her claim it was a waste of time to learn a dance she’d never have occasion to perform outside of class had been in haste. A revolving disco ball dropped from the ceiling, splashing reflected light to all corners of the room, including the one where the couple she’d tried not to stare at sat.

The man lifted the woman from his lap and laid her on her back on the bench. He pushed her legs apart with a knee and settled between them. Rude…hell. Nobody could look away except maybe a nun. Lying down, with the disco ball’s swirling white light flashing past them, their heads came into focus. The man, a redhead, rocked between the woman’s legs, her slender thighs locked about her back as he bent his head to her throat and she let out a moan that carried over the music.

Dry-mouthed, Karma leaned against the wall.
No no no.
Before she could process the competing thoughts, he lifted his face and turned toward her, sharp, white canines extending over his lower lip. A thin trail of blood ran down his chin. Ran down Theo’s chin.

She slapped her hand over her mouth to stifle her scream. Not that anyone could hear it over the music.

Pushing off the wall, Karma ran onto the dance floor, not caring where she ended up, just wanting away and out and home. Some people were not meant to nightclub. Look what happened when she did? She ended up in the middle of the desert, stranded with her friends in the cold among strangers who might be aliens from outer space.

The concept seemed the most logical explanation.

And Theo was one of them.

A cheater and an alien.

No wonder her dad didn’t like him much. Dads were smart people. Daughters should listen to them more. She choked on her tears.