Page 5

CHAPTER 5

“I can skip work and stay with you,” Cece said to Elora.

“No, you can’t. One, you just went back to work yesterday, and two, you can’t afford to take more time off, honey,” Elora said.

Knowing he was the reason Cece was reluctant to leave, Jonah tried to look nonthreatening as he sat on the couch. Truth be told, it hurt a little that Cece didn’t want to leave him alone with Elora, but could he blame her? He might feel like he and Cece were friends, but she didn’t feel the same. Neither did Elora.

His gaze drifted over the little witch as she spoke in low tones to Cece. He was itching to touch her, desperate to feel the softness of her skin under his fingers, but if he did any of that, there was a high probability she’d put a hex or curse on him. And as much as he longed to touch her, he’d had enough of being cursed to last him a fucking lifetime.

He took a deep breath, staring again with delight at his hands, arms… hell, his whole body. His muscles were a bit stiff and sore, and sometimes, when he walked, it felt like he was crossing the deck of a ship in the midst of a storm, but overall, he was surprised by how normal it felt to be back in his human body.

Cece hugged Elora before giving him a half-hearted smile and leaving. Elora leaned against the closed door, studying him silently. Fuck, she was gorgeous. Her dark hair, smooth skin, and slender body were perfect, and he’d give anything to be buried deep inside that perfect body.

His cock started to harden, reminding him it had been a very long time since he’d gotten laid. The pajama shorts he wore did nothing to disguise his growing erection, and he quickly grabbed a pillow from the sofa and pressed it against his lap. Jesus, he was like a horny teenager.

“You okay?” he asked.

She made a face. “I have no idea what I am at the moment. Confused, shocked, embarrassed.”

“Why are you embarrassed?” he asked.

“Why am I… you saw me naked! Numerous times,” she said. “We showered together, Lil - Jonah.”

“Would you believe me if I said I didn’t look?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“Does it help if I say that your body is smoking hot, and you have nothing to be embarrassed about?”

She groaned and covered her face with both hands. “I am so tempted to cast an amnesia spell on you right now.”

He froze, his erection disappearing completely as he stared at Elora. She dropped her hands, saw the look on his face, and her eyes widened. “Jonah, no. I was kidding. I would never do that to you. I swear.”

He relaxed against the couch, his now sweaty hands still clutching the pillow to his lap. Elora approached him cautiously and perched on the other end of the sofa. “Sorry, that was a terrible thing to say.”

“It’s fine,” he said, but he could hear the tremor in his voice.

She took a deep breath. “Will you tell me what happened to you?”

“I’m a shapeshifter,” he said, “like your sister.”

She stared at him. “You’re like Sarina.”

“Yes.”

“Did you have the same… job as she does?”

“Do you mean was I a mercenary for hire?” he asked bluntly.

She nodded, and he relaxed his grip on the pillow. He could hear the defensiveness in his voice when he said, “Yes. Most of us shapeshifters are. It’s all we’re good for.”

“No, it isn’t,” she snapped. “You think that because you’re taken away from your families and brainwashed as children. Your own kind tries to turn you into mindless soldiers for their gain. Hiring you out to whoever pays the most money, putting you in all sorts of dangerous situations, and -”

She cut herself off and took a deep breath. “Sorry, I have intense feelings about this because of Sarina.”

“I know,” he said.

“Did you manage to get out like Sarina did?” she asked.

“Yes,” Jonah said.

“What did they make you do to earn your freedom?” she asked.

“It doesn’t matter now,” he said. That was a giant fucking lie, but if Elora knew what he’d done for the chance at freedom, she’d never speak to him again.

“It was something terrible, I’m sure. It always is,” Elora said.

He hated that she knew so much about his kind and how horrific they could be, but what did he expect? Her half-sister was a shapeshifter. Of course she’d know.

“I’d been working jobs independently for a few years,” Jonah said. “I was finally free to live my life how I wanted. I was also a colossal whore.”

She blinked. “Oh, uh, okay.”

“I loved the ladies, and I wasn’t discreet about it. I wasn’t looking for a relationship, but I was always honest about that with the women I slept with.”

“I’ve never met a shapeshifter who did want a relationship,” she said.

He frowned. “How many shapeshifters have you met?”

She shrugged. “Probably more than the average person, thanks to Sarina. About a year before I found you, Sarina lived in Spain for a while. She let me come visit her for a few weeks, and there was a shapeshifter party we attended.”

He could feel his temperature spiking, his anger rising that Sarina would put her sister in danger like that. “That was incredibly stupid of Sarina.”

She gave him a cool look. “You know as well as I do that my sister is far from stupid. Besides, I was with Sarina the entire night and perfectly safe. The worst that happened was a few of them hit on me. And that wasn’t even awful, it was just -”

“You’ve slept with a shapeshifter?” Hurt had replaced the anger, and how fucking stupid was that? He had no right to be upset about who Elora slept with. She was free to fuck whomever she wanted.

Oh yeah? Is that why you’ve spent the last two years cockblocking her?

He ignored his inner voice as Elora said, “No, I didn’t. But only because Sarina wouldn’t let me. Which was ridiculous because I was an adult, but she acted like I was twelve or something.”

She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I think I know more than most about shapeshifters, and one glaringly obvious thing is that you don’t do relationships. Ever.”

“It’s too dangerous in our line of work,” he said.

She shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe you all just have commitment issues thanks to your fucked up childhoods.”

“How old was Sarina when she was taken?” Jonah asked.

“Older. She was nearly ten.” Elora’s face had gone pale. “Our father hid her well, but they eventually found her and took her. But her being older made it harder for them to break her. Despite what they did to her, I don’t think they ever fully did. How old were you?”

“Four,” he said.

She winced. Her small hands tightened into fists in her lap, and the knuckles glowed a faint blue. “How can they treat their own like they do? What made them become such monsters?”

“The program,” he said. “There were always one or two graduates each year who happily stayed on at the Academy to be… trainers.”

She snorted, that blue light glowing a little brighter. “They can call it a fucking Academy and themselves trainers all they want, but we know what it really is. A prison, and they’re the guards.”

He wanted to take her hand, soothe away that blue light that betrayed her feelings, but Elora still didn’t trust him. He hated that she didn’t, but he had to accept it.

“Who did they use to keep you from shifting and escaping?” she asked.

“My father and brother,” he said. “And the collar.”

He couldn’t stop the shudder that wracked his body. Elora shifted closer on the couch and took his hand tentatively. “I’m sorry. Sarina doesn’t talk much about it, but I know they also used the collar on her.”

“They use it on all of us until we’re… agreeable,” he said.

“How does it work?” she asked, her hand still holding his.

“I don’t know. All I know is it stopped your ability to shapeshift.”

“Magic, maybe?” she said. “I’ve tried to talk to Sarina about it. I thought maybe if I knew better how it worked, like if it was a spell or something, then I could create a spell to reverse it, but she wouldn’t talk about it with me. She says if it is magic, it’s too powerful for me to stop.”

“She’s probably right,” Jonah said.

They sat in silence. The blue had faded from her knuckles, and he studied how small but perfectly right her hand looked in his.

She studied their clasped hands blankly before pulling hers free. “Sorry. You were saying that you were a, um, whore?”

He nodded. “Yeah. One night, I met a woman at a bar and went home with her. We spent the weekend together, and I was upfront about what I could give her. She seemed cool with it.”

“Until?”

“Until her mother showed up at her house Monday morning. I came downstairs, and she and her mother were making wedding plans for us.”

“You’re kidding,” Elora said.

“I’m not,” Jonah said. “It didn’t help that I was an asshole about it. I laughed in their faces when they said they had a dinner planned for that night so I could meet the rest of the family. Reminded the girl that this wasn’t serious and that we’d only met on Friday. That she was nothing but a fun weekend for me.”

He rubbed at his forehead, hating that Elora was hearing about what a dick he could be, but he wouldn’t lie to her. “She started to cry, and her mother was angry. She yelled at me about leading her daughter on, and I told her that her daughter had a few screws loose if she thought this was anything more than sex. That really pissed the mom off. I had no idea the mother was a witch until she started speaking an incantation, and yellow light glowed from her hands. That’s when I decided getting the fuck out of there was the best and only option.”

Elora stared at him in fascination. “So, you shapeshifted to a crow?”

“Not at that point. I headed for the door, still in my human form, and the mother shot a beam of yellow light from her hands that nearly took off my head. If I hadn’t ducked, I’m pretty sure I would have been fried alive. She ran across the room and blocked the open doorway, still muttering and glowing, and I wasn’t risking getting close to her. But there was a half-open window in the living room. I shifted to a crow and flew for the window. The last thing I remember was blinding yellow light and pain. When I woke up, I was still in my crow form, and I couldn’t shift back no matter how hard I tried.”

“That must have been awful,” Elora said.

He could hear the dry click of his throat when he swallowed. “It was… terrifying. My body wouldn’t - couldn’t - do what I asked it to do. I was in a cage in a car trunk, and I started freaking out, screaming and cawing at the top of my lungs. The trunk opened, and the witch was there. She grinned, and the look on her face… Elora, she was insane. Completely insane.”

He shuddered and clutched Elora’s hand like a lifeline when it slipped into his. “Where was the daughter?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I never saw her again. Her mother told me she’d cursed me to live as a crow forever, that the spell could never be broken. Then she carried me in the cage into the potions store and sold me to the owner.”

“Did she tell the owner you were a witch?”

“She told the owner I was a witch’s familiar who could no longer be trusted. She sold me to the potions store owner who had plans to make a potion to ‘rehabilitate’ me.”

“Jesus,” Elora said. “But she told me you were a trapped witch named Lilianna.”

“Lucky for me, she was dating a wolf shifter who took one sniff and told her I wasn’t just a crow. He couldn’t tell I was a shapeshifter, paranormals never can, but he could smell my human side. That’s when she decided I was a trapped witch and named me Lilianna.”

Elora shook her head. “Helen always told me that shop owner was a bit crazy.”

“She’s a fucking nutbar,” Jonah said. “You saved my life the day you walked into that shop, little Elora.”

She flushed. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“I would,” he insisted, squeezing her hand. “I’d been stuck in that cage for a year. She never let me out, never let me fly… I was dying, Elora. You saved me. I owe you a great debt.”

“You don’t,” she said. “Why did you stick around after I let you out of the cage? I was sure you would fly away the first time I opened a window.”

“Well, at first, it was because I knew who your grandmother was, and I figured if anyone could break the spell, it would be Helen.”

“And after she made it clear that she wouldn’t help me break the spell?” Elora asked.

He smiled at her. “By then, I had faith in you, little witch.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long.”

He squeezed her hand again, ignoring his powerful urge to pull her into his lap. “No apologizing. You broke the spell, freed me, and gave me back my life. I owe you everything, Elora.”

She glanced at their clasped hands before staring at his face. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and when she licked her bottom lip, that small pink tongue tormenting him, he leaned forward. He absolutely shouldn’t be doing this, but fuck it, he’d waited years to kiss Elora.

“Jonah,” she whispered, soft pink rising in her cheeks and her perfect lips parting.

“Elora,” he said in a low voice as he slid his free hand into her dark, silky mass of hair. “My sweet, perfect Elora.”

He brushed his mouth against hers, nearly groaning out loud at the softness of her lips. Her sharp inhale, followed by a barely heard moan, turned his cock to stone. He kissed her again, but her phone burst into loud quacking before he could deepen it.

She jumped back like a startled deer before releasing his hand and standing. She grabbed her phone from the coffee table, glancing at the screen. “I have to take this.”

She hurried across the living room to her bedroom, shutting the door behind her. Jonah sank back on the couch. His cock was rock hard, and he could barely think straight. All from two soft kisses.

Fuck, he was in trouble.