Page 26 of Shifting Years (Whispering Hills #5)

Omegas were short, and that was a blessing.

I never had to lean down to hold my little daughter's hand.

Her clipped-back blonde hair, adorned with a small flower, fluttered in the breeze.

She already turned five and I could have carried her easily, but she was an independent little thing who would 'just die' if someone saw her.

Where did she hear that phrase?

Her vocabulary was advanced for her age, though she still struggled with words longer than two syllables.

My Angel stared intently at the newspaper in my other hand. "In… inner. Inter pride?"

"Enterprise," I said slowly and held the paper out for easier reading.

There she was, the space shuttle, named after the starship from my favorite show.

Some things didn't happen, and heroes got assassinated or died, but our sci-fi future would come for sure.

By the end of the eighties, we'll have people living on the moon.

"Going into space?" she asked, carefully sounding out the words. When I nodded, her face lit up. "Can I go?"

My throat tightened as we passed the newly opened stores. "You can do anything you want."

"Like turning into a doggie?"

"Well, a wolf but…"

She closed her icy-blue eyes in concentration before opening them. "I can't."

"You can, but one day. After you find a mate."

"Ewww…"

I sighed in relief, mentally thanking the universe. She didn't ask more, and it wasn't a conversation I was ready to have.

"We should hurry. Aunt Mary and Penny are waiting at their cabin."

She slowed down, refusing to budge. A human would wonder if something had happened on an earlier visit, but no shifter ever harmed a child. "Daddy, Penny plays disco."

"But not KISS!"

"No."

Normal music was Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and The Grateful Dead. KISS? They were loud screamers dressed as clowns, setting off explosions on stage. People said they were Satanic, but I've been called that myself.

"Aunt Mary wants to smush Penny's ABBA records."

"Smash," I corrected. "But she doesn't really want to. Sometimes people don't like the same things, and that's okay."

She smiled, as if hearing something, and ran toward their cabin, past blooming rose bushes, as fast as her tiny feet would carry her.

Mary came out with her short black hair as did Penny with her long blonde hair flattened straight and pulled back into a ponytail.

She would have looked six months pregnant if she were human.

Her shifter biology meant she was two months in.

Mary handed my daughter a chocolate chip cookie with a smile and waved back.

I wanted to stay, but they needed the pupsitting practice. Nine times out of ten, female shifters had girl pups. I hoped she'd have someone near her age to play with. It's only been us and her aunts. The other female shifters had far older daughters.

I hope she's not lonely. She was already different being the only little girl her age and having one father. Technically two.

It's been years, and Henry hadn't tried anything. The protection ran out after five years, and I bought a gun a week before it did. Images of my Angel finding it while playing had me sell it back to a gun shop, miles outside town.

No shifter would ever harm a child, but had I denied my daughter her father simply because I despised the man who helped create her?

There could have been another father, but Todd was dead.

It felt like a lie when I read the telegram, but he went to war and never returned.

There were rumors of a mistake, but follow-ups confirmed his KIA status.

So I searched, sensing a lie with every cold paper trail. If he wasn't dead, then where was he?

***

Spring turned into summer with heat and injustice turning people angry.

Over two hundred thousand protesters marched and screamed through San Francisco protesting Anita Bryant's remarks and the murder of another gay man.

In another timeline, I would have been there, but I had a little girl to look after.

Elvis Presley and Led Zeppelin performed concerts, and I made a mental note to see them in the eighties when Angel was older. New York stayed dark with a multi-day power outage and violent looting. I kept the television off, so the burning cars and gunshots didn't give my little girl nightmares.

What kind of world am I bringing you into?

Wavering thoughts and a violent world brought a long knife for protection. For days, it had stayed, taped behind the bed's headboard, waiting for a monster who never came.

Gradually, time went by with a lonely little girl who wanted sisters of her own. I did the best I could with playdates with the boy pups and watched The Electric Company with her. Star Trek made it into reruns, and there were moral lessons in the episodes, but that was television and not reality.

Should I give her a brother or sister?

I could mate again, but if I did, I'd be the one to financially provide.

The days of relying on an Alpha were over like dreams of running a restaurant with Todd.

So for practice and training, I made money selling homemade blueberry pies.

Average desserts were good enough for humans but to shifters with advanced senses?

The canned blueberry sludge wouldn't do.

Todd would have chastised me for being out in the forest alone, but I had to live and go out for my sanity and my daughter's wellbeing. Dozens of trips out before did nothing, and I always smelled ahead. I was safe.

Not today.

Leaves rustled overhead—a whisper of warning too late. Henry dropped from an overhanging limb, and in an instant, I was slammed against the ground. What blueberries didn't crush under my skin decorated the summer grass. Dark, shark-like eyes I had tried to forget stared down.

He slapped my face slightly, looked up, and then around. Nothing happened so he hit me harder. "Oh, yeah. That's nice. It's real good."

His calloused hand squeezed my throat. "What did you do, Mike? Every time I look at her, I think of something else or used to. People would talk about your child, and I couldn't remember her when they did."

The spell helped, but magic doesn't give you everything. I got years of safety, but Henry knew something was off and it picked at him like a scab until it burst open with pus.

His grip loosened, but his dark eyes gleamed with a twisted kind of satisfaction. "She's mine, isn't she?"

"No," I coughed.

He sniffed my temporary garbage scent. "Filthy, lying whore. You denied a man his daughter?"

"A monster." My pounding heart raced, loud enough for us to hear as I stood. "I'll make sure she never knows."

"She's mine . You had no right!"

On some level, I could agree. I know how I'd feel if someone took my Angel away. Any consideration disappeared as he unbuckled his pants. I stepped away, but a supernaturally hard slap threw me back while my vision dimmed with grey shadows.

"Fine," he sneered. "I'll put another pup in you. And another. And another."

Todd was right. The man was monstrous, but my real Alpha—the one who lived in my heart—was a fighter. He was everything I wasn't and wouldn't lay on the ground with tears going down his face.

Henry didn't pull off my jeans but ripped them apart with shifter strength and then my top. To my shame, my dick was semi-hard, and slick grew from behind. My brain screamed 'monster,' but my body betrayed me, responding to his Alpha scent.

He sneered. "I knew it. The whore Omega can't get enough, but don't worry. I'll give it to you and knock you up again. Why? Because I'm a real Alpha, not some ghost stupid enough to get drafted. He should have hired a doctor. He had the money."

Whispering Hills was off the grid and, thanks to an old spell, not really thought about much. Todd was found because someone told the military about his exact location. Henry, who sent my Alpha to die, hid behind a doctor's note. With his money, he could find one who'd write down anything.

"That ghost is more of a man than you'll ever be. He was right, you are a worm."

"When I stick my worm , well, more like a big snake, inside you, tell me who's bigger."

He reached down like he had all the permission in the world and smiled as his beefy fingers ran through my slick. He wasn't concerned about my safety or comfort but loved the unsaid compliment. Everything that made me Mike said I didn't want this, but my body argued.

Lay back, close my eyes, and use meditation techniques from books. It would be over, and I could fight later. Did I ever? Bobby once said I didn't seem like a hippie. I barely attended protest marches, and did I involve myself in The Movement? I read, and that was it.

As best I could, I ignored the hand cupping my wet ass.

Todd fought for the world he wanted. He didn't just talk. He acted. Now it was my turn to do the same .

My man battled a shifter as a human and pretty much won. Since I mated, I was far stronger than human Todd, so what if I did the same?

Henry kept his right hand fisted as a message, and in his mind, his cock would split me soon. This was stretching out the experience. I was his again and there wasn't anyone around to tell him different.

I'm not a fighter like Malcolm X, JFK, Doctor King, Bobby Kennedy, or Todd, but to little Angel, I was her everything. If I didn't step up, she'd never get the world she deserved.

Do it!

I struck with fingers stabbing deep into Henry's left eye. He howled, thrashing as dark blood sprayed across my face. Did I try to burst his eyeball? I don't know, but blood and goo spurted, then slid out. I dodged his punches, dirt flying as he struck the ground instead.

Memories of an old fight replayed as I mirrored and adapted Todd's moves. A punch to the throat took away an Alpha's breath and a thumb into another socket found a warm wetness. His snakelike grapple left, and I shimmied away.

Henry writhed around on the ground, sniffing and swinging at empty air. "I'll kill you!"

He tried something so vile, I couldn't say the word in my mind. Yet, I almost felt sorry for him. Shifters heal fast, but did we regenerate? Todd bloodied his eye, but I destroyed both. Thoughts came that went against every book I read, but Todd and Bobby were right. Sometimes you had to fight.

But do I have to kill?

Have to or want to?

Tears from anger or the attack streaked down my face and my foot slammed into his chest. He flew back, rolling into the ground, and it would have been enough. I was naked and ready to shift. Run on all fours into town or howl with a panicked wolf-song and the sheriff and others would come.

Instead, I took in the pathetic, bloodied thing that lived in my head and gave me years of fear. I could have had a life with my Alpha, but this pitiful worm brought the military police. He killed my Todd as much as a Vietnamese bullet.

He might as well have fired it himself.

I angled myself against the slight breeze to mask my scent and position. He clawed several times at the air, and if he connected, that would have been it.

He staggered to his feet with a cruel thinking look I've seen before. He'd outthink me if I didn't go through with it. I kicked his knee, and cartilage crunched in response. I wiped away the last tear. More would come later, but I had a problem.

Would the town believe? I had planned to run but maybe I shouldn't. It's hard to lie to shifters unless you mask the scent with another emotional smell. They should believe me, but Henry was never without a back-up. What would Todd do?

He wasn't around but his memories stayed. Something he said years ago came as if it were only yesterday.

"Yeah, I wish everyone could see what a worm you are." I fell to my knees, instantly drained as if spent from a marathon. "You convinced the town, but I wish they could know the monster I see."

Goosebumps crawled over my skin. The trees trembled, and the blueberries withered into shriveled husks.

"No! I didn't agree! It wasn't a real wish!"

Maybe it wasn't from them, but magic is belief and will. With all my heart I wanted the town to see the monster from my mind.

Two women's voices pounded in my head. Oh, you phrased it poorly.

My attacker shook on the ground before whipping back and forth.

"No!" I shouted to the sky. "Stop! I didn't mean it! Please!" I had no idea what was coming, but it couldn't be good for anyone.

Foam frothed from Henry's mouth. I had seen men and women shift before, but never like this. Bones lengthened and his skin, instead of turning furry, burst with curved horns or centipede-like spikes. His mouth lengthened while the 'head' grew thick. Back and forth he went slithering on the ground.

"No! I didn't wish for this!"

But I did.

"I wish for him to return!" Whatever energy, emotion, or will mixed earlier wasn't there now. Henry turned more shell-like and grew to the size of a school bus. Long curved claws clicked along both sides of his body as if they were mandibles.

Henry's bulbous head jerked side to side, clicking at the air as if trying to smell me. He had no nose—just a gaping, circular maw bristling with teeth.

Then he inhaled.

A cyclone of wind roared toward him as he sucked in deep, tasting the air.

I scrambled back, frantically rubbing wilted blueberries against my bare skin before pressing myself into the bushes.

Henry coiled, massive and monstrous and he turned.

Not toward me.

Toward the cabin.

To Penny, Mary and their baby.

To my Angel.

***