Claimed by Two Navy Shifters Page 18

  She glanced up at his chiseled profile. “Better late than never, huh?”

  “The time of dragons has passed for Earth,” Roth said, squinting out over the land that now appeared dry and barren compared to the lush green jungles of long ago.

  “There are other worlds to explore, now.” He sighed. “I do not think I would like to be looked upon as a god again. Too much responsibility.”

  “Yeah,” Melinda said. “And messy, when you think about all the human sacrifices…”

  “No such rituals occurred under my reign,” Roth said with an indignant snort. “You confuse me with someone else.”

  “My bad.” Melinda turned in his arms and plucked at one of the buttons on his blue chambray shirt, fighting the urge to open one more and expose the full expanse of his hard chest.

  “So, I guess you’ll be taking off soon to go check out those other planets…”

  She found it difficult to look into his eyes, knowing he would see the doubts that had started to surface since they returned to Earth.

  He touched her under the chin with one finger and gently forced her to lift her head.

  “You hide your mind from me,” he said, “and yet I feel your sorrow.” His brows drew together in a frown. “What troubles you?”

  She could have let him see for himself, connect to his energy and allow him to feel her pain as she had once felt his.

  “Hearing you talk about other worlds,” she said. “You’re an explorer. That’s what you were always meant to be – out there in space, making new discoveries…maybe even finding a way to help your people rejuvenate without having to trick women into being sex slaves.” She grimaced. “I guess I’m just afraid it’s all going to end, now.”

  “What will end?”

  “This. Us.” Melinda gave a hopeless shrug and shook her head. “You’re eternal, but what am I?” She smiled and finally managed to look up into his eyes. “I want the best for you…but I’m also going to miss you.”

  Roth stared at her. A rumbling laugh rose from his chest like the roll of thunder on a distant horizon.

  “Still as ignorant as the day we first met,” he said, with a teasing grin. He placed his hands on her shoulders. “As I have told you before, you are mine. You belong to me – but I also belong to you. Our souls are entwined and cannot be separated. Where I go, you go.”

  She blinked. “Are you saying you want me to travel the universe with you?”

  “Of course.” Roth gazed into her eyes and opened his own mind, allowing all his thoughts and feelings to flow forth like a gentle stream, warm and comforting.

  “I spent so many years being angry and rebellious,” he whispered, “I forgot how to be tender and kind.” He smiled. “Then I met you. You unearthed my broken heart, pulled it from the grave and gave life to it once more. You have reminded me how to love. For that and so much more, I will always need you, Melinda. Never leave me.”

  Hearing someone say they needed her, to know she held a place of importance in someone else’s life, filled Melinda with a profound feeling of contentment. Something else he said caught her attention.

  “Hang on,” she said. “Did you just say...I reminded you how to love?”

  “Yes.”

  I need to hear him say it, she thought. I need to know it’s real. She had held off using the words herself, even as she began falling for him. Deep down, despite all that talk about bonding and connections and shared energy, she still did not believe she would ever be capable of finding a special place in another person’s heart.

  Maybe you need to say it first. Even if you’ve been hurt a million times over by everyone you ever said it to, before.

  “Melinda?” Roth looked at her, head tilted slightly. “Are you all right?”

  “I love you,” she blurted out before she could stop herself.

  Roth blinked. Melinda braced herself, certain that she had just ruined everything.

  Then he said, “I love you, too.”

  Startled, Melinda raised her head and stared at him. “R-really?”

  He chuckled. “I see you have reverted to your former habit of not listening to me. Have you truly heard nothing I have said to you? I tell you I need you, I cannot live without you, I want you with me always.”

  He spread his arms, palms up, and looked around. “Shall I shout it to the world?” He cupped his hands around his mouth and, drawing a deep breath, began to bellow, “I lo—“

  “Okay!” Melinda grabbed at his wrists and yanked his hands down. She still didn’t know if they had permission to be up here… “All right. I believe you. You love me.”

  He loves me! On impulse, she reached up, took hold of Roth’s face, and pulled him down to give him a quick, firm kiss on the lips.

  “I’m still trying to get a handle on this ‘listening’ thing. Just…be patient with me. I’ve got a lot of years’ worth of issues to clear out.”

  “I will endeavor to assist you in any way possible.” Enfolding her in his arms, Roth covered her mouth with his in a deep and passionate kiss that lasted several minutes.

  “Guess we should be going,” Melinda said when they separated. She looked back the way they had come and grunted. “Hm. Well, unless you want to do your little teleportation trick, I have a feeling the climb back down is going to take longer than the climb up.”

  “Why climb,” Roth asked, “when we can fly?”

  As Melinda watched, he unfurled his wings, momentarily blocking out the sun as they flexed up and outward from his shoulders.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “Are you serious?”

  “Are you afraid?” Roth challenged.

  Melinda looked up at him. She saw the love in his eyes, and the smile on his lips made her break into a grin.

  “Not with you,” she said. She snaked her arms around his neck. “Fly, Dragon-man.”

  Locking his arms around her, Roth sprang into the air, his great wings beating. As they shot up through the clouds, Melinda let out a whoop of delight. She didn’t look down.

  And she never looked back, either.

  *****

  THE END

  Bonus Book 2: The Billionaire Shifter´s Secret Baby

  Description

  Desperation leads her to him. Love makes her stay.

  Out of funds and out of luck, curvy Katrina is willing to do anything, even if that means accepting a job no one else wants. Working for a wealthy recluse should come with some advantages, but she never imagined desire would be one of them.

  Hot billionaire scientist Zachary Drew knows danger, but nothing in life has prepared him for the dangers he now faces. Maintaining some semblance of order is necessary, but finding time for that is near impossible without a personal assistant. However, hiring the beautiful woman who answers his call will prove to complicate his life further. The lines between love, lust, desire and danger are crossed and no one will ever be the same again.

  Werewolves are out for vengeance. Katrina is caught in the crosshairs. Zachary “The Beast” knows what he has to do, but will his newfound love compromise his mission?

  Chapter One

  Katrina stared at her Facebook page and felt herself sinking further into the funk she had been in for going on six months now.

  Her grandmother had been an important matriarch and role model for her whole family, raising Katrina all by herself. But now, that woman was gone; the crippling effects of old age taking her away before she even saw the big 8-0. The only consolation was that Katrina knew that her Grandmother, Rita, had a full and amazing life. Now, she was probably walking hand in hand with her husband, who also died much too soon.

  Katrina’s Facebook page was filled with pictures from the service. She’d had to pay for it herself with money she scraped out of her grandmother’s savings combined with the condolence cards.

  All of her friends posted workout selfies, roses from boyfriends, or photos of themselves running around with their little ones. Her page just reeked of death. It was more tha
n past time to change that, even as much as she wanted to honor the memory of Grandma Rita. The best way to do that was to go live life to the fullest and the first step was to change her status from unemployed to employed. She needed to pay her bills and all that other adult stuff she had been avoiding through the grieving process.

  The money her grandmother left her could stretch no more.

  Katrina pushed back a lock of dark hair and sighed. She pulled up the map on her computer. She had heard from an acquaintance that it was easy to get a job with a temp service. You just walk in and give them your resume, then they matched your skills with a job opening. If the job didn’t work out, then they find you another one.

  Upon investigation, Katrina realized it wasn’t so simple. The jobs were not always ideal, and they were unstable. Most were looking for people to hire for a couple of months and then let them go. She would always be left to find a new job each time. But it was worth a try. She didn’t have a lot of skills or experience, and the only college credits she had were two years’ worth at a community college. It was all she could afford.

  Money had never come so easily to her or her grandmother. The only reason bills could be paid with money to spare was because her grandmother had been great at budgeting and investing her money, and the woman had never stopped working in some form or fashion.

  In fact, her grandmother had hated being idle. It was one of the things Katrina had so admired about her. But it turned out that admiration didn’t mean that she had the same kind of talent in such matters.

  Katrina did a search for temp services near her and found that there was a place just a couple of blocks away. That was her best bet to not use too much gas. Her car was great; very reliable for a used car, but it wasn’t so efficient.

  She made note of the address and went to her closet to find the nicest clothes she had. Her grandmother had always taught her to dress for the job she wanted rather than the one she had. She had always noticed how appearance made people react differently, whether it was shallow or not.

  Katrina had one nice blue skirt with a matching jacket that was a go to for anything fancy. Blue had always looked good against her chocolate skin, which was why it had become her favorite color. It would definitely work for the occasion. She quickly got dressed and brushed her straight, thick hair to perfection, which often took more than 100 strokes. She often joked that she didn’t need to lift weights because she got all the workout she needed from brushing her hair.

  She pulled her hair into a low ponytail, applied mascara, and a soft lipstick. The effect was good. She looked at her large golden brown eyes in the mirror, her soft round lips, and the high cheek bones she’d inherited from her grandmother.

  “I would hire you,” she said to herself with a smile.

  Katrina went into her files and pulled out a copy of her resume. She felt like she needed to give it another look before she left, just in case she needed to tweak it again. She had actually put it together with professional years ago in a class she took and had been adding to it ever since, but she needed…wanted a job so badly, she found herself nitpicking at it; afraid that it wouldn't be good enough to get her anything.

  Her experience was limited to a short stint as a secretary and another doing seasonal work at a boutique in the mall. Her most recent job had been as an office manager in a dentist office that she lost only two weeks in when she had to start really caring for her grandmother.

  She hoped it didn’t look like she couldn’t hold a job and stay somewhere. After all, it seemed that in the business world all a person boiled down to was that piece of paper. No one seemed to care about merit and personality.

  Katrina couldn’t see anything she could improve whilst still being honest, so she had no choice but to get in her car, with her resume as is, and head over to Carmen & Braxton Temp Service.

  It didn’t take long to get there; one song on the radio was all she got to hear before she approached the unassuming, one-story, concrete building. The logo was on the top in thick blue letters.

  Everything about the place looked simple. She could see a number of desks where consultants were meeting with other candidates through the translucent, brown glass that wrapped around the building. There was nothing to be nervous about; they were all there to help people. That’s what she told herself anyway.

  As she walked in through the door and was greeted by a young dark haired woman with a smiling face. She wondered for a moment if there could be a job opening at the temp service itself. How did these women get their job anyway? She doubted she was the first person to have that thought.

  The woman asked to see her resume and then sent her to an office to wait for some other woman who had gone to get some coffee. Apparently, you were assigned a consultant based upon the industry you worked in or were looking to work in. Soon, another woman came in to greet her. She was a little older, maybe in her late thirties, and had her hair up in a severe bun. But her eyes were kind as she smiled and shook Katrina’s hand and took her resume, a coffee in her other hand.

  “Hello there, I am Angela; the recruitment manager for the office and customer service division of the Carmen & Braxton Temp Service. You’re Katrina, is that right?” Her voice was like a wind chime, always sounding like a high-pitched song., Katrina would say the woman had been a fairy in another life if she had believed in that sort of thing.

  “Yes, that is correct,” Katrina answered, ready for a true line of questioning as she passed her resume to this Angela person.

  Angela looked it over for what seemed like a little too long with pursed lips. The expression made her look much older; like a dried up prune. But she had the power of Katrina’s situation at the moment, so it didn’t really matter what she thought of her.

  “Can I be honest,” Angela asked, looking up from the resume and leaning against her desk. Katrina nodded nervously, readying herself for rejection. “It is a slow time of year for the type of jobs you could do. Your resume definitely shows some experience for the kind of clients we usually have, but right now I really only have one job available, and I am not so sure you would want it.”

  “Honestly, I need a job pretty badly. Not much is going to scare me off right now,” Katrina admitted, knowing it was her only chance to begin to change her circumstances.

  Angela sighed and gave a knowing nod.

  “Alright, but I warned you. The job is working as a personal assistant to a man called The Beast. He’s used our service a couple of times and has a high turnover rate. He’s quite the recluse, though he has a lot of money from whatever he does—which I am assuming is why he needs a personal assistant. The job is a live in one at his home.”

  Angela paused. “You should know the last person to work for him went mysteriously missing, though authorities have not found any foul play involving the man himself. If you take it, I would, of course, keep looking for other jobs for you in the meantime.”

  Katrina thought about it for a moment and wondered if it was worth the risk. She would be going into this blind, not really knowing what was in store for her other than a reclusive, rich man.

  But she needed the money and wouldn’t have to worry about a place to live. She could rent out her current place and have even more steady income.

  It really didn’t sound like something she could afford to turn down.

  Katrina smiled at Angela with false confidence. “I’ll take it.”

  Chapter Two

  Katrina arrived just after dark to the mansion where her new boss Zachary Drew, otherwise known as The Beast, lived. That was the request she had received by e-mail, that she should arrive later in the evening after dinner was complete.

  Apparently, the man was a little nocturnal. She could already see why some people might not want to take the job. For the length of time that she would be working there, she would have to live in his mansion, which was not the ideal place.

  In fact, when she had heard the words “rich” and “mansion” she had assumed
it was some modern beautiful home with a huge pool and landscaping that cost thousands of dollars. It was something very different standing before her, though.

  It was a nice enough place; the sort of place a person might live who had a lot of money, but it had a creepy feel to it. Katrina thought the house would do well on the set of a horror film.

  There was a large piece of land and a huge fence surrounding it; which fit with the theory that the man who owned it was a bit of a recluse. It was mostly made out of brick and didn’t look that old. Despite the newer construction it was built to have an old-world feel like it was a historic home.

  Katrina looked up at the house and all its windows. All the windows made her feel she was being watched as she walked up to the door, which was black with a knocker on it. The place was probably a big hit at Halloween.

  She used the knocker and waited to see who might answer the door. She had to admit that she was kind of curious what he looked like. Did he have a hump back or was he very pale? There must have been a reason for his nickname besides his introversion.

  To her disappointment, a tall thin, older man opened the door.

  "Good evening. Are you Katrina Dreyer?" The man was wearing a very expensive suit, and she was positive that this was not Zachary. He must have been some other kind of house staff.

  She nodded at the man whose look fit in well with the house. He was rather scary himself with his deep voice and creepy skin. "Let me take your bags and see you to your room. Then, I will show you around the place and discuss your duties. If you are still interested, you will be required to sign a contract in order to work for and receive payment from Mr. Drew."

  The man was talking and moving rather fast for someone so old, and it felt like Katrina couldn’t catch her breath as they climbed the narrow staircase up and up until they reached the next floor which was even more disconcerting than the outside.

  There were three dark hallways that looked identical and easy to get lost in. The floor was covered in real wood, and the clanking of their shoes echoed in the silence as he took her down the corridor to the left and into a room a few doors down.