Free Werebeasties by Lizzie Lynn Lee Page A

her.
    He didn’t want to scare the female either. But He was too curious. There was so much to discover about her. He could smell blood on her, one of those times that human females couldn’t perform a mating. Her skin and hair smelt refreshing, like fruit. Her clothes were damp and smelt like fruit too. He studied her with interest. He wanted to scent her. From up close. Intimately. But Adam sensed his intention and told him to sit.
    Adam and David talked some more to the female. She looked disbelieving. Her gaze went back and forth between David and Him. Her hand trembled. A strong sense of distress permeated from her every pore. He wanted to go and lick her to dispel the stress. Calvin didn’t like the idea. His human wanted to console the female in person.
    Move , Calvin demanded. He shoved Him around to gain control.
    He growled. He wanted to lick the female.
    Calvin shoved harder. He had no choice but to concede. It was Calvin’s time to take back control anyway. He had had His fun all night.
    His bones creaked. His flesh twisted and rearranged. His black glossy fur vanished, replaced by human skin. He became mellow as Calvin took complete possession.
    The female’s eyes bulged as she watched the transformation. Her mouth formed a frozen O.
    He retreated to His corner.
    Calvin emerged from the shell. “Hello, Sam.”

    * * * *

    Samantha lay in her bed, eyes wide and her heart racing faster than a Japanese bullet train. The revelation had completely blown her mind. The truth about her parents. And the truth about Adam, David and Calvin. Sweet God. If she hadn’t witnessed Calvin shift with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have believed them. But it had happened.
    Shape-shifters existed.
    She ran her hands through her hair. Unbelievable. They weren’t completely human. Her employers were feline shifters. Adam said his beast was a lion. David was a tiger. And Calvin had revealed himself as a panther. The very panther she thought she’d seen a few days earlier.
    She had been freaked out, but she was also awed. It wasn’t every day she got to meet half-supernatural beings. Things that went bump in the night were real.
    And the reason Adam had hired her in the first place…
    She hadn’t known she was adopted. That she was the last of the bloodline of Kurt Jacoby, a man who’d existed more than a century ago, who had wronged Adam, David and Calvin and forced them to make a pact with the devil, turning them into what they were. Her biological mother was a school teacher who’d had an affair with a travelling salesman, who’d happened to be Jacoby’s descendant. They had both died years ago. Her biological mother had remarried and died in childbirth. In some way, that explained why she had never seen her baby pictures. The earliest family photo she’d seen of herself and her parents was when she was on a tricycle with her mother in tow. She’d been two years old.
    Now, the three men had found her to atone for sins of the past. She belonged to them. As a warden of their beasts. To be protected and cherished.
    Everything started to make sense.
    A sliver of a thrill crept at the base of her spine. She didn’t need to leave them when her contract was over. She would see them every day, her every waking moment. The three of them. Her men. Hers.
    Sam hauled herself up to sit and slide down from the bed. Still. The revelation didn’t solve her problems with Jared. If anything, it complicated it. If she went to the men and told them about the blackmail, she’d bet they would help her in a heartbeat. Would that make their opinion of her lessen? She still had her pride. She wanted them to think of her as more than a pest. They had doled out the money Jared demanded without question and put up with her ex’s crap.
    What would they think about her if they knew she had a sex tape?
    The damned thing would embarrass them if it ever leaked onto the internet…
    God.
    Why did this kind of shit keep happening to her? When things