LA Shifters: Shifter Romance Read online

   Copyright 2017 by Sky Winters- All rights reserved.

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  LA Shifters

  Shifter Romance

  By: Sky Winters

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  Table of Contents

  LA Shifters

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Highland Shifters

  MC Romances

  Bear Shifter Romances

  YA Paranormal Romance

  About The Author

  LA Shifters

  Prologue

  “Ready for this?”

  Antonio, the large wolf with black fur and green eyes, turned at the words.

  Magda, shifted from her bear form to human, stood close by the edge of the pen where she was kept. “I guess it’s a moot question, really, but I thought I’d ask.”

  Antonio shifted quickly, skin and bone forming and growing then transforming until he stood on two legs, his skin bare of the fur. The wind blew across his skin and goose pimples rose. “I’d say yes, but that would be a lie.”

  Magda grinned. The dim light flashed off her large white teeth. “Are you ready enough?”

  Antonio moved closer, but still stayed below the shelter, out of sight of the zookeepers, if any should happen along. “As ready as we can be.”

  Magda nodded. Her long brown hair waved around her cunning face. “It won’t be easy.”

  Antonio said, “Never expected it to be. How we’ve stood it this long is anyone’s guess.”

  It was anyone’s guess. The zoo had captured them all at some point, bringing them into the zoo under the assumption that they were the animals whose forms they could shift into. High doses of tranquilizers kept them complacent, and the food they ate was always laced with those drugs.

  Shifting was dangerous—for a lot of reasons. For one, all of them were in cages with actual non-shifting animals. Those animals harried them daily and forced the shifters to the edges of the pens. The keepers assumed that they were just not assimilating, and they weren’t, because they couldn’t.

  Antonio had thought he was the only shifter caught in that hell until he had seen Magda one night. She had been enraged enough, and awake enough, to shift right there in her pen. She’d almost been killed because the bears had gone on the attack. She’d had to shift back and fight to stay alive. The keepers had come in with their sedation tools and their sprays, and Magda had ended up in a pen just for herself because she was deemed untrustworthy.

  She was also marked as a zoo failure, and while the zoo, on the surface of things, did not kill its animals unless it was necessary, she had pretty well punched her own ticket that night.

  It was just a matter of time before they took her down. That went for both the keepers and the actual bears pacing in their pens, which were connected to hers even if they were separated by a slim band of trees and glass.

  Antonio said, “You shouldn’t be shifting yet. What if you are spotted? The whole thing could go up in flames. The cameras might spot you and then what? There’s no way to explain a naked woman in a pen where a bear was a moment before. You’re being foolish.”

  Magda snorted. “I have to. I can’t stand not to.”

  “I know.” He put his weight on the other foot, his eyes searching the pens.

  “The keepers should stay where they are for a few more minutes,” Magda replied. “Now’s our best chance.”

  “Yeah.” Antonio lifted a hand, raking his fingers through his thick hair as his nostrils spread and his head lifted. He sniffed the air, but the scent of humans lay too thick everywhere to know if any were nearby. “Just keep one eye out for anyone, will you?”

  “I will.”

  “Get going then.”

  “I didn’t need your permission.”

  The words made Antonio grit his teeth. “No, you don’t.”

  Magda paused. “I’m not staying here anymore. If I have to die here tonight, I will. I would rather be dead than be here and alive.”

  Antonio’s heart sped up. He scanned the surroundings again, seeing nothing but shadows sifting and crawling out there along the concrete pathways. “I’m with you, no matter how this pans out.”

  Am I willing to die here tonight? Yes, he was. He understood that even as his mind scrawled past all the risks she was taking and resentment at her willingness to take those risks simmered up in his being.

  Because Magda was in a position to pass things on, she had told him about the others. At night, when they were herded from their outside enclosures and into their pens, he had spotted a few other shifters, or thought he had. Magda had confirmed that there were others here, just as eager to escape as she and Antonio were.

  Revealing themselves as shifters would be disastrous. They all knew that from experience. No way did any of them want to become the pet project at some lab, stuck full of needles and having their brains scanned while being forced to shift constantly for ‘research.’

  By the law of nature, they were all enemies. Wolves, bears, and tigers were not meant to be friends. In the wild, they would have fought and killed each other. Here, they had to work together or die.

  This was their only shot, and they all knew it.

  The zoo had to cut power in the cages and pens tonight, and keepers would be standing guard to make damn sure no animal escaped while they did the routine maintenance that he, Magda, and Patel had all been waiting on for an entire year.

  This was their chance, and they would have to take it.

  They had a plan.

  As soon as the power went out, Magda, who was alone in her pen and stood the best chance of being able to get out without being eaten by non-shifting bears for her troubles, was going to climb her enclosure in bear form, because she was more capable of scaling the great height of the tree in that form.

  But the branch that stuck out from the enclosure would never hold her in bear form, so she would have to reach it and shift then drop onto the paved and concrete walkway.

  It was going to hurt. Even with her mutated healing abilities, she was going to be wounded, and naked.

  A naked woman toppling onto the path would be noticed, but since the power was going to be out, the cameras would be out, too, which would give her the perfect chance to get into the keepers’ lockers and grab clothing for them.

  Antonio knew Magda was not all that keen on helping the other shifters escape. The only reason she was doing so was because if she did not, they had all threatened to not only shift and reveal their secret, but to tell hers as well.

  No way would anyone let a shifter escape. The government really would track her down to the end of her days and that chip they all had implanted under their skin would certainly aid in her capture.

  That was why she had agreed to help free Antonio and Patel. Patel was a surgeon and capable of removing the chips, and Antonio had contacts in LA, unlike Magda and Patel. He could get them into shelter for the next few days, and get them food and other things they needed.
/>   Once dressed and in possession of the keys, Magda would unlock their pens. It was risky, because they could all go down in flames if she were caught.

  Antonio chewed his lips as he watched her shift yet again.

  This was it.

  His heart picked up again, his pulse ticking away in his throat. His gaze moved across the landscape, his mouth opened as he tasted the air, trying to separate old scent from new.

  The branch gave a low warning creak, making his head jerk upward. “Be careful, dammit.”

  “I am being careful,” she snapped. “I don’t want to break my legs or something, you know. Even if they will heal, I’ll be in misery for days. What’s more, there’ll be no way I could run.”

  Magda climbed the tree and when she reached the fork of the branch, she shifted again. She paused, looking down, and Antonio’s heart thumped painfully in his chest as he shifted back to wolf form.

  What if she lost her nerve? What if she could not bring herself to jump from that branch, knowing how much pain she risked?

  The branch creaked again, an alarming sound. The faint jingle of keys worn on a hip sounded out and a keeper strolled closer. Antonio could hear far better than Magda, and he was the lookout. She looked down at him, sniffing hard as she did so.

  He ran closer to the edge, where she could see him, and placed a paw out, aiming it in the direction the keeper was coming from.

  Magda stayed put. The bare strands of moonlight played over her body, all lean and high angles and rounded breasts and hips.

  Lust stirred up in Antonio, and he forced it away.

  Bears and wolves did not mix. It was against nature and even shifters had to play by those laws. His thoughts went back to the pups he had created with a non-shifting she-wolf.

  The pups had just been born a few hours before. They were there, in the pen, and they were his. He would take them with him, because not to do so meant risking them being shifters trapped in this existence, and risking shifters with no ability to handle the shifts exposing him and every other shifter in the world.

  There were plenty of shifters in LA, established packs out there in the neighborhoods. He would take his children and find a pack or forge a new one. If they could not shift, he would have to send them into the steep canyons to live, where they could be free and away from the humans who would kill them.

  The keeper stepped out from a thick clot of shadows. It was the ruthless one, Barry. There were keepers who loved every animal in the zoo, and then there were keepers like Barry, who was known to hit, kick, and hurt.

  Magda watched him, and Antonio saw the expression on her face. A warning growl rose in his throat, but she ignored it.

  Dammit! His body shifted instinctively as Magda went down, right on top of Barry.

  Magda landed on the keeper, already shifting to bear form. The heaviness of her body took Barry down and she landed right on his chest, forcing all the air from his lungs and preventing him from being able to scream.

  The thick and rich tang of blood hit the air, driving Antonio into a near-frenzy, no matter how much he tried to stay level-headed. He was not the only one reacting. Howls and growls rose up all along the long path that ran in front of that section of pens. It was just a matter of time before the other keepers showed up and they were all fucked.

  Magda, bloody and triumphant, grabbed the keys from Barry’s hip and came to his pen. She smiled at him. Blood covered the entire lower half of her face as she laughed, “Change of plans, Antonio. You have to come out now, and there’s no time to grab those pups.”

  “Like hell.” He shifted again and then again. He needed to be in human form to snatch the pups from their protective mother and he knew it, but he was risking much and he knew that as well.

  The howls rose in the air and the she-wolf, stunned and sleepy from childbirth, but alert because of the blood riding the air and the crisp scent of a human in her pen, fought him hard, forcing Antonio to kill her even though that was the last thing he wanted.

  The other wolves backed off, but their howls rent the air as Antonio gathered the limp and shivering bodies of the pups and ran for the gate and the unlocked door.

  Once he was out, Magda locked the gate again and they ran, naked and with the smell of blood and newborns all over them, toward Patel’s cage.

  Patel had done the only thing he could. As an outcast from the tigers, he lived on the fringes and right then he was up high in a tree, trying to escape the frenzied fighting below.

  Magda said, “For God’s sake, let’s just leave him.”

  “Fuck you, we need him,” Antonio retorted. “And besides, if we leave him here, he dies, thanks to your stupidity and blood lust.”

  He set the pups in a small basket meant to hold trash. Fear rippled through him. If the animal tigers escaped, they would kill his young, or if he died in that pen, the keepers might not find them in time to save their young lives. It was a risk he had to take.

  He grabbed the keys from Magda’s blood-soaked hand and opened the pen, then charged in, changing again to wolf form.

  Magda cursed a few times and followed. All hell broke loose, but Patel, able to escape the attention of the other tigers for a moment, slipped out the open gate.

  Magda and Antonio turned to the gate in time to see Patel holding it with one hand, a considering look on his face.

  Antonio’s heart sank. If Patel let them die there, he had nothing to fear. There would be no way the keepers would know for sure that they, or he, had been a shifter.

  Antonio and Magda would shift to human form in death—and there would be one hell of a mystery around the reason two humans had been in that pen, but nobody would ever guess the truth, and Patel would owe them nothing.

  Patel waved a hand. “Come on!”

  Antonio’s legs pumped across the ground. He reached into the basket and gathered his pups. Four males and one female. The pups howled softly, their mouths nipping at his chest. They were hungry, and they were now motherless as well.

  One of the pups, the female, bit down hard and began to fight him just as he made the gate and went through it.

  She squirmed and bit, her little pup teeth sinking deep into his arm, bringing blood. The males were more docile, which angered Antonio for some reason.

  He ran onward, ignoring the pain as they crossed between the pens and the tunnel that led to the employees’ work spaces.

  The lockers were closed, but they were all strong. Antonio ripped one open. He pulled on clothes, his hands working quickly as he shifted the pups from side to side.

  Magda said, “Maybe we should kill the rest of them. Or tie them down and force feed them.”

  Patel, reaching for pants, added, “Make them breed with each other.”

  Magda laughed. “They call it rape when they are forced. They call it necessary for us.” Her hand went to her belly. Antonio turned away. Magda’s cubs would be born soon, even if her human form didn’t show that fact.

  Antonio said, “No. No time. Besides, there’s already one dead keeper and that is going to raise a huge hunt. They might have let us go far more peacefully, but now they’re going to be after blood.”

  Magda tossed her head. “So?”

  Antonio’s teeth showed. “So, they’re probably going to kill a bear and call it done. Now you’ve committed murder against your own kind with your foolishness.”

  Magda’s eyes glittered. “When we’re done here, you’re my enemy.”

  Antonio said, “I was your enemy before. So, nothing’s changed. Let’s go. No more death, Magda. I mean it.” He set the pups more carefully into the small jacket he had found, wrapping them securely to make sure the female would not continue to bite and scratch him.

  Magda said, “Fine. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 1

  Present Day, Los Angeles

  Angelina hissed in a pained breath as the claw hit her calf. Her eyes went to the wolf crouching low in a playful posture and she laughed, then tickled him under th
e chin. Rough hair met her fingertips and love smote her heart.

  She said, “Oh, Mario, I wish you’d be more careful.”

  Mario whined softly, low in his throat, his white furred ears pricking forward. He bounded off, and Angelina watched him go, sorrow forming.

  Why she could shift and Mario couldn’t was one of life’s mysteries.

  She and her other brother, Sam, could shift. Mario alone was trapped forever in a wolf form, and because of that, they had to protect him.

  Joaquin spoke from behind her. “You do know someone should just shoot that poor bastard and put him out of his misery.”

  Her hackles rose and her teeth began to elongate at the words, but she was quick to hide those things. Sher turned. “He’s fine Joaquin.”

  Joaquin, a dark-haired, olive-skinned shifter with light hazel eyes and a definite swagger in his walk, strolled farther into the room. “If you say so.”

  “I do say so. I’m sure my brothers would also say so. Maybe you want to ask them?”

  “That’s enough.” His smile was unpleasant, all teeth and smugness. Angelina knew the only thing standing between her and Mario being killed was her. That and the fact that she was promised to Joaquin, who had been named Alpha of the pack after her father, Antonio, and Joaquin’s uncle, the former leaders of the pack, had been killed in a car accident the year before.

  Antonio was in line to be Alpha, and had deserved to be, too. But with him and Joaquin’s uncle both dead, Joaquin had been placed as leader instead.

  What a mistake that had been.

  Joaquin eyed her carefully. “I need you at Los Lobos tonight.”

  Her teeth ground together. “I don’t want any part of your drug trafficking, Joaquin. I don’t want any part of any of the things you’re doing in this neighborhood. You’re fucking it up for everyone, shifter and human alike, with that garbage.”

  He was an asshole, and unfit to be Alpha, but he was fast and he was ruthless.

  His hands were around her throat and her feet had left the floor before she could even register the fact that he had moved.