Thank You For Not Shifting (Peculiar Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Tell me all about how his wooly mammoth avoided the ice age by hiding in your heated cave.”

  “Sunny!” Ruth exclaimed. Willy laughed so hard tears ran down her face.

  Frankly, I nearly peed my pants. “You are truly awful! Besides, there is nothing wooly about his mammoth as you well know since you got a really good look at it the other morning when you went all Peeping Tom at his bedroom window.”

  “I’m not a Peeping Tom,” she said, managing to sound genuinely hurt. She glanced my way, her gaze meeting mine, a sly grin growing out at the edges of her mouth. “Though, wowza, you’re right. There is nothing wooly about that genuine mammoth.”

  Willy hooted. I blushed. Ruth had the good sense to pretend we were talking about the weather.

  I glared at Sunny. “Didn’t you say you were meeting Babe and some of the council members for lunch?”

  “Crap. Yes.” She looked at her watch. “I need to get going. I’m already late.”

  Her shirt was a pretty shade of kiwi green, a color that really brought out her eyes. I held up Jude. “I think the baby’s hungry.” I followed this line with just the right high-pitched cry.

  “Chavvah!” Sunny’s hands covered her leaking boobs, which did little to stop Niagara Falls from whooshing down her chest.

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “Tell my bro I say hey.”

  She grabbed a receiving blanket and draped it across her chest. “I’ll get you for this, chick.”

  I smiled sweetly. “You’ll try.”

  “It’s a good thing I love you.” She took Jude from me.

  “Ditto that,” I told her, and with all my might, I believed it. I thanked my stars every day that Sunny Haddock, make that Trimmel, loved me. It was one of those rare miracles you get in life.

  “Knock, knock,” said the voice of my sexy ass man. He stood in the back door. “Am I interrupting you ladies, or is this a no-wooly-mammoths-allowed zone?”

  The look on Sunny’s face, the red-hot embarrassment crawling up her cheeks onto her ears, had made all her taunting worth it. “Uhm.” She nodded down to Jude. “I’ll see you all later. Baby needs feeding.”

  Billy Bob held out his hand to me, and I took it, so happy to let him pull me into his arms. He walked me out the kitchen door into Ruth’s lush back yard and pulled me in close, his fingers pushing my hair away from my ear. He leaned down and whispered, “I have a certain dinosaur looking for a hot spot to hide out for a while.”

  My eyes widened.

  He winked. “I feel another ice age coming on.”

  Willy said, “Therianthrope hearing, you all, and the windows are open. Just in case you thought you were alone.”

  “Jealous,” I teased.

  “You bet,” she said.

  I jumped up and looped my legs around Billy Bob’s waist. “Let’s go make some dolphins blush.”

  The growl vibrating up his chest filled me with such anticipation.

  “You make me so goddamn happy, woman.”

  “I don’t plan to stop.”

  “I’ll hold you to it because I am only mating once, and it’s for life.”

  “Is that a proposal?” Sunny came staggering through the back door still wrapped up in the blanket and carrying baby Jude.

  “Sunny!”

  Billy Bob cupped my face. His flirty expression became more serious. “Chavvah. I have waited a lifetime for you, and I don’t want to wait a minute more.” He reached down into his pocket, which brushed against some very sensitive bits of mine. When his hand came back up, he held a small box.

  “Holy shit,” Sunny said. “This really is a proposal!”

  He flipped it open with his thumb. Inside was a dark gold band with two circles holding two large diamonds. “I love you, Chavvah. Under the sun, under the moon, and every moment in between, I love you. You’d make me the happiest man alive if you would do me the honor of marrying me.”

  “I…” I hadn’t expected this. Not so soon. It had taken Babe a few months to propose to Sunny. “I…”

  “Yes!” Sunny screamed. “For God sake, yes!”

  I met his silver gaze and smiled. “What she said.” I kissed him. “I do so love you.” He slid the ring on my finger, and it fit perfectly. I held out my hand to admire the magnificence and to show it off to the girls. “When did you get this?”

  “About six months ago.”

  “Seriously?”

  “As soon as I knew I loved you, I wanted to be ready for the moment you loved me back.”

  “You’re about two years late then.”

  He smiled. “Well, I’ve caught up now.”

  “You sure have.” I kissed him again then jumped down to give the threesome of happy ladies a closer look.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Ruth said, wiping a tear from her eye.

  “Lucky devil,” Willy added.

  Sunny hugged me hard. “You’re moving to the big house!”

  “You make it sound like prison.”

  “It is marriage,” Willy said.

  “Okay, okay.” This sweet moment was turning ugly. “Take me home, Doc. We have an extinction to prevent.”

  He raised a brow, to which I mouthed. “Wooly mammoth.”

  The End

  Preview another book by Renee George

  Midnight Shift

  Midnight Shifters, Book 1

  Chapter 1

  His mouth tasted of smoke, not from cigarettes, though she wouldn’t have minded, but this was more woodsy, natural and earthy, reminiscent of burned hickory. At the Millstone Bar, Benoica Dilian—who preferred Benie—had spotted the gorgeous creature right away. He’d been a bold brunette and beautifully built with his long torso, wide shoulders, and sculpted muscles. He’d known all the right things to say, and she knew in bed he would have all the right moves.

  She’d taken him to a quiet, out of the way motel. The kind that rented by the hour. The walls were beige with a few dark stains, the curtains a large flower print with one side held closed with safety pins, and the bedspread was a hot paisley mess. Benie wrinkled her nose at the mustiness, but places like these didn’t smell like potpourri. She cast a worried glance at the decor before promptly turning off all the lights.

  “I like it dark,” she told her pick-up. “It’s more mysterious and sexy, don’t you think?”

  He took her in his arms, and when his tongue swiped across her lips, the heat of his mouth made her knees tremble. “I want to see you,” he said. “Let me turn on the lights.”

  “No,” she whispered. “Don’t.”

  “But you’re so beautiful, and I’m so beautiful. It’s a shame to waste us in the dark.”

  Benie grabbed the front of his jeans and squeezed. “We seem to be doing okay.”

  “Yes, we sure are,” he agreed.

  If she was right about the man, he would make his move soon. She breathed in his scent, the aroma arousing her even more. Yeah. She was right about him. “God, you smell good. What are you wearing?”

  “It’s all natural, darling.”

  “Good genes?”

  “You have no idea.” He kissed her neck, his hot breath causing goose bumps to rise on her skin. “More talk or more action?”

  She ground her hips against him. “More action. Definitely.”

  He didn’t need additional urging as he lifted her shirt and cupped her breasts.

  When his deft tongue twirled her nipple, she almost forgot her purpose. Almost. “Shit, yeah,” she told him, reaching into her back pocket. “God, that feels so good.”

  He lifted his head, drawing himself up the length of her body. “Tell me you want to fuck me.”

  “I want to fuck you.” She mentally added: up.

  “How bad do you want it?”

  She wanted him to stop talking and get to gettin'. Make his move already before she decided she didn’t care about having proof. Then it happened. The bite. All the evidence she needed. “Son of a
bitch!” Damn, it hurt. Reflexively, she bashed his face with her forearm and yanked a two-inch push dagger from her back pocket. She pressed it into the side of his neck, then reached over and flipped on the bedside lamp.

  The blond stared dumbstruck at her. “What the fuck are you?”

  She looked at her arms. Her skin had shifted to beige and flowers as she blended into the background where she wasn’t clothed. It had been why she’d turned the lights off in the first place. “You don’t get to judge me, asshole. I’m not the one eating women…and not in a fucking good way.” The man was an other worlder who fed on aroused women, and she’d felt his powers of seduction firsthand. Her bits still pulsed! But off-the-charts arousal wouldn’t stop her from doing her job. “You are guilty of murdering five women in the past two months, and who knows how many countless more women during your existence.”

  He chuckled, but then winced when she pushed the tip of the blade into his neck.

  “Me biting you doesn’t prove a thing, sweetheart.” He smiled a dazzling smile and put his wrists up. “Go ahead and take me in. A warden tribunal will clear me.”

  The wardens were a group of OWs who policed themselves, albeit badly, as evidenced by this slimy bastard. They only took action if the perpetrator’s actions threatened to expose them to the human world. Benie shook her head, not liking that he thought she was an OW lackey. “I’m not a warden.” She sunk the blade into his neck and destroyed his main artery with a quick twist. “I’m an executioner.”

  She jerked out the dagger.

  His eyes widened with surprise as his fingers clawed at the spurting wound. The black ooze of his blood and the pungent, musky scent he released as he struggled to cling to life confirmed he was Leiol—a species mythology and fiction called incubi, but was actually only a hominoid evolution that survived on human flesh. The sex pheromones they excreted made their quests for food more like fishing than hunting. They dangled the bait and reeled the humans in when they jumped on the line.

  Knowing he fed on humans like catfish didn’t make killing him easier, but she had little regret. If she hadn’t taken his life, he would’ve continued preying on innocents. That was something Benie couldn’t allow.

  As incubus’s eyes turned milky, he let out a final, shuddering breath. Benie dropped him to the floor, and his body landed with a dull thud.

  She walked to the wall mirror positioned above an oak-colored laminated bureau. Her skin shifted again to fit her surroundings—the floor, the walls, even the television stand. As her heartbeat slowed, her skin returned to flesh tones and freckles, her hair changed back to auburn, and the bite mark flared an angry red around the broken skin where his teeth had penetrated.

  Benie had allowed the guy to attack her first. It was the first rule of hunting her parents had instilled as part of her training. Make sure your target isn’t human. Her fingers trailed underneath the bruised flesh. She’d heal. She always did.

  Her parents had never discussed how they’d come to adopt her, but she knew they’d saved her from a fate worse than being a slayer.

  Benie rubbed her face then straightened her clothes. She had bigger problems to worry about. Lately, her body’s camouflage mechanism had been faulty, and she found it harder and harder to control. Which made hunting more difficult. She’d been raised to hate the other worlders, OWs, the ones mythology called supernatural or paranormal or sometimes even gods. Who were, in fact, no more than branches of the same evolutionary tree as humans. Some lived for super long periods of time, centuries even, which lent to their appearance of immortality. But as a slayer, Benie had learned a long time ago that all monsters could be killed.

  She dialed a number into her phone, and when the call went straight to voicemail, she said, “Clean up. Lincoln Ave and Fourth Street. Domino Motel. Room six.” She didn’t know who would come, because she never stuck around long enough to find out. Another rule her parents had taught her. Cleaners liked their anonymity as much as hunters. However, she did know that the body and all evidence of the Leiol’s death would be taken care of efficiently. No muss. No fuss.

  She put her cell away then took a syringe from her purse and drew a sample of blood from the dead thing at her feet. Next, she used a hook that looked like a crotchet tool to jab up through his nose and into his brain. She pulled some of his gray matter out and put it in a small plastic specimen container with a flip-top cap. If she’d had time, she’d have sliced into the head, cracked the skull open and tried to retrieve an unbroken section, but she had someplace to be. Ian would have to make do with what she could quickly salvage.

  Her heart fluttered, and her skin shifted for an instant as she thought about Ian Arent. Ian had a double doctorate in chemical and molecular biology with an emphasis in molecular genetics—in other words, he was a freaking genius. For the last two years, his main experiments had all centered on Benie. But the last two months, he’d centered all of his focus on figuring out why she kept glitching. He’d even made her an appointment with a shrink. She looked at her watch. The doc had said he’d see her tonight, but she had gotten a last minute tip on the incubus and hadn’t given the appointment another thought…until now. If she hurried she could make it.

  Benie’s new lack of control meant she could barely go out into public anymore, since any heightened emotion triggered her chameleon condition. According to Ian, the psychiatrist was a professor at the university, and he specialized in behavioral psychology.

  She seriously doubted he could help with her problems, but she wouldn’t break her word to Ian. Even if lately she’d felt more like his lab rat than his best friend—what with all the pokes, prods, skin samples, blood samples, and hair samples. She worried Ian might stop thinking of her as a person—maybe want her brains on a slide. While the OWs hadn’t been able to take Benie out over the years, losing Ian as a friend would end her like no other battle.

  She’d grown up with him in a small town down in southern Missouri. He was younger by two years, but more intelligent by a millennium. Now that her parents were dead, he was the one and only person on earth she trusted completely. It’s why she’d agreed to let him be her own personal Dr. Frankenstein. Unfortunately, Ian’s work had become an ugly necessity. He had been offered several great jobs after he got his doctorate, but he decided to take a teaching job at the local university so he could focus on research—in other words, her.

  Her abilities made it possible to get the upper hand on the baddies when stealth was required. Her father had called her abnormality a gift—fate intervening and evening the odds against the other worlders. She thought it was more like a curse—fate’s way of screwing her out of a normal life.

  Bitterly, Benie left to go be head-shrunk.

  * * * *

  Ian Arent, Ph.D. put his isolation-gown-covered elbows on the counter in his small lab. He’d designed the clean room soon after he had moved into the very large loft-turned-apartment he shared with Benie. Clean meaning that the room was set up for sterile work. The floor was ESD vinyl, and the walls and ceilings were made of thermoplastic sheeting. The air flow and air conditioner were filtered, and thanks to a privately funded grant, he had most of the equipment he needed for his study: a gel electrophoresis chamber, DNA analyzer, a freezer that dropped to-80 degrees, several computers, and many more “bells and whistles,” as Benie called them.

  He smiled at the thought of her, and then frowned. She had changed recently and not in her normal way. Ian had always been attracted to Benie, but lately the draw had become intense. There were moments when he’d had to fight the overwhelming urge to confess his growing desires. He didn’t have time for nonsense. Benie had fought a Jekyll a few weeks before, and now there were major changes in her blood cells and in her perspiration’s chemical makeup.

  The Jekyll, an OW who appeared to be a mild mannered, even timid, human but turned into a violent and raging monster when strong emotions were triggered, had killed three men outside a library in the Meadow district. After deali
ng with creature, Benie had ended up with a broken wrist and deep scratches across her back and upper arms—the Jekyll, of course, ended up dead. Ian had seen her in much worse shape after a hunt, but this time had been different, and the changes in her body chemistry supported his concern.

  A sharp pang of regret lanced Ian as he thought of Benie. He’d always loved her, more than he’d ever let on during their years together. She didn’t do relationships, and Ian refused to be another disposable lover. He knew Benie loved him back, even if it wasn’t in the way he wanted. He was the most important person in her world since her parents died—he knew this fact with absolute certainty—and he already risked so much with his new research.

  If Benie discovered his current experiment, she might never forgive him. But if he wanted to find out what was going on with her mutating genetics, the tests were the only way he could do it swiftly with any conclusive result.

  His study would’ve been much easier if Benie was more open-minded about the OWs. She had a lot of prejudices—some of them not unfounded—but when it came to other world stuff, she was determined to see them as evil—even if she was one herself.

  Not that he’d say that to her. Ever.

  He made that mistake once when they were young, and she didn’t talk to him for over a month. It had been pure torture being away from her, but nothing like when the authority had put her away after her parents’ suspicious death. They’d blamed Benie. She could have ended up in prison, but her lawyer had convinced her to plea mental incapacity with special circumstances. The jury took one look at the ashen training equipment that had been found in the Dilian’s basement, and didn’t need any more convincing that Benie had been tortured by them. It had landed her in a locked floor at the mental hospital for four years, until she’d turned eighteen.

  He wished her adoptive parents hadn’t raised her to hate and be suspicious of all other worlders. She’d grown up with humans and identified as human, but her abilities and her DNA made it impossible to deny that she was definitely something else. Every new blood sample and slide she gave him, he hoped he would finally find the one that would open Pandora’s Box, or in this case, Benie’s family tree. So far, there hadn’t been even a close match—a testament to her uniqueness in this world.