Shifter City, page 1
Shifter City
Hearts of Stone Series
Book Two
C.D. Gorri
Contents
Shifter City
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
Preview of No Otter Lover
Preview of Shifter Village
Reading on a BUDGET?
Other Titles by C.D. Gorri
About the Author
Shifter City
Hearts Of Stone Series
Book Two
Copyright ©2021, 2023 C.D. Gorri
* * *
Cover Design by CDG Cover Designs
Proofread by: Book Nook Nuts
* * *
Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.
* * *
Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as "unsold or destroyed" and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.
* * *
No part of this book may be adapted, stored, copied, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
* * *
Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
To my ARC team for being awesome!
Shifter City
Will her love break through his heart of stone?
* * *
Silas McKennon is a corporate shark, er, Lion. All business, this hard-hearted male hates women. He simply refuses to have anything to do with them. Well, except for one.
* * *
Blonde and brainy, Larissa Clark works for Silas as his right hand man, er, woman. She’s a sharp shooting administrative assistant and one of the few females he will tolerate. Having the hots for her hunky boss is just one of the secrets she has to keep in order to stay in the city she loves. When the prince of the local Pride starts pursuing Larissa, she has no choice but to skip town.
* * *
But Silas is not ready to let his prized employee go. He’ll do anything to stop it, including mate her.
* * *
Will she risk it all on a man whose heart is made of stone?
Prologue
Years ago…
* * *
Shots rang out and Silas ducked for cover behind the thick stand of trees, all that separated him from the line of men firing unscrupulously into the forest.
His Lion’s eyes searched through the darkness and found his two brothers in arms, Keeton Grey and Niels Orson. The three of them were hired soldiers, mercenaries for lack of a better word. After a stint in the armed forces, none of them had been ready to go back to the real world.
Him especially.
Returning to the big city to deal with his mother’s illness, his deceased father’s lawyers, and the floundering company that was his legacy and heritage, did not appeal in the least to him or his Lion. He’d much rather roam the world, righting wrongs and punishing those who deserved it.
But this last job hadn’t gone according to plan. It wasn’t always easy to discern who was just and who was in the wrong. Silas had been a fool to think otherwise.
The female operative who’d run a counter game on their unit had taken him in more than most. She was sweet and smart with a svelte body and a killer smile. She was to be their liaison in the small village they’d come to free from a modern warlord’s rule.
Of course, Silas hadn’t been aware of her exploits with others in his unit until after he’d let her into his bed. Lola Yen was a full human who was not aware of his other half when he’d allowed the Asian beauty to seduce him after they’d been briefed on their assignment.
That was why she hadn’t understood how he knew she’d been with someone else. Turned out, she was in bed with the warlord they came to overthrow and had led them into an ambush.
Lucky for Silas, Keeton, and Niels, the three Shifters had sniffed out the danger, so to speak. She’d come to him right before they shoved out, the stink of a human male all over her tawny skin. He knew then they were being played and had informed his team.
Lola had been taken into custody, and his heart had hardened to stone. Just like that. They had come there to do a job, and they were going to finish it, dammit. But afterward, he was done.
This was going to be Silas’ last operation.
If he made it out alive, he thought grimly.
Fuck that.
He shook his head. Silas would make it out alive. He had to see his mother. Had to take back the company that his dad had left him. Yeah, he was gonna survive.
Niels and Keeton too.
That was a motherfucking promise.
He saw the questioning look in Keeton’s eyes before Silas shook his head. He was furious at himself for so easily believing the deception that brought them to that point.
“I’m gonna shift,” he whispered, knowing they could both hear him over the din of gunfire. From one minute to the next, he swapped skin for golden fur, and his nine-hundred-pound African Lion emerged. Silently, he stalked around the scraggly group of soldiers until he was in the right position. Then he roared, scaring the literal piss out of them.
The men screamed, dropping weapons, and running for their lives. Of course, Keeton and Niels were there to round them up. And when they gave up the warlord’s position, they claimed they had to because the King Lion was hunting them for their evil ways.
King Lion.
He snorted whenever he thought of the nickname, but his beast liked it just fine. After all, Silas was an Alpha, a king in his own right. He shook his head.
Nah.
He was just a man. And that was enough for now.
Roar.
Chapter One
Silas McKennon looked at the magazine cover and exhaled slowly, managing to not roll his eyes. He looked good. It wasn’t that. The fine suit he wore was tailor made, his hair had been superbly styled, and his expression unreadable.
Being toasted the “king of the concrete jungle” in the latest exclusive profile by Times Magazine was an honor for anyone. For a Lion, it hit a little closer to the usual stereotypes in the supernatural world.
Yes, he was a Shifter.
An African Lion Shifter with a glorious golden mane, all the muscle, killer instinct, and innate regal air of his wild cousins. Silas was all that tempered with his human cunning and ambition.
He thrived in New York City despite his current rogue status. Shifters who held no ties to any Pack, Clan, pride, or group were often termed rogue, though Silas was none of the negative connotations that went along with the word. He was neither crazy nor malicious. A loner, yes, but he did not care for total isolation.
Not like his friend, Keeton, a Mountain Lion Shifter, who had only just recently found his mate and come out of his self-imposed isolation as a result. Silas was glad for his friend. Mountain Lions did not live in Prides or groups, so Keeton could not understand his dilemma.
His only other friend, Niels Orson, was a Bear Shifter. A Grizzly to be precise, but he too lived a solitary lifestyle. It was something the three men had in common. The bonds of friendship were forged under heavy fire, but it was their mutual agreement to respect each other’s privacy and need for space that kept them in contact all these years later. Niels still traveled far and wide to avoid Clan matters and entanglements.
Silas clung to his rogue status. Even in a city full of Prides that would love to either destroy him, not bloody likely, or have him bow down to them, he preferred to remain unaffiliated.
Keeton had wandered into the mountains to lick his wounds alone. But just recently, his friend’s world was rocked when his fated mate literally stumbled into his territory. Lucky fucker. But how many Shifters could claim that? Fated mates didn’t exactly grow on trees.
Just another fairy tale.
The thought sent his Lion to whining and pacing in the metaphysical space he inhabited, waiting for Silas to call him. It was sort of incredible to imagine the half-ton beast he shared his soul with. The animal ran on instinct and primal tendencies, but the man was in charge. Beyond a doubt, and much to his Lion’s irritation.
Mate, chuffed his Cat.
The beast seemed to know what he wanted, but Silas ignored it, pushing the thought away and turning his back on his other half. Prides, mates, neither were for him. He could no more find a female to trust than he could bow to some unworthy Lion who touted the name Alpha as if he had rights to it.
His Lion growled at the idea of submitting to any lesser male, title or not. The posers were not worthy of thought, let alone a challenge. He could only imagine their glee if he submitted to them. Claiming a true Alpha among their ranks of Enforcers would be just another way for any one of the Lion Prides in the city to thumb their noses at the others.
Silas would never submit to being a pawn for any of them. His thick-maned African Lion growled and panted, tasting the surrounding air. The a
He knew Niels was worried about him being alone in a place as treacherous as New York City. But Silas adored the hustle and bustle of Manhattan. He thrived on it.
Rogue males were common in the wild, less so in Shifters. It was dangerous for him to be so alone. He knew that, and it worried him. Felines ran in Prides for their own safety, security, and other social reasons he’d rather not think about. Like arranged matings.
Blech.
The idea of having to take a mate because of some contract signed by your parents or guardians was as distasteful to Silas as having to bow to some obnoxious, supposed Alpha just because he or she had inherited the title. It used to be leaders were chosen by strength, charisma, integrity, honesty, and his or her ability to defend the Pride.
Now, Alphas were chosen by family name and socio-economic status, and he was grossly opposed to such an idea. Silas was not a fan of posers of any kind. It stank too much of lying.
As a Shifter, Silas knew of nothing else in the world as putrid smelling as a lie. Like rotten eggs, fish guts, and angry badger farts. Totally unacceptable.
True Alphas were born, at least that was what his mother had always told him. His own dominance had been apparent at birth. A rare and unique phenomenon, Silas was what legends called a True Alpha. But with no Pride of his own to lead or rule, he held no formal title or position, and that was fine with him.
He enjoyed being alone. Friendless, except for Keeton and Niels, he kept to himself most of the time. Silas made other males nervous because of his natural authority.
Challenges were deemed unseemly in the twenty-first century by the upper crust of Shifter society, but sometimes they were unavoidable. In all honesty, he did not care about titles. With no desire to kiss anyone’s ass just because he happened to call himself Alpha, Silas reconciled himself to a solitary existence.
It was hard to respect someone who threw around their position, especially when Silas would always know he was the more dominant. It was simply fact, not boast. Still, Lions were not meant to be isolated for the long term.
Rather than find a Pride to accept him, Silas sated his beast with running one of the largest corporations on the East Coast, doing what he did best. With a wide and satisfied grin, he leaned back in his chair.
Safia Inc. was truly one of a kind, a greening company so large it handled accounts for developers, energy companies, and industrial factories run by Shifters and normals around the globe. When environmentalists protested or problematic emissions reports surfaced, Safia Inc. was called in. They consulted and offered solutions that would not only help the company in question, but the planet as well.
Even thoughtless humans and supernaturals who valued money and power over all else had to admit without the planet, nothing else mattered. That was often how he got their business. The simple reminder that wealth, clout, and infamy were no use without a world in which to wield them.
Silas McKennon might have inherited the business from his deceased father, but within a few years, he’d established Safia Inc., once thought of as a hippie company with no real plan, as a force to be reckoned with. With a brilliant staff of dedicated employees, all Shifters to uncomplicate matters in the office, and himself as the CEO, they were now known globally as the premier greening company.
He envisioned a world where companies were all environmentally conscientious on some glorious day in the near future. It was a terrible pity, in his opinion, that more normals were not gifted with increased senses like Shifters and other supes.
Pollution would not have gotten so out of hand if every man, woman, and child smelled what he did when traveling within a mile radius of a landfill. All those chemicals befouling the air, water, and soil they all needed to sustain life. Worse even than death and rot, the stink of unnatural and corrupt contaminates singed his nostrils.
How could they stand it? It was unbearable to him. Same went for poorly maintained beaches, the crowded suburbs, and the state parks. Even the city, where he spent ninety-nine percent of his time, was hard to take at times. Especially on hot and humid days. And that was on the Upper East Side! The lower income areas were not afforded half the attention of the city’s sanitation department, and Silas was very vocal on that count whenever he had the opportunity to be interviewed.
King of the concrete jungle indeed.
His Lion chuffed at the title, but it was true. He loved NYC, even with all its faults. And he wanted to make it better. Whenever some round-faced CEO argued with him over budgets for one of his proposals, it took every ounce of control he had to not simply slice the fucker in two.
He had his administrative assistant to thank for that, he supposed. Larissa always knew how to reel in his rage. He supposed she could do so because his beast recognized her Lioness, though he’d never seen her shift.
All Lion males were taught to respect the delicate and rarer Shifter females. At least, that was what his mother had taught him. Feline Shifters believed themselves to be a cut above the rest, but he liked to think that much was true.
It was a superiority complex he was well aware of, and yet, he knew his beast was pretty fucking awesome. If he said so himself. His Lion grunted and butted up against his skin, scratching to be set free.
Grrr.
Chapter Two
Maybe later he could spend some time in his fur on the rooftop garden he’d installed above his penthouse condo. He’d spent a fortune reinventing the space as his own private jungle. There was even a section entirely enclosed in a greenhouse, so he could enjoy the tropical plants all year long.
Yes.
A very good idea.
His inner beast grunted in approval. It had been far too long since he’d done anything like that. Another disadvantage to having no Pride of his own. Silas rarely took time to shift to his other self, and he knew better than most how ornery his feline could be if neglected.
Grrr.
With fall quickly turning to winter, he’d enjoy a romp through the grass and trees, and maybe a dip in his pool in the covered section of his rooftop garden. It was as good as things were going to get for him, far as he saw it. His own little oasis, his personal retreat he shared with no one. It was necessary for his sanity.
Pollution was a motherfucker, and he needed a coping mechanism. Hence, his sanctuary. It was the only way he could live in the city that never sleeps. Sure, Silas was still hopeful that with hard work, the people who inhabited the earth could and would turn things around.
He would never stop fighting for that end. Yes, he’d done the impossible. Made himself a real jungle in the concrete one. But he would always long for the day when he could finally breathe deeply and smell nothing but, but…
Damn.
Silas couldn’t think of a single word, not one syllable, to represent what it was he was longing for. Not one single thing to describe what he wanted. His golden-green gaze flicked to the desk where his administrative assistant sat, and it hit him.
Sunshine.
That was it. He wanted to breathe in pure, unadulterated sunshine with every breath he took. It was the only scent he associated with the Lioness who’d worked with him for the past couple of years. Funny, he knew little about her.
Except for what Niels had said at Keeton’s wedding. Fucking nosy ass Bear. His friend didn’t know fuck about shit. Silas was not in love with the woman. No way. She wasn’t even his type.
