Shifter Scrooge, page 1
Shifter Scrooge
Hearts of Stone Series
Book Four
C.D. Gorri
Contents
Shifter Scrooge
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
Reading on a BUDGET?
Join the Pack!
Beware… Here Be Dragons!
Other Titles by C.D. Gorri
Excerpt from Purrfectly Mated
About the Author
Copyright
Shifter Scrooge
Hearts Of Stone Series
Book Four
Copyright ©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 the Scrooges and Troublemakers,
Magic is real if you believe. True love, too! Sometimes it’s just waiting for you to get off your butt and grab it.
XOXO, C.D. Gorri
Shifter Scrooge
Hearts of Stone Series
Book Four
Can her holiday spirit unlock his icy heart?
Striker Sanchez hates Christmas. What better way to spend the holiday season than house sitting for his former team leader in the middle of nowhere? Finally, he could get some peace and quiet far away from the grossly commercial season and all its trappings.
Beatrix Gallo decides to drop in on her favorite cousin as a Christmas surprise.
Spontaneity is the spice of life, right? Dressed in her best holiday jammies, Bea grabs some of her favorite supplies, and heads over to the reclusive cabin where her cousin lives with her new hubby.
But when the curvy optimist arrives, holly in hand, she finds the happy couple gone, and a certifiable Scrooge in their place. Even worse, an incoming storm makes it impossible for her to leave.
Striker can’t believe he’s stuck with a woman dressed like an Elf for the whole weekend. So what if she smells like gingerbread and makes his Tiger purr? He isn’t looking for a mate. Definitely not a human one. Time for some ground rules, and Striker did not do compromise.
No caroling.
No baking.
And absolutely no decorations.
Will Bea survive being trapped during the holidays with grumpy Striker?
Prologue
Striker sat up in bed, covered in sweat. His chest hurt with how hard his heart was pounding. Imagine that? He thought that muscle had atrophied years ago.
Fuck. What time was it? The digital clock showed a neon green number two, followed by a couple of zeroes. Figured. He never could sleep once December rolled around.
Memories of his time serving in the secret Shifter division of the armed forces, known only by a handful of select officers with very specific clearances, were coming down on him hard during the holiday season.
Fuck.
Striker hated Christmas. The whole fucking season. Lock, stock, and barrel. Sorta reminiscent of a green-furred cartoon character with a devilish grin. Only, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell his heart was ever going to grow the way that fictitious ornery bastard’s heart had at the end of the story.
A shiver ran through his body. A sense of foreboding, really, and he gritted his teeth until it passed. Tossing the covers aside, he picked up his cell phone, re-reading the offer his former comrade-in-arms had given him. Well, more of a request than an offer, he wasn’t into nitpicking.
One weekend in total seclusion in New Jersey’s Panther Mountains, cabin-sitting for his old buddy, Keeton Grey. Hell, Striker hadn’t seen him since the guy’s second cub was born. Had to be a year ago, now.
It was a shocker and a half the solitary Mountain Lion Shifter had found and claimed a mate, never mind married her in the human tradition, too. But Lena was a human, and he supposed it made sense. The woman was cheerful and warm in a way Striker would have never associated with Keeton, but maybe that was why they worked.
The handful of times he’d met her, it had been at some party or event filled with her human family. The Shifter secret was important to keep from the normal world, and Striker could never fathom how Keeton tolerated all those normals around him. That must be what they meant when they said love was blind. Or just dumb.
Whatever. It wasn’t Striker’s problem. Before he could talk himself out of it, he sent a quick reply to Keeton that he would cabin sit for the man. Especially when he found out there was more to it than just sitting. Apparently, the man was worried that hunters operating out of season were growing bolder and getting too close to his cabin, encroaching on his land, and such.
Striker never turned down a chance to fight, and on this fucker of all holidays, his animal was more anxious than ever. So, this was really a win-win situation. He could get out of the city and avoid pesky Christmas do-gooders.
I’ll be there.
He didn’t add the with fucking bells on part. Might sound too Christmasy.
Striker stalked out of bed to grab a bottle of cold water from the kitchen. He already knew he wasn’t going back to bed. A few reps in his makeshift gym should at least help take the edge off.
The studio apartment he lived in was located on the ground floor of an old building in downtown Newark. It comprised little more than a queen-sized mattress on the bedroom floor, a mini-fridge, hot plate, one folding chair and a card table, and a couple of four-inch thick rubber mats, designed for horse stalls, that he arranged on the floor to muffle the sounds of his metal weights when he was working out.
Thanks, Striker. I’ll send the code for the alarm system and lock.
Striker glanced at the response Keeton had texted him. Next, he checked his email for the alarm information. It was already there, and in the secret code they’d devised on missions, so just having that email would be of no use to anyone save for himself and the other men they worked with.
Striker wasn’t particularly close to anyone. Not Keeton, or the Mountain Lion’s two pals, Silas and Niels. Sure, he’d worked with them for dozens of ops, but he would never have thought to call them friends. Even so, he would never have refused the male. His special ops team was as close to a family as he’d ever had.
Side by side, Striker had spent months, if not years, fighting beside those three Shifters and a handful of others. They’d trained and had been deployed together countless times. The covert ops missions he’d been on included dark and dangerous feats that the government would never admit to or sanction if asked.
The things they’d accomplished were the stuff of movies. Toppling dictatorships, ending genocide, outing corruption, putting an end to well-known traffickers and monsters who exploited the weak. Humans weren’t the only ones who suffered from evil deeds, and there were plenty of times their covert missions had helped supernaturals.
But what they really did was try to right wrongs under a cloak of secrecy for a thankless world that didn’t even know they existed. A world that would likely put his kind in labs to be studied like insects if they didn’t demand the complete annihilation of all supernaturals if they found out about them.
Yeah, it sucked, but it was what it was. People hated what they didn’t understand, and people turning into animals—that was something they’d never be okay with. He knew from experience.
But he was a realist. Striker could deal with all that. No one was good or bad. Most people were both. And that was fine.
What he couldn’t understand and was not okay with in any shape or form was being told his time with the teams was up. He’d been dismissed with nothing more than a slap on the back and a paper that said he’d served his duty. When he’d asked to re-enlist, he was told he was simply finished. That was not a good reason in his book.
Striker wasn’t ready to quit. He was still in his prime, for fuck’s sake. He’d survived bullet wounds, stabbings, and three separate RPG attacks. Sure, he had some miles on him, but he was fine.
Why a bunch of normals were running the classified branch of government he worked for, he had no idea. They didn’t understand what his body could handle. They didn’t know what he could take. Just thought he was done after fifteen years of following orders, no questions asked.
Rrrrr.
Just thinking about how they tossed him away, like he was completely disposable, made the enormous Siberian Tiger inside him snarl and snap his massive fangs.
Okay, fine.
Maybe he got a little more banged up than usual on his last mission. And yeah, he’d snapped at his team leader, nearly tearing the human asshole’s arm off for questioning his in
The male didn’t have Striker’s preternatural senses and had been leading the entire team right into a trap. He’d ignored the fucker and stepped up, saving all their asses, but the higher ups believed he could’ve been more diplomatic. His Tiger chuffed at that. What else could he have done?
He’d cold-cocked the guy right in the jaw and tossed his sorry ass over Striker’s shoulder, leading the rest of the team in a safer direction after the male had refused to listen. It could have been worse. He could’ve just eaten the asshole—something he’d pointed out to the very same higher-ups who’d handed him his walking papers.
Motherfuckers.
His Tiger snarled, the sound reverberated through his body. He closed his eyes and cracked his neck. His animal was a volatile creature. Striker could blame it on what he considered his forced retirement from service, but that was not the real reason. It was likely because of childhood trauma or whatever the correct term was according to the counselor he was forced to see before he was dismissed from service.
Striker didn’t really understand psychobabble. He also didn’t care to think about the past. What was time, anyway? Minutes, hours, days, months, years, they passed just the same. He didn’t need a therapist to tell him that. His Tiger tracked the turning of the seasons, the passing of time, without him ever looking at a calendar. Fuck. The beast was always right.
Here it was. December again. The absolute worst month of the year for Striker. Not that he had a favorite time of year. He was not exactly a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. Who would be with his past? But he was never so bad-tempered as he was during the holiday season. A real Scrooge to hear some tell it.
Let’s eat them. Rrrrr.
Shut up, he told his beast.
Cannibalism was not exactly his favorite means of getting a meal, regardless of what his Tiger thought. Anyway, the team psychologist said—and no, he did not volunteer to see that butthead shrink, for fuck’s sake, it was part of the mandatory discharge process for the special division he’d been a part of for fifteen years—anyway, that guy had told him he was experiencing abandonment issues likely inflicted in his youth.
Perfect.
He changed into a thousand pound Siberian Tiger and overturned entire governments, but he still had mommy issues. Fuck that. Striker had walked out of the little man’s office without another word. However, the long, hard growl he’d given the doc ensured the smaller male had passed him with flying fucking colors. Shrink pissed his pants, too. Something that placated Striker’s angry animal.
Abandonment issues?
What the shit? Seriously, though. What would make the male think he had abandonment issues, for fuck’s sake? It wasn’t like that human understood what it was like for a Siberian Tiger Shifter without a Pride.
His animal growled, but it was too late to stop the thoughts from bleeding into his brain. His father, a lone Tiger on the prowl, had bedded and impregnated his human mother during a one-night stand. The rat bastard had never bothered checking in with her to see if the deed had borne fruit. But, surprise, it had. Him.
Striker’s mom had been barely nineteen at the time, working in a motorcycle bar with no genuine prospects. Oh, he’d had one fucked up childhood, for sure. Flitting from club to club with his mom while she desperately searched for love in all the wrong places.
Man after man, it was like a revolving door, and yeah, she fucking forgot birthdays and holidays—even though he was a genuine fucking Christmas baby himself. All she had to remember was one damn date, December 25th, but nope, Esmerelda Sanchez couldn’t do that, either.
Most of his childhood was spent alone, fighting, or hiding out till the storm—his special name for his mother’s frequent boyfriends—passed.
When Striker was old enough, he registered himself for school, hitching rides from whoever was willing to take him to and from whatever public school was closest. More often than not, Esmerelda forgot to do even the simplest things a mother should attend to. Things like keeping him fed, clothed, and safe. But he hated it when the division of social services that dealt with children was called, so he learned to do those things, too.
“Fuck. I am not doing this today,” he growled, wiping a hand over his face.
He dropped his weights on the ground and headed for the bathroom. No number of reps was going to help him with what he needed. Turning the shower on so the water could heat, he gathered his shaving supplies and stepped beneath the hard spray of water. Good. The shower was hot just the way he liked it.
Lobster boil, he mused.
No, Striker had no abandonment issues. He did not give a fuck what that shrink said. His issues with his mom were long gone. She had checked out on him before he’d even hit puberty, but by then Striker was already used to scrounging for a place to sleep and either working for a meal or stealing food to keep his belly from growling.
Right about the time his balls dropped, life had gotten really interesting. His asshole Dad had tracked him down at the not so tender age of fourteen. Striker was already fighting his changes, thinking he was a freak in the big, bad world. But apparently, he was not the only one.
Darius Popov, an older, stouter version of Striker, explained what was happening, and the douche canoe actually looked proud of himself. Striker gritted his teeth, learning what he could from the old man about controlling his Tiger. And on the eve of his eighteenth birthday, after another brutal beating from his Dad, Striker changed the narrative.
He’d challenged his sperm donor to a rematch. And what a bloody bout that had been! Striker had been holding back for weeks, but no more after that night. He finally bested dear old Daddy, spat on the ground next to the man’s bloodied up body and told him to forget he had a son before he walked off to enlist in the corps.
Shouldn’t have been too hard for the old bastard, after all, he hadn’t noticed him for the first fourteen years of his life. Angry and full of piss and vinegar, Striker spent the next seventeen years in the service, fifteen in special ops.
Now Striker was a civilian again, and he had no idea where he fit in. His Tiger roared inside him. The beast felt his real inner turmoil, regardless of his attempts to cover it up with humor and profanity. The actual truth was this, the clock was ticking on his restraint.
If he didn’t find something to anchor him soon, Striker would go rogue. That was just about the sorriest thing that could ever happen to a Shifter. He would need to be put down. And that was the real reason he agreed to cabin-sit for Keeton.
Striker planned to ask the big pussy—a reference to his inner Mountain Lion, not his courage—to do him a solid when he and his mate returned to their home away from home. Striker was going to ask Keeton to take him out.
He never thought it would come to this, but that fucking boulder disguised as a heart was still thumping solitarily inside his chest, and the thing wasn’t doing him any favors. Striker simply would not make it alone, and fuck knew he had no prospects. His own mother didn’t think he was worth sticking around. Why would anyone else?
Shake it off, growled his Tiger.
The beast hated it when his human side got all serious about this shit. The sentimental animal actually believed there was someone out there for him. But Striker knew better. His heart was encased in solid fucking ice that would take more than any woman had to crack through.
“Fuck this,” he growled, throwing on a tank top and pair of jeans despite the frigid forecast.
No sense in delaying. He packed a bag, tossed in five boxes of protein bars and two cases of thick protein shakes, and loaded them into his suped up pickup truck. It was a four-hour drive to the Panther Mountains from his shithole apartment, and Striker wanted to get there sooner rather than later.
