Shifter Redeemed (Stonybrooke Shifters), page 1
Shifter Redeemed
Stonybrooke Shifters
Leela Ash
Copyright ©2018 by Leela Ash. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic of mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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STONYBROOKE SHIFTERS
DADDY SHIFTER’S VIRGIN
A SECRET BABY FOR THE SHIFTER
THE SHIFTER’S MAIL ORDER VIRGIN
DADDY SHIFTER’S FAKE FIANCE
THE SEAL SHIFTER’S SECRET BABY
CLAIMED BY THE ALPHA DADDY
NANNY TO THE SHIFTER
THE SHIFTER PROTECTOR’S VIRGIN
SECOND CHANCE WITH THE SHIFTER
OAK MOUNTAIN SHIFTERS
HER BILLIONAIRE SHIFTER BOSS
HER SECRET PROTECTOR BEAR
A SECRET BABY FOR DADDY BEAR
THE ALPHA’S MAIL ORDER BRIDE
THE ALPHA DADDY’S NANNY
BANISHED DRAGONS
CAPTIVE TO THE DRAGON
DRAGONS OF KALDERNON
THE DRAGONS OF KALDERNON COMPLETE SERIES
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…and if you are interested, here is another series from Totally Romance Publishing that I think you may enjoy!
THE LOST CREEK SHIFTERS
The Lost Creek Shifters series is a collection of novelette length standalone Bad boy romances that fit together to tell the longer story of the ancient tale of the bear and wolf shifters in a small mountain town. Enjoy!
ARLO (Book 1)
SCAR (Book 2)
BLU (Book 3)
BODHI (Book 4)
KODHI (Book 5)
ZEKE (Book 6)
Table of Contents
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15.
1.
“Looks like everything is accounted for,” Mr. Grier stated, handing a manila folder, thick with paperwork, over to the young woman across from him.
Ella Smith smiled in relief, her gentle blue eyes bright as they skimmed the paperwork she’d just received. She was so fortunate to be able to take on ownership of a sprawling five-acre parcel of land in Stonybrooke. It was exactly what she had been hoping for; a fresh start for herself and her son. They both desperately needed it.
“Thank you, Mr. Grier. You won’t regret this!”
She beamed at him and he offered her his best attempt at a reserved smile. It wasn’t quite what she had been hoping for, but that was fine. She had other things to worry about now. Things like what she was going to do with the large, rundown farmhouse that was standing on her property.
Ella’s heart thudded with excitement as she headed out to her car with a spring in her step. It had almost seemed too good to be true; an affordable mortgage that allowed her complete freedom in the town of Stonybrooke. But somehow, fortune had managed to favor her for once.
Property in this town was affordable and beautiful. She assumed it was because of the shifters that were rumored to be around the place, but then, that didn’t make sense. The reporters had been very firm in announcing that whatever supposed “proof” that the rest of the country had that shifters walked among them was absolutely ridiculous. It had been a cult conspiracy all along, something to lure in vulnerable people who wanted to be part of something odd and exciting.
There had even been a supposed shifter university set up in Stonybrooke that apparently capitalized off of the whole ordeal. It was probably just a ruse to float the little town’s economy, and it had seemed to work well for a while. Even popular businesses like Howler Inc. played off the image to get their athletic equipment to sell to kids who wanted animal-like prowess on the field. Maybe feeling closer to “wolf shifters” gave them a boost of confidence. It was clever marketing, but there was something a little bit unethical about it. At least Ella thought so. And apparently, the rest of the country did too, as it was all being very openly discredited and now, land in this place was apparently a steal.
So much the better though, Ella decided. She didn’t want to be stuck another second longer back in the rut she had found herself in out on the coast. California had its merits, sure, but she would never be able to justify to herself staying with a man who was a cheating, alcoholic scoundrel.
No, it was better that she found this place. It was a steal, really, and she would never have to go back to Jason. Mikey would miss his father, sure, but really, the asshole wasn’t much to miss. He would rather spend his money on booze than on his family. Worse, he had a tendency to spend his money on women who weren’t his wife. Thank God he had agreed to the divorce with no contest. Of course he had, though. He’d been an adulterer. She had every right to go after him for all he was worth.
It wasn’t much. And it was better to just get it over with as quickly as possible and start fresh. Avoid as much pain as she possibly could. There was no other option.
She got into the car and smiled to herself. It was time to go pick up Mikey from the daycare and head out to the house now that it was officially theirs. It was going to be a whole new journey now, but that was okay. Everything was going to work out. She had a good feeling about this place, even if it was the center of weird shifter controversy. At least the history was rich, right? And the property was beautiful and natural and exactly the kind of area she had always imagined raising children in. She’d always wanted two or three, but it hadn’t been meant to be.
At least she would have a new start in a beautiful town with her little boy. That was all that mattered. She could worry about the rest when they got to it.
2.
“You and your father always thought you were so tough. But what now, hotshot? Where are you without one of the most notably crazy elders to back you up in your little conspiracies?”
Luke James scowled at Pierson, biting back a growl as the man’s taunt lingered in the air. The wolf was angry.
“You have no right to talk about my father like that!” Luke snarled.
“Whatever you say, Luke-de-Luke.”
Pierson’s eyes glimmered. “Maybe, if you were part of the pack, I would give a shit, but as it stands, you stopped being my problem a long time ago.”
“I don’t want anything to do with a pack that would turn their backs on their own. On my father. He was an elder, you know,” Luke spat. “And honestly, because he was such a good man, I once believed that all elders deserve respect. I don’t need to hear it. I don’t want anything to do with you or the council or the elders. You have nothing I want.”
“Whatever, man. It’s not like you’re good for anything else.”
Luke scowled, his dark eyes flashing. He didn’t want a fucking thing to do with these people anymore. In fact, he was this close to moving away from Stonybrooke once and for all. Who needed this kind of pressure, anyway? Wasn’t being part of a pack supposed to make life easier, not harder? But he had never experienced anything beyond misery from being associated with the assholes in his pack. He was done.
“You’re a traitor!” one of the men from his now ex-pack shouted as he stormed out of Maurice’s diner. “Stupid ass traitor.”
But Luke just shook his head. He didn’t need to hear about it. And if he didn’t watch himself, he would end up pulling a social faux pas and shapeshift into his wolf form to show those pieces of shit what he was made of. It wasn’t worth it. He was leaving. Now.
He could feel all eyes upon him as he stormed away, seething right down to the core. He was sick of these pompous, good for nothing wolf shifter assholes trying to tell him how to live his life. Trying to tell him what his role meant and how to conduct himself, when it was clear everybody was just as lost as everyone else. There was no direction, just a bunch of bullshit politics that were impossible to follow. There was nothing good about being part of a pack anymore. Everybody was just scrambling for power.
Once the outsiders had begun to infiltrate the town with their bullshit, all hell had broken loose. Everything had become crazy and corrupt. Everything was suspicious. Nobody knew who to trust and they were all turning their backs on their own. Having a pack was quite a laugh. It meant nothing. There was no loyalty. In Luke’s experience, honestly, it was all just a whole lot of pain and not enough good to justify ever even trying to work together as a pack at all.
The worst part was that nobody seemed to care or notice just how downhill everything had gone. They chose to get at each other’s throats and downplay themselves in greater society, allowing the humans to live in their blissfully oblivious little bubbles. Letting them think that there was no such thing as shifters and that the lore was all just a publicity stunt made by Stonybrooke to try and get their stupid little town on the map. They were selling themselves and remaining silent about their roots rather than fighting
If there was no such thing as shifters, then he had that much more reason to turn his back on them the way they had turned their backs on him and their history. Let everybody else get caught up in the pointless political dramas that kept them from accomplishing anything of value in society.
In the meantime, he would do what he had always loved to do most. Work with his hands. Alone. Away from everybody else. Fix things. Make them work. Turn the old and ugly into the beautiful and functional again. Why not?
If he couldn’t make Stonybrooke the kind of place he would be willing to live and take care of his pack in, then at least he could keep himself busy. He had thought about running away numerous times. Settling in somewhere else. But the wolf within him had urged him to stay. It would be miserable in a place where he would never be allowed to speak openly about shapeshifting, or actually shapeshift without too much fear. People who lived there long enough began to understand that it wasn’t just rumor, but they also respected the shifter’s privacy and wouldn’t stick their nose into anything they shouldn’t. At least, if they knew what was good for them, they wouldn’t.
Luke hated the loyalty he had to this town. He had his roots here. He was born here. The town had been there since his grandparents’ time and he knew he wouldn’t be able to abandon it. At this point, the place was in his blood.
That didn’t mean he had to love the people though, and he chose to stick to his own devices. Do what he loved. He was a contractor. A man who owned his own business−even if it was a self-made one−and a man who made a decent living. It was hard work, which was what he loved most. It kept him spry, and he quickly pushed all thoughts of the others in his pack away, so he could focus on getting to his office.
If he thought too much about the others, he would just raise his blood pressure and get all worked up. He had known the bad shifters were up to no good. He had warned them all about the outsiders. Told them that things were going downhill fast and that they were getting their hands on the government of Stonybrooke. They wanted the town. The place his grandparents and the other elders in the town had worked hard to secure and build. He wanted to protect his home.
But they had ignored him. Told him it wasn’t his place to say such things or make those types of observations. He was furious about it and he would never forgive them. Now they were all forced back into hiding, just as the outsiders would want. They would never have a place among the humans. They would only live in a shroud of secrecy.
Maybe it was for the best, in some respects. The ancient magics that protected the shifters and set them apart from the humans was very powerful. It could be dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands, or if it was tampered with in any way. No, the humans who found themselves among the pack were exceptional and special. They adapted to the change in custom and did so amicably. The other humans could be power-hungry and judgmental. Colonizers who wanted to take the good from a culture and then turn the rest inside out, to match themselves exactly. Nobody wanted that.
Luke gritted his teeth, trying to drive the thoughts away. He wouldn’t be able to get through the day in a good mood if he kept thinking about this. It wasn’t going to help anything.
And so, he mounted his motorcycle and sped off toward the office, keeping his dark eyes on the road. It was nice to feel the wind against his body; helped him feel more in touch with the natural wonders of Earth rather than feeling set apart from the people in the town. Fuck them. He would just do what he wanted, just like he always had. There was nobody else who mattered more than he did anyway.
When he finally arrived at the office, Luke parked the bike and stepped inside. It was a modest building, small but functional. It housed his tools and had a small desk and a telephone. Some accounting books and things like that. He kicked off his shoes when he got behind the counter and perched on the stool with his feet on the seat, knees close to his face. He would breathe for a few minutes, calm himself down a bit, and then listen to his messages.
But all that was disrupted by the shrill ringing of the telephone. His hand automatically shot out to grab the receiver and he sighed heavily, bringing it to his ear.
“Luke’s,” he mumbled. “How can I help you?”
There was a slight hesitation and then a small exhale of a laugh. Luke’s entire body was immediately alert; the wolf within him perking up and tuning in to the person on the other end of the phone call.
“Hi,” the woman said, her sweet voice filling Luke with a strange warmth. She seemed kind. “Are you a contractor?”
Luke was quiet a moment, then let out a small laugh. “Yep, hence the name of the company. What can I do for you?”
The woman let out an embarrassed laugh and Luke’s smile broadened. There was something likable about her. She must have been a human.
“Right, of course. I’m sorry, I’ve never done anything like this before. I’m hoping to hire a contractor. Someone local, who knows the area well. I just moved to Stonybrooke and I would like to get things up to code. There’s a lot I can do myself, but I know I can’t do it all.”
Luke nodded. “I understand. What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Ella,” she replied. The wolf inside Luke perked up once again and he sighed, silently telling it to mind its own business.
“Well Ella, if you can just give me your address, I can come on out and evaluate your place, see what kind of work still needs to be done and give you an estimate on how long it will take me to finish it.”
“Great!” Ella exclaimed. “I am free today and tomorrow, if you want to stop by then. Does that sound okay to you?”
“Sounds great!”
Luke was surprised by his own willingness to stop by the place on such short notice. He usually made an effort to make appointments at least a week in advance to prevent double-booking himself. Besides, it just seemed like good business practice. He didn’t want to seem too eager to get to work. Even though a lot of the time, he really was. He loved having new projects to get to work on, and he had a feeling that he was going to enjoy his time with Ella.
He shook the thought away.
“All right,” he said, jotting down the details she was reciting to him about her location. “I can stop by tonight at around six, does that sound all right?”
“Perfect,” Ella said, her gentle voice penetrating something deep within Luke and warming him from the inside out. The wolf tried to poke its nose out of the time out Luke had put it in, but he shooed it immediately away.
“Okay, I’ll see you tonight.”
“Looking forward to it, Luke. Thank you.”
Luke’s entire body warmed, although he usually found it irritating when his clients assumed his name was Luke without his saying so. How did they know that Luke didn’t have a receptionist, or someone working under him to take calls and set up appointments? Just because it was Luke’s shop didn’t mean everybody who worked there answered to Luke.
But she wasn’t wrong in who she was speaking to and he enjoyed the sound of his name rolling off her lips far too much to even think of complaining. He sighed as he hung up the phone, realizing suddenly, that if he didn’t get a grip on this ridiculous emotion, he was going to have his work cut out for him, in more ways than one.
3.
“Mama!”
Ella hurried into the kitchen where Mikey was sitting in his highchair, still slowly working away at the bowl of dry cereal he had insisted on having for dinner. She’d tried to give him some roast, potatoes, carrots, even some cake. But all he wanted was cereal.
“Yes, honey?”
Mikey swiped his hand across the tray and cereal went flying everywhere.
“Michael!”
The little boy dissolved into giggles just as the doorbell rang. Ella’s heart constricted. The contractor.
“Look at this mess!” she said in exasperation. But there was nothing that could be done about it and she sighed, lifting the child from his seat and carrying him on her hip as she answered the door.
