Filed To Story: Secret Shifters Next Door Series PDF Free
I had no idea what Tate was talking about. They must have discovered something new. Something that sounded even worse than hunting shifters. If what Tate was talking about was true, then the hunters were even more evil than I’d thought.
“Jared?” Mariana asked. “Are you one of them?’ The words dripped with disgust and derision.
Jared looked up. “Mariana, they’re only trying to distract us. Let me handle this.” He looked at Miles and held a hand out to him. “Give me the file, asshole. Give me that, and you get your bitch back.”
Miles snarled at him, and Tate stepped forward and glared. Waves of energy came off him, and I deduced it had to have something to do with him being an alpha because even I wanted to submit to him. Jared’s head bowed slightly, almost like he was being crushed by the weight of Tate’s will. He was trying to fight it, but he didn’t seem to be successful.
“You need an alpha to keep your dragon in check, to prevent you from going feral. If you had an alpha, you wouldn’t need to suppress your beast. You could live free.”
Jared was shaking, almost jittering like a leaf in the wind. His lips peeled back in a sneer, and I could see the moment he lost control. Anger overtook him, and the beast he’d been so good at hiding finally tore free. Claws burst out of his hands where his fingers had been.
“Don’t do this!” Tate shouted. “It’s not worth it…just calm down.”
Nothing Tate said made a difference. In fact, it only seemed to make Jared angrier. Tate was still trying to reason with him when Mariana stepped closer, staring in shock at the taloned scaled hands that used to belong to her brother.
“Jared?” Mariana’s voice shook as she spoke.
“Please,” Tate said. “Turn your back on your father. Join us.”
The last attempt didn’t go well. Jared screamed at Tate—a guttural nonsensical shriek of rage, shame, anger, and hate. I leaped to my feet and ran to Miles as Jared shifted into a dragon. His human scream morphed into a reptilian roar. I didn’t turn back to look. I kept my eyes on Miles as I ran to him. The look on his face was one of terror.
Even over the sound of Jared roaring, I could hear Miles saying, “Oh shit.”
THIRTY
MILES
I shifted and sprinted out to get between the dragon and Celina. Dragons were the most dangerous of all shifters. They were bigger, stronger, and could breathe fucking fire. Knowing that, I had no clue how dangerous a dragon would be after being suppressed. God only knew how long this Jared guy had been keeping his dragon stuffed away deep inside. The beast might be completely uncontrollable.
“Get the women out of here,” Tate shouted, waving his hand toward Celina and Mariana.
I growled, not wanting to leave my friend to face the danger alone, but Celina needed to get out of here. I couldn’t have given two shits about what happened to Mariana, but I did as asked. I shifted back and grabbed Celina by the hand, and ran back toward the cars. As I ran past Mariana, I scooped her up around the waist with my other hand. She cursed and struggled but allowed me to haul her and Celina behind my truck.
I set them down in the gravel and turned to look at Tate. He was still standing and looking at Jared, who was already fully shifted. The dragon was gnashing its teeth and dragging its claws across the ground, digging deep furrows in the dirt. It looked enraged. My body tingled with adrenaline, and I let out
a relieved sigh when Tate finally shifted. He was at least twice the size of Jared’s dragon, and had much more control. Living symbiotically with our beasts was the best way to develop your full potential. It was obvious Jared and his dragon weren’t on the same page.
Mariana held her head between her hands like it was about to explode. “What’s happening? How is this possible?”
Not taking my eyes off Tate and Jared, I said, “You really had no idea this guy was a shifter?”
“He can’t be…that’s not possible.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but your bodyguard just turned into a three-ton, fire-breathing dragon. I don’t know how much more evidence you want of what he is.”
“He’s my brother, not my bodyguard, and I’ve never seen him do that before. How could he hide it all this time?”
“She’s telling the truth,” Celina said. “I saw her shock when she found out. She really didn’t know.”
I nodded, watching Tate ascend into the sky, his wings making big booming sounds as he rose. The other dragon saw him rising into the air and screamed a hiss of rage, and blasted the sky with a gust of flame. I flinched back. Even two hundred feet away, the heat was intense enough for me to think my eyebrows were going to get singed. I ducked back down.
“I have a theory,” I said. “I think Antonio created a drug of some kind to suppress the shift. Something that prevents a shifter from changing. He experiments on them constantly. The only way to do that safely is to control their shifting.” I looked at Celina. “Why did he attack you? When Tate and I pulled in, he was choking. He could have killed you. That wasn’t the deal.”
Celina glanced at Mariana, then back to me. “He lost it once I figured out that Antonio isn’t his biological father.”
Mariana went silent. The screeches and roars of the dragon fight the only sounds around us. Finally, she shook her head and whispered, “That can’t be right.”
Leaving her to contemplate the implications of the news Celina had just given her, I looked back over the truck’s hood again. Tate and Jared were back on the ground. Tate swiped at the smaller dragon with a talon and opened a four-foot gash in its side. Jared shrieked and shot a stream of fire across Tate’s chest and face. Tate closed his eyes and brushed off the flame like it barely fazed him, then shot forward and latched his jaw and teeth into Jared’s left arm. Things were getting rough. Even this far back, I didn’t think we were safe.
“Celina? You two get in the truck. The keys are still in the ignition. Get the hell out of here. Blayne and Steff are at the office, waiting on word from us. Go.”
I looked down, and Mariana had a strange look in her eyes. She was muttering something I couldn’t make out as Celina dragged her up to her feet. She was almost limp, and Celina struggled to get her to her feet. I stepped forward to help, and Mariana burst into action. She pulled a gun from the back of her waistband and pressed it against Celina’s head, her other arm wrapped around Celina’s neck. I froze, the fight behind me forgotten. All I could see was the woman I loved seconds from death. I held my hands up, showing Mariana that I wasn’t doing anything.
“He’s a traitor to the cause,” Mariana said, nodding toward the dragon that had been her brother a few minutes ago. “I need to finish the job myself.”
I growled at her menacingly, but she shook Celina and jammed the gun into her head hard enough for Celina to wince and whimper. “Stop that shit,” Mariana hissed. “Give me the files.”
She seemed out of it; her eyes wouldn’t stay focused on anything, and her lips kept twitching like she was on the verge of saying something but kept stopping herself. Her unstable condition sent my wolf and me to the edge. We were both ready to attack, and the only thing holding us back was the gun against Celina’s head. Every second that ticked by made it more likely Mariana might shoot her—either on purpose or accidentally. Her finger was on the trigger and tightened and released every second. I was fucking terror-stricken.