A Shifter for New Years Read online

Kieran and Leslie went up the narrow, sturdy staircase first, then Kimberly followed, careful to hike up her skirts and avoid the knots in the wooden steps. Burke was right behind her, his hand resting on her lower back, and she knew he wouldn’t let her hit the ground. She knew it down to her bones. That was trust for a woman like her.

  Up on the deck, the boys used the pulley system to drag the bucket of food up as she and Leslie opened the door to the old tree house. Such a feeling of calm familiarity washed over her in a wave.

  Here, there wasn’t anyone to impress. There was no judgement. Just people she enjoyed being around. She glanced back at the well-lit mansion where she could make out through the huge windows people gathered and talking. She didn’t miss it at all.

  Leslie lit a lantern that was sitting on the crafts table and then dragged a couple of oversized beanbags closer to a space heater Kimberly had turned on.

  The boys both had to duck under the small doorframe and turn sideways to get in, and Kimberly had a good giggle at how gargantuan the Dunne brothers looked in here.

  What followed was the chaos of organizing and settling in—opening the grape juice bottles, dishing out the food, draping towels over their legs, and setting the plates on a low table between them. Burke tucked her in like a burrito before he sank into the beanbag beside her, but she lifted the edge closest to him and shared her blanket. It was much warmer this way. Burke was like a furnace.

  Between his body warmth and the space heater, she stopped shivering in minutes and relaxed into the easy banter of Leslie and the boys.

  “I can’t remember the last time I pigged out like this at a party,” Kimberly said around a bite of lobster. “Usually, I’m worried about my dress fitting too tight or having a tummy pooch for Mom’s pictures.

  “Oh! Speaking of pictures,” Leslie murmured, poking buttons on her phone. “I downloaded this photo editing app and have been playing with it. Take a look at what I’m sending you.”

  “Oh, I don’t have my phone. It’s in my purse back at the house.”

  Burke pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened up a text. His eyes went round in the glow of the screen.

  Worried, Kimberly asked, “What is it?”

  Burke angled his phone to her, and the picture on the screen froze the air in her lungs.

  In it, she and Burke were standing next to each other in the snow, her red dress sparkling, him cutting a handsome figure in his dress clothes. They were resting their foreheads against each other with their eyes closed in a moment that was much more important than a hundred posed, perfect pictures. Their slight smiles were emotional and full of care.

  She looked happy. And so did he.

  “Leslie,” she said on a breath as she took the phone and stared closer at the picture. “Thank you for taking this.”

  “It’s my favorite picture of you,” Leslie said in a thick voice that made Kimberly look up at her.

  Leslie’s eyes were full of emotion. “Welcome to the land of the living.”

  Kimberly didn’t know exactly what she meant, but she got the gist. No more dead, forced smiles for her.

  Burke wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close against his side. “That’s my new favorite picture of you, too.”

  Feeling pleased as punch, she took another bite of lobster and melted into him. “Truth or dare,” she asked Leslie.

  “Hmm. Will your dares require me to leave the warmth of my towels and my mate?” Leslie asked from where she was tucked against Kieran’s side.

  “Probably.”

  “Then truth.”

  “Were you the one who stole Mom’s eight pairs of pantyhose that year right before Fourth of July?”

  “Oh, the time she blamed you for being a thief and made you go to weekend etiquette school for a month?”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  “Oh, yeah, that was me.”

  “I knew it!” Leslie threw the empty lobster tail shell at her, but Leslie blocked it easily as she cracked up laughing.

  “What did you need pantyhose for?” Kieran asked through his chuckling.

  “I saw this movie where someone went camping, and they made a hand-washing station by filling a plastic milk jug up with water and plugging a small hole at the bottom with a golf tee They put a bar of soap in a leg of pantyhose and tied it to the milk jug. And then hung the contraption in a tree. So you had the soap right there, and it lathered through the pantyhose! I was obsessed with camping that year. I was reading all these books on survival—”

  “Oh, God, I remember that phase. You were so weird.”

  “I even learned what plants were edible and how to use a butterfly knife! Anyway, I pestered Dad into taking me camping, so I spent a week preparing and packing and dreaming—”

  “And stealing,” Kimberly muttered.

  “And then he did take me camping.”

  “Oh yeah? Where did you go?” Burke asked.

  “The trampoline in the back yard,” Leslie muttered. “I had eight hand-washing stations all made up so everyone could have their own. Mom, Dad, us four girls, Chef Jeff, and Nanny Bethany, but no. It was just me and Dad and two sleeping bags, and he didn’t even remember to get the ingredients for s’mores, so we ate some ranch-flavored rice cakes and went to sleep by nine.”

  Kimberly couldn’t stop laughing. “Yeah, Dad hates camping. That was never going to go well.”

  “Bright side, I got to watch you spin your wheels, trying to discover who stole Mom’s pantyhose every time she drove you to etiquette school. You had to miss the lake with your snooty friends for a month of Saturdays.”

  “Yeah, well, one of us knows how to use the proper forks at family dinners and one of us gets a lecture about manners every time, so who’s the sucker now?”

  Leslie scrunched up her face. “I’ll give you a five cent raise if you teach me your ways. I’m tired of writing fork cheat codes on my arm every time.”

  “Ha. You don’t actually do that,” Burke said.

  “The hell she doesn’t,” Kieran scoffed. “Why do you think she’s always wearing long sleeves, even in the summer?”

  Kimberly died laughing. “Are you serious?”

  Leslie was frowning at the inside of her wrist. “My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Flouche, said drawing on my skin too much could poison me. I think she made it up, but I always think of that.” She looked up brightly, the puffy curls gathered on top of her head bobbing with the movement. “Burke, truth or dare?”

  Burke stretched his powerful leg out straight and narrowed his eyes at Leslie. “Dare.”

  “I dare you to pick truth instead.”

  Kimberly made a loud, obnoxious “eeeeeeeeeeeeeh” noise and Xed her arms in front of her. “Party foul. You have to stick with the dare.”

  “Crap. I had a truth question planned for him. I wasn’t prepared for dare. Okay, let’s see…” Leslie popped a sausage in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “I dare you to show Kimberly your lion.”

  “Oooooh, shit,” Kieran drawled out. “He won’t do it.”

  Burke arched his eyebrows up. “I won’t?”

  “Nah, you’re too secretive about your animal.” Kieran leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. His eyes had turned bright gold and were locked on his brother. “You haven’t changed around me in years. You won’t do it on a dare.”

  Burke narrowed his eyes, and they lightened to the same gold as Kieran’s.

  “I bet he will,” Leslie said, a baiting gleam in her eyes. “He knows Kimberly needs to see the lion.”

  “Wait,” Kimberly interrupted. “Change into his lion here? At the New Year’s party? With other humans around?”

  “He won’t hurt them,” Kieran said. “He’s a pussycat.”

  Burke chuckled darkly and shook his head, ran his hand through his hair roughly, and gave Kimberly a sideways glance. “Do you want to see the animal?” There was something swimming deep in his bright gold eyes. Hope?

  “Y-yes.”

  �
��Don’t be scared. I would never hurt you.” And with that, he stood, peeled off his shirt, shucked his pants, shoved the door open, and leapt off the balcony. She could see his perfect, graceful swan dive over the railing before gravity stole him out of sight. With a gasp, she rushed out the door and to the edge of the deck, but Burke wasn’t down there. In his place was a monstrous lion, his muscles rippling as he paced in the snow below. He looked up at her with eyes that were familiar in their color but not in their shape. “Burke?” she whispered.

  She’d never in her lifetime seen a shifter Changed except for on the news. And they hadn’t seemed this big!

  A trill of fear washed over her. Lions were dangerous. She’d been taught that from the time she was a toddler. Even now, the man she cared for bared his long, curved, impossibly sharp canines and let off a whoofing sound, the breath freezing in front of his face. His mane was thick and only a few shades darker than his tawny coat.

  “Jeez, he’s big,” Leslie murmured from beside her. Kieran had come to stand on her other side. He was gripping the railing so tight the wood splintered beneath his grasp.

  “Kieran,” Leslie warned. “You can’t Change. Not right now.”

  But a growl emanated from him that didn’t sound human at all, and now Kimberly was getting a little more frightened. She shoved him hard in the arm. “This is a good night. I don’t want you boys ruining it with your roaring and bleeding. I’m very bad at stitches. Needlepoint was my worst subject in etiquette classes. Kieran!” When she waved her hand in front of Kieran’s blankly staring eyes, he snapped his teeth at her, barely missing her palm.

  With a yelp, she flinched back. Below them, Burke was snarling, pacing, his focus now on Kieran.

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t have come up with this dare,” Leslie admitted. And now her sister’s eyes were glowing gold, tracking Burke’s movements.

  “Burke? Honey bunches of hotness. My main squeeze. My mister monster. My little tiddlypoops of terror,” Kimberly called out. “Maybe it’s time to change back before you eat your family.”

  “Bright side, lions can’t climb stairs,” Leslie uttered in a dreamy voice.

  “Oh, that’s good.”

  It was in the same second that Burked looked directly at the narrow staircase and trotted with power strides right over to it where he began to climb the stair easily.

  “Oh, my God!” Kimberly exclaimed.

  “I made that up,” Leslie admitted.

  “I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die,” Kimberly chanted as she stepped in front of Kieran, her arms stretched as wide as she could. She backed up slowly, herding Kieran and Leslie toward the treehouse door behind them. “I read a zoo magazine on lions when I was eleven, so I’m basically an expert,” she said to herself, because talking out loud made everything less terrifying.

  Burke’s giant head appeared at the top of the staircase and, oh geez, she really wished she wasn’t still wearing her victim shoes with the three-inch heels. Maybe she could stab him. Had the zoo magazine said anything about defending one’s self from imminent doom via a mother-freaking-lion? “Make yourself bigger.” She stretched her arms out wider as she took another step back. “Maybe that was for honey badgers, though,” she mumbled to herself. To Burke, she yelled, “I’m a big scary human!”

  Leslie snorted from somewhere behind her, but she couldn’t lose the connection she had with Burke. His eyes were all intense and scary right now. “Don’t run from predators. Play dead. No. Yes. Shove your hand down a predator’s throat. Was that for grizzly bears?”

  Kieran’s snarling disappeared from behind her, and when she dared a quick glance behind her, Leslie was dragging him inside the tree house.

  Phew. Relief! Now she was alone with Burke.

  Alone.

  With Burke.

  Burke the lion.

  Burke the sharp-toothed, scary-faced, big-clawed mammal eater.

  Shit!

  He kept pace as she backed away, matching her stride for stride. His claws extended with every step onto the thin layer of snow that coated the porch boards. His claws were as long as her heels! She only had two of them, and Burke had—she did a quick count. Did lions have the same amount of claws on their back feet? Aw, screw it, who cared! He had a lot more weapons than her.

  “Jesus, take the wheel.” Kimberly pressed her back against the wall of the treehouse and closed her eyes, mentally preparing to be eaten. This was not how she’d imagined going! She was supposed to die at the age of ninety-two in a ballgown on a yacht somewhere in the Caribbean! In her current situation, it would probably be in a tugboat on Beanhole Lake dressed in cut-off shorts and no bra, but whatever.

  His warm breath brushed against her collarbones. Her collarbones! He was that big!

  “I taste like Wilson,” she whispered. “It’s a mixture of caviar, lobster butter, and silver coins. Very unsavory. You won’t like it.”

  The big cat blew out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. She eased one eye open. His face was very close to hers. “Hi,” she squeaked out.

  Burke stared at her for another three-count, then rubbed his giant head against her hip. He was so powerful she went sprawling and barely caught herself on the windowsill. He followed her closely, and when he rubbed his block head against her other side like a gargantuan house cat, she stumbled back the other way.

  Just when she’d adjusted to his affection, he backed off and she pitched forward like a ragdoll. And then, gracefully, he meandered toward the doorway. “Oh crap, nope!” She reached out to get his attention, and her fingers brushed his hip.

  “Aaah!” She yanked her hand back. “I touched you.” Louder she told Leslie and Kieran, “I touched him!”

  He disappeared inside the treehouse. A snarl rattled the entire house, down to the boards beneath her feet. He was going after Kieran!

  “Burke, no!” she called, bolting for the open doorway.

  But what she saw inside froze any more objections in her throat. There was no brewing brother-on-brother dominant lion fight. There was no blood spattering the walls. There wasn’t even a second Lion. Kieran was leaned up against the back wall of the tree house, near the tiny play kitchen, arms crossed over his chest, glaring at Bigass Burke.

  Burke’s lion sauntered over to the beanbag, tossed Kieran a disparaging look, sighed like he was bored of the mere sight of his brother, and then plopped down on the bag.

  “Well, that was anti-climactic,” Leslie said. Why did she sound disappointed?

  Kimberly held out her fingers. “I touched his butt. With my fingers. He has fur. His butt was hairy and warm, and I think I still like him. That’s fine, right? That’s normal?” Maybe she was in shock.

  “Who wants to be normal?” Leslie asked. “Normal is boring.”

  So that was a “no.” Fantastic.

  “Can I touch him again?” she asked.

  “We aren’t his handlers,” Kieran said. “You can try and see what he does. I don’t think he’ll hurt you.”

  He didn’t think he would. That shook her confidence a little. “I still haven’t forgiven you for trying to bite me,” she whispered to Kieran as she approached the massive lion who took up most of the entire tree house. His tail twitched, lifting up, then falling back to the floor.

  “What does that mean? Is he talking with his tail? Is he mad?”

  “What did your zoo magazine tell you?” Kieran deadpanned.

  “Very funny,” she muttered sarcastically. “Please don’t eat me, please don’t eat me, please don’t eat me,” she said as she squatted down near the resting cat. Kimberly closed one eye and squinted the other as she reached for him, like that would make his teeth hurt less when they ground her bones to dust.

  Burke didn’t move, though. He just lay there, watching her, his gold eyes all soft and nary a growl to be heard. The second she stroked her hand down his side, he did start purring, though.

  “Holy moly,” she huffed out on a breath. She laughed. �
�You’re kind of scary like this.” As she petted him some more, he leaned his head toward her, so she scratched in his thick mane. “I mean, I know you’re a shifter, but it’s different actually seeing you up close, you know?” She scratched behind his ear and scooted closer so she wouldn’t tip over from stretching too far. “And you know, we aren’t allowed to be together because Samantha the Skank took your Turn Card. You never told me your ex’s name so that’s what I call her in my head. So I thought you would just never let me see the lion.” She patted his head and then scratched under his chin. When he rolled his eyes closed, the purring got louder, so she scratched a little harder. “I mean, up until now, I guess I didn’t understand what it meant to be a shifter. You really have mother fuckin’ Mufasa inside your sexy bod.” She cupped his cheeks and leaned forward to rub her nose on his.

  “You really have no survival instincts, do you?” Kieran asked.

  “Shhh. I’m taking video,” Leslie scolded him.

  “Is it bad to rub noses?” Kimberly asked Kieran.

  “With a lion? Yes.”

  “But he’s my lion.”

  “Aaaaaaw!” Leslie exclaimed. “Kieran! You should Change so we can rub noses!”

  “Is anyone going to eat the rest of these sausages?” Kimberly asked, collecting the remaining miniature weenies off the snack plate. “I’m going to feed them to my pet lion.”

  She couldn’t quite make out what Kieran muttered under his breath, but she was pretty sure he just took the Lord’s name in vain.

  She set a miniature egg roll on the beanbag and waited for him to eat it because Kieran had scared her four percent by asking if she had any survival instincts and hand-feeding a lion probably wasn’t the smartest of ideas. After he’d eaten all eight of the eggrolls, she sighed happily and sat on the three square inches of the oversize beanbag that he didn’t take up.

  “Kieran.” Kimberly dragged the stack of towels over her legs. “Truth or dare?”

  “After Burke’s dare? I’m going with truth.”

  “When you are a lion, do you hunt animals in the woods? And if so, do you eat their bones, too? Is the term ‘mate’ the same as ‘girlfriend’? Burke peed on the corner of my house. What does that mean? In theory, how many acres does a lion need for territory? If your eyes turn gold when you’re a human—?”