Page 52 of Shifters in the Night

“This is my house.”

“Yes, your house, away from me,” Jeff said, spitting the end of the sentence like a curse.

“Jeff, I told you why I moved out here.”

“Away from me,” he growled again.

Lia stepped back. This was not the Jeff she knew. Gone was the sunny, affable office buddy who commiserated with her over their boss and life on the road. There was a darkness in his eyes, killing rage. She’d seen it only once in Colorado, when a hunter had her cornered in her other form. He wanted something from her and she was not prepared to give it. And just like that situation, Lia was prepared to run for her life.

Instinctively, she leapt right, expecting to land on four hooves so she could bolt away from this bullshit. In the woods, she would have the advantage. Jeff would never catch her. But half-way through her jump, Lia realized that her body wasn’t doing as she commanded. She landed on her all-too-human hands and knees, and then collapsed flat on her face. She could barely breathe through the pain of it. She rolled onto her side wheezing. She clenched her entire body, as if she could force the change, but … nothing.

What the hell was happening? She’d never shied from shifting before. Why wasn’t her body doing what she told it to do? She sucked in an agonized gasp and willed herself to grow fur and hooves. But her hands remained the same, bleeding from the scrapes she’d sustained in her fall.

Jeff clucked his tongue, sauntering after her. Cold panic rose in her chest as she crawled on the ground, away from him. She felt locked in her human shape. If she was like Jon, she would think someone had stolen her pelt. This was unnatural. This was cruel.

This was magic.

“What did you do?” she demanded, hissing as she pushed up from her knees.

“Oh, darling, it’s just a little spell,” Jeff cooed. “No need to get upset. You should appreciate how much I spent on that potion, how I drove all the way into New Orleans for it. It proves how committed I am to this relationship.”

“Relationship?” she scoffed. When the hell had he managed to dose her with a potion? She made all of her own food, made her own drinks … dammit.

Suddenly, she remembered the morning Jeff brought her coffee from Bathtilda’s, and how closely he watched when she was drinking it. She hadn’t shifted since that morning. He’d dosed her fucking coffee.

Was nothing sacred?

“It’s a tidy little bit of magic,” he said, grinning maliciously. “It’s called la couer … I don’t know, something French. But the bottom line is, you don’t get to shift until I say you can. Well, technically, you don’t get to shift until I give you the antidote, but you won’t get that without my permission. It’s a magic word. Isn’t that romantic?”

Lia honest-to-God howled. She bared her teeth in her frustrated wrath and for the first time, Jeff was smart enough to step back. “Why would you do this?”

Jeff swallowed heavily. “Well, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t going to at first. I considered it an insurance policy, a ‘just in case.’ I thought you were interested in that Alex guy, and I figured, I can compete with him. He’s just human, right?”

“What?” she gasped. “You were the one who attacked Alex?”

“I thought maybe you were interested in him again when I saw you together at the festival. And I decided to take him out of the competition. I told you, Lia, I cover my bases, that’s my job. But I’ve realized you really wanted that Jon guy,” he said, his confidence crumbling as he started to wring his hands.

She groaned. “And I’m guessing those were your sunglasses Jon found in his yard?”

He shrugged. “I had to keep tabs on him, too. You kept wandering near his house. I mean, obviously, you only want to be with him because he can shift. But if you can’t shift, we’ll be the same. And we can finally be together. That’s why I bought the spell.”

“Jeff, I’m not in a relationship with you because I don’t want to be in a relationship with you. It has nothing to do with shifting or not shifting,” Lia said.

“No.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not true. You can’t lie to me. I’ve loved you for such a long time, and you just need to accept your feelings for me. Trust me, I know best. I’m a raven, just like Victor and my parents. Ravens are wiser than people give us credit for. I mean, they know we’re clever, but there’s deep wisdom there, too.”

“Victor’s a raven shifter?” she whispered. She’d heard of them, of course, but she’d never met one in person.

He nodded. “It’s why you can’t read him like everybody else. We never let other creatures know what we’re thinking or holding. Being deceptive doesn’t sound like a virtue, but it’s made us successful. We watch and wait until we have the advantage to sweep in and take what’s ours. And you’re mine, Lia. You always have been.”

Jeff continued, “My mother is raven from a line going all the way back to the ancient Vikings. They’re fierce and fast and clever as any predator could ever be, but somehow the ability to shift skipped me and my siblings. Oh, we’re cunning alright. And we can trick anyone, even energy readers like you. But the ability to shift …you have no idea what it’s like not to inherit something that you deserve. It’s like the opposite of what la faille was doing to the humans here.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Jeff, but it doesn’t exactly explain why you put a fucking spell on me,” she seethed.

Again, he continued on as if she hadn’t even spoken. Maybe he wasn’t even aware that she was there. “That’s part of the reason I brought this site to my uncle’s attention, why I convinced him to come here after I read Dr. Ramsay’s book. Because if the rift’s energy could turn humans into magique, why couldn’t it work for me, too? I’m supposed to be able to shift!”

“The rift’s been closed for months, Jeff. It’s not changing people anymore. That was in Jillian’s book, too.”

She was wasting time. She was talking in circles. She had to come up with a solution. Think, think, think.

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