Shifters: A Samantha Reece Mystery Book 1 by Jaime Johnesee (libby ebook reader txt) 📕

soul; in fact, he’d only ever attempt to help. I pressed the UP button and stepped in when the doors opened. Imagine my surprise when four people got off on the third floor leaving me alone with none other than my maker.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I snarled.

I had an excellent snarl. I'd actually practiced it after I had been turned. I felt there were two things a cat needed to be taken seriously, a good snarl, and a great grin. I spent too long a time perfecting both.

"I want to talk to you, Sam. No, I need to talk to you." He was insistent alright.

"I don't care what you need, Mister. You leave me alone, got it?"

"Ben." He moved a briefcase from his left to his right hand and dropped eye contact.

"What?" I looked around, unsure if he was talking to me or if he had made a phone call over some Bluetooth accessory.

"Benjamin Fitzpatrick … Ben. That's my name."

"Good for you. What do you want, a fucking medal for remembering your own name?" I took a deep breath and tried to keep from slugging him. He was making it awfully difficult.

"I figured you'd want to know the name of your sire and soul mate." He smiled and there was more than a trace of self-assured cat to it.

It was a lazy yet cocky half-smirk that let me know he was in the mood to play. My jaguar grunted. I mentally hollered at her for being such a tool. She may have been happy, but I was extremely angry. In fact, I could see red.

"You are no more my soul mate than a ... a ... a chicken could be. That's all you are, you know, a chicken! What kind of guy does what you did? You fang-raped me." I hissed at him, baring teeth that had lengthened in my anger.

"That's a serious charge," he said quietly.

He didn't look as sure of himself as he had a moment ago. His face had paled and he looked as if I had given him a powerful right hook. I wish I had. My guess is that he never thought of what he'd done as fang-rape. Arrogant prick.

"You did not have my consent. You did not reveal to me who you were and what you were about to do. You simply bit a woman who thought you were an escaped panther."

With the bulking up of my teeth the angry rant came out with a slight lisp and a few flecks of spittle. I didn't really care. I was far beyond caring and into serious rage. I could feel my bones breaking and knew I was about to turn.

"Stop!" He hissed at me and my change halted.

Bones began to reform back into their human shape, muscles stopped ripping and knit back together, and my ligaments returned to rights. I gaped at him. This wasn't possible. Nobody could stop a were’s transition except the shifter themselves, and even then it was rare that it could be stopped once it had begun.

"How?" My jaguar was just lying on the ground in my mind, her belly offered up to him.

This was not possible. I didn't want to shift here, but I really didn't like that he had so much control of me that he could stop my shifting. The idea that he could control my jaguar like that made me seriously uncomfortable.

"Dammit, Sam! I can do it because you're my soul mate. We are meant to be together. The sooner you get that, the sooner you can give in to it and be happy."

"Yeah, because I'll bet a life with you just equals loads of happiness, you disgusting, controlling freak! Face it, you'd use me every chance you could to get exactly what you want."

I was full of hatred and venom for this man, and my jaguar. There was a part of me that was still attracted to him, even after all this. I sorely needed to research sire bonds when I had more than a fleeting amount of time. How could I possibly find him even slightly attractive? He was the man who had so easily taken my normalcy, my humanity. How dare he act as if the curse he laid upon me with his bite was a present he felt the need to give?

"What I did, I did to make you happy. To make your life better. I hadn’t gone out planning on biting anyone and I am so sorry I went full stupid when you reached out to me."

"You did it without asking. Without even talking to me about it. You are a complete stranger to me and you stole my life. You took my life from me and gave me nothing in return. The new life I have, I built for myself. I rose up from the ashes that were left of my old life and created a new one. You did me no kindness.”

“I did, though. Being a shifter really is a gift.”

“A gift? You ruined everything I had planned for myself and gave me only one path to travel. I had to give up my apartment in the city, give up my job in computer crimes because it wasn't thrilling enough for me anymore. I gave up everything I ever wanted and rebuilt myself.”

“Because of me your new life is so much better than your old, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not better. It’s just different. How arrogant of you to come in and claim credit! Fuck you. You destroyed me and left me for dead. I rose myself up and made my own way. Another thing, you are not my soul mate. You are nothing more than the source of my virus, plain and simple. You are nothing more than the rapist who gave me the virus that destroyed me!" Tears of rage were coursing down my face and my jaguar sat uncomfortably by, confused and unsure of what to do.

She longed to run with his jaguar, but she