Her Shifter King Read online

  Her Shifter King

  Moon Cursed Book One

  Bailey Dark

  Copyright © 2020 by Bailey Dark

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or 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.

  Her Shifter King

  The first book in the brand new ‘MOON CURSED’ Series from author Bailey Dark.

  A past she can’t remember.

  A secret he must keep hidden.

  A passion they never saw coming.

  Ten years ago.

  That was the last time I knew peace. family. Sanity.

  But after they came for me—everything changed.

  Now, I live my life as an outcast, hiding among the shadows of each new city. Every move I make is a risk, and I’m fully aware that I’m only one wrong turn away from certain death. When I find myself trapped between an enormous wolf and the monstrous shaded creatures that have been hunting me for the last decade, it seems my time is up.

  Except it isn’t.

  My beastly savior shifts into a not-so-mortal man. He claims to be King Alpha of the Blueblood pack in Detroit and he has a deal for me; Marry him and become his mate, and he’ll offer me more freedom and protection than I could ever have on my own. Sounds too good to be true, which usually means it is, but I’m in no position to refuse this overbearing, dominant, ridiculously handsome warrior.

  So I make a choice.

  On the surface I’ll play his game and be his wife. But behind the scenes, I’ll use his resources to find out the truth behind who I am—and what he really wants from me—before he can get it.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Thank You for Reading!

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  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Annalice

  I could hear them long before I saw the faceless shadows creeping across the ground.

  Their nails scraped against the brick walls, causing a horrific screech to ring loudly in my sensitive ears. Rain poured down from an obsidian sky that was streaked with grey storm clouds.

  Droplets moved over the shrouded figures like water gently cascading over smooth rocks along a riverbank. Steam coiled from between my lips. My eyes darted back and forth as I tried to find a weapon. But weapons were useless against these creatures, for they were not from this world. They were much older than the dawn of man.

  I had no choice but to run.

  Water splashed up from the ground as my boots pounded against the concrete. The muscles in my legs burned. A gust of hot breath caressed the back of my neck and I tore down the alley. I knew I had to keep them away from the people that wandered aimlessly through the city.

  Boney, taloned fingers wrapped around my ankle and jerked me back. I hit the ground with a wet thud and a pained groan exploded from my chest. My hands shoved against the creature’s gaping mouth as it hissed. A thick rope of rancid saliva dripped just inches from my face.

  I rammed my elbow into its side and knocked it off of me, scrambling back on my hands until I was able to run again.

  In truth, I had been running for a long time. My life had been perfect ten years ago. Back then I was simply, Anna. Anna Olson of Greensborough, South Dakota.

  I graduated high school early and was on a full paid scholarship to any university I wanted, with Yale and Harvard scouting me for entrance exams.

  But all of that changed in an instant.

  I remember that day. I had barely lifted my arms to hang my diploma on the wall, when the door burst open. Splinters of wood came flying towards my face and three hulking shadows appeared in the entrance of my foster home. All of my foster siblings and the kind man that had taken care of us, had been torn to pieces as they tried to flee. The last thing I heard before the world went dark was a serpent-like voice uttering, “Annalice.”

  I awakened in a pool of scarlet liquid with police officers standing over me.

  They asked an endless stream of questions that I didn’t have answers to. It took months to convince a judge that I hadn’t killed my family, that I wasn’t some troubled soul that wormed my way into their hearts only to destroy the only home I had ever known.

  Harvard and Yale stopped calling.

  Everyone stopped calling.

  I had no friends and no life anymore.

  I couldn’t tell a room full of badges that shadow creatures had ripped through my foster family, so I told them a man had broken in to hurt us. In the end, they came to the conclusion that I was an orphan with a clean record and a bright future, not a murderer.

  Moving to a new state and a new city had been a big change, but I felt safe for a while.

  And yet here I was, again, still running for my life.

  I took a sharp turn and ducked beneath a partially opened garage door of what appeared to be a loading dock of some sort. The building was abandoned, but the soda cans and old pizza boxes meant this was somewhere young kids came to hang out and probably skateboard. I heard the creatures scratching at the opening I came through and darted in search of an exit.

  They found a way inside and I shoved my shoulder against an old door until it opened. A curtain of rain soaked me through the bone and blanketed the city as lightning streaked across the sky.

  My boots slipped on the iron grating of the fire escape. I grabbed onto the ladder. It was stuck, unable to slide down the rails, so I jumped. A sharp pain shot up my leg as my ankle twisted on the landing.

  I limped towards the end of the alley and tried to put some distance between myself and the creatures that hunted me. But a low growl echoed just a few feet in front of me as I came around the corner. Sleek black fur caught me by surprise. Glowing amber eyes watched me from the darkness.

  A wolf.

  Not just a typical wolf, though. This one was big. Huge, even. I felt the strength in my knees begin to give as I shrank back in fear.

  The shadow creatures were close. I had been running from them long enough to know when they were near, but this...beast...seemed far deadlier. Something inside of me churned at the sight of him and a sweet fragrance permeated the air. The wolf sprang towards me, and I braced myself for the pain of its fangs. Instead, it avoided me and sunk its teeth into the shrouded figures that lingered just over my shoulder.

  A deafening roar pierced the night, mingling with the horrific shrieks of my pursuers, and I pressed myself against the far wall.

  Claws slashed and jaws snapped until the creatures faded away as if they had never existed. I looked on as the wolf began to tremble, a cerulean light engulfing its body. Bones cracked and popped, reforming before my eyes.

  If my life had been any different, I would have been shocked into feinting at the sight of a wolf becoming a man. But the things I’d seen over the last ten years had numbed me to the unknown
or unfamiliar.

  Don’t get me wrong—I was terrified—but I remained coherent and upright. And I couldn’t take my eyes away from the transformation happening before me.

  The sleek black fur disintegrated, revealing smooth sun-kissed skin that stretched taut over sculpted muscle. I watched the expansion and contraction of his torso as he breathed raggedly.

  Now, there was no wolf. Only a man.

  A very nude, very muscular, very attractive man.

  Long, silken strands of ebony locks clung to his rain-slick skin. He turned to face me and I felt as though the air had been punched out of my lungs. The weight of his amber gaze kept me anchored in the midst of the storm that raged around us.

  He spoke to me in a language I didn’t recognize, confusion evident in his expression. He tried a second time, but I just shook my head, hoping that ‘no’ was the same in every language.

  “You do not speak the tongue of your people?” he growled in English.

  I ignored his question, too consumed by what I’d just witnessed, “You’re . . . you were a wolf.”

  He nodded, his brows drawn together in confusion.

  “Like, a real wolf.” I repeated.

  “A Shifter, yes. You’ve . . . you’ve never seen one of us before?” His voice was both cautious and uncertain, and for some reason, that alarmed me even more.

  “You’re naked.”

  The words flew from my lips before I could stop them and an unexpected grin raised the side of his handsome face.

  “Is that a question? Because I think the answer’s obvious.”

  “No.” I said, trying to keep my eyes focused on his face instead of everything going on below. “I mean—forget it.”

  A sharp wind blew through the alley, sending a chill up my spine and blowing my hair into my face. A haze of hair obscured my view and I quickly grabbed at the loose tendrils, removing them from my lashes. The beast before me didn’t seem like the kind of man you turned your back on—and lived.

  I glanced up again toward his face, only to see that in those few seconds, his entire posture had changed. He was stiff, back rigid and nostrils flaring. Heat radiated from his eyes and his pupils were dilated beneath the patches of flickering light.

  My breath hitched in my throat and my heart thundered wildly. Everything about the look on his face screamed RUN, but I didn’t.

  Instead, my stomach fluttered in anticipation and a warmth spread through every inch of my flesh, down to the deepest parts of me.

  It took me a moment to fully register this feeling for what it actually was: desire.

  I’d probably hit my head at some point because it was the only explanation for my inappropriate reaction. Especially considering that the last time I even felt a glimmer of this was before the shadows had found me, ten years ago.

  And it wasn’t just because he was, well, hot and naked. If a woman had needs, even a woman who was running for her life, she could still have them met quite easily.

  No. This was on an entirely different level—one that would likely only lead to trouble.

  Whoever this man-beast was, I couldn’t risk sticking around to find out. I had barely taken a step back, when faster than I could blink, he was right in front of me.

  Chapter 2

  Elosel

  The fair-haired beauty that stood before me pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, causing the flesh to plump.

  My heartbeat thrummed wildly in my chest as her small hand pressed against my bare chest to keep me at bay. I shivered at her touch.

  Her scent was unique, a heady mixture of pheromones I could not place. Our breaths floated between us like fog upon a placid lake.

  “Who are you?” she whispered, husky notes coloring her voice.

  It had been a long time since I came upon a fae that did not know my face.

  She looked fae and even smelled fae, but there was something about the icy hues of blue speckled in her otherwise emerald eyes that spoke of something much more complex.

  Whoever—no, whatever—this creature was...she seemed lost. “My name is Elosel. I am Alpha and King of the Blueblood pack. You are in my territory.”

  Her brow furrowed as she took a step away from me.

  “Your territory?”

  I craned my neck down to take a closer look at her. A pink flush appeared on her cheeks, but she did not back down.

  “You have no idea what you are, do you? No idea that you just stumbled into the middle of a war between beings like me and those like you.”

  “I don’t know you and I sure as hell don’t trust you.”

  “If I wanted to harm you, it would’ve already happened.”

  “How reassuring.” She stepped further back, “But I’m not what you think I am. I’m not what those things think I am.” She shoved past me, causing the loose hood of her sweater to fall, revealing more of her lovely face.

  “You are one of those things.”

  The woman spun on her heels. “What?”

  “They are hunters that obey the will of the Unseelie Court. You may not be Unseelie, but you are fae—at least half. In fact, I am not certain what sort of fae you are, but your scent gives it away. What I would like to know is how you have stayed hidden all these years.”

  I swept my gaze over her figure. The fabric of her waterlogged clothes clung to soft curves and toned form, making my hands clench with the urge to touch her. If what she said was true—if she truly did not know who or what she was, then she was the perfect choice.

  It was unheard of for an Alpha of my years to be without a mate. My duty was to the pack and by not doing so sooner, I made us appear weak to the other shifters.

  There was no tolerance for weakness when tension continued to rise between the packs and the fae courts. I needed a mate, one that was not influenced by the conflicts of my people, but one that would obey my stand as King and Alpha.

  “The hunters would not have been able to find you if fae blood didn’t flow through your veins. What’s your name?” Her eyes darted to the cars that passed by just outside the alley. I took another step in her direction. “Running would not be wise. As I said, this is my territory. There is nowhere you could go in this city where I couldn’t find you.”

  Fear—and perhaps a bit of anger—replaced the shock I had seen before.

  She raised her chin up, “My name is Anna.”

  I held my hand out and uttered a small spell beneath my breath. A coat appeared in my hands and I wrapped it around her shoulders. “Come. I’ll walk you home, Anna. We have much to discuss.”

  She pulled out of my reach once more. “Why should I trust you?”

  “Because I am the only one that can keep you safe,” I growled irritably. “I can see the fatigue in your eyes, Anna. You want to stop running. You want to live a life that is not dictated by fear and isolation. I can give you that...I can give you freedom.”

  “And how would you do that?” Reluctantly, Anna burrowed deeper into the coat. Dark circles rested beneath her beautiful eyes. “Everyone who’s tried to protect me from those shadows has ended up dead.”

  “I am the King. It’s a title that was given to me because of my father’s bloodline. But I am also the Alpha of my pack, a status that can only be earned by those who possess a natural talent for the arcane arts. Not all wolves can summon a coat out of thin air.” I smiled as clothing began to manifest on my body, concealing my nudity (which she had been conveniently avoiding). Though the show of magic seemed to impress Anna, there were those within my pack that felt the need to challenge me. “I can protect you.”

  “What’s the catch?” She asked.

  “The catch?”

  “Well, why are you so generously willing to put up with my problems? You don’t know me, so you must gain something from it.” She tiled her head, “I want to know what that is.”

  I crossed my arms over my wide chest, “My protection comes under one very specific condition.”

  “Which would be?”
br />   “Marriage.”

  She scoffed, “That’s not funny.”

  “Do I look like I’m joking?”

  Anna stepped back with a wariness in her eyes. “I’m a stranger to you.”

  “And?”

  “Why the hell would you want to marry me?” She glanced around as if looking for anywhere to bolt from my sight. “You want to marry a stranger with a million problems of her own? Someone you have only known for five minutes?”

  “My reasons are my own.”

  She shook her head, “You have to be either crazy, or some kind of sicko if the only woman you can get to say yes, is me.”

  “I assure you I am neither of those things.”

  “That’s exactly what a psychopath would say, isn’t it?”

  A growl echoed from my chest, “You are exhausting, you know that?”

  “I mean you’re a king after all, right? Don’t you have a harem of women willing and ready?”

  “Yes, and yet here I am, offering this privilege to you.”

  “I still don’t understand why.”

  “I can’t explain something you will never comprehend. Your choices as I see them, are either to live by my side—or die by the hands of those who hunt you.”

  Anna shifted uncomfortably and crossed her arms over her chest. A million thoughts swirled in her lovely eyes as I waited in silence.

  “This is crazy.”

  “Not as crazy as choosing the alternative.” I stated.

  “I’m going to need time to think. I’ve been searching for answers for a long time and I don’t know what to make of any of this.” She threw her hands into the air, “The life you live isn’t reality in my mind.”