The Baby Shift- Maine Read online

  The Baby Shift: Maine

  Shifter Babies of America 11

  Becca Fanning

  Copyright © 2019 by Becca Fanning

  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.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Also by Becca Fanning

  Chapter 1

  She nearly fell off the side of the bed as she struggled to sit up. Hot sweat dripped off her face, stinging her eyes as she struggled to make sense of where she was. The images flashed across her mind, blocking any logical thoughts from settling in her head. She saw golden eyes staring at her, encased in a hairy face with vicious teeth and a large mane. As the mouth opened, revealing the sharpness of the teeth, her subconscious self heard a door bang open beside her.

  "Diana!"

  Her entire body jolted, taking her from an unreal world back into the reality she was now in; her room. Blurry eyed, Diana's brain began to make sense of what her eyes were seeing. Right in front of her was a bedside table, and by her left, she could see the rays of the early morning Philadelphia sun seeping through the white blinds of her window. Diana sighed. She was in her room, and the footsteps drawing swiftly towards her bed belonged to her father.

  She turned to look at him slowly, trying her best to make her expression like that of a woman who just awoke from dreaming about unicorns and dandelions.

  "Good morning, Dad," she said, forcing a smile.

  "Are you okay? I could have sworn I heard a scream," her father explained . He had a worried expression on his handsome face. Being over sixty-five, Henry Reynolds still had full hair, broad shoulders, and a dashing smile; the only sign of his age being the faint wrinkles on his face, and the streaks of grey in his jet-black hair.

  "Yes, I'm fine," Diana replied.

  Henry sighed. "You are definitely not fine," he said shaking his head. "Are they back? The nightmares?"

  Her head dropped. She could not stand to look him in the eyes. He had already suffered so much for what she had seen or thought she had seen fourteen years ago. Even now, bringing up the topic of her nightmares about that night seemed unfair to him.

  Henry sat down beside her and said, "You can talk to me about anything, even this. When did the nightmares return?"

  "About two weeks ago. I didn't know how to tell you."

  "Come on, Diana. You know me better than this. I don't blame you one bit for what happened to me. I made that choice to lie in court, not you," he said.

  She shook her head, still refusing to meet his eyes. "And you would never have had to do that if I hadn't told you what I saw."

  Her father's demeanor when talking about the incident was always cold, which was why she was shocked to see him suddenly let out a soft chuckle. He said. "Jonathan Floyd killed your mother. I may have lied to the court about seeing him do it but I know he did it."

  She asked, "How can you be so sure? He wasn't the only lion shifter in Maine back then." She half expected him to stand up and leave as he always did when they talked about it.

  Henry said, "Don't be naive, Diana. You know how fiercely we competed for the right to build that oilfield in Rockville. I was on the verge of winning it when he tried to kill us all. After the court found out I gave false evidence, I lost a lot of money, and the backing of many investors. Today, the Floyd family is the richest in Maine, thanks to that oilfield."

  Diana sat for what seemed like minutes, unable to speak. She managed to say, "This is the first time you've talked about Jonathan Floyd without getting mad or breaking down."

  Her father smiled wryly. "That's because I just got off the phone with a friend in Maine. Jonathan Floyd died of cancer last night."

  The words struck her like a ton of bricks. "Does that make you feel better?"

  He shook his head. "No. This means he died without suffering for what he did. I feel no satisfaction in that."

  Diana said, "At least you can end all thoughts of vengeance for mom's death. As for the money you lost, you've managed to rebuild Reyn Empire into something big. All is settled, don't you think?"

  Henry Reynolds laughed long and hard. He finally managed to catch his breath long enough to say, "Far from it. Jonathan Floyd left the oilfield in the care of his three shifter children. Park your bags, Diana. I'll inform your siblings. We are leaving Denver and going back to Maine for a while."

  She could not bring herself to contain the look of shock and terror on her face. "Why do we need to return to Maine?"

  Henry Reynolds grinned. "We're going to get back what was taken from us. We're going to steal the Rockville oilfield from Jonathan Floyd's children."

  "You're not a pushover. You are a confident son-of-a-bitch, and you won't take shit from no one. Especially not three over-pampered brats."

  Alexander Warren forced himself to smile as he spoke to his reflection in the mirror. The result was that it came out as more of a grimace than a smile. He frowned.

  "Dear Alex," he said to himself. "It appears you're incapable of feigning laughter, which is going to be a problem if you're going to pretend to like your half-brothers when you meet."

  He sighed. This was not how it was meant to be. Jonathan Floyd's death was the reason for this premature meeting. Alex had lived the first eleven years of his life believing Joe Warren was his biological father. It wasn't until the day three strange men came to his house that everything changed.

  Martha and Joe Warren were both werelions, so it was not odd that he had grown up as one, too. Back then, he used to love shifting into a lion cub and running around the woods, playing with any animal that did not fear him - which was very hard to find. But after Jonathan Floyd and two of his cousins came to Alex's house and left in the evening, his whole life changed.

  Before Martha Hansen married her childhood sweetheart, Joe Warren, there was a short spell where they broke up and were apart for a while. During the period of the split she met Jonathan for the first time when he arrived in Rhode Island for a business deal. Though he was married at the time, he tried very hard to start an affair with her to no avail. One day, he invited her for a run through the woods in their lion form.

  With her most animal and carnal instincts brought to the surface, she could not resist his charms as she would have in human form. The two lions had sex that night, and the next morning, he was gone. Martha got engaged to Joe a week later. Soon after, she found out she was pregnant, and it was clear Joe wasn't the father. She considered abortion but Joe wouldn't let her. He kept reminding her of how rare it was to conceive a pure-born shifter. When a male and female shifter mate in animal form, it is almost impossible for the union to result in a child; but when it does, such a child is called a pure-born and is superior to other shifters.

  Alex checked his reflection in the mirror one last time. He was indeed a dashing young man. Thankfully, he looked a lot more like his mother than he did his late father. He had Jonathan Floyd's figure though, with a height of six feet four inches and broad shoulders. There was also the long golden hair that was common to all werelions. Just like every shifter across the world, his eyes were a bright shade of gold.

  Alex touched his jaw he had shaved that morning, like he did every two days to hide the golden beard that grew many inches per day. This was yet another peculiarity in werelions and a thing to be proud of. However, after finding out fourteen years ago about his true paternal lion pride, he
had no interest living like a werelion anymore. His hair was dark-gold because he dyed it a little every morning to hide the naturally bright golden color.

  Alex picked up a little box, took out two tiny lenses and placed them on his eyes He stared at the mirror again. His eyes were no longer golden, but were pitch-black. He smiled.

  "Much better."

  The three men laughed hysterically as the butler poured more wine into the empty glasses on the center table.

  "Really Alex, Dad should have let us come visit you in Rhode Island a long time ago," Derek said. He was a slim man with long hair and a thick layer of beard. At age thirty-two, Derek was the eldest in the group. His younger brother, Floyd Junior, looked exactly like him. They both had long golden hair and beards similar to a lion's mane.

  They were in the well-furnished living room of the Floyd mansion in Rockville, Maine. Alex sat in the middle of the two laughing hard. He could not remember the last time he had so much fun.

  He said, "I guess he had his reasons for keeping us apart. Growing up a shifter in Rhode Island is quite different from growing up as one in Maine."

  "How so?" Junior asked. He was twenty-seven, hence, was two years Alex's senior. Deborah, last born child and only girl fathered by Jonathan was on a business trip and would arrive in the evening.

  "Well, in Rhode Island shifters are a lot rarer to find, so there is still a great deal of discrimination. Out there we learn to keep a low profile. In Maine, y'all are a lot more...flamboyant."

  Junior and Derek laughed once again. Alex laughed with them, too. They were really not the cruel, dumb brats he was expecting to meet. Yes, they were a bit cocky, but so far, their reception of him was endearing.

  Derek said, "I remember speaking to him about it once. He said he wished he had known about you earlier. He would never have let you get used to life in Maine."

  Alex gave him a wry smile. "I'm sure he wouldn't." He decided not to mention his belief that Jonathan Floyd would probably not have cared about him if he wasn't a pure-born. To Jonathan he was like a valuable trophy he could not show off in public.

  Alex decided not to say anything about his thoughts and opinion on their father. Best not to speak ill of the dead.

  "Come on, Freya. Come on," Diana slowly urged the horse out of the stable. She had only been back in Rockville for forty-eight hours but was already getting accustomed to some of her old habits. One of them was riding the horses in her father's stables.

  Diana managed to drag the horse out into the open, straddled it, and rode into the streets of Rockville. She avoided the main roads and stayed within the few unpaved pathways still remaining in the fast growing town. It had rained the night before; hence the road she used was muddy and wet. She still remembered that the best place for horseback riding was around the easternmost part of Rockville. Most of that area had been developed by Jonathan Floyd into an oilfield, but she found ample riding space just outside the main area.

  Diana sucked in a deep breath as she galloped through the muddy plains, content in this moment of blissful oblivion. In moments like this, she was all alone. No people, no family, no problems. Just her and the early morning breeze blowing past her and making her hair swirl wildly. She was happy, elated, soaring even. And then she was falling.

  She would later come to understand that she had momentarily loosen her grip on the leash a second before the horse dipped one hoof into extremely deep muddy soil, causing it to lose its balance. In that moment however, all Diana knew was that she fell off the back of the galloping horse.

  Alex was just pulling his blue Mercedes in front of the oilfield's gate when he saw what had to be the strangest thing he had seen since his arrival in Maine. The key advantage of being a pure-born is the ability to manifest key features of the related animal even while in human form. For this reason, he could see what was happening, though it was hundreds of meters away.

  The woman was on the muddy ground, thrashing about as her right leg was being pulled by a large horse. From the look of it she was still very conscious, which meant she hadn't sustained any serious injury. However, the horse was in a panic and was dragging her at an alarming pace. Anything could happen to the helpless woman in a space of seconds.

  Alex sprang into action. He pushed open the door of his car and sprinted in the direction of the horse. The animal seemed to be circling the oilfield so Alex knew in what direction to meet it. His lion abilities kicked in as he ran, giving him immense speed and agility. When he came close enough he tried to shout the horse down, but it increased its pace, causing him to do the same. He reached for the reins and considered pulling the creature to a stop. Deciding such a forced approach could send the woman directly underneath the horse's hooves, he abandoned the idea.

  With a great heave, he gracefully launched himself off the ground and threw a leg over the horse's side. Now in control of the horse, he tried to remember tips from the little horseback training he had as a boy. Alex slowly applied pressure to the reins, causing the stubborn horse to gradually slow down to a walk and then finally a halt.

  Heaving a huge sigh of relief, he turned to look at the woman. She was covered from head to toe in brown mud. Her face took up a thick layer of the soil. Dark, dazed eyes stared at him through a cake of mud. Alex burst into uncontrollable laughter causing her to frown, which only made him laugh harder. In his laughter, he let go of the reins and accidentally kicked the sides of the horse with his ankle.

  The horse raised its body and momentarily balanced on its hind legs. Alex suddenly slid off the back and fell face first into a pool of mud beside the woman. She broke into her own train of laughter, her white teeth shining among the muddy face. It took a few seconds for the reality to hit him, but when it did, he burst into laughter along with her.

  Luckily for them, the oilfield had a bathroom and spare work outfits. In a space of thirty minutes, they had walked all the way back to the entrance, showered, changed and went outside the gate again. Diana just got off a call with her sister, Clarissa, when he came to join her to sit on the boot of his Mercedes.

  "You have no idea how grateful I am, Mr. ...," she said.

  "Alexander Warren. Do call me Alex. And you're welcome. I wasn't going to stand by and watch the show, however funny it was." He grinned, exposing a set of sparkling white dentures that completely captured her attention for seconds.

  When she finally managed to look away, she said with a smile, "You just saved me from what could potentially have been a lot pain. I'm not about to go into how pathetic you looked with your face in the mud."

  Alex covered his face with is hand. "Please don't. Talk about from hero to zero." He chuckled and she laughed.

  "You work here?" she asked.

  "Yes. It's a new job. One recently made available due to unforeseen circumstances," he said.

  "Good or bad unforeseen circumstances?" she asked.

  "Bad."

  "But your being here now, that's good, right?"

  He looked away. "I don't know. Only time will tell."

  "Well, in my opinion there's no way of telling whether a circumstance was good or bad. Depends on the end result."

  He gave her an inquisitive look. "And how do we know when we have the end result?"

  "I'll be damned if I knew."

  They laughed once more. Diana found herself becoming more comfortable with the handsome stranger. He told her a little about Rhode Island and she told him a bit of what she could remember about Maine. She was almost sorry to see Clarissa's car pull up a few yards beside them.

  He asked for her number and she gave it to him. "Thanks once more," she said once he was done taking the digits down. "I really appreciate your help today."

  The wind blew against his long dark-gold hair as he replied with another breathtaking smile. "Like I said, it was nothing."

  When Diana took a seat beside her sister in the car, Clarissa said with a broad smile, "Oh wow! You definitely have to see that dude again."

  Dia
na giggled like a little girl. "I know right? He's such a hottie."

  "No, not that."

  "What?" Diana asked, confused.

  "I mean, I know he's a hottie, but that's not why you need to see him again. Marko and Timothy have been keeping tabs on the Floyd oilfield since we arrived. That handsome hunk is the new site manager."

  Chapter 2

  "Dad! Turn the stereo up," Diana calls out from the back seat. She is six-years-old again. Happy and carefree. All she wants right now is to sing along to whatever's on the stereo. It's music, but in a way it's not music. Everything is blurry, but clear at the same time.

  "Sorry, honey. I can't turn up the music. Your mom has a headache," her father says. He's nice. He has always been a jolly fellow. Why does it feel like he has not?

  Diana folds her arms and starts to sulk. She wishes Clarissa, Timothy and Marko were here with her and not in summer camp. She too would have joined them had it not been for the blasted cold she had picked up last week.

  Bored out of her mind, she scrambles to place her knees on her seat so she can hold onto the driver's seat where her father sat. Her mother was on the other front seat quietly texting on her phone. Her father always complained that her mother lived half her life on the internet.

  Holding on to the back of the driver's seat, Diana leans forward to whisper something in her father's ears. That was when she saw it.

  It was large, and fast. With the surrounding darkness of the night, she would have mistaken it for a dog had it not been for the fact that it was bigger than any dog she could imagine. It zoomed across the road right in front of them. They had been going fast. She heard her dad curse and then their car swerved to the right. What happened next did so in a flash. There was a loud screech, the sound of her parents screaming, and then glass shattering as the car hit something heavy.