Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance Read Online Free Page B

already mounted the motorcycle, Liam leaving the rest of the arrangements up to Ronan and Elizabeth.
    “All right, you have a point,” Elizabeth said. “But I’ll take
you
back to Shiftertown and then drive myself home.”
    “Whatever.” Ronan held out his hand. “Keys.”
    “What? No. It’s not like I’m drunk.”
Yet
.
    “After the night you’ve had? Nope. I’m driving you. “
    Elizabeth felt sick and stretched, her head ached, and her eyes felt hollow. She needed about a gallon of water and then one of coffee, a long bath, a hot toddy, and a really good night’s sleep.
After
she made sure Mabel was safe.
    “Fine.” She dropped the keys into Ronan’s hand.
    “Cool.” He snapped his fingers around them. “I’ve always wanted to drive one of these little pickups. Don’t tell anyone.”
    The Harley roared to life. Liam lifted his hand and so did Kim, then Liam pulled out into the night. Kim, helmeted, leaned into Liam’s back, as though she loved him body and soul. A human and a Shifter. What a crazy night.
    Ronan opened the passenger door and got Elizabeth inside. “I’m supposed to like muscle cars. Strongman, macho cars.” He shut her door and went around to the driver’s side. He barely fit behind the wheel and had to slide the seat all the way back. “Monster trucks. Bad-ass motorcycles. Anything big and chunky that makes a lot of noise. Nothing cute and girlie. So keep this quiet. Deal?”
    Now he was making her laugh. “Your secret is safe with me.”
    Not that Ronan could ever be mistaken for cute and girlie. He was huge but solid, like a pro wrestler, tall but perfectly proportional. His face wasn’t exactly handsome—too hard for that, and he’d had his nose and right cheekbone broken at some time in his past. But his face was striking. His eyes were dark brown, almost black, but not cold. They were warm, very warm.
    Ronan started up the truck and peeled out of the parking lot. Elizabeth held on as he raced around a corner and pulled onto Seventh heading due east.
    Elizabeth wanted to talk to Mabel, to reassure her sister that she was on her way home. She reached for her phone and found an empty place on her belt. “Oh, crap. Liam still has my cell phone.”
    “Not surprised. Liam likes gadgets. He’ll give it back to you when he’s done with it.”
    “Doesn’t he have his own?”
    “Sure, but Shifters don’t get to have fancy smart phones. Our phones call and hang up, that’s it. I bet he’s texting every human he knows, or playing games, or taking pictures. He’s like a cub when he gets a new gadget in his hand. But I’ll make him give it back.”
    Ronan drove through the sparse traffic as he spoke, flashed under the I-35, and sped on in entirely the opposite direction from Elizabeth’s house.
    “Where are you going?” she asked. “I live northwest of downtown.”
    “You’re not going home,” Ronan said, gripping the wheel as he spun the truck around another corner.
    “I’m not?” Her trepidation returned. “Why not?”
    Ronan looked over at her and grinned. It was a warm grin, making his eyes twinkle. “Because I’m taking you to my home, Elizabeth Chapman.
Shiftertown
.”

CHAPTER 4
    Ronan felt Elizabeth’s fear pouring off her as they neared the streets of Shiftertown. But there was nothing frightening about Shiftertown—at least, not these days.
    When Ronan had first arrived from Alaska, though, he’d been scared as hell. Bears liked solitude, and Ronan had never lived near more than one or two people at a time in his life. In Shiftertown, scores of Shifters surrounded him, always. And then the human government had told him he had to let other bears live in the same
house
with him.
    Ronan’s shyness had nearly killed him. Learning to survive the discomfort of being in a crowd, training himself to not react—either by running away or driving the others off—had been the hardest thing Ronan had done. People who derided shyness, or called it