Laura's Secret Read online

  Laura’s Secret

  The Changelings [1]

  Lucy Kelly

  JK Publishing, Inc. (2014)

  *

  Tags: Erotic, Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance

  Warning: For Mature Adult Audiences. Contains wording and language some may deem offensive. MF.

  In book one of the Changelings: Laura Donahue believes she’s as human as everyone around her. When she discovers shifters aren’t just myths and fables but really exist in the world, she sets out to meet them.

  Laura discovers their enemy, the Shayatin, evil humans who steal magic from shifters have targeted large shifter communities. The last thing she expects when she brings them valuable intelligence, was running into shifter law. A law that states, if a human finds out about shifters, they are either killed or must find a shifter mate—fast.

  The method her new friends use to find her a mate has her blushing. Will one be found in time or will her new friends have to follow the laws and end her life?

  Laura’s Secret

  The Changelings

  Book One

  by Lucy Kelly

  © Copyright July 2014 JK Publishing, Inc.

  ISBN#

  All cover art and logo © Copyright July 2014 by JK Publishing, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by ML Hill

  Artwork by Jess Buffett

  Published by JK Publishing, Inc.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales are entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publishing company.

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  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

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  Email: [email protected]

  Dedication

  To my readers: I hope you enjoy this book as much as I had fun writing it.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  Books by Lucy Kelly

  Excerpt from HeVan Sent

  JK Publishing, Inc.

  Prologue

  “Come on, Luce, one more big push and you’ll get to meet your baby,” said Dr. John Daly as he sat between her legs. The baby had crowned and a wild mop of dark blonde hair was visible. Douglas Donahue leaned over and kissed his wife on the forehead.

  “I know, I’m a complete jerk and this is all my fault. But I love you so eventually you’ll forgive me. Let’s see what we made this time, honey, one more big push,” he coaxed her.

  Luce Donahue took a deep breath and then strained to make another try to bring this newest life into the world. After birthing six sons, she knew she’d most likely give birth to another nine pound strapping boy. Their youngest, Evan, was six now and they both thought they were done in the baby making department. But some antibiotics had nullified her birth control and one broken condom later, Luce and Doug Donahue found themselves contemplating diapers one more time.

  She grabbed onto her husband’s hand with a crushing grip as he supported her. She groaned her way through another long push, the baby’s head emerged. The doctor quickly checked that the cord wasn’t wrapped around the baby’s neck and then cleared out the mouth and nasal passages. Barely a moment later, as the doctor turned the infant to clear the shoulders the baby let out a wail.

  “He’s got a fine set of lungs on him,” Doug whispered in his wife’s ear. He couldn’t help giving her another kiss on her temple. He’d missed the birth of his first boy and made a point of being there for Luce for every birth after that. Each of his children was a miracle to him and he was constantly surprised at the depth of love that squeezed his heart each time he saw his wife work so hard to bring them into the world.

  The rest of the baby emerged quickly and Dr. Daly laughed, “Well, Doug, you’re right about the lungs but you got the pronoun wrong. He’s a she.”

  “A girl, we made a girl?” he kissed his wife again as the baby was placed on her stomach. His hand was shaking, so he let the doctor cut the umbilical cord. Luce looked down at her newest child. Unbelievably, it appeared the baby was looking back at her. “She’s beautiful, Doug. But this is the last one, we’ve got our girl, our family is complete.”

  “Okay, honey, I hear ya, I’ll get snipped. No more babies for us,” said Doug. He’d do anything for her and he didn’t want her taking birth control anymore. She’d gone through enough pain for their children, it was his turn to do his part. “Besides, we’ve got seven wonderful children and with this beauty, who needs any more?”

  An hour later, Luce was resting comfortably in her room. Once again she’d gone into labor in the middle of the night. They both knew the drill well, she’d be released the next afternoon so she was getting her rest now while there were helping hands.
As she slept in the wee hours of the morning, Doug called his oldest son, Aaron. At sixteen he was old enough to stay home and make sure his younger brothers didn’t get into trouble while mom and dad were at the hospital.

  “Hello,” he answered the phone in a sleepy voice. “Dad, how much did he weigh, I’ve got a bet going with Benji.”

  Doug laughed, “Well, the final was eight pounds, six ounces and nineteen inches, but it’s not a boy son. You have a little sister.”

  Aaron was about to make a crack about the runt of the litter when his dad’s words sunk into his brain. A baby sister. He sat up straight in the bed and thought about what that meant. A feeling of protectiveness swept through him, no one was going to pick on his baby sister! If anyone called her a runt he’d clock ‘em. Never mind what he’d been thinking only moments before, this was different. “A sister! Is she all right? Do you need us to come down to the hospital?”

  Aaron was already reaching for his jeans when his father began talking again.

  “That won’t be necessary. However, I think you and your brothers are going to be spending the morning re-painting the nursery. I have a sneaking suspicion your mom’s going to want to redecorate. She finally got her girl, my guess is she’s going to want to go all out. It’s three in the morning, get some sleep, tomorrow is going to be a busy day. Don’t wake your brothers, you can tell them in the morning. I’m going to stay here with your mom, okay?”

  “Sure thing, Dad, don’t worry about anything, I’ve got it covered. You stay with mom and the baby. Hey, did you decide on a name?”

  “Yes, son, we’re naming her Laura Solange Donahue after each of her grandmothers. She has a full head of hair that’s so blonde it’s almost white. And her lungs are as strong as David’s,” he said, naming his third son who was always talking at the top of his voice. No doubt from years of trying to be heard over his older brothers.

  Aaron chuckled and after a few more words he hung up the phone. Hearing a sound, he looked up and saw his brother, Steven, in the doorway.

  “The baby came? What’d they name him?” he asked. Like Aaron, he assumed they were getting another brother.

  “Laura Solange,” said Aaron, watching his brother’s face and waiting for the name to penetrate.

  “That’s a stupid name for a boy, wait…it’s a girl? We have a sister?”

  “Yep, and it’s going to be our job to make sure nothing happens to her.” At sixteen and already nearly six feet tall, Aaron had discovered girls in a big way. He’d lost his virginity a few months back and repeated the experience as often as he could. But there was no way some grody boy was putting his sweaty hands on his sister!

  “Dad said we should get some sleep. He said mom’s going to want to redo the nursery now that she has a girl.”

  Both boys thought of the room off the master, a walk-in closet had been converted into a temporary nursery. Their dad was building an extension onto the house but it wasn’t done yet. He and his brother, Steven, each had their own room. David and Benji, the twins, were twelve and still shared. And Josh, who was eight and Evan who was six, shared another. With the extension, the house would go from five bedrooms to seven with a large family room underneath on the ground floor. The basement was currently the playroom for the kids of the house when they weren’t in the backyard or all over the neighborhood. They were planning to convert it into a game room with a pool table, big screen TV equipped with gaming systems, and a foosball table.

  “We can’t have our sister living in a closet, even for a little while. It’s not right.”

  “You know mom’s been reading all those decorating magazines?” Steven asked Aaron as he sat down on the end of the bed. “I remember one was of a little girl’s room. She was mooning over it before she put it away and went on to the other pictures. Let’s find it.”

  The two of them got up and moved silently through the quiet house. Their brothers were still sleeping and they didn’t want them to wake up.

  “Your room’s closer to mom and dad. So we’ll share until the new rooms are done and Laura can have yours, agreed?” said Aaron.

  Steven gave his brother one long look. “Agreed.” The two of them had enjoyed the feeling of being grown up when they each got their own rooms a couple of years back when they had moved into this new house. But a sister was important, so they would sacrifice for a couple of months, for her.

  It took them about half an hour to find the magazine Steven remembered and then another ten minutes to find the picture their mother had been dreaming over. Pouring over the picture of the pretty room done in pinks and yellows with flower accents, they compared it to the pale blue closet upstairs. At least they had a new crib and other furniture. “Dad was angry when the furniture arrived and it was that pale oak instead of the dark cherry they had ordered. But the oak will look better with these colors, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, but we’re going to need a lot of help if we’re going to make my bedroom look like this before dad brings mom home from the hospital,” said Steven.

  “I know, let’s call Uncle Matt. He’s in the FBI, he’s used to being woken up at all hours. And he’ll be willing to help,” answered Aaron.

  With a plan in mind and too keyed up to go back to sleep, they decided to give Uncle Matt a little more sleep time by dressing and moving all the furniture out of Steve’s room first. It wasn’t hard, they were both big for their ages and had strong bodies from years of sports. The hard thing was staying quiet and not waking their younger brothers. They would want to help and would just get in the way.

  “I bet Aunt Carrie would take the bros to IHop for breakfast if we asked her. Then we would be able to get more done,” said Steven as he helped his brother shift his mattress.

  “Good idea, Steve, she always likes spending time with us.” Aunt Carrie and Uncle Matt didn’t have any kids of their own, but they’d always enjoyed spending time with what they called Doug and Luce’s menagerie.

  In order to save space they put their two twin beds back together as bunk beds again. Mom and Dad had said they could have full sized beds when the extension was finished. For now though they were making do with their old beds and dressers. Steven didn’t think the baby would have hang up clothes so he left his closet alone. When they were done, his room was empty. Aaron got the spackle and the two of them got to work filling the holes left over from where his posters and pictures had hung on the walls.

  Aaron was thinking about all the stuff they were going to need to buy, bedding, curtains, a rug for the floor and a few other things. With the closet being so small there hadn’t been room for a chair, but the magazine picture had a rocking chair too. He knew more than Steve how much all this stuff was probably going to cost. He’d been mowing lawns in the summers and shoveling snow in the winters for the last four years, saving for a car when he got his license. He was already planning to empty his savings as soon as the bank opened in the morning. Until then, they could at least put a coat of white primer over the current paint. Steven’s room was currently dark blue, so they both knew more than one coat of paint was going to be needed.

  By six a.m. they’d done all they could with what was on hand at the house. The rest would have to wait until they could get to the stores. The hardware store was open early for contractors so they could get the paint and a lot of the other stuff first. The final touches would have to wait until after ten. Both boys were confident they’d have the room finished before their dad brought their mom and little Laura home.

  Uncle Matt wasn’t too thrilled about being woken up at six in the morning but after Aaron explained the situation, and the fact that both boys had been up for over three hours already, he willingly went along with the plan. Waking his wife, they got up and made plans to help with the welcome home of Laura Donahue.

  Everything went as planned. When their dad called around seven to check in, Aaron went ahead and told him what they were doing. Having dad in on the plan made sure their mom didn’t come home u
ntil they were ready for the big reveal. Listening to his eldest explain what he and he brother had cooked up and how much they had already accomplished, Doug Donahue nearly burst with love and pride in his family. He rubbed his chest with tears in his eyes as he hung up the phone.

  Aunt Carrie had a friend that was a painter so she called her up and cajoled her into coming over to the house and helping with the floral mural for one wall in the room. By the time their dad pulled his car into the driveway a little after one that afternoon, the room was dry and all the furniture was loaded. Uncle Matt had ridden hard on the younger ‘helpers’ while Aunt Carrie had taken Aaron and Steven to the store to spend his car money on the extras needed to make his sister’s room perfect. A rug, a lamp, sheets, and bedding plus a crowd of stuffed animals and dolls later, her room looked like girly heaven.

  Carrie gave herself a mental shake. She saw what these big strapping boys were doing and only hoped Laura didn’t turn into a tomboy. She didn’t think her brothers would like that. They obviously had already decided the type of sister they were going to have. All she knew was it was going to be a hoot watching that baby girl wrap them all around her tiny fingers.

  The homecoming was all Aaron and Steve expected. Their mom cried when she saw what they had done. By now they had learned the difference between happy and sad tears. They all fussed over Laura, even Evan, who’d been superseded as the baby of the family, was happy to see her and spent almost an hour making faces as he tried to get her to smile.

  Unbeknownst to the Donahue family, this one little girl was going to forever change their lives.