Stripes of Fury Read online

  A zebra child of the fey horse lord finds her match at the hands of the lord of horses. Confused? She is.

  Born to a shifter in horse form, Nika has always had trouble dealing with family. Her mother’s herd cast them out because of the pedigree of Nika’s father. Fey shapeshifters are not acceptable genes.

  Keeping her heat at bay has taken up a lot of Nika’s energy, but she has no option. No other shifter will come near her because of what her father is.

  After a night of drinking with her paternal parent, she wakes in the Crossroads with a note pinned to her. She is going to stay there until she finds a mate.

  Markkios is familiar with Nika’s father, but when he is told that the trickster’s daughter is his ideal mate, he has to see it to believe it. The moment he meets her, he knows that her charm is genuine and her father only passed on his hair colour. It is a very good start.

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  Stripes of Fury

  Copyright © 2015 Zenina Masters

  ISBN: 978-1-4874-0475-8

  Cover art by Carmen Waters

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

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  Stripes of Fury

  Shifting Crossroads Book 31

  By

  Zenina Masters

  Chapter One

  Nika giggled as she hauled the man into her apartment and shoved him through the hall to her bedroom. She had had enough alcohol to gain the nerve to tackle the gorgeous god that had wandered into her watering hole but not enough to impair her in any other way. Her conscience would meet her in the morning.

  Keeping her strength to human levels was tricky, but she managed to get herself undressed and push the half-dressed man onto her bed. Reaching between them, she unzipped his jeans and carefully spread the fabric wide to let his cock emerge from its confinement.

  She giggled again and slid down his body, hearing his gasp as she enveloped him with her mouth. She slid him deeper into her mouth and drew back with a rapid bobbing motion until she felt him stiffen against her.

  Since she was near orgasm herself, she slid a condom on him, straddled him and impaled herself with a short thrust.

  Her companion seemed a little bemused by the rush of activities, but he moved with her as she rode him frantically until she felt the surge of heat move through her limbs. She gasped and shook as her body gripped him hard, and when she was under control again, she moved on him once again with hard thrusts until he had his turn.

  Nika dismounted, holding the base of the condom, and flopped to her back on the bed.

  “Um, my name is—”

  She cut off his voice with a sharply raised hand. “I don’t care. I don’t know you, you don’t know me; it all works out well.”

  She glanced at him, and to her amusement, his entire body flickered slightly. So, he had some fey blood. That made two of them.

  Her bemused companion got to his feet, headed to the bathroom, and after a moment, he returned to retrieve his shirt.

  He paused and looked like he wanted to say something, but he simply shook his head and left.

  Nika went to the bathroom and tidied up before grabbing an oversized t-shirt and crawling into bed. She felt a little bad for taking advantage, and her mother would give her a lecture, but if she could get what she needed to get through another heat without having a child, where was the harm?

  * * * *

  Frennin saw what had happened the moment that the young lord entered his presence, but he had to ask. “Well?”

  “Your daughter is forceful, sir. She... uh... had her way with me, and then, I left. There was no chance for courtship.”

  The horse lord nodded grimly. He had hoped that his daughter would see mate potential in the young man, but apparently, her heat was on her again.

  He was going to have to speak with her mother, and she hadn’t been willing to have a conversation in the last decade. This was going to be rough.

  He walked up to the door of the modest house with the huge barn in the back and knocked on the door.

  Annabella appeared in the window, and she made a face before opening the door. “Frennin. I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

  He took in the long cascade of her hair, the intelligence in her dark-brown eyes and the lush curve of her lips. She was even more stunning in her beast form and that grace and beauty had been his downfall.

  “Annabella, I need to talk to you about Nika.”

  She paused, nodded and let him in. He sighed. It was a big step. Fey and shifters did not normally get along, and if not for their beast forms, sex would have been heralded with enough electricity to jumpstart a car. He had seen a beautiful mare with intelligent eyes, and eleven months later, he had come by to find a woman sitting in the field holding a baby. Annabella was a shifter and their mating had had perfect timing to bring little Nika into the world.

  Annabella made some tea and put some cookies out on a plate. “Tell me about your concerns.”

  “Nika needs a mate. She is rapid-cycling into heat and going through casual hook-ups at an alarming rate.”

  Annabella smiled. “You have been trying to put likely candidates in her path?”

  “She rode them and kicked them out.”

  Annabella snorted and poured the tea for him. “Yeah, I have been meaning to speak with her about that.”

  “I have a solution, but I will need your help to execute it.” Frennin sipped at the tea and smiled. Even after a decade, she made the perfect cup of tea for him.

  “What are you planning?”

  Frennin explained about the blending of the fey and shifters at the Crossroads and how it would be the perfect place to find Nika a mate she could not simply dismiss. The human world was no place to try out a mating for a shifter.

  “You think this will work?” Annabella raised her brows.

  “I think that it is her best chance for an equal mating. With their power balanced, it will extend her life and bring her power, plus most of the fey have accumulated money. She will live a comfortable life.”

  Annabella sighed. “You do so well, and then, you put your foot in it. Listen, Horse Lord, we have a comfortable life. I board the horses and Nika helps me with them. She has a gift for dealing with them that I know you take full credit for, but we make enough to get by.”

  “I could have helped you do so much more if you had let me.”

  Annabella sipped at her tea and smiled softly. “And there you have it, Frennin. You are asking permission. That isn’t what Nika is looking for. She wants someone to take the reins, if only for a moment. She has yet to find one, so she simply rides them and lets them go.”

  Frennin listened and finally understood. “I know who to contact.”

  “You have a friend into li
ght bondage?” Annabella smirked.

  “No, but I know someone who is an expert at taking the reins; it is just a matter of running the idea through the seers. They are in control of which fey go to the Crossroads.”

  Annabella nodded and finished her tea. “Too bad there wasn’t something like this when I was younger.”

  Frennin looked at her in surprise. “You would have gone to the Crossroads to be matched with a fey?”

  “I would have gone to seek a mate. I wouldn’t have cared what it was as long as we got along and had a meeting of the minds. Or as long as my beast wanted him.”

  Frennin finished his tea and got to his feet. He turned, “Did you ever want me?”

  Annabella sighed. “I wanted you and my beast wanted the dark stallion that thundered through the meadow. We both thought you were beautiful, but you never came back for us.”

  The grief in her arched neck was unmistakable. Frennin reached out for her, but she flinched away and he had no right to stay. He left her home and transported himself to the courtyard of the seers. If his daughter needed someone to take the reins, he knew just the fey. Now, he had to find out if they were in each other’s future.

  The pale seers sat next to each other as they consulted. Finally, they announced, “Markkios does not mate with a horse.”

  Frennin’s shoulders slumped. Damn. “Thank you.”

  “His mate is a zebra.”

  Frennin perked up. “Zebra?”

  “She is a woman with dark eyes, pale skin and waves of dark hair. Her beast has bands of fey magic running through it. She is a zebra.”

  He sat back and sighed. “That is my daughter.”

  The seers blinked. “The horse lord’s daughter is to be mated to the lord of horses? That is amusing.”

  Frennin winced. “So, do you find out if he is willing or do I?”

  The seers looked to each other again and nodded. “We will. This is a step too far for you, though we are glad you have brought it to our attention.”

  “Will you tell him who she is?”

  “No. We will merely tell him that a mate has been found for him and it is up to him to go to the Crossroads. You will have to get your daughter there when the timing lines up.”

  Frennin nodded with a wince and his skin shuddered. “I will manage it.”

  The seers rose and dismissed him with, “We wish you luck.”

  He wasn’t going to need luck; he was going to need a tranquilizer gun.

  Chapter Two

  Nika Argus rubbed her head and scowled. That was the last time that she went drinking with her father. He had a far greater tolerance for hard liquor than she did.

  “Well, thank goodness you are awake. I was a little worried.” A blue woman was sitting at her bedside with an amused expression.

  “Where am I?” It was trite, but she had no idea where she was or how she had gotten here. Nika rubbed her face and pulled her fingers through her hair.

  “You are at the Crossroads.”

  Nika froze. “The Crossroads?”

  Her mother had been mentioning it as an option for a mate for the last five years. Nika didn’t want to leave her mom in the lurch while she pursued a mate. She made do with a long string of one-night stands.

  “How did I get here?”

  The woman lifted a letter. “Dear Nika, last night you agreed to try the Crossroads for four days. I am helping your mother at the farm and you don’t need to worry about anything. Enjoy yourself, find a mate and come home to introduce him to your mother. Love, Frennin.”

  Nika didn’t remember agreeing to come to the Crossroads, but she could deal with four days.

  She sat up and looked around, trying to remember her conversation with Frennin. Having him ask to join her in the evening was odd, but it had seemed rude to reject him.

  “I am not trying to be rude, but who are you?”

  “Oh, I am Teebie. I am the proprietor of the Open Heart Bed and Breakfast. The note on your account says that you are a mix of fey and shifter?”

  Nika wrinkled her nose. “Sort of. My mother was in horse form and my father was in horse form, and they got together. She got pregnant and was stuck as a horse, and he didn’t know she was a shifter. When she had me, she was finally able to get back to her human form. Apparently, she had to hide my shifted form from my family.”

  Nika looked down, made sure that she was wearing something, and threw back the covers to head for the table where a pitcher of water waited for her. She was exceedingly thirsty.

  “So, you have a blend of active energies?”

  “Oh yeah. I crackle with it. I can’t even blend in with the animals. They freak out and run. I have to be with them as a human, which is fine but a little restricting.”

  “May I know what your beast is?”

  Nika grinned. “I am a zebra. I am stocky, fast, make a weird noise when I call and oh, yeah, I glow.”

  Teebie blinked. “Zebra. Right. Well, here is the Crossroads briefing.”

  Nika listened as Teebie ran through the clothing options she could find at the general store. The food options that were available and the Crossed Star Bar.

  Nika nodded and asked questions before getting to her feet again and looking for the bag that Teebie had mentioned. She had one set of street clothes and shoes that she quickly climbed into.

  Teebie left her alone, and Nika went to the bathroom and wrestled her hair into a thick braid. She wished that she had her mother’s blonde hair, but she was stuck with Frennin’s dark locks. With her dark eyes, it made her look mysterious, which was better than hung over.

  She brushed her teeth with the equipment in the amenity kit and made sure that she smelled appropriate. She didn’t want to wear these clothes out during the evening, so she was going to take a shower after she had finished shopping.

  Teebie met her in the lobby and tied a charm on her wrist. Nika would use it to pay for anything she wanted, and it would all be on the fey account.

  The streets were full of people who were relaxed and smiling. A few of the men smiled at her and nodded, but she wasn’t in heat, so she wasn’t going to pursue them without any courtship on their part. Since she was here, she was at least going to play along with the idea of looking for a mate.

  Her shopping trip took about an hour, and she managed to score several dresses, some new underwear and a stash of chocolate for her room.

  She headed back to her room and showered, blow dried her hair and dressed for light flirtation. If they wanted to play, she would play. The idea of a mate was a vague form in her mind. Since her mother and father had not bonded together, she was stuck with having to make up the idea of a union on her own. It hadn’t really taken any firm shape since her mother had been ejected from her herd when Nika’s first shift freaked everyone out.

  She and her mother were a herd of two, and she was used to going out for sex when she needed it and not otherwise. She would get it over with and go back home. Her mom needed her.

  Nika looked at herself in the mirror, and her shoulders slumped. If she dressed in leather, she went straight into slutty bondage, and if she wore chiffon, she was plastered in fairy tale. Today, she was definitely rocking Snow White.

  She slipped on some sandals with short heels and left her room with a sense of dread mixed with anticipation. Being social had never really been part of her repertoire. She just got what she wanted and got out.

  This was going to be different.

  After she got a soda, she took a seat in the shadows and watched the movement of the fey and shifters around her.

  Every time a new male entered the space, she looked him over and assessed his possibilities. That one was too timid, the next too smug. She was critiquing herself out of the possibilities.

  When a shadow darkened her shadows, she looked up. “Hello?”

  “You are too lovely a woman to be sitting here by yourself.”

  “Thank you, but my ap
pearance has nothing to do with my ability to have company. I will pass on your no-doubt delightful company.”

  She couldn’t see him in the shadows, but his chuckle ran through her soul and touched bits of her that shouldn’t have been possible without closer contact.

  “As deliberate a brush-off as it was, I feel it necessary to get you out onto the dance floor.” He held his hand out to her, and it was tanned, scarred and definitely out of place in modern times.

  She told herself it was manners and not fascination with that rough appendage that had her putting her hand in his and letting him lead her to the dance floor.

  Out in the light of the bar, she snuck glances at him, determining that the tan extended to his face, his features were sharp, nose hooked and he was the most unconventionally attractive fey she had ever seen. His entire body looked like it was designed to take a beating, and his expression said, bring it on.

  His hair was a non-descript brown, only a few shades lighter than his skin. If it wasn’t for the slight points of his ears peeping out of his locks, she wouldn’t have pegged him as fey at all.

  When they faced each other on the dance floor, she glanced up at his eyes. They were a strangely soothing grey so dark as to be nearly black. The slight softness was calming, and she breathed a little easier until he wrapped his hand around her waist and pulled her against him.

  The music pulsed, and he swayed against her in a modified tango. He led and she followed.

  He moved her easily through the other dancers, and she found it was both stimulating and relaxing to let him lead. In all the years she had been hitting the clubs, no one had ever just danced with her. She felt a smile creeping around her lips, but it faded as the music ended and she realised that there was no good reason to remain standing there.

  She looked up at him, smiled slightly and tried to leave the dance floor. Her partner kept hold of her hand and pulled her back toward him, kissing the inside of her wrist before smiling and releasing her. “May I join you for a drink?”