Garden of Lilies by Eli Constant

Author:Eli Constant [Constant, Eli]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: werewolves, wolf shifter, Paranormal Romance, bear shifter, Vampires, shifter romance, vampire romance, bear shifter romance
Publisher: Eli Constant
Published: 2018-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One.

Steve finds me immobile on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.

The ceiling which is spinning like a top and will not cease. It turns and turns and turns until I think I might be sick again.

“Tori?” Steve’s voice is gentle, kinder than I’ve ever heard it. “Tori, are you okay?”

My vision is blurring, so I blink rapidly, trying to clear my eyes. I’m not crying, but the world is still wrapped in an undulating fog. I find Steve’s face. It’s concerned, worried. He’s a handsome man, with eyes that are neither blue nor green, but something in between. His wife’s name is Megan. His son’s name is Steven Jr. He’s just the kind of guy to make his son a junior. I keep rambling about in my head, words tumbling over one another until they are a great, nonsensical heap. I push them aside. I move my mouth. I make myself speak. “No, Steve. I’m not all right.” I curl up on my side, pulling my knees into my chest. “I’m not all right.” I close my eyes tightly, gluing the lashes together in hopes I’ll never have to part them again.

“Terrance is on the way, Tori. Can you at least tell me if you’re hurt?”

I keep my eyes closed, but I shake my head slowly. Jim’s dead. Even if I was injured, I wouldn’t complain. Alive and wounded is infinitely better than dead. Isn’t it?

“Good.” Fingers touch my right arm. “Jesus, what made these?” His touch stings, like he’s brushing my skin with antiseptic and not bare hand. His fingers keep moving, tracing the outline of whatever has his attention. Finally, he wraps his whole hand around my arm and sucks in a breath. “A hand mark. God, who the fuck has hands this big?”

“Sausage Fingers.” I mutter. And then I dissolve into laughter. I lay there, a few inches away from my own vomit splashed across the floor, a few feet away from Jim’s mangled body, and I laugh until I am nothing but dark humor wishing for death. And then I fall silent as a crypt.

In minutes, I hear the bar around me become a bustle of activity. Steve has left my side. I’m glad of it. I want to be alone. Not that I really am alone.

Grief lets my guard down. More so than fear.

When I am lost in sadness, the world comes pouring inward. I hear a mouse trapped beneath a shipment in the back store room, fighting to wriggle out and stay alive. His small life energy is brown, like his coat of fur. It pulses and reaches out for help.

I feel a bee outside. It’s stung a cow and is waffling about in the air looking for a place to land. To land and die. I feel one of the men who have arrived at the bar. He’s older, but not so much older that he doesn’t expect many years of life ahead of him. Yet, unless he goes to a

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