Loyal Leopard: A Friends to Lovers Shifter Romance (Full Moon Protectors Book 5) Read online

  Loyal Leopard

  Full Moon Protectors - Book 5

  Sammie Joyce

  Copyright © 2020 by Sammie Joyce

  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.

  Contents

  Loyal Leopard

  Sammie Joyce

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Get the Prequel - Shifting Seasons Series

  About Sammie Joyce

  Loyal Leopard

  Full Moon Protectors - Book 5

  Sammie Joyce

  Prologue

  Rachel

  Sometimes when I looked at my reflection in the mirror, I wasn’t sure who was looking back at me. I could see so many walks of life in my eyes, the image confusing me. For full minutes I could stare into the faded glass of the tiny bathroom I shared with Ari, cocking my head from side to side as I tried to determine what it was about me that had changed over the years, if anything at all.

  Physically I knew I was the same honey-eyed girl with the mane of unruly auburn hair that I’d always been. My smile was just as bright, my cheekbones high and cat-like to accent my thin, dark eyebrows. Even working in the emergency room at St. Charles Bend Hospital hadn’t dampened my zeal for life, despite having seen some terrible things. Oh, and I had seen things that would churn the stomach of some of the most worldly and seasoned medical staff—assuming they didn’t live in my area.

  But I was almost a nurse, desensitized to the traumas of the ER—or at least that was what I told myself. Finishing my clinical and in-class hours was taking its toll on me over the past few months but I was so close, I could almost taste it. Moreover, I knew how to compartmentalize my personal life and my work life. I had to in the present climate—it was genuinely a matter of life or death. Perhaps that was what was so different. There was a whole new brand of stress encompassing me.

  I stifled a sigh at the reminder of what lay beyond the walls of our cramped two-bedroom apartment over the Deli Dash on Northeast 27th Street.

  Simply looking at myself did little to explain away the sensation that had been building in me for months, if not years. At first, I had barely noticed it was there but as time went on, I had no choice but to address it.

  Clearly whatever it was had nothing to do with my looks but went deeper inside me, to my very core. If I had given it any serious thought, I likely would have realized that it wasn’t just me who had changed but the world around me too. Everywhere life was different, although again, in a very elusive manner.

  There was a charge in the air in our rural area of Oregon, one that was different from the everyday magic that hung like a thick dust in the air. I had long since become accustomed to that. Being a shifter, I knew that was merely a by-product of living among so many supernatural beings. Truly, the magic that floated through the air was as commonplace as the rainy season we were enduring in early spring.

  “Rach, are you almost done in there?” Ari grumbled, steering my eyes away from my reflection. I realized that I’d been staring at myself for far longer than anyone would deem healthy. “I really need to pee.”

  “Go in the kitchen sink,” I teased, running a hand through my thick head of hair. I somehow managed to make it even more unmanageable.

  “If you take any longer, I might just do that. It’s your night to do dishes,” my roommate insisted. I laughed and opened the door. Ari almost barreled me over as he slammed the door on my face.

  Ari was one of the two male nurses in my class and we had become fast friends, even though he was a human and had no idea about my proclivities for running free into the night as a leopard. I’d thought about telling him multiple times but I still wasn’t sure. With all that was happening with Anticlaw, I still didn’t know who I could trust.

  I can trust Tony, I reminded myself. And he’s the one telling me to be more careful than ever—not that I needed a reminder of that after what happened with Vivian a couple years ago.

  Still, it would have been nice to trust a human, especially one that I lived in such close quarters with.

  I was still standing in the hallway when Ari washed his hands and reappeared.

  “Are you acting as an escort?” he sniffed, sailing past me. I giggled again and followed him into the living room where he had been watching the news. It was rare for both of us to have a night off together and I decided to take advantage of it by plopping on the faded futon we used as a couch. Whether or not he knew my secrets, he was still a comfort to have in an otherwise fairly simple life.

  My parents and I weren’t on exactly regular contact terms. They hadn’t been impressed when I’d thumbed my nose at their money and decided to make it as a nurse, far away from Portland and their overdemands. Being an only child, I didn’t have any siblings to miss but once in a while, I got a pang of nostalgia for my leap.

  My leap is here, in Bend, I reminded myself tersely.

  “Such a shitshow,” Ari sighed, nodding toward the television screen. I turned my attention toward the six o’clock news, straining my ears to hear what was being said.

  “…activist group who claim that the area in being inundated with shifters from all over the country. We have tried to reach out to Anticlaw for further comment but no one has responded to this station’s request at this time.”

  I balked, my mouth falling open.

  Did I really just hear that right?

  “They’re talking about this shit on the news now?” I demanded incredulously. “What ever happened to ‘shifters are imaginary’ and ‘shifters don’t exist’?”

  Ari cast me a sidelong look, a half-smirk on his chubby face. He adjusted his glasses before offering his two cents on the matter.

  “You and I both know that’s not true,” he replied enigmatically. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

  “How the hell would I know that?” I snapped defensively. Ari’s grin widened and he snorted.

  “You couldn’t be a nurse in Eastern Oregon without knowing that the shifters exist,” Ari scoffed. “And if you say otherwise, I’ll call you out on it and rat you out to Dr. Chamberlain for unethical practices.”

  Instantly, I relaxed and laughed, realizing he didn’t mean me.

  “Unethical practices for not believing in shifters?” I asked dryly.

  “For not believing in your wise roommate,” Ari shot back. He again looked at me shrewdly. “You must know shifters exist, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I mumbled, averting my eyes away from him. Ari and I had never really had this conversation before but I wasn’t sure I wanted to now either. He was right—it would be very difficult not to accept the existence of shifters but that didn’t mean it was safe for me to come clean about who I was. Even to someone I trusted as much as I did Ari.

  Antonio wouldn’t like it and I don’t blame him.

  I blinked, wondering why Tony was popping into my head so much that night.
I felt like my brain was caught on a loop.

  “Let’s watch a movie,” I suggested, reaching across the coffee table for the remote control. That was sure to clear my head. “We deal with enough reality without watching the news. What about Spaceballs?”

  Ari’s grin widened and he nodded approvingly as I pulled up our streaming service to set up a movie.

  “I’ll get popcorn,” he offered, jumping back up to head into the kitchen. As he left, I trained my eyes back toward the news broadcast one last time. Gnawing on the insides of my cheeks, I tried to smother the anxiety that formed in my gut. I knew this feeling well. It was a sense of intense helplessness, one that I loathed intently.

  Those bastards need to be stopped, I thought furiously. Why hasn’t the Council found a way to end this madness?

  But it wasn’t just the Council who was responsible for keeping the shifters safe, I knew. It was the Protectors too. I should have been just as frustrated with Antonio and Tybalt as I was with Nia and Jack. Maybe it was just easier to be angry with the Council when one leader was a ticking time bomb and the other was a pushover whose main job was to keep the pin in the grenade.

  I should sit down with Tony one night this week and have a real discussion about what’s being done about Anticlaw. Maybe they have a behind-the-scenes plan that no one knows about. I hope they do. Anything is better than sitting here waiting for the other shoe to drop—again.

  “I thought you were putting on the movie,” Ari said, raising an eyebrow at me inquisitively from the doorway. I hadn’t even noticed he’d returned. I flashed him a brief smile and nodded.

  “I am,” I said quickly, pressing the button on the remote control. Ari stared at me for a long minute until I returned his gaze.

  “What?” I demanded, one eye on the menu screen. I was not having an easy time of multitasking.

  “Are you worried?” he asked.

  “Me? About what?” I continued to search through the movies, my ear half on the conversation.

  Ari hesitated.

  “About Anticlaw.”

  I choked out a sarcastic laugh and shrugged with as much nonchalance as I could muster.

  “Why should I care about those redneck morons?”

  “They’re filling up our ERs, for one,” Ari reminded me. I sighed and met his eyes fully, realizing that he genuinely wanted to talk about this.

  “If it wasn’t Anticlaw, it would be some other fascist organization,” I replied with as much conviction as possible. “At least we’re guaranteed our clinical hours this way. No shortage of bloodshed, that’s for sure.”

  It wasn’t a joke but I also didn’t want Ari to see how much the topic bothered me and he was used to my gallows humor anyway.

  “I’m worried for you,” Ari volunteered. My eyes narrowed, noting his phrasing and I felt the hairs on my neck rise again.

  Careful, Ari. Watch what you say, I warned him silently.

  “For me?” I echoed. “Why? Because I’m a woman?”

  Ari snorted, leaning against the doorway between the kitchen and the living room as he crossed his arms over his heavy chest.

  “Rach, I have no doubt that you could kick my ass in any situation,” he reassured me. “In fact, if I could hire anyone to be my bodyguard, it would be you, hands down.”

  I was inordinately pleased by the compliment.

  “Damn straight,” I agreed but I didn’t let him off the hook. “Then why are you worried about me?”

  He sighed and darted his eyes away.

  “Because… well, you know…” he mumbled.

  “Spit it out, Aristotle!” I growled.

  “Because you’re a shifter too.”

  I gasped and leapt up instinctively, half-prepared for an attack, but as I bared my teeth, I realized that I was overreacting. Ari merely stared at me impassively, not moving his hefty frame from the doorway. The fact that I possessed supernatural abilities didn’t seem to bother him in the least.

  “What?” I choked out. “What are you talking about?”

  “Rachel, I just saw your fangs come out of your gumline,” Ari sighed. “You really don’t have to lie to me anymore. I’ve known for a while.”

  I blinked and very slowly allowed my body to unclench, my pulse racing wildly as I sank back to the couch.

  “How?” I murmured. “I was always so careful…”

  My head shot up and I looked at him suspiciously.

  “Have you followed me?”

  Ari laughed loudly and genuinely.

  “Oh, you don’t know me at all if you think I would ever waste energy chasing a leopard around the forest in Oregon,” he hooted. I had to admit, Ari was damned lazy. His smile faded slightly as he caught my pointed look.

  “Well?” I insisted.

  “You have a certain look about you—all the cat shifters do.”

  I scowled.

  “You’re gonna have to do better than that,” I barked.

  He sighed.

  “You fell asleep on the futon after a shift and I saw your fangs. Oh, and when you snore, you literally snore like a lion. It’s ferocious and terrifying, quite frankly.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything before?” I breathed, unsure of how to handle this call-out. Nothing on Ari’s face depicted fear or disgust. Whatever he thought he knew about shifters didn’t seem to remotely alarm him, my snoring aside. In the kitchen, the microwave beeped, the smell of buttery popcorn filling the air.

  “Hang on,” he muttered, turning to get the snack. I gaped after him incredulously.

  He’s being very chill about this. Why?

  In less than a minute, he ambled back into the living room and reclaimed his seat next to me, thrusting the bowl toward me by way of offering. When I didn’t take any popcorn, he grunted and pulled it back onto his lap.

  “Would you stop gawking at me?” he demanded. “It’s not that big a deal.”

  “Not that big a deal?” I echoed. “Since when?”

  Ari shrugged.

  “Since forever,” he replied, reaching for the remote control as he saw that I had lost interest in finding the movie. “I know lots of shifters, Rach, so don’t think you’re special.”

  I blinked twice, trying to wrap my mind around his flippant response.

  “Y-you seriously don’t care?” I demanded, gauging his face with extra scrutiny as I searched for guile. I saw nothing but the same roommate I’d had for the last year, mowing down on popcorn with no finesse. He groaned loudly.

  “If I’d known this was going to be such a big thing, I wouldn’t have brought it up,” he grumbled. “Who cares if you’re a shifter? Are you going to kill me?”

  “Of course not!” I gasped but as I spoke, I saw that he was being a smartass as always.

  “Then let’s drop it, okay? Now you know I know who you really are and you can feel relieved that you don’t have to lie to me anymore.”

  “I never lied to you!” I protested, feeling guilty suddenly.

  Why didn’t I tell him before?

  Of course, if I’d known it would have been so painless, I would have. Still, I couldn’t get the image of Vivian’s brother from my mind. Not that Charlie Hunt and Ari were the least bit alike. I was grateful that Vivian had cut her brother fully out after the mess that had occurred with Marcel—a mess that had almost claimed me.

  But that was a long time ago.

  “You withheld the truth which is the same as lying,” Ari concluded. I snorted.

  “Remind me to buy you a dictionary for your birthday,” I shot back, all my reservations evaporating as Ari continued to search for the movie. As I settled back to study my friend, the surreal reality of what I was seeing struck me full force.

  The Protectors did this, I thought with a combination of admiration and exasperation. A few years ago, this would have never been possible. No human would have ever taken this news in such stride. They may have warmed up to the notion but they certainly wouldn’t have been okay with it right off the hop.
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  Since birth, I had been warned to keep myself hidden from the humans. I had been terrified with stories of their cruelty and ignorance, reminded of historical wars and threatened into silence—if only for my own good. But there I was, discussing my shifting abilities with my human roommate like we were debating pizza toppings. I knew that the Protectors were fully responsible for this incredible change.

  That strange feeling was back, almost overpowering now as I came to terms with a brand-new truth, but this time I knew what the sensation was.

  My whole life, I had longed to make a difference in the world. It was why I had chosen to become a nurse. But this yearning inside me, it was bigger than what my nursing certification could provide. I had been looking at this all wrong, all along.

  I wondered then how I hadn’t seen it before but now that my eyes were open, I couldn’t unsee it. I wanted to be part of the movement, not simply some member of a leap who digested and regurgitated information. I needed to make an impact on a much broader scale.

  I just had no idea how I might do that.

  I was only a girl, after all.

  1

  Antonio

  It had already been an excruciatingly long day and I wasn’t anywhere close to being done. Not for the first time, I wondered why I’d allowed so much on my plate but just as quickly as I thought it, I knew that I didn’t have a choice.

  Correction: I had a choice but I chose to have my life filled from dawn until midnight or later every day. I really had no right to complain but I did anyway.

  Work had been a nightmare—technical difficulties, diva actors, and a wardrobe malfunction on set at the television station. It was worse working there than at the movie studio. I was sure I was never going to get out of there on time for the Protector meeting but I didn’t dare miss it. I valued my position on the team far too much to risk it, even if the Council sometimes made our lives hell. Especially Nia.