Tagline: In a dying fairy fantasy land, can two shifters tell if the magic between them is real?
In a dying fairy fantasyland, can two shifters tell if the magic between them is real?
While volunteering for hurricane cleanup, sheriff’s deputy and leopard shifter Chantal Hammond stumbles across two escapees from a fairy fantasyland. Unfortunately, when she tries to help, she ends up trapped. She quickly discovers she's lost in a mini-world of trouble, and more captives need rescuing.
Prehistoric sloth shifter Dauro de Mar and his friends have cruelly been imprisoned in their animal forms for years. His plan to lead the escape is mostly wishful thinking until an intoxicating and magical leopard shifter arrives still in her human form. She's their game changer.
It's going to take Chantal's and Dauro's combined skills, magic, and courage to evade evil hunters and greedy fairies, and get everyone out of this mess. Especially since the fairy fantasyland is disintegrating. Can they fight off danger—and their sizzling attraction—long enough to win their freedom? Or will they be destroyed by the mother of all storms when this magical land dies?
Find out today in Shifter's Storm, another sizzling hot Ice Age Shifters® paranormal romance from USA TODAY bestselling author Carol Van Natta.
Shifter's Storm is a complete story with a happily-ever-after and no cliffhanger, and can be enjoyed without having read the rest of the series.
Bewitching
Exclusive Excerpt
An exclusive excerpt
from SHIFTER’S STORM (Ice Age Shifters Book 5) by Carol Van Natta, in which a
captive prehistoric shifter and a lost sheriff's deputy must lead a desperate
escape or be stuck in a dying fairy wonderland forever.
In this excerpt,
Deputy Sheriff Chantal Breton is being recruited for a cleanup effort on a
Puerto Rican island.
The mayoral
office was suitably large and styled to look prestigious without being tacky.
From scent traces, a long-gone previous occupant had smoked a lot of Cuban
cigars, and someone had recently eaten a shrimp salad for lunch. The air vents
were much quieter. Maybe after tomorrow’s night shift, she’d try tightening the
vent covers in the sheriff’s station. The one near her desk sounded like a
kazoo when the fans kicked in.
Renée arrived
moments later, carrying a tablet. She was blonde, blue-eyed, and lived in khakis
and sleeveless blouses. Chantal didn’t know how she stayed looking so neat and
elegant, considering she was the county’s social worker with a passel of her
own cubs plus some foster fledglings as well.
After the
obligatory offer of refreshments, Belinda got straight to the point.
“Renée and I are
part of an international charity that does relief work in southern Florida and
around the Caribbean. We’re organizing a trip to Vieques, a small island off
Puerto Rico, to help with recovery efforts.”
Renée nodded
earnestly. “Actually, our Puerto Rican relatives are doing the organizing,
we’re just recruiting.” She opened her tablet and brought up a gallery of
photos. “Your namesake hurricane did serious damage to the whole island.” The
enlarged pictures showed debris everywhere. Flattened trees, boats in pieces,
houses with no roofs. “Rain washed out the roads and trails, too.” More
pictures showed significant flood damage. “The military’s former bomb practice
was bad enough, but this hit everything.
Belinda waved
toward the tablet. “After the last direct-hit hurricane, the human government
ignored Puerto Rico and Vieques for years. We’re not going to let that happen
this time. Our friends live there.”
As near as
Chantal could tell, Florida flamingo shifters were either related to or allied
with every other flamingo shifter flock and colony in the Western Hemisphere.
They blended in with the natural wild flocks and cared for them. They’d even
herded them south, away from Florida, once humans started hunting them for
their pink feathers to decorate hats.
“We’d like to
know,” said Renée, “if you’d be interested in volunteering for a couple of
weeks.”
Chantal blinked,
surprised. “You mean go to Vieques? I’m flattered, but I’m trained as a
first-responder, not in recovery work. And I’d be leaving the Sheriff’s
department short-handed.”
“Yes, but you
speak Spanish and you’re self-reliant.” Renée smiled and waggled a finger
between herself and Belinda. “We flamingos can’t decide what to have for
breakfast without a community forum and runoff votes.”
“It’s true,”
Belinda agreed with a chuckle. “Half of Vieques is a protected wilderness. Your
mountain rescue experience and your feline abilities are just what are needed
to assess the damage and help prioritize rehabilitation projects. From what
we’ve seen, you know when to take initiative and when to call for help.”
Chantal had to
admit the opportunity was tempting. Her inner leopard loved independent
exploring and discovering things. Keeping the peace in Barron mostly consisted
of issuing tickets for expired license plates, serving warrants, and keeping
drunk-ass shifters from tearing up the local taverns and shooting each other.
Luckily, sensitive shifter noses detested the smells of drug cooking, or the
county might have had a more serious problem.
On the other
hand, she took her job seriously. “It’s not fair to leave the department down
one deputy.”
Belinda
exchanged a look with Renée, then turned to Chantal. “You wouldn’t be. We
enticed Sheriff Torres into joining the Tribunal’s law enforcement exchange
program by promising to fund the new position outside the department’s budget.
We thought it would be a good way to introduce new ideas.” She made a
frustrated hiss. “Instead, he’s found every excuse to delay sending one of his
deputies away. They’re at full staff without you. We recently found out he’s
given you a deliberately random schedule and crappy assignments so you’ll quit.
That way, he can call the program a failure.”
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