Excerpt of WIP- A Tiger in My Bed- Part 1

Jealousy is a powerful emotion; it can make a person do some really crazy and stupid things. Like drive across country wearing a diaper to confront the rival for your lover’s affection. Or, walk into a room full of shape-shifters unarmed and alone.
 
That’s why I decided to come to the Keep tonight, a rough and tumble GLBT bar on the north side of Chicago. I planned feed on the plentiful energy of a male shifter without fear of draining him to death. In the process, hopefully I’d also prove something to my ex-girlfriend Kassidy and myself. Maybe I wasn’t an immortal vampire but, I wasn’t chopped live either. In hindsight, chopped liver was probably a bad metaphor.

As I sauntered through the Club’s crowed rooms, the appreciative, animalistic growls and snarls that greeted me sent shivers of desire down my spine. Come on you big, tough shifters, which one of you has got what it takes to handle what I’ve got.

I had just taken a seat, at small empty table in the back, close to the main dance floor, when I looked up and saw him walking toward me. He was coming from dance floor were I’d seen him dancing with one of Beverly’s Were-Cougar friends.
 
He moved with a rhythmic shapeshifter grace not normally seen in humans other than professional dancers. I knew he was a shifter even before he got close enough for me to catch his scent. His strong shifter’s life-force aura blazed with a mystical luminance and sexual energy radiated from his body in waves.

He may not have been the biggest man in the room but, he strutted his stuff as if he were the king of the roost. I couldn’t tell what kind of shifter he was but, in my current state, it didn’t matter. I wanted to feast on this sexy shifter’s juices tonight and I wanted it bad.

For some reason, he was wearing sunglasses indoors and with practiced ease he pushed them up on top of his head. From where I was sitting, he looked to be a few inches shorter than me but, it was hard to tell for sure because he was wearing knee high boots with a three inch heel. His muscle-tee-shirt molded nicely to his sculpted torso and he was wearing these really tight-ass black pants that I swear looked like toreador pants. Maybe he was going bull-fighting later.

He had wavy black hair cut short, thicker on top and his creamy white skin had only a slight tan. But his face…hmm; there was something intensely attractive about his face. He had an aristocratic nose and rather large ears. He wasn’t overtly handsome but, he drew your gaze like bees to honey. Shit, he was hot. Oh yes and his eyes, OMG those eyes.

When he favored me with a smoldering gaze, those deep piercing green eyes of his shot out sparks of passion that ignited the hot-spot between my legs. Even if I wasn’t in heat, it would have been impossible for me to look at him and not think of anything but sex.

Strangely, he had thick blond eyebrows which were really a striking contrast with his black hair and lightly tanned skin. He also had an odd looking black stripe that curled from the end of his right eyebrow down and under his eye and back up to the bridge of his nose.
 
When he got to table, he stopped and cocked his head to the side in that curious manner common to shifters, and inhaled my scent. He was trying to figure what I was.

“It’s unusual for your kind to come to The Keep,” he finally said in a haughty Spanish accent."

Nice to meet you too. Clearly his comment wasn’t in reference to the fact that I was Black, because the crowd in the Keep tonight was a melting pot of nationalities, races and species.

I smiled, sharp enough to cut and stood up to face him. I didn’t like the way he was looking down at me, literally or figuratively. “Oh…and exactly what do you know about My Kind?”

He looked at me with a puzzled expression, as if he couldn’t understand my sudden hostility. “You are a demon’s spawn, a cambion,” he said, as if that fucking explained everything.

A mix of emotions twisted my face. I hate that damn word demon, even if I do use it myself to describe Priapus, my inner-demon. Don’t ask why, it’s hard to explain and I hated the medieval slur cambion, which means half-breed demon, even more.

“Ok, so...like most shifters you’ve got a great sense of smell and you know what I am. So, do you have a point to make?” I said with ice in my voice.

A spark of understanding flashed in his eyes and he laughed. “Oh, I understand now why you are so angry. I meant no offense. I am new to your city and sometimes I…how do you say it; sometimes I put my foot in my mouth. What I meant to say, is that I am surprised that someone like you, a non-shifter would come to the Keep alone….without an escort.” He paused and then added. “As they say in my country, clearly you must have a big pair of balls.”

How could I not like a guy who had just complimented me on the size of my balls? Besides, he was right, the Keep was not for the faint of heart or would-be prey. Yes, I’m a predator too but, on the paranormal food chain, an Incubus is way down the line behind Vampires and Shifters. Fortunately for me, the Keep was off-limit to vampires, since the vamps and the shifters have this centuries old blood feud thing going on. That meant at least I didn’t have to worry about having all the blood drained from my body tonight. I just had to worry about being eaten.

Have you ever watched one of those nature shows about the big cats in Africa? It always breaks my heart to watch the beautiful and graceful cheetah run down a kill and then have to leave it when a lion or leopard comes along and decides to take a free meal. An incubus is like that poor cheetah, we’re fast as hell but, we don’t have the brute strength or the raw power to win a ‘fair’ fight with the really big cats; vampires and shifters. But, like the cheetah, we have to feed too.

I smiled my most disarming smile. “I can take care of myself,” I said. And as I expected, he snorted derisively in response and rolled his eyes as if to say…Yeah Right.