Manhattan Moon

Book 3: The Shape-Shifter Series

by Jae

Genres: LGBT Lesbian; Shifters; LGBT & Pride; paranormal romance; lesbian romance; shapeshifters

Synopsis

A shapeshifter falls in love with a human in a busy ER in this lesbian paranormal romance.



Nothing in Shelby Carson's life is ordinary. Not only is she an attending psychiatrist in a hectic ER, but she's also a Wrasa, a shapeshifter who leads a secret existence.



To make things even more complicated, she has feelings for Nyla Rozakis, a human nurse.



Even though the Wrasa forbid relationships with humans, Shelby is determined to pursue Nyla. Things seem pretty hopeless for them, but on Halloween, during a full moon, anything can happen . . .



Contains mature themes.

Release date: October 18, 2012

Publisher: Ylva Publishing

Print pages: 126

Sample

Chapter 1

Shelby Carson hip-checked the car door closed and crossed the psych ER’s parking lot. She breathed in the crisp fall air, preparing her sensitive nose for the smells that would hit her as soon as she entered Bayard Medical Center.

When she glanced up at the dark sky, she realized a full moon was shining down on her. “Oh, wonderful,” she murmured. “A full moon on Halloween. Just what I need.”

Contrary to popular belief, the moon had no effect on her fellow shape-shifters, but humans seemed to go crazy during a full moon.

The automatic doors of the back entrance whooshed open. Shelby strode down the hallway and had to unlock two sets of double doors before she reached the attending’s on-call room. Wrinkling her nose at the smell of chips, stuffy air, and disinfectant, she squeezed past the desk and the narrow bed. With practiced movements, she slipped out of her street clothes and into a set of scrubs. She clipped her ID badge to the scrub shirt and the beeper to her waistband, then shoved a pen into the chest pocket, feeling like a knight getting ready for battle.

As she left the on-call room, the sounds and smells of the psych ER engulfed her. In one of the isolation rooms, someone shouted and banged on the door, and in the next room, an off-key voice sang Broadway musicals. Sneakers squeaked on the linoleum as one of the nurses rushed down the corridor.

She straightened her shoulders and walked toward the triage area, weaving her way around gurneys and wheelchairs lined up in the corridor. The stench of sweat, cleaning agents, and metabolized alcohol made her wish for the stunted sense of smell her human colleagues possessed. Then she picked up the subtle scent of jasmine.

Shelby grinned. She would recognize that scent anywhere. Nyla.

Just inside the front door, Nyla Rozakis sat behind the triage desk.

Shelby paused and drank in the sight of her.

In the midst of the typhoon that was the triage area, Nyla was an island of peace. She brushed back a midnight-black strand of hair that had escaped her French braid as she stood and rounded the desk. Her eyes, almost as dark as her hair, didn’t seem to register the psych techs and security guards, who were wrestling to restrain a screaming man. She was focused solely on her own patient.

Nyla stooped down a little to address her patient, who was sitting in a wheelchair, and asked, “Do you know where you are?”

“In hell,” the patient grumbled.

Wrong answer, buddy. Shelby suppressed a grin. A psych ER is not a good place for sarcasm if you don’t want to appear psychotic.

“Can you tell me today’s date?” Nyla asked.

The patient told her, and Nyla made a quick note in his chart without taking her gaze off the patient for more than a second.

“Do you have any weapons on you? Any sharp objects?”

The patient shook his head, but his hands went to his coat pockets.

Shelby tensed, ready to step in should he pull out a weapon.

But Nyla didn’t need her help.

“Ben.” After a wave from Nyla, one of the security guards helped her search the patient’s pockets. They laid the contents of his pockets onto the triage desk: a lighter, a glass pipe, and—Shelby squinted—a pair of vampire fangs.

Humans. She grimaced.

When another nurse led the patient into an interview room, Nyla looked up. A welcoming smile dimpled her cheeks. “Hi, Dr. Carson.”

“Hello, Nyla.”

“I didn’t think you’d be working tonight,” Nyla said and went back to filling out the intake sheet. “I thought you volunteered to work Thanksgiving and Christmas?”

She knows my on-call schedule? Shelby held back a delighted grin. “I don’t mind covering the ER on holidays,” she said. “It isn’t worse than any other day.” Wrasa didn’t celebrate human holidays anyway, so she’d volunteered to work the night shift on Halloween when she’d seen that Nyla would also be on duty.

“Famous last words, Doctor.”

“Busy night, huh?” Shelby asked.

“Full moon on Halloween in New York City—if that’s not a recipe for madness, I don’t know what is. We have fifteen new admissions and eight still in triage. All isolation rooms are in use, and EMS keeps bringing in new patients.”

Before Shelby could think of a way to ask Nyla out for coffee later, loud grunts and moans from the waiting area interrupted them.

Shelby whirled around and took in the crowded waiting area. On one of the blue plastic chairs bolted to the wall sat a young woman clutching her belly. “Has she been cleared by the medical ER?” Shelby asked.

“Oh, yeah. Nothing physically wrong with her. She just thinks she’s giving birth.” Nyla stepped next to Shelby. Shoulder to shoulder, they gazed at the moaning patient.

Shelby wanted to moan too as she breathed in the intoxicating scent of jasmine. She tried to keep her voice light and professional. “Another baby Jesus?”

“No, this one thinks she’s giving birth to the child of a vampire slayer.”

“Vampire slayer?” Shelby arched her brows. Every time she thought she’d seen it all, a new patient surprised her. The psych ER patients weren’t short on creativity. “Didn’t anyone tell her that Buffy is a woman and can’t get her pregnant?”

Nyla’s dimples deepened. “Welcome to the twenty-first century, Dr. Carson. There are plenty of options for a lesbian who wants to get her partner pregnant.”

Shelby marveled at the casual remark. Does she know I’m gay? Is she? She had asked herself that question for months now, but her diagnostic skills failed when it came to figuring out Nyla’s sexual orientation.

When silence grew between them, Shelby finally said, “I better get to work. See you later. And please keep her,” she pointed at the grunting patient in the waiting area, “away from Mr. Fangs.” She peered up at the board that listed patients still waiting to be seen, then grabbed a chart from the rack and went to see her first patient of the night.

* * *

Hours later, Shelby dropped into a chair at the nurses’ station. “Frank, is Mr. Sheridan’s urine tox back?”

“Just got it.” The nurse slid a sheet of paper in front of her.

She initialed the lab report and took a look. “Just what I thought. Strung-out on meth. Put him in one of the observation rooms.” She turned back to the stack of files in front of her and then looked back up. “Oh, and would you get me the number of Mrs. Clayburn’s therapist, please?”

While she wrote a discharge order for another patient, she became aware of the tingling of her skin. Her body buzzed as if charged with electricity. That’s what the constant chaos of a night like this always did to her. Working in the psych ER was like diving into a hurricane: a maelstrom of loud, unpredictable action, the unpleasant smells of sweat, urine, and booze almost drowned out by the stench of fear and the heady tang of mania.

Every other Wrasa would hate her job. She was the only shape-shifter on staff and, as far as she knew, the only Wrasa emergency psychiatrist in the world. Few Wrasa could handle the constant adrenaline rush and still be able to focus on their job while fighting against the urge to shift.

But Shelby was different. For some reason, she had a very high threshold for changing into her coyote form. It had made her an outsider as a teenager and still caused her family to shake their heads in puzzlement and humiliation when she had problems shifting during the monthly family get-togethers in the forest, but it also enabled her to do her job. And Shelby loved her job. She was drawn to the fast pace and the challenge of helping so many different patients.

“Dr. Carson?”

Even before Shelby looked up, a hint of jasmine made a smile spread over her face.

Nyla stood before her, one shapely hip propped against the counter.

After watching her for months, she knew Nyla was a leaner, constantly leaning against something as if it grounded her in the middle of chaos. Her presence had the same effect on Shelby.

“Will you come look at a patient with me?” Nyla asked.

Shelby lifted one brow. It was an unusual request. Normally, the nurses did the initial evaluation without consulting one of the doctors. Only after reading Nyla’s report would Shelby or another psychiatrist talk to the patient. “Sure, but what’s so special about him? Is he one of our frequent fliers?”

“No, I’ve never seen him before, but I have a weird feeling about him, and I thought it might save us some time to talk to him together.”

Shelby had learned to trust the instincts of a good nurse. She got up without hesitation. “What’s his story?” she asked as they walked over to the triage area.

“He’s a twenty-two-year-old white male,” Nyla said. “The police brought him in for a pre-arraignment eval because he says he’s hearing voices.”

Voices? Shelby’s diagnostic mind came up with half a dozen possible causes for auditory hallucinations. Schizophrenia was high on her list, especially since the patient’s age was typical for a first psychotic break, but she also couldn’t rule out drugs. An interview would tell her more. “What are the charges?” she asked.

“Assault with a deadly weapon.” Nyla met Shelby’s questioning gaze. “He attacked his girlfriend with a scythe.”

“A scythe?” It never ceased to amaze Shelby how inventive humans were when it came to hurting each other.

Nyla nodded. One corner of her mouth lifted in a sarcastic half-smile. “Apparently, they were at a Halloween party and he was dressed up as the Grim Reaper at the time.”

“The Grim Reaper.” Shelby shook her head. “Looks like I can add another famous patient to my list of references.” She unlocked a set of double doors and motioned for Nyla to step through first. They entered the triage area, which looked more like a police station than the entrance to the psych ER.

Two police officers stood around, trading war stories with the security guard, while two other officers guarded a struggling and shouting patient.

“That’s him,” Nyla said, pointing at the patient standing between the two officers. She glanced at her clipboard. “Joseph Linwood.”

Shelby wrinkled her nose at the smell of blood, alcohol, and smoke that clung to the man. She resisted the urge to step between him and Nyla. She doesn’t need a shifting-handicapped coyote to protect her.

“Officers,” she greeted his guards and nodded down at their weapons. “You guys shooting blanks?”

The officers glowered at her, but Nyla chuckled. “If you mean did we unload our weapons before coming in, yeah,” the taller officer said. He hiked his uniform pants up over his slight potbelly. “We know the rules.”

“Sorry,” Shelby said with a grin. “You know us shrinks. We have a weird sense of humor.”

“You can joke around all you want as long as you take this creep off our hands,” the officer said.

Shelby stepped closer to the patient, trying to catch a whiff of the man’s body chemistry. But the stench of violence and partying was too heavy for her to use her nose for diagnosing. “Let’s get him into an interview room.”

While the officers led the patient into the interview room, Shelby rearranged the chairs, positioning hers and Nyla’s next to the door. Just in case.

Once the patient was seated, Shelby sat across from him. “If we take off the handcuffs, will you behave yourself?”

“Sure,” the patient said. “The voices are quiet for now.”

She motioned toward the handcuffs. “Let’s take these off.”

One of the officers stepped forward and removed the handcuffs.

Shelby leaned forward. “Mr. Linwood, my name is Dr. Carson. I’m one of the attending psychiatrists here.”

“Then you can help me. I need help. I’m hearing voices, constantly. They’re driving me crazy. You should probably admit me to the hospital. You can hold me for seventy-two hours, right?”

No psych history and he’s that well-informed? Shelby glanced at Nyla. She’s right. Something about this guy is off. “We can,” she folded her hands on her lap, “but we rarely do. If you need help beyond just a night, we’d admit you to a unit upstairs or to a psychiatric hospital.”

“Whatever.” Linwood kicked out his heels, sprawling in his chair as if he intended to make himself at home. “I just think I need to be admitted. Maybe it can help stop those damn voices.”

“So these voices, what are they saying?” Shelby asked.

“They’re telling me to kill people. To kill myself.” He swung his hands as if hitting someone with a club or a scythe.

Hmm. Unless he’s faking it, he might be a danger to himself and to others. This was her number one criteria in deciding whether to admit a patient. When the police brought over prisoners, she didn’t have to decide if they were mentally ill or might plead an insanity defense. For now, the police just needed her to decide whether the prisoner was stable enough for the arraignment.

“How long have you heard the voices?”

“Oh, I don’t know. For as long as I can remember. Started when I was just a little kid.” He indicated the size of a toddler.

Shelby met Nyla’s gaze. She bit her lip when she saw Nyla suppress a “gotcha” smile. They both knew that auditory hallucinations rarely started in childhood. And if he has heard voices for so long, how come he never sought psychiatric help before? Why now that he’s been arrested? Something wasn’t adding up here.

“So with hallucinations that severe, you probably see little green men too, right?” Shelby asked. She sent Nyla another quick glance, willing her not to react.

Nyla kept adding notes to the patient’s chart. Not even a muscle moved in her face.

Good. Play along.

“Yes, yes, I do!” Linwood looked at Shelby as if he were in awe of her professional insight. He sent her a smile. “How did you know?”

No blunted affect. This guy didn’t suffer from schizophrenia any more than she did. “Let’s just call it women’s intuition,” Shelby said.

A dimple appeared in Nyla’s cheek. She clicked off her pen.

“Okay, Mr. Linwood,” Shelby said. “Thanks for your patience. I think we can wrap up this interview now.” She got up but was careful not to turn her back to Joseph Linwood.

Eyes glinting, Linwood jumped up. “So you’re gonna admit me?”

“No.”

“No?” A scarlet color shot up his neck, and a vein began to pulse in his temple. “But I’m hearing voices!”

“Good for you, Mr. Linwood,” Shelby said. “It’s what we call having a conscience. Maybe these voices are now telling you that it’s not nice to lie to a psychiatrist to avoid prison.” She stretched out her arm, guiding Nyla out of the door.

“Bitch!” He tried to pick up his chair and throw it at them, but the chair on his side of the table was bolted to the floor.

The two police officers, who had waited right outside the room, rushed in and were on him before he could follow them.

Nyla glanced over at Shelby, merriment dancing in her dark eyes. “Little green men?”

“You ever heard of any truly psychotic patient who saw them?”

“No, but the night’s still young and it’s a full moon on Halloween. Anything can happen.”

Shelby grinned. Anything? She liked the sound of that. Maybe she’d find the courage to ask Nyla out before this crazy night was over.

* * *

The double doors crashed open, and two paramedics pushed a gurney into the psych ER.

Shelby barely glanced up from her discussion with one of the psych techs.

But then one of the patients in the triage area started screaming. “A werewolf! A werewolf! I knew it. They’ve come to kill us all.”

Shelby whirled around. Her heart pounded against her ribs.

The person on the stretcher was covered with a sheet, and one of the paramedics blocked Shelby’s view. All she could see was a bit of fur peeking out from beneath the sheet.

Fur?

It was light brown, streaked with a few ginger highlights. Shelby had seen that color before—it was the same as her own hair color and that of most coyote shifters.

Her heartbeat sped up at the thought of a Wrasa being wheeled into the ER, where someone would surely discover what he really was. She tried to catch a whiff of his smell, but from this distance all she detected was a dizzying mix of sweat, fear, jasmine, and fish sticks that had been somebody’s lunch.

Calm down. If this were one of us in coyote form, they would have taken him to the vet, not the psych ER. Besides, even in human form, Wrasa rarely suffered mental illnesses. Those who did were kept under close surveillance by their pack or pride.

She circled around and took a position next to Nyla, who was trying to take the fidgeting patient’s blood pressure. But instead of encountering human skin, she found long fur. A bushy tail hung limply down the gurney.

This can’t be true. Wide-eyed, Shelby stepped even closer. Then she let her gaze trail up his furry chest. Torn clothing covered the fur in some places as if the urge to shift had overcome him too fast to undress first.

Her own skin started to itch as her adrenaline level shot through the roof.

Her gaze traveled farther up. Shelby froze.

The patient’s face was all human.

A mask, complete with wolfish ears and large fangs, dangled on an elastic band around his neck. Shelby inflated her cheeks and blew out a long stream of air. It’s just some dumb Halloween costume.

Instantly, she vowed never to work the night shift on Halloween again.

When Nyla stripped off a glove that ended in fake claws, the patient pulled off the other one, then tried to get rid of the rest of his costume. “You wanna see more of my body, baby? Look, I have a perfect six-pack.”

“No, thanks.” Nyla helped the paramedics restrain his wandering hands. “Hairy chests aren’t my thing.”

Oh, really? Her comment caught Shelby’s attention. Had she been in her coyote form, she would have swiveled her ears to hear every nuance of Nyla’s tone.

“Why not?” the patient asked, his voice loud and enthusiastic. “I’m exactly what you’re looking for. We must become one.” He threw his head back and glanced over at Shelby and the EMTs as if they were his attentively listening audience. “We’re all one. All of us. Only once you give away all your worldly possessions and accept that all people, all things in the universe, are connected, only then will you be enlightened as I am.”

“Patient’s name is Lee Bowdan, twenty-six years old,” one of the paramedics said over the patient’s non-stop rambling. “No known allergies and not on any meds. He also claims he doesn’t have a psych history.”

Nyla shot her a quick look, and Shelby answered by arching a skeptical brow. Yeah, right. Hypersexuality, pressured speech, loose association… He’s manic for sure. But was it drug-induced or did he have a manic or bipolar disorder?

“NYPD called us with an EDP,” the paramedic said, using the cop slang for an emotionally disturbed person. “He was standing in the middle of a Halloween party, trying to get people to throw away their wallets.”

“It was for their own good,” the patient shouted. “They need my guidance to realize they won’t get to the heavenly spheres by clinging to money!”

Heavenly spheres? Shelby added schizophrenia to the list of possible diagnoses. But before she could find out more, she had to bring him into one of the interview rooms. “Let’s go and talk about your fascinating ideas inside,” she said. This was when most patients lost control and began fighting against the people who wanted to help them. In some cases, they ended up medicated and restrained, so she wanted to get him inside as unobtrusively as possible.

Without pausing in his speech, the patient let himself be wheeled down the hall. He didn’t seem to notice when the doors clicked shut behind him.

“Frank, can you help Mr. Bowdan change out of his costume and into one of our fashionable gowns?” Shelby asked one of the nurses.

When Frank and Mr. Bowdan disappeared into the bathroom, Shelby turned to Nyla.

“My money is on manic disorder with psychotic symptoms,” Nyla said. “He probably went off his meds.”

Wanna bet? Your money against one date, Shelby wanted to say, but of course she didn’t. Cowardly coyote. “I’m not sure,” she said instead. “My nose is telling me it might be drugs.” Quite literally, but Nyla didn’t need to know that. When she had stood next to the patient, she caught a whiff of mushrooms on his breath.

“You’re thinking psilocybin?” Nyla asked.

Shelby nodded. “It’s possible.” The symptoms of a manic episode and the effect of psilocybin mushrooms sometimes appeared similar. “Can you make sure we get a urine sample from Mr. Bowdan?”

“Of course.”

When Nyla turned to walk away, Shelby called after her, “And—”

“Make sure to keep him away from the vampire slayer mom and Mr. Fangs,” Nyla said for her. Her laughter rippled over Shelby. “Will do.”