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    Identity Shift
    Identity Shift
    Identity Shift
    Ebook113 pages1 hour

    Identity Shift

    By Mel Teshco

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Alexia Leigh will do anything to honor her father’s death, and prove that shape-shifting big cats really do exist. If that means chasing down the one person who might confirm that claim, then that is what she’ll do.
    But she never expects Blake Powell, the key to the shifter race, to rescue and seduce her. She never anticipated wanting him like he's her last damned breath!
    Never in her life has she felt so alive and experienced such raw pleasure … and now she’s torn between him and the proof she desperately needs.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMel Teshco
    Release dateFeb 12, 2017
    ISBN9781386905318
    Identity Shift
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    Author

    Mel Teshco

    Mel Teshco lives in the beautiful country of QLD Australia, where the open spaces of her acreage, fondly called 'the block', gives her room to breathe. When she isn't writing or dreaming of writing, she is often found gazing out the window at the surrounding mountains and thinking how very lucky she is. With one semi-patient husband, three gorgeous girls, two fat horses, one crazy Belgian shepherd and three cats who run the house, writing has (mostly) kept her sane.

    Read more from Mel Teshco

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      Book preview

      Identity Shift - Mel Teshco

      Identity Shift

      By Mel Teshco

      Copyright 2017 Mel Teshco

      Cover Art by HelzKat Designs

      www.helzkatdesigns.com

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy.

      Acknowledgements

      To my family, I’d be lost without you all x

      Table of Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      First Chapter of Moon Thrall

      Chapter One

      Alexia Leigh watched the last of the dark-suited mourners drift away from her father’s graveside, her eyes dry and a chill icing up her insides. She’d cried herself empty these last five days. Cried long and bitter tears until there were no more tears to give. Until the once vibrant spark of life within had sputtered and died, leaving her cold. Empty.

      Her only solace was that her mum and dad were together now, bound for eternity in their own piece of heaven. Just what her father had always wanted.

      A snow-white rose clasped to her chest, she pressed a kiss to its velvet-soft petals, the scent stirring up a memory of her late mother’s perfume. With unsteady hands, she placed the rose onto her father’s smooth granite headstone. Rest and be at peace, she whispered. I will prove the critics wrong.

      Her father had been so jubilant when he’d found real, tangible proof that shape shifters—at least, big cat shape shifters—really did exist. He’d told no one about his findings except Alexia, who’d been his assistant even when she’d been too young to earn more than pocket money.

      Of course they’d kept the information top secret. They’d wanted to first decipher the writing in the leather-bound journal that had been found beside the big cat bones whose skull and skeleton showed decidedly human characteristics. The old-world language inside the journal had matched none of the data found anywhere else on the planet.

      The ancient book had been the key to her father’s success. Not that it’d mattered in the end. Thomas Leigh had been Australia’s leading archeologist and held in high regard ... until someone had broken into his townhouse and leaked word of his research notes. The cemetery was empty of all but its headstones by the time she slung a leather-clad leg over her Ducati motorcycle and fired it to life. It was only as she was about to pull on her helmet that it became apparent she’d been mistaken.

      She wasn’t alone.

      Liz Hemlock, flame-haired bitch and piranha reporter, approached her with narrowed eyes and the clack-clack of high-heels. The reporter’s most acclaimed articles had featured Alexia’s father’s downfall. And his subsequent suicide.

      Alexia’s gut churned, fury and grief reawakened as she twisted on her motorcycle to face the other woman. What do you want from me now? Isn’t my father’s death enough for you?

      The other woman’s stride didn’t falter, though her face flushed a little. Probably more from heat than anxiety. Liz dragged a notebook from her jacket pocket, her red-lacquered fingernails sharper than talons. I’m sorry for your loss, Ms. Leigh, but I’m doing my job with the same degree of passion you do your own. Her green eyes flashed. My readers only want the truth.

      Alexia took in slow, steadying breaths, pushing back emotions she’d thought had been cried out with her tears. No matter how much it hurt to hear, she needed to know how far the other woman had been willing to go to obtain her stories. Does that include breaking and entering to get your readers what they want?

      Liz averted her gaze for perhaps a second, while the faint flush of earlier became twin flags of red. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

      Alexia closed her eyes as the full realization of the reporter’s deception hit her front and center. It had been Liz who’d leaked the information. How the hell did the woman live with herself?

      She’d been so damn distracted by her father’s downward spiral from glory, she hadn’t had the time to draw breath, let alone dwell too much on the perpetrator or his or her motives.

      She blinked back a red haze. Her voice cracked. Why?

      Liz pressed a hand to her belly, as though the conversation upset her.

      Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

      Alexia’s world had been turned upside down when she’d found her father’s inert body slumped over his desk, but it was a waste of time even trying to express her loss. No sacrifice would be too great for Liz to get a breaking story and rave reviews.

      The Ducati’s engine thrummed in the thick silence, before the redhead finally shrugged. Cryptozoology is gaining attention in Australia, with more sightings and hard evidence of panthers and other big cats. She tipped her head to the side. Your father was the top of his field. He was my best choice for finding the facts.

      Stealing the facts, Alexia said bitterly, before she pulled on her helmet and clipped together its chinstrap.

      Thank god she’d hidden the journal, which her father had found beside bones at the entrance of a cave guarding ancient Dreamtime aboriginal drawings. Apparently the images inside the cave had depicted half-human, half-panther beings. The ancient transcript above the drawings had taken her father much less time to translate.

      Illawatti.

      The reporter’s voice rose in volume. You call it stealing. I call it sharing of information.

      Stay the fuck away from me. With an unforgiving glare at the other woman, Alexia gave the Ducati a rev and whipped the sleek motorcycle around with a roar. Ignoring Liz’s aggrieved shout to stop, she headed away from the outer suburbs of Newcastle. Away from her grief. Her pain.

      Destination, Sydney. And to the one name her father had deciphered from a list of five in the journal.

      *

      Some four hours later she parked the bike opposite yet another decrepit apartment block. Flickering streetlights fizzed and hissed in the twilight, attempting to chase away the shadows of the dank, poor outer-suburb of Sydney, but succeeding only in fraying her already stretched nerves.

      Blake Powell had not been an easy man to find, despite the embellishments from ex-neighbors and acquaintances of his amazing good looks and wealth.

      So, what was he doing in this dive?

      It hadn’t taken her long to discover that he’d started to move around a lot in the last few months, never staying in one place for too long. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was a man on the run.

      Except, even if Blake was a descendent from a name on the list, it didn’t mean he knew anything more than she did. It didn’t mean he was suddenly a wanted man because of his name’s association with her father’s research.

      Nothing added up and nothing made sense. But unless she wanted to use a linguistics expert and risk blowing every single piece of research out of the water, Blake was the only name deciphered from the list, and therefore her only lead. Her one glimmer of hope.

      Her hands clenched and her chest went tight. She only hoped the critics were proud of the damage they’d wrought on her father, a brilliant and ethical man who’d done nothing but spoken the truth. In her heart she knew the criticisms had killed something inside him long before he’d taken his last breath. Still, she’d never once thought things had gotten so bad he’d take his own life and leave her to

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