Toying with Monsters

TOYING WITH MONSTERS SHADOWS & SHIFTERS BOOK 1 D.D. MIERS Copyright © 2023 by D.D. Miers 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. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. © 2023 Cover Art by Orina Kafe Edited by Pretty Little Editing CONTENTS Acknowledgments Toying with Monsters 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 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Thank You! About the Author Also by D.D. Miers ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To everyone who’s stuck with me… ready for a new adventure? TOYING WITH MONSTERS What happens when you’re a shifter who can’t shift? You end up like me: abandoned by my pack, rejected by my mate, and left to die. Except breaking news, I didn’t. Instead, I used my unique abilities to etch out a place for myself within the supernatural underworld of Baton Rouge. Elena is my name and retrieving is my game. Basically, I’m what boils down to a magical bloodhound, able to find things no one else can. And things were going pretty damn good…until my newest job puts me at odds with my old pack and ex-lover. Now, there’s a bounty on my head and a hundred supernaturals willing to kill me just to get their hands on it. If I want to survive, I’ll have to make a blood pact with the most dangerous man in Louisiana. The mysteriously seductive leader of The Syndicate, Dagon Thorn. With searing golden eyes, and a dark magic I can’t explain, he just might be more dangerous than the enemies on my tail. But I have something he wants, and he has something I need. And if my enemies don’t kill me first, this magnetic attraction just might… Toying with Monsters is the first book in the Shadows & Shifters Trilogy. This is a spicy supernatural romance featuring a delicious, enemies to lovers, rejected mate adult romance. 1 Elena The otherworldly trills of insects, frogs, and animals too frightening to mention, rose like a thick curtain around me. Their chorus nearly covered the swishing of my thigh-high boots trekking through the brackish waters of the bayou. I refused to contemplate what else I disturbed under the water's surface because, well, that was the stuff of nightmares. Artifact hunting sounds like a glamorous profession, but it’s not. More often than I liked, I ended up on my hands and knees, covered in things I never wanted to encounter again. Tonight was no different. Water sloshed against a decaying dock as a thick, stinking fog rose from this tributary of the Mississippi River, blanketing the nearby ghost-town port in a gray cloud. I grabbed my low-light headlamp for the third consecutive night and snapped it on before removing my faux-leather gloves. My haphazard coal miner look killed my otherwise kick-ass outfit, but keeping my hands free was essential to my job. Not that I would call this a real job. Technically, I’m an outcast who accidentally discovered a niche within the supernatural black market of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Retrieving was my game, and I am damned good at it. I’m what equates to a magical bloodhound. If you need something found that no one else can locate? I’m your girl. I've never understood the things I could do, and I've never had parents or a family around to supply the answers I so desperately sought for so long. All I know is that I'm better than good—like fucking awe-inspiring—at recovering magical objects. And for certain people with lots of cash and secrets, it's a talent with a monetary value. It also has an unfortunate habit of landing me in the crosshairs of the shadiest people in the magical underworld—characters who get what they desire by any means necessary. It's fair to say I will never receive a 1099 form in the mail from any of my clients. My roommate, Chastity, the only human being to give a fuck about me (and by far the best witch in Baton Rouge) has warned me many times that my job would land me in what she called deep kaka. Those words reverberated in my head as I waded in the bayou muck as dusk descended around me, surrounded by whizzing bugs seeking the nearest blood source and larger predators seeking meaty snacks. My client insisted on a level twenty out of ten degrees of secrecy that encouraged me not to play detective. It can make things a real pain in the ass when questions pop up, but a person in my position can't afford to be choosy. I nicknamed my latest sketchy client Mr. X, since he wouldn’t give me anything else to call him. He’s also the reason I was down here, thigh-deep in the marshes along the coast of Baton Rouge, swatting away mayflies, mosquitoes, and all matter of night creatures as they belt out their nocturnal symphony of