My Raptor: An Erotic Shapeshifting Paranormal Romance

By CaraB. Connor

©2014 CaraB. Connor

Hey all you shape shifting, magical beast and supernatural being lovers! I hope you enjoy this fantastic tale of a girl and her, ever changing, best friend. This book is dedicated to each and every one of us, all the world over, and to the many animals, 2 legged, or 4 legged, regular, magical or paranormal, or whatever, that constantly roam the earth looking for friendship and love too!

And if you enjoyed this book I would love it if you would help others enjoy it as well. LEND it, RECOMMEND it, or REVIEW it. Thanks so much!

Cara ;~)

©2013 by Cara B. Connor

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including scanning, photocopying or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder.

Today was a regular old day, just like any other. Carol West walked home from work along the same old trail that she had walked every day for the past few years. Her long brown hair bounced about as she walked along the bumpy pathway. It was a shortcut to her apartment building that several people used when walking back from town. It was fairly well lit and safe which is exactly why she used it since she was fairly shy and not outgoing in any way.

Carol liked living on the edge of town since in many ways it allowed her a lot of privacy. She only had a few neighbors on her floor and her apartment building was only half full of residents, but overall her apartment allowed her all the solitude that she so desperately craved. But she often got lonely too. Sometimes getting exactly what you wanted wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

At 36, she was still very pretty though she did not consider herself that way at all. Actually, she considered herself a little plump. But the truth is, most men would have just considered her voluptuous, with nice curves in all the right places and would have loved the chance to be with her. But she was always too hard on herself – she’d been that way her whole life.

Her clothes were outdated and she wore no makeup, but her beauty was natural and her features well proportioned. And you hardly ever saw her without a book in her hand or within hands reach. But it was Friday, a beautiful late summer Friday, and she was walking along the trail on her way home after work. Turns out, an entire free weekend loomed ahead of her. The weekends she was off were always the worst because she had so little to do outside of work.

Normally, Carol spent all her days inside the confines of the city library. She had been there for the last few years since she graduated from college and she couldn’t see herself being anywhere else. Nor did she want to be. During her days back in college, those friends who knew her best, knew there was but one place you could always look for Carol and find her, besides class or her dorm room.

Once on the school premises, her second port of call, besides the lecture hall, or her dorm room was the library. Carol was a voracious reader. She read things in her discipline and basically everything else she could get her hands on. Her friends always complained to her about the amount of time she spent reading and not hanging out with them. But with her love of books and reading, she didn’t mind spending the entire day in the library.

Her first love had always been books and always would be. Often times, though, she couldn’t help but feel a little lonely now that she was out on her own, because in this world of books there was little time for anyone else – not even pets. And over the years she had long since lost touch with old friends since she so seldom went out.

Overall, she did not have, and did miss, the liveliness of human company since she had never really had it in the first place. It seemed in many ways to her, there was just herself and the whole wide world of adventure waiting between the pages of the next novel sitting on her night stand.

Even when she was attending college she pretty much kept to herself, much to the harassment of her peers. She rarely ventured further than her classrooms or her dorm. She even scheduled phone calls with her parents, both academics themselves, always being precise and formal, just like she was with other people. But now that she was done with school and out in the real world, she did see her friend’s point. Unfortunately, books could not provide absolutely everything that she needed.

Carol thought she was happy, though. She had acquired the dream job she had always wanted as a librarian and she could surround herself with her passion. The woodsy smells of the books, the feel of the fine paper pages between her fingers and the act of discovering the next story, it was all so familiar to her. And she loved them all.

Unfortunately, now that she was out on her own, she often felt lonely. She had noticed that she felt lonely more and more often here lately. She did have a few friends she talked to from time to time but that was about it. And every day when she got home, she found there was nothing there to cheer her up, no pet to greet her, no friend to talk with her and nobody to hang out with. Nothing, nobody, no one.

It seemed as though nobody wanted to be with her; deep inside however, a part of her knew it was as a result of the way she had been living for so long – secluded from human interactions. She was almost living a self imposed exile. She had been pushing people away for so long that most people had given up on her.

As of late, however, there was something new that appeased those lonely feelings. Something, in fact, that made her look forward to going home every day. She smiled at the memory and slowed her pace just a bit.

As usual, she had come home one day last week and flung her bag to the chair just inside the front door. She worked her way back to her bedroom, throwing herself onto her bed, heaving a sigh, thinking she was all by herself as usual, when suddenly she saw the shadow of something moving in the tree across from her room.

What was it? Carefully looking out of her bedroom window Carol saw that there was a strikingly gorgeous falcon which had seemed to make his home in the tree close to the ledge of her bedroom window. Awed by the sight, but a bit frightened too, she got up, tiptoed to her window and slowly opened the shades to get a better view, peering out at him only a few feet away. He was a beautiful beast, covered in feathers the color of an autumn day.

To her knowledge, it was almost a myth to hear of falcons or any kinds of birds of prey in her city. But to have one practically sitting on her balcony when she first arrived back at her apartment, the sight of it had nearly caused her to leave the building screaming after she first caught a glimpse of it, spreading its enormous wings against the backlight of the city. But somehow her common sense had taken hold of her, and maybe a healthy dose of curiosity too, and she overcame her fear as she moved cautiously to the window.

She could see that it had recently hunted, as blood was dripping from his talons and his beak, which made her gut clench at the sight, like an iron fist. She was reaching into her pocket to get her phone to call for animal control before it could hurt anything or anybody else, but just before she brought the phone up to her ear, something stopped her there in her tracks. Its eyes! Its beautiful eyes!

She had gotten a glimpse into its eyes and something had made her freeze. They looked so full of knowledge and so deep in intensity, that she suddenly felt like they were a well she could fall in if she didn’t avert her own gaze from them. And with that, she slowly put the cell phone back into her pocket.

She didn’t know how, but somehow she instinctively knew that the falcon knew she was there.  And it didn’t seem to be scared of her either, as it did not panic or fly away as she had expected it might. It just stood there on the tree branch looking at her also, gazing straight into her eyes. Strange behavior. Especially from a wild animal. And not at all what she expected.

There was this calmness and depth in its eyes that made her wonder just how intelligent a falcon could be. The look she saw in his eyes was hard to explain, but she knew somehow that it was not a hostile animal. So she decided against fighting one that didn’t fight her. And nearly every night since that day, her companion, that beautiful bird of prey, would be perched on her balcony when she arrived home, peering into her window, almost as if he were waiting for her.

After that day, things changed for Carol. Now there was this satisfaction when she arrived at home – almost as if she had company from out of town. She was happy to have the falcon there everyday when she came back from work. Now whenever she opened her bedroom door, her eyes instantly darted to the far window facing the balcony, just to see her feathered friend.

She always smiled when she saw him. His presence made her happier than she had been in forever. His elegance, intensity, colorful feathers and wide wings always impressed her. She began to silently wish that she had all his freedom. To spread her wings and fly; free to go wherever she wished. What a wonderful life that could be!

Herself, if she were the falcon, she would have chosen any other town. The best there was, anywhere but here. But here was this elegant creature,  choosing to return each day from all its adventures to spend time with her, to stay right there with her, and to share in her company. She couldn’t believe her amazing luck that the falcon seemed to look forward to her company as well.

They were indeed quite a pair. The falcon always looked into her window and she, at his spot on the tree branch, every now and then. But then one night he wasn’t there when she came home. She went out to the balcony to look at all the other branches in the tree right by her bedroom; perhaps he had chosen another position on the tree to roost that day.

She timidly went out on the balcony that night and scanned the entire tree for him and then all the surrounding trees too, but the falcon was not there. “Where is he?” she wondered aloud to herself.

This turn of events worried her a lot, but she went back inside her apartment, took her seat inside her room and waited and hoped that he would soon come back. Perhaps he was going to be late… or maybe something out there had delayed him. Maybe he was just out hunting… who knows for sure. Still, she waited for him to return until she fell asleep on the bed.

When she woke up hours later, the entire room was dark and Carol realized that she had fallen asleep on her watch. She switched on the balcony light and checked for him again, but to her disappointment the falcon still had not returned. So she fixed her dinner and went to sleep that night, sad, wondering where her feathered friend was. And hoping that he was alright and would return soon.

Then, the next day after work, she hoped she would come home to see that her falcon had returned. She nursed the hope that perhaps, it had ventured far off and needed the extra night fall hours before it could make its way back home to her. How she hoped that he would have returned safely by now. She was more than willing to forgive him for spending the night out on the town, but when she arrived back at her apartment that day she found out that he still wasn’t there.

Still, she couldn’t help but worry about her feathered friend while she was at work. All day long, every shadow in the air or every flutter of wings she noticed had her almost fighting to get to the windows fast enough to see if it was her falcon. But it never was.

Her second day at work after he went missing, she was far from coordinated and found it hard to concentrate on her job. At the close of the day, as she sorted the books on the desks and re-shelved them, she was worried and largely distracted by the worry and fear that he may have come to some kind of harm.

While she hoped that she would get home to find him back in the tree beside her balcony, she also didn’t want the hurt of realizing that her hopes were wrong while looking off that balcony into an empty tree.

Carol then came back to the present, when her supervisor, who was also arranging the books on the shelves, called her to attention. “Carol, can you come here please?,” she asked, as she continued to stack books in rows, waiting to be shelved.

Carol was so distracted thinking about the falcon that she was making lots of mistakes and was shelving some books in the wrong classification entirely. Then she realized her supervisor was saying something and instantly came back to the present. “Yes, ma’am,” Carol dutifully answered.

Her supervisor, who had worked with her for years understood that Carol had been more distant than usual for the past few days, and actually suggested for her to leave early. In fact, she insisted that Carol go while she finished up with the shelving of the books. Carol thanked her and left right away.

On the third day after he disappeared, she had hoped with all of her might that the little falcon would be sitting in his usual place, waiting for her when she got home. But when she opened her bedroom door, her heart froze – then instantly sank.

He was there, but instead of being perched in his prideful way on the tree limb near her balcony, he lay cluttered in a pool of blood on the floor of her  bedroom, having apparently crashed through the glass window. He was cut to pieces and she could just barely see his chest moving up and down, straining to breathe.