by Leia Stone
I didn’t want to close my eyes, but I had to do it. What sparked through his was too fierce, too powerful.
I gave up... I gave myself to him. Pleasure danced beneath my skin as he wound me up again.
The matching desire in me met every one of his thrusts. My thoughts turned blessedly silent as I devoured the fire in his eyes, the heat of his body, and the way he lit me up all the way to my core.
When our bodies were slicked with sweat and the scent of desire, he picked up the pace. Every part inside of me responded to his movements. And when I felt him begin to unravel, I met those open, bright eyes, and followed his climax into one of my own. Even as pleasure exploded through every nerve ending in my body and I was sure I’d melt, I didn’t let go of his eyes.
He didn’t let go of mine even as he struggled to keep them open, wincing against that fine line between pleasure and pain.
And still... his eyes held mine.
A scream ripped from my throat as a wave of pleasure mixed with a tinge of pain rocketed through my entire body. My thighs and buttocks clenched and I pointed my toes. My back arched as it jerked off his bed.
He held onto me until his body and mine entirely ceased their quivering. Breathing heavily, he kissed me once more.
“Mine,” he whispered against my lips, and I knew he was right, all the way to my vibrating core.
Whether I wanted it or not, I was his.
‘Dammit, Ev, answer me!’ Cass’ freaked-out call managed to find its way into my lust-addled mind. ‘Are you all right? If you don’t answer me right now, I’m coming to find you. I don’t care where you are.’
Brock’s knees were on either side of my hips, his hands on opposite sides of my shoulders, and he was kissing me like there was nobody else in the world that mattered.
And yet, here was Cass, inside my head.
But I couldn’t entirely blame my poor bestie. If he’d felt some of what I’d just gone through, out of context, it probably seemed like someone was torturing or killing me.
‘Sex. Brock,’ I managed to get out, Neanderthal style, but it’d be enough for the best BFF in the world. Now that Cass understood I wasn’t being skewered, he’d go radio silent. We’d long ago agreed that we wouldn’t interfere in each other’s love life. Did I think love? I meant sex. Sex life. And that usually meant I was the one not interrupting Cass.
‘Cass thought you were in trouble, huh?’
He startled me, and my lips stuttered against Brock’s as I discovered him in my mind.
‘You can hear Cass?’ I pulled my head back to look into Brock’s eyes. Like mine, they were glazed; we were managing this conversation with only part of our faculties.
‘Through you.’
‘Wow. That’s crazy.’
‘Maybe. Can we talk about Cass later, though? I’d rather not be thinking about him at the moment.’
Right. Pushing Cass from my mind, I matched the ferocity of Brock’s gaze. He wasn’t finished with me yet.
A slow grin crept across my face. Lucky me.
23 Aftermath
The next morning everything felt different. Brock and I were grinning at each other like fools, over breakfast on his porch. Last night wasn’t just sex. It was something else entirely, but I was going to avoid talking about it and labeling it for as long as possible.
“Pass the butter please,” I asked him, trying not to focus on the fact that he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
He beamed, handing me the butter and scanning my body up and down, pausing on my exposed legs.
‘Where are you? I’ve got news,’ Cass blurted into my head.
I didn’t want to return to reality yet, but I’d never ignore Cass, especially not when it sounded urgent.
‘On Brock’s porch,’ I told him.
‘Having sex?’
I rolled my eyes, while Brock laughed across from me. I’d forgotten he could hear Cass and me.
‘No. Come over,’ was all I said, blushing a little.
I looked at my alpha. “Can you put a shirt on so I can concentrate?”
A huge grin swept across his face, and he stood, leaning forward to kiss me chastely before disappearing into the house. Mercifully, he returned clothed. Across the field, my friends came into view. Cass, his little wings fluttering, and Molly with her hair in a purple top knot.
“How old is Cass?” Brock asked.
“Like two hundred.”
He was an old bastard, that was for sure.
“And the pink fur... was he born like that or…?”
My eyes widened as my friends approached. “Shhh. We don’t talk about that.”
It had taken me years to break Cass out of his hot pink fur insecurity. Brock simply chuckled, and put his hands in the air in defeat.
Cass couldn’t fly high enough to get up over the railing because his wings were comically small, so instead he dropped to the ground and took the stairs, with Molly behind him.
My demon imp partner was wearing a pair of sensible, black biking shorts that reached his knees. Very unlike him.
I eyed him suspiciously. “What’s going on? You’re dressed weird.”
He looked down at the boring shorts and sighed. “I was up all night with Molly poring over Calista’s files. Mack finally sent them over.” He held a small stack of papers.
“What did you find?” He’d piqued my curiosity and I hated waiting.
His wary gaze went to Brock. “Is he in our group now?” His voice indicated that he’d prefer I say he wasn’t. Cass was the jealous type. Anything that threatened our friendship made him rabid.
“Yes. He’s with us now,” I confirmed. After last night, I was sure I trusted the alpha.
My reassurance had an effect on Brock. His body posture softened, and he leaned into me, but I pretended not to notice.
Cass sighed, as if resigned to the new arrangement. “Alright, prepare yourself. Molly, you may present our findings.”
Molly perked up, smoothing her ACDC t-shirt over her ripped jean shorts, and straightening her posture. “Well, to put it bluntly, Calista is one of triplet sisters.”
The moment the words left her mouth, my spoon crashed to my plate. “What? How? Where is the third?” I asked in a rush.
Calista was loose and the second was locked up. There’d better not be a third crazy scary siren out there to find. It had to be a mistake, right?
Molly started to pace. “That’s the thing, we found old records of the founding supernaturals and what year they got here, who’s in their family, etcetera…”
“Okay…” I was hanging on her every word.
Molly stopped pacing to look at me dramatically. “Calista and her sister were some of the original sirens to come here, and they reported that their third sister got left behind. Behind ‘the gate.’ They filed a loss form and everything.”
I shot to my feet. “The gate? She mentioned a gate?”
Holy shit!
Molly nodded. “So we searched all the lore we could get our hands on, and it turns out these three sirens are super evil. Like, they steal humanity’s soul to get more powerful, kind of evil. And when they’re all together, that’s exactly what they do.”
My heart began to pound. “Steal humanity’s soul?” I was aware that dark sirens lured unsuspecting men, and fed off their souls every few years to keep them young, but what Molly was saying sounded bigger.
“I remember hearing stories of three siren sisters a long time ago.” Cass answered this time. “If Calista finds the gate and gets her sister out, the two of them will for sure manage to free the other one from prison. And then the siren triplets will be too powerful to stop. Humanity could go extinct.”
So… no biggie?
I paced, unable to remain still as all the information swirled in my head. “How did we catch Calista, and the other one so easily the first time?” I asked Cass.
He shrugged, hooking a thumb into his waistband. “Either they let us catch them, or Calista’s done somethi
ng to become ten times more powerful since then.”
“Like partner with a witch,” Molly chimed in, referring to our earlier theory.
I nodded. “Or she’s fed on some human souls.”
Molly blanched, but Cass nodded. “Or both,” he added. “I’ve heard that sirens can give their gift of immortal beauty to another. That could be how she’s paying the witch.”
“With human souls?” I asked.
Cass nodded. “Like bind your witch powers to me, and I’ll add fifty years to your life and make you look twenty again.”
Holy shit!
Witches weren’t immortal. They died after a hundred and twenty so years, and they looked old as hell like the rest of the humans. Youth would be a powerful motivator to a witch. I needed to contact the human police, and find out if they had any recent unsolved murders.
Brock, who hadn’t said a word, stood.
“Where are you going?” I asked my baby daddy.
“To get my shotgun. I don’t like where this conversation is going.” He disappeared into the house and reappeared thirty seconds later with two weapons. One he handed to Molly, the other he kept for himself. “If I remember correctly, you know how to use that,” he stated.
Blushing, she accepted the shotgun with a nod.
I looked around our small group. “I need to shift into my fox form, and search Brock’s land for the gate.”
“Our land,” Brock corrected.
“What?” I frowned.
He grinned at me, making me go all gooey inside. “We’re pack now. It’s our land.”
Marry me now.
That crazy traitorous thought came out of nowhere, and I hurriedly shoved it to the back of my mind.
‘So you went ahead and joined the pack?’ Cass’ terse words entered my mind.
I swallowed hard. I’d been avoiding telling him. ‘Yes,’ was all I said.
He made a face but let it go. For now. “Should you shift so soon?” he asked aloud. “Remember what the witch told you.”
I shrugged. “I think I have to shift. We need to know where the gate is so we can guard it, and Brock doesn’t know where it is. That giant demon that came out of it last night could have been Calista’s lost sister, and then where would we be?”
Brock sighed in resignation. “Alright, but I’m calling Sabine to monitor you.”
“Fine,” I relented.
Three sirens as powerful as Calista? I wasn’t sure I could handle such a thing.
“It seems likely that Calista’s only recently bound herself to the witch. It’d explain her sudden surge in power,” I concluded.
Molly raised her hand. “I actually have a theory about that. Since you caught the two sirens, we’ve had a rare astrological event. A super blood blue moon.”
I frowned. “A what?”
“It’s like a blue moon and a blood moon at the same time. It hasn’t happened since 1866, and we all know sirens are heavily influenced by two things. Water and—”
“The moon,” I completed. What Molly said made sense. Trying to catch a siren on a full moon was akin to attempting to wrestle a werewolf during one. They were significantly more powerful at the peak of the lunar cycle.
Brock cleared his throat. “When I was trying to deal peacefully with Calista, she said she needed me to find the gate before the Hunters’ moon.”
Molly gasped. “That’s in two months. In October.”
My wide eyes flew to Molly. “You are a walking supernatural encyclopedia.”
Molly grinned. “Does that mean I get a badge now?”
Cass and I shared a look. “No,” we answered in unison.
Everyone had to go through the typical bounty hunter hazing. It was a rite of passage. Withholding cool shit like badges and guns was part of it, but I knew right then I’d made the right choice in taking Molly on as my apprentice. She was quick-witted and book smart, something lacking in most meat-headed hunters.
Stretching out my back, I prepared to shift. Would I really sprout another tail? Gain another power? I grew queasy just thinking about it.
Sabine stepped onto the porch then, looking sleepy but still carrying her black leather doctor’s bag. “Evie, would you like to shift insi—”
Pulling Brock’s long t-shirt off, I let it fall to the floor.
“Okay, then,” Sabine added.
I was a shifter now, so nudity was going to happen a lot. When I slid off my panties, I caught Brock grinning.
With a smirk, I called forth my furry beast. Having shifted a couple of times already, I expected the pain to lessen. But if it did, it was only marginally. The breaking bones weren’t what hurt the most. It was the stretching of my skin, the tearing of muscles. The burning sensation made me want to escape my own body.
A whimper escaped me as my flesh broke down, twisted, stretched, and put itself back together. Brock dropped to the ground to meet me at eye level. He could sense the extent of my pain through the pack bond. “Breathe through it,” he encouraged. “Think of nothing but your breath.”
I did as he said and breathed in and out, until my skin didn’t feel like it was on fire anymore.
Then Sabine gasped. “Three tails!”
Molly waved her hand. “Oh yeah, that’s totally normal. She’s going to get one each time she shifts until she has a total of nine.”
Whoops, we’d forgotten to clue in the doc.
“Any new powers?” Molly dropped to the ground next to Brock. I caught a whiff of her coconut shampoo and it tickled my nose. I backed up a step to get away from the overwhelming scent and I sneezed.
“Oh my God, you’re so adorable,” Molly cooed. “I want to hug you.”
I growled a little for comedy, and Cass laughed, but Molly stumbled back a pace.
Brock’s large, strong hand slid down my back as if petting a dog, and damn it felt good. I had to resist the urge to roll over and offer him my belly. As he moved his hand past my face again for another rub, I identified multiple scents at once. Lotion, strawberries from breakfast, me.
‘I think I can super scent or something,’ I told Cass.
“She’s got super scent,” Cass told everyone.
Brock and Sabine shared a look, and the doc jotted down the fact in her notebook.
The wind picked up, delivering a scent that had all the fur on my body standing up. Sulfur, oil, and something inherently evil brushed past me, reminding me of the giant demon from last night. I raced down the porch steps, and burst onto the field in front of Brock’s house.
“Evie!” Brock yelled before I heard the cracking of bones behind me.
‘Wait for me, woman!’ he shouted inside my head.
I skidded to a halt when I noticed everyone scrambling to catch up with me. Brock was tearing his clothes off, and already half shifted into his wolf form.
‘I smell something. I think it’s the gate!’ I told him. Some part of me realized those smells were coming from the underworld. Some weird, long lost “kitsune whackary” was going on inside of me.
Without warning, a blur of gray streaked past me. ‘Betcha I’m faster,’ Brock taunted as he flew by me.
Motherfucker!
I took off like my tails were on fire, giving chase in the direction where we’d killed the giant last night.
‘Cheater!’ I shouted as I caught up with him, shocked by how comfortable it was to speak into his mind.
I was smaller, lighter, and more nimble on my feet, but damn he was fast. A powerhouse of muscle and fur, the ground shook when he ran, something I could feel now that I was in fox form.
A look behind me revealed that Cass was riding his hover board while Sabine and Molly—both holding shotguns—were jogging toward us.
Brock and I reached the place where the giant’s remains lay, already melting into the earth, decaying. The stench of the dead demon was enough to make my breakfast threaten to come up again. I scrunched my nose and backed up a few steps, trying to position myself upwind.
But
movement to my right caught my eye and I froze. At the far edge of Brock’s property, something was moving.
‘Don’t worry, those are just my border patrol wolves,’ Brock told me.
I released the breath I’d been holding, and on the inhale, I caught that scent again—oil and decaying leaves. I took off to the left, around the creature’s shredded pieces, and darted into the thick woods behind Brock’s house. The pack’s land, just outside Eugene, Oregon, was sandwiched between Wild Hog Creek, and the Willamette River—a hundred-and-fifty acres total. I knew because Gran always hollered about how the greedy bastards took so much land, and she only had an acre.
Running the length of his land, I headed in the direction of Wild Hog Creek, where the scent was taking me. As a general rule, werewolves hated water, so I always wondered why Brock’s dad bought land nearly surrounded by it. Now it made sense. The gate was here and that’s why he bought the land. To think this whole time Gran and Brock’s dad were both trying to protect the same thing and never realized it.
My paws whisked over dried pine needles, and damp ferns until I slowed my sprint to a crawl. I ceased following the scent as a bright phosphorescent green mist, which reeked worse than a demon’s armpit, trailed through the air.
‘What do you think that is?’ I asked Brock, mystified at the stuff floating through the air.
‘That smell? Definitely underworld in nature,’ Brock replied, parking his wolfy butt next to me.
I shook my head. ‘No, that green stuff. Is it magic?’
Brock turned his wolf head, looking at me like I was crazy. ‘Green stuff?’
He must not see it! It must be a kitsune thing.
‘I’m going to check it out,’ I informed, and crept closer.
My head jerked around at a whirring sound until I spotted Cass, crouched low on his skateboard. ‘That smells rank,’ he stated as he whizzed by me.
I nodded my little fox head. ‘Do you see the green mist?’ Maybe since Cass was part demon he’d see it.
My bestie shook his head.
