by Selena Scott
His hand came to her chin again, to haul her back into the kiss.
“Wait!” She barely recognized her own voice.
He instantly froze. His eyes went from hazy and half cracked open to alert and searching. Caroline took another deep breath and planted her elbows, sitting up a few inches. Tre obligingly slid backwards so that he was sitting on his heels between her legs. His hands landed on her knees.
He was so coppery in the lamplight. The white of her room was blue in the shadows and golden in the light. Caroline’s eyes blurred with emotion and for just a second, she thought he looked like some sort of Norse god, kneeling fiercely in the snow. She yearned for him. Ached for him in the core of her. She wanted so badly to reach up and touch his chest again. His tattoos were a colorful mat across his chest and shoulders and arms. If she could have rewound time to a few days ago, and still somehow had this moment, she would have leaned up and pressed her lips to the green leaves at his neck. The ones that beat with his pulse. That looked alive.
But she couldn’t erase his rejection of her. And she definitely couldn’t erase her promise to herself. Never again would she settle for a man who only wanted her when he couldn’t have her. Never again. It had almost killed her with Peter. She knew, without a doubt, that she wouldn’t be able to survive playing that kind of game with warm Tre who was just about everything she wanted.
“You—you rejected me. You said we weren’t a good match. You didn’t want me.” She scooted back from him and mirrored his position, folding her legs underneath her and sitting on her heels. She still gripped his shirt in one hand; for some reason she was drawing power from the soft, comforting material. She was in the process of telling Tre off, but even so, his T-shirt was like a talisman. It was a reminder of what Tre had meant to her before this mess. Of the man who’d helped her sign her divorce papers, who’d talked her through some of the hardest moments of her life.
“No. Caroline, that’s not exactly—”
“No. Tre, you turned me away and now you’re all warm and in my bed and, just, hold on!” She arrowed her hands down like if she moved assertively enough she could flick the uncertainty away. “I’m not good at this, Tre. Reading between the lines. So you have to tell me. Just outright tell me. What kind of game are you playing?”
“It’s not a game, Caroline. I—”
She could have gotten over him not wanting her—hell, she had already been most of the way there. She’d never hold it against him. But this? Making her think one thing and then seducing the hell out of her? No. That wasn’t something she could handle. It was wildly discombobulating. It was confusing and unfair. His rejection she’d taken on the chin. But his wanting of her? That was the betrayal.
“No.” Her honey eyes were lit from within. Tre had never seen her so emotional and burning. “You can’t turn me away one night and then want me when you sense me slipping away. This was exactly what Peter did. He never wanted me when I wanted him. He only wanted me when he knew he was losing me. And no. Never again, Tre. I’ll never play that game again.” She slid sideways off the bed and held her hand out toward the door. “You need to leave.”
Tre rose immediately, holding his hands out. He wasn’t sure if he was surrendering to her or reaching for her. All he knew was that his blood was slinging through his veins so fast he was dizzy with it. He had the horrifying feeling that he was rattling at a door that he’d already locked, and Caroline was just on the other side of it. He could handle her being mad at him. But he couldn’t handle her thinking he’d intentionally played her.
“Caroline, love. I didn’t mean to fuck things up between us. I’m just trying to do the right thing here.”
“The right thing for who?”
“For you, of course!”
She shifted and he shifted accordingly, like two fighters in a ring. He was dimly aware that she was backing him up toward the door.
“Didn’t you think, for one minute, that maybe I’m the one who knows what’s right for me? I’m not dumb, Tre. I’m not stupid, flighty Caroline who barely knows how to get the grocery shopping done. I’ve been through an eight-year marriage and a divorce. I’m not naive. I know what pain is. I know what it looks like to guard my own heart. I know how to take care of myself. Because, newsflash, in case you didn’t understand what a gem Peter was, I’ve been taking care of myself for years! I don’t need your guilt deciding when and where I get to have you, Tre.”
“Caroline.” His voice was hoarse, his eyes wide and terrified behind his glasses. He’d never in a million years meant to make her feel this way. As if he hadn’t believed in her own capabilities. As if he were somehow more aware of consequences than she was. As if she weren’t capable of taking care of herself and her own heart. He’d shortchanged her. He could see that now, plain as day.
“No.” She shook her head resolutely. “You need to leave. And take your horrible, perfect, lovely kisses with you. I don’t want them. Not like this.”
She’d bustled him all the way to the door. As she reached behind him and opened the door, the warm vanilla scent of her washed over him and just wrecked him. He stumbled out into the hallway and felt her press something into his hands. His shirt. Still warm from where she’d been gripping it. She closed the door but he managed to catch it open with one wide palm.
“Caroline,” he tried one more time.
She scrubbed away tears into the crook of her elbow and looked up at him fiercely. “Goodnight.”
The door closed firmly.
***
“Shit,” Jack muttered, just down the hall from where Tre leaned brokenly against the wall outside of Caroline’s room. He was in bed with Thea, who was dozing against his shoulder.
“What is it?” she mumbled, her silky black hair over one of her cheeks, her electric blue eyes half lidded.
“Our boy’s gotten himself in a little trouble.”
“Tre?”
“Yeah. Be right back.”
On the other end of the hall, Jean Luc sighed deeply and dragged a wide palm over his face, scratching over his beard. Though they’d learned to dull their connection to one another’s emotions, Tre’s horrified pain was coming through loud and clear. Something must have happened.
He sat up in bed, reaching for his sweatpants. He groaned when Celia came in from their adjoining bathroom, rubbing lotion on her hands and face. She wore a pair of black panties. Just black panties. Her tattoos were dark and colorful in the dim light and the long, silver part of her fade was flopped over to one side, her big eyes taking up half her face. Jean Luc could have licked her up like brownie batter off a mixing spoon.
Her brow furrowed when she saw him pulling sweatpants on. “You’re leaving?”
“Come here,” he grumbled, scooping her onto his lap the second she got within arm’s reach. He nuzzled forward into her breasts. “I have to go make sure Tre’s okay.”
She wiggled herself further into his lap. “Okay. I’ll stay up.”
He lifted his head to read her expression. “It might be awhile.”
“Jean,” she smiled down at him. “I don’t mind waiting for you.”
He kissed her soundly and tucked her into bed before he found a T-shirt in his bag and shuffled through the darkened house toward Tre’s room.
Jack was, of course, flopped over Tre’s bed and Tre was leaning against his window sill, head in his hands.
“Alright,” Jean Luc said, stepping into the room and closing the door. “What happened?”
“I really, really fucked this up,” Tre mumbled. Tre grabbed his hair and tugged. He turned to the boys. “She thinks I don’t want her. I mean… she thinks I only want her because I can’t have her. That I’m fucking her around.”
“I thought,” Jack said slowly, “that you didn’t want her.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Tre snapped. “Of course I did. I do. I just wasn’t going to let myself have her. But then…”
“Something happened in her room,” Jean Luc filled in
the blank when Tre just sort of modestly trailed off.
“How did you know that?” Tre glared at him.
“You weren’t exactly muting your feelings, son. Jean Luc and I knew something was revving your engine.”
“Shit. I forgot.”
“Don’t be embarrassed,” Jack grinned. “It happens to all of us the first time.”
Tre opened his mouth to snap back but Jean Luc interrupted. “Just tell us what happened so we can fix it. I’ve got the love of my life half naked and waiting for me in my bedroom but instead I’m in here playing truth or dare with you two dumbasses.”
Just then, there was a sharp knock on the door and then Martine pushed her way into the room. All three of the men separately realized how strange it was to see her in the evening. After dark, she almost always shut herself away in her room, secluding herself from everyone. But there she stood, wearing a long, black silk nightgown of all things, her rose-gold hair skimming her shoulders. She normally wore tight black workout clothes with lots of pockets. Clothes she could easily fight in if she had to. The nightgown wasn’t overly sexy or anything, but it was strange to see her looking so much like a woman.
All three men sort of shifted around, their eyes bouncing from the ceiling to Martine to the floor to Martine to each other to Martine.
“Lover’s quarrel?” she asked, her arms crossed over her chest and an eyebrow raised.
“How’d you know we were fighting?” Jean Luc asked. “Were we too loud?”
“No,” she shook her head. “I was walking past Arturo’s room and I heard him laughing to himself. I figured that could only mean that you three were somewhere shooting yourselves in the foot.” She strode over to the dresser in the corner and hoisted herself up onto it. “So, I’m here to help.”
In a way, Martine was more a part of their group than she was with the other women. Martine was a shifter as well, a hawk shifter, and she trained with the men every day. She was the one who’d helped them hone their skills and answer their questions. She’d been with them through every step of the way. There was something about her, though, that separated her. The men couldn’t exactly explain what it was. Perhaps it was because she wasn’t technically human. But they just hadn’t considered asking her for help. Hers wasn’t exactly a door you knocked on. Even now, sitting there on top of Tre’s dresser in her silk nightgown, she looked strangely like a warrior queen. There was almost a glow emanating from her.
“I’m not sure this can be helped,” Tre said. “This isn’t a demon-based problem. This has nothing to do with our quest. This is just an issue of me being a complete douchenozzle.”
He quickly explained the issue with Caroline.
Martine watched him for a long minute. “Is she right?” she finally asked. “Do you want her just so that Arturo can’t have her?”
“Yes and no. I can’t explain why I want her. I just know that it’s not a game. It’s all based in… something real.”
Martine nodded slowly. “Then you’ll have to pursue her, in a real way.”
Tre took a deep breath. “Alright.”
“And,” Martine continued, “you’ll have to let Arturo have her.”
“What?!” All three men said it in unison. Jack nearly rolled off the bed.
Martine shrugged. “Well, he’s made his bed and now he has to lie in it. Caroline is convinced that it’s only the competition that has him interested in her. So if he shows her that he doesn’t care about Arturo at all, that he’s just grateful for whatever she’s willing to give him, then maybe she’ll realize that he’s interested in her in a real way.”
“What do you mean, ‘let him have her’,” Tre asked, his voice low and his hands opening and closing into fists.
“That’s up to Caroline. How ever much she wants Arturo to have.”
“What’s to stop him from destroying her?” Jean Luc asked hotly.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Martine jumped down from the dresser. “We can all agree that Arturo is the worst, okay? But he’s not the demon. He was born a man. Just like you all. At one point he was capable of all the same feelings that you all are. And—” she cut off and strode to the window, looking out over the darkened golden fields rolling out toward the mountains. “He once loved a woman.” She turned back to the group. “A woman who was quite a bit like Caroline.” Martine sighed. “He might use Caroline in some way to get away from this captivity you have him in, I’ll admit that. He might manipulate her. But he won’t destroy her. From what I’ve observed, Caroline is an extremely strong woman. I don’t think anyone is capable of destroying her. She’d survive Arturo. And for that matter, Tre, she’d survive you as well.” Martine strode up to him and lifted her hand to his cheek. “If you want her, truly want her, go after her. Be brave.” That soft hand on his cheek reared back and administered a sharp little slap.
Tre pulled back in surprise. Martine had so rarely inserted herself into any of their personal business. But here she was with those celery-green eyes somehow charging him to rise up and set a standard for himself.
He flashed back to bear practice a few days ago. He’d been sprinting full speed, full tilt. Martine had been running next to him in her human form. “Now!” she’d screamed and in one gorgeous, color-blurred moment she’d flung herself headfirst into the air. Her hair had streamed behind her in a strawberry banner, her face had been open and free. She’d shifted in a single, high-voltage moment and then she’d been a hawk next to him, zipping through the air, each feather a prism of browns and golds. And he’d done it. He’d shifted as well. One second he was a man and then the next he was a grizzly, bounding after the hawk buffeting in the wind next to him. He’d felt a kinship with her in that moment. Something he’d felt on and off since he’d first met her. Not a brotherhood exactly, but it wasn’t wildly different than what he’d felt for Jack and Jean Luc. It was connection. It was relationship.
She held his eyes and lifted her chin. Be brave.
Tre held her eyes for another second before he let out a long breath. He turned to Jean Luc. “You’ve got clippers, right?”
A slow smile spread across Jean Luc’s face. “Yeah.”
“You can give me a decent haircut? I’m not trying to look like I’m fresh out of bootcamp.” He eyed Jean Luc’s tight buzz cut dubiously.
“Ah. You should have Celia do it then. She’s got a better eye for that shit.”
“Alright.” Tre bobbed his head. He rubbed his eyeballs and made his glasses bounce on his fingers. “I’m gonna need flowers. I guess I can pick those in the morning. And what else? Maybe I can make her something in the kitchen. I’m not actually bad at baking. Some cookies or brownies. Yeah. Alright. And then I need to figure out a date. I wanna ask her on a date. But there’s nothing to do in Montana so I dunno, maybe we—what?”
He looked up in surprise to see all three of the other people in the room absolutely grinning at him.
“Nothin’,” Jack said. “Our little boy’s all growed up.”
“Ah, fuck you,” Tre muttered, but it was impossible not to answer their smiles a little bit.
“It looks good on you,” Jean Luc said, clapping him on the back. “I’ll go get Celia.” He remembered that his woman was currently mostly naked and warm in his bed, waiting on him. He turned back to Tre. “Strike that. She’ll cut your hair in the morning.”
Jack saluted and was out of the room and back to his own woman. Martine squeezed Tre’s hand and then she, too, was gone.
Tre watched them all go before he flopped back on his bed, his eyes watching the ceiling and his normally racing thoughts strangely calm.
***
On her way back to her room, Martine paused in the doorway of Arturo’s bedroom. On impulse she pushed the door open. He turned his head at the movement and faced her. He was stretched out in the bed, the sheets gathered at his hips. He was shirtless and his eyes were dark, inscrutable, as he watched her standing there in his doorway, her black silk nightgown swirli
ng around her ankles.
Her hair was pulled back in a braid and it made her look like a girl. Neither of them said anything. They just looked for a while.
They’d known one another for centuries. Started as allies, ended up as enemies. And now they stared into one another’s faces realizing that they knew nothing of the other. Even when Arturo had been fully human, they’d been mysteries to one another. But now? She was as distant and inscrutable as the gray-blue mountains he could see out the window. They watched one another for another moment before Arturo summoned up his energy. A blue zinging arrow zipped through the air toward her.
Her own golden energy met it in the middle of the room, absorbing it, turning the light green before it fizzled into darkness.
She smirked at him and closed the door behind her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Quit fidgeting!” Celia sniped at Tre. Her tongue stuck out one corner of her mouth as she carefully buzzed his sideburns and cleaned up his hairline. He’d chosen to leave it a little longer on top, but hadn’t submitted to the full fade that she’d been begging to give him.
“Celia,” he’d said. “We’re not actually twins. No matter how much it feels like we’re related. We can’t both have tattoos and fades.”
She’d turned to him, her eyes wide with happiness. “You feel that, too? That weird family connection?”
He’d shrugged. “Totally. Musta been related in another life or something.”
“Okay,” she said now, eyeing him in the mirror. “How much do you trust me?”
“With my hair? Minimally,” he told her, his eyebrows creeping up his forehead.
“Come on. I think we really need to make a statement here. This is Caroline we’re talking about. Just a simple haircut is not going to wow her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Celia cocked out a hip and flipped the buzzer off. Out the window, the sun was just beginning to rise. Tre had woken her up early, wanting to get a jump on his day. He had to jam in a haircut, flower picking, and cookie making in before Caroline woke up and she was an early riser. “I figure she’s seen a thousand fresh haircuts in her life. Her ex was probably super clean-cut, right?”
