Shifters 0f The Seventh Moon Complete Series Bks 1-4

by Selena Scott

  Even so, she felt peaceful in her bedroom. She couldn’t ignore the heat of the man behind her. For a long moment, Martine allowed her mind to wander. She let herself imagine what it must have been like to have been Amelia. To have experienced this man’s sweetness on such a regular basis. If she were Amelia, she would be allowed to reach for him in the night. To drown in the warmth of his skin. If she were Amelia, she would be allowed to share the racing of her golden energy, to pour it into Arturo’s body as fast as she wanted to.

  But no, that was a silly fantasy. Because Amelia had been a normal woman. A human. A mortal. Amelia didn’t glow golden when she was feeling desirous. She didn’t shift into a hawk. And she certainly wasn’t composed of light. If she were Amelia, she’d simply turn to Arturo and start having sex.

  That’s what humans did.

  “I’d rather just fuck the bear shifters,” Thea had said earlier that night and Martine had laughed along with the rest of them, though perhaps with a little less first-hand experience than the other women. Well, try zero first-hand experience.

  Sex seemed to be a very lovely part of the human experience and Martine was very curious about it. It seemed so primal and satisfying, unlike anything else that two people could do together. She’d heard the hushed moans and rhythmic passion of the others in the group over the last few months. They’d stayed in some close quarters, after all. And she’d been happy for them. She’d wanted them all to experience passion and heat and pleasure.

  It also made her a little sad. She knew that there were other demon hunters out there who sought pleasure with one another. Some of them even sought pleasure with humans. Apparently, it was all kosher. But Martine had never met a person, human or hunter, who made her want to touch and kiss.

  Well. Maybe that wasn’t entirely true. She closed her eyes and thought of the moment when Arturo’s bear had pinned her hawk against his chest. She thought of the shimmer and shift and energy and closeness and heat and tug and liquid pull and the heat of his erection against her back.

  She wasn't an idiot. She knew intellectually that they had most likely been sexually attracted to one another at that moment. He’d looked at her like an animal in rut.

  It hadn’t been with sweetness, though.

  Martine closed her eyes and let her mind wander. She was confusing herself. There was no reason for all that. She just needed rest. She needed to let herself drift away. In a moment of indulgence, she let her mind rest on what it would be like to turn to Arturo and nestle in. To toss a leg over his hips and sit on him the way she had out in the dirt.

  She imagined what it would feel like to lay fully on top of him. Skin to skin. She could imagine the clang of his heart in his ribs, the too-hard grip of his hands. She knew he wouldn’t be gentle with her.

  She thought of his erection, how interesting and large it had been. Different than she had expected. She imagined what it would feel like if it were sandwiched between them. Pushing into her belly.

  “Martine.”

  His voice was gravelly and strained in her ear. She pulled herself out of her daydream and was shocked when daylight greeted her cracked eyes. She hadn’t been daydreaming, she’d been real dreaming!

  And. Wow. Now she was laying fully on top of him. And that was definitely his erection trying to write his name across her belly. And those were definitely his hands digging into her hips like he was caught between wanting to yank her away or smash her down.

  Her nose was an inch from his armpit and she sort of wanted to bury herself in the scent there. Was that weird? Did normal human women want that? He smelled like sleep and soap and like rain on hot ground.

  A satisfied little sound came out of the back of her throat and she realized she was rubbing her face against his pec. How strange! She’d seen animals do that to one another in the wild, but she’d never had the urge to engage in the practice herself. Yet here she was.

  “Martine,” Arturo tried again and this time there seemed to be a note of pain in his tone.

  “Hmmm?” She raised her head and looked into his coal-black eyes.

  “What—we—this—you’re glowing,” he finally said.

  She looked down at herself, and sure enough, a layer of shimmery gold had coated her skin. She made a sound of wonder and stretched against him like a cat. Carefully, he rolled her to one side and sat up. She noticed he bent his knees so that his erection didn’t tent the sheet.

  “I’d never seen you do that before. What you did last night,” he said to her.

  “I’ve never shown humans before.”

  He was quiet for a long minute, long enough for some of her glow to subside as she wondered what he was thinking. “Why now?”

  She would have thought it was obvious. “Because I’m trying a new way of connecting with the humans, Arturo. Leaving didn’t… feel right. Last time, with your group, I stayed, but held myself so far away from them. That was disastrous. This time, I need to stay and I need to show them who I really am. A demon hunter.” She paused for a moment. Something in her didn’t want to say this next part. “I can’t pretend to be a normal woman any longer. I have to be honest about who I am.”

  “Right,” he said, rolling out of bed. He didn’t look at her as he pulled a T-shirt on and left the room.

  She instantly crawled onto his side of the bed. The warm spot he’d left behind. It was for the best, she reminded herself. It wouldn’t serve either of them if he forgot what she really was.

  She was a hunter, not a lover.

  ***

  Arturo felt like he was going mad. As if he were in the middle of some sort of psychological experiment, the details of which he was, apparently, not privy to. It wasn't that he wanted to deprive himself of love, it was that he was ready for his life to be over. He'd already loved a good woman, he'd already experienced pain as close to death as he could possibly imagine. He’d been alive for something like 435 years. He wasn't about to start dating now.

  Nevertheless, he was bothered. That whole day he walked around the house and through their shifter practice as if he were wearing a sign that said I woke up and Martine was cuddling me. And, oh yeah, it felt really good. And if I close my eyes I can still feel the weight of her.

  Cue the eye twitch.

  When he’d been a mortal, Amelia hadn't been the first woman he’d loved. But she had been the first one he wanted to settle down alongside. And now… this.

  Whatever the hell this was.

  Arturo spent most of the day ignoring Martine's very existence. It wasn’t what anyone would call easy. Especially considering the five-hour shifter practice they all subjected themselves to that very hot afternoon. Seriously, it was hot enough to fry an egg on Tre’s sunburn.

  They dragged themselves back into the house, dripping with sweat and caught halfway between frustration and elation. Frustration because this shifter thing was hard and sweaty. Frustration because they spent the whole day kicking each other’s asses. Elation because they were actually getting pretty good at it.

  Arturo slid into his seat at dinner. Caroline set down a plate of steak and potatoes in front of him and gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze. The other shifters were filing in, their hair wet from the shower and fresh clothes on.

  Thea opened up the windows and the side door to get a cross breeze going. Celia popped a few bottles of wine that she passed around.

  An unexpected feeling rose up in Arturo’s gut as the sounds of their conversation rolled around him. As much as he’d held himself apart from the group, he couldn’t deny that he felt a sort of connection to them now. He looked across the table, and for one moment, got caught in the snare of Martine’s bright green eyes. She gave him a small uninterpretable smile and turned back to her food.

  “So,” Celia said. “Martine, will you please explain this whole golden energy thing?”

  “Explain it?” Martine set her fork down and took a sip of wine. She looked delectable with her hair in damp waves over her shoulders.


  “Yeah,” Thea chimed in. “Why do you have the power? What can it do? Can you control it?”

  “Oh.” Martine thought for a minute, her fingers drawing circles on the bottom of her wine glass. “It’s a part of who I am. I guess you could say I was born with it. But I was never really born. When I came to be in my human form, I’d already been a light being for a long time. A millennia, maybe.”

  Arturo’s stomach plummeted. As if he needed more proof that attempting to date her was a bad idea. She’d been a being made of light for a millennia and he wanted to hump her like a teenager. Classy.

  “I can control it very easily,” Martine said, smiling, as if the question were funny to her for some reason. “And I believe I have it as my primary tool for fighting the demon. I can fight him in three forms. My human form, my hawk form, or my light form. And in all three I can wield the golden energy.”

  “Your golden energy is what will eventually kill the demon, yes?” Caroline asked, her bottom lip between her teeth, as if talking about it gave her the willies.

  “Yes,” Martine nodded with a confidence that was fairly nascent. Something had changed for her in the last few days, though none of them could exactly put their finger on it.

  The conversation pivoted and an hour later, Arturo found himself in the last stages of loading the dishwasher. It was the first night he’d deigned to help clean up after a meal. His first instinct had been to go shut himself into his room to gather himself together before another hellish night with Martine so close and yet so far. But, feeling strangely loose, he’d stayed in the brightly lit kitchen with Jean Luc and Thea and helped clean up.

  He blamed it on the second glass of wine he’d had at dinner.

  When everything was set to rights, Thea pressed a square of dark chocolate into Arturo’s hand and popped one into her own mouth. “Movie time.”

  “What?” he asked irritably. He was finding himself skeptical of the camaraderie that was suspiciously wafting around everywhere he turned. He didn’t want to watch a movie and he didn’t want her friendship chocolate—oh. Wait. That was actually really good chocolate.

  He found his mysteriously refilled wineglass shoved into his hand and then he was herded down the hall toward the living room where an obnoxiously large flat screen was playing the opening credits of a movie.

  Movie nights were something he’d seen the mortals do a few different times in Montana and he had to say, he was utterly baffled by it. He was born a few centuries too early to fully understand movie magic. Though he did like some modern inventions (toilets, Jacuzzis, and Oreo cookies being his top three), the television was not something he understood. No matter what was happening on the screen, he found it both grating and boring. On any other night, he would have turned on his heel and slunk back to the seclusion of his room.

  But on wine-dishes-chocolate night, apparently Arturo was sitting down at the far end of one of the couches and tucking in for an evening with a superhero dressed like… a Viking? Good Christ.

  Already bored, Arturo chose to sip his wine and look around at the people in the room instead of the movie itself. Caroline and Tre had made a floor bed and were completely wrapped around one another, buried in a pile of blankets and pillows as they watched the movie. Thea and Jack were on the far couch. He had one hand over the feet she rested in his lap, his hat pulled low over his eyes as he dozed.

  Jean Luc and Celia were cuddled up together on the other end of Arturo’s couch. Celia was watching the movie, but Jean Luc was glancing down at her, adjusting the blanket over and over. As Arturo watched, a sheen of sweat appeared on Jean Luc’s brow. The big man shifted again, looking acutely nervous.

  Strange.

  Arturo would have kept observing them, but, of course, his eyes commanded him to seek out Martine. Who was sitting in a poofy, leopard print armchair kitty-corner from Arturo. She was clutching her wineglass and leaning forward, apparently completely enraptured by the film. Arturo did a double take.

  This ethereal, otherworldly creature, who was literally made of light, was barely blinking as she watched the television screen. She gasped as the huge blond man on screen swung a top-heavy hammer toward a bad guy. She laughed too loud at a joke made by someone else on the screen.

  Arturo stared at her. Apparently she was super into movies. Or… A light gold glow had started on her skin and Arturo narrowed his eyes suspiciously. He turned and studied the screen. He supposed that many would consider this actor to be attractive. Large and blond and blunt-faced.

  He was pretty much the opposite of Arturo, who was dark and angular. He was toned but not built like a tank the way the actor was.

  He turned his eyes back to Martine who was still dimly glowing away. He had the sudden urge to turn the television off.

  Arturo jumped as Celia gasped at the other end of the couch. It wasn’t a normal gasp. It was the kind that preceded a torrent of tears. And, yup, there were the waterworks. Celia was suddenly crying and laughing and sitting in Jean Luc’s lap and staring in disbelief at her hand.

  “Oh my God!” Caroline shouted, jumping up to her feet so fast Tre actually ducked and covered to avoid flying limbs. “Did you just propose? He totally just proposed! Oh my God he proposed!”

  “Actually,” Jean Luc said, a light pink spreading over his cheeks, “I just slipped the ring on her finger. I haven’t gotten around to the actual proposing yet.”

  “Oh no! Am I ruining it?” Caroline asked in horror. “I’m totally rui—” She was cut off abruptly when Tre helpfully pressed a palm over her mouth. He grinned and rolled his other hand through the air.

  “Carry on, my dude,” he told Jean Luc.

  When everyone turned back to Jean Luc, he was on one knee in front of the couch, holding Celia’s hands in his while she still openly wept.

  “Celia,” he started, his voice gruff with emotion. “I was as good as dead before I met you.”

  Arturo shifted in his seat. Part of him couldn’t look away from this and part of him wanted to dissolve into the shadows. There was so much love emanating from the couple that he almost couldn’t stand to look directly at them.

  As good as dead.

  The words clattered around in Arturo’s head.

  “Playing footsie with you while we watched movies was such a simple thing, but that flirtation, that energy with you, that hope… it brought me back to life. You taught me that it was possible for me to have a future. Something I never thought would be true. I l—”

  Jean Luc cut off when a crying Celia launched herself forward and bowled him over backwards. “Yes, I’ll marry you. Please. Of course. But I can’t hear anymore. I’ll never stop crying. Tell me the rest later. I can’t hear it now. I love you. I wanna get married. Immediately. Let’s go to Vegas. God. Yes.”

  He was laughing and lifting her off the ground, her ring, a rainbow of gemstones, catching the light as she gripped him tightly. Jean Luc strode out of the room with his woman in his arms.

  A stunned, joyful silence was left in their wake.

  “Oh my GOD,” Caroline said, still muffled by Tre’s hand. And then she was kissing the crap out of Tre and he was chuckling and shuffling them both backward toward their wing of the house.

  Thea and Jack were laughing into their palms. It was obvious that Thea’s confusion about the engagement ring had been cleared up at some point. It wasn’t awkward between them one bit. “When I propose, I’m not going to do it in the middle of some lame movie night,” he told her.

  “Well, you’ll have to beat me to it, cowboy. Because when I propose, it’s going to knock your socks off.”

  “Thea!” He looked incensed in a very un-Jack-like way. “I’ll be the one proposing.”

  She shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  He stood up and took her hand, marching her out the room. “Damn right, we’ll see.”

  Arturo and Martine were left in the room alone. The movie flickered on innocuously at the edge of the room.

  “Wow,” Mar
tine said, her eyes wide.

  Arturo had no words. He was entertained and confused and a little grossed out by all the untamed human emotion that had just been slathered thick as peanut butter all over this room. He wanted a small dark space where he could just think. He wanted to go to bed. But he knew that when he went to bed, Martine would go, too. And the hasty exits of the three other couples were way too fresh on his mind. He could practically feel the imprint of them on the space.

  In self-defense, he turned back to the movie, hoping that she’d want to finish watching it and then by the time they wanted to go to bed, there’d be a little less come and get it, big boy on the air.

  But it wasn’t ten minutes later that Arturo nearly jumped out of his chair. He’d had to surrender to the fact that he was much more connected to the other three bear shifters in the house these days. They were in sync when they were practicing and, whether he liked it or not, they were starting to see eye to eye in their human forms as well. There was an accord slowly being struck between them. Which meant that he was naturally much more susceptible to the pipeline of feelings and emotions that ran through all four of them. If one of them was feeling something particularly potent, Arturo could feel it, just as the others could. Usually, though, he was fairly good at tuning out the incoming information.

  Tonight, however, he found that he had no hopes of tuning out three separate horny motherfuckers practically megaphoning their lust straight into his brain.

  Great. All three of them were fucking their girls. And Arturo, sitting in the middle of the house, was third-party experiencing it in stereo. It wasn’t as if he was perving on them, he wasn’t in their heads. He couldn’t read their minds. But he sure as hell couldn’t fight the intense wave of lust that rolled off of all three of them.

  “Are you all right?” Martine asked, looking away from the movie when he groaned and nearly tugged his hair out of his head.