Shifter Origins (Series-Starter Shifter Variety Packs Book 1)

by Aimee Easterling

  Finn craved a stroke rather than a simple touch, but he'd take what he could get. So he nodded and hummed his assent. And while his companion's mouth was so close to his skin, he couldn't quite resist turning his head so that her lips skimmed across his cheek before landing squarely on his own.

  "May I?" Finn whispered, feeling his breath bounce off Ixchel's face before returning to warm his own skin. Without waiting for a reply, he reached up with one hand to cup the back of Ixchel's neck, seeking the slightest hint of non-verbal resistance. The shifter would back off if he had to—he wouldn't risk scaring this strong but sensitive woman any more than she'd already been terrified by his entrance into her life. And he couldn't quite believe that she'd allow him—an animal, a thief, a semi-mythical monster—to kiss her.

  But, instead of pulling away, Ixchel mirrored Finn's movements and used one hand to draw him closer. Her lips were soft but dry, completely unlike the slimy touch of the lipstick-coated appendages Finn had locked lips with during his previous forays into what Tez had so glibly called human mating rituals.

  Because the god was right. Finn had much less practice with kissing than the women around him usually assumed when they propositioned him in restaurants, on busy streets...well, just about anywhere. Due to his deep, dark secret, the shifter had started learning about manhood in strip clubs, then worked his way up to picking up girls in bars for one-night stands. Sex was fun, he'd decided, but not sensational enough to go out of your way to hunt the experience down.

  As such, nothing in Finn's past had prepared him for the explosion of feelings when he kissed a woman who meant more to him than an easy lay. Gently, oh so gently, Ixchel eased the shifter's mouth open with her own lips until their bodies were fused, the action sending tremors down the length of Finn's spine.

  Unable to restrain himself, he pulled his partner closer until she was pressed up against his length, one leg straddling his growing erection while she knelt with the other knee on the edge of her seat. He moaned as her thigh pressed up against his throbbing organ, and one of the shifter's hands dropped down to tease the erect nipple pushing against the fabric of Ixchel's shirt. Then...

  "Ahem." The throat being cleared in the aisle brought both Ixchel and Finn back to reality as they turned to face the stewardess. I guess it isn't quite as dark in here as I'd assumed, the shifter thought regretfully. Then he felt even more chagrined as he saw how quickly Ixchel scooted back into her own seat, cheeks flaming.

  "While I understand the appeal of the mile-high club," the flight attendant was saying with a smooth smile that barely covered up her annoyance, "There are children present on this flight. Here...."

  The stewardess shook out a thin blanket and draped it over Finn's lap to hide the evidence of his arousal, a gesture that embarrassed the shifter nearly as much as being caught in the act had done. Glancing up at their stern taskmaster, he suspected that had been the entire point of the blanket—to douse him with proverbial cold water.

  "Let's try to stay in our own seats for the rest of the flight, why don't we?" the older woman added, giving each participant a piercing stare before turning on her heel to walk away down the length of the plane.

  "Just what my parents would say during long car rides," Ixchel whispered, her voice filled once again with humor rather than embarrassment. "But they weren't dealing with the same problem at all."

  Chapter 17

  Down in the baggage compartment, Tezcatlipoca smirked as he watched the two lovebirds bond over their separate but similar woes. It hadn't been at all difficult to ignore the little were-jaguar's attempt to tweak Tez's tail, especially once the deity noticed his powers expanding dramatically as his pet humans began conversing both with and about him. In fact, every time the worshipers either said or thought his name, Tezcatlipoca felt his chest swell a little bit larger.

  All it takes is a modicum of mortal belief and I'm nearly good to go.

  Well, not quite good to go. Unfortunately, the god wasn't ready to break all the way free of Yo Pe's annoying little statue just yet. But he could feel himself getting closer to that long-sought-after objective with every god-centered thought from the mortal plane.

  And when Tez was finally free of his watery prison, he'd start his second wind with a healthy helping of revenge. Although—darned short-lived mortals!—Yo Pe himself was no longer around to torment. Still, humans bred like rabbits, so Tezcatlipoca would be able to keep himself busy for years on end tearing apart the backstabber's offspring.

  Vengeance was a juicy thought topic, but the god had to keep his priorities straight. First—find his way back into the real world. Second—wreak havoc on that world once he was able to walk on his own two feet.

  So it was probably time to look in on his worshipers once again.

  Gee, were they still kissing? Bored with the view, Tezcatlipoca expanded out his awareness and was thrilled to realize that he could slip into the minds of each person riding in the airplane. It was almost like old times—focus on the spark then slide right in beside the mortal's consciousness to bend the weak human mind to his will.

  And he found subtlety becoming easier again as his strength returned as well. The wind god prompted one little boy to pick his nose and eat the booger just to try his hand at something a little more complicated. That was fun! Especially when the mother noticed and slapped the kid's wrist.

  Although, given the current state of humanity, who knew whether the boy would have consumed the snot even without godly tampering.

  I might as well take a minute to start setting up the resolution of these so-called wishes, Tez decided next. Because, as much as the deity would like to think that he wasn't bound by any earthly rules, breaking promises to worshipers tended to sap his strength like nobody's business.

  Which isn't to say I have to give them exactly what they expect. As long as I stick to the letter of my vow, I can instead present these humans with what they truly deserve....

  Never one to mess around with difficult tasks when he could lazily get by with something simple, Tez turned his attention to the male worshiper first. Finn's yearning for were-jaguar companionship would be easy to relieve since Tezcatlipoca had a pretty good idea where one feline shifter was located at the moment. Plus, the story Tez had just overheard hinted about the identity of another.

  With no worshiper touching his prison, the god wasn't able to set his spirit entirely free to roam in search of other shifters as he would have liked. But his suspicions were enough to arrow Tez's attention in on two regions of the world. And, sure enough, the brighter-than-mere-mortal spark of potential worshipers showed up on the god's internal radar in short order.

  Finn would give his eye teeth to meet this first one, Tezcatlipoca thought as he slipped inside a were-jaguar's mind. So we'll ignore it for the moment and move on to the other.

  There were few things more enjoyable than playing cat and mouse with human prey. Reel them in with promises of glorious dreams, then slap them in the face with the wet fish of reality. And this second were-jaguar was definitely the wet fish of the shifter world.

  So I'll just ease into this particular brain a wee bit and discover what kind of compulsion I can implant from a distance....

  Ah, message received. Tez smiled and allowed his tether to drag him back into the watery prison. His cell wasn't so bad now that he had the energy to create a deep plush couch and a drink cabinet atop the ever-expanding rock that had risen up out of the sea. Now, how about a big screen TV...?

  Still, the deity's mood wasn't good enough to allow his worshipers too much leeway. I think those pet humans have been making out long enough. Slipping into the flight attendant's mind, the deity laughed aloud as he tweaked the woman's thoughts to create a little simple mayhem.

  Gotta keep my lackeys guessing....

  Chapter 18

  "I won't be able to sleep until we land," Ixchel said once the school-marm-like stewardess was out of sight. "So I guess I might as well live up to my promise and tel
l you about my family. Unless you want to take a nap instead?"

  Strange how much easier it was to kiss a complete stranger in a public place than to spill this story that had gone unspoken for the last decade. Not that Finn feels like a stranger, Ixchel thought, one hand unconsciously rising to brush against her lips. The organs in question felt swollen and appeared to be full of twice as many nerve endings as usual, so the vet couldn't resist letting those same lips curl up into a self-satisfied smile. I feel like the cat who drank the cream....

  "I'd far rather listen to you talk than sleep," Finn murmured, his voice barely reaching her ears. In response, the vet shivered with some strange combination of desperate desire...and fear of what the man beside her would think when he knew her darkest secret.

  The shifter in question responded by removing the stewardess's blanket from his own body and draping it around Ixchel's form instead. She was sure the gesture had been meant to ease physical cold, but it succeeded just as well at warming the cockles of her heart and giving her the courage to spill her secrets.

  "Well, I guess I should start at the beginning," the vet said into the silence and darkness when Finn didn't offer another topic of conversation to let her off the hook. It was easy to fall into a story-telling rhythm when she could barely make out the shape of her listener, allowing Ixchel to imagine that she was merely soothing her niece and nephew to sleep with a fairytale about some other Latina lass. Divorcing the action from herself, at least in her own mind, made the act of sharing a little more palatable.

  "My parents both emigrated from Mexico when they were in their late teens," she started, beginning the story years before she was born. "But they wanted us kids to be completely American. So we didn't speak Spanish at home, even though Mamá's English was never very good.

  "But I spent a lot of time at my father's sister Maria's house, and she didn't know any English at all. Which is how I came to grow up learning not only English, but Spanish as well. And also the indio tongue that Maria and her husband spoke at home."

  Ixchel paused, waiting for some acknowledgement from her seat mate. But he remained motionless, and the expectant silence somehow made it easier for her to go on.

  "I guess that's not really relevant," the vet continued. "Except that Maria adhered to the old ways. She's the one who first told me that my brothers were going down a dark path, only she ascribed their actions to being tempted by the devil. I was a freshman in high school then, and my oldest brother Fernando had already married and become a father of twins. But once my aunt clued me in, I couldn't help noticing how Fernando and my other brothers went out together most nights and then came home with bloody noses and also with possessions that they shouldn't have been able to afford. Things like fancy tennis shoes and mp3 players, which I later realized they were stealing from other kids or straight from the stores.

  "As you guessed, I was a pesky little sister. But I loved my brothers. My mother was a nurse, and I'd always helped her doctor up everyone's boo-boos as a child. So when José came to me with a bullet wound one night, I did my best to clean him up. But I also lit into him like a rooster chasing a fox out of the henhouse.

  "Of course, José didn't listen to me. None of them did. Years passed and they kept getting deeper and deeper into trouble. There were more bullet wounds and knife wounds and fist wounds than I care to remember, and the loot they brought home turned into drugs and cold, hard cash. And still each of my five brothers blew me off every time I begged him to find a different way to make a living.

  "So I turned sneaky. I started keeping a notebook to record my brothers' comings and goings, what they brought home, which events in the newspaper the next day seemed to be relevant to their secret lives. I threatened to turn my brothers in to the cops, figuring self-preservation would do what pleas had not.

  "But they laughed at me. All five of my brothers knew that it would break Mamá's and Papá's hearts if they knew that this American life they'd built for their children wasn't as perfect as it appeared. And I could never make myself do something that would hurt our parents, even when I knew the choice was the only solution to my brothers' dangerous behavior.

  "So I bided my time for years, until I was getting ready to graduate from high school. In retrospect, I should've talked to someone much sooner, to some adult. But Maria had moved back to Mexico after her husband died—she didn't have any children. And my parents were always working so hard to keep food on the table that I didn't want to bother them with my worries. Plus, I didn't trust my teachers, who looked at me funny because my skin was a different color than their own. Really, I can't think of anyone now who I might have confided in, even if I hadn't been a stupid teenager."

  A tiny sound from beside her reminded Ixchel that she had an audience, and she suddenly felt unable to go on. The pain in her stomach that seemed to rise up every time she thought about her family was worse than ever now, and the vet pressed one hand against her cloth-clad skin even though she knew it would do nothing to ease the psychosomatic ache.

  Still without speaking, Finn reached over to surreptitiously slide his fingers beneath the blanket and Ixchel's blouse before coming to a stop over her belly. The vet expected her companion's touch to feel sexual, to return her to the heightened emotions of their kiss. But, instead, the gesture merely reminded her of a cat lying down on a troubled human's lap, settling her nerves without the need for words.

  "Anyway, it all came to a head on the evening of my eighteenth birthday," she continued, her voice little more than a whisper. "We had a party—my parents and me and my brothers. And, afterwards, Fernando begged me to come home with him and babysit his twins so he and his wife could go out to a nightclub. Childcare was a pretty regular task for me, and since my birthday didn't land on a school night, Mamá said I should just sleep over at my brother's place and come home in the morning.

  "But when I woke up, Fernando wasn't there and his wife looked grim. Before Rita could stop me, I rushed down the two blocks to the apartment that my brothers (minus Fernando) and I all shared with my parents...and that's when I found Mamá dead on the floor of the living room. Papá was lying in a pool of his own blood halfway to the kitchen, where he'd probably been trying to reach a phone to call the police. Neither of them were breathing when I tiptoed through the gore to their sides.

  "When I was able to stand up, I saw that the windows were shattered from a drive-by shooting and my parents' blood splatter was drying on the walls. I was in shock, but I was still able to realize that my parents' death had been retaliation by my brothers' enemies in response to their crimes. And the absence of my siblings from the scene of this current bloodbath proved that my siblings planned to revenge our parents' murder in their own violent way. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

  "So I did what I'd been scheming about for the last four years. I called the cops. And when the first cruiser arrived, I handed over the notebook that spelled out my brothers' criminal activities in painstaking detail. The police hunted all five of my siblings down and arrested them that very day.

  "I left town before my brothers got out of jail," she finished. "I haven't seen them since."

  Ixchel realized at last that Finn's hand was making soothing circles across the skin of her stomach as she spoke. And, miraculously, her bellyache wasn't as profound as it had been the few other times the vet had allowed herself to recall the events of her eighteenth birthday in such vivid detail.

  Still, she waited on tenterhooks to see what her companion would make of her betrayal. Because betrayal it had been. Ixchel had turned her back on her own brothers, had run her parents' good name through the mud even as the elder Morenos were being laid in their graves. She'd never forgiven herself for her own lack of honor, so she couldn't see how anyone else could forgive her either.

  But the shifter didn't offer any harsh words. Instead, he simply said: "You miss them."

  The rumble of Finn's voice felt like the gentle hum of a fan lulling Ixchel to sleep, and she
felt the final pang in her stomach ease just a little bit more.

  "I do," she admitted. "But my brothers wouldn't want to talk to me now. So Tezzie's going to have to work a miracle if he thinks he can reunite me with my family once we break him free."

  "That's what our slippery little god promised while I had my hand off the statue?"

  "Yeah," Ixchel admitted.

  "Then that's what he'll do," Finn concluded, a hint of steel underlying his soothing voice. "I'll make sure of it."

  Chapter 19

  She'd fallen asleep on his shoulder, and it was all Finn could do not to shift into jaguar form and curl his body protectively around hers. And that would certainly get the stewardess's panties in a twist, the shifter thought with wry amusement.

  Instead of causing an international incident, Finn settled for gently stroking his companion's hair and replaying the preceding conversation over and over again in his mind. The inevitable conclusion was as simple as it was profound—he and Ixchel were friends.

  It shouldn't have come as a startling realization, but the vet was the first human around whom Finn had allowed himself to let down his guard in...well...ever. And Ixchel had responded by sharing the details of her own checkered past, even though she clearly expected to be judged lacking in the process.

  Although why I'd think less of her when she didn't do anything wrong is beyond me.

  But Finn would be the first one to admit that families were confusing. So it was no surprise that Ixchel's troubled brothers and murdered parents had left the vet feeling regretful even though the teenaged version of Ixchel had done the best she could with the few tools she'd had on hand.

  The next time she faces her brothers, I'll be by her side, Finn resolved. And if those bastards didn't man up and apologize to their sister for being arrogant assholes, then the shifter would make their lives a living hell until they did the right thing.