by Selena Scott
“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 swirling 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?”
Tre, who’d seen pictures of Peter Clifton online, nodded tersely. He was the squarest little J. Crew model ever to walk the streets of Boston. Never a hair out of place.
“Right,” Celia continued. “So, she’s not gonna care about a neat little haircut. If you really wanna catch her eye, you’re gonna have to do something to, you know, delight her.”
Tre cocked his head to one side. “She does love to be delighted.”
“Right.”
“Goddammit.” Tre pinched the bridge of his nose. “Alright. What are you thinking?”
***
Tre had literally sprinted out into the field of wildflowers that had overgrown the southeast corner of Thea’s land. He figured he had fifteen minutes or so before Caroline was up for the day. He’d picked every flower that had made him think of her and that meant that he’d sprinted back into the house with the sunniest, most colorful armful of flowers ever known to mankind.
He had just enough time to pass the arrangement off to Thea. “Dunk that in a jar for me,” he’d called to her before he sprinted to the shower. He was in and out in record time. At Celia’s behest, Tre tugged on his royal blue V-neck. Celia had convinced him that Caroline had a thing for his tattoos. So, alright. There was a good amount of chest and chest hair showing. He donned his good jeans and cleaned his glasses again.
He skidded past her door, saw it was still closed, and hightailed it to the kitchen. Thea, goddess that she was, had pulled out all the ingredients he’d need for the cookies Jack had told her Tre was planning on making. Though the flowers looked a little worse for the wear jammed into a mason jar. Oh well.
Tre looked wildly around the kitchen. “Alright. Hair. Flowers. Cookies.”
Caroline’s door opened up down the hall and Tre looked up at the group of friends around the kitchen table.
“Scram!” he whispered and Martine, Jack, Thea, Celia, and Jean Luc all scattered.
Seconds later, Caroline came into the kitchen.
“Morning,” he called over his shoulder to her.
“I’m mad at you,” she told him.
He turned to see her arms crossed over a demure white tank top, a pair of classy trousers covering those legs of hers. She wore a red belt
and her hair in a braid. He resisted the urge to just fall to his knees right there.
“I know,” he told her.
“Where is everyone?” She looked around the kitchen in confusion and Tre realized that she must have taken her time that morning to ensure that the others would be awake and she wouldn’t have to deal with him on her own.
“I don’t know.” He told the half-truth. “Caroline, I deserve your anger. I totally understand why you’re mad at me.”
She finally flipped her gaze at him. Her hands shifted to her hips in an almost comically annoyed pose. “Yeah!”
“But I wanna be really clear about something.” He found that now he’d given himself permission, it was strangely easy to tell her the truth. “I want you. Badly. And not just because you were pulling away from me.”
Her brow furrowed.
“This isn’t a game to me. I don’t have any claim on you. I’m not trying to prove anything to myself. Or to you. I just want you.” He stepped forward, one hand making its way to his chest. “I want you because you’re so sweet you make my mouth water. And I—uh—picked these for you.” He picked up the mason jar of squinched, sunny flowers and put it in her hands. He scraped a hand over the back of his head. “And I’m making you cookies for breakfast.”
She blinked down at the flowers in her hands and then at the mixing bowl and flour and sugar on the counter. “Tre.”
“I’m not trying to manipulate you, Caroline, I swear.” Here came the doozy. The royal bellyflop. No way around it. It was gonna leave a mark. “If you still like Arturo, or you aren’t sure yet how you feel… well, you should keep doing whatever you’re gonna do with him. It’s not that I don’t care. Because I care a lot. But listen. I’m not trying to control you. I don’t want you because you want him. I want you because I want you. And I’ll take whatever part of you I can get. Even if that means sharing you.”
