Secret Shifters 0f Spokane Complete Series Bks 1-4

by Selena Scott

  Ivy didn’t particularly see the point in arguing any further. Even if her brain was telling her to. Old habit at this point. Don’t get too close to anyone. Don’t share Linc with anyone. Keep to yourself.

  And then Maxim had come along and blown that right out of the water. Ivy frowned at the thought of him. Refused to wonder what he was doing right now. No. She’d wanted the stupid space from him so she was gonna stupid appreciate it.

  She stepped into the kitchen.

  “Can I help with anything?” she asked, swiping a chopped carrot stick from a cutting board and crossing the kitchen toward AJ.

  She’d been in Katya’s house a time or two before, so she knew her way around relatively well.

  “Nah, we’re almost done here. Hey, come look!” AJ hissed over her shoulder, peering out the kitchen window toward the backyard.

  “Whoa,” Ivy muttered as she watched two full-grown tigers and a grizzly bear saunter out of the woods together. One of the tigers gamboled out front, her sun-bright, copper hair throwing the evening light around like a prism. “Is that Glory?”

  “Yeah. And the tiger in the back is her mom, Serena. She’s still getting used to all of us.”

  Ivy squinted at the bear who was heading up the rear. Gigantic, almost as big as Maxim’s bear form, but his fur was a little darker. And he looked more dangerous. Like a bear on the edge. “So, that must be Emin, then?”

  “No,” AJ replied quickly. “That’s Anton. He and Glory are friends. They spend a lot of time in their animal forms together.”

  Ivy caught just a hint of raspberry blush spreading over AJ’s cheekbones before the other woman turned away and leaned over the stove to test the sauce. Hm.

  AJ cleared her throat. “Both Glory and Anton have had… experience with Navuka. So I think it bonded them right away. They’re almost like brother and sister.”

  “Can any man be like a brother to a woman who looks like that?” Ivy asked philosophically as she watched Glory shift into her human form. Her hair was a river of copper fire down her back as she strode naked across the lawn, curvy and confident. She pulled on a sundress that she’d lain over the steps of the deck. Anton and Serena were a bit more discreet in their shifts and the subsequent clothing.

  When Ivy looked back it was to see a very strange look crossing AJ’s face. “Anton would never do that to Emin. Make a move on Glory.”

  “Oh!” Crap. “I didn’t mean that. Really. It was more a comment on Glory’s beauty than on Anton. I didn’t mean that he’d make a move on her.”

  AJ was quiet for a moment while she strained the pasta into a colander at the bottom of the sink. “I know. I’m sorry. Sometimes people think the worst about Anton and I guess I don’t like it because he’s been through a lot and…”

  And you’re in love with him. Ivy filled in the rest in her head. “Sure. I get that. Hopefully I’ll be able to get the foot out of my mouth by the time dinner’s ready.”

  AJ tossed her a quick smile over her shoulder and Ivy considered herself forgiven. “Will you grab some plates and forks from that cabinet? I think we’ll eat outside on the deck. There’s, let’s see, eight of us including you and Linc.”

  Ivy involuntarily did the quick math in her head. “Eight? Are we expecting someone else?” She refused to acknowledge the leap in her gut.

  “Yeah, my dad’s gonna be here any second.”

  She also refused to acknowledge the sinking in her gut. If she wanted to see Maxim so badly, she could just call him already. But she’d wanted the space.

  Space, meet Ivy. Ivy, meet space.

  Ivy fixed her face and went to set the picnic table out back, greeting the others and meeting Serena for the first time. She was lovely, with a face just like Glory’s and long, black hair, just lightly streaked with few gossamer strands of silver here and there.

  A few minutes later, Linc rocketed out onto the deck, wearing nothing but a big t-shirt and a smile.

  Danil and AJ followed a second after, balancing the pots of food.

  “That is my shirt, boy,” Anton said, glowering over at Linc. Ivy tried not to stiffen at the cold tone in his voice.

  “Danil said I could wear it,” Linc said, shifting from one foot to the other. “I was all wet.”

  Anton shifted where he sat on the picnic table bench and looked down at the boy through hooded eyes. “Fine. But you must pay toll to wear my shirt.”

  “How much?” Linc was obviously a little nervous, but he hadn’t come to stand behind Ivy yet which meant that he was still feeling a little brave.

  Anton considered, squinting his eyes and sucking his teeth. “For you to make my favorite shirt stinky? The price is two armpits.”

  A grin spread across Linc’s face now. He knew the game, they’d obviously played it together sometime during bear lessons.

  A little twinkle in his eye now, Linc danced over to Anton and stood just out of arm’s reach. He slowly, slowly lifted one arm and then the other.

  “Two armpits,” he crowed, wiggling his little booty.

  Like lightning, Anton lunged forward, tickling the crap out of those two exposed armpits. Linc screamed with laughter, wiggling and trying halfheartedly to get away.

  Ivy lowered herself onto one of the picnic benches. Her son was out here really playing with these people. Really bonding with them. Even the dark and broody Anton, who was currently pretending that his fingers had gotten stuck in Linc’s armpits. Ivy felt an icy finger of some unnamed emotion race down her spine. She shivered, but it wasn’t a bad feeling. She thought, amazingly enough, it might be relief.

  Unbeknownst to either of them, AJ’s pose mirrored Ivy’s. She’d lowered herself down the second Anton had begun playing with Linc. In the entire decade that AJ had known Anton, she’d never seen him play with a kid before. She knew that this was something that happened in rom-coms. Where a girl sees a guy being sweet with a kid and gets the warm and fuzzies. But damn. The warm and fuzzies were real assholes right now. In fact they were threatening to choke her out.

  AJ took a deep breath. Not now. This was not the time. She had to keep it together.

  “Hey, Brett,” Danil said and the group looked up to see AJ’s dad shuffle out onto the porch, just finishing up the last button of his shirt. Medium height, but plenty muscular, he’d been a trucker for most of his adult life, though he’d been working on a construction crew now that he’d decided on a more sedentary lifestyle in Spokane.

  “Hey, y’all,” he said, leaning down to kiss his daughter on the top of her head. His gaze slid over the group, stuttering just a little when it landed on Serena.

  AJ took another deep breath. That was something that she’d noticed a month or two ago. Her dad getting a shine for Glory’s mom. And just a few days ago, her dad had finally admitted it to her. Told her that he wanted to do something about it. But only if it was okay with AJ.

  It had been an uncomfortable moment for her. She didn’t want to see her dad alone, it had been damn near fifteen years since AJ’s mom had died. But still. Dating. She didn’t want anything to mess up her relationship with the Malashoviks. And adding dating into the mix was sure to make things more complicated.

  But in the end, she’d given her blessing. And now, she realized, swallowing with a dry throat, her father was really taking that blessing to heart. He’d gotten a haircut, she noticed as he sat next to Serena.

  “Evening, Serena,” Brett said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a little sprig of rosemary that he’d wrapped a colored string around. “Saw that in AJ’s garden and thought of you.”

  Serena took it, her brow furrowing a little. “You thought of me?”

  “Yeah,” Brett said, shifting his shoulders against his shirt. He wished everybody would just start eating already. Especially Glory, whose eyes were on him like two full moons on a hot August night. But you couldn’t have it all. And he’d started it, so he might as well finish it. “It’s, ah, elegant-looking. And smells real good. Like you.” />
  Serena flushed, but she ducked her head down and sniffed at the rosemary. “It does.” She’d been very reserved since she’d come to live in Spokane a few months ago. She and her bubbly, vivacious daughter had lived alone in their tiger forms for over 25 years. She was still getting used to living amongst people, to clothes, to dinnertimes. She liked it, sure. But it was a lot to acclimate to.

  The Malashoviks were very good people. Anybody could see that. But they were also very loud. And sometimes Serena would retreat to her guest room upstairs in Katya’s house just to listen to the echoing silence of the top floor.

  Brett, however, wasn’t loud. He was a very quiet man. And she liked the way his shoulders looked in his shirt. And the first time he’d ever seen her in her tiger form, he’d teared up. He’d said he’d never seen anything more majestic, and that he’d been to the Grand Canyon, so that was really saying something.

  Serena had never really dated anyone. Glory’s father had been before they’d retreated into the wilderness. And he’d been more of a flirtation capped off with some really lovely touching. So she’d never before experienced the slow, rolling thrill of seeing someone day after day, starting to look forward to something silly, like the way he held a coffee cup. Which was the first thing she’d liked about Brett. He always had one hand clamped over the top of the mug, sneaking sips from between his thumb and pointer finger. She just noticed it, and liked it. And after a while, it started to make her stomach jump a little to see him do it.

  So it was that she thought of, his hands and how they looked doing stuff, when Serena handed the sprig of rosemary back to him. His eyes dimmed for a moment, until he realized that she was tucking her hair back, asking him to place the rosemary behind her ear. Which he immediately did, immensely enjoying the silk of her hair against his knuckles.

  “Would you like to take a walk with me after dinner?” Brett asked. “Figure I won’t have to worry about mountain lions if I’ve got a tiger with me.”

  Serena smiled then, small, but genuine. “Alright.”

  Anton lowered the still giggling and squirming Linc onto the bench beside him, feeling like he’d just been kicked in the gut. It was just that easy, huh? Notice a woman, start to get the feels for her, bring her something pretty and ask her on a walk. Just that simple. He scowled into the food he was ladling onto Linc’s plate and then his own.

  He refused to look across the table.

  He refused to check and see how AJ was taking the fact that her father had just made a move on a woman in broad daylight for everyone to see.

  He refused to look up and see if her hair had fallen over one eye again. Or if she was still flushed from the heat of the kitchen.

  He didn’t need to check. He knew that she was. She was always all… peachy after working in the kitchen.

  So instead he just tossed some spaghetti onto his own plate, planted his elbows on the table and didn’t look at anyone for the rest of the meal.

  Rosemary from the garden and a walk after dinner. Just that simple. For everyone except for him. The tortured, experimented-on bear shifter freak. The weapon. More dangerous than anyone at this table could imagine. Even his brothers. Because after they’d rescued him from the Navuka lab in Belarus, after they’d all fled to America, he’d kept it quiet and inside. What they’d made of him. He’d never shown a soul. He scowled as the smell of rosemary drifted over to him.

  The monster that Navuka had made him would live inside him forever, dormant and dangerous.

  Till death do us part, Anton thought perversely.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “So, did you turn into a bear today?” Ivy asked her son, who was currently starting to nod off in the back seat of their new car.

  “No,” he said sleepily. “Not today.”

  “So nobody did bear training with you?”

  “Ilya and Maxim did,” Linc said, his eyes watching the lampposts fling past. “This morning. But then Maxim had to go to work.”

  Oh. He was at work. She knew his sick leave was ending. She just didn’t realize that it was today. That he was probably at the firehouse. Or, she realized with a sick little twist in her gut, that he could be out on a call. Responding to an emergency. Another car accident, or somebody with a heart attack. Or a fire. She gulped.

  “Maxim said we should come see him at work,” Linc said, rubbing at his eyes. “And that I can come even if you don’t.”

  Ivy frowned at the road in front of her. “Why wouldn’t I come?”

  Linc yawned big and long. “He says you’re still pretending not to like him as much as you really do. So you’ll probably not come to the firehouse. Even though you want to.”

  “He said what?!” Rage made Ivy’s night vision weirdly tunneled for a second as she steered her car into the driveway of her little rental house. She was so fired up she didn’t even notice the other car parked there.

  “I don’t know, Mama,” Linc grumbled as he started to lose the battle against his heavy eyelids. Sometimes it seemed like everybody wanted something from him. Some people wanted him to turn into a bear. Some people wanted him to turn back into a boy. His mama wanted him to finish his dinner and say thank you and ask before he got up from the table. And pretty soon he was gonna have to go to kindergarten and get a whole new set of people wanting him to do things. He sighed deeply and by the end of it, the lights in front of his eyes had gotten syrupy, swimming with the first touches of sleep. He barely registered the hands under his armpits lifting him out of the car.

  But he did register his mother’s scream.

  Linc sat straight up, his eyes wide and trying to focus.

  “Maxim! Jesus Christ in heaven you scared the ever-loving shit out of me!”

  Ivy held one hand over her chest and one hand on Maxim’s bicep as the man finished pulling Linc out of the car.

  “It is okay, little bear,” Maxim murmured to Linc and pushed the boy’s head down to his shoulder. Surrounded in Maxim’s now familiar scent, Linc let the echoes of his mother’s shock vibrate off into the night. He had better things to do. Like snuggle into this guy’s neck.

  “I did not mean to frighten you,” Maxim said to Ivy over the top of Linc’s head as he started walking toward her house. “I thought you must see my truck parked there.”

  “I - I didn’t notice it. I was distracted,” Ivy said. And then she remembered why she’d been distracted and frowned. “Because my son was busy telling me that you told him that I’m pretending not to like you as much as I do.”

  She unlocked the door for him and he automatically kicked off his shoes as he headed for Linc’s bedroom. Maxim held up one finger to her and disappeared down the dim hallway.

  Ivy watched them go, pretending it didn’t make her stomach do all kinds of conga to watch this huge, sweet man take her boy off for bedtime.

  She needed something to keep herself busy. Or else she was liable to fly off the handle here. She was on edge, halfway between giddy and pissed, and she needed to do some major yoga breathing.

  Flinging open her fridge, Ivy popped the tops off two beers, took a swig of one and considered the rest of her fridge contents. He probably hadn’t had any dinner and she had all these sandwich fixings, so what was she gonna do? Let him starve?

  She slapped the sandwich together. And maybe she was a little rough with the bread, and the turkey was on there crooked. But maybe she also hadn’t needed to use the nice mustard. Or cut up some lettuce and tomato. Or add the carrots and chips on the side.

  As she listened to Maxim gently close Linc’s door, Ivy surveyed the dinner she’d just put together for this man. It was messy, looked a little funny, and was full of extra effort. God.

  It was her life. In sandwich form.

  He stepped into the kitchen and she slammed the plate and the beer in his hands. “It’s too hot to eat inside,” she snapped and slid open the sliding door with, perhaps, more force than necessary.

  Maxim followed her outside, his mouth set, his face gi
ving away nothing.

  “Boy wants you to know he heard you swear in the driveway. You said ‘shit’.”

  “I know what I said,” Ivy glared at him over her beer.

  Maxim tilted his head to one side and chomped on a carrot stick. “I take it you are not sure if you are angry with yourself or with me, no?”

  Ivy forced herself to swallow. “So, what? You just know everything about me?”

  He worked his way through the chips. “No. Because you don’t let me. But I know a few things.”

  “Like how I apparently am pretending not to like you?”

  “You are mad because I said it to Linc or you are mad because I was right?”

  Why did he keep doing that? It was driving her insane. Ivy crossed her legs, one over the other, and was very much obliged to see Maxim’s eyes instantly fall there. Okay. The universe still made sense. “I’m not pretending not to like you, Maxim.”

  “Oh?”

  She leaned her head back on the deck chair and stared up at the jewelry box of the night sky. “Yeah. I’m trying my hardest not to like you. And it’s not really working.”

  “You don’t want to like me. But you make me a sandwich.”

  “Exactly.” She pointed a finger at him and sat back up straight. “I have no idea what I’m doing here. I should be picking Linc up and dropping him off and tipping my hat to you in the meantime. My life doesn’t have room for you. Me and Linc have been just fine alone. And then all of a sudden you’re here smelling all good, and sexing me to within an inch of my life, and tucking Linc into bed, with your great family, and your wide-ass shoulders, and I just - God - made you a fucking sandwich.”

  Her eyes filled with frustrated tears. Which was ridiculous. Because she didn’t even know why she was crying.

  “This doesn’t have to be so hard,” Maxim said before taking a big bite. “Good sandwich.”

  She looked up at him. “You didn’t call.”

  Ah, he realized, now they were circling the truth of her mood. The real reason. “When?”

  “Yesterday or the day before.”