Wildfire Shifters: Collection 1

by Zoe Chant

  “Any time I was not on duty, I spent training,” she said defensively. “A knight must be continually striving to improve herself, resisting all temptations that might distract from duty. Swimming would be mere indulgence. Lord Azure commanded me to practice discipline in such matters.”

  “Discipline, my ass. That bullying, bigoted little—” Joe stopped himself, drawing in a deep breath and commanding his dragon to settle. “Seven, at some point we need to have a serious conversation about your Lord Azure, but not until my mom is present to hear every word. Stand up.”

  Reflexive obedience made her rise, though once she was on her feet she hesitated, looking suspicious. “Why?”

  “Because you are going to indulge yourself. And me.”

  Her eyes narrowed—and then flew open as he pulled his shirt over his head. “What are you doing?”

  “Undressing,” he said, from within his shirt. He emerged from the garment, tossing it to the ground. “Because we are going for a swim.”

  “Now?” Her voice shot up. “Together?”

  “Yep.” He kicked off his shoes. “Because you are wound up so tight, I’m scared to make a sudden noise in case you fire yourself clear over the horizon. And it’s no wonder, if you haven’t shifted for so long. You are going for a dip if I have to throw you into this lake.”

  She eyed the placid water as though it was boiling lava. “It’s freshwater. I’m a Great White. If I shift in there, I’ll suffocate.”

  “Just trust me.” He undid his belt. Seven made a very gratifying, wordless noise, and spun abruptly on her heel to put her back to him. “Now are you going to take that armor off, or am I going to have to shuck you out of it like a lobster?”

  She cast him a searing glare over a shoulder, but reached for a buckle. With a few deft motions, a piece of her armor—it probably had some kind of fancy name, but he had no idea what—came free. The curved leather plate fell to the ground with a thump, exposing the elegant line of her shoulder-blade.

  Now he was the one who had to fix his gaze elsewhere. He occupied himself with pulling off his socks, trying to ignore the soft rustles and thuds from behind him. His imagination, however, insisted on filling in every detail. That was the slight sound of her bending to unlace her leg guards, showing off the high, tight curve of her backside…and now the sensuous sigh of leather through a buckle, freeing her breasts…

  He abruptly reconsidered his plan to strip down to his boxers. Swimming in wet denim was hard, but not as hard as what was going on underneath his jeans.

  “There.” Seven moved back into sight again, arms folded defiantly across her chest. She was down to nothing but a white sports bra and boy shorts that clung to her muscled body. “Satisfied?”

  Satisfied was the exact opposite of what he felt at that instant. He could only stare at her, his entire body on fire.

  Her tongue darted out, moistening her lips. It was all he could do not to ravish her on the spot. “Well? Are we swimming or not?”

  “Guh,” he managed to get out, eloquently. “No. I mean yes! Water. Great idea. Yep.”

  He stumbled into the shallows. It was a miracle the entire lake didn’t instantly turn to steam. The summer-warm waters did absolutely nothing to counteract the effect Seven was having on him. Then again, arctic waters wouldn’t have been able to do that.

  He waded out into the lake, kicking off from the bottom as soon the water was deep enough. Seven followed, considerably more gracefully. She barely seemed to need to flick a finger to stay afloat. Her pale body cut through the water without a single ripple. He was no slouch at swimming—he was practically amphibious, having been raised as much in the sea as on land—yet he felt like a dog thrashing along next to an otter.

  He grinned to himself. Hah. I was right. She is way more awesome than me in the water. At everything, really.

  Now if only he could convince her of that.

  When he judged that they were far enough out from the shore, he rolled to float on his back. Seven hovered at his side, holding herself in position with slight, distractingly erotic undulations of her legs. Water darkened her hair from silver to pewter. Her mouth was still set and stubborn, but some of the tightness had eased from around her eyes.

  “Hmph.” She rolled to copy his posture, drifting on her back next to him. “I hate to admit it, but you were right. I needed this.”

  “I can make it better.” He caught her hand, drawing her closer. “Come here. I’m not sure how far this will work.”

  Trying his best to ignore Seven’s bare, slick skin against his, he closed his eyes. He hadn’t done this since childhood, but he could still remember his mother’s voice, her arms around him…

  We are the Heart of the Sea, she’d whispered in his ear. Where we are, so is the ocean. We are connected to the water and the waves, always, no matter how far we may go. Remember, my love. Wherever you are, you are always home.

  Seven’s gasp made him open his eyes again. She brought her fingers to her lips and then stared at him in wonder.

  “Salt,” she whispered. “Salt water.”

  “It’s an Imperial bloodline thing,” he managed to get out, past the roar of the waves crashing through his blood. It was like holding up a seashell to your ear to hear the sound of the ocean, except he was the seashell. “Heart of the Sea. We don’t sit on the Pearl Throne just because we’ve got a big treasury and a bigger army, you know. The spirit of the ocean kinda follows me around like a needy puppy. Mostly I just ignore it, but I can make it do a party trick or two.”

  The moon reflected in her wide eyes. “This is more than a mere trick, Joe.”

  He shrugged as best he could while floating. “Hey, you should see what my mom can do. She’s the actual Heart of the Sea. I’m just her understudy. Anyway, she taught me how to do this when I was little. My parents insisted that I went to a human school, which meant living on land for most of the year. I was horribly homesick for Atlantis.”

  Seven cast him a perplexed look. “But from what I’ve heard, you hardly ever go to Atlantis now. You haven’t been seen in the city for years.”

  “Yeah, well.” He flicked a few drops of water at her. “I had my reasons for avoiding the place.”

  She gazed at him for a moment, eyes darkening. “And not only because you knew I was there.”

  She always saw right through him. “That was a big part of it, but yeah. Not all. Anyway, my mom taught me that the ocean was always with me, so I never needed to be homesick. Never tried to do this on anything bigger than a bathtub, though. How far out does it go?”

  Seven dove fluidly underneath him, her back brushing his. Even when she moved further away, exploring the limits of his power, somehow he could still feel her. It was as though she swam through him, not the water. His awareness caressed every curve and angle of her body, from her parted lips to her spread toes. It was simultaneously the most erotic thing he’d ever experienced, and also the most disconcerting.

  “About ten feet in all directions,” Seven reported, resurfacing. “Centered on you. It’s bizarre. It’s like there’s an invisible bubble holding the seawater in. It doesn’t mix with the freshwater at all.”

  “Just as well, since I really don’t want to poison all the poor innocent fish in this lake.” He rolled over to face her, treading water. “They’re going to be startled enough by having a shark in their midst. Promise you won’t eat any of them, okay?”

  The awe on Seven’s face was abruptly snuffed out, replaced by something he couldn’t read. “You want me to shift.”

  “That was kinda the whole point of this, yeah.” He spoke through gritted teeth, trying to ignore the siren song of the sea. It was getting louder, more insistent, calling to him with every beat of his heart. Hungry currents curled around his ankles, trying to tug him down into the lightless depths. “And if you could hurry up, that would be awesome. This isn’t entirely comfortable for me.”

  She hung motionless in the water. There was a kind of hungry lon
ging in her face, like a dieter eying up a dessert cart. For an instant, he could see her waver, tempted.

  Then she shook her head. “No. I can see that doing this is stressful for you. I’m touched by the effort, but there’s no need. I am perfectly fine now.”

  “Seven—”

  “I said no!” She kicked her feet, propelling herself out of his circle of sea in one savage motion. “Stop it, Joe! I don’t want to shift, not ever! Stop trying to make me!”

  No, his dragon said in his soul. Dive deeper. Wrap her in the ocean, in the heart of the sea. This is who she is, no matter how she denies her soul.

  The ocean’s tides pounded through his mind, drowning out all other thought. He clung to his human self like a bit of flotsam, fighting not to be swept away entirely.

  But this is who we are, his dragon whispered, through the roar of the waves. Why do you both resist your natures?

  With an effort, he walled himself off from the sea’s insistent pull once more. His awareness shrank back to his own senses.

  “It’s okay.” Even without tasting it, he knew that the water lapping against his chin was merely the lake once more. “It’s gone now. I’m sorry. I won’t pressure you about shifting again.”

  Seven edged back toward him, as cautiously as if expecting a whirlpool to open up beneath her at any moment. “Promise?”

  “I promise.” He stretched out, floating spread-eagled on the surface of the lake. He tipped his head back, gazing into the star-strewn sky. “But I wish that you would tell me why you’re so scared of your shark.”

  She was silent for a long moment. He just drifted, not looking at her. Giving her space.

  Then Seven’s cool, sleek body brushed his side. She rested her head on his shoulder, her smooth legs entwining around his own. He drew her closer, stretching out his free arm to keep them both afloat. They lay together on the lake as if on a bed, ripples rocking them gently.

  “My father,” Seven said, very quietly, “was not a good man.”

  When she didn’t go on, he prompted, “I take it you got your shark side from him.”

  He felt her nod. “I never actually knew him. My mother…worked very hard to ensure that. She only found out what he truly was after I was born.”

  “He didn’t tell her he was a shifter, even when she got pregnant?”

  “No. But that’s not what I mean.” Seven drew in a long, shaking breath. “My mother never wanted to talk about him much. But she isn’t a fool. I think he must have been charming enough while he was wooing her, in an alpha, commanding sort of way. And he was rich—like, private island, luxury-yacht rich. He spun my mother a story about being a hedge fund manager, but really his income came from organized crime.”

  Joe hissed through his teeth. “Lot of sea shifters who don’t like the Pearl Empire end up in that area.”

  “Yes. Especially sharks. My father had a whole crew of renegade shifters, that he hired out to anyone who could pay high enough. The mob, the cartel, pirates…no job was too dirty. When I was a baby, my mom finally found out the truth. She didn’t want any part of it. And when she confronted him, he just laughed at her. Told her she was welcome to leave, that he was tired of her anyway. But that I was staying with him. Because I belonged with my own kind. And then he showed her what he meant.”

  “He shifted?”

  “Partially. Just his head. He turned into a monster, right in front of her eyes.” Seven stopped for a moment, her legs tightening around his. “She was so terrified she fainted. Which saved us both. Because it made my father think she was weak. He locked her in their bedroom, but didn’t bother to assign anyone to watch her. And he left me in there with her, because my crying annoyed him. When my mother woke up, she grabbed me and escaped out a window. She went on the run with nothing more than me and the clothes on her back. My father sent his sharks out to track us down, but my mother managed to evade them all, for years and years. All his money, all his mob power and shifter magic, and he still couldn’t defeat her.”

  He stroked her rigid shoulder with his thumb, a feather-light caress. “Y’know, I’m beginning to realize you don’t get your toughness from your animal.”

  “My mother is the strongest woman you’ll ever meet.” Pride warmed Seven’s voice. “She runs a homeless shelter now, near Boston. She keeps other women and children safe, just like she kept me safe.”

  “She sounds a lot like my mom. Just without a crown. Do you get to visit her much?”

  “Not for a long time. My duties mean I’m rarely free to leave Atlantis. And…” She hesitated, a catch in her voice. “It would hurt my standing in the Order if I asked to visit her. All of the knights are native sea shifters, as are all the other squires. They don’t understand why anyone would want to spend time on land.”

  It didn’t take a genius to guess that there was one knight in particular who disapproved. Joe privately added yet another item to his ever-growing mental list, ‘Reasons to Punch Lord Azure in the Face.’

  “Well, I really want to meet her,” he said. “And I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t go hang out in Boston after fire season finishes.”

  Assuming we both live that long. The thought scuttled across his mind like a cockroach. He stomped on it, hard.

  “I’d like that,” Seven said softly. “I think the two of you would get on well together. You’re both alike, in some ways. Always able to smile, no matter what else is going on. Even when she was bone-tired from working three jobs, even when she was sick and stressed and scared, she could still always make me laugh. She gave me a proper childhood. We never had much, but I never lacked for love.”

  He lifted his head so he could gaze at her profile. “Were you happy?”

  She was silent for a long, long moment, staring up at the full moon. A silvery trail of water gleamed on her cheek. He didn’t think it had come from the lake.

  “No,” she said at last. “And it made me feel like the most ungrateful, awful child in the world. My mother had told me just enough about my father—that he was a bad man, a criminal, and that was why we had to kept running—that I understood how much she’d sacrificed for me. I knew she loved me. But somehow, I always felt like there was something missing. That I was…incomplete. And different from everyone else.”

  “Well, you were.” Then he started, accidentally dunking Seven. “Wait. She didn’t tell you?”

  “That I was a shifter? Of course not.” Seven sounded surprised at his surprise. “She was scared that if she did, I would be foolish enough to want to go to my father. She did everything she could to raise me totally human. She kept me away from the ocean, as far inland as possible. She didn’t even allow me to go to swimming pools. She managed to keep me from shifting until I was twelve.”

  He inhaled lake water, and lost a few moments to undignified spluttering. Seven trod water at his side, calmly, as though she hadn’t just revealed years of appalling trauma.

  Many types of shifter didn’t experience their first change until near puberty…but not sea shifters. Sea dragons, sharks, seals, dolphins…they were all, by necessity, born with the ability to shift. Their animals were fundamentally woven through their souls. They were supposed to shift.

  To grow up being prevented from expressing that side of her soul at all, prevented from even knowing it existed…it was incredible that Seven was even sane.

  “That,” he wheezed, when he could speak again, “is utterly horrible. I get that your mom was scared, and that she had the best of intentions, but couldn’t she see what she was doing to you?”

  Seven stiffened at the implied criticism. She flicked her hands, opening up a few feet of space between them. “She was protecting me. From my inner beast, as much as from my father. As far as she knew, she was stopping me from turning into a monster. In fact, she did. It’s thanks to her that I can pass as human as well as I can.”

  Now he understood her perfect, even teeth. If she’d never shifted before losing her baby teeth, her shark wou
ld have been too weak and repressed to influence the shape of her adult set. Her human smile had been bought by years of pain.

  He’d only seen her shark-teeth, her real teeth, once. He remembered the feel of those sharp, deliciously dangerous points press against his lips. Showing that she was totally in the moment, all control abandoned…

  With all his heart, he longed to awaken that side of Seven again. But insulting her beloved mother wouldn’t help. And he could sympathize with the poor woman’s impossible predicament. Given her first and only exposure to the entire concept of shifters, it was no wonder she’d done everything in her power to stop her daughter from discovering her true nature.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, meaning it. “I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for your mom, as well as for yourself.”

  Seven’s defensive, cold glare softened. She swam back to him again, her hands slipping around his waist. Gently, he enfolded her in his arms. Their legs moved in perfect, effortless unison, keeping their shoulders and heads above water.

  “Tell me what happened when you were twelve,” he murmured in her ear. “How you found out at last.”

  Chapter 24

  Almost, she refused him. The memories of that day—the day—were too powerful, too personal. She’d never shared them with anyone.

  But Joe’s arms were warm and gentle, fingertips resting feather-light on her skin. He held her as though she was some fragile, impossibly precious treasure. Something intricate and delicate, that he was terrified of breaking.

  Did he think her weak, like Lord Azure did? Before, he had always respected her strength, her honor. But now that he knew her past, was that all he saw? A confused, lost little girl?