by Selena Scott
“I’ve been thinking… about your golden energy.”
Martine looked up from her pasta, vaguely surprised that he was talking to her. She was so quiet and so removed at these meals that they rarely directed their conversation toward her. She didn’t blame the mortals, it was all by design.
“Oh?”
Jack fiddled with his food and the brim of his cap. “I understand why you have it, because you’re a born demon hunter, right?”
She carefully considered her answer, very conscious of every set of eyes that had turned to her. Arturo was, of course, looking anywhere but at her, but she knew he was hanging on their every word.
“That’s right. It’s simply the type of creature that I am. My species.”
Jack scraped his hand over his stubbled chin. “But why, then, does Arturo have his blue energy?”
There was a long pause. Arturo took it upon himself to answer. “The blue energy came to me when I sacrificed myself to the demon. The energy and the shifter power. It was all part of sacrificing myself.”
Jack’s eyes lit, like that was the answer he’d expected, but not the one that made sense. “All right. I understand the timing of everything, but why would the demon imbue you with a weapon that could get it killed by you?”
“What?” Tre looked confused.
“I’m asking,” Jack said slowly, “why the hell the demon would give Arturo the gift of this blue energy, when it’s the energy that could kill the demon? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Martine’s brow furrowed as she looked at Jack. She opened her mouth and clapped it closed. The room had turned to her, every set of eyes was on her, waiting for an answer that she wasn’t sure she should give. She’d never meant to go into this with them, though she should have realized that someone would eventually ask. “The demon did not give Arturo his blue energy. I did.”
Arturo’s fork clattered noisily down onto his plate. There were no words.
Thea looked back and forth between Arturo and Martine. “I take it you didn’t know that, cuz?” she asked him after a minute.
“You… gave this to me?” he asked hoarsely, his blue energy appearing at his fingertips.
She nodded slowly, as if she were scared of answering too many questions at once.
“Why?”
“Because you sacrificed yourself to the demon.” She laid down her fork as well. “I saw what was in his heart. He was not going to be merciful and kill you. I could see that he was going to torture you. Keep you alive for centuries. I could see that his goal was to enslave you. I needed to give you something that would keep him at bay, that would protect you from him.”
“Are you saying that things would have been worse for Arturo if you hadn’t given him his energy?” Jean Luc asked quietly.
She nodded eventually. “He would have had none of his spirit left. He would have completely succumbed to the demon. If the demon wanted to possess him, he would have done so completely, with no resistance. If the demon wanted Arturo to do his bidding, Arturo would have down so in the manner of a robot. With no regard for his own feelings. No personality. No—”
“Humanity,” Arturo cut in hoarsely.
Martine nodded. She would have given almost anything to know what he was thinking. Arturo’s eyes were closed, his hands praying against his face. He rose up all at once and she barely recognized him. He looked as if he’d just plugged himself into an electrical socket coursing with emotion. His eyes were wide and shining, his cheeks flushed with color, his lips pursed tightly. He strode around the table and held a hand out to Martine.
She stared at it. Apparently for a moment too long because he reached down and firmly stood her up from the table. She heard the people at the table saying something, but she had no idea what. She was stumbling after Arturo as he marched them out of the kitchen and to the other side of the house. She felt like a kite in a strong wind.
“Arturo!”
But he didn’t slow down. Not until they were in her quiet bedroom, blue with the evening light, her bed a glowing, unholy white.
He sat her on the bed and strode away from her. He went from the windows at one side of the room all the way to the other.
He turned and looked at her sitting on the bed, her hair a strawberry tangle, her eyes wide and confused, her lips pressed so sweetly together. He swore and kept pacing.
“Arturo,” she tried again, but he held up a palm, asking for silence.
When he turned toward her this time, he didn’t stop himself. He walked until he stood before her, and then he simply fell to his knees in front of her. Arturo bowed his head and pressed the heels of his hands into the sockets of his eyes.
“I was saving both of you,” he admitted. “Even then.”
“What?”
He felt the painfully gentle touch of her fingertips through his hair and he winced away from her. He was a live, exposed nerve and he couldn’t possibly be touched by her right then.
He crouched in front of her, his fists now planted on the ground. He spoke his words straight into the floor. “Something about that night has been haunting me, the night the demon took me. There was something there that I never really looked right at. I ignored it for centuries, because I thought it was… cruel to Amelia.”
“What are you getting at?” she asked gently. She was genuinely confused by his words, because the truth behind them never occurred to her. And that was one of the many reasons he was kneeling here before her, why he had done what he did all those hundreds of years ago.
“I sacrificed myself to the demon not just because it was going to save Amelia, but because it was going to save you, too.”
He cocked backward and slotted his eyes against hers. He watched as comprehension dawned over her face. He searched for any emotion other than pure shock, but he read none.
“I knew that when the demon went,” he continued, “you went, too. And I couldn’t take it. I didn’t want the demon to take Amelia’s soul and I didn’t want this earth to exist without you. The only way that I could save both of you was to sacrifice myself for you. For both of you.”
Golden tears gathered in her eyes and tumbled clumsily down her cheeks. “You cared for me? That’s not possible. We barely even spoke. You were so wrapped up in Amelia.”
“I—” He dared to lean forward, to press the palms of his hands to her knees. “It’s hard to explain. But I felt a connection to you. I thought it was horrible, how lonely you were. I thought you were lovely. And interesting. And I just didn’t want you to die.”
Those green eyes of hers dropped down as she nodded. “I felt something for you,” she confessed. “That I didn’t feel about the others.”
He rocked back onto his heels. He felt as if his shirt was too tight around the collar. The room was too dark and too bright all at once. He squinted to see her and wished that she couldn’t see him. He wished for darkness and light all at once. He had no idea that that, more than anything, defined him now. “Really? What do you mean?”
“I suppose the humans would say I had a crush on you.”
“Uh.” Even his snark couldn’t save him from this one. He had literally nothing to say to that.
“Just a small one,” she shrugged.
“But you… never said anything.”
She eyed him, a little charmed by how young he suddenly seemed. She never would have guessed that she had the power to make 400-year-old immortal Arturo blush like a teenager. “Of course not. You were in love with Amelia, and she with you.”
That was certainly true. Arturo had been deeply in love with sweet, kind Amelia. Loving Amelia had been the easiest thing Arturo had ever done. It had been as simple as falling asleep after a long day of work. She’d been small and soft and delightful.
Whereas Martine had always been… separate. She was apart from the group. And ethereal and blindingly beautiful. Like a goddess. In four hundred years, it had never even occurred to Arturo that she had felt anything human for him.
&nb
sp; “Right,” was his brilliant response.
There was silence for a moment. And then he couldn’t help himself. Blame it on the human buried somewhere deep in his heart. “I didn’t even realize you had feelings like that for mortals. You’re so celestial and powerful and, yeah. It’s hard to imagine you feeling that way about someone.”
“I’m different than a human, sure. That’s clear enough in my inability to truly connect with any of you. But I was as susceptible to your charm as any of the women in the group.” She paused for a moment and assessed him almost clinically. “You were funny, and kind, and very handsome. I loved the way you were with Amelia. Passionate and attentive. It was easy to picture myself in her place.”
“You pictured yourself in her place,” he repeated, almost faintly.
“Oh!” Martine said, misinterpreting his tone. “Not in any real way. I mean, I was rooting for the two of you. All I wanted was for you to grow old together. If I could rewrite it, I would never have ended things this way.”
She motioned between them. To the truth between them. That Amelia had been dead for 350 years and Arturo had been just alive enough to suffer. It horrified Martine that Arturo might think that her crush on him had impaired her ability to protect Amelia when she should have. In her worst nightmare, Arturo would imagine that Martine had somehow architected this reality in a bid to be close to him.
But the calm sadness he was emanating didn’t seem to imply that that’s where his thoughts had gone.
“It is what it is,” he said quietly. “We can’t change any of it. To be honest, I wouldn’t change any of it. My time with her. Or now, my time with…”
They were quiet for another long minute until Arturo barked a sort of strained, disbelieving laughter that was so unlike the man he’d become that Martine jumped. “I’m just glad you didn’t tell me about your feelings then.”
“They would have been unwelcome,” she agreed, nodding her head.
“Unwelcome?” That wasn’t the word he would have used to describe it. “Maybe. But really I think my head might have just exploded.” He stood up and strode to the window again. “It seriously never occurred to me that I might have a shot with you. As close to a goddess as I’d ever hoped to encounter.”
He turned back to her and she could almost see the thoughts turning over in his head. It was as if there were a library full of books laid out in his brain and he was putting some of them back on the shelf and opening others to brand new pages.
“You’re the reason I’m a shifter.”
She nodded. “I didn’t know I had the power to gift you with shifting until that moment. I watched your soul begin to be torn away from you and I just… turned you. You became a shifter and I gifted you with your blue energy in that moment. It was the only thing I could think of to keep at least some part of you safe from the demon.”
Arturo absorbed that information, his eyes on her still. “The demon made it seem like he was the one who… Never mind. It doesn’t matter now. I don’t want to talk about him.”
He pulled his shirt off over his head and started stalking toward her.
“I’m changing tactics,” he told her, tossing the shirt aside.
He unbuttoned his jeans and let them hang over his hips. When he was close enough, he gripped her behind the knee and toppled her backwards onto the bed. He started with her shoes, tossing one and then the other; her socks went next and then he was inching her leggings down her legs.
She scrambled up onto her elbows. “What are you doing?” Her voice was more air than sound. Her heart squeezed down so tight on itself that she gasped for air.
“Knowing that you’re going to die when the demon dies has been so unthinkable to me. So ungodly horrible, that I thought the answer was to turn away from you. Deprive myself of you so that I could bear the thought of you blinking out of existence.”
“It’s the way it’s supposed to be,” she murmured to him, her palm coming up to his cheek.
“Maybe. But I’m not doing it that way anymore. That was the demon’s influence talking, keeping us lonely and separate. No. Now, I’m doing it my way.” His hands made their way up her legs to the backs of her knees. He spread her open so only her black underwear and the air separated her from his gaze. “I’m not turning away from you and depriving us both. No.”
He shook his head. “I’m going to drown in you until all this is over. I’m going to give you every bit of happiness and pleasure I can possibly give. I’m not going to push you away, Martine. I’m going to worship you for as long as I possibly can.”
“Sex?” she asked excitedly, scrambling up even further. “I’ve always wanted to have sex.”
He chuckled, low and dark in the back of his throat. “I’ll give you anything you want. I’ll give it to you ten times over.”
“I want sex,” she nodded decidedly.
“All I want is to make you feel good.”
With that, he tugged at her clothes and his clothes. Then they were naked and she had a sheen of gold covering her from head to toe.
He looked down the landscape of her body and felt momentarily overwhelmed. He hadn’t had sex in four hundred years, after all.
“Wings, what’s the best you’ve ever felt? Tell me.”
“Physically?” she asked, cutting her eyes to the side as she attempted to remember. She was apparently completely comfortable being naked in front of him. “It feels good when I shift into pure energy.”
“What does it feel like?” he asked her, not touching her yet.
“It feels tingly and explosive. Can I touch your… that?”
She pointed down at his cock and Arturo took a long breath.
In all of his fantasies about Martine, they just sort of ripped each other’s clothes off and went at it. Full steam ahead.
He’d never dreamed about them lying lengthwise on the bed, close enough to feel one another’s heat but not touching.
“Let’s not touch quite yet,” he finally replied.
“Why?” She paused for a second. “I don’t know how to do this at all, so you’ll have to explain everything.”
Christ.
He took another deep breath and decided there wasn’t enough fresh air on planet Earth to calm him down.
“Have you talked to anyone about sex? Like the other girls?”
She shook her head. “I’ve picked up some things here and there. From movies and from conversations I’ve overheard.” She cocked her head to one side. “I know that we touch and kiss and I get soft and you get hard and then you put that in here.” She pointed to his crotch and then her own.
“Right.” Arturo wished for a cosmic pause button. He desperately wanted to bury his face in the pillow and scream for a minute but he didn’t want to freak her out. “I think first I’ll just kiss you for a little while.”
“On my mouth.”
“And all over your body. Especially between your legs.”
“Oh,” she said, a little note of surprise and delight in her tone. “I didn’t know about that.”
“Yeah. That’s a really fun part.”
“Do I get to kiss you there?”
“You can do anything you want to me.” He answered it fast enough that his words ran together and he fought the urge to roll his eyes at himself. He was acting like a teenager. “But for this time, why don’t we let me kiss you first, okay?”
“Great! I’m ready.” She rolled to her back and closed her eyes.
Arturo wanted to laugh and also to bash his head against a wall. He couldn’t just fall all over her. There was such a thing as a mood and he desperately wanted her to be in one. He wanted to seduce her with more than just touches. He wanted the moment to tornado her away and right into him. He wanted her to want.
It was with that thought in his head that he spoke instead of touched. “Wings, I’m curious, what is it about a man that attracts you?” He leaned forward just enough to let some of her hair sift through his fingers. He still wasn’t use
d to touching her strawberry locks. Her hair was much more slippery than he’d expected it to be. Like spun glass.
“Well, I’m not really attracted to men.” She popped her eyes open.
“Wait.” Welp, it had only taken about twenty seconds to completely derail his verbal seduction plan. He cleared his throat and resisted the temptation to cover his erection with a pillow. “You’re attracted to women, then?”
“Oh. No. I mean, yes. Wait.” She rolled up onto her side again. “I think women and men are equally gorgeous. But the real answer is that there is only one being I’ve ever been attracted to in this way.”
Arturo rolled onto his side to face her. They weren’t more than three inches apart. His dick was up against his stomach and had its own pulse. “You’re talking about me.”
“Of course.” She smiled at him, a sweet smile.
“Wake up, Arturo,” he told himself, slamming his eyes closed and then forcing them open, like that would help him awaken from this insanely good dream he was having where Martine was naked and hot for him.
She laughed. “You’re not dreaming. I’m being serious.” She inched forward a few centimeters but seemed to pick up on how fun it was to not touch quite yet. She was helping spin the anticipation out and he half cursed himself for teaching her this game. “What was it you asked? What do I find attractive about you? I like your shoulders. They’re very… bossy. And your dark eyebrows. They’re always so irritated. I like the way you eat food. Like you couldn’t care less about it. Each bite is like you’ve just remembered you have food on your plate. I like the way you shift into your bear form. Somehow you’re kind of snake-like. It’s a sneaky, natural shift, not like the other men who have to work at it.”
She dropped her eyes to the bedspread and then back up to him. “I like the way you kiss me. Like I’m a flower and you’re trying to coax my petals open with your tongue. I like the way your voice gets very rough and low when I’m naked.” She leaned up now, all the way on one hand, and peered down at him. “I like that.” She pointed at his cock, now going an angry red and straining for her. He was glossy at the tip with desire. “I look at it and a strange rhythm starts up deep inside me. It’s like when I was sitting on you and my hips were going back and forth. You make my whole body want to do that.”