Shifter's Moon: A Celia Winters Novel Book 3

by Harrison, D. L.

  She smiled her best not psychotic smile and spoke softly, “Good afternoon detectives, can I help you with anything?”

  Jim cleared his throat and spoke, while the older detective, Brett, merely crossed his arms and tried to look stern. She thought it was kind of cute actually, whereas two months ago she’d have been cowed by the tactic. After all, she was the only apex predator in the room.

  “Where were you yesterday, at approximately twelve twenty-three?”

  She frowned, “I’m not sure, I was with some friends at the mall, I think we left around then? What is this about?”

  Brett grunted, “We’ll ask the questions.”

  She raised an eyebrow but held her peace for now.

  Jim asked, “What do you know about the black SUV parked two blocks down?”

  She felt like someone threw ice water over her head.

  “SUV? Why would I know anything about that?”

  Jim smirked, “How about the five men that were in it? Where are they?”

  She shook her head in bafflement, “I’m sorry officer, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She almost flinched at the lie, she still wasn’t very good at suppressing it, and she could feel Silva was very unhappy with it. That said, she couldn’t exactly tell the truth. Sometimes lying was necessary, especially when it came to hiding her world from humans.

  Brett shook his head, “We’re towing it now, and we have no doubt we’ll prove you were in it, and that those five men are missing. It’s interesting, when we reviewed the CCTV footage there seemed to be a problem, but we saw enough to put you at the scene, along with your friends. What’s funny is we wouldn’t have even noticed if it wasn’t for the passing cruiser making note of an accident, and declaring another cruiser was already present. Problem of course was, there was no report filed, and after checking none of our officers were near that location. You won’t get away with it this time.”

  She tried to keep her face neutral as she read between lines. They didn’t see what happened to the shifters because of the glamour, but they no doubt had those five guys running her friends off the road, and then found footage of her and her friends driving off without any indication of what happened to the men, probably from another of the highway cameras further on.

  She almost laughed when it occurred to her maybe the exposure risk had nothing to do with Jake and his pack. She held it back though, she was sure it would sound hysterical.

  “This time? I don’t understand what you mean. I didn’t do anything.”

  Jim shook his head, “Don’t even think about leaving town, you should make it easy on yourself and tell us the truth now. It won’t be long until we have what we need to put you away.”

  She frowned, really annoyed now. Of course, this time they were right, she did participate in their deaths and burial after all.

  “For what?”

  Brett shook his head and signaled it was time to leave, and Jim followed him out. What the hell? She sent a short text to Ed to have him come by, not wanting to put anything incriminating through electronically. This was going to be a pain in the backside, but they should be able to cover it up easily enough. It wouldn’t be the first time Jim and Brett were caused to forget things after all. Only this time there were a lot more people involved. Life was too complicated sometimes, couldn’t she have one major thing happen at a time?

  The full moon was supposed to be a good thing for a witch, this would be the third one where it was nothing but problems.

  She figured they wouldn’t be here pushing her if they had proof, but they obviously had enough to make them believe shaking her tree would bear fruit. She just had a bad feeling about things, Cilla had said her and those here would be heavily involved in the possibilities of both war and exposure. She was a lot more confident in herself now, with Silva being awakened and all. But there was a huge difference between handling her own life, and helping to protect a single city, and the idea of being central to the possibility of exposure for their kind, all around the world.

  What would they do if that happened? Not that it would be up to her, that part would fall to the councils, which probably wouldn’t agree on how to proceed. They really didn’t have a central type government, every city and council agreed on some things, like the peace, and before that the war, but for the most part they were all independent and ran things locally as they saw fit. There was no real central government in their world. It was more like independent fiefdoms.

  If they couldn’t prevent exposure, it would be hard to adapt. Humans wouldn’t accept the idea that some had to be put down. Sure, human prisons can’t hold supernaturals, but if humans knew about them it shouldn’t be hard to build a facility that would, especially with the help of the witches.

  Just that one issue would cause untold problems, and that didn’t even address the idea that the humans might just freak out and go on a witch hunt. Especially if they find out that they’d been modifying human memories to keep the secret, and she wasn’t sure she could blame them if they did. It was all very complicated in her head, and she was sure she wasn’t seeing the full picture yet.

  The door opened breaking her out of her thoughts of pitchforks and torches, and she sighed in relief as Ed walked in. She took in his short blond hair, gray eyes, and chiseled physique. She kissed him in greeting and then stayed there in his arms for a few moments, she really did feel safer with him there and felt her body relax against his.

  “So we have a problem,” she said softly.

  She told him everything. He was already aware of her strange ancestry of witch, shifter, and fae, so she started with the dream last night, and then told him about the cops that had come by. She wasn’t worried about him betraying the sensitive parts, he hadn’t yet after all.

  Ed held her tightly for a moment, “I doubt this will amount to anything. I’ll take care of the police. If I had to guess, if the war starts back up that will expose us, not this. This is nothing, business as usual.”

  She frowned, she didn’t see it that way, but he did have a point. Maybe she was reading into it a little too much. She was having trouble finding the line between vigilance and paranoia on this one. It wasn’t like she wasn’t stressed out.

  He added, “Plus, it’s not up to you to shoulder the world. You may indeed have some influence over what happens in our small corner of the world, but no more than me or anyone else here, and probably less than the council, because it will be them telling us what course to take. I won’t tell you not to worry, because I know that won’t work, but try to keep things in perspective.”

  She snorted, “I’ll do my best.”

  He took her by surprise with a very passionate and thorough kiss that made her forget herself. After which she got a little lost in his gray eyes, Silva was purring in the back of her mind.

  “I’ll be back tonight, once I get it taken care of. It could take a while, I’ll have to track down the case files as well as all the people that know about it.”

  She nodded slowly, a pleasant warm sensation in her stomach lingered from the kiss. She sighed after he left, and then went to take care of the internet orders.

  The store was locked up, and she was on the second mile of her evening run when her phone went off. She looked down at the text, from Paul. He wanted to meet at the gym and spar, now that he was back in town. She’d continued to practice of course, on her own the best she could, and a few times against Josh, but she had missed the sparring with Paul after he left town.

  She just wasn’t sure if it was wise to show up. Well, she couldn’t hide from it, and had to work with him on a daily basis again, so she might as well go find out. She turned around and started toward the gym, a steady slow run. She took a deep breath when she arrived at the gym and slipped through the door. Immediately two things happened. His scent hit her hard and her stomach clenched. The second was she could sense him coming at her from the side as she stepped through the door into the main gym and immediately d
ived out of his way, and then rolled back to her feet.

  So much for pleasantries or catching up.

  Her grin was feral as she twisted and got her left arm up, deflecting a kick, and managed to jab his side as he flew past, extracting a grunt of pain. She smiled and was about to make a smart ass comment, but he twisted and attacked in a flurry of punches that had her backing up as she blocked or evaded his strikes. A fast and dirty bout followed where she got in two more ineffectual hits before she had her legs swept out from under her and landed on her ass.

  “Crap, it’s good to see you too,” she muttered ungracefully.

  The funny part was she really meant it, she hadn’t been challenged like that for a while, much less beaten. Granted, in her real fights she used magic to augment her physical attacks, to distract and harm. She had no doubt the fight with Paul would go differently if she didn’t hold herself back that way, but then she’d never learn to be better. Magic had its place, but not in physical training.

  Paul grunted, “Good, you haven’t lost much of your edge. It’s good to be back.”

  She kicked at his knees, and took the opportunity to back flip to her feet when he jumped back out of range, and the sparring continued. She didn’t hold back, except magically, and after a few passes she managed to get him to overextend, and threw him over her hip and across the room.

  She snickered playfully, “Looks like I gained one.”

  She heard him growl and it sent a spark of excitement down her spine as he lunged up for another round. She’d forgotten her body’s natural reactions to him, and their previous sparring sessions, but it all seemed to flood back as she took in the scent of his desire. She felt like she was betraying Ed as her body heated, she got more turned on with every violent pass they exchanged.

  It wasn’t the same this time though, because it was just her body. She felt betrayed by it, because her heart and mind weren’t in it, it was just… instinct, and chemistry.

  An insane amount of chemistry, but it wasn’t real. With Ed she felt safe, she also felt the slow burn of desire, and just his kiss could leave her breathless. That was real, and healthy. She hadn’t really realized how much she’d fallen for him until earlier today, he’d calmed her twisting panicked thoughts with his mere presence. It wasn’t something she’d throw away for a short hot torrid affair that was doomed to fail because her and Paul were the same species, tiger shifters.

  She could even feel reservations about it from Silva, though she thought that was more for her sake, she knew the tiger had no problem with discarding monogamy. She wasn’t even sure her tiger understood that concept.

  She wasn’t sure what to do though. Cheating on Ed wasn’t an option for her, but she had to choose whether they should continue training together, or walk away from it. Work with Paul sure, but physical contact may have to go, which would mean no more training sessions with him.

  Sure, it was putting her in a spot filled with temptation, but it was also good training, and might one day save her life from an enemy. The problem was the two things couldn’t be separated. There was also the very real point that Paul was her friend, she did care about him to a certain extent. He was one of her partners, and she didn’t want to let him down.

  Perversely, she wondered if this was why he always lost his sparring partners the way he said he does, she was new to this world, or at least the shifter side of it, but…

  She took a kick to the ribs thanks to her wandering thoughts and loss of concentration, and then found herself flat on her back as he threw her this time. She gasped for breath, he’d knocked the wind out of her.

  He smirked down at her and asked knowingly, “So what has you so distracted?”

  Arrogant bastard, it didn’t help her mood that what and how he said that made her body tingle with lust and desire. She growled and swept her legs at his knee and jumped up when he laughed and pulled back. She heard Silva growl in the back of her mind in displeasure as well and they started to exchange punches, elbows, kicks, blocks, and countermoves. A part of her knew he didn’t really do anything wrong, but she was angry anyway. Really, she was angry at herself.

  Then something strange happened, his attacks seemed to slow down, as well as his blocks. Not by a great amount, they were still coming fast, but not lightning fast. She reached up and caught his latest jab as she spun and put him in an arm lock and then kicked the back of his knee. He went down hard on to his knees, and the arm lock took him down the rest of the way, his face stuck in the concrete.

  It had been, almost easy for her, relatively.

  She asked in a purring voice full of self satisfaction, “Give up?”

  He growled, “What the hell was that?”

  She was confused, but felt Silva preening in the back of her mind.

  “What did you do? ”

  She stood up and backed off a few paces, “I’m not sure, what do you mean?”

  He got up and studied her face for a moment before answering, “You moved so fast I could barely track you for a moment. Did you do magic?” he asked suspiciously.

  She shook her head but stopped and held up a hand for patience when she felt guilt coming from Silva. Wait, what?

  She repeated the question, “What did you do? ”

  Silva’s mental voice was almost sheepish but proud at the same time, “I was angry enough to channel magic into our shifter abilities. Not a whole lot, but enough to make us faster .”

  “Is that the first time?”

  Silva sent her a mental nod, still proud of what she did, but there was fear mixed in as well now. Maybe one day Silva would be able to get over her fear of magic. Somehow the fact that Silva touched it directly instead of just increasing her tolerance when Celia channeled magic seemed like a more significant breakthrough than any other progress they’d made so far.

  “Not exactly,” she finally answered Paul, “It wasn’t a witch thing.”

  He narrowed his eyes, “What was it then?”

  She sighed, “Raw magic was channeled directly to my shifter side, to enhance my physical abilities further.”

  His eyes widened when he picked up the subtext, “So it wasn’t you who did it, wow. Did I piss you off that much?”

  She snorted, “It’s complicated. Suffice it to say flirting isn’t going to help the situation any, this is awkward enough.”

  That might have been less than tactful, because he looked pissed suddenly, “I am who I am. I won’t make a pass at you, no matter what I think about you having a fling with Ed, but I won’t change who I am either.”

  She growled dangerously, “Fling?”

  He looked frustrated, and honestly, she wanted to jump his bones in that moment. Desire and anger mixed in her chest, and she felt confused. So she did the first thing she thought of, she turned and walked away. They were both way too keyed up for this conversation. Earlier it hadn’t been this hard to keep her composure, she was attracted to him in the meeting, but it wasn’t overwhelming. Sparring was just too… stimulating.

  He growled and reached for her arm to stop her.

  She dodged and said sharply, “Don’t.”

  He didn’t try again, and she started to calm down on the walk home, especially without his scent to cloud her mind. She figured they could talk tomorrow, when they weren’t both worked up in more ways than one, but she also believed they were already on the same page. Their sparring days were over.

  Chapter 5

  She woke up curled up on her side with Ed’s arms around her and smiled. They’d had a long talk last night when she’d gotten back. She wasn’t sure if he really understood, or if he even could, but he seemed to. She’d considered not even mentioning anything about it, but considering her, Ed and Paul were partners, enforcers for the two councils, and worked closely together, that wouldn’t have worked very long.

  She carefully disengaged, turned on the coffee on the way through the kitchen, and jumped in the shower. That’s when sunrise came, and her air elemental returned and
dumped a whole lot of information directly into her mind. She was taken off guard by a few things, but it would take her almost a half hour to work her way through the conversations, and what was said by others around him over the last day.

  When she finished both the shower, and reviewing the information, she got dressed and went out to the kitchen and poured herself a coffee. Ed gave her a smile.

  “Good morning,” she purred, and claimed a kiss.

  He returned the sentiment, and then he got back to cooking omelets for breakfast.

  She bit her bottom lip, and decided to leave him in peace to do that.

  “My elemental came back, learned a few things.”

  Ed turned his head toward her, “Like what?”

  She sighed, “He’s got a captive witch, from the first coven he took out. Karina, water and air, has a six-year-old son he’s holding hostage for it.”

  Ed frowned, “What’s he making her do?”

  “Well, it’s how he’s been able to take other covens down. She’s supplying some magical items to drain the anti-shifter wards. Karina is also supplying him with an object imbued with glamour, I believe that’s how he’s gathering so many.”

  Ed shook his head, “But shifters are resistant to glamour.”

  She sighed, “Yes, but… how many shifters are out there that want revenge against witches, but hold back only to stop the attrition, or perhaps to safeguard someone they love, or I don’t know, so neither species goes extinct. Glamour with a door of hatred and revenge into their hearts could really tip the balance there. It probably wouldn’t work here in Rock Hill anymore, but a few months ago I could see it.”

  Ed scowled at the omelet as he folded the eggs, “I suppose that’s possible. Anything else?”