by Selena Scott
“You zapped me,” he growled, his eyes dark and his chest heaving up and down.
Martine nodded, an eyebrow raised, her eyes lasered to his. She brought her golden energy out on her lips like a sheen of fine lip gloss. She pointedly lowered her head slowly. And when their lips touched again, she let her energy zap him again.
“Guh.” His hands on her back clenched immediately into fists.
She couldn’t tell whether he’d liked it or not so she planted her hands on either side of his head and started to tug away. Her question was immediately answered when he chased her upwards, his mouth clamping on to hers as they sat up on the mattress. He guided her legs around his back as his hand found its way into her hair, holding her fast.
Their kisses were just as soft as before, a featherlight slide punctuated by slick glances of the tongue. Martine let her energy touch his mouth again and, just like before, he stiffened hard against her.
He said something against her lips but it was muffled and she wasn’t listening anyways. She was too busy being wildly distracted by her own hips. Which seemed to have taught themselves some ancient dance that was completely new to Martine. They both shuddered when she dragged herself up and forward, only to lift her hips and do it again.
“Fuck.”
That expletive wasn’t muffled at all. In fact, it was panted, clear as a bell, directly into her ear. Arturo’s hands were hard at her hips and their temples were jammed together as she increased the pace of her hips over his.
Her nightgown was pooled at her hips and the seams of his jeans were pulling at her skin, but she didn’t care. She just wanted more. She wanted faster. She wanted—
“Oh!” she jumped when something blue and fast snapped against her skin in at least four different places.
“Shit!” Arturo snarled. He lifted her up off his hips, dumped her over to the side on the bed and jumped away from her. He landed on his feet, leaning his fisted hands onto the bed.
Martine lay in a tangled heap, halfway on her side, her breaths fast and useless, her arms flung over her head.
He was breathing equally hard. Unfortunately, he also looked utterly horrified. “My energy,” he said through his panting. “I couldn’t stop it. It got you.”
“Right,” she agreed. She’d been there, she’d known exactly what had happened. It hadn’t surprised her at all.
“God.” He stood up and dragged two palms over his face at once. “I’m so sorry. Are you hurt?”
Martine shook her head to clear it. He wasn’t making any sense at all. “Hurt?” She sat up but didn’t bother to drag her nightgown back down over her legs. “Why would I be hurt?”
“Because I zapped you with my energy!” He flung his arms out to the sides.
“Arturo, you try and zap me with your energy at least twice a week.” To show him what she meant, she pointed her hand toward him, sending a golden ball of energy shooting toward him. He flicked it away easily, thoughtlessly, with his own blue energy, negating it. “See? Just like that.”
“That’s different,” he insisted, his hands jamming into the pockets of his jeans. He looked adorably boyish with his hair sticking up in ten directions and that obstinate expression on his face.
“Why?”
“Because all those other times I didn’t have two handfuls of your ass and your tongue in my mouth. Wings, I know I’m an asshole, but I don’t want to actually hurt you. Especially during sex. Jesus!”
“Oh,” she said as she cocked her head to one side. “Was that sex? Somehow I thought there’d be more.”
He paced away from her, his hands knotted in his hair. “That wasn’t—there is more—just the beginning—fuck!”
“Arturo, your energy doesn’t actually hurt me, you know that, right?”
He turned around and eyed her suspiciously.
“Did mine hurt you? When we were kissing?” she asked pointedly.
“No,” he answered slowly.
“Did it feel good?”
His voice dropped an octave. “Yes.”
“If you liked it so much then why wouldn’t I like it?”
He threw his hands out to the side again like this was supposed to be obvious. However she was getting the distinct impression that this wasn’t actually obvious to either of them. “Because your first sex isn’t supposed to be… zappy. And it’s not supposed to be with the right-hand man of a demon, okay? Your first sex is supposed to be with—with—”
She waited patiently, but when he didn’t seem to be able to come up with anything, she cut in again. “Arturo, I like zappy. I’m made of that zap, remember?” She pointed at her chest. “Light being.”
That, at least, seemed to slow his roll a little bit. He pursed his lips, stymied.
“I have to think about this.”
“Does that mean we aren’t going to be kissing anymore tonight?”
“How could you ask me that? Wings, I can’t control my energy around you. I almost hurt you!”
“I think I was provoking you with my energy. What if I promise to keep mine all locked up tight and I’ll only do exactly what you tell me to do? No wrestling. No legs around your waist.”
He eyed her like she was tricking him. “I should be able to control myself whether or not your energy is provoking mine.”
She arched an eyebrow and gave him the most condescending expression anyone had ever dared to give him. “Arturo, I happen to be a lot more powerful than you are. Of course you’re finding it hard to control yourself around me, okay?”
He would have bristled if he weren’t a hundred percent sure that she was dead right. “Fine. We can keep kissing. But don’t push my limits. If one of us has to sleep on the floor, don’t expect me to be a gentleman. It’ll be your ass cuddling with the floorboards.”
She grinned and slid backwards on the bed, making room for him. He prowled forward and followed her backwards. It was only when he was fitted over top of her, his hands tangled in her hair and his mouth sipping from hers again, that she realized she needn’t have worried. This was always going to happen.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Arturo woke up in an absolutely foul mood. His eyes were gritty from lack of sleep, every muscle in his body ached, his lips were chapped, he was wildly dehydrated, the sun beat on his clenched eyelids, and worst of all, he was alone in the bed.
He rolled over and glared at the clock through slitted eyes.
Well, perhaps the fact that it was 10:45 in the morning explained why he was the only one in the bedroom. Martine and the other shifters would have already been at shifter practice for at least three hours.
He wondered what time she’d left the bed. They hadn’t fallen asleep until 5 am. And by ‘fall asleep’ he meant pass out mid-makeout. He hadn’t wanted to stop their luxurious, languid kissing for anything short of an earthquake, but he’d taken the hint when her lips had stopped moving and her hands had gone lax on his back.
He’d watched her sleep then, for at least fifteen minutes as the sun started to rise. He hadn’t been able to believe it.
He still couldn’t.
He scowled down the sheets at the enormous erection he doubted would subside even if his head were chopped off right that very second. The sun was too bright, he hadn’t gotten enough sleep, and he felt strangely juvenile.
He’d spent the night making out with a pretty girl and woke up too late with a raging boner.
Now, he was supposed to go downstairs and face everyone? He figured he should just wait until all of them were in the same room and he could get it all over with at once.
Fine. You all win. I’m a fool. I care. I want something again. There’s one thing in my life worth living for. What a fucking joke.
Arturo dragged the blankets off of himself and made the bed as crisply as possible. Twisted sheets were insult to injury at this point.
He slipped down to his room without running into anyone and soothed his ruffled feathers with a blisteringly hot shower, a wincingly close sha
ve, and one of his new button-up shirts.
Of course he’d finally want someone again right before he was about to die. And right before she was about to die.
Because their lives were connected to the same evil sack of shit they were both chomping at the bit to kill.
He emerged into the kitchen and made eye contact with no one.
He could sense Caroline and Thea and Celia all watching him with raised eyebrows. He took the last cold inch of coffee in the pot and slugged it back like medicine. He was very aware that they’d been talking before he came in.
“Carry on,” he growled at them, grabbing an apple from the bowl and slamming himself down in one of the seats at the table.
“Anyway,” Thea said, rolling her eyes in Arturo’s stormy direction. “Jack was holding on to it for Jean Luc.” She was holding Celia’s hand up to the light, tipping the ring this way and that to catch the light. “I found it in his backpack when we got to Utah and I almost had a coronary.”
Celia hesitated. “Oh, jeez. I don’t know what to say. Now I feel like a dick for rubbing it in your face.”
“No!” Thea insisted. “Seriously, C. That ring is so perfectly you. And I think I was more freaked out than I was excited. Ask Caroline.”
“It’s true. She was super flustered over the whole thing. This ring is so perfectly you. But it would have been totally left-field if Jack had bought it for Thea, you know? Not her style at all.”
Celia studied the ring and laughed. “I guess you’re right. It would have been a little out of character for you to walk around with a giant gemstone rainbow on your finger for the rest of time.”
“Martine said that this would be good magic against the demon,” Caroline said, tilting Celia’s hand in the light just as Thea had done.
“She said what?” Arturo asked, unable to maintain such an aloof demeanor for any longer.
Caroline turned to him. “Martine said that light and color were two of the best ways of keeping the demon at bay. Like vampires and garlic.”
Arturo’s brow furrowed. “So, just complete old wives’ tale then.”
He’d never heard anything like that, and he’d lived under the demon’s thumb for four hundred years.
Caroline shrugged. “I mean, it’s not like we could just all go to the jewelry store, get blinged out, and then be perfectly safe from the demon, but yeah. She said that the more light and color we have in our lives, the safer we’ll be.”
Arturo scowled as he thought of her golden light. He thought of the slash in his chest every time his gaze clashed with her bright green eyes. He thought of her strawberry hair in the sun. She was the embodiment of light and color.
And there was literally no way for her to protect herself from the demon. When he died, she died.
Arturo stood and ignored the confused voices calling after him as he stalked out of the kitchen and through the back door.
***
“Hey, Tweety Bird!” Tre hollered up to Martine. “Time to head back in!”
Martine executed yet another perfect twirl through the air before she dive-bombed the packed, clay earth. She shifted on the land, tumbling into a rather childish run, her hair streaming behind her like a banner. She couldn’t help but laugh and turn her face to the sun.
After a moment, she tugged her stretchy clothes back on and fell into step alongside the boys as they all tromped back toward the house.
“I wonder where he-who-shall-not-be-named was this morning,” Tre wondered aloud.
“You think he’s still in pain from his run-in with the demon?” Jean Luc asked, kicking at a rock and making it skitter over the edge of a three-foot crack in the earth.
“No,” Martine answered quickly. “I think, besides a headache, he healed pretty quickly. Unfortunately, I think four hundred years in the demon’s clutches has made him used to that kind of pain.”
“Maybe,” Jean Luc responded after a minute. “But he’s seemed much more unhappy since then. He’s been prowling around the house in a bad mood and he hasn’t been sleeping.”
Martine peered at Jean Luc in confusion, but didn’t say anything. What did Jean Luc know about Arturo’s sleeping?
“How do you know?” Jack asked, blinking into the sun and pulling his cap low over his eyes. Jack was a very easy-going guy in general. He couldn’t be bothered by things like bad weather or extreme temperatures. He’d lived all over the world in all sorts of conditions. But there was something about this Utah sun that was starting to really grate on him. It was so unrelenting. Jack imagined himself as a criminal in an interrogation room. Utah made him want to give up all his secrets. The problem was, Jack didn’t have any secrets to give up. Which meant he found himself antsy in Utah. He wasn’t a man who was used to feeling antsy.
“I ran down to check on him the last few nights and he’s never in his room.”
“You think he’s skulking around the house feeling sorry for himself?” Tre asked.
Martine kept her face neutral. Arturo hadn’t been telling the other men where he’d been sleeping. She wasn’t sure what to think about that.
“Wait a second,” Jack cut in. “Arturo is MIA every night since his demon attack and we’re all okay with that?”
“What’re you suggesting?” Jean Luc asked.
Jack paused. He wasn’t sure what he was suggesting. The sun was discombobulating him.
Tre rescued him. “I do think it’s weird that none of us have any idea what he’s doing after dark. Are we sure he’s not possessed? Are we sure he’s not scarpering off to the demon’s dimension or something equally freaky?”
The sun beat down on their backs. They were still ten minutes away from the house, which meant that they were also ten minutes away from cold water and shade and showers and non-dusty air.
Martine’s thoughts raced faster than a hawk in a free-dive. Arturo hadn’t told them where he’d been sleeping, presumably for a certain reason. But she couldn’t for the life of her imagine what that reason was. And now his three supposed allies were jumping to all the wrong conclusions and potentially destroying all of the goodwill that had slowly been forming between them. It pained her to see it happening.
“He’s not been betraying you,” Martine said, choosing her words carefully.
The three men turned to her with a quickness that told her they’d forgotten she was there, as people so often did.
“How do you know?” Jean Luc asked, with genuine curiosity in his voice.
Martine cleared her throat. “I’ve been… keeping an eye on him at night, since the demon attack.”
If there was already a world record for most meaningful eye contact exchanged, the thirty seconds following Martine’s words would have smashed it to pieces.
The silent conversation went something like this:
Did she just say…
Nah. No way. Not what she meant… right?
I dunno.
No freaking WAY. Arturo and Martine?
Arturo.
And.
Martine.
WTF?!?!
“Martine,” Jean Luc started. Apparently he’d been elected to be the one who followed up with her. “When you say that you’ve been keeping an eye on Arturo… ah. What, uh, do you mean?”
“He’s been sleeping in my bed.”
“I knew he had the hots for you!” Tre crowed, pumping a fist in the air.
“Wow,” Jean Luc said, swallowing a whole mouthful of air the wrong way.
They’d arrived back at the farthest edge of the property and the house beckoned them in the near distance.
Martine’s attention was stolen by the promise of a cold shower and colder lemonade, by the secret delight of heavy wet hair dripping down a T-shirt, something she’d come to love about her human form. She loved the fingery tickle of it. She pulled ahead of the group and thus, she was the last one that the shadow made it to.
It wasn’t a cloud that pulled over the sun, it was more like a shaded filter being pulled
through their dimension. The world went from toxically bright, a shocking red on blue, to the muted tans and grays of a faded photograph.
She quickly turned, and it was to see the three bear shifters blinking at one another in confusion, blinking at the sky, turning in 360s to try and figure out what was going on.
Like newborns, was all she had time to think before she was launching herself in between the demon and her comrades. By the time she reached them, she was simply golden light, stretching and arcing through the air.
The demon was not in physical form, either. He was a strange disturbance on the air. A ripple of despair. Were he to land on any one of her beloved humans, they would be immediately verklempt with the kind of emotional pain that dragged one straight to hell. This was the kind of despair that one didn’t bounce back from. Even if she were able to drag the demon away from her friends, they would never forget what it felt like to be that. Fucking. Sad.
Never.
She would never let them suffer in this manner. This was what she’d been born to do. To protect the human race from this manner of insidious disease. The demon was going to do everything he could to weaken any member of the group.
Martine knew in her heart that if he weakened one of the men, he would automatically weaken the woman who loved him as well. She would fight, because this was a perfectly strong group of women, but no person could watch their beloved spiral down into darkness and remain the same.
The demon, if he couldn’t paralyze them, would force them into transition, he would force them to adapt to the horrible new rules of a game that only he wanted to play. And in those moments of change, he would strike, like an adder at an exposed Achilles tendon mid-stride. And he’d take and take and take.
In those golden, stretching moments where she arced out to protect her tribe, Martine felt a being-deep disgust for this creature who knew nothing of giving.
After a lifetime of observing humans, she finally understood what was at the core of humanity. It wasn’t a jamming at the gas pedal of life, it wasn’t a constant desire to eat the world. No, it was balancing in the center of the see-saw of life, finding some happy medium between taking and giving. Anyone who fell too far to one side burned right out into nothing.