by Selena Scott
But she could certainly groan as she rolled out of bed. She laughed when suddenly a toothbrush complete with toothpaste was gently inserted into her mouth. Her eyes came open fully and she brushed and walked to the bathroom. She came back out, got dressed, and, much more alert now, followed Arturo out the back door.
They passed back and forth a Thermos of coffee and padded quietly along the roadside until they came to the entrance of Bryce Canyon National Park. He led her in and past all the tourist view points, though they were fairly empty at that point. They walked the rim of the canyon until he found a good spot and they sat on a patch of clumpy, silvery grass. The sun was just coming fully over the far edge of the canyon.
The shadows made the landscape look even more alien. The tall, orange rock spires looked almost like figures lit from one side, spearing up toward the sky, praying for whatever came next.
Arturo could hear a bird chirping from somewhere in the canyon and in the stillness of the morning, with the acoustics of the canyon, the sound carried for miles. Something in that fortified him.
Even a small noise had the capacity to be heard from a great distance. Even though their relationship would be a short one, cut off by whatever fate the demon brought for them, it didn’t make it any less important, or beautiful, or meaningful. Some relationships were defined by their length, others were defined by the intensity of feeling. And Arturo found himself comfortable with being the latter.
“Martine,” he murmured, as she looked out over the gorgeous landscape in front of them. “I want to marry you.”
“What?” she nearly bobbled the Thermos, her eyes growing large and her mouth falling open.
He gently took the Thermos from her hands and set it aside. “We talk about how we wish we could do all these normal things together. Have a house, cook dinner, fight about chores, raise kids. But we can’t. We both know that our lives are on a crash course with the demon. We’re going to kill him. I feel it in my heart. Which means that—” His voice broke, unable to say the words out loud.
“That I will pass on.”
He nodded tersely. “And most likely, so will I. My life force is tied up with his and there’s no reason to pretend it isn’t.”
“But you still want to get married?”
He nodded. “It’s very important to me. I don’t want to do it just to pretend that everything will be okay. I don’t want to do it to imitate mortals and their traditions. I want to do it because you and I love one another. And though it will most likely be a short marriage, it will be a strong one, too. I want to live the rest of my life with you. I want to die by your side. I will die by your side. As your husband.”
Martine opened her mouth but Arturo suddenly clapped a hand over it.
“Wait. I’m fucking this up. I’m asking you to marry me but all I’m talking about is death. No. That’s not what I even really want to say. What I really want to tell you is that you brought me back to life. I have been living with no soul. No heart. For damn near four centuries. I didn’t think I was capable of love. Or tenderness. Or affection. Or kindness. But you not only drew those feelings out of me. You reminded me that that’s who I used to be. Who I really am. You didn’t let the demon take away my humanity when you made me a shifter and gifted me with my energy. But you also didn’t let him take away my heart. The man that I am, sitting here right now, that’s because of you.”
He took one more deep, cleansing breath. “Marry me.”
Golden tear tracks hit the side of his hand and he realized that he was still covering her mouth. He hastily removed his hand and she gave a little shuddering laugh. “I’m going to love you forever anyways, so we might as well tie the knot.”
She flung herself forward and Arturo gripped her hard to his chest, his arms full of this strong, badass woman who was filled with so much tenderness on the inside he could barely believe it. He kissed her hair, her ear, her neck, the strap of her shirt.
She was doing the same thing to him. Attempting to kiss every scrape of his beard, his eyelids, the bridge of his nose.
“Here,” he told her, laughing at himself and wondering when the hell he’d gotten so sentimental. “Here. Now you can have this.”
He handed over a ring with a shiny gold band and an even shinier green diamond set atop it.
Martine gasped, her hands going to her cheeks. “The stone is the exact same color as our energies when we mix!”
“That’s why I chose it, Wings.” He leaned in to kiss her. “Martine, breathe.”
She took a huge breath all at once and then flung herself backward to stare at the sky. She hadn’t touched the ring yet.
“I can’t believe that’s for me. I can’t believe this whole thing is for me. I can’t believe you’re for me.”
“I only wish it had happened sooner. When we had more time.”
She sat up and snatched the ring from him, jamming it on her finger. “No more sadness. We found each other. We’re here. And we’re going to fight honorably and nobly when the demon comes. And we will not let him take one of our mortals’ souls.”
***
They returned in the middle of breakfast and found the group sitting around the kitchen table. To Martine’s surprise, there were glasses of champagne at every table setting.
“There you are!” Caroline crowed. “You’ll never believe what’s HAPpened!” Her voice rose in a melodic, sing-song way that showed exactly how excited she was.
“Martine and I are getting married,” Arturo bluntly told the group.
Stunned silent, Caroline just sort of slumped back onto Tre’s lap. The group couldn’t help but laugh at the expression on her face.
“Love,” Tre told her. “Deep breath, it’s all gonna be all right.” He turned to the group. “I think she’s overloading on happiness. We finally found out the answer to how much happiness is too much for Caroline.”
“Apparently three engagements will do it,” Celia said, laughing into her champagne.
“Three?” Martine asked in surprise.
“You.” Caroline pointed at Martine. “Me.” She pointed at herself. “Thea.” She pointed at Thea who merely lifted an eyebrow and flicked open a jackknife.
“How’d he propose?” Caroline asked, bouncing on Tre’s lap.
Arturo bit back a groan. It was obviously a tradition to rehash the events that had just taken place, but frankly, he’d rather drink poison. Martine, however, was positively glowing, staring down at her ring and sort of floating across the room. So, who cared, really? He pulled out a chair for her and slid into the seat next to hers.
“He took me to the canyon and we watched the sunrise.”
“Beautiful,” Caroline sighed.
“And symbolic,” Arturo said with a frown. “It was supposed to represent the new day ahead of us and, ah,” he cleared his throat, suddenly feeling a little heat around the collar. “And some other stuff, too. But I guess I forgot to say all that.”
“Well, proposing to a woman will fuck with your head, that’s for sure,” Jean Luc said. “I basically blacked out and hoped that when I came to, I’d have said something cogent enough for her to realize what the hell was happening.”
“I was, uh, pretty flustered myself,” Tre admitted, going red at the ears.
“He proposed during sex,” Caroline stage-whispered, one hand pretending to block the sound.
“No shit?!” Jack laughed and Jean Luc leaned across the table to smack Tre on the back.
Arturo suddenly felt a whole lot less self-conscious about his proposal. At least he hadn’t blurted it out during sex.
But Caroline was sparkling with delight. “It was perfect. I’d describe it more but—”
Tre kissed her quickly to get her to stop talking. “But you kinda had to be there.”
“How’d you get engaged?” Martine asked Thea.
Thea grinned at Jack. “He shook me awake in the middle of the night and shoved a knife in my hand.”
The men laughed, bec
ause they all knew that Jack had given her a jackknife instead of a ring, but the other three women looked genuinely confused until Thea cracked and showed them the beautiful knife. “He handed it to me and told me that I was the strongest, most individual person he’d ever met in his life and that it would be an honor to walk beside me. And then he told me that he’d get me some sparkly shit to wear if I wanted it but he figured I’d rather get some use out of my engagement gift.”
“It’s perfect,” Martine said, emotion clogging her throat. She thought of Arturo’s group, of how swiftly the demon had descended on them. They’d been caught unawares and had suffered for it, all of their relationships in disarray and confusion. But this time, they were stronger. They were knit together. They were friends, real friends. They had connections to one another and to the places they’d done battle. And there was love. Palpable love.
Let the demon come, she thought. She wasn’t ready to die. And she’d never be ready to give up Arturo, but this was her destiny. This was the way it was going to happen no matter what her personal life held. So why not now? When she’d finally tasted happiness and fulfillment.
She turned to Arturo. “This was exactly the way it was all supposed to happen.”
He knew exactly what she meant.
***
The demon seethed in his dark place. He’d recovered from his run-in with Martine. He was hungry, angry, and restless.
But something was happening with the seven that he couldn’t understand or explain. The house was so bright, so filled with color, that he could barely stand to watch it. It was as if they’d left every single light on. But the demon knew it was more than that. They’d formed bonds that were greater than he’d ever anticipated.
It meant that he could no longer wait. It meant that now was the time to strike and strike hard. Now was the time to end this.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
That night, after a day of grueling shifter practice, they decided to grill on the back porch. They knew that their month was winding down. They could see it in the moon, on the calendar, in the bite in the air each night. The autumn was coming and somehow, they knew that this adventure wouldn’t change with the seasons. It was going to end. And soon.
They were fortified as a group in a way that they had never been before. The bond between each couple was incredibly strong, but the bonds between the friendships was stronger than ever before as well.
This fortified them, but it also made them each a little nervous, because to them, it seemed as if there were nothing else to happen but for the demon to come.
The demon had come at them, in one way or another, in three different locations. But this was the fourth place. There were four couples, everyone had been a target except for Arturo and Martine and now it seemed as if they would be the last target. The logic of it made sense to each person in the group, though they didn’t talk about it out loud much. The demon was running out of chances, this was the last stand, and they couldn’t help but feel that he was going to come at them harder than ever.
It was with this in mind that Jack lit the grill on the back porch as Tre set the picnic table with paper plates and silverware and Jean Luc dragged an iced tub of drinks outside. It was with the demon in his thoughts that Jack was fiddling with the propane tank. It was with the demon in his thoughts that the fireball exploded forward, tossing Jack backward like a rag doll.
“Jesus!” Tre shouted as he and Jean Luc sprinted forward.
Somehow, it was Arturo who made it to Jack first. “Jack! Jack!”
The women burst out onto the back porch in time to see Jean Luc disconnecting the propane tank and kicking it across the yard, Tre and Arturo bent over a very still Jack.
Thea made a quiet sound like a wounded animal, and then she was there too, one cool hand on Jack’s cheek. It was her touch that had his eyes fluttering open. His skin was burnished but it wasn’t welting. His nose and chin and the backs of his hands had taken the brunt of it, but it didn’t look much worse than a sunburn. To all their dismay, though, his hand immediately went to the back of his head and came up bloody. He’d knocked his head but good against the wood of the porch.
“Martine,” he croaked, looking around for her. “I figured it out. I know why we’re here. I finally remembered.”
And then his eyes closed and he fell back.
A few hours later, Jean Luc, Thea and Jack returned from the emergency room. Only Jack was smiling. It was his usual good-natured smile. Thea and Jean Luc both looked drawn and tired. It had been stressful to see Jack wheeled away, to be separated from him by a maze of swinging doors and hospital security and reams of paperwork. Just as it had been stressful to be separated from the rest of the group. The ones left at the house hadn’t liked it any better either.
Martine considered it a small miracle that the demon hadn’t attacked while they’d been split down the seam like that.
“How was it?” Celia asked, taking Jack by the elbow and guiding him down to the kitchen table. There was soup and sandwiches. She’d made the biggest one for Jean Luc and as soon as Jack was settled she practically shoved the gigantic thing into her man’s hand. Jean Luc smiled for the first time in hours and kissed her hard before he plunked wearily into a seat at the table.
“I’m fine,” Jack said, waving a hand through the air. “I’m sorry to have worried everyone. Mmm. Good soup. Just a couple of staples in the cut on my head. Not even a concussion.”
“And your burns?” Caroline asked worriedly.
“Just some ointment on them for a few days. Really, I’m fine.”
“At least we can definitely get our money back from this piece of crap Airbnb,” Tre scowled. “I told you guys it was booby-trapped!”
“Jack,” Martine said gently. “If you feel up to it—”
“You wanna know what I meant when I said that I remembered why we were here?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” Jack said as he leaned back and squinted out the side window. Night had long since fallen. The cliff face in the distance was barely visible. “Something about Utah has been bothering me ever since we got here. The sunlight.”
“Yeah, it’s hot as hell here,” Tre agreed.
“But it was more than that. It was the light itself. It… unsettled me. Reminded me of something but I couldn’t remember what.”
“And the explosion triggered your memory?” Thea asked quietly. The last few hours had taken about fifty years off her life. She’d be lucky if her poor heart didn’t just come to a humming stop in the night tonight.
“Yeah.” Jack looked up at Martine. “It was a long time ago. I was a kid. Maybe seven years old. I was on a camping trip with some family members down in Bryce Canyon. Something woke me in the night. It was a dark thing. A bad thing. I was scared shitless, but eventually I fell back asleep. Then I had the strangest dream of my life.”
Martine bit her lip, like she knew what was coming.
“In the dream, I was walking through Bryce canyon, all those spires of orange rising up around me. I was being led toward the dark thing and I couldn’t stop it, even though I wanted to run away. It was going to swallow me whole. But a bird swept out of nowhere and startled me, it kept me from moving forward. The dark thing started moving toward me then, ducking in and out of the spires. I knew it was going to get me. But then there was a sort of silent explosion in front of me. The brightest blue light you’ve ever seen. I felt the light go through me and into me. I woke up in my sleeping bag and that bright, Utah sun was in my eyes, damn near blinding me. I thought about that dream for a long time afterward, but not in the last decade or so.”
“It wasn’t a dream, was it?” Caroline asked Martine, her eyes wide.
“The demon went after Jack before the maps were united?” Arturo cut in, his eyes riveted to Martine’s face. He’d thought he’d known every move the demon had made over the centuries, but even he hadn’t known about this. He hadn’t even thought it possible for the demon to identify
the seven souls until the maps were united. Until three months ago.
Martine took a deep breath. “Yes, he went after Jack and technically, yes, that was a dream.” How to explain? “About thirty-five or so years ago, the demon became wildly impatient and he began hunting for the owners of the map. One of you, he knew, could potentially be his next meal. He knew his chances of finding one of the mapholders before the maps were united were extremely slim. But he got lucky. He found Jack. As it was, Jack was the only member of this group who’d been born yet, Arturo excluded, of course. So he was the only mapholder that the demon could find.”
Jack nodded in bemusement. “How could I have been a mapholder if I didn’t even own the map yet?”
Martine paused, searching for a way to explain. “You were born a mapholder. It was always going to be you. The same way the maps eventually find their way to you is the same way the demon was able to find you.”
The group just kind of absorbed that, all of them separately replaying how their particular maps ‘happened’ to come to them. All of them wondering if this was always gonna turn out just like this.
“What do you mean it was technically a dream, though?” Celia asked.
“Jack and the demon were there in person, but I was not. I was actually across the world, tracking the map that would eventually become Celia’s. But I sensed that one of our seven, the first of our seven, was in grave danger and I appeared to Jack in his mind.”
“You protected me with your light.”
“Actually,” Arturo cut in, putting the pieces together as he went. “She protected you with your light.”
“My light? I don’t have that kind of energy that the two of you have.”
Again, Martine bit her lip.
“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” Jack said, his mouth agape as he read Martine’s facial expression.