Shifters 0f The Seventh Moon Complete Series Bks 1-4

by Selena Scott

  It was the last thing that the demon ever did.

  Martine, using her final well of strength, lunged the spears of energy forward, straight through the heart of the demon, pinning it still in its last beat.

  Martine felt the life leave the demon, just as she felt the life leave herself. Her body began to dissolve away into the air, just a hint of gold on the wind. She was going to go back to the earth, back to the light, back to where she came from.

  The very last thing she saw was Arturo’s body falling through the air as his energy left him. His eyes were open and lifeless, his chest still. The demon was dead. And so was he.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Martine floated somewhere up near the sun. She was not she. There was a lightness that had nothing to do with emotion or memory or life. She could stay like this forever. Feeling nothing and floating. It wasn’t terrible to feel nothing. It simply was.

  As she floated, something called to her. It was a memory from a dream. It pulled at the edges of her and urged her to pull it into focus. No, it urged her to pull herself into focus. But she could not focus herself down anymore. She was a light being.

  But she’d had a body once, hadn’t she? She couldn’t remember. She had no memory of a time other than this. She merely floated along in the ether.

  But there! That was a feeling. It zapped and zinged and insistently tugged at her. It was green and glowing and round and small. It was a green ring of light and it reminded her…

  Martine felt the moment the memory hit her, like a bullet to the gut. It wasn’t a ring of light. It was her wedding band.

  Arturo.

  His lifeless eyes falling.

  But the band still glowed. His energy was still mixed with hers. There touching her. She pushed forward, closed herself around the wedding band and felt herself being sucked away, back to its home, back to Arturo.

  She floated over the scene, unseen by anyone. Dawn was breaking over the edge of the canyon. The spires, lit on one side by the sun, were both burnt orange and black. There was a smoking swath of scorched dirt where the demon had gone, killed by her own hand, she remembered.

  There was a group of six people bent over something on the ground, their arms over one another’s shoulders and their heads bowed. Martine could hear words on the air, sounds of grief and mourning.

  She wanted to move toward the group, but couldn’t. She wasn’t a part of them now. Her light had been tethered to Earth by the existence of the demon.

  His dark energy was the counterbalance to her light energy. Without him, she had no counterbalance. Without him, she could not exist on this plane, in this dimension.

  But still, she felt the tug toward the people. The closer she got, the more she could feel the tug of their energy within each of them.

  She’d put that within them. She’d given them that gift. The gold and the blue. Their energy called to her.

  She was untethered and floating, but suddenly, she understood. She could be tethered there with them.

  Something like joy rippled through her. She could be human if she allowed herself to tether to the group instead of the demon!

  But the group of men and women on the ground parted and Martine saw what they’d been bent over.

  It was the still and lifeless body of her one true love. As she watched, Caroline leaned forward and closed Arturo’s sightless eyes with her fingertips. His body was still warm with life, his palms up, his feet splayed to the side.

  There was no life in that chest. In that heart.

  Martine was crippled with sudden and overwhelming pain. No, she couldn’t go on with grief like this, with debilitating heartbreak. She’d go back to the other place, where she could feel nothing and float on forever in a sea of nothing. That was infinitely better than this.

  She turned to go, but something caught her eye. It glowed on Arturo’s finger. Spring green. Their mixed energy. Their bands. Their love.

  He was her husband.

  It was her husband lying there on the ground.

  She couldn’t turn from him.

  She couldn’t go to a world where her feelings for him, no matter how painful, didn’t exist. She wouldn’t live in nothing when she’d, for a few brief weeks, had had everything.

  She tugged herself forward by the hanks of the group’s energy. She needed to return to Earth and bury Arturo. She would grieve him properly, as his wife, as his love. She heaved herself forward again and felt the edges of her being crystallize. She was pulling herself out of thin air and toward the group. It was painful. An unholy ache. Every inch forward further impaled herself on the group’s energy. She let it pass cleanly through her, like the sharpest blade.

  It was a rebirth. This was what she had to pass through to come to the other side. Energy was being pushed through every single cell of her body. It was adhering to itself and yanking her forward. She rushed toward the group, toward Arturo, and suddenly she understood.

  When she materialized this time, it would be the last time she ever did so. She would be of human flesh and blood, a creature of the light no longer. Could she really do that? Could she give up the very thing she was made of?

  The shadows melted into Arturo’s dark hair, his beloved body long and still. Her heart broke with the need to say a true goodbye, to lay him down to rest.

  The energy ripped toward Martine, away from each of the people in the group. They gasped and fell to their knees as Martine took back what she’d given them, took what she needed to make it to the other side.

  Martine pulled herself the rest of the way into the land of the living.

  Her feet touched ground and there she stood, tousled, breathing hard, and fully human.

  “Martine!” There was a chorus of voices and hands at her shoulders and elbows. Words. So many words. But she didn’t hear any of them.

  She stepped silently forward toward the love of her life, lying in the dirt.

  When she knelt next to him, the group fell quiet.

  She pressed her warm cheek to his cooling one.

  Martine sat back up and lifted her crying eyes to the sky. She said thank you to the Earth for allowing her to have loved this man. She cried the tears of a woman who had known love, strong and true, unwavering.

  Martine slipped the glowing ring of green from her finger. She took Arturo’s off of his limp hand and held them both in her human palm. She turned that palm over and pressed the rings into Arturo’s heart, directly over his chest.

  She felt the exact moment the rings were gone. The light buzz of their energy disappeared deep into the cavity of his chest. Where it belonged. She closed her eyes and pressed her love deep into him.

  Something thumped against her palm.

  Martine’s eyes flew open and she felt it again. Irregular, but there. Definitely there.

  And again.

  His heart had begun beating again.

  Martine gasped a tearful breath as his dark eyes fluttered open, his pupils fighting for focus.

  “You’re here,” he grated out.

  “Me? You’re here!” Martine gave an unladylike snort and threw herself over top of Arturo, who wheezed a little at the impact but nonetheless brought two heavy arms over her back.

  “Why, you lucky son of a bitch!” Tre hooted from behind them. “He’s alive! I can’t believe this motherfucker is alive.”

  If Martine could have possibly torn herself from Arturo’s chest, she would have seen a group of people crying into one another’s shoulders, hugging and gasping and laughing. She would have seen, firsthand, the palpable love that they all felt for her and the man in her arms. She would have seen her family.

  EPILOGUE

  Two Years Later

  “You are not changing a dirty diaper on my brand new countertops. Tell me that is not what I’m seeing.”

  “I’m confused, are you asking me to lie?” Tre asked a scowling Celia as he tossed a dirty diaper into the trash can next to him and finished clasping a clean one onto his daughter�
�s perfect little body.

  Celia’s scowl transformed as she turned her attention to Penelope, Tre and Caroline’s daughter, and held her hands out. “Gimme. Hand her over and you’re forgiven.”

  “Here you go, over to Auntie CeCe.” He grunted as he handed his rather large, six-month-old daughter over to his best friend. “Did you tell him yet?” he asked quietly.

  Celia looked over her shoulder quickly and shook her head. The whole group was visiting Celia and Jean Luc in their newly renovated brownstone in Crown Heights and two days ago, Tre had inadvertently walked in on Celia puking her guts out in the downstairs bathroom. She hadn’t quite gotten around to telling Jean Luc that she’d been the lucky recipient of a positive pregnancy test.

  “Not yet,” she admitted, cuddling Penelope’s neck. “I can’t tell if he’d rather I waited until we didn’t have a house full of people or if he’ll be bummed that I made him wait.”

  “I vote for you to tell him right away. Caroline made me look at the test for her, so technically I was the first to know about this little peanutty-buddy.” He kissed his daughter’s bright red fuzz on the crown of her head.

  The door to the kitchen swung open and Arturo stalked in, looking thoroughly peeved about something. “What is it with mortals and Christmas music? We get it, it’s Christmastime, do we really need to be harmonizing about it for eight weeks out of the year?”

  “Um, Arturo, darling,” Celia said, fluttering her lashes. “Might I remind you that you are once again counted amongst the mortals?”

  He frowned at her, as if the comment irritated him, but really, it thrilled him to the core. Two years later and he still got a complete kick out of the fact that he was actually aging. A few weeks ago, he’d found a silver hair at his temple and he and Martine had fucked like absolute rock stars, fueled by the ferocious joy of mortal life.

  “Christmas is supposed to be a joyful time of year, my friend,” Tre reminded him, crunching on a green and red sugar cookie that had apparently spent a little bit too much time in the oven. “Jesus, I almost cracked a tooth on this. Who baked it?”

  “Your darling wife,” Celia told him, one eyebrow raised.

  A car rode down the block blaring a punk rock version of Silver Bells, startling Penelope and making her start to cry in Celia’s arms.

  “Finally,” Arturo said, leaning forward and whisking Penelope into his own arms. “Someone understands how I feel about Christmas music. Don’t cry, little perfect darling.” Arturo nuzzled Penelope and she immediately stopped crying, grabbing onto the collar of his shirt and giving him a gummy smile.

  “I’ll never understand how the prince of darkness is also somehow the baby whisperer,” Tre mumbled, following Arturo and Penelope back into the living room where everyone was lazing around. There was a mile-high stack of presents under the tree and enough decorations to make Santa Claus nauseous. It was Celia and Jean Luc’s first Christmas in their new place and apparently they’d gone a little overboard.

  “What were you griping about?” Jack asked as Tre plunked down on the couch next to him.

  “How did you know I was griping about something?”

  Jack stroked Thea’s silky hair as she lounged against his knee, her eyes closed and her feet stretched out in front of her. “Please, do you even need to ask? You’re always griping about something.”

  Tre laughed at himself and leaned back. He raised his voice to make sure that Arturo could hear. “I was just saying that I’m worried about my daughter’s taste in men, considering who her favorite person on Earth is.”

  Arturo shot him a smug smile.

  Martine entered the room from the other side, a bright red sweater clashing horrifically with her hair—she was dressing quite brightly these days. “Well, I for one am thanking God that he’s so good with babies.” She groaned as she sat down in an armchair, her palm down on her growing belly. “We just found out it’s twins.”

  “What?!” Caroline, who up to this point had been snoozing on the window seat in the far corner of the room, sat straight up, dead alert. “You’re kidding! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, ohmyGOSH.”

  She danced over to Martine and kissed her full on the mouth. Then treated Arturo to the same experience.

  Tre reached forward and tugged her down over his lap, laughing with joy at her sweet, happy laugh.

  “Twins?” Celia exclaimed, taking a heavy seat herself. It was as if the idea had never even occurred to her. Jean Luc entered through the back door, kicking snow off his boots and hanging his coat on the hook. He looked around at the expressions on everyone’s faces.

  “What’s going on?”

  “They’re having twins,” Celia said dazedly.

  “Twins?! You’re kidding. Congrats, you guys.” Only, the thing was, he said it directly to Thea and Jack.

  “No, Jean. Martine and Arturo are having twins,” Celia corrected, confusion in her face.

  “Oh.” Jean Luc’s face instantly colored, even his ears going red. “Right. Ah. Wow! Congratulations.” He pulled Arturo up for a hug, careful not to squish Penelope.

  But it wasn’t enough to put the cat back in the bag. The group looked around at one another with raised eyebrows, wondering why exactly Jean Luc would have assumed what he’d just assumed.

  Thea tipped her head back to Jack. “Go ahead,” she told him. “I know you’re dying to.”

  “We’re pregnant!” Jack burst out, as if the words had been sitting on the tip of his tongue for weeks; maybe they had. “I accidentally got too excited and told Jean Luc the other night and then swore him to secrecy. But yeah. There you go! We’re pregnant.”

  “WHAT?!” Caroline was looking like she’d just gotten electrocuted. She danced around the room again, doing some sort of happiness jig that had them all laughing.

  “Good lord,” Celia said. “At this rate, we’re gonna have to move again just to fit us all in one place.”

  Since that night in Utah, the group had trouble separating for long periods of time. They’d spent another week in their strange Airbnb before their bodies relaxed enough to let them realize that the danger was well and truly over.

  As strange as it was, they had lives that they had to return to. Or, more accurately, they had lives that they needed to start.

  They’d booked flights home. Jean Luc and Celia had returned to her small one-bedroom in Brooklyn, and her huge, querulous family. They’d gone on vacation pretty soon after that.

  Caroline and Tre went to the Boston area to pick up her things, swung through Queens to get his things, and then kept on going south until they wound up on the edge of the Everglades. Jean Luc was thrilled when they asked if they could move into his childhood home. It made him so happy to think of them filling it up with love and noise and Penelope.

  Thea and Jack had returned to her homestead where they’d picked up on her life. Jack found he rather loved the slow-talking people, the predictable chores, the hard work. And more than anything, he loved that he spent his days at Thea’s side. He wasn’t a rambler anymore. He was building something. Every single day his life got sturdier and more meaningful.

  Arturo and Martine had just put a finger on a map and ended up in Des Moines. Living in the ‘burbs and loving every minute of it. They were certainly the strangest couple in their cul-de-sac. The neighbors had not been certain what the hell to think of the insanely hot couple who made out on the front porch, grinned like maniacs while they mowed the lawn and brought the groceries in from the car. But they’d made a few friends.

  Still, though, the group had to see one another with frequency—it wasn’t a supernatural need, it was a family-based need. They all convened once a season, in one place or another, sometimes renting Airbnbs. Somewhere that the men and Martine could shift in peace.

  “Um, Jean? Will you help me bring some, uh, food out of the kitchen?” Celia asked, realizing that it was insanity to keep a thing like this from her husband.

  “I’ll help!” Caroline volunteered but Tr
e held her fast around the waist.

  “Let them go, love,” he whispered into her ear.

  Jean Luc followed Celia past the swinging door and there was silence until they heard the tell-tale noises of a former NFL player whooping for joy. Celia was apparently doing something between laughing and crying.

  Arturo passed Penelope off to Caroline and crossed the room to smash himself in the chair with Martine. He loved the press of their human bodies against one another. There was no more supernatural energy, that was gone now. But they’d sacrificed it for Martine’s mortality, for his own life. He wouldn’t trade it. Not for a second. He savored every moment on this earth with her because they were constantly changing, constantly growing. He knew, just as the rest of them knew, that life was temporary and precious. One day, they’d pass on from this world like smoke from a fire. But it was worth it to have been the flame, if only for a little while. If only for a single lifetime.

  The End

  Other books by Selena Scott

  If you enjoyed this book and would like to read more in this series just click on the links below to see all of my books available on Amazon. These are also available in the full box sets.

  The Dragon Realm Series

  Book 1 - Chosen by the Dragon

  Book 2 – The Dragon’s Touch

  Book 3 – The Dragon’s Desire

  Book 4 – The Dragon’s Passion

  Secret Shifters of Spokane Series

  Book 1 – Danil’s Mate

  Book 2 – Emin’s Mate

  Book 3 – Maxim’s Mate

  Book 4 – Anton’s Mate

  Shifter Fever Series

  Book 1 – Ansel’s Game

  Book 2 – Alec’s Game

  Book 3 – Matt’s Game

  Book 4 – Kains’ Game

  Book 5 – Griff’s Game

  Shifters of the Seventh Moon Series

  Book 1 – The Shifter’s Shadow

  Book 2 - The Shifter’s Embrace