by Selena Scott
“Ah.” Matt swallowed his bite of lasagna. “Right. I’m still processing.”
“What was your reaction right when you found out? I know when Ansel told me, I absolutely freaked out.”
“You didn’t freak out.” He nuzzled at her neck.
“I did. And you know it.”
“You freaked out,” Inka said to Matt, her mouth full. The group chuckled at his chagrined expression.
“I may or may not have rambled in shock for about twenty minutes until she cut me off.” He reached over and wiped some tomato sauce off her chin and licked it off his thumb. “But it’s an awful lot to swallow. I mean, even just the knowledge that shifters still exist is crazy enough. And then to find out…” he trailed off, shaking his head. He was definitely still processing.
“I didn’t believe him at first. I demanded to see the shift immediately,” Ruby remembered.
“That’s right,” Ansel squinted at her. “You made me get out of bed and tromp through the woods in the middle of the night.”
“Come to think of it,” Matt said, putting his empty plate on the coffee table, “I wouldn’t mind a demonstration.”
“YOU HAVEN’T SHOWN HIM YET?” Kain sat straight up on the floor. Matt had thought he was snoozing until then. His blond hair stuck up in a few directions and the scar that lined one side of his face caught the light, but it made him even more attractive. His handsome face was pulled into a look of complete disgust. “Inka, you animal! You tell your man that you’re a bear shifter and then you don’t even show him? That’s criminal!”
She scraped her fork along her plate, got the last bite of sauce and then put it on the coffee table next to Matt’s. “We were driving!”
Even Griff laughed. “It does seem kind of cruel, Inks.” He turned to Matt. “Aren’t you out of your mind with curiosity right now?”
“Well, yeah,” Matt said, scrubbing a hand over his head. “But I’m a scientist. So I’m pretty used to the feeling at this point.”
“Come on,” Milla said, gesturing to Inka. “Let’s go show him.”
“But dessert!” Inka protested.
“The pie will keep for another hour, Inka,” Ruby insisted. “Seriously, go show Matt your bear!”
Matt rose and looked around at all of them. “Are you coming, too?”
Ansel hesitated but shook his head. “Milla will be there. The rest of us will give you some privacy.”
“Ah,” Matt paused. He wasn’t exactly a confrontational guy but he was definitely gonna say this. “Look, I don’t understand how all of this works, but Inka told me that she’s safer when she’s with her siblings. So, I’d rather you all came. Just to make her safer.”
None of the men present, Ansel, Kain, John Alec, or Griff, were used to being told what to do. But none of them hated the fact that Matt wanted Inka to be as safe as possible. In fact, they outright respected it. Ansel was the first to rise.
The group went out to the backyard and then suddenly, despite the frigid February air, there was suddenly a whole lot of blond nakedness.
“You get used to it,” Ruby told Matt as she watched Ansel strip down. “Sort of.”
“They get naked before they shift?”
She nodded. “Otherwise they wreck their clothing.”
John Alec came to Matt’s other side and his eyes, too, were on his wife. Out of curiosity, Matt’s eyes dipped over Milla’s naked form. She was beautiful, no question. But when he let his gaze land on Inka, her messy bun, her ass in the air as she yanked off one sock and then the other, a punch of lust slammed into Matt so hard that Ansel, Kain, and Griff all glanced up at him.
He remembered what she’d said about shifters being able to scent lust. There was suddenly quite a bit of heat rising up out of his collar.
“Keep a lid on it, scientist,” Kain called across the yard where he’d just stripped down. “There’s ladies present."
“Pretty sure a certain lady’s presence is the reason for all the lid-blowing,” Griff said in that deadpan tone of his.
Inka grinned and toggled her fingers at Matt, making him blush even harder. “So, ah,” he said to Ruby. “Your brother is a shifter, too?”
“Yup. I guess the gene skipped me, though. My parents were, too. Look!”
And sure enough, there they went. Ansel and Milla were first; the air shimmered around them and then they simply weren’t human anymore. It was graceful in a vicious sort of way. Matt got the impression that the two bears that stood across the yard now, Ansel big and white-blond, Milla smaller and more gold, were built for fighting. It was just in the way they held those gigantic bodies.
Kain went next and his shift was lazier, smoother somehow. Matt got the impression that there were huge reserves of power within Kain that he chose to keep hidden.
Then went Griff.
“Oh!” Matt laughed in surprise. “I thought he was going to be a bear.”
There was a sleek, sly-looking wolf where Griff had just been standing. His fur was as dark as his hair had been a second ago.
“Sometimes he is,” Ruby said, watching her brother sniff across the lawn. “He can shift into a lot of forms. Though he can’t really control it yet. He and Kain have been training a ton. At first he couldn’t shift at all. But lately he’s been doing a lot better. It doesn’t hurt him as much as it used to.”
Matt opened his mouth to say more but John Alec pressed a hand to his shoulder. “Your woman goes now.” The warrior remembered the exact pulse-pounding moment he’d first seen Milla shift. He wouldn’t want that moment to ever be wasted.
Matt didn’t realize he was holding his breath as Inka took two quick, running steps across the ground and flipped, neatly, joyfully, perfectly into a cartwheel. By the time her feet landed on the ground, she’d shifted. An effortless shift. So quick, so natural that Matt hadn’t even caught it with his naked eye. She was just… suddenly… a bear.
The most gorgeous bear he’d ever seen in his life. He slicked off the mittens he wore and they dropped on the ground as he strode across the lawn to her.
A light dusting of snow began to fall.
He’d listened when she’d told him that she was golden. But to actually see it. It just about stopped his heart. “Oh my God.”
He crossed the entire lawn without fear. Even though he was surrounded by thousand-pound bears and a wolf the size of a motorcycle. But Inka was there. She was in there. He could already see it in the way the bear cocked her head. The silly-wide-adorable look in her eyes.
When he was about five feet away he stopped. He patted his leg at the bear. “C’mere.” He clicked his tongue.
Then he went bright red, face palmed, and shook his head at himself.
“I’m so sorry. That was so dumb. Calling you like a dog. Jesus.” Instead of embarrassing himself any further he just closed the distance between them. She sat on her haunches and watched him, with what he thought of as an amused expression.
“Mariposa,” he whispered to the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen in all his life. Early spring snow fell between them. He wanted to touch her so badly. More than anything. But instead, the reverence caught him by the throat and Matt found himself falling to his knees in front of her. “Mariposa,” he whispered again. It was the best he could do.
Inka followed him down, dropped her great head onto her paws and watched him with those big eyes. He breathed heavily. Still as a statue.
After a minute, Inka crept forward an inch. Like a puppy. And then another. She snuffed her nose right under his hand and tossed it backward so his palm landed between her ears.
Matt laughed. He couldn’t help but laugh. He didn’t pet her, exactly. He felt that would be very rude. But he did feel her. The coarse fur, softer down by her skin, her rubbery nose, and even, when she opened wide for him, the warm slice of one of her three-inch canines.
An hour later, when everyone was dressed and warming by the fire in Ansel’s living room, Matt’s head still spun. He sat in the sa
me place as before.
“You alright?” Griff asked. “I know it’s a lot.”
“Yeah,” Matt shook his head. “I think I’m alright. I didn’t expect it to affect me that much.” He tapped his fingers on his sternum in a gesture that he barely noticed. Inka’s brothers sure noticed.
“You just need some dessert and a good night’s sleep,” Inka said as she plopped down next to him with a plate of pie in front of her. “Here.” She absently forked a bite of pie and held it out for Matt. He took the bite and placed a hand on her knee.
It wasn’t until he’d realized the room had gone completely silent that he looked back up. Everyone was staring at them. Gaping actually.
“What?” Matt asked, swallowing the bite in his mouth.
No one answered. Matt turned to Inka but she looked just as confused as he did.
“Um,” Ruby looked from the Ketos to Matt. “I think they’re all shocked because they’ve never seen that before.”
“Seen what?”
“Inka shared her food with you.” Milla spoke to Matt but her eyes were on her sister, searching for an answer that she already knew in her gut. “That’s a high honor, Woods.”
Inka blushed, looking truly embarrassed for the first time since Matt had met her. “I always share with Matty.”
“Yeah. I’ve seen enough for one night.” Kain rose up from the floor. “Inks, why don’t you guys sleep in my guest bedroom so you’re not the only bear in the house?” He winked at Matt. “I’ll wear earplugs.”
That heat rose up from Matt’s collar again.
“Sounds good.” Inka polished off the pie and rose from the couch. “And tomorrow, Matt will show you all his invention.”
“Tomorrow,” Ansel nodded.
Matt said his goodbyes to everyone, pretty much on autopilot at that point. He scrubbed up in the bathroom at Kain’s house. Stripped down to his boxers and sat on the bed, waiting for Inka to do the same.
When she came back, smelling like toothpaste with her hairline wet from washing her face, Matt just couldn’t hold back anymore. This entire day had been him holding his hands over one geyser of emotion only to have another one pop up a foot away. He couldn’t contain himself. He couldn’t, as Kain had suggested, keep a lid on it for another second.
It was completely natural for him to reach for her. And it thrilled and calmed Inka in turn when he rolled them, gave her body some of his weight as he kicked his hips forward and kissed her mouth so sweet.
When Matt kissed down her body and pressed his tongue inside her, to Inka, it was like coming home. It was their first time making love since he’d found out she was a shifter. She hadn’t realized how worried she’d been that he might turn from her. She couldn’t explain how it felt to have him drinking from her body like nothing had changed. Like things had only gotten better. He sucked her into orgasm, pulling it straight from her body and down his throat.
She was still trembling when he crawled over top of her, started pressing inside.
“Matt,” she pushed her nose against his so that he looked her in the eye. “You aren’t mad that I kept it from you until now?”
He shook his head, his hair tumbling across his brow and a look of pleasured torture on his face. “I’m just honored to know. I just want to know you, Inka.”
He jutted forward and seated himself completely inside her.
“I just want to know you,” he repeated.
His forehead fell to hers and he rode her smooth and slow. Somehow it was even more primal than anything they’d done before. He’d fucked her fast and hard before, but this, this was different.
There was no part of her he wasn’t touching. He worked himself deep, and then deeper, swirling his hips to get flush against her. And then he gave her a rutting push, using his weight to just get in a tiny bit further. He set up a rhythm and on each push Inka felt herself changing, falling.
She felt him pulsing inside of her and it thrilled her deeply, the intimacy of it. She’d never felt more connected to someone in all her life. She knew, without having to ask, that he felt the same way, too.
Matt’s breaths were coming out as grunts as he shifted his arms against her to hold her even closer. She hugged him with her arms and with her legs, her toes digging into the backs of his thighs as he dug into her.
“Anything,” he grunted into her ear. And it was the same thing he’d said to her that morning. That morning that felt a million years ago already. “I’ll give you anything.”
He ground into her, barely pulling out now. He was just trying to press himself closer and closer.
“The heart from my chest,” he said, sweat rolling over his temple and his eyes on hers, clear and feral in the same expression. “I’ll give you the heart from my chest.”
It was that that brought her over the edge. Careening, halfway out of control, she ricocheted into the unknown, clamped down, and took him with her.
CHAPTER NINE
There’d been stunned silence when Matt had shown them the frequency tool.
“It’s so simple,” Milla had said skeptically.
Matt had shrugged. “It works.”
And then he’d shown them. He’d carefully blown through the mouthpiece, creating a deep, full note. He’d clicked the echo chamber into place and there, sure enough, was a window being blown open. The molecules moved like puddled milk being blown across the kitchen table. After a minute of work, Matt had created a window big enough to fit a torso through.
The impressed expressions of everyone were dimmed by the intense call of the window to all the shifters present. Matt quickly closed the window back up.
There’d been much chatter and clamor to see the instrument. But by the end of the first day, Matt was still the only one who could get the frequency tool to work. At first, he’d been worried that they’d all think he was the only tool present. After all, he had designed the tool based on his own voice. So it was very possible that it wouldn’t work for them. A thought that hadn’t occurred to him until hour three of passing the tool around and all fruitlessly trying to create a window.
Finally, finally, Griff had succeeded. Just for a few sustained seconds, but he’d succeeded.
“Hell yeah!” he’d yelled, gifting them with the first smile that Matt had seen from him. The young man’s teeth were white and his eyes were navy blue, like his sister’s. Matt realized that the kid was handsome. It had been hard to see before, through all that solemnity.
They’d decided to break for dinner at that point and Matt found himself standing outside, in his mittens, while John Alec flipped burgers on the grill.
“You really don’t want a coat or something? A hat? It’s freezing cold out here.”
John Alec, standing in just a pair of jeans and a thermal shirt raised his eyebrow at Matt’s mittens. “I’ve endured much worse.”
Deciding it was better not to argue with the Warrior, Matt let it drop.
“This tool you’ve made. It’s very, very important that I learn how to use it.”
Matt nodded. “I’ll work on different versions of it. Maybe a different build would be easier for some people.” He hesitated. “If you don’t mind me asking, why is it so important?”
Alec sprinkled some seasonings that Milla liked onto one of the burgers. “Because right now the only way that we can get in and out of Herta is through the gates that already exist. Which means that often we’re trapped there.”
“Why would you go back? I mean, I know it’s your home, but isn’t it extremely dangerous for shifters there?”
He was quiet for a long minute. “My sister is still in Herta.”
“Oh. You want to bring her here?”
John Alec laughed. “Valentina would rather eat dirt than live on Earth. But if I had a tool to cut between worlds, then I could aid her without having to leave Milla for such long periods of time.”
“Aid her with what? Is she in danger?”
John Alec flipped the burgers. “My sister a
nd I are in the business of freeing shifters that are enslaved on Herta. We fight a war with the slave owners. But we have so many limitations. Your invention would allow us a lot more options.”
“Right.” Matt nodded, thoughts jumbling together. “You could even start a caravan. Rescuing and freeing the enslaved shifters, bringing them right back to earth.”
“My thoughts exactly.” He was quiet for a minute. “It would also make Inka much safer. From the one who hunts her.”
Matt was at full attention. “You mean if we were able to close the gates in the forest, she’d be safer? There’d be less chances for him to see her?”
“Yes. And there’d be less places for him to drag her back through as well.”
Matt’s blood turned into knives.
John Alec saw the man’s face. He thought about how it would have felt to have those words said about Milla. “He won’t take her if she’s with others. And he wouldn’t risk fighting a she-bear in her own world. Inka would be much too strong for him. But make no mistake. The hunter wants her. We will all have to be careful. To protect her. If she gets dragged back in her human form, he’ll have all sorts of power over her. She… would likely succumb.”
“Can the hunters open and close the gates?” Matt would never know how he managed to make his voice as steady as he did.
“I’m not sure. But the gates are certainly multiplying. Like I said, Matt Woods. Perfect your tool. We all need it now.”
***
Matt and Inka drove home at the end of that weekend. She told him he could sleep if he wanted, and he did recline the passenger side chair, but they didn’t stop softly talking the whole way home.
And they did the same thing the next weekend.
And the next.
Little by little, the family was figuring out how to use the tool. And Matt was getting to know each of them in turn. Surprisingly, Ansel had been the easiest. Inka’s big brother came off as gruff and protective, and he was those things. But he also understood what it meant to care about a woman, and he allowed Matt to be close to Inka. Besides, both of them were hard workers and pretty handy when it came down to it.