The Billionaire Shifter’s Final Redemption: The Billionaire Shifters Club #6

by Seere, Diana

  Blinking, she took a few breaths, licking her lips. “I’m human now?” Looking down, she seemed puzzled, brow tightening. The effect made her nose scrunch up in a cute, pert manner.

  “Oh, yes.” Pouring her a glass of water from a decanter on his nightstand, he offered it to her, sitting on the bed next to her thigh, restraining himself from slipping his hand under the covers and sliding it up to nirvana.

  The scent of her was driving him mad.

  Every square inch of Dr. Samantha Baird seemed calculated to send him into a sexual frenzy.

  Gulping, she drank the water so fast it spilled out over the edge of her lips, one stream of liquid finding its way down her neck, over one perfect breast, into a valley over her navel.

  He groaned.

  Then lunged.

  The taste of her mouth as she kissed him back was but a hint of the rest of her, his nose in overdrive, his shift barely held back as she reached up and pressed his head against hers, the need evident in how her hands roamed over him. She had nearly died, dammit, right before his eyes, and while he’d respected her need to recover from so much—the injury, the serum, the aftermath—he had needs, too.

  Needs only she could fill.

  “Whoa there, Mr. Macho. Slow it down,” she joked as she broke the kiss, panting—but smiling. “We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us.”

  “We do,” he grudgingly acknowledged, holding himself back, hoping he had not overwhelmed her.

  Yet barely able to keep his hands off her.

  “And my life is a lot longer now, isn’t it?” she noted, drinking more water, watching him with a dark passion that set his senses on high alert and his cock even higher.

  “You tell me. You’re the shifter DNA expert,” he replied, letting his hand do what it wanted to do earlier, her face flushing as he reached the soft, rounded swell of her inner thigh.

  “Do you really want me to wax rhapsodic about the intricacies of shifter DNA right now, Mr. Stanton?”

  “Only if you can do it while my face is between your legs as I taste your divine pussy, Dr. Baird.”

  Hand on her heart, she played coy. “Where were you when I had to pass my oral exams for my PhD, Mr. Stanton?”

  “Oral, you say?” Taking that as an invitation, he lifted the covers and prowled under, her giggles coming with a mighty shove to the head.

  “Hey now! Not yet! I’m still waking up.”

  “My tongue is an extraordinary alarm clock, Samantha.”

  Flipping the covers off his head, she took his face in her hands and looked at him, suddenly serious. Her disheveled state did not seem to bother her, which pleased him. Having a naked woman holding his head in her hands was decidedly better than any other position he’d been in within the past twenty-four hours. That she was his One was even better.

  “Asher. Please. I want you—”

  He moved to kiss her. Samantha’s arms were surprisingly strong for someone who had been at the brink of death so recently.

  “I want you to tell me how on earth I got here.”

  “I assume it all began when your mother and father decided they loved each other very much, and one night took off their clothes and—”

  He deserved the smack upside the head.

  Laughter filled the room. It was his own. Giddy with happiness, he felt like a schoolboy. A Loki. A court jester.

  A man in love.

  “You answer my questions or I won’t have sex with you.”

  He stopped laughing.

  “That, my sweet Samantha, would not only be a very unfortunate form of punishment for me, it would also punish you.”

  She frowned. “Good point.”

  “But you are right. Forgive me. You asked how you got here? You fainted in my arms at the Novo after your first shift. Natural-born shifters are often quite tired after their first and, apparently, so are serum-created shifters. You slept the entire way home.”

  “Home?”

  “This is our home now,” he said with great clarity.

  “Of course.” The way she waved him off made him smile. “But what about the others? Edward? Derry? Molly? Manny? Zach? And Morgan—” She cut herself off, obviously remembering his final moments.

  All the happiness dimmed inside Asher, replaced with a dark cloud, a shroud. Taking her hands in his, he looked into those sensitive green eyes and said, “Alas, Morgan perished. Zach and Manny, however, like the others, have mostly recovered.”

  Tears welled inside Samantha’s eyes. “I hoped it was a bad dream, about Morgan.”

  “Sadly no. Morgan was the oldest of the shifters, living a very long and fruitful life. In shifter terms, he was the equivalent of a ninety-five-year-old or older human man. He died for the sake of a greater good. His sacrifice will always be remembered.”

  “Did anyone else die?”

  “Not anyone of importance to us, no.”

  “And Tomas? The people on his side?”

  “No one with any standing appeared at the fight in the Novo, so we will always be left with the question of who in the shifter world was on Tomas’ side. The army we witnessed was the tip of the iceberg. A mixture of shifters and serum-created shifters.”

  She shivered. He knew why. Samantha was a serum-created shifter now, through the biochemical process she’d undergone had been at her own hand, of her own making.

  Not like the poor beasts back at the Novo.

  “So there are still powerful shifters who agreed with Tomas?”

  “We…” He sighed, hating the gravity of this conversation, hating more his lack of answers. “We do not know. But my team will find out. Will find them. It is complicated, my dear.”

  “Tomas’ lab? If you find that, it—”

  “Done. Destroyed.” It pleased him to be able to answer that.

  Pale and panting, she was clearly upset by all the news. Asher wanted to calm her, to center her, to be grounded with her. Passion took its place behind compassion. He squeezed her hands.

  “Samantha,” he said softly. “Can you shift?”

  “Of course. I did, didn’t I?”

  “I meant can you shift now? Voluntarily?”

  “Yes. I don’t know how I know, but I can. I can feel it, like a memory. Like knowing I can swim.” Her voice drifted off for a moment, then returned sharply. “Why?”

  “I have something to show you.”

  Before he could say another word, his love transformed before his eyes, her hair turning to fur, the eyes staying the same color, widening into almond-shaped orbs under thick eyebrows, the markings on her face a work of art. She was small and compact, and as his own shift took over his cells, he felt a wholly new sensation.

  The Beat.

  But with both of them in their respective animal forms.

  Sprinting out the door, he took her out onto the lawn, bounding across the wide grass and into the grove of trees where his den was hidden. She kept up with him easily, sure of foot and quick about it as well. The wind called out to them, the sun shining its approval, all of Mother Nature in synergy with the deeply true essence of Asher and Samantha’s union.

  He reached his den and, using his paw, opened the little sanctuary, his heart called to this place by magic.

  Samantha followed him inside, then immediately shifted back to human form, bringing him with her, neither saying a word but both knowing. She stood before him, naked and beautiful with squared shoulders, wide hips, a lush ass, and a look of extreme concentration on her face.

  “Asher,” she said as he watched her carefully, marveling at her ease between the animal and the human world. “The singing. Do you hear it? It’s so beautiful.” A small smile flitted across her lips. “Morgan’s creation. He made this place for you, Asher, but he really made it for the Book.”

  “Yes.” How she knew this truth was surprising, but he could not lie to her.

  “How did Morgan know? How did he understand the true meaning of the Book?”

  “He could not read it. B
ut Morgan was a man of many talents. He appreciated its role and took on the job of caretaker. He was loyal and faithful. Always here. Ever ready when called.”

  She strode to him, touching his face with shaking fingers. “You inspire that in people.”

  All he could do was kiss her.

  And then all he could do was kiss her harder, deeper, falling into her with an endless, boundless need that felt timeless. The world ended where their joined bodies began, the feel of her flesh under his a rebirth that filled him with energy, a new chance to live out his natural life with his true love a gift he could never repay.

  To whomever granted it.

  Her hands could not touch him enough, hungry for his skin, his mouth.

  “I want you, Samantha Baird. I want you with every fiber of my being. I want to take you. I want to give to you. I want your heart, your soul, your thoughts, your body. Those perfect breasts, that endless ass, your sweet pussy, your eyes that hold the answer to so many secrets of the universe. You are my One, and I am yours, and while I want to spend the rest of my life making love to you, right this very moment I can barely contain myself.” He felt his muscles tremble, cock throbbing so hard it might burst, hand itching to hold her, touch her, fuck her with the hard, steady strokes of a man who needs to claim in order to settle.

  “Then shut up, Asher Stanton, and fuck me like you mean it. I just want you in me, for you to shatter me, to make me feel real again. Please, Asher. Please,” she begged, moving against him with such force, her grinding certainty quite clear.

  Her words ripped through him, shock the only reason he hesitated, joy filling him at the challenge. Without preliminaries, he picked her up, took her to the bed, and with the desperation of a man who thought he’d lost everything again, he entered her with a shout, both of their voices calling each other’s name as the sudden intrusion changed into a series of gasps and grunts, their moans growing louder as Asher let long, deep strokes become harder, faster, her legs tightening about him, her body urging him to go primal.

  Go deep.

  So far inside her he could never, ever pull himself fully out.

  “Don’t you ever,” he groaned against her ear, index finger brushing the new scar along her neck, the one left from Tomas’ attack, “ever leave me. I cannot live without you. I cannot and I will not.”

  “I’ll be by your side for as long as you’ll have me,” she whispered before biting his shoulder, the pain satisfying.

  “Then you are mine for eternity,” he told her as their bodies tensed, the climax catching them both by surprise, the final release explosive as he bucked against her, she clawed his back and ass, and as he let himself lose all the parts of him he’d kept hidden inside, protected by flawed control that isolated him as he had wrongly abandoned this joy.

  Thank God she’d restored it to him.

  The Beat carried on through their flushed skin, the pungent musk, the slick of sweat coating their bare skin, the loose, languid feel of orgasm.

  And the gentle, overwhelming sense that the shifter world was safe.

  Asher Stanton came perilously close to weeping with gratitude in her arms.

  But Samantha had other ideas, disentangling herself from his embrace and looking up at the ceiling, one hand reaching up, her arm long and haunting.

  And when she pulled it down, she held a tome.

  “What is that?” he asked, propping himself up on one elbow, watching her glorious form as she moved in the soft light, his heart still catching up as its beats slowed to match hers. His eyes took in the words from a distance, the words clearer, his reading glasses in his main office. But he saw one symbol with great clarity.

  The same symbol Zach had asked about, in his office.

  The symbol without description. Universal vibration, collective unconscious—these descriptors were too weak. The symbol meant everything.

  In that sense, it was just like his future wife.

  “The Book,” she said, but her words were not English.

  Opening it, she traced the first page with her finger, reading perfectly. Asher’s grasp of the language was considerably less sophisticated, but he knew what she read. Knew what this meant. Like Zachary, she was fluent in a mysterious manner he suspected mere science could not explain.

  For the next fifteen minutes, he just listened as she read.

  And then she began to sing.

  Closing his eyes, he rested against the bed, seeing colors, flowers, shifters from antiquity in far-off lands, the tale she told in verse washing over him. Magic? Perhaps. Whatever this was, Samantha was a conduit, the energy settling into her as if it had searched for home for many years.

  Just like him.

  As he opened his mouth to ask her what was happening, he heard a tap tap tap on the den’s door.

  Impossible.

  Samantha stopped her singing and stood, walking to the door with purpose.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, leaping off the bed to follow as she opened the door.

  To find that his secret den had been discovered.

  “What are you doing here? How did you know about this place?” Asher demanded, all his brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews gathered before him, Zachary, Molly, Lilah, and Jess standing before them, everyone in human form.

  “You called us,” Gavin said in a firm, bewildered voice.

  “I did no such thing!”

  “You most certainly did!” Sophia called back, haughty and strong, confident and bold as usual as she swiped an impatient hand through her long, thick hair. Rubbing her pregnant belly, she added, “And during dinner, no less!”

  “We never called you,” Asher insisted.

  “The words,” Lilah said, holding Dellie in her arms, the baby grinning at Samantha. “We heard the words. So beautiful. The song you sang.”

  “Me?” Samantha put her hand on her heart.

  “You called us,” Zach said to her. “Were you reading from the Book?”

  “Singing,” Molly gasped. “A song I swear I’ve heard before.”

  “In dreams,” Edward added, blinking rapidly, his voice filled with a lightness Asher had not heard since he was a boy.

  “How did you know?” Asher asked in a low voice, shaken deeply by this turn of events.

  “We all heard it, brother,” Edward explained, arm about Molly’s shoulders.

  “Even me!” Jess’s face was pink, eyes bright. Derry smiled and tightened his hold of her hand.

  “This can only mean one thing,” Lilah said, focused on Samantha, who looked back at her, questioning.

  “What?”

  It was Gavin who answered for her, taking one step forward to reach for Samantha’s hand as he said, “Welcome to the family, Sam. You are one of us now.”

  “No,” Molly said, surprising everyone, as Asher realized what she was about to say.

  He beat her to it. “Samantha,” he said gently. “You are not one of us now.”

  “I’m not?”

  He kissed her other hand. “No. You’re not. Because you were always one of us. All along.”

  Epilogue (Part 1)

  “Heavens!” Joyce Baird exclaimed, both hands over her heart. “How lovely!”

  Doug Baird, true to his nature, was less expressive. He regarded the Stanton’s private lake from the great room in the main house with narrowed eyes. “How’s the fishing? I don’t see any boats down there.”

  Sam pointed at the boathouse to the right, around the curve of the shoreline. Past the pools, private guest cabins, sauna, and tennis courts. “Right over there, Dad. Asher said he’d love to take you out on the water anytime. And Edward, his youngest brother, is a natural outdoorsman.”

  “He’s the one missing an ear?” Doug asked.

  Sam closed her eyes a moment. She’d told her mom about Zach’s injury because she’d met him years ago, when he worked in the lab, and would naturally ask questions. “No, that’s Zach, and it’s only partially missing. You can barely tell, especia
lly with his hair longer like it is now.”

  “You don’t want to be a bother about fishing,” Joyce said, patting her husband’s arm. “They’re so busy with the wedding.”

  With an amused snort, Doug tugged at the lapels of the suit he’d bought just for the ceremony, which was—Sam glanced nervously at her watch—in ninety minutes. Her makeup was done, and her dress was waiting for her to climb inside, but her parents had just shown up. “It’s not like I was about to cast out a line right now,” her dad said. He looked up at the late-summer sun, shining brightly through a cloudless blue sky. “Nice day to get married, sweetheart. I keep telling your mom you know what you’re doing. Even though we barely know the man.”

  “If you’d stayed here at the ranch last night, you would’ve had a chance to get to know Asher and his family a little better,” Sam said, stifling a sigh. Her parents were stubborn, proud people who had insisted on driving from Lincoln themselves and paying for their own motel room (almost an hour away). The distance had taken them longer than they’d expected.

  “Well, honey, even if we’d arrived last night, you’ve got to admit even then we wouldn’t have had enough time to really get a sense of anybody,” her mother said.

  Just then Molly peeked around the sofa. “Excuse me, Sam. They want to touch up your contouring a little before you go on stage, so to speak.”

  “Molly! Come over here and meet my parents.”

  Sam made the introductions, and her parents returned Molly’s cheerful smiles, obviously grateful to meet somebody normal. Well, they probably assumed Molly was normal. She didn’t look like a woman with special Sight or access to a vast fortune, although her union with Edward had given her just that. No matter how rich Molly got, she’d always be a sweet, down-to-earth woman. And a friend.

  Sam gave her a hug and felt the tears burn in her eyes.

  “Don’t cry, baby,” Her mother said, gently pulling them apart. “Save it for after the pictures. That skin of yours is so fair you get splotchy in seconds.” Pointing to Sam’s neck, her mother added, “And that nasty scar! You need to be more careful when you work in those labs you love so much, honey.”

  Molly cocked one eyebrow as her gaze met Sam’s. The cover story was weak, her look said.