Shifters After Dark Box Set

by S M Reine et al.

  But mindfulness would not come that morning. His mind was already occupied with something else.

  Summer Gresham. She was not like any other woman he had encountered during the many long years that he had been known as Mr. Adamson. Where other people seemed dull and lifeless to him—merely mirages flitting through his periphery—she was as brilliant and blazing. Summer was a blow to the gut, a force of nature. Someone who could not be ignored.

  How long had it been since he met a human that dared challenge him the way she had? Had he ever met a human like that?

  The instant that he had seen her, he had known that she was the one he had been looking for. But he hadn’t expected her to be so beautiful.

  He closed his eyes to receive the sun’s warmth on his face.

  Twenty years. Twenty years since he last witnessed that flash of gray light that signaled someone crossing over to this world. It had been brilliant enough to illuminate the entire sky. Nash still didn’t know where the gray light came from, but he knew it could only mean that liberation was close.

  For the last two decades, he had scoured the world for whomever had crossed over. Yet his search yielded no results, and he had assumed that the visitor had left as quickly as they arrived. But considering Summer’s cluelessness as to the true history of her origins, she must have simply passed through as a child and grown up like the others that lived here.

  He could still see her earnest eyes as clearly as though she stood before him now. Her irises reminded him of a moon that Nash hadn’t seen in centuries. He had wished for her to look at him with those moonlit eyes and never turn away.

  But did she know the truth?

  It didn’t matter. Summer didn’t need to know anything to be of use to him; she just needed to be cooperative. In fact, it would be much simpler to manipulate her as long as she truly believed that he was some billionaire—as if money mattered—offering an internship to a college student—of all the stupid things.

  And now he had her in his grip, whether she realized it or not.

  Nash would have Summer Gresham, and he would at last be free.

  Chapter Five

  “Morning,” Gran said, greeting Summer at the kitchen door with a mug of hot coffee. “Have a nice run?”

  Summer dropped onto one of the barstools, careful not to spill. “What? What run?”

  “The cat came looking for love in the middle of the night. He only does that when you leave and don’t let him follow, so I assume you must have been running. I’m going to have to wash my bedspread. It looks like a furry black rug now.”

  As if summoned by his name, Sir Lumpy leaped into Summer’s lap, circled twice, and flopped onto her thighs. He purred hard enough that she could feel it all the way into her teeth. “Were you shedding on Gran’s bed, handsome? Were you lonely?” He kneaded his paws into her stomach, letting his claws press harder than usual.

  The breeze drifting through the open kitchen windows smelled wetter than the day before, and hazy light filtered through the stained glass pentacle. Their break from unseasonably warm weather had passed. Summer could smell rain waiting in the clouds. It was sure to hit by the afternoon.

  The smell of an impending storm was quickly replaced by the smell of gas as Gran lit the stove and grabbed a skillet. “I found the dress on the couch, by the way. Very nice.”

  Summer’s ministrations paused, and Sir Lumpy registered his annoyance by jamming his face into her palm.

  “Sorry. I was going to pick it up this morning,” she said.

  Gran pulled a package of bacon out of the refrigerator. “You know I don’t care where you leave your dirty laundry. Pretty dress, though. If you weren’t running, were you on a date?”

  “I was investigating the guy I told you about. The one that didn’t smell human.” Another head-butt from Sir Lumpy. She obediently rubbed her fingers over his wrinkled nose.

  “And what did you learn in your investigations, Nancy Drew?” Gran asked as she dropped the entire rasher of bacon on the frying pan. She knew Summer’s appetite all too well.

  I learned that Nash Adamson looks great shirtless and has a wardrobe filled with dresses in my size. Yeah, that was a little too freaky to admit out loud. “I don’t think he’s dangerous, but…I don’t know, Gran. Maybe my nose was confused.”

  “So is he human?”

  Summer watched the steam swirling off the surface of her coffee as she pondered the question.

  Was he human? She had never met another man like him.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t want anything to do with him,” Summer said.

  A slow smile spread over Gran’s lips. “Oh, really.”

  She focused hard on her coffee. There was no point in trying to lie. Gran knew everything. “I said it wasn’t a date. I didn’t say that he’s not stupefyingly sexy.”

  “Sexy just means he’s likely to be twice as dangerous. I wish you would have told me that you planned on digging around. I would have come with you.”

  “You would have brought the shotgun,” Summer said.

  “Right. My shotgun and I would have come with you. That’s what I said, wasn’t it?”

  “It’s hard to investigate from a jail cell.”

  Gran laughed. “I’d like to see the army of police officers it would take to arrest you, babe. Anyway, I’m not saying I’d shoot anyone. I just worry about you.”

  “No need to worry,” Summer said. “I’m officially done with this guy.”

  Or, at least, she would be “officially done” as soon as the rooster-shaped clock over the stove ticked to eight. Failing to show up for the first day of her internship should send a pretty clear message to Nash.

  Gran transferred the bacon to a plate and set it on the table. The edges were barely browned, just the way Summer liked it, and she inhaled three pieces immediately. She could feel the fat heading straight for her ass. Worth it.

  Abram entered, sweaty and shirtless. Gran had already whipped up a vegetarian omelet for him. “Thanks,” he said, planting a kiss on her wrinkled cheek as he took the plate.

  He flopped into the other chair at the table. He was followed by the scent of dirt, tree bark, and oil paint, just like every morning. Abram always woke up before Summer to paint for an hour, then exercise for an hour. The guy was obsessed with fitness, and she had no idea why. He wasn’t a shapeshifter, but he wasn’t a lightweight, either—even as a kid, he had been ridiculously ripped, and there wasn’t a broken bone he couldn’t heal in a matter of days. A little laziness once in a while couldn’t hurt him.

  Summer leaned across the table and jabbed her fork into his omelet. The motion made Sir Lumpy drop to the floor with an offended chirp.

  “I finished it,” Abram said, stabbing her fork with his to fend off the attack. “The painting.”

  Summer blinked. “Really? The painting? Can I see it?”

  “Not yet. It’s ready, but I’m not.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Very dramatic, Abram.”

  He shrugged, but she could tell that the taunt bothered him. “I want to show everyone, but the lighting in the art school’s gallery isn’t right for it.” Left unspoken was that he had been hoping to talk Adamson Industries into building the new gallery he needed.

  A fresh wave of guilt washed over Summer as she thought about the way that Nash had looked at her the night before. More and more, she was convinced the internship had been a ploy the whole time. “Sorry,” she said. Abram inclined his head in acceptance of her apology. “Are you still volunteering at the seminar this morning? Do you think you could give me a ride to MU, too?”

  Abram’s eyes widened a fraction. Summer always ran to the university—always. But he nodded again.

  Summer glanced at the rooster clock on the wall.

  It was five after eight.

  ~ ~ ~

  A misty drizzle was falling over the fairytale cottage as Summer hurried out to Abram’s car, book bag shielding her hair from the rain. Her feet slurped in and ou
t of the mud as she stepped around to the passenger’s seat.

  Abram was already waiting for her. He turned on the engine, the batteries hummed to life, and they headed down the road.

  He was playing classical music on the stereo again. That would have normally instigated a slap fight over the controls—he knew how much she hated that boring crap—but she wasn’t up for a fight this morning.

  She breathed on the window to fog it, and then poked dots in the shape of the archer constellation. “So when did you finish the painting?”

  “This morning. I’ve been mostly done for a week, but something wasn’t right. I realized what that was last night in a dream.”

  Summer barely even heard her brother speak. The archer constellation on the window looked like Nash Adamson. Not a warrior, but a lonely man sitting on his balcony. “That’s nice,” she said.

  “You didn’t want a ride so we could discuss my painting. What’s bothering you?”

  “Do you remember our fort in the ravine?” Summer asked.

  He nodded. “The bear.”

  She bit her bottom lip. Picked at her thumbnail. Finally, it exploded out of her in a rush. “I was offered the position with Adamson Industries last week.”

  Her brother’s hands tightened on the wheel, and his brow creased.

  He didn’t speak, but she could practically see the thoughts rolling through her twin’s skull. He was thinking about the way the interviews had been canceled, and what it must have meant to have the internship offered to someone who hadn’t even planned on interviewing. And she saw the moment that he came to the same conclusion that she did.

  “You going to take it?” he asked.

  “Not a chance. I’m not taking any jobs around here. You know I’m out of Hazel Cove as soon as we graduate.”

  “Good.” He turned on the windshield wipers, and they beat out a rhythm against the glass. “If you see any of those men from Adamson Industries around again, you need to tell me about it.”

  “I don’t think they’ll be a problem.”

  “You’re right,” Abram said darkly. “They won’t be.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Summer didn’t have any weekend classes, but her midterm was due the following Wednesday. The project was a lot bigger than the little proof of concept programs she usually did as homework, so that meant a lot of time compiling. She didn’t really need to be on-site for that, but it was better than sitting at home freaking out about Nash Adamson.

  While the compiler’s progress bar inched across her terminal, Summer wandered through the server room in search of error lights. The fans pumping dehumidified air in from the outside world smelled sweetly of wet trees and petrichor, and standing on a vent behind one of the racks was like being in a wind tunnel. It blasted her hair over her shoulders.

  She grabbed a magazine that had been left on one of the racks. The pages fluttered in her hands as she flipped through it. The entire travel magazine talked about distant cities, mountains, deserts, islands—places that she had never been before.

  Summer stopped on a photo of a rainforest. It looked like a scary place for a human, but maybe not a wolf. It might be fun to chase those orange monkeys.

  “After graduation,” she murmured. She had taken double the usual course load for the last two semesters so she could finish sooner. Freedom was getting so close. And a rainforest would be a lot farther away—and a lot more fun—than a ravine in her forest.

  It was so loud in the server room that she didn’t even notice someone approach until they shouted. “Summer!”

  It was Yolanda, teacher’s assistant and head of the Tri Delta sorority, who were having an event on the quad that morning. Even though she was a wiz with CAD, she definitely didn’t belong in the server room on a Saturday morning. “What’s up?” Summer shouted back, returning the travel magazine to the rack.

  “Brian wants to talk to you,” Yolanda said.

  Brian was the instructor for her algorithms class that semester. He was about a hundred years old and perpetually grumpy. “What does he want?” Summer asked, stepping off the vent and following Yolanda to the doors.

  “No clue. He just sent me a text asking for me to find you.” She shrugged. “Who am I to question the master?”

  Summer frowned as Yolanda held a door open for her. Brian controlled a lot of the CS students’ privileges, including access to the server room. Grumpy or not, Brian wasn’t someone she wanted to piss off. “Thanks for letting me know,” Summer said as the door fell shut behind her.

  Yolanda gave her a brilliant smile. She smelled like peach body wash, lubricated latex, and beer. The sororities must have enjoyed their Friday night a lot more than Summer had. “No problem.”

  Summer worried all the way to Brian’s office, imagining a thousand things she might have done wrong and how she could talk her way out of trouble for it. Most of her teachers were pretty patient with her, but Brian didn’t put up with anything from anyone.

  The office was near the front of the CS building, and its frosted windows overlooked the foyer. Summer paced circles near the entrance doors, taking deep breaths and trying not to panic. Neither Abram nor Gran would have panicked.

  “Feel the power of the Gran,” she said under her breath. “Be the Gran.”

  Intoning her name didn’t imbue Summer with Gran’s powers, and putting off knocking on Brian’s door didn’t help, either. It only made her pulse go from “meeting a grumpy instructor” levels to “impending apocalypse” levels.

  Summer swallowed down her fluttering heartbeat and knocked on the door.

  A voice on the other side said, “Come in.”

  She entered. Brian Flanders’s office was huge, and his chair was turned to face the back windows. It felt like she had to walk a mile to reach his desk. “What did you…?” she began, but she trailed off when she inhaled a scent that definitely did not belong to her centenarian instructor. Or any other human on the planet, for that matter.

  The chair spun to face her, and Nash Adamson stood.

  Nash was incognito that day. He had abandoned his usual suit for a v-neck shirt, jacket, and designer jeans, which made him look more like an extremely rich college student than a CEO. But Summer had never seen a student with such intense eyes.

  The silence between them was heavy enough to crush cinder blocks. Her heart felt like it was ready to break out of her chest and sprint across campus to escape.

  After a long, painful silence, she managed to say, “You’re not Brian.” Way to blow him away with your wit, Gresham.

  He braced his hands on the desk and leaned toward her. “If I’d known you hadn’t planned on coming back, I never would have let you leave. At least you’re clothed this time, if we generously consider those scraps to be clothing.”

  She looked down at herself. She had expected to spend all day with the servers, so she was only wearing a baggy t-shirt and leggings. There was a coffee stain on her breast. She pulled her hair over it. “I don’t want the internship. I was going to write you a letter.” He stalked around the desk, and she edged toward the door. “Or…send flowers?”

  Summer bumped into the wall, and he planted a hand over her head. His body radiated heat, as if he was running a fever.

  He bent, and Summer flinched, expecting that this was when the yelling would start. But when he spoke again, his words were gentle. “Are you all right?”

  Her racing heart slowed a fraction. “Aside from the paralyzing terror? Yes.”

  “Why would you be terrified?”

  Her tongue tasted like parchment. She swallowed hard. “Mr. Adam—”

  “Nashriel,” he interrupted. His lips twitched on the verge of a smile. “Or Nash, as you seem to prefer.”

  “Right. Nash. The terror thing? Let me count the ways.” She was embarrassed by how raspy her voice sounded. “For one, you lured me into my instructor’s office under pretense. For another, you have me pinned against the wall, and you’re huge. And finally—no, you know wh
at, those two are good enough on their own.”

  He stepped back, straightened his shirt, and looked charmingly confused. “First creepy, now terrifying. I think we’ve started this relationship the wrong way.”

  “We’re having a relationship?”

  He frowned. “Partnership.”

  “Uh,” she said. The richest man in the world wanted a partnership with a coed in a stained t-shirt. Right.

  Nash’s lips pinched. He folded his hands behind his back, and seemed to think for several long moments before speaking again.

  “I was fascinated to see so many computer classes on your transcripts, considering your after-school proclivities. I, for one, have never found myself comfortable with such technology, although I’ve long invested in its development.”

  “Back it up,” Summer said. “What do you mean, ‘after-school proclivities’?”

  “You know to what I refer,” Nash said.

  Summer only had two hobbies outside of school: making Sir Lumpy go batshit crazy with the laser pointer, and rolling around in the dirt as a wolf. There was no way he could find her kitty antics interesting, which only left one option. And he couldn’t possibly know about that.

  “I need to check on my midterm,” she said. “It’s compiling.”

  She expected him to try to stop her. Instead, he slid a pair of large sunglasses over his striking eyes and followed. “I’ll be interested to see the project you’re working on,” Nash said, pacing her down the stairs to the foyer. She walked faster, but he kept up with her effortlessly.

  “Interested? You’re kidding me,” she said. “Why are you being so pushy about this? Just about any other student at the university would be happy to take the job.”

  “You have unique skills that I require.”

  “Like what? You don’t even know me. The only skill you know that I have is a penchant for public displays of nudity.”

  “It’s a useful skill in the public sector,” Nash said, totally straight-faced. Was he…joking? Did he actually have a sense of humor? “No, Summer, I’m familiar with your studies, and you’re the one I require. I need your unique abilities with…programming.”