Shifters After Dark Box Set

by S M Reine et al.

  Her heart sped. “Actually…I think they’re here right now,” she tried to say, but her voice failed her.

  Abram took her hand and held it tightly. He might not have shown his emotion, but he was her twin, the other half of her soul. She knew that his nerves were ringing, too.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  She leaned her forehead into his arm and shut her eyes. Was she ready to see their parents? The people that she had been waiting to meet for her entire life? Was she ready to set foot in a new world, so much bigger and more dangerous than the one she had left behind?

  “Yes,” Summer said. “I’m ready.”

  They stepped through the door and climbed to the surface.

  The forest waiting for them was sensory overload. Summer could hear squirrels, rabbits, the rustling of bushes, the swaying of trees. She smelled a dozen new people she had never met before. Summer felt a powerful sense of cognitive dissonance. This was the forest that she had seen in the photos on that archaic computer in Nash’s office.

  There was a woman standing just a few meters away, facing the trees. She had long blond hair, skinny legs, and big eyes, just like Summer had seen in the photo. But even if Summer hadn’t seen her before, the smell would have been more than enough to identify her.

  The woman turned to face them, and Summer was shocked to see how young she looked. Rylie Gresham must have been Summer and Abram’s age. Nash had been right—time did flow differently between the Haven and Earth.

  Rylie’s eyes widened and her lips parted at the sight of them. Her irises were as gold as the sun. The straps of her dress bared the faint, silvery hint of scars over her breast.

  “Hi, Mom,” Summer said, trying to smile.

  Abram sucked in a hard breath beside her.

  Rylie’s legs wobbled. Her hands flew to cover her mouth, and she glanced back at the car behind her. There were two men sitting there—both of whom had been in the pictures. They smelled dangerous, like gunpowder and leather, but there was something equally familiar about them.

  Summer knew what all of it meant. She had found her family.

  And then Rylie was moving forward, and so was Summer, and they all but fell into each other’s arms. Abram hugged both of them tight, and they were all a tangle of arms and tears and smells that Summer already knew. It was so much better than she had ever dreamed.

  Rylie pulled back and cupped Summer’s face in her hands to look at her. There was so much heartache in her golden eyes. “You look just like him,” she whispered. Then she turned to Abram and gave a wet sob. “And you—you look like me.”

  Abram’s chin trembled, almost imperceptibly. “I know,” he said. There was so much emotion in those two words. A thousand things that he wanted to say, but which couldn’t escape him.

  “What did she…” Rylie licked her lips. Swallowed. “What’s your name?”

  His jaw tightened. “Abram.”

  “Abram,” she whispered, and tears tracked down her cheeks. “That’s perfect. It’s nice to meet you, Abram. I’m Rylie.”

  There was nothing any of them could say to that. Rylie embraced him again, tighter than before, and Summer could hear his bones creak. He didn’t protest. He wrapped his arms around her and returned the hug with the same ferocity.

  A deep voice spoke. “Summer.”

  She turned. The men from the car stood a few feet away.

  Summer drank in their features. The one on the left was shorter, and his hair was longer—a lot like Abram’s had been before he shaved it, actually. The one on the right was big and mean-looking. Gran had said that was Abel. Her father. Which meant that the other had to be his brother, Seth.

  “Hi,” Summer said. She was strong enough to rip trees out of the ground by the roots, but she couldn’t seem to find the strength within her to say anything other than that. She had no idea how to speak to these men. And they seemed to feel the same.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Seth finally said, extending a hand.

  Twenty years apart, and he wanted to shake hands? Summer burst out laughing.

  She grabbed both of them around the necks and pulled the brothers close, hugging them with all the vigor she could manage. Summer planted kisses on their cheeks. “I have waited so long to meet you guys,” she said, dropping back on her feet. Abel touched his cheek. He looked stunned.

  Seth raked a hand through his hair. “One week.”

  “Practically a lifetime,” Summer replied.

  Rylie was smiling as she watched them, but her expression slipped. “But where’s Aunt Gwyn?”

  “Who?” Abram asked.

  Something scraped within the tunnel before Rylie could respond, and Summer’s heart swelled. Hope and fear warred within her belly. Was it Leliel, come to take revenge after all?

  But then she saw two figures rise from the dust, and the fear was instantly gone.

  Nash stepped into the light, his wings curled protectively around both him and Gran, who looked like she was holding him up. Silver blood stained his arms. The sight of his wings elicited gasps of shock from the others, but she couldn’t have cared less—not when he looked like he might be on the verge of falling over.

  Summer rushed to their side and grabbed one of Nash’s biceps. It wasn’t until she heard a yowl that she realized he wasn’t gravely wounded.

  He was trying to hang onto a cat.

  “Sorry for the delay,” Nash said, giving her a faint smile. “I had to get someone for you.”

  He opened his arms…and Sir Lumpy jumped to the ground.

  Sir Lumpy, unfortunately, didn’t seem to be quite as pleased by the transition between universes as Summer was. He was much too old and set in his kitty ways to put up with that kind of bullshit. She scooped him off of the ground before he could shoot off into the trees, and he thrashed in Summer’s hands, claws out and ears flat to his skull.

  “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay,” Summer cooed, trying to cradle him to her chest to calm him down. Mostly, all that accomplished was getting twenty claws sunken deep into her flesh.

  “The Chevelle,” Seth said. “Quickly.”

  He opened the car door, and she practically had to throw her cat inside. His entire body was puffed up to three times its usual size, and he still hadn’t retracted his claws. After a few angry hisses, he darted under the passenger’s seat, tearing up the leather in his wake.

  “Man, Abel’s going to freak about the upholstery,” Seth said.

  Summer put her hand to the window, but there was nothing she could do for Sir Lumpy now. “We’ll just have to freak him out more as a distraction. I’m sure I can think of something properly shocking.”

  He laughed, but cut off almost immediately. “Jesus,” Seth said, staring at her. Summer realized with a jolt that she was actually an inch taller than him—and he was wearing hiking boots. “It’s really you. You’re seriously here.”

  Summer took a deep breath of the fresh mountain air.

  “I seriously am,” she said.

  ~ ~ ~

  The bonfire they built that night was huge. It probably wasn’t safe to have in a forest, realistically speaking, but the trees were still wet from the last rain, and Summer was grateful to have the light chase away the darkness.

  The werewolf pack had obviously been camping by the cave for a while now, since they easily fell into a routine of collecting dry wood and preparing food. Summer sat back on the hood of the Chevelle to watch them work, drumming her heels lightly against the car’s bumper. She wanted to help, but she had no idea how to jump in.

  “Join them,” Gran said.

  Summer hadn’t even noticed her grandma creeping up from behind. She bit her bottom lip as she took in Gran’s body language—her pink cheeks, the smile affixed to her lips, the way she seemed to stand up straighter. It was like twenty years of weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “Someone has to keep Sir Lumpy company. I’m still waiting for him to come out from under the seat.”

  “S
ir Lumpy is fine, and if your brother’s not having any trouble jumping in, it should be easy for you, too.”

  Summer scanned the clearing until she found Abram helping Seth toss dry branches onto the pyre. But Gran was wrong—it was actually a lot easier for Abram, since he didn’t feel like he needed to talk to people. Summer wanted to know them. She wanted to know them all. But she had no idea where to begin.

  “I’m scared, Gran.”

  Gran kissed her on the forehead. Her lips were cool and dry. “And the sooner you get past that, the sooner you can start catching up on the twenty years you’ve missed.”

  “I don’t think there’s any way to catch up on that,” Summer said.

  A figure broke away from the others and ambled toward them. Summer sniffed the air. It was another werewolf, and he smelled like gunpowder. It could only be Abel.

  “Hey, son,” Gran said with a smile warmer than the sun. Abel stooped so that she could give him a hug around the neck.

  “You had us worried there for a while, ma’am,” he said.

  “You should have had more faith in me,” Gran said. “I’m going to have a talk with Rylie.”

  She vanished, and Summer expected Abel to go with her. But instead, he sat next to her on the trunk.

  Summer had been through some pretty awkward experiences in her life. Her first date with the guy that she met while troubleshooting a failed server, where they had no common interests except for programming? Awkward. Watching her brother heal after that incident with the bear when Summer knitted up in seconds? Super awkward.

  But none of that beat the awkwardness level of trying to talk to her dad for the first time. There just weren’t any words to begin with.

  “So you’re a werewolf,” Abel finally said.

  Summer focused on toying with a tiny pinecone. “I guess so. I’ve always called myself a shapeshifter.”

  “Can you change whenever?” he asked. She nodded. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not unless I’m rushing it.”

  “That’s good.” A pause, and then, “I don’t know if you know, but…”

  “You’re my dad,” Summer said.

  “Oh. Right. Yeah.”

  Okay, enough of this. She tossed the pinecone into the darkness and hopped off the trunk. “I’m a computer sciences major. I like cats, the color yellow, and hanging out in the forest when I’m bored. Now you know me. Your turn.”

  Abel’s eyebrows lifted. “I could blast a can off a fence at a hundred yards with a six shooter before I could drive a car.”

  Well, it was a start. Summer chewed on her thumbnail as she thought. “I tried to rip off an angel’s wing with my bare teeth,” she said helpfully. “It wasn’t Nash’s.”

  That looked like it impressed him. “What’s angel blood taste like?”

  She dropped her voice into an exaggerated, monstrous growl. “Like suffering.”

  Abel burst into laughter, so loud that everyone by the fire stopped to look at them. Summer grinned.

  Awkwardness gone.

  She was home.

  Epilogue

  When Uncle Scott went to the hospital for the last time, Summer had only been twelve, and she hadn’t understood that he was finally dying of the cancer that had eaten at him for months. Her primary worry was that he would be lonely in the hospital.

  Family breakfast was a daily ritual for the Greshams. They had never gone a day without eating together. So she grabbed her grandma and brother, half a refrigerator’s worth of food, and went to spend a few hours with her uncle. The whole family had spent hours together that morning, the adults laughing as Summer and Abram hurled mini muffins at each other, and Summer went home grinning.

  Scott had died of heart failure the next day, but it didn’t take away from Summer’s memory of that last amazing family breakfast. She thought it might have been the happiest time of her life.

  Sharing dinner around a bonfire with the werewolf pack was different—and it made her miss Uncle Scott an awful lot—but it took her back to the days of family breakfasts, and all the laughter they had shared over the years.

  Everyone wanted to know what life had been like in the Haven. What it was like being a “werewolf” without a moon, which was apparently a big deal on this side. They asked about school, technology, and politics. Summer was lost among the multitude of voices, and Abram was even more overwhelmed. But he was smiling, too.

  “Wait,” Summer said after the umpteenth question. She set down the bag of beef jerky and swallowed the bite in her mouth. “That’s enough about us. What about you guys? What’s everything like over here?”

  And that just started off a whole new tirade.

  Summer stroked Sir Lumpy as everyone’s voices washed over her. Her cat had calmed down after an hour in the car, and now he was asleep on her shoulders, claws locked into her shirt and head nuzzled under her chin. He was drooling, as usual.

  She couldn’t help but stare at the new family as they all spoke.

  There was another set of twins on the other side of the fire, named Bekah and Levi. They had cried together when they found out that Uncle Scott had died, but they were at peace now, sitting together on a log with their heads bowed together.

  And then there was Seth. He was the only one who didn’t smell like a wolf, but he was still clearly part of the pack. Everyone got quiet and listened to him when he spoke. Even Rylie.

  Rylie and Abel were the hardest not to stare at. Summer found herself searching for all the common features, picking out what parts of them made Abram and which parts had made her. Rylie’s smile was so beautiful. A lot like Gran’s.

  Summer missed a lot of the conversation in her reverie, but that was okay. She was going to have an entire lifetime to get to know everyone.

  But one person wasn’t joining in the conversation.

  Summer watched Nash through the licking flames. He stood aloof from the others, wearing a borrowed shirt with his arms folded. Everything about his body language was unfriendly, and nobody was exactly going out of their way to talk to him. He had been like that ever since they walked through the doorway.

  Maybe ending his exile was harder than simply escaping the prison.

  “Hey,” Rylie said, drawing Summer’s attention back to her. She spoke in a low voice. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Sure,” Summer said. They headed out to a quieter spot near the car, and she set Sir Lumpy on the backseat of the Chevelle before following Rylie to a fallen log. “What’s up?”

  “The guy with the wings.” Rylie nodded toward the trees. “Nash. Is he…I mean, are you two…?”

  “You mean, are we…”

  Summer couldn’t seem to finish the sentence any more than Rylie could. They shared a laugh, and it made her feel like the gravity was so much lighter than it had been a few seconds earlier. Like she could just take a running jump and fly into the night.

  “He’s hot,” Rylie said.

  “I know, right? It’s kind of insane.”

  “Smells good, too. Like buttered popcorn.”

  Buttered popcorn? Summer didn’t know Rylie well enough yet to ask why she would associate that smell with angels. It was way too psychological.

  Summer focused on her feet to hide her burning cheeks. “To answer your question, yes. We’re together. I think. He’s…complicated.”

  “I’m familiar with that,” Rylie said. She swung her feet over the side of the log, clasped her hands in her lap, and stared up at the sky. A lock of blond hair slid over her shoulder. “Is this the part where I’m supposed to warn you about boys? Or go threaten him or something?”

  “I don’t think he’d like that.”

  “Guess not. I just have no idea what to do. I wasn’t prepared to be the mother of two babies, but I’m even less prepared to be the mother of adults. I mean…” Her laugh was mirthless. “There’s just no way to prepare for this.”

  Summer reached out and pushed Rylie’s hair behind her ear. It was a habitual gesture, the kind
of fidgeting she always did with Gran and Nash, but it came to her as naturally here as it did at any other time. Rylie’s smell was so much like her brother’s. “I don’t really need a mom anyway,” Summer said. Hurt flashed over Rylie’s face, so she quickly added, “But I need friends. And…we’ll always be family.”

  “Friends.” Rylie bit her bottom lip and smiled. “We can be friends.”

  A hot tear slid down Summer’s cheek and shivered on her chin. They joined hands, and both of them stared at the place that their fingers were laced together. Their wrists had the same curve, the same jutting bone.

  “I have to ask something else,” Rylie said. “Were you happy? I mean…has life been good to you?”

  Summer’s lips spread in a grin. “I grew up in an endless forest with my brother—my best friend. Gran and Uncle Scott loved us, took care of us, and taught us everything we know. I’ve gone to college. I drank a lot of coffee.” She laughed. “So, yeah. It’s been good. Really, really good.” She looked up to realize that Nash had disappeared. He wasn’t lurking anymore. “I should probably go talk to my…uh, my friend. He’s been quiet since we got back.”

  Rylie released her hand. “Yeah, go ahead. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Warmth flushed through Summer’s heart, but it quickly faded as she walked away from her mom and headed into the darkness of the forest, following Nash’s smell. She found him standing near a dirt road, and he stared at it hard, as though trying to decide something.

  “Hey,” she said softly, and he turned.

  His eyes still burned straight through her. Somehow, he had become more intense in the short time she had known him, instead of less. Familiarity didn’t take away the edge. “Summer,” he said, sending chills down her spine.

  “Are you okay?” She stepped closer to him to enjoy his body heat. It was a cool night, rainy and wet, and Nash was like a miniature sun.

  “Of course I am. I have everything that I’ve wanted for thousands of years. I’ve finally escaped exile, Leliel has no power over me, and I’m free.”

  “You don’t sound happy to have everything you ever wanted,” Summer said. He didn’t respond, and she pressed her side against his in a silent gesture of solidarity. “What happened after we fell through the fissure?”