Forbidden Shifters Complete Series (Books 1-6): A Wolf Shifter Paranormal Romance

by Selena Scott

  “I found an old picture of her the other day,” Diana confessed. “And it honestly took me a minute to figure out if it was me or her.” The wheels in Diana’s head turned for a while. When she spoke next, she did so without thinking, simply because she was comfortable with Orion at that particular moment. Later, she’d realize that she’d never spoken to another person about this topic. “Honestly, it surprises me that he’s never changed anything about the house. I get it that while I lived there with him he wanted to preserve the memory of my mother for me. But all the Wiccan stuff, well, he hated it when she was alive, so it’s kind of weird that he’s kept it all intact for so long.”

  “He hated it?” Orion asked in confusion. “Why would he marry her if he hated it so much?”

  “It was just a small part of the whole. She was smart and funny and whimsical. Beautiful like you saw in the pictures.”

  “Okay. Then why would she want to marry someone who hated her religion?”

  And here was the tricky part of the conversation. Not just the conversation, but of the truth. The reality that Diana had had to piece together bit by bit as she’d grown older. “My mother… had kind of a reputation.”

  She could feel him blinking at her.

  “You know that I have no idea what that means.”

  Diana shifted, turned onto another rainy side street and was surprised to see that they were already so close to his house. “Besides the witch thing, which a lot of people around here didn’t like, there was also the men thing.”

  Orion just waited.

  She sighed. “She’d slept with a lot of men, I guess. She partied when she was younger. Did drugs. Drank. Wasn’t ashamed of her body or her desires. You know, the way girls are supposed to be,” Diana said sarcastically, with a roll of her eyes. “She made a lot of people uncomfortable and they spent a lot of time talking about her, spreading rumors.”

  “But not Robert,” Orion guessed.

  “Right,” Diana said immediately with a brisk nod of her head. “Not Robert. He didn’t love all the witch stuff, especially when she’d drag me along for it. But he never judged her either. I don’t think he cared about her past. He was just happy to be with her. And my mother needed that.”

  “Everybody needs that,” Orion corrected.

  Diana glanced at him as she pulled into the driveway of the big, pink house. “Maybe so.”

  Orion unbuckled his seatbelt and then looked at her with confusion, his eyes going to the keys that she wasn’t taking out of the ignition. “You’re not turning the car off.”

  “That’s true.”

  He just stared at her, his expression stolid, patient.

  She sighed. “I can’t come inside, Orion. Last weekend was… really unprofessional of me.”

  His brow furrowed. “I wasn't aware that friends were supposed to be professional with one another.”

  “You know what I mean. I fell asleep in your bed! Ida saw my parked car! You’re a client, your sister is a client. I can’t do something like that again.”

  “I really don’t think Ida cared.”

  “That really doesn’t matter. The whole issue is that she knows. That’s the hard part.”

  “Right.” He turned back to the windshield and eyed his house. There were lights on in the kitchen and the second floor. Ida’s car was parked in the driveway. People were definitely home. “Okay.”

  “So, this is goodnight,” Diana said firmly. “Thank you for coming along to dinner with me and Robert. You made it a really pleasant evening.”

  “Wait. Just wait.” He unbuckled himself. “Seriously. Don’t drive anywhere. I’m gonna be right back.”

  “Orion,” she frowned.

  “Seriously. I’ll be right back. Don’t leave. I get what you were saying about Ida. I understand. Just don’t leave.”

  And then he was unbuckled and jogging up to the house, around the back. Less than three minutes later he was jogging back toward her, a small bag in his hands. He threw the passenger side door open and slid in, a huge grin on his face. “Okay. Ready.”

  She furrowed her brow at him. “Ready for what?”

  He furrowed his brow right back at her. “To go to your house.”

  She choked on air. “What makes you think I’ll take you back to my house?”

  Now, he looked genuinely confused. “You don’t live with any of your employees, right? So, let’s go to your house to read, that way no one will know.”

  “That’s not exactly the problem.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  She couldn’t think with him looking at her like that, his body so large and so close, his reasoning so simple. She couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d been with Robert. How easy he’d made everything. She didn’t know a single other person on earth who’d ever held an hour long conversation with her stepdad. Even her mother had spent more time chatting with Diana than she ever had with Robert.

  Seeing it had warmed Diana in an unexpected way. It made her realize that she often felt worried about Robert, about his happiness, something she hadn’t realized until she’d seen him chuckling along with Orion. Until she’d seen him display some happiness.

  Ugh. His question hung in the air. What’s the problem?

  There were problems. She knew there were problems. Hadn’t she just gotten done explaining to Orion about her mother’s issues with men? With the rumor mill?

  “It’s late,” was the issue she came up with. It sounded stupid to her own ears.

  “You don’t have to drive me home,” he told her. “We live pretty close.”

  That’s what he thought the issue was? Double ugh. It wasn’t his fault she was fighting this internal battle. It wasn’t his fault that she wasn’t even sure which side she was on.

  He dug through the small bag in his hands and pulled out the book they’d read the other night. He wagged it around a little bit, teasing her.

  She laughed, groaned, and put the car in reverse. He gave a happy little sigh that went straight to the center of her chest.

  ***

  This time, they fell asleep on the couch instead of a bed. She hadn’t even shown him the part of her house where her bed lived. So, he’d taken the hint that he wasn’t supposed to ask. He’d been more comfortable falling asleep stretched out beside her on his bed, but he wouldn’t trade this moment for the world, aches and pains and all.

  Because the next morning, at dawn, he woke up with Diana’s head in his lap, the book tucked to her chest and her legs curled up like a snail. His legs were stretched outward, his arms spread along the back of the couch, and his head tipped back. It wasn’t the most comfortable way to spend a night’s rest, but what did he care? Her ponytail was spilling over his legs in a glossy wave. He wasn’t sure it got better than this.

  He was aware, however, that he hadn’t been invited to sleep over. He remembered her behavior from before, when she’d slept at his house. She’d woken up and been distinctly uncomfortable that she’d accidentally slept over, indicating to him that it was rude to sleep over without asking to. He’d watched her fidget toward the door and wondered how fast her human rules of etiquette were going to have her jetting out the door. It hadn’t taken long at all.

  Usually, even when he didn’t know the proper etiquette, he just tried to mirror someone he trusted, someone he knew better. Ida was a great person to mirror. She was polite and kind and thoughtful. Wren was a little trickier, because he’d come to realize that she wasn’t the most polite person to ever walk the earth. Diana, however, was the perfect person to mirror. She’d written the book on manners. Literally. Apparently there was a book that the mentors used to teach mentee shifters about human culture and manners.

  So, using that as a guide, he figured it might be time to sneak out of her house, seeing as he wasn’t expressly invited to be there.

  As gently as he could, he lifted her head off of his thigh, trying hard not to stroke his fingers through her hair (which he thought might qualify
as creepy) or touch her with the morning wood that was currently fighting for its life against his jeans (which he was more than positive would qualify as creepy). He slid out from under her and gently slid a pillow under her head, hoping not to wake her.

  Then he had a quick, internal debate. He knew for a fact that it was illegal to pee outside, in his human form at least. And he didn’t think he could make it all the way back to his house. So. Yeah. He was going to have to use her bathroom. Which he didn’t know the rules on. Was he allowed to use her bathroom even though he hadn’t been invited to? He certainly wasn’t going to wake her and ask.

  He quietly opened and closed a few doors, one was a closet, one was a bedroom that he guessed was a guest bedroom, one was a home office that looked eerily similar to her office at the center, and the last was the bathroom. He relieved himself, washed his hands, and used a little bit of her toothpaste, allowing himself to look around while he finger-brushed. The bathroom was clean, with little signs of life sprinkled around. A green plant on the shaded windowsill, a ridiculously fluffy bathmat that was crooked and folded-under at one corner. Confusingly, there were two very large candles on either side of her bathtub. He had no idea why a person would need those in a bathroom.

  He left the bathroom quietly and was just turning the corner to sneak to the front door when Diana ran smack into his chest.

  She screamed bloody murder, much the way she had last night at the center, but, confusingly, she also jumped straight into his arms, her legs going around his waist and her fingers digging into his shoulders.

  “Oh my GOD,” she scolded him. She clutched him so tightly he could feel her heart banging against her ribs. “You scared me, Orion! I thought you’d left!”

  “I had to use the bathroom,” he told her, bemused as hell. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She was still clutching him tightly and he could hear the tremor in her voice, scent her adrenaline on the air.

  “I thought you were an intruder!”

  He quirked his head to one side, his arms firmly around her, holding her to him. “You thought I was an intruder and your first instinct was to jump into my arms? Diana, we’re gonna have to work on your self defense.”

  She stiffened in his arms, her face buried in his neck, but then he realized she was quaking with laughter. “Wow. You’re totally right. That’s terrible!”

  Still laughing, she slid down his body, shaking her head. “Just gimme a second. I’ll get the coffee going when I come back out.”

  Chuckling to herself, she closed the bathroom door and Orion was left to stare after her. Gimme a second was as good as an invitation, wasn’t it? She was telling him to stay put. He dug his phone out of his pocket and pressed the button that read the time out loud to him. He still had three hours until work. Which meant his ass was certainly going to go sit in her kitchen and give her as many seconds as she needed.

  A few minutes later she emerged from the back hallway. Her face washed, workout clothes pulled on, and -most devastatingly- her hair down around her shoulders.

  She’d fallen asleep with it in that tight ponytail last night but this morning it swam against her body, a constantly tumbling waterfall, all the way down to her breasts. He realized now that he’d never seen her in soft clothing, he’d never seen her without any makeup and he’d never seen her hair look like this.

  She was like a different woman, walking into her own kitchen with big, bunchy socks and an easy smile on her face.

  She was an exceptionally observant woman, so he was certain that she noticed his reaction to her, but she was too busy chuckling to herself and grinding coffee beans and pouring water into her coffee maker. She turned and opened the fridge, then the cupboard. “Cereal? I have almond milk,” she asked over her shoulder.

  “Sure,” he said in a gruff voice.

  She started in on making them breakfast. “I still can’t believe that was my reaction. I seriously spider-climbed you.”

  “If my goal as an intruder had been to carry you away, you would have made it pretty easy for me.”

  She poured him a cup of coffee and then slid his bowl of cereal across the counter to him.

  “So,” he said, grasping for the rule. “It’s okay that I’m here?”

  She furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

  He glanced down at the bowl in front of him, the cup of steaming coffee. “You didn’t let me make you breakfast when you fell asleep at my house. So, I’m confused now. I thought maybe it was rude for guests to stay over if they hadn’t been invited? Not that I cared that you stayed over. I just… I’m trying to figure out the rule.”

  Her face softened. “It varies situation to situation. I didn’t stay for breakfast the other day because, well, I was kind of freaking out.”

  “And I’m invited to stay for breakfast because now you’re not freaking out?” he guessed.

  She swirled her spoon through her bowl. “That’s one way to put it. Although, I’m still freaking out a little bit. As evidenced by me literally jumping on you fifteen minutes ago.”

  He reached across the counter and pressed one finger to the back of her hand. “Don’t freak out. It’s just me.”

  She shot him a look he truly had no chance at interpreting. “Turns out that’s the scary part.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you were just a regular man this wouldn’t have to be so complicated.”

  His stomach dropped to his toes. “You mean if I wasn’t a shifter?”

  “No!” she yelped, her eyes wide. “That’s not what I meant at all! I don’t care that you’re a shifter. I just meant that you’re a client. And yeah. You’re you. You have to know that you’re not exactly like other men. It’s confusing.”

  “I’m not like other men?” He considered that for a moment. “I am much larger than most other men, I guess.”

  She pursed her lips. “And sweeter. And more genuine. And more honest. And… it’s a lot, Orion.”

  “I’m a lot,” he summed up.

  “A whole lot.”

  “Huh.” He wasn’t sure what to say to that. So, he ate his cereal and choked down his coffee.

  “This is confusing, huh?” she asked after a long minute, her eyes on her coffee and then on him.

  “Yes,” he answered immediately, bringing a small smile to her face.

  “I’m not trying to be confusing,” she groaned. “I’m just trying to do the right thing here.”

  “Okay.” He took a deep breath. “How about we just concentrate on the sandwiches? That seemed to work well for us.”

  She burst out laughing. “Fair enough. Though cereal isn’t treating us too shabby either.”

  “Maybe later this week?” he offered. “We could eat more sandwiches?”

  “Okay,” she agreed, a thoughtful look on her face. “Actually, there’s this new sandwich place I’ve been wanting to try. Can you meet me at the center on Friday? Around 4:30? I’ll drive us.”

  4:30 was way earlier than he’d been expecting her to say. He seriously couldn’t remember a single time when she’d left work that early. But if she was offering, he was accepting. It all only added up to more time with Diana. “Perfect.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Do you think I could handle living alone?” Dawn asked Quill as they sat on her front porch one morning.

  It had just rained, but the sun was out now, giving their surroundings a misty, jungle-ish feel. And frankly making Dawn look like a wild woman. Her short hair was curly in the humidity, her cheeks flushed, the patch of sun she sat in lighting her up like a spotlight. Her sundress fell off one shoulder as she leaned forward to paint one of her toenails a very distracting shade of purple.

  Quill had come over here to pick her up for a book fair they were going to attend together. It was an expo for young adult and middle grade novels and the library where Dawn worked thought it would be a good idea to send her as a representative. She’d asked him to come along with her because
she was going to have to acquire a certain number of titles and though she had excellent taste in literature, her buying and selling skills were abysmal. It was an almost certainty that she would get fleeced by some seller or another if he wasn’t there to guide her.

  But he’d gotten the timing confused and ended up at her house an hour and half earlier than he had to be. It hadn’t made much sense to trek back across town to his house, so here they were, killing time on her porch while he did his damndest to ignore her cute-ass toes.

  It bothered him that he’d gotten the time wrong. He didn’t usually make mistakes like that. But he’d been all kinds of off recently. Not sleeping well, making mistakes with other clients’ schedules.

  And avoiding the Director’s calls. Always avoiding the calls.

  It was always stupid to avoid your boss’s calls, but ignoring the Director wasn’t like ignoring Diana. If Diana got fed up with him, she’d just can him. Maybe he’d lose some income and reference. Big whoop. If the Director got fed up with him, he’d lose more than income. Quill shifted uncomfortably, thinking of the scars that laced his back. If he screwed up this thing with Phoenix, Orion, and Dawn, this time the director would do more than string him up and beat the shit out of him.

  This time, Quill was certain, he’d kill him. He was pretty sure that’s what had happened to Watt.

  A few years ago, Quill might not have thought that was such a terrible fate. When the internment camps had been shut down and the Director’s recruitment program had lost its pipeline and Quill had found himself with nowhere to go and nowhere to be and completely adrift, life had seemed pretty pointless. The Director had given him a goal, not something to live for, exactly, but something to work towards. Now though? As he sat on the porch swing, watching Dawn paint her toenails with her tongue poking out the side of her mouth, Quill realized that he really, really didn’t want to die.

  She turned when he still hadn’t answered her question. “Quill?”

  “What? Oh, living by yourself? Why would you do that? I thought your situation here was pretty good. Why would you leave?”