The Shifter's Desire Read online

  And then, all at once, they released and fell flat to their hands and knees.

  Martine let go of Jack and Arturo and walked to each person one by one. She helped them to their feet, a bracing hand on their shoulders and soft words in their ears.

  Arturo watched her with a tight throat and heat behind his eyes. She was more like a mother than she’d ever know. She’d just given all these people light and life and now she was nurturing them back to health.

  In the end, he realized, she’d given Arturo a family after all. Somehow, their union had taken the two outsiders and pushed them straight to the head of the group. They hadn’t always been liked by the group, but they were going to protect them, they were going to die for them.

  Everyone was shaking out their hands, turning to one another, watching in amazement as they brought their energy out onto their fingertips, shot little spurts of it into the air.

  The men had blue energy, like Arturo and Jack, and the women had gold, like Martine. A whippy excitement was starting to settle over the group when an extra cold wind blew in, and on it, a horrible stench.

  Arturo’s heart went cold. It was the scent of an evil, dead thing. He’d know it anywhere. The demon was here.

  “Brace yourselves,” Arturo muttered to the group, and then he was grabbed about his middle by a dark arm and yanked backwards into the darkness.

  “No!” Caroline shouted, sprinting toward the place where he’d just been standing. But she was practically bowled over by the three bears who bounded into the darkness, roaring furiously. Martine’s hawk swept into the sky and split the dark like an arrow, a trail of burning gold ripping along behind her.

  Celia and Thea looked at one another for one second before they, too, charged into the dark, after Caroline, golden light sparking at their fingertips.

  The women raced through the maze of the spires, trying to follow the noises in front of them. Bursts of light and swaths of black shadow alternately deepened and destroyed their night vision.

  Celia cuffed Thea around the neck and dragged her back to avoid getting smashed to bits by Tre’s bear who skidded hard through the dirt in front of them, a long gouge on his back already bleeding. He roared and sprinted back into the fray.

  This time, they followed him. The three women came into another clearing, much like the first, and what they saw, none of them would ever forget.

  There was a huge, dark creature, reptilian in look but with a strange smile of razor-sharp teeth. It stank of death and rose twenty feet up in the air. On the air around it was a feeling of great despair, of pain. The women fought against the urge to simply lie down and die.

  Arturo, in his bear form, leapt from one spire that he’d been clinging to and landed on the back of the demon, his claws and teeth sinking into the demon’s back, his blue energy sinking fast into the puncture marks.

  Thea immediately raised her hands and shot her own energy into the demon’s wounds, just as Arturo was doing. She knew immediately that she wouldn’t be able to hold on to any kind of accuracy for long. Her golden energy rocketed out of her like a fire hose.

  Beside her, Celia and Caroline followed her lead, raising up their energy as well.

  The demon roared and bounded toward them, its disgusting tongue lolling to one side and Arturo fighting to stay aboard its back.

  Three bears slammed into the demon hard enough to shake the earth. Jean Luc immediately had his jaws around the throat of the demon, Tre tore at his back legs, and Jack ripped a section of stinking flesh straight from its ribs. The demon made a horrible, rageful sound before a shockwave of black energy pulsed out from its chest. All four bears were flung from the demon as if it had set off a bomb. Their bodies smacked the surrounding spires and fell hard onto the ground, limp and still.

  The demon righted itself and once again went hard toward the women. Its feet skidded as it choked on the golden rope that had just been lassoed around its throat.

  Martine stood, perfectly naked, framed by the night sky, at the top of one of the towers, her energy sparking from her hands in a long chain she used to choke the demon.

  It wheeled on her and grabbed her energy in one of its palms, making the flesh sizzle and burn. But it didn’t seem to care. The demon yanked forward on the rope of her energy, sending Martine tumbling down off the spire. She quickly shifted to her hawk form and then back into her human form as she hit the ground running, full-on sprinting toward the demon.

  She jumped into the air, her energy swirling around her like a tornado, lifting her up in a whirlpool of golden light. The demon’s black energy slashed out at her, but Celia, Caroline, and Thea added theirs to Martine’s and the light swelled.

  The bears shook themselves off, injured, but not down for the count, and started to charge the demon again.

  Though it went against every survival instinct that Arturo had, he shifted back into his human form. He had sworn to Martine that he would be by her side. He wanted his last moments with her to be as a man, not as a bear. Something caught his eye as he ran toward her and he realized it was the spring green energy ring on his finger.

  His wife.

  She was his wife in every way that counted and he wouldn’t let her face the demon alone.

  Arturo called forth his energy and let it lift him up as well. His shoulder slammed into Martine and they were together, their energy mixing in a whirlpool of frantic racing below them.

  The demon roared as Jean Luc ripped another length of flesh from his flank and Tre’s jaw sunk into its ribs. Jack took Arturo’s place on the beast’s back and shot blue energy straight down into the skull of the demon.

  “Now,” Martine muttered to Arturo. “He’s weakened. It’s now.”

  “I love you. More than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life.”

  It was the only proper response for when the love of your life tells you that your time on Earth is about to be up. He didn’t want to die with hatred for the demon in his heart. He wanted to die with love for Martine swamping him.

  “Forever,” she agreed. And then, because she was a total badass, because she was born to do it, because she was going to protect the mortals even if it meant dying, she turned her focus back to the demon.

  Martine and Arturo, fifteen feet above ground, bearing down on the demon, lifted their arms in unison and shot brilliant green energy straight into the body of the beast.

  The demon jolted, stricken with the force of the energy.

  Martine was dimly aware of the women adding their energy to hers, of the men shifting back into human form and adding their energy as well.

  The glowing green electricity created a cocoon around the demon, trapping him in. Martine gritted her teeth and focused even farther. The demon was using his black energy to rip through the cocoon, but she wouldn’t let him. This ended today. He would never terrorize another group of people. He’d never take someone as a slave, the way he’d done to Arturo. He’d never eat another soul.

  With a twitch of her palms, she changed the shape of the cocoon, she forced it into a hundred spears of energy, which gave the demon the opportunity to try to escape.

  But she didn’t let him. The demon, ugly, harsh and hungry, fear and fury in every molecule of its being, lunged toward an opening.

  It was the last thing that the demon ever did.

  Martine, using her final well of strength, lunged the spears of energy forward, straight through the heart of the demon, pinning it still in its last beat.

  Martine felt the life leave the demon, just as she felt the life leave herself. Her body began to dissolve away into the air, just a hint of gold on the wind. She was going to go back to the earth, back to the light, back to where she came from.

  The very last thing she saw was Arturo’s body falling through the air as his energy left him. His eyes were open and lifeless, his chest still. The demon was dead. And so was he.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Martine floated somewhere up near the sun. She was not she. There
was a lightness that had nothing to do with emotion or memory or life. She could stay like this forever. Feeling nothing and floating. It wasn’t terrible to feel nothing. It simply was.

  As she floated, something called to her. It was a memory from a dream. It pulled at the edges of her and urged her to pull it into focus. No, it urged her to pull herself into focus. But she could not focus herself down anymore. She was a light being.

  But she’d had a body once, hadn’t she? She couldn’t remember. She had no memory of a time other than this. She merely floated along in the ether.

  But there! That was a feeling. It zapped and zinged and insistently tugged at her. It was green and glowing and round and small. It was a green ring of light and it reminded her…

  Martine felt the moment the memory hit her, like a bullet to the gut. It wasn’t a ring of light. It was her wedding band.

  Arturo.

  His lifeless eyes falling.

  But the band still glowed. His energy was still mixed with hers. There touching her. She pushed forward, closed herself around the wedding band and felt herself being sucked away, back to its home, back to Arturo.

  She floated over the scene, unseen by anyone. Dawn was breaking over the edge of the canyon. The spires, lit on one side by the sun, were both burnt orange and black. There was a smoking swath of scorched dirt where the demon had gone, killed by her own hand, she remembered.

  There was a group of six people bent over something on the ground, their arms over one another’s shoulders and their heads bowed. Martine could hear words on the air, sounds of grief and mourning.

  She wanted to move toward the group, but couldn’t. She wasn’t a part of them now. Her light had been tethered to Earth by the existence of the demon.

  His dark energy was the counterbalance to her light energy. Without him, she had no counterbalance. Without him, she could not exist on this plane, in this dimension.

  But still, she felt the tug toward the people. The closer she got, the more she could feel the tug of their energy within each of them.

  She’d put that within them. She’d given them that gift. The gold and the blue. Their energy called to her.

  She was untethered and floating, but suddenly, she understood. She could be tethered there with them.

  Something like joy rippled through her. She could be human if she allowed herself to tether to the group instead of the demon!

  But the group of men and women on the ground parted and Martine saw what they’d been bent over.

  It was the still and lifeless body of her one true love. As she watched, Caroline leaned forward and closed Arturo’s sightless eyes with her fingertips. His body was still warm with life, his palms up, his feet splayed to the side.

  There was no life in that chest. In that heart.

  Martine was crippled with sudden and overwhelming pain. No, she couldn’t go on with grief like this, with debilitating heartbreak. She’d go back to the other place, where she could feel nothing and float on forever in a sea of nothing. That was infinitely better than this.

  She turned to go, but something caught her eye. It glowed on Arturo’s finger. Spring green. Their mixed energy. Their bands. Their love.

  He was her husband.

  It was her husband lying there on the ground.

  She couldn’t turn from him.

  She couldn’t go to a world where her feelings for him, no matter how painful, didn’t exist. She wouldn’t live in nothing when she’d, for a few brief weeks, had had everything.

  She tugged herself forward by the hanks of the group’s energy. She needed to return to Earth and bury Arturo. She would grieve him properly, as his wife, as his love. She heaved herself forward again and felt the edges of her being crystallize. She was pulling herself out of thin air and toward the group. It was painful. An unholy ache. Every inch forward further impaled herself on the group’s energy. She let it pass cleanly through her, like the sharpest blade.

  It was a rebirth. This was what she had to pass through to come to the other side. Energy was being pushed through every single cell of her body. It was adhering to itself and yanking her forward. She rushed toward the group, toward Arturo, and suddenly she understood.

  When she materialized this time, it would be the last time she ever did so. She would be of human flesh and blood, a creature of the light no longer. Could she really do that? Could she give up the very thing she was made of?

  The shadows melted into Arturo’s dark hair, his beloved body long and still. Her heart broke with the need to say a true goodbye, to lay him down to rest.

  The energy ripped toward Martine, away from each of the people in the group. They gasped and fell to their knees as Martine took back what she’d given them, took what she needed to make it to the other side.

  Martine pulled herself the rest of the way into the land of the living.

  Her feet touched ground and there she stood, tousled, breathing hard, and fully human.

  “Martine!” There was a chorus of voices and hands at her shoulders and elbows. Words. So many words. But she didn’t hear any of them.

  She stepped silently forward toward the love of her life, lying in the dirt.

  When she knelt next to him, the group fell quiet.

  She pressed her warm cheek to his cooling one.

  Martine sat back up and lifted her crying eyes to the sky. She said thank you to the Earth for allowing her to have loved this man. She cried the tears of a woman who had known love, strong and true, unwavering.

  Martine slipped the glowing ring of green from her finger. She took Arturo’s off of his limp hand and held them both in her human palm. She turned that palm over and pressed the rings into Arturo’s heart, directly over his chest.

  She felt the exact moment the rings were gone. The light buzz of their energy disappeared deep into the cavity of his chest. Where it belonged. She closed her eyes and pressed her love deep into him.

  Something thumped against her palm.

  Martine’s eyes flew open and she felt it again. Irregular, but there. Definitely there.

  And again.

  His heart had begun beating again.

  Martine gasped a tearful breath as his dark eyes fluttered open, his pupils fighting for focus.

  “You’re here,” he grated out.

  “Me? You’re here!” Martine gave an unladylike snort and threw herself over top of Arturo, who wheezed a little at the impact but nonetheless brought two heavy arms over her back.

  “Why, you lucky son of a bitch!” Tre hooted from behind them. “He’s alive! I can’t believe this motherfucker is alive.”

  If Martine could have possibly torn herself from Arturo’s chest, she would have seen a group of people crying into one another’s shoulders, hugging and gasping and laughing. She would have seen, firsthand, the palpable love that they all felt for her and the man in her arms. She would have seen her family.

  EPILOGUE

  Two Years Later

  “You are not changing a dirty diaper on my brand new countertops. Tell me that is not what I’m seeing.”

  “I’m confused, are you asking me to lie?” Tre asked a scowling Celia as he tossed a dirty diaper into the trash can next to him and finished clasping a clean one onto his daughter’s perfect little body.

  Celia’s scowl transformed as she turned her attention to Penelope, Tre and Caroline’s daughter, and held her hands out. “Gimme. Hand her over and you’re forgiven.”

  “Here you go, over to Auntie CeCe.” He grunted as he handed his rather large, six-month-old daughter over to his best friend. “Did you tell him yet?” he asked quietly.

  Celia looked over her shoulder quickly and shook her head. The whole group was visiting Celia and Jean Luc in their newly renovated brownstone in Crown Heights and two days ago, Tre had inadvertently walked in on Celia puking her guts out in the downstairs bathroom. She hadn’t quite gotten around to telling Jean Luc that she’d been the lucky recipient of a positive pregnancy test.
/>   “Not yet,” she admitted, cuddling Penelope’s neck. “I can’t tell if he’d rather I waited until we didn’t have a house full of people or if he’ll be bummed that I made him wait.”

  “I vote for you to tell him right away. Caroline made me look at the test for her, so technically I was the first to know about this little peanutty-buddy.” He kissed his daughter’s bright red fuzz on the crown of her head.

  The door to the kitchen swung open and Arturo stalked in, looking thoroughly peeved about something. “What is it with mortals and Christmas music? We get it, it’s Christmastime, do we really need to be harmonizing about it for eight weeks out of the year?”

  “Um, Arturo, darling,” Celia said, fluttering her lashes. “Might I remind you that you are once again counted amongst the mortals?”

  He frowned at her, as if the comment irritated him, but really, it thrilled him to the core. Two years later and he still got a complete kick out of the fact that he was actually aging. A few weeks ago, he’d found a silver hair at his temple and he and Martine had fucked like absolute rock stars, fueled by the ferocious joy of mortal life.

  “Christmas is supposed to be a joyful time of year, my friend,” Tre reminded him, crunching on a green and red sugar cookie that had apparently spent a little bit too much time in the oven. “Jesus, I almost cracked a tooth on this. Who baked it?”

  “Your darling wife,” Celia told him, one eyebrow raised.

  A car rode down the block blaring a punk rock version of Silver Bells, startling Penelope and making her start to cry in Celia’s arms.

  “Finally,” Arturo said, leaning forward and whisking Penelope into his own arms. “Someone understands how I feel about Christmas music. Don’t cry, little perfect darling.” Arturo nuzzled Penelope and she immediately stopped crying, grabbing onto the collar of his shirt and giving him a gummy smile.

  “I’ll never understand how the prince of darkness is also somehow the baby whisperer,” Tre mumbled, following Arturo and Penelope back into the living room where everyone was lazing around. There was a mile-high stack of presents under the tree and enough decorations to make Santa Claus nauseous. It was Celia and Jean Luc’s first Christmas in their new place and apparently they’d gone a little overboard.