Shifter Fever Complete Series Bks 1-5 Read online

  “And you really think that Griff is the only one who can lead that?”

  Alec was quiet for a time. “All I know is that I’ve never seen shifters respond to anything the way they did to the stories of his defiance. He’s a symbol. I don’t know. Nothing gets through the haze, but that seems like it did. I think shifters would follow him.”

  Milla nodded. “But what about your sister?”

  Sadness came over Alec’s features. “She won’t leave. She’s Hertian through and through. But I told her exactly how to get to me in Green Mills. She’ll come for me if she needs me. And I’ll go back. I’m sure.”

  Milla nodded again. “And I’ll go with you when you go.”

  Alec scoffed. “Hell, no, you won’t. Herta is too dangerous for you.”

  Milla frowned. “I’m pretty sure I handled myself just fine on Herta for damn near close to three weeks. When you go back, I’ll go.”

  Alec ripped a hand through his short hair. “This is what I’ve damned myself to.” He spoke to the ceiling of the car and to no one in particular. “A lifetime with a woman who makes me crazy.” He turned to Milla. “You’ll not come back to Herta while it’s so dangerous.”

  He expected her to argue back immediately, the way she always did, but she was simply staring back and forth between him and the road, her brow furrowed.

  “What?”

  “You said lifetime,” she said, almost dully.

  “Yes,” he answered slowly, not sure what she was getting at.

  “With me.”

  “Yes. Of course. Milla–”

  “Like you want to get married?”

  That pulled him up short. He scraped a hand over his stubble and frowned. “Make this thing go over there!” He pointed toward an overlook over the mountains that was coming up.

  “What?”

  “The car, make it stop moving. I can’t think with everything rushing past.”

  Milla, bemused, amused, nervous, pulled the car into the overlook and slammed her way out onto the gravel viewpoint, the same way Alec just had.

  He paced over to the view and paced back. “It looks just the same as on Herta,” he said as he gestured roughly over his shoulder toward the mostly green mountains rising in the distance behind him.

  “Yes…” she stepped forward, her stomach flipping. She’d never seen him so agitated.

  “But nothing is the same as on Herta! All the, the, the technology, of course, is different. But also the way things are between a man and a woman. That’s different, too!”

  “What do you mean?” Her patience was winding down. She didn’t have that much of it in the first place and she was gonna need him to start making sense here soon.

  “I mean women on Herta do and, and say certain things and I expect it. I get it. You! Nothing you say is what I expect. And so you and I are different than we would be if you were Hertian.”

  “Just like we’d be different if you were an earthling, of course. What are you getting at?”

  “I mean that I thought we were already married!”

  His words pulled her up short and she stared at him, the wind tousling her short hair and the green mountains spreading out around her.

  “What? Why would you think that?”

  “Because I came here for you. You accepted me. We lay in one home like a husband and wife. I’m leaving my world for you. You’re leaving your job so that we can spend time in Green Mills. We’re training Griff together. I– if that doesn’t make us married, then what would?!”

  “Um. How about a discussion about whether or not we should get married?” She raised an eyebrow. “On earth somebody’s got to ask, somebody’s gotta say yes, and then we’d have to have a wedding.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jesus Christ. Fine. Then let’s just do that and have this awful conversation be over with.”

  Milla laughed. She couldn’t help it. “Jeez, John. You’ve sure bowled me over with your romantic ways.”

  He looked up and took her measurement. Deemed she wasn’t upset. No, actually, she was kind of glowing. “You don’t love me because I’m romantic,” he told her.

  “Is that right?” Her heart hammered in her chest. “Then why do I love you?”

  He shrugged. “Lots of reasons. I’m competent. And passionate. And I’ll stay by your side until I die.”

  Her heart did a somersault. How could something be so romantic and so morbid at the same time? She thought of every romantic movie where words were spelled out by a skywriter, or said with a choir in the background, or in some other grand, public gesture. She looked at the plain, brown-eyed man standing in front of her in a black T-shirt, jeans and a ratty combat jacket from another world.

  He scowled at her. She grinned.

  “Maybe that’s all true,” she waved her hand in the air. “But you love me because I’m a warrior just like you. And I’m loyal. And I’ll protect you. I’m the only person you’d ever let protect you.”

  His eyes darkened and he stalked toward her. “Fine.” He took her by the back of the head and landed a hard kiss on her lips. Their teeth clacked and their eyes blazed into one another. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” And then she took a kiss from him. Just as vicious, but softer, meltier. The way she was only with him.

  “Fine,” he repeated. “Now we’re married.”

  She laughed against his mouth. “No, John! That’s not how it works.”

  “I don’t care,” he leaned her into him and took another kiss. “That’s how it works for us.”

  Milla laughed again and kissed him hard and it was a long time before they got back into the car. When they did, the light had changed; it was blue over her husband’s face. Her man from a different world. Her warrior. The man who protected shifters with his life.

  “We’ll do it, John,” she promised him, lifting a hand to his cheek. “We’ll keep fighting for shifters.”

  “I know,” he said, bringing his hand to hers. “Now let’s go home.”

  The End

  Matt’s Game

  PROLOGUE

  Twenty Years Ago

  Inka Keto was a bear! She was a bear, she was a bear, she was a bear! The eight-year-old little girl did a booty-rocking, butterfly-handsing, foot-stomping dance all the way around her backyard.

  Her mother laughed from where she watched on the deck. “What are you so happy about, little one?”

  Inka looked up, not in the least embarrassed to have been caught dancing her ass off. Her long blonde hair was in a tangled mane and her knees and elbows all had grass stains on them. “I’m just so happy to be a bear!”

  Her mother stopped laughing now, as she realized what her daughter was saying. She stepped off the deck and beckoned for her daughter to come to her lap. “Inks, did you really think there was any chance that you’d be anything else?”

  Inka stopped her happy little wiggle as she looked up at her mother. The little girl’s eyes were so honest. So honest that it was almost painful to look into them, it was like seeing her soul face-to-face. “I’ve always been scared that I’d be the one to be something else. That of all the bear shifters in our family I would be the one who was a frog or something.” The sensitive little girl suddenly felt a wave of guilt. “Not that there’s anything wrong with frogs. Frogs are cool.”

  Her mother chuckled and sighed. It was true that Inka had always been different. And though their entire family were bear shifters, there always had been the slightest chance that Inka would end up shifting into a different animal. That would have been hard on everyone. But it wasn’t worth worrying about because Inka had had her very first shift that morning and she’d shifted into a beautiful golden bear, just like Ansel and just like Milla. Soon, Kain would do the same.

  “But you are like them, little one. You’re part of this family, you know? You’re just as much bear as any of them.”

  “I know,” Inka nodded. And she did know. But that was the funny thing about fears, they h
ad a way of making you not know what you think you did. Inka put a chubby palm on her forehead and groaned. “Ugh. I’m confusing myself again.”

  Her mother laughed and kissed her on the temple. Her Inka, her beautiful, strange little Inka. “I don’t want you to spend your day worrying.”

  “I won’t,” Inka solemnly promised. “I’m going to spend the day in the woods. I’ll go talk to the butterflies.”

  And that’s exactly what she did. In her ragged jean cut-offs and daisy printed T-shirt, the little girl chatted to every butterfly she could find. And the only time she stopped was just once, when she felt something that she’d never felt before. She couldn’t have known that she would feel it again, many times in her future. It felt the same as when someone left a door open in the house. A cool draft around her feet. But then there was a sleepiness, something that told her to close her eyes and come closer. And through the sleepiness, Inka felt a man. He was standing there but she couldn’t see him. He was hunting for her, but he couldn’t see her either. She held still. For one hour and then two. And when finally he was gone, she kept on talking to the butterflies. She was quieter, but still just as honest.

  ***

  Sanxenxo, Spain

  Matt Woods couldn’t believe he had to spend yet another summer at his Abuela’s. Spain was cool enough, he guessed. But Abuela’s house was covered floor to ceiling in doilies and the cat aggravated his allergies.

  But those weren’t the real reasons Matt was frustrated. He was frustrated because of every single kid in his entire school, he’d been the one who’d been selected for the NASA summer camp. And instead, he was in Spain with Abuela.

  Grand.

  He didn’t want to be an astronaut, he already knew that. He figured there was enough to study on the earth. He didn’t need to add all of space to his plate as well. But it had been an opportunity to spend a summer with REAL scientists. Not just the ones who dipped one petri dish into another on all those crime solver shows that Abuela liked so much.

  If it hadn’t been for Mariana Cruz who lived a three-minute walk from Abuela’s, thirteen-year-old Matt would have considered this entire summer a total bust.

  So it was over in that direction that Matt went one night maybe 45 minutes before sundown. He’d head over to Mariana’s and if she was still outside maybe he’d steal a kiss. It had happened before and Matt had to say, his interest was piqued.

  He jumped a fence and stumbled his way through the gully that ran along the back of the neighborhood.

  He considered it an experiment of sorts. Somedays he’d get over there and Mariana wouldn’t kiss him. Somedays she would. Was it what he wore? How he looked? How he smelled? Was she affected by a factor on her end? Whether or not her mother was home? Or perhaps, if she’d had enough sleep or not?

  It was with these questions in his mind that Matt jogged along the bottom of the gully. He was so caught up that he almost didn’t see it. The disturbance in the air.

  But something, maybe just a skittery feeling along the back of his neck, had him stopping, looking around to see if maybe someone was watching him. When he’d determined that he was alone, Matt looked around the gully. Something was raising the hairs on his arms and he wanted to know what the hell it was. And then, there it was.

  Well, it was there and it was not there. It was there around the edges. Just a blurriness that created a jagged tear in the air.

  Matt took two steps toward it. Then one step back. And then, as it always did for him, curiosity won out. He jogged right up to it. It was clear in the middle and blurry on the edges. He wondered for a moment if whatever it was, was only comprised of edge. If the clear part in the middle was undisturbed. He tried to put his hand through, but he couldn’t. It was like touching glass in the air. A strange tugging came over him. But not as if something had grabbed his hand, but rather as if something were tugging on every single molecule within his arm.

  He yanked his arm away and studied the tear some more. He realized, with a start, that what he was looking at was not clear air on toward the shrubs and ocean, but rather a mirror image. A window.

  To where?

  The question was so loud in Matt’s head that he almost winced. Next he dragged his attention to the edge itself. He ran his fingers along every section of it that he could reach. It was stiff in some places and soft in others. The difference between feeling a picture frame made of wood and one made of velvet. But he could feel it the whole way around. The edge was completely tangible.

  Needless to say, he didn’t go see Mariana that night. Nor for any other night of his vacation. For the next 30 days, Matt Woods studied that little tear that he’d found. He took every kind of note he could think to take. He drew pictures, took photos, took video on his Abuela’s humongous, clunky video camera. He studied it.

  Until the 31st day, when he arrived in the gully with a packed lunch and a whole host of experiment ideas boiling in his brain. Matt stopped. Backtracked. And came back. He turned a slow, 360-degree circle.

  And just like that. The window was gone.

  He would spend the next 22 years trying to figure out what the hell it was.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “It’s just one date,” Matt Woods muttered to himself, again. For about the fortieth time in two minutes, he had his cell phone in his hand, Katie’s contact info up and a thumb over the call icon.

  He jammed the phone in his pocket. He couldn’t cancel. It was too late. Twenty minutes until she was here. It would be a real asshole thing to do. Besides, she was probably on the train right now anyways.

  It wasn’t that Katie wasn’t attractive. She was. And it wasn’t that she wasn’t pleasant enough to be around; she definitely was. And it wasn’t even the engagement rings and baby bottles that seemed to circle her head like cuckoo birds in a Wile E. Coyote cartoon. He knew he could avoid those deftly enough.

  It was the time away from work that bothered him.

  Matt looked wistfully behind him at the guest bedroom in his house, fully converted into a lab at this point. He felt he was just weeks away from a breakthrough he’d been working on for years. More than years. A lifetime.

  And he was taking a break… why?

  Right. Because of his mother. His mother, who was currently spending her retirement in her home country of Spain, had forced him to make her a promise. You see, for about the last decade, the guest bedroom hadn’t been a lab. It had been his mother’s bedroom.

  Yes. Matthew Woods, 35-year-old molecular biologist, had lived with his mother for a decade after college. Well, she’d lived with him.

  What was he supposed to do, kick her out?

  A year ago, she’d come to him with a proposal. She was going to go back to Spain and live with Aunt Florencia. But only, only, if he made her one big ol’ whopping promise.

  “You have to make an effort to meet someone, mi hijo.” She’d sharply slapped one side of his face. She’d never had a particularly soft touch. “You’re a handsome boy, Mateo. So, why not? You meet someone and make both of us happier.”

  At the time, the promise had been a no-brainer. His mother got to return to the country she loved, Matt got his guest bedroom back, and he suddenly had a lot more free time to work on his research. In fact, all that extra time had catapulted his research into the next level and he found himself closer than ever to finally knowing the answers to questions he’d been asking himself for 22 years.

  But Carmen Daniela Alvarez was no pushover. And Matt was a man of his word. So over the past few months he’d gotten in the habit of taking a woman out now and again.

  He’d been pleased to find that he was pretty good at it.

  Not that he’d ever been a slouch in that area. With his dark scruff and light blue eyes, Mediterranean coloring and friendly face, well, women said yes when he said wanna. He hadn’t had time to cultivate anything worth returning to over the years, but he hadn’t been lonely either. Matt had moves when he wanted to use them.

  But tonight
, he was not particularly in the mood to use them.

  His mind was still on the latest stage in his project, chewing and chewing on it, the way he often did, while he stared blankly at the open kitchen cabinet. He could have sworn he had wine glasses.

  Damn! His mother had taken them when she’d moved. Matt sighed and slowly knocked his head against the cabinet door he’d just closed. He hated when he fulfilled the absent-minded scientist stereotype. But sometimes the evidence was stacked against him.

  He’d gone on a few dates with Katie over the last month or two and when she’d suggested they have a drink at his place before going out to dinner, Matt had agreed. They’d stayed the night at her apartment a few times but he figured that if she came here, he could extend his work day a bit, save himself the commute. But now he was deeply regretting that decision.

  No wine glasses? And–he winced–the only other options were a set of plastic cups he’d gotten from a Yankees game half a lifetime ago and some coffee mugs. Maybe Katie wasn’t going to be the future Mrs. Matthew Woods, but she at least deserved a wine glass.

  Matt yanked open his pantry and sighed with monumental relief to see that he had, in fact, remembered to buy wine. Okay. Well, he still had ten minutes until she was supposed to be here. He could rustle up some wine glasses in that amount of time.

  Fixing the cuffs on his dark blue button-up, Matt ducked into the hallway of his building. He tried two of his neighbors first, but neither of them were home. It was with a sinking in his gut that Matt realized he was going to have to knock on the last door in his hallway.

  He was going to have to talk to her. The most gorgeous woman in the world.

  As a scientist, he wasn’t prone to exaggerating.

  Milla Keto, high-powered businesswoman and his next-door neighbor, was literally the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life. On screen or off. She was perfect. Her face, her body, her flawless haircut that accented her cheekbones, her perfectly tailored clothing. All of it added up to stunning.