“Bottom line,” Martine said, the long, muscular lines of her body tense as she stood in front of the group. They were sitting around the dining room table, as if it were a conference room in a very tense board meeting. “If we don’t capture him, he’s going to strike at us again. It’s twice now that he’s successfully lured one of our group. It’s twice that we’ve been within a breath of losing one of us.”

“I still don’t understand how having him close to us makes us safer,” Tre said, his orange hair standing on end where he’d just raked a hand through it. “I mean, essentially, this is catching a tiger by the toe, right? Where are we gonna put him? The guest bedroom?”

“Right,” Celia said, astonished that they were all still even entertaining this idea. “We’re just gonna be, like, please don’t blue-light us all to death? No way! If we bring him here, he’ll just have easy access to our souls. One of us will be dead, like, immediately.”

“No,” Martine shook her head. “There are ways to control the demon. To keep him in line. To keep him from hurting us.” She turned back to the group. “The shifters can do it.”

“You mean when they’re in their bear form?” Caroline asked, leaning her elbows on the table and sipping from her cup of tea. This was all incredibly exciting to her. She glanced at Tre, saw that he was more worried than excited and she tried to get her facial expression to match his. She was trying to keep a lid on things.

“Yes. But also in their human forms.” She turned to the men. “The three of you, you’re in a family of sorts. Three brothers, yes?”

Her question seemed to jolt all three of them. Jean Luc went very, very still in a way that told Celia that it hurt him to think of himself as having brothers. She was sure that it would feel like a betrayal to Hugo to have new brothers. He wouldn’t like thinking of it that way, even if it was true.

Jack cleared his throat. “I guess you could put it that way. The three of us are definitely connected. No question.”             

“Well, you’re connected to Arturo, too.” Martine dropped that tidbit of news onto the group like it was a blanket soaked in mud. “He’s just better at shutting you out than you are at shutting each other out. How do you think he’s known when and where to attempt to lure you? He’s had a read on your emotions, your feelings. He’s waited until you were feeling alone. Vulnerable. Until you wanted your woman but your woman didn’t want you.”

The mood at the table strained. Tre let out a low whistle, his eyes wide as he scratched at the back of his neck. Caroline covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes ricocheting back and forth between Celia and Jean Luc.

It was Thea who saved the day. “Alright, alright,” she mumbled. “Relationships are hard, misunderstandings happen. I left, but I came back. We don’t know what happened with these two over here, but if the fact that Celia is basically sitting on our boy’s lap is any indication, I think they made up. Moving on. I think Martine’s got a point here.”

Martine, realizing that she probably hadn’t handled that with the amount of grace that humans often required, just rubbed at her brow and plowed on. “He has a window into our world right now, because he can reach out and feel the emotions of our boys the same way that they can with one another. Only, he has centuries of practice at it. They can do the same thing for him. They can read his feelings if they try. They can know if he’s engaging in a deception. But more importantly, they can stop him.”

“Using the connection?” Jack asked, adjusting his gray baseball cap and leaning forward in keen interest.

“Yes. You will be able to subdue and restrain him. He is very strong. So it will take all three of you to be able to perform this task. And it will take time to learn how to do it. But you shifted yesterday and I think that we’re on the right track. I think that we could really do this.”

“So,” Celia said, “you’re saying that if the boys practice hard, get a better handle on their shift, they’re going to be able to control this psychic connection thingy a lot better.”

“Yes.”

“And if they control it better, they might be able to control Arturo.”

“Yes.”

“And if we can control Arturo, then we can neutralize his threat against us. It’ll hobble the demon’s reach, so he’ll have to come at us directly.”

“Yes.”

“And then you’ll be able to kill the demon and all of this will be over.”
“Yes.”

For the first time that meeting, Martine sank down into a chair. It struck them all separately how rarely she ever sat amongst them. Was it Martine holding herself apart from them? Or were they holding her away?

“Alright,” Jean Luc said, his deep voice reverberating over all of them. “I think we need to get down to practice then. We’re doing two-a-days.”

“This isn’t NFL preseason,” Tre grumbled.

“No, it isn’t. It’s a hell of a lot more important.” Jean Luc spoke quietly but decisively. “So far, this is the only plan we’ve got that doesn’t involve us sitting around and waiting to play defense against Arturo and the demon. I’m starting to sense a pattern here. And if I’m right, then he’s going to come after Celia next, the way he did with Thea. And yeah. No. Sorry, but never. Over my literal dead body.”

Celia stiffened, her brow furrowing in confusion and shock as she stared at Jean Luc’s fierce countenance, the set of his shoulders, one of his hands clenched into a fist.

“Fair enough,” Jack said, almost lightly. “I think we could stand to work a little hard, get used to the shift, try to wrangle us a bad guy.”

“I really do think this is our only way,” Martine said, as she looked around and saw that half the faces were looking relieved and half were tense with consternation.

“Well,” Thea said slowly. “You’re the demon slayer. I think it would be a little ridiculous of us to think that we could come up with a better plan than you could.”

The meeting adjourned and the shifters made their way out to the field out back immediately. Jean Luc was out the back door without even a glance over his shoulder. Celia felt strangely, intensely invisible, as if he were actively blocking her out.

She stared after him. Over my literal dead body. He’d said that. Wasn’t that as good as saying that he’d die for her? She chewed her lip.

“Alright,” Caroline said, sipping from her tea again. “Spill, sister. I want the gossip.”

“From me?” Celia looked up.

“Duh,” Thea said, leaning back in her chair, her fingers laced over her stomach. For as reserved as she usually looked, she seemed pretty dang interested in whatever was happening with Celia and Jean Luc.

“Oh. I—uh. We’re hooking up?”

“Oh, come on,” Caroline laughed. “It’s gotta be more than that!”

“Um. We’re hooking up really… well?” Celia’s face flamed to her hairline.

Thea laughed. “I don’t suppose that’s a surprise. You trapped yourself quite a stallion.”             

“Yeah.” Celia looked at the two women still sitting at the table. She realized that they no longer looked like strangers to her. Thea’s familiar piercing gaze and Caroline’s chocolate softness were comfortable, expected. They’d been through a lot together. She knew these women. And, she reminded herself, they’d been good to her. These were not her pissy sisters who looked for any way to laugh at her or belittle her. She could speak candidly to these women. And, in fact, she should speak candidly to these women. Who else in the world was going to understand this? “I didn’t mean to trap him. I just thought it would be fun to flirt with him. And then…”

“And then…” Caroline prompted, leaning forward over her tea like she was straining to hear a soap opera on the television.

“And then we were doing it on his bedroom floor.”

Thea laughed again. Caroline’s eyes went round. “You did it on the floor? I’ve never done it on the floor.”

Thea turned to her, her brows drawn. “You’re kidding.”

“Not kidding.”

“Weren’t you married for like a decade?”

“Peter isn’t really the do-it-on-the-floor type.” Not with me, anyway, Caroline thought with a terrible little pang in her gut. “Anyways. So, are you together now?”

Celia swallowed hard. “I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it. It’s only been, like, less than 24 hours. I think we’re going to need some time to figure it all out.”

Thea knew when someone was done talking about something. “In the meantime, we need to find something to do to help our cause. I’m not interested in being dead weight on this little adventure.”

“What do you mean?” Caroline asked.

“I mean that they’re out there in bear shifter boot camp, training like badasses and we’re in here literally drinking tea.”

“Oh.” Caroline looked down at her hands clasped around her tea cup and burst out laughing. “Fair enough. So, what do we do?”

“Well,” Celia said. “I actually had some ideas about that.”

“Yeah,” Thea said. “Me too.”

 

***

 

That night, Tre hobbled from the shower down the hall back to his bedroom, a towel around his waist. He was fairly certain that there was still a bunch of shampoo in his hair, but he hadn’t had it in him to stand in the shower for another second. He needed to pass out. He just hoped he had it in him to make it to the bed.

He’d never been this exhausted in his life. He played sports, sure. He was on a soccer team back in BK. He liked to jog. He did the occasional push up. But what had happened to him today? Yeah. No. He felt like a marine had run him over with a tank.

They’d shifted again. It got easier and harder every time. Easier, because they knew how to do it now. Harder because it was like running ten miles uphill every time they completed the shift. And they’d practiced the shift at least ten times that day.

Not to mention the fact that Jean Luc and Martine had agreed that they were going to need to be in top physical form to battle Arturo. So Jean Luc had run them through two hours of good-old-fashioned-whip-yo-ass-into-shape practice. Tre had literally puked. Like his whole lunch. Just. Blllechhhh. Even the muscles in his fingers and toes hurt. His eyelids hurt.

And tomorrow they were doing the whole thing again. Oh joy.

He’d eaten the dinner that Jean Luc had practically force fed him. And the gallon and a half of water. Now he was showered and prepared to fall naked into bed and die if it came to that.

He pushed open his bedroom door and blinked as he realized that Caroline was sitting crosslegged on his unmade bed.

“Hey,” he said in surprise.

“Hi!” she bounced up from the bed and closed the bedroom door, putting her back to it.

Tre really, really wished that he was wearing clothes. “What’s up?”

“I’m ready.”

Words died in his throat. He swallowed and tried to say something. Nope. Fail. He tried again. “What?” It was the best he could do.

“To sign the papers.” She held up her divorce papers and a pen that he hadn’t noticed she was holding. Maybe he hadn’t noticed because she was wearing the smallest pair of sleep shorts known to man. And a button-up sleep shirt. These were not meant to be seductive. These were Christmas Eve pajamas.

Wholesome sexy.

The words that had been circling around in the cloud outside his head for the last few weeks finally came home to roost. He wished they hadn’t because they suited her perfectly. Described her particular brand of hot to a T. But they sure did. With her shiny ponytails and neat clothing. Her perfectly clean shoes and tasteful jewelry. But that face, that laugh, that ass of hers. They couldn’t be contained or shuttered by her demure style. No, somehow her style only enhanced her natural hotness. She was sweet like ripe fruit. Nutritious. Life-giving.

She was not his usual type. Generally he liked self-deprecating women. Dark and rude and bad-for-you-sexy. Not Caroline. The opposite of Caroline.

“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Awesome. Lemme just throw on some pants.”

“Sure!” she turned, chipper as a squirrel in a children’s movie, and faced the door.

Okay. So she wasn’t going to leave the room while he dropped his towel and dragged on some sweat pants, foregoing underwear the way he always did. Right.

“Decent.”

She turned around as he was pulling on his T-shirt and came right over to him. “I wanted you to be with me when I did it because you’ve been such a good friend and so much help. I really think you want what’s best for me. And, unfortunately, I can’t say that about very many people in my life.”

They sat down next to each other on his bed. He wished he’d thought to make it that morning. Which was ridiculous considering he’d never once, in his life, made his bed before. “Of course I want what’s best for you.”

She nodded. “And what’s best for me is a divorce from Peter.”

She held up the papers and grabbed a hardcover book from his nightstand so that she’d have a hard surface to rest the papers on while she signed her name.

She picked up the pen and poised it over the signature line. Her hand shook a little. On instinct, Tre placed his hand on hers to steady her. His palm went over the back of her knuckles, the pen slipping between his fingers as well. She took a deep breath, and signed. He felt the pen move under his hand and he got the strangest feeling, like he was signing the papers, too. Like he and Caroline were a unit. Like the papers weren’t really divorce papers, they were papers that opened up her future. That they were opening her future together.

She took a deep breath and let out a light, bubbling laugh filled with nerves and relief. “Oh my gosh! I’m divorced!”

“Well, I think you have to send them to the lawyer to get them filed before you’re officially divorced, but yeah, pretty much.”              

She picked up the papers and kissed them. Tre couldn’t help but chuckle.

He studied her. “Why tonight, Caroline? What made your mind up?”

“What? Oh. Jean Luc and Celia had sex on the floor.”

Tre shook his head, certain he hadn’t heard her correctly. “I’m sorry?”

She turned to him, tearing her eyes away from her own signature to look up at him. “Jean Luc and Celia had sex on the floor.”

“Right. Guess I heard you the first time. I… don’t understand. They had sex on the floor and that made you want to divorce your husband?”

“Exactly,” Caroline nodded, as if that reasoning were perfectly clear. She played with her bottom lip between her teeth for a second in a signal that Tre had noticed meant that she was thinking something through. He waited for her to speak again. “Peter would never have done it with me on the floor. I deserve someone who wants to do it on the floor.”

“Ah,” Tre understood. He ruthlessly ignored the images that zipped involuntarily through his head—he was a guy after all. He nodded his head. “You’re saying that hearing about their passion for one another made you want to find that passion for yourself.”

“Yes. I want someone who wants me. Or at least who wants me around. Peter couldn’t have cared less. It’s been three weeks since I left town and he hasn’t even checked in to see where I was. I deserve someone who will text me if I leave town.”

“Caroline,” Tre was undone with tenderness for her. He felt so tender that he was sore, aching for her. “You deserve a hell of a lot more than that. You deserve to be treated with thought and care. And, yeah, passion.”

“Do you think I’ll get it? Find that with someone?” she asked him after a little while.

“Yes,” he responded immediately. “You’re gonna knock some guy’s socks off. I promise.”

“That’s another thing I want,” she said. “Sex with no socks.”

“You’re telling me that your ex fucks with his socks on?” Tre could not contain the unimpressed derision in his tone.

She nodded. “Most of the time.”

“No,” Tre shook his head. “Just no.”

“Okay.” Caroline sprang up from the bed so fast that Tre jounced a little. “I’m gonna go to bed. But before I do, I’m gonna go download that Tinder thing.”

She was turning away when Tre grabbed her wrist. “Hold on, you’re gonna download Tinder?”             

“Yeah,” she nodded. “I’m single now.”

“Why don’t you start with, like, a profile or something like that?”

“No,” she shook her head and laughed. “I’m not trying to find another husband.” She walked to the door and waved as she ducked through it. “Night, Tre.”

Tre flopped his exhausted ass back onto the bed. Caroline Clifton on the prowl, he mused. Hearts were about to be breaking all over Southern Florida. He fell asleep with a smile on his face, the scratching sound of pen on paper echoing in his ears.