Shifters in the Night E-Book

Molly Harper

• Herausgeber: NYLA
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 340

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

A chance meeting leads to a wild ride in this irresistible romance by Audie Award-nominated author Molly Harper! Lia Doe came to Mystic Bayou for one simple reason: to get her job done. Namely, to build a housing complex for all the new residents flocking to town since word of its supernatural population got out. But from the moment Lia arrives, it's clear that nothing about the job is going to be simple. First, there's the mysterious guy she meets in the middle of the night while they're both cavorting in their alternate forms. Spending time with shape-shifters is nothing new to Lia, but there's something special about Jon Carmody…and the magical pull she feels whenever he's near. There's also a sense of homecoming and belonging in Mystic Bayou that makes her want to stick around – despite the dangers brewing from mysterious forces. Will Lia complete her project with her heart unscathed, or will her life shift forever? Based on an Audible Original Audiobook

Leseprobe

SHIFTERS IN THE NIGHT

MOLLY HARPER

CONTENTS

1. Lia

2. Jon

3. Lia

4. Jon

5. Lia

6. Lia

7. Jon

8. Lia

9. Jon

10. Lia

11. Jon

12. Lia

13. Jon

14. Lia

15. Jon

16. Lia

Sneak Peek at Book 8, A FAREWELL TO CHARMS

Also by Molly Harper

About the Author

This book is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.

This book may not be sold, shared, or given away.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Shifters in the Night

Copyright © 2022 by Molly Harper

Ebook ISBN: 9781641971959

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

This ebook is based on an Audible Original audiobook.

No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

NYLA Publishing

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http://www.nyliterary.com

LIA

Sometimes, a girl just needed to stretch her legs. Whether it was a good idea to do that stretching at night, in a swamp, alone … well, that remained to be seen.

But it just felt so good for Lia Doe to change into her other form and bound through the trees. After hours riding through an area of Louisiana called The Devil’s Armpit, she positively relished the sensation of leaves caressing her other skin like a lover. It was so calm here and quiet. And while she tried to avoid vanity, in general, even she had to admire the way the moon reflected over her hide.

Who could blame her, when she found a clear expanse of water, for changing into her human form and flinging herself headlong into the Mystic Bayou? Well, anyone with a working knowledge of horror movies, but that was beside the point.

She’d been warned by her coworkers at New Ground Construction about the natural and supernatural dangers of swimming in the bayou at night – bugs, snakes, gators and gator shifters. And then there was her natural reluctance to run in an area where she wasn’t sure of the local hunting habits. But she just hadn’t been able to resist, particularly when she caught the scent of cleaner waters far from town – clear, saltier waters, which shouldn’t have even registered for her land-bound nature – she was drawn to it like she was fighting through smoke to get to pristine air. She’d spent most of her formative years running in city parks, near ponds that were absolutely filthy with floating garbage and all manner of debris from humans who didn’t respect the tiny bit of wild space in their midst. This little corner of the swamp was so free of those irritants. She just wanted to luxuriate in it.

She paused under the water to appreciate how good it felt. She bobbled to the surface and turned to face the moon. Her tawny hair floated around her like a cloud and she sighed, fanning her fingers out. She’d temporarily lived in a lot of places; Denver, Anchorage, Tupelo, Pensacola, anywhere New Ground was building affordable apartment complexes for supernatural residents. This was the first time in a long time that she felt drawn to commune with nature like this. Being so comfortable in this place already gave her hope that she might be comfortable here.

She heard a splash behind her and froze like, well, a deer in headlights.

She turned, unsure of whether she was about to be eaten by a monster of legend or just a plain hungry reptile. She was not prepared to see a man’s head just above the water, staring at her with dark eyes so wide with shock she was afraid he might have had a heart attack.

While Lia was incredibly relieved to see him move – and to see that he did indeed have a body attached to his head, because an independent floating head in a swamp would be very off-putting – she instinctively dove away when he moved towards her. There were all sorts of fairy tales about hinds – magical deer shifters – being spied on while minding their own business and those stories rarely ended happily.

She trusted her ability to read others enough not to panic entirely. This man wasn’t hostile or lustful, just curious with this stunned wonder that Lia couldn’t help but find a little flattering.

Maybe that was why she let him swim closer. Or maybe it was the long lines of his arms as he stroked across the water … connected to a muscled torso that impressed even her. She watched, transfixed as he drew nearer. His cheekbones were raised and sharp and his lips drew back into an unsure smile over even sharper teeth.He disappeared under the surface and for a few agonizing seconds, the parts of her brain that responded as prey rang with alarm. His pale face rose, just in front of her, but still under the water, and his long, thin-fingered hand rose into the air, almost touching her jaw.

She could hear his voice in her head as he peered up at her, muffled as though he was speaking through the water.

“Are you real?” he whispered inside her head in a gravelly rasp.

His face broke through the water and his fingertips had barely brushed her cheek before her arm reared back. She didn’t even feel her hand ball into a fist before she smashed it into his nose. He yelped and the strident, injured noise broke her out of her stupor. He clutched his hand to his nose and she dashed away as fast as she could – sure that he was swimming at her heels. She used every bit of strength in her legs to launch out of the water, landing on four hooves.

She didn’t stop running until she reached the town limits.

JON

Jon Carmody considered himself a sensible, sea-bound Scot. He was not a man who was easily rattled. But on this particular morning, he was rattled, shaken, stirred and wrung out.

He told himself it was sitting outside the town’s grocery store for the first time in … he wasn’t even sure how long. He’d been paying local kids to do his shopping for decades, ever since the “incident” with an irritable kraken that had left him reluctant to venture outside of his house or his workshop. He occasionally drove out of the parish to pick up parts or deliver a repaired boat, but he kept to himself, didn’t stop for meals or anything unnecessary outside of Mystic Bayou. Then again, he didn’t really stop for anything necessary inside of Mystic Bayou, which was why his brother was pushing him to do his own shopping.

On top of his “errand stress,” Jon’d had an off morning all around. He’d had two calls from clients cancelling jobs because they couldn’t wait for Jon to get to their boats. He supposed he understood. He was the only boat repair business in six surrounding parishes and, over the years, he’d mastered working on any sort of maritime engine his customers could throw at him – unless they wanted to drive a while to get help. So he had a waitlist of nearly two months, which he understood was a long time to wait when your business depended on a boat.

The cancellations had been happening more and more recently, since a new mechanic had been hired on at Buster Boone’s boat-slash-jet ski dealership and started taking on small engine repairs. That was part of being a growing town, Jon supposed, more competition. And while he could consider it another sign that Mystic Bayou’s growth was a bad thing, he knew he’d gotten too comfortable being the only game in town.

So, Jon told himself it was previously unknown professional stress that had him in a funk. It certainly had nothing to do with his encounter with that strange, lovely woman he’d found – naked – just outside of his house the night before. The memory of her face hadn’t left him; he was unable to sleep or concentrate or even drink his coffee that morning. She’d barely had any effect on him at all.

This is good. Get all of these stupid things out now, he told himself. Say them in your head, so you don’t say them in front of Will later.

Mockery always seemed to hurt more when it was peppered with his brother’s five-dollar words.

To be honest, he wasn’t entirely sure the woman had been real. It seemed like she’d been conjured from a moon-mad dream, one of the more desperate ones he’d had when he’d been recovering from the kraken’s venom. Jon had just been minding his business, taking his evening swim to wrap up his day, and suddenly, there was an unnaturally beautiful doe standing at the edge of the water. He thought at first that he was hallucinating or that maybe he was finally witnessing one of the bayou’s ghost stories come to life. Or maybe he’d let those pork chops get a little too close to the expiration date before he grilled them for dinner.

He couldn’t speak or move or even think complete thoughts besides “whaaa?” He was only able to stare at the otherworldly creature and then, she’d transformed into a lithe, naked woman with eyes the color of … he didn’t want to say duckweed, because that didn’t sound particularly poetic. But her eyes were the exact color of the tiny green leaves that grew on the surface of the water in a profusion of life. He tried to focus on the eyes, the berry-stained lips, the delicate curves of her face, because it felt wrong to stare at her body – even if he could get lost for hours reading the lines of her tapered waist, her rounded thighs. Hell, he was spellbound by the bends and bows of her ankles.

And then, she’d run at the water and flung herself in with a laugh that sounded like bells.

And while the polite and civilized part of his brain – which sounded weirdly like his dear departed grandmother – told him to avert his eyes, he could only stare as she rocketed up from the surface, tossing her long light brown hair over her shoulder with a splash.

Even in her human form, she moved through the water almost as easily as he did. He barely registered swimming towards her… Then he’d said some stupid thing and she’d punched him in the face.

He was so shocked by the punch that for the first time in his life, he got caught in the plants just under the surface and couldn’t fight his way free. It was a good thing that as a selkie, he could breathe underwater. Otherwise, he might have become one of those bayou ghost stories. By the time he broke through, she’d made her escape. He supposed he deserved that. Men who spied on ladies in the woods deserved to be abandoned in those woods.

Jon sighed, and for a moment, balanced his forehead against the warm steering wheel. It had been a long, long time since he’d … swum with anyone. It had been a long time since he’d even wanted to, and it seemed like he’d chased away the first girl that had interested him by behaving like a creep.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. The smart phone was a recent addition to “the daily shit he had to keep up with” purchased by Will Carmody. Jon had managed to go years without needing any sort of phone except his trusty landline. Hell, he’d only gotten an email address about ten years before because he could no longer avoid the internet while operating his repair business. But Will insisted that a modern cell phone was an important part of the “rejoining life in Mystic Bayou” plan. Jon wasn’t entirely sold on said plan, but Will’s life seemed to be going pretty well for him and Jon had to admit he was due for a change.

Jon plucked the phone from his pocket and read the text on the screen. “Stop sulking in your truck and walk in the damn store, Jonathan Carmody!”

Jon frowned at the message from his brother and painstakingly typed out, “You don’t know that I’m sulking in my truck.”

Within seconds another little bubble popped up on the screen, “Dumbass, the clinic is like 200 yds away. I can see you from my office window.”

Jon’s head whipped towards the Mystic Bayou Medical Clinic, where he could see his brother waving in the window. His phone buzzed again. “Yup.”

Jon stuck up his middle finger in response. Behind the glass, Will threw his head back and laughed. Jon hunched over the phone and typed back, “I’m so glad you moved all the way back across the country so you could mock your brother.”

Will was still laughing in the window. Jon thought about flipping him off again, but Riley Kauffman was walking past with her two impressionable toddlers and that seemed inappropriate. Jon texted, “I’m goin, I’m goin. But I’m telling Sonja you’re being mean to me.”

Jon had the good fortune of seeing Will’s face go stricken before he shoved his phone back in his pocket. It was a low blow, using his sister-in-law-in-all-but-official-paperwork like that. But Will had it coming.

Jon’s relationship with his brother was … complicated. It wasn’t that they didn’t get along as kids. They just did their own things. Their upbringing had been a hurricane mixed with a maelstrom, thanks to their parents’ constant marital upheaval. It had always given Jon this sense that nothing was permanent, not even sibling relationships.

Jon slid out of his pickup truck and squared his shoulders, slightly shamed by the emotional energy required for him to do something as simple as grocery shopping. People did this every day. Why was it so hard for him?

Gritting his teeth, he forced his feet towards the sliding glass door and braced for the grocery’s fluorescent lights and Muzak. Jon shuddered, but grabbed a cart and steered it towards produce. The store was still set up just as it had been when he was a youngster, but the products … it was overwhelming to see so many options. He’d been asking for the same basic foods for the last fifty years. When did everything start coming in so many flavors? And why did so many of them involve sriracha?

Was it because of the League moving to town, he wondered? Was the store trying to suit the tastes of all these drole along with the diverse cultures of the Bayou’s shifter residents? Or did everybody really like sriracha that much? This was probably what he got for not watching TV, but he was going to go ahead and blame it on the League.

The International League for Interspecies Cooperation had established a research village-slash-secret-not-at-all-suspicious-facility on Main Street a few years before, exchanging information about the local population and certain atmospheric anomalies for resources. This included funding the town desperately needed for new roads, the clinic and other niceties that kept its citizens safe and well. Jon had not been thrilled at the time. He’d been taught from a young age not to trust the League, an elite group of shifters that took control of the supernatural world sometime in the Renaissance. While the League’s “mission” revolved around an extensive list of banned behaviors meant to keep humans from finding out about the supernatural world, they also provided aid to struggling shifter and fae communities. Still, the resentment toward the League and their high-handed ways was still there.

So while Jon wasn’t thrilled with a bunch of new people tromping around in his figurative backyard, even he had to admit that the League brought a lot of good things with them to Mystic Bayou. For instance, closing that “atmospheric anomaly,” otherwise known as la faille, a rift in the fabric of the universe. La faille had been stable for years, its rippling influence drawing supernatural creatures to settle in Mystic Bayou for centuries, but suddenly it started leaking supernatural energy, turning humans who came from long lines with absolutely no shifters whatsoever into all sorts of interesting magique, the local term for supernatural types.

The League sent several specialists to deal with the rift, eventually figuring out that the leak was caused by an ancient artifact containing … well, Jon never got a definite answer out of his friends, but the situation had been fixed.

Life had been normal in the Bayou for five whole minutes when a Louisville-area satyr named Eustace Cornwell launched magique into the public eye by losing his horned mindin an argument over a parking space and shifted in front of dozens of humans. Those humans had their own smart phones and social media accounts and what was deemed The Pope Lick Monster Incident was simply too much exposure for the League to cover up. Fortunately, the League had been preparing for this eventuality for years by studying the unique culture of Mystic Bayou, where humans and magique had managed to live together for years with minimal ruckus.Some of those League employees had even coupled up with Mystic Bayou residents.

Jon spent a lot of time with those couples – far more time socializing than he would have considered reasonable even a year ago – but he was still very single. Which was probably why he had multiple frozen lasagnas for one in his cart. Which was just frickin’ sad.

Jon tried to stick to his shopping list, because if he picked up everything that caught his eye, he was going to need three carts to get out of there. And while he did startle a few times at unfamiliar faces that seemed to sneak up on him in the aisles, Jon eventually settled into the routine of shopping.

Life in the Bayou had changed since the Pope Lick Monster Incident. With the existence of the supernatural world finally revealed to humanity and Mystic Bayou brought into the spotlight, new people seemed to be arriving in town every day. New families with children, young single people, retirees. For the most part, they seemed to sort of fall into step with the town. But everything seemed more crowded now, more frantic. Jon felt surrounded by strangers for the first time in his life and he was having trouble adjusting to it. It was almost soothing, the feeling of doing something for himself and controlling what went into his cart and what didn’t.

He was reaching for creamer –why would anyone want pumpkin pie spice in their coffee? – when he glanced up through the glass of the dairy case and saw his moonlit dream woman perusing the margarine.

“Holy hell!” he shouted, making her drop the creamer bottle with a yelp. “You!”

“You!” Her eyes narrowed at him. They really were the color of duckweed, absolutely enthralling even in this harsh artificial light.

He would never say the duckweed thing to her out loud.

“Do you ever not sneak up on people?” she demanded.

“Technically, I was here first,” he replied. "So you are real!”

“Of course, I’m real. Why do you keep asking if I’m real?”

“Because normally, a beautiful woman doesn’t just swim up to my house like a fantasy delivery service!”

Why were those words coming out of his mouth? Why? This was the most he’d spoken to a woman, besides Sonja and her friends, in years and he was blowing it. For a fleeting moment, he wondered if it should be disappointing somehow, to see her in a mundane setting like the grocery store, but she was just as mysterious and gorgeous in harsh fluorescent lighting as she was under a waxing moon.

Even with the tiny frown lines crinkling her brow. Probably because he’d said the words “fantasy delivery service” where other people could hear.

“Your house?” she asked.

Jon’s mouth quirked upwards. “You didn’t notice the house next to where you were swimming?”

Her mouth dropped open and she clapped her hand over it. “No.”

“Blue siding, recently power washed?” he suggested. “Big dock sticking out of the backyard?”

“I’m so sorry,” she gasped, giggling and clapping a hand to her mouth again. It was like the mask she’d been wearing slipped and he got a glimpse at the woman he’d seen by the water, happy and carefree. “I was just so caught up in the water and the moonlight that I didn’t realize I was near any sort of human housing.”

“Well, I’m not exactly human,” he offered, letting the fridge door close next to him. For a disorienting moment, he felt completely alien in his own body, and not in a “supernatural being who lives in two forms” way. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, or his arms, or even his face. He thought maybe he was grimacing. He couldn’t be sure. Would it be rude to check his reflection in the dairy case to make sure he didn’t have some awful horror villain grin on his face?

Jon heard a throat clear behind him. Riley Kauffman gave him an incredulous look, while gesturing to the coffee creamer. He’d been repairing the Kauffman family’s boats for decades. Riley’s Papa used to bring pint-sized Riley to his workshop so she could question him through every step of spark plug replacement. Stu Kauffman thought it was good for Jon to “get more socialization” – also Stu thought it was hilarious, watching Riley interrogate other adults besides himself. Being human, Riley was aging at a much faster rate than Jon. Standing there, watching her as a mother to toddlers currently gumming on cookies from the bakery, Jon felt every one of his eighty-plus years.

“Don’t get between me and my coffee condiments, Jon,” she told him, shaking her head. “I need my coffee.”

“Sorry, Riley,” he said, reaching into the cooler. “Pumpkin spice?”

“Well, now you’re just insulting me,” Riley grumbled, sliding past him to grab a bottle of hazelnut creamer.

The deer-lady was watching all of this with growing amusement, if the press of her full lips was any indication. Riley pushed her cart away, leaving a trail of cookie crumbs in her wake, muttering something about the availability of holiday coffee creamers.

“You’re a deer, huh? That’s interesting,” he offered awkwardly.

Her eyes went wide and she muttered, “So you were watching me for quite some time.”

He could feel a guilty flush creeping up his neck. Maybe he could just close himself in the cooler and tunnel his way out of the back? But he stayed, because being a peeping Tom and a refrigerator mole-man was probably worse.

“Do people speak so openly of their other forms here?” she asked, tilting her head.

“Well, it’s considered rude to ask ‘what someone is’ outright, but I’ve already seen your other form, so it’s sort of a gray area,” Jon said.

“You’ve seen all of my forms,” she retorted.

“Again, I would just like to point out that you were skinny-dippin’ in my backyard.”

Her shoulders sagged and she seemed to relax ever so slightly. “You make a reasonable point. And yes, I’m a deer shifter, technically, a hind. Although, even more technically, hinds are female deer, but there are so many stories centered around hinds, so we made it a catch-all term for all of us. Why are you looking at me like that?”

He cleared his throat, embarrassed to have been caught staring at her, but truly hoping that he would be there when she met Jillian. “Sorry, it’s just that you remind me of a friend of mine.”

She smiled warmly and his guts felt like they were turned inside out … but in a good way?

She asked, “So, you’re a local, then?”

“My family’s lived here for damn near forever. The only ones that have lived here longer are the Boones,” Jon said.

“Whose names appear to be on all of the business signs in town,” she noted.

“And the Berends, who everybody likes better than the Boones, which is why Berends keep getting elected as mayors. It’s a good place to grow up, especially if you’re one of us,” Jon said.

“I only saw your … tail? I don’t know what sort of shifter that makes you. And now I realize I shouldn’t ask, so I’m just going to leave that out there,” Lia said.

“I’m a selkie,” he said. “Half-man, half-seal. My brother lets his friends make LittleMermaid jokes, which I don’t find very funny. But that’s probably not relevant to you.”

She stared at him as if trying to figure out whether she was supposed to laugh. He gave her his best encouraging expression and cleared his throat. “I suppose I should have started off with my name. Jon Carmody.”

“Lia Doe.”

She didn’t offer her hand to shake, but that was normal in the Bayou. So many creatures had different biological and social eccentricities involving physical contact, sometimes it was just easier to nod and smile.

“What brings you to town, Lia?”

“I need groceries?” she suggested brightly.

“No, I mean to the Bayou, in general,” Jon said.

She smirked, so he assumed that she wasn’t truly irritated with him. That was how facial expressions worked, right? He was honestly having a hard time remembering at this point. “You ask a lot of questions, Jon Carmody.”

Jon leaned closer and whispered, “That’s how you learn things.”

The smirk turned into a smile and somewhere inside his head, a little voice cheered.

“You also seem to have a lot of answers,” Lia said.

Before he could reply, a windchime sort of noise sounded from her purse.

“Excuse me,” she said, a rosy flush staining her cheeks. “I need to take this. It’s my boss.”

Whatever brought Lia Doe to Mystic Bayou, Jon supposed she was pretty good at it – judging by the expensive-looking handbag she was reaching into.

“Yes?” Her tone of voice was very different now, cooler and professional. She turned away from Jon to speak into her phone, and he wondered if the best thing to do would be to step away – maybe even just move along and finish his shopping. She hadn’t given him any indication she wanted to continue talking. Maybe this was some sort of new-fangled way for women to get out of awkward grocery store conversations?

“Yes, Victor, I’m more than ready for the meeting. I just needed to stop into the grocery for a few items for the office. Well, I let Jeff handle it in Denver and you complained about the coffee he bought for weeks,” she noted, reaching into the cooler and picking an array of creamers. Her cart contained a bulk-sized container of some boutique brand of coffee beans, filters, fresh blueberry muffins and an alarming number of eggs.

“Yes, I got your eggs,” she sighed. “Yes, they’re organic. No, I don’t think they carry your brand of under-eye serum here. It’s a grocery store with fifteen aisles. I was lucky they had a bakery. You’re going to have to have Jeff order it online.”

Jon frowned. What sort of boss asked his employee to pick up under-eye serum? Also, what in the heck was under-eye serum? Whatever it was, it made Lia sound very tired. He had this bizarre impulse to snatch her phone from her hand, to take away the source of what seemed to be hurting her. But she seemed awfully attached to her phone and given that she was talking to her boss, that seemed like a very, very bad idea. So, he put his hands in his pockets to protect them both from that particular urge.

“Yes, I know, but I have to check out before I come back to the office, otherwise, I think I could get arrested for stealing breakfast food. That wouldn’t make a good impression, now would it? Yes, yes, I understand. See you in just a few minutes,” Lia said to her boss.

She ended the call and turned back to Jon, who realized that his window to politely step away from her call had ended a while ago. Also, he’d forgotten to check his reflection, so he had no idea what sort of face he was making. He tried to give her his best smile, which he hoped was a step up from the grimace.

“Bosses,” she said, shrugging.

“I wouldn’t know,” he said. “I work for myself.”

“Are you the Carmody or the Son?” she asked and he tilted his head, staring at her with what he was sure was a stupid expression. She pointed at his chest. “Your t-shirt.”

He glanced down at his navy t-shirt, which read Carmody & Sons, Boat Repair, Est. 1910. He laughed, scratching the back of his neck. “Grandson, technically, but yeah, that’s me.”

Her phone rang again, and he could see it was a struggle for her not to roll her eyes. “It was nice to meet you, Jon. I’ll make every effort not to swim into your backyard again.”

She beamed at him, which left him unable to do much more than wave as she pushed her cart towards the check-out. She’d already reached the register by the time he cobbled together the mental presence to mumble, “Feel free to do it again anytime.”

Jon was glad she wasn’t around to hear that.

* * *

Later that evening, Jon parked his truck outside the house the locals had called maison de fous since long before he was born. The maison was all corners and layers, like a blue-grey gingerbread house, rust streaks dripping from its metal roof. A dock extended from under the elevated “ground floor” to the water, where his friends were sitting in a ring of mismatched deck chairs, all coupled up and enjoying the sunset over the water.

Jon had always thought the house was slightly spooky when he was a kid, on account of Miss Lottie, the local witch-slash-healer living there. She was a nice enough lady, but she had a way of knowing things that was downright unnerving. Now that his brother was living there with Sonja, he’d realized it was just a home, shared by two people who loved each other completely and utterly.

Sonja waved from the dock, springing out of her chair and running towards him while Will argued with their childhood friend, Zed, over the grill. He could hear Zed’s voice booming over the water, “You press those burgers one more time, Will, and I’m gonna commandeer your spatula in the name of the public good!”

Somehow, Sonja managed to jog across uneven boards in high-heeled boots that went perfectly with a coral cashmere sweater. Sonja Fong’s whole wardrobe seemed to be comprised of stuff that you could only dry clean and store in special padded drawers. But Will was a bit of clotheshorse himself after those years on the west coast, so they were evenly matched. Her dark hair bounced around her shoulders in time with Will’s stone bead she wore around her neck – the true mark of a selkie’s commitment.

Rather than the pelts described in most selkie lore, seal-men (and women) wore bracelets made of sea stone from Scotland. The stones helped control a selkie’s magical shifting power, so selkies guarded them jealously, terrified that a thief could take away their access to the sea they loved so much. Will giving Sonja even one of those beads was a gesture that had knocked Jon on his ass.

“I went with the traditional bachelor potluck contribution,” Jon said as she approached, holding up a twenty-four-pack of the German beer Zed loved so much.

She waved off his self-deprecation and wrapped her arms around his shoulders in a friendly hug. “I’m so glad you made it!”

Jillian Ramsay – known as “eminent League anthropologist Jillian Ramsay, PhD” by the international media – waved from her chair. “Hi, Jon! We need a non-competitive adult to supervise the grill.”

“Hey!” Bael Boone called from the end of the dock. “That hurts my feelings, elskede! I’m just standing here, minding my own business!”

Jillian cackled at her husband’s feigned indignation, getting a light shoulder punch from Zed’s girlfriend, Dani.

“Be nice to your husband,” she chided Jillian. “He’s so sleep-deprived from the baby, it’s mean to tease him.”

“Where is the bebe?” Jon asked the new parents. They absolutely doted on two-month-old Dalinda, a name they’d chosen because it meant “noble serpent.”

“Well, anytime she’s not with maman over there, she’s with her Granny Clarissa … and Mel.” Zed appeared to be pouting slightly, but Jon wasn’t sure whether it was because Zed’s favorite infant wasn’t present or the mention of the geriatric kappa who lived with Zed’s mother. Jon knew better than to refer to Mel as Zed’s stepfather. The reactions were always funny, but profanely ear-splitting.

“I really needed an evening out,” Jillian told Zed. “I adore the baby, but I needed to talk to adult people. And you’ll get to see her tomorrow.”

Zed sighed. “I know. It’s just not the same.”

Jon snorted. He had never been as close to Bael and Zed as Will was when they were kids. They were nice enough guys, they were just so … loud and full of opinions about so many subjects. Since Will had moved in with Sonja – who happened to be Jillian’s best friend – the six of them had become a tight little group of couples who got together like this on an almost weekly basis. They invited Jon regularly, which Jon suspected was part of Will trying to rehabilitate him into the sort of person who went into town voluntarily, like more than once a year.

While all of these people were good company, it felt weird tonight, being the only party of one in the group. Not that he was unfamiliar with being single, but watching everybody else paired off, being part of a shared life? That was new. Was it meeting Lia that made him suddenly so aware of other people and their partners? She’d brought out feelings in him that he hadn’t experienced in … well, he wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced that sort of want mixed with fascination.

“Jon, you OK?” Dani asked.

He looked up to find Dani standing in front of him with a beer from the cooler. An energy witch who was doing research on the rift when she’d met Zed, Dani’s quirky calm was a perfect balance for Zed’s boisterous chaos. Or at least, she’d seemed calm as she’d stood in front of him for who knew how long, while he stared off into space.

“You seem a little distracted,” Dani said, returning to her deck chair.

“I don’t know if I can go into it,” Jon replied.

“OK,” she said, smiling at him. The silence between them seemed to bloom and Jon realized that for the first time in his memory, he really wanted to talk about a woman, and his feelings about said woman. Around a lot of people. Something shifted inside him, and not the usual “changing corporeal forms” sort of way. He’d known her a grand total of maybe twenty-four hours, half of which he hadn’t known her name … and she was affecting how he thought?

“I know that look!” Zed called from the grill, where he was smacking at Will’s hands, preventing him from taking back the spatula. “You met somebody!”

“You can’t know that!” Jon scoffed.

“Bael, when I met Dani, how did I look?” Zed demanded.

“Like that,” Bael said, nodding towards Jon. “All thunderstruck and calf-eyed. It was sad really. Thanks for putting him out of his misery, Dani.”

Jon muttered insults into his beer, making Bael guffaw. Dani chuckled, sipping her ginger ale. She’d been chugging the stuff like crazy to fight morning sickness. Jon shuddered lightly, imagining what the poor woman would go through birthing a baby of Zed’s proportions.

“And when Will met Sonja, how did he look?” Zed asked.

“Same,” Bael said, making Sonja preen. “No dignity left at all.”

Zed continued, “And when you met Jillian–”

“Hey, now, I married her, which means joking about it is off-limits,” Bael told him.

“When did that become a rule?” Jillian demanded. “I want to hear this!”

“Bebelle, he was an awful mess,” Zed assured her. “The moping was biblical.”

“I would say he’s lying, but it’s possible he might have photographic evidence,” Bael grumbled.

“Can we get back to Jon?” Dani asked. “Is Zed right, hon? Did you meet someone?”

“No. Yes. I’m not sure,” he admitted.

“Is she imaginary?” Will asked.

Jon shrugged. “I thought so at first.”

Sonja bolted across the dock to take her place in the chair next to Jillian’s. “Oh, this is going to be good, I can tell. Why did you think she was imaginary?”

Jon cleared his throat. “She was swimming out behind the house. Well, technically, I was swimming behind the house, like I always do at the end of the day. And I look up and there’s this graceful deer standing near the water. And then she turns into a beautiful naked woman.”

“Naked!” Zed exclaimed, having drifted closer to their seats.

“Which was why I thought she was imaginary,” Jon said, nodding.

“It’s a common theme in folk tales and mythology,” Jillian said, leaning forward with what Jon had come to understand was her “enthusiastic academic” face. “A curious man finding a magical deer lady in a forest and seeing her transform into a princess or some other noble maiden-type. But the good news is you didn’t end up cursed into another shifter form or having your eyes scratched out with enchanted thorns or … why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because I love you,” Bael told her, kissing her lightly and making her cheeks flush. “But it was nice to see you folklore babbling again.”

“So, there’s a girl standing near your house, naked,” Zed prompted.

“I think the meat’s burning,” Jon noted.

“Dammit!” Zed yelped, jogging back to the grill. “If you say anything good, say it loud!”

“I’m just treading water, staring like an idiot, because she’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen,” he said. “And she dives into the water before she even realizes I’m there. And then when she did realize that I was there, she screamed and punched me in the face.”

“How did she realize you were there?” Will asked, frowning.

“I may have swum up to her and asked if she was real,” Jon sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

All three women present sighed, “Awwww!” And Jon couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or not. He expected some ribbing from the guys, but they just nodded sagely, as if this was all part of the “lovestruck in Mystic Bayou” experience.

“It was a good punch,” Jon conceded. “The lady has some upper body strength. She knocked me right back into the water, and got me all tangled up in a bunch of water plants. I’m lucky I can breathe underwater, because otherwise, I might have drowned.”

“Good for her,” Will said, nodding sharply.

“Well, I’m glad the idea of me drowning is so appealing to you,” Jon muttered.

“Well, Gran would have had your butt in a sling, spying on a girl like that,” Will protested. “And if you want to be with somebody, I’m glad it’s someone who will call you out on it.”

“I was in the water first!” Jon cried. “It was my water. And I never said I wanted to be with her! We just met!”

Sonja patted his arm. “It’s cute you think that’s how it works.”

“All right, fine, I want to be with her,” he sighed.

“Do you know her name?” Jillian asked. “That would be a good first step.”

“Well, that’s the other thing. I ran into her at the grocery this morning,” Jon said.

“Must be fate,” Jillian said, smiling.

“If fate sends two people to the dairy section at the same time, sure,” Jon snickered. “Her name is Lia Doe.”

“She’s a deer shifter named Doe? Seems a little on the nose,” Bael said, though no one responded.

“Was she dressed this time?” Zed asked. Dani sent him a deadpan look and he threw up his hands. “I never claimed I was fully matured, abeille!”

Dani shook her head. “The father of my child, ladies and gentlemen.”

“Yes, she was dressed,” Jon said, rolling his eyes. “In really nice clothes and a handbag that probably cost more than my truck. I guess she’s with one of the companies moving into town. Her boss sounds like a bit of a jerk.”

“Lia Doe works for New Ground Construction, the company that’s building the apartment building off of Main Street?” Jillian asked.

“I know that, but how would you know that?” Sonja asked, turning on Jillian.

“I’m cc’d on the emails,” Jillian said, pressing her lips together as if she’d suddenly remembered she was supposed to be on maternity leave from her position as community liaison between the League and Mystic Bayou. As director of operations, it was part of Sonja’s job to keep workaholic Jillian from liaising until at least the next month.

“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t be checking your emails,” Sonja said, giving Jillian the best disappointed parent look Jon had ever seen.

“I don’t remember an agreement,