Final Shift (Shifter Lords #9)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

Happiness was sunshine on a cool, late summer morning, drinking coffee with someone you love. I tilted my face up to the sky and took a deep breath, content to bask in the warm golden light peeking from the horizon.

Rowan and I were on the back deck watching the sunrise. We'd been married for almost four months, and the bloom still hadn't worn off. Based on the happiness I felt every time I laid my eyes upon him, I thought it never would.

He was everything I never knew I wanted and everything I thought I didn't deserve.

“If you keep looking at me like that, we're going to have to start the morning over.”

His low, heated drawl made the hair on the backs of my arms stand up. I leaned closer and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Would that be so bad?”

Rowan's slow grin made my fingers tighten around the mug I held. How did he make me feel so desired with just a simple smile?

“No, but in about two minutes we're going to have company.”

I groaned. “Who?”

“All of your friends. They just left their apartments and are heading this way.”

I loved my friends, but they had the timing of food poisoning on an international flight. “Raincheck?”

“Always.”

“Let's just sit here until they come.”

Rowan turned his head and pressed a kiss to my temple.

Moira was the first to arrive. She grinned when she spotted us. “Tess and Ash are right behind me. You two up for breakfast? There's a new brunch place in town we've been wanting to try.”

I glanced at Rowan, who shrugged. “Hungry?” he asked.

When was I not? I nodded. “Let me change. Meet at the vehicles in twenty?”

“Good with me.” I sighed and didn't get up.

Moira snorted. “How about we leave, and you two meet up with us when you get moving?” She gave me a meaningful look, which made Rowan laugh.

“Be gone, hag,” I pronounced with a dramatic wave of my hand.

Tess and Ash popped into view. Moira turned and pointed at the vehicles. “Come on. Lady Evie and her husband want to have relations.”

Ash chuckled. Tess let out a warbly sigh. Moira jogged over and ruffled the banshee's hair.

Once they were out of view, Rowan let out a groan. “Should we go to breakfast or back to bed?”

Both sounded equally great.

“If we eat first, we'll have the energy to drag ourselves back home and go back to bed.”

Rowan grinned. “I like the way you think, Lady.”

His words warmed me. The adjustment from everything I was to Rowan's wife and the Keep's Lady had been somewhat jarring but Hope and Declan had guided me the best they could. Garrett and Simone had also stepped in when they saw me faltering.

Leadership had never come naturally to me. I preferred leading a quiet life in the background, though life had not complied with my wishes lately. Being thrust into the spotlight made me uncomfortable, but with Rowan's people, things were different. They'd never made me feel less. Not like…

I tried very hard not to think about Caelan these days, though I knew I needed to make a decision about him soon. When he tried to kill Rowan, I'd gone a little crazy and had basically put a fairytale curse on him, one neither he nor his people could break unless I allowed it.

And I hadn't. Caelan blew up my phone the first three weeks of his imprisonment, and Rowan had to get his tech people involved to forward those numbers elsewhere. Whether to him or someone else in the Pack, I didn't ask, but Caelan's calls had abruptly stopped.

But my guilt hadn't.

Rowan rose and held out his hand, gently helping me up.

But instead of heading inside, he closed his arms around me and brought me close.

“He's fine,” he said quietly. “Angry and stir crazy, but fine.

I feel your guilt deep within me, Evie, but you had every right to do what you did.

If you think he's learned his lesson or feel like you should release his land, then do so, but don't do it out of a misplaced sense of guilt. Caelan was horrific to you and tried to take me away from you. Killing a mate…” His voice trailed off.

“The other Lords, no matter how they feel about us together or separately, would have put him to death for his actions. You may not feel this is so, but you saved his life that night.”

“I'll go visit in a few days.” I tilted my head up to study him, still surprised this handsome, wonderful, powerful man was mine. My husband. My mate.

“I'll come with you.” He bent and brushed a kiss over my lips, soft and warm.

We didn't have a courtship. The mating call had been too powerful between us, both the shifter and the fae magic pulling us together so forcefully we were both helpless to deny each other.

While most of my guilt at how quickly everything had happened was fading, I still had moments where I had to sit with my feelings and remember that everything was real and true.

Rowan was mine, and I was his, and we were forever joined by love and magic more powerful than either of us possessed.

He stepped away and intertwined our fingers. “If we don't hurry, we'll never hear the end of it from Moira.”

I let him tug me along. “I think we can spare five minutes.”

Rowan looked back at me, one dark eyebrow rising, a familiar glitter in his eyes. “Yeah?”

My smile grew. “Yeah.” The ever-present link between us warmed and stretched like honey, and I felt his desire and need for me in the spot where that bond lived.

This was real. True. Rowan's love for me bowled me over most days, snatching my breath away even in the most innocent of moments.

He scooped me into his arms and loped into the house. “We only need three.”